Blast from the Past

So, I got off of work early today. Which is what I like to happen, especially on a Friday. : )

I realized that there’s really nothing good on, during daytime tv.

that is until I fumbled upon this movie :

“Michael Kellam: She did a doodle; your turn to change her.
Peter: I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you’ll do it”

* They changed her diapers. She changed their lives*

lolz . Dude, it’s been FOR.E.VER. since i’ve seen it.

What IIIIIIIII want to know is WHO comes up with a

story line like this?!??! Seriously! hahaha…

Oh 80’s movies, how I love thee!

30 in 3

So. I decided just now to write down 30 things I’d like to do within 3 years. I got the idea from Kapachino, because she has a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days or something like that. Being that I know myself, and knowing that if I had that many things on a list…well…lets just say that writing it out would probably be as far as I got. lol Also, I turn 30 next year (sigh) so I thought 30 would be a good number. :)

Set your standards low, I always say. (ok not always but in this case, YES)

I’ll start with 30. If I decided to do 101 in 1001 days, i’ll let ya know. I’ll be marking them off as I do them, So, here it goes nothing:

30 things to do in 3 years or less.

1.Send a secret to PostSecret

2. See a film at IMAX

3. Ride in a hot air balloon

4. Put change in someone’s expired parking meter

5. Attend a film festival

6. Do a self-portrait photo shoot

7. Make Ice Cream from scratch

8. buy something from Etsy

9. Finish my portfolio

10. Identify 50 things that make me happy

12. Do a road trip to at LEAST 6 different states

13. Shop at a Farmer’s Market

14. Photograph a landscape from the same location, capturing all four seasons.(preferably in a different state)

15. Learn Italian

16. Go to Spain and Italy with my sister and/or Aunt Angie

17. Learn to play the Cello

18. Upgrade my current digital camera

19. Pay off student loan

20. Learn more about photojournalism through missions

21. Make homeade meatloaf (all by myself!)

22. Have my photographs be put in an Art Gallery

23. Graduate college

24. Learn to swim again/ get over my fear of drowning

25. Go camping (for at least One night) [anywhere.]

26. Eat/try Sushi

27. Make a book using only photographs to tell the story

28. Learn more about guitar/lead worship once

29. Go horseback riding

30. Attend a Halloween party

Pot luck

Tonight, at homegroup,  we’re having a pot luck. Bad news bears for me. I can’t cook, contrary to popular belief. In all my years at home, watching my mom cook all those AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGG meals, I only came away with one (side) dish. Sadly, it’s NOT tortillas. It’s MEXICAN rice. Not to be confused with Spanish rice. It’s TOTALLY different. I promise. (In my opinion its soo much yummier)

I don’t really have a reciepe for it, I pretty much just ‘eye-ball’ it. But, I thought I’d give it a shot. Try it out if you dare. lolz. Let me know how it goes.

ARROZ! (Mexican rice)

Ingredients:

1 cup of rice (I prefer Comet)

1 8oz can of tomato sauce

1/2 of a yellow onion (sliced)

8 cups of (very) hot chicken broth (or water with chicken flavor boullion cubes)

(about) 1 tblsp of Minced garlic

Comino (cumin) - you MUST use this!

Salt and pepper.

veg.oil

1. You’ll need this :

add a little veg. oil to cover the bottom, and heat it up (high heat). Add the 1 cup of rice (+ or - depending on how much you need, 1 cup is about 8 servings) Stir frequently.  You’re basically cooking it till 90% of the rice is lightly browned (not burnt lol)

2. once it’s browned add : the minced garlic, onion, 1/2 to 3/4 of the 8oz tomato sauce. stir it around a couple of times then add salt and pepper ( just a few shakes of both) and comino (cumin) - I’m not too sure how much I add, but do about 10 - 20 shakes ( but you’re basically adding it till it smells really good lol) Stir it all again.

3. Add chicken broth, Not all of it, but enough to cover the rice well (as though you were cooking white rice) Leave the chicken broth heated (add more to it if need be, cause you’ll need to add it again to the rice later) Cover Rice, and reduce heat to a med. low level.

4. You’re going to watch the rice, when it seems to be running out of broth (about 10mins), add more, but just enough to cover the rice again. Cover again and let cook for about 30mins. You’ll know when it’s ready. : )

5. Eat and enjoy! Buen Provecho!

Again, if you try it out. Let me know how it goes! Good luck!

Arroz Rice Mexican food reciepe

Testing...Testing...1..2...3...

This morning I woke up to sounds in the kitchen. Mom was making dad some breakfast. She said to me “ohh! que bueno, estas desprieta!” ( oh! good, you’re awake) lol. There’s a closet in my room that’s she’s taken over with storage things. She’d been itching all morning to go in there, but I was still sleeping. How nice of her to let me sleep.

Christmas stuff is on the top of that list of things in the closet. Today she begins brings down everything Christmas from storage and getting it ready to decorate. “ohhh Lord” is exactly what my father will say when he comes home to find the house as though Christmas threw up in the living room already. “Vamos as testiar las luses” (Let’s test the lights. For those of you who actually know Spanish, you know that “Testiar” is NOT an actual spanish word. My mom likes to make up words like that. It’s part of our Tex Mex culture.) Testing lights. Good grief. I spent about an hour untangling and testing before I said “Ma, i gotta take a shower. I need to go soon”.  She let me have some strings of lights for my place, for helping her. YES. I love free stuff. I full intend on decorating for Christmas in the latter part of November. I don’t care WHAT you say.

As soon as I got out of the shower, and ready. Mom had started rearranging the living room. You have to picture this. Mom is 5’0” short little woman with a bad hip (that makes her walk…kinda like a penguin hehe) I open the door and see her hauling a piece of the entertainment center to the other side of the room. I thought to myself. OMG. My dad’s gonna FLIP. OUT. Not cause she’s rearranging. But because THEY JUST MOVED STUFF AROUND 2 WEEKS AGO. and It’s nothing LIGHT either.

“This is what happens when mom doesn’t have a car” my dad said to me 2 weeks ago… I understand him now. Now IIIIIIII have to help her move the furniture. You know Since I’m HERE. I told her next time I’m call the Movers to rearrange for her. The deal is she takes down all of that crap she has in the shelves and I’ll move it.

Meanwhile, I need to run some errands and get some gas in the truck, before I head out to Katy. Today is Photo shoot with Kapachino day!

Family. Photos. Challenge.

Today begins NaBloPoMo ( National blog posting month), my friend Kathleen mentioned it. She mentioned that she wanted someone to take on this goal with her. I feel that I might be up to the challenge….maybe lol. Time will tell. I’ll do my best.

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So, right now I’m sitting here in my parent’s living room. My dad and sister are also on their own laptops. Mom… well, she’s not tech. savvy, she sits in her chair and crotchets like always (she loves it so much). We tell her she should learn to work on one, she says to us “No me importa la computadora. No mas comprame la estufa que quiero!” (I don’t care about computers. Just buy me the stove that I want!”) lol. She’s been wanting a new stove for a while now. Christmas mom. Maybe for Christmas.

Today was my dad’s birthday. Dear old dad. Dad and I have never really had a a close relationship, but as I get older it does get better. He turned 56yrs old today. I did a photo shoot with him recently. He’s on the Vol. Fire Dept (recently retired), here in Bay City. There’s a few photos on my website, if you wanna see a sample.

Tomorrow I take a trip up to Katy,Tx to visit Kathleen (lovely lady mentioned above) for a photo shoot with her. Have a mentioned we’ve never actually met before?  lol. We “met” through a mutual friend of ours via Xanga.com many years ago. I’m excited to finally meet her in person! I also love her blog so you should defintely go take a look.

So. Here’s to NaBloPoMo. For now, this is it. Cause it’s Sunday, and it’s time for a nap. : )

kick ass. for real.

So, I dunno if you watch “The Biggest Loser” or not, but if you don’t….well, You really really should. I’ve been watching the show for several seasons now. I don’t think it’s ever been this emotional. I won’t go into full detail cause that would take days. (however if you do want full details from the very beginning you can go here and read Chelsea’s blog, she recaps the show every week. It’s amazing)

I wouldn’t normally do this (write about a show) but there is one emotional breakthrough that I would like to touch on. I’ll preface with the fact that a) I love Jillian Michaels. And I wish she could live with me for at least a year. ( I want to be a biggest loser) b) She’s not only a physical trainer it seems, I mean she seriously gets down to the nitty gritty. She pokes and prods your brain to try to reach the answer of “how did you get here?”, she will kick your ass in the gym to get to the answer. (mostly why i love her)

This week the teams were in the gym doing their “last chance workout” before the weigh in. I watched as the camera’s closed in on Abby. I thought, oh Abby, I like her so much. Sweetest person that ever lived.

just an FYI on Abby: 2 1/2 years ago, she lost her family in a bad car accident. Her husband, 5 yr old little girl, and a 9 1/2 pound baby boy. She lost it all. She came on to “The Biggest Loser” to lose weight, and gain her life back.

As Jillian walked up to her, I thought, this could either be good or bad…”Jillian please don’t yell at Abby” lol…She didn’t. This was one of her “serious” talks.

And this is what made me want to write this post…. Jillian asked Abby, in the sweetest most “I’m terrified it would ever happen to me, I don’t think I could survive” whisper “What is it like to lose everything you’ve ever loved?” ….”Where do you go from here?”

It was like a scene in a romance movie (not one of the funny romance movies either) where a person is so scared to lose everything, that she never tried it at all, and they’re asking the other person who’s tried it, and lost something/someone, what’s it like? I want to know, because that’s exactly why I don’t want it.

(it makes me wonder if that’s why Jillian has such a “tough” character?)

Have you been there? So scared to love (or anything else for that matter) because you’re scared of what you might lose?