My first 24 Years (Okay, so I cheated a little on my first "assignment")

Day 1, Wednesday: The story of your life in 250 words or less (or one paragraph… no one will be counting your words… probably)

I was born the summer of 1980. My parents already had my 11 1/2 month old sister, Jaime, and then my sister, Melissa, came 18 months after me. (Jeez, Mom and Dad!)
We lived on a farm near Dover, Mn (One of those "We've got churches and bars." kind of towns.) and I was a complete farm girl. My sisters and I, and eventually my brother, made some of my favorite lifetime memories playing places we weren't supposed to be on the farm :)
When I was 12, we moved into St. Charles. It was a life changing transition. Not only did we have neighbors living close, we changed schools. I was also diagnosed with Diabetes that year.
Eventually, we went back to our original school, Dover-Eyota.
In about 10th grade, I started going to an alternative school, not because I was "bad" or couldn't get good grades, I just found it hard to juggle my health and teenage emotions and well, whatever. As with the previous two schools, I met people who continue to be large parts of my life today.
It was also there, my dear friend Heidi introduced me to her uncle, Paul on July 18, 1997. We have literally been together everyday since.
A year later, we had Justin. A year and a half after that, we had Tyler, followed by Joey 3 1/2 years after that and finally Ella a mere 14 months later. (Jeez, Me and Paul!)
Paul and I got married, I graduated nursing school and he started a trucking business in between having our kids as well.

Random Thoughts

I having been slipping on writing my blog. Life has completely gotten in the way! I'm also having a hard time coming up with topics and I'm not sure why. Maybe I don't want this to be too "Dear Diary?" So I'm going to throw you some random thoughts of mine:

1. Hey, guess what, Taylor Swift? Your song 22? Yeah, we all did that shiz when we were 15. Grow up a little faster will ya?

2. Ella is convinced she sounds JUST LIKE Carrie underwood when she sings. Yeah... um, no.

3. Speaking of American Idols, doesn't these results night past Idols flashbacks and performances just solidify the fact that we are completely vain and once you leave our TVs we forget about most of you? Let's face it America, we've made poor choices based on emotion and not what music we actually want to hear.

4. I burned my hand on a motorcycle exhaust a few weeks ago and my hand looks nasty, burned and diseased. Until..... My wonderful, loving mama gave me some Band-Aid looking burn strips, but I don't know what they're called.... I guess I'll just go to her house if I ever need more. They are fabulous!

5. We are now providing outhouses Jenny's Greenhouse at Crossroads in Rochester! Woooo-Hoooo!

6. Speaking of outhouses, one of my customers was going to go get his skid loader with forks to unload his delivered toilet off my truck. Super nice guy and very sweet of him, but how does he suppose I get them off the truck when I don't have a skid loader handy???

7. I have 925 Facebook friends.

8. I owe you all a Duck Dynasty post.

9. I'm glad my family has a show like Duck Dynasty that's appropriate and we can all enjoy. It's hard to find things like that anymore.

10. When I was little, our dog, Laddie, would stand on the straw bails that surrounded our farmhouse during the winter and look in the living room window. It would make me cry. Even if I liked him while I was outside, the fact that he was looking in our living room window from the outside freaked me out.

11. I still consider myself a farm girl.

12. I've had Type I Diabetes since I was 12. My friend, Tonya, brought me a stuffed bear when I was in the hospital. I still have it. She was also one of the first people to visit me when I had Justin. I'm glad we're still friends :)

13. I drive a dark blue VW Beetle named Herbie. Herbie used to embarrass me, now I don't want to get rid of him.

14. I've never named another car. Unless you count several previous cars I called "You Piece of Shit."

15. I buy the same style Harley boots every time I buy new ones. I've owned 5 pairs.

16. Ella's random thought is "Spanky is stupid. And Chase is annoying."

17. Someday, I'm going to learn Spanish. I really am.

18. I think the concept of Amish Tours are terrible. I've never been on one, but it seems wrong to be in line to observe them, like one would view zoo animals.

19. When I was little, I LOVED going to the Sales Barn in Lewiston with my dad. Their little diner served the BEST food.

20.  If I were to start any other business, it would have something to do with weddings or babies.... Not because I have a passion for either one, but think about it, they are both big deals in people's lives and happen to almost everyone eventually, so there's always a market for whatever one you'd choose.

21. Them new little Heinz Ketchup squeeze or dip packets? Genius!

22. If I won the lottery, there are two indulgences off hand I would have right away- A new razor every time I shaved and a fountain pop machine at my house. With crunchy ice like they have at Del's or Methodist.

23. My sister, Melissa? Hers would be a brand new pair of socks everyday.

24. I'd like to know how most of the actors on Disney Channel got famous. They suck.

25. Miranda Lambert brings a knife on stage with her and keeps it in the drums so she can pop beach balls that get thrown around during concerts. She finds them annoying and was hit in the face with one once while she was performing. That's why we'd be friends. Our love of hunting and passive aggressive rage.

Best of Pinterest Humor

I thought I was going to get away with a fast post today, but I just spent half an hour looking through my "Things That Make Me Laugh Out Loud" Pinterest board. So... yeah... notsoquick....

Anyways.... Here's some good ones:  

(Then I just wasted more time changing those words to different colors :/)

 

 

I agree. Big ones.

 

 

Yeah, what do you know, phone?

Although, this reminds me of a texting conversation I had with my sister, Jaime, last week. Her phone turned a regular word INTO a swear word.  

 

 

I want me a cape so I can be SUPER LAZY.

Speaking of capes:

 

 

I love this bib.

 

 

Sometimes, even that stuff is half assed, because I'm the:

 

 

And, again, because I'm lazy (and old):

 

 

I wonder what lies my kids' teachers tell them now?

 

 

Seriously, I said this three times before I got it.

 

 

 

 

HA! Gotcha twice!

 





 

Sounds like something my husband would say... He thinks he's funny.

 



Could you imagine saying that to some little old wheelchair bound grandma? :)

 

Here's one from actual people I know:

 

Thanks, Ryan and Gwen, for sharing this. I know I didn't ask permission, but you put it on Facebook, therefore, we all own it :)

 

 

Clever :) But if it were a baby:

 

 

And THIS baby makes me laugh. This may be the funniest thing on Pinterest:

 



 

 

 

One Dish Chicken & Stuffing

As I was walking around Walmart yesterday, I thought some things. The first was, why the ham was I there on a Sunday??? I have options, you know. As in because of our lovely weather, I don't work. Hardly at all. So I could attend Walmart at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning or 1pm on a Thursday. But when do I go? On a weekend. During a break in the inclimate weather. It went from snowflakes the size of goose down feathers (If you are reading this as an archieve, check the date I posted this April-freaking-twenty-first) at 8am to all melted by noon and raining and 50 degrees by 6pm.

So anyway, there I am at Walmart fighting holiday season like crowds, wondering why I was there. Then I wondered what I wanted to make for supper. The everlasting question. So I went for a classic in my house. 

*Warning- I took pictures of my food* Anyone who knows me, knows I can't stand it when people post their food on Facebook, but in this case, it's necessary. 

One Dish Chicken & Stuffing

Here's your ingredients-

(Plus milk and butter)

Put your chicken breasts in a glass baking dish. I then put the dish in the microwave and defrosted the chicken. It doesn't make the chicken cook a whole lot faster, but I was in a hurry.

Then I mixed 2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup and a can of milk right in the dish, covered it with foil and put it in the oven for 20 minutes on (whatever my stove says in the picture there. I forgot already.)

This is where I get even more lazy and a little bit creative- The package of Stove Top is lined, so you can put your hot water right in the pouch and mix. Add enough hot water to moisten the stuffing.

 Take the chicken out of the oven after it's cooked for twenty minutes, uncover and spread the stuffing over the chicken.

Slice cold butter and put on top. Cover and put back in the oven for 15 minutes.

And you're done! You've used on baking dish and a few utensils.

Because I was feeding seven people, I added mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans.

Before you say, but Sarah, that takes more dishes and time, it's really not too much. This is my family's preferred form of potato:

Laugh all you want, but my family loves powdered mashed potatoes in a can. Think KFC. they taste a lot like that. And they're $7.99 at Fareway. And last forever. Then I microwaved the gravy right in the jar I bought it in and microwaved the green beans as well. So that's only two more dishes.

So there you go. One Dish Chicken Bake.  

A Day in Pictures

Today I will be posting a photo every hour on my blog. I wasn't feeling too inspired today, so I asked Facebookland for help and my friend, Amber, gave me this idea. So, here goes:

8 o'clock Hour

There seems to be a lot of winter gear still in our entryway. Coats, boots, boot dryer, baskets of hats and gloves.....

9 o'clock Hour

Do, do, do, lookin' out my backdoor... We didn't get near the snow my friends to the West, North and East, but it's still hard to wake up to a world of white.

10 o'clock Hour

How we spend our Tuesdays and Fridays...

11 o'clock Hour

This, Friends, is what a bag of Platelets look like.

12 o'clock Hour 

Done at the Clinic, it's time to do a part run on Car Row in Rochester

1 o'clock Hour



Traveling South through Stewartville on Hwy 63

 

2 o'clock Hour



The snow starts coming down in Spring Valley, looking like broken up pieces of Styrofoam.

3 o'clock Hour 

The Basset Hound is hiding the remote.

4 o'clock Hour 

Perhaps I'm jinxing us all by keeping my snowflake crystals hung on the kitchen chandelier.....

5 o'clock Hour





The other two dogs....

 

6 o'clock Hour

 

 

 

The blanket my mom made for me when I was a toddler. Joey uses it every night.

 

 

7 o'clock Hour

 

 

Part of an arrangement I'm working on for a shelf....

 

 





Thanks for coming along on our journey today!

Pinterest Hits and Misses

Wow. It's Thursday. Which means I skipped lots of days! What have I been doing? Not much. That's what. It's just been so cold and rainy, that it's hard to find motivation. Today, I'm going to boogy up a few Pinterest Hits and Misses.

Let's face it, we will never cook, wear, go to, actually install or even read half the things we pin. Pinterest allows us to live in a world where time, money and space run infinite. I'm happy to say I've done some of my pins.... Some equals maybe 18%. It's a darn good thing I'm a 'good enough' kind of girl!

I just have to hop on over to Pinterest and review the things I have tried. (This just took me 12 minutes.)

I've seen that you can use vinegar and baking soda as a natural drain cleaner. 

It works! Not only does it fizz up and unclog things stuck in your drains (I've used for both kitchen and bathroom) but the two ingredients are natural deodorizers. This is a Win Pin with an added bonus. 

Here's one I did yesterday from So Not Betty: Cheap Homemade Stovetop Cleaner

I mixed the stuff up: 

(Equal parts of salt, baking soda and water. I used an ice cream scoop as a measuring unit.) 

Disregard the butter in the picture. It is not an ingredient in this. That is just where my butter dish goes.

And this is what my stovetop looked like:

Obviously, I char the crap out of my stove and don't care so much that it rests like this. 

 

The mixture only did about this well:

I'm pretty sure So Not Betty has a newer stove and doesn't let hers stay incrusted as I do. Sooooo... I decided to use a little kapow power and replaced the water with vinegar. 

Vinegar fizzes when mixed with baking soda, making energy to help break down the solids. Or something like that. I sucked at Science.
After using my recipe and a little elbow grease, these were my results: 

Almost perfect! But not quite. So then I got really tough: 

Actually pretty gentle but with a tough looking tool- the blade from my carpenter knife. I held it at a 45 degree angle and gently scraped the few remainng pieces of crust. Shiny and done! 

I'm going to rate this as a Moderate Fail because my way is better. 

Cup Control

We go through lots of dishes in a day. Lots. Throughout the day, the kids will take a cups out of the cupboard or dish rack for one tiny drink and put it in the dirties- More often than not, they take from the dish rack because after doing all those dishes, I hardly ever have to put them away before they're used again. So I saw this from Bee in our Bonnet:

And though it was great. This is my version....

Fancy, right? Wood Shims with their names drawn in marker?

Yeah.... It's a good thing I didn't emboss coasters and affix them to a cute tray. This lasted one measily day. BUT for that one day? It was glorious. SO many less dishes to wash!!! 

So this is not a Pinterest Fail, this is a Sexton Fail. 

You can't tell this by reading, but I'm taking a super long time finding things I've actually done....

Recipes! 

First of all, this is me:

 

Because when I tried this Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole from Organize and Decorate Everything

and read her directions: 

Coat 9 x 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.

Spread 2 cups cooked rice in bottom of baking dish.

Arrange 3 cups cooked chicken pieces over top of rice.

Layer 6 slices of Swiss cheese on top of chicken.

Then layer 10 slices of cut-up ham on top of the Swiss cheese.

Mix 2 cans cream of chicken soup, 1/2 cup milk, and 1/2 cup sour cream together.

Spread on top of ham.

Crush 10 saltine crackers then add 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt, and 1/2 teaspoon parsleyand mix together.

Sprinkle on top of soup mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
 

I ended up with these notes and modifications: 

Try#1 Notes-Used hashbrown potatoes and was too breakfasty. Baked the chicken, them cut it up. Didn't care for the sour cream taste.Chicken was bland. Next time, I'll try frying the chicken and the ham a while before adding. crescent roll crust. cream cheese instead of sour scream to add more cheesy texture. And Sarah? LESS IS MORE WHEN SEASONING with garlic. Oh yeah, and add some melted butter to the cracker crumbs or toast the top under the broiler

So pretty much I changed a lot of it and ended up with not so great. 

I'm not a big recipe person, by the way. I typically make the smae things over and over and eyeball everything. That's the way cooking should be! Unless you want new things to actually turn out. You should follow the directions perfectly and THEN figure out what you like and what you don't.That was a Sarah Fail

Sopaopilla Cheescake from My Yellow Umbrella

It looks absolutely devine. Like if a mini donut and cheese danish got married. My thoughts? Eh. It tasted a lot like a souped up crescent roll.  

This: 

Do this! It is soooo helpful. But take a Sarah Hint: Slap a level on that biotch prior to drilling. 

WIN! 

Learned this little thing from Pinterest: 

Store you folded sheets inside their accompanying pillow cases. It's smart and makes my linnens look so much more organized and put together. Not to mention, you don't disrupt your piles pulling coordinated sheets from three different places. 

Win some more!

 

Well, thanks for checking out my Pinterest Hits and Misses! I'll try to be more on the ball with my postings! If you want some really funny posts about messed up pins, check out

 

Pintester

 

or

 

Pinstrosity