Is the Third Time Really the Charm?

The Cable Guy is scheduled to be at my house at between 8 and 10 this morning. Hence the reason I'm up with the chickens. That and I've got a big ol' crick in my neck and back. If you've been reading my posts this week, you know I've had a bit of trouble with cable, tivo and directv. All I ever wanted was a dual tuner DVR. That's it. That's not too much to ask in the year 2009, is it?


After finding out we couldn't get directv, we had the cable company come out Wednesday. Cable Guy #1 is scheduled to come between 10 and 12. He comes at 9:15. Bandit's freaking out like she always does when the doorbell rings. The man looks at my little Jack Russell like she's a pit bull or something. I tell him he's early, I thought he was supposed to call first. He tells me, the customer, the one who's paying for this whole deal, I never said that. Now, that's some good customer service, don't you think? Well, long story short, I basically had to ask the first Cable Guy to reschedule because he showed up 45 minutes before the time he was scheduled to. I mean, I was still in my PJs. And since Bandit didn't like him either, I decided there were too many bad vibes from Cable Guy #1. I called the cable company and asked that a different Cable Guy be sent out the second go-around.


Cable Guy #2 arrives after I call the cable company to find out where in the Sam Hill he was. He was late for the appointment. I yi yi. Bandit is put in the laundry room or I'm pretty sure she would've been getting bad vibes from this Cable Guy too. But, oh well. He comes in, doesn't take his boots off. Meanwhile I'm practically on the floor scoping out his shoes making sure they're not covered in Georgia mud. He puts this DVR box on top of my TV that looks like it was taken out of a Dumpster. I say uhh, is that my box. Yes, ma'am. Well, err, it's kinda beat up, don't ya think. Well, it's what they gave me. I'm paying $15 a month for that? It's what they gave me. Uhh, well, I think that you can take that one back. I didn't expect to be getting a DVR box that looked like it had been owned by 100 other destructive familes before me. I understand, ma'am. Okay, thank you, bye bye.


I call the cable company, explain the box situation and ask for a box that's not quite as beat up and scratched up and dirty as the first one. Cable Guy #3 is scheduled to come out today between 8 and 10. We'll see what happens.


In an attempt to relieve my guilt from the day before, I baked (from a package) some chocolate chip cookies and timed it so they would be hot out of the oven when Cam got home from school. He calls and tells me that he's gonna stay after for the baseball game. I guess that's what they call karma. I also made Cam's favorite poppyseed chicken. Innocently, he asked what was I making all his favorites for. To me, poppyseed chicken can be a little bland. So I added 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and a good sprinkle of lemon pepper. I also used 2 lemon pepper rotisserie chickens (my men like a lot of chicken). Let me tell y'all, it gave it a zing that was just right. Here's the recipe I used. It's the best.


POPPYSEED CHICKEN WITH A ZING

2 lemon pepper chickens (I used the white meat and saved the legs for my Big Boys to eat later.) 1 1/2 cups of light sour cream
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 tablespoons of poppyseeds
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
good sprinkle lemon pepper seasoning
1 sleeve Ritz crackers
1 stick of melted butter
Mix the first five ingredients well and put in a 9x13 dish sprayed with cooking spray. Crush the Ritz crackers, but not too fine. Melt the stick of butter and pour over the top. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve over rice.

We don't have any special plans for the weekend. It's supposed to be pretty and warm, so we'll probably do some stuff outside. The old pool liner is still blowing out of the pool and is scattered about. Our new one should be here in a couple of weeks. Yippee! And there are tons of weeds that are trying to take up residence in my flower beds. Reid's in a baseball tournament in Stockbridge this weekend, so maybe we can watch one of his games.

TGoodnessIF! Hope it's a good one.

Oops! I Did it Again!

Whenever I rant and rave about one of my "Big Boys" (a/k/a Ross and Cam), inevitability they unknowingly do something nice for me. Well, it happened again last night. After yesterday's delirium over cleaning up all the handprints, etc., Cam laid the mother of all guilt trips on me last night.

I was in my office doing some work and upgrading my AT&T homepage, which was a big pain in the booty, filling out Ross's ten-page FAFSA form (which we never qualify for, but have to fill out every year anyway), and I was grouchy to say the least. I won't even go into the details of the cable guy and the tivo people that nearly caused my blood pressure to go off the charts yesterday. Suffice it to say I wasn't a happy person by 7 o'clock last night.

So Cam comes to me and asks for some money to go to the grocery store to get some chicken to cook for supper. Cam? Cook? Chicken? For supper? On my clean stove? Uh, NO!!!! I offered him money to go get himself something from someplace where they cook it for you on their stove. No, he wanted to cook this chicken himself and oh, Mom, I'll clean everything up, blah, blah, blah, yeah, right. I've heard that song and dance about nine zillion times.

I hand him some money and off he goes to the grocery store. When he gets back, he asks for a skillet. I start hollering about how I knew this was gonna end up with me cooking the stupid chicken and so on and so on. You get the picture. I'm a hag of a mom I know.

Well, about 20 minutes later I start smelling the most delicious smells coming from the kitchen. I pause from my hagdom and tell him that it sure smells good. Shortly thereafter, here comes my sweet little boy with a paper plate in tow. On the plate is a terriyaki chicken sandwich smothered with melted swiss cheese. Do you want a sandwich he says. Could someone put me out of my guilt trip misery, please. It was scrumptious! It was perfectly seasoned, the cheese was oozing off the bun, the chicken was cooked to perfection. The boy can cook. And you know what else, he cleaned up the skillet, the utensils, the stove, everything that he messed up in that kitchen, he cleaned to A Girl Named Kelly Kelly's standards.

I've had to pray for forgiveness this morning. I messed that one up BIG time!

Happy Thursday!

Four-Year-Old's Handprint

Fingerprints. Sometimes you get discouraged because I am so small and always leave my fingerprints on furniture and walls. But everyday I'm growing. I'll be grown up someday and all those tiny handrpints will surely fade away. So here's my four-year handprint just so you can recall exactly how my fingers looked when I was very small.

Most of us moms know that poem. We've received it at one time or another. I remember very well getting that picture from Cam Christmas 1996. I also remember shedding more than one tear at the thought of losing his tiny handprints on the furniture and walls. But let me tell you, girls, if I knew then what I know now, I would have saved those tears for something else entirely.

I have just spent the better part of my morning cleaning up much larger 16-year-old handprints from furniture, walls, countertops, cabinet doors, TV screens, computer screens and bathroom areas (if ya know what I mean).

Nostalgia my foot. Maybe when he's 50 and I'm in the nursing home. Then bring me this fingerprint picture and we'll talk about it again. Right now I'm going to put a heating pad on my aching back. Cleaning handprints is hard work.

The Dragonslayer

I'm keeping my oath and have sworn off The Bachelor. But May 18th the slaying of the dragons to reach the handsome prince begins. That's when Jillian Harris becomes the next Bachelorette. I don't think I'll be able to keep myself from being glued to the TV on Monday nights. I originally thought Jillian would be the winner of the thorny final rose from Jason. Thankfully, for her, I was wrong. I like her spunk, her wit and her style. Ain't no way I'm gonna miss this one.

Wasted Day, Wasted Night

Well, I have successfully managed to waste most of this day away. First of all, we can't get a Directv signal at our house. We can pay an additional $170 and get a pole put in our yard after we have the "Call Before You Dig" people come out and tell Directtv it's okay to dig a hole in the middle of the yard to put the attractive satellite on. Uhh, no thanks. Then being the ever stubborn, persistent person that I sometimes regretfully am, I called the Tivo people that we have our Tivo box through to see if they could provide us with a dual tuner DVR. Well, in so doing, they managed to charge me twice for a Tivo box that I don't even want. But, Ms. Kelly, we assure you it will fall off your checking account in two to three days. I yi yi. I'm sure hoping so. I don't want to have to jump through the phone and kick some Tivo booty. So we're sticking with our cable service, adding their DVR and my checking account is probably gonna be screwed up for the next three weeks. I endured all of that and wasted a perfectly good afternoon so that I can record stupid, ridiculous, phony, idiotic shows like The Bachelor, while Ross and Cam record romantic shows like My Big Fat Redneck Wedding.

If only. . . it were like 50 years ago when you had one TV set, if you were lucky. No such thing as a DVR, VCR, Tivo, HD or any other acronym that I have no idea what it stands for. Then maybe I wouldn't waste my time watching or recording The Dumb Bachelor.

Oh, and on a positive note, my Aunt Theresa has taken up blogging. She's sure to be great at it. She has a busy life and busy family. She'll have tons to write about and she makes lots of pictures. To visit her, go here.

Are y'all going to waste your night watching the After the After Final Rose tonight? I can't decide if I am or not. I've wasted the day. Should I waste the night too?

I Shop, Therefore I Work

Gotta make this a quickie. I've got to be downtown at 10 o'clock for a depo. For any of you who watch The Bachelor. . . What the Crap? That's all I have to say about that. Well, that and I'm no longer a Bachelor fan. I'll watch the After the After the Final Rose tonight, but after that I'm done. For real this time.

Last night at mom and dad's was good. My chili and corn dip were delicious. I made the recipe I posted a several days ago that was the two bean chicken chili. Man, was it good. And it's got to be good for you too. The corn dip, awesome. It was almost all gone. I put a few too many jalapenos in it for some, but they ate it anyway. We just drank a lot of diet coke. If you make this dish, don't make it in a dish that makes the dip too thick. It needs to be spread out kinda thin. I think it's better that way. I hope y'all are trying my recipes. Even though I don't cook very often, I do have some good receipes.

Jeff's yelling at me to go. He's working at home today because the Directv man is coming. My car's been warming up for a little while now. He's afraid I'll run out of gas. Yeah, right. I'll have more to say when I get home from my job.

TaTa!

Thunder Snow

Spring is trying its darndest to make its way, but yesterday in the Peach State was one weird weather day. We ran the weather gamut for sure. We had sleet. We had snow. We had rain. We had thunder. And then come to find out from my mom, who is like a walking encyclopedia, it's a meteorological term called Thunder Snow. The snow came down for so long and the flakes were so big. Unfortunately, the ground was just a little too warm for it all to stick. If it had, we probably would have had a foot or more of snow. As it was, we got a couple of inches. Maybe a little more in the grassy areas. It was beautiful though. Here in the deep south we just don't get to see snow much. We gladly take what we can get and we love it. It's all great fun. . . that is. . . until the power goes out.


We had canceled our usual Sunday Night Supper at my mom and dad's because of the road conditions. We were settled in for a nice, cozy evening. I was going to upload some of my pictures and blog and there was a movie that was coming on at 9 o'clock that I was excited to watch. None of that was meant to be. Just as I had put my flash card into my computer. Poof. Out go the lights. We were without power for six hours.

No matter how prepared you think you are for power outages, you're just never prepared enough. I like candles, so we had lots of those. Unfortunately, the wicks all needed trimming, so when we hurriedly lit them, they all smoked. We had to blow them out and trim the wicks and relight them. Flashlights. Oh, yeah, we have lots of those. We keep them in a central location. Unfortunately, they're behind several cookie cooling racks. And they're all with dead batteries. But on the bright side, I do have lots of extra batteries. Oil lamps. We have two of those. Unfortunately, the only lamp oil we have is citronella oil made for tiki torches for outdoor pool parties and such. They just burnt the wicks up in about five minutes. We spent the first two hours of the power outage trying to find sources of light. It was not fun.


Not knowing that we were in store for a power outage later in the evening, Jeff and I took a late afternoon nap, so naturally we weren't sleepy at 9 o'clock and there was nothing to do. I took a flashlight and started doing a little light cleaning. Then I took a Benadryl and just went to bed. What a total waste of a nice, cozy snowy evening. When you don't get snow for years on end, it's very hard to be prepared for it. I've spent all morning putting away all the candles and putting up the stupid oil lamps and flashlights. I'm not in a very good mood.


Since we didn't get to go to my mom's last night for supper, we're going tonight. So I MUST tivo the Bachelor. Must. Must not miss it for any reason. Mom's making chili and we're supposed to bring something to go along with it. Here's what I'm bringing. It's a Mexicorn Dip that my friend Monica makes and it is soooo good.


MONICA'S MEXICORN DIP 2 cans of Mexicorn
2 cups of Kraft shredded pepper jack cheese
1 cup of parmesan cheese
2 cups of mayonnaise
2-5 tablespoons of chopped jalapenos
Mix all together and put in a baking dish. Bake 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees until it starts to bubble.


Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday. I went to check on my friends the cows. Evidently they were all nice in their barn because they weren't out for a photo op, but I did get a nice windmill shot.








My aunt Theresa and I were thinking just alike, because we both stopped by my grandparents old homeplace and made pictures. I think we were both in a sentimental mood yesterday. It's funny how a house just looks so empty when love isn't living there anymore. It looks the same, but yet different at the same time.









It still looks like my grandparents house to me. And it still holds a zillion memories. All of them sweet. I don't think I've ever seen it with any snow before. And even though it didn't have much yesterday, it was enough to make me stop by for a picture.

Hope everyone has a good Monday, with not too much post-snow mess to clean up. And BTW, it's supposed to be in the 70s by Friday. Yippee!!!!! Get out your shorts and flip flops! A Girl Named Kelly Kelly has seen enough snow for 2009. I'm ready for summer! :-)