DeFlocked

Since my house is a near constant wreck, I find myself in need of activities to distract myself from the mess. Reading is one of my main passions, but I don't have a lot of time (or, lets be honest, brain power) to invest. This is why I like short, light books and magazines. I want something I can pick up and put down without forgetting what was going on.

Have you seen the new comic DeFlocked by Jeff Corriveau?

I used to love comics, but lately I have only read Get Fuzzy because it is the only comic that consistently made me laugh out loud.

Until now.

I am in love with DeFlocked. Witty like Bloom County and cute like Calvin and Hobbes, DeFlocked is a strip that needs to be in every newspaper in every town.

Check it out online: http://www.deflocked.com/colorsamples.html

This will give you a reason to subscribe to the newspaper again!

Help Wanted, Desperately

I just finished reading the book Help Wanted, Desperately by Ariel Horn. There was a part near the end where Alexa, the main character, is applying for a job as a deodorant sniffer. I was laughing so hard I started crying. When I was done with the book, my husband swiped it off my night stand saying that he "wants to laugh too."
If you like chick lit like Meg Cabot and Cara Lockwood, you need to read this book. It is the light and fluffy story of a girl, Alexa, who is about to graduate from college and can't get a job. The plot follows Alexa through a series of hilarious job interviews where she embarrasses herself and makes the reader laugh. In the classic chick lit style, our heroine finds her way and gets the guy.
This is one of the funniest books I have read in a long, long time. It was published in 2004, but isn't in any way dated if you read it now. I even found the first chapter online for you to read!

Then click on over to amazon or your local library and get this book.
Life is too short for bad or serious books.
Help Wanted, Desperately is a flat out good read.

Almay Smart Shade Makeup

Have you seen the commercial for Almay Smart Shade Makeup? It is so cool! The makeup starts out white and when you put it on your skin in magically turns the color of you! I saw the commercial late one night and immediately sent the husband out to the 24 hour grocery to pick up a tube. He might have felt like his masculinity was slightly compromised on his late night grocery run, because he also brought back beer and some pizza rolls.

When I put the makeup on, it really did start out white. It goes on evenly and feels silky, like it is moisturizing your face, but not in a greasy way. There were no problems blending it either because it changes its shade. No big line under your chin where you didn't blend quite right, or streaks on your forehead because you had to run and feed the baby mid-application. The smell is a little flowery, but that dissipated after a few minutes. It is a little heavier than the foundation I usually use, and that will be good if I am having a bad skin day or am not feeling well and am looking pasty.

The best part by far is how the makeup changes color. It is fun every time I have put it on.

Pantene Pro-V Brunette Expressions

You all know the problems I have with my hair. I swim every day in a chlorinated pool and in addition to making my hair crunchy, the chemicals are starting to make my hair change color. I have seen all these ads for color enhancing shampoo and conditioner. Pantene products have served me well in the past, so into my shopping cart these went.

The shampoo bottle says it is "Daily color enhancing shampoo with Liquid Crystals." I don't know what that is all about, in my hand, it just looked like brown shampoo. Fortunately, it was a very attractive shade of brown. The package also claims that this "helps enhance depth for rich luminous shine." Once my hair was dry, I didn't really see evidence of that either.

As a color enhancing shampoo and conditioner, these were kind of duds. I didn't notice any difference in color. However, if you are looking for good shampoo and conditioner, these rock. Pantene products always smell great, and these are no exception. The conditioner left my hair so smoothy soft, I didn't even have to use any other products to beat it into submission.

If you are looking for something to give your color a kick, look elsewhere. If you are looking for soft, great smelling hair, you can't do better than Pantene.

Crystal Light Immunity Cherry Pomegranate

I am not a big fan of artificially sweetened fruit flavored drinks. I would rather have all the sugar and real fruit, but this landed in my mailbox, so I gave it a try. It is Crystal Light Immunity Natural Cherry Pomegranate vitamin enhanced drink mix. It claims to have "90 % fewer calories than leading beverages." I guess they mean compared to soda or Kool Aid. The package was a little hard to open and spilled some when I finally ripped it. I dumped it in my water bottle and shook it up.
It was disturbingly opaque. The color was kind of alarming as well. Like if one of the kids asked me what I was drinking, I might be tempted to answer, "It is most certainly not blood. Uh...have you seen your father lately?"

As for taste, it needs to be chilled. My water was warm and it tasted thick and unnatural.

After sitting in the refrigerator for a while, the taste changed. It had a strong cherry flavor that was quite zippy.

The absolute best was when I put it in the freezer in the ice cube tray. This Crystal Light was awesome as cherry flavored ice cubes in my tea. The vitamins were a nice touch too.

For me, this tasted so much like juice, I wouldn't bother with it because I would drink juice instead. However, if I was worried about the calories and sugar in juice, this would be a great substitute. And as I said before, it is phenomenal frozen into ice cubes and popsicles for a
low-cal treat.

I did like the single serving packet. This would be very useful for me to throw in my purse, or for someone to keep in their desk at work. The packaging was sufficiently difficult to open that you wouldn't be in danger of having everything spill out all over everything in your handbag.

Another Cooking Disaster

On the Food Network, the chefs are forever cooking roasted chicken and acting like it is the easiest thing in the world to make. I picked up a roasting chicken at the store because it looked so quick and simple. I guess where I went wrong is forgetting it was in the oven until 3 hours later.

It does not look like a chef made it. It looks all dry and burned. Maybe I will pick the meat off and throw it in some mayo. Maybe as chicken salad it won't taste bad. I think I might have to throw away the pan too. How could I possibly get all that grease out of there? If you look closely at the picture, you will see I forgot to add the stuffing before putting it in the oven. That is probably a good thing.

If I had added it, the house would have caught on fire.

On-Cor Pizza Pop'ems

In my ongoing effort to feed my family without ever learning how to cook, I picked up these On-Cor Pizza Pop'ems at the grocery store. They looked like Totino's pizza rolls (which I love) but were less expensive. I had good luck with the last On-Cor frozen dinner, so I decided to give these a try Cook em up just like pizza rolls, and they look like pizza rolls, but that is where the similarity ends.
I didn't like them at first because they really don't taste anything at all like pizza rolls. They aren't particularly cheesy and they have more dough that stays bready instead of the crispy pizza roll dough.
But, once I got used to the fact that these are not a substitute for pizza rolls, I liked them. They had a really nice flavor, not too zesty, really sausagy, lots of Italian spices.
I don't know that I would buy them again, because I would opt for Totino's Pizza Rolls instead. These really did taste good. Just different.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! I want to thank all of our military men and women and their families as well as all veterans for their service to this great country!

We are going to eat barbecue, drink Coke, and watch fireworks to express our gratitude for living in a free country!

Why I love Steve

I'm a horrible cook. I know it. Sure, I try to make things that are tasty. But I get distracted easily. Recipes take too long to review and decipher. I'm pretty sure I could try harder, but I have one thing standing in my way. Steve, my husband.

Steve can cook. And I mean he can cook well. Make you weak in the knees well. And he has, on many occasions.

Take last night, for example. Steve decided to make cinnamon sticky buns. The pictures below don't quite do them justice. They're all sticky, buttery, and sweet.

Make you have the Big O with just one bite.

Herein lies the problem. Steve cooked for me as soon as we started dating, so I just never felt the need to cook. Why turn down sticky buns in favor of my "Famous Squishy French Toast"? I'm sure you understand. So Steve cooks, I'm happy, and in turn, Steve is happy.

Betty Crocker Warm Delights

I got a sample of chocolate cake in the mail!! Automatically it is awesome because who doesn't love unexpected chocolate? When seeing these in the store, I didn't realize you had to add stuff and stir. Kind of a downer that you can't just pop it in the microwave, file your nails and ding! Chocolate!
Inside the box is a small plastic bowl, a little bag of cake mix, and a little packet of fudge icing. minus five points because I had to locate a measuring spoon. Direction one: Empty cake mix into bowl and stir in 1 tbsp water plus 1 teaspoon water. I had a tablespoon, but could only find a 1/2 tsp measure. Which of course meant added work. Not much, but still it stood between me and the chocolate cake.

Here I have added the mix and the water.
Then I artfully decorated the top with fudge. I am awarding extra points for the amount of fudge in the packet. There was enough for me to put it on the top of the cake and still suck a bunch of it out of the packet while waiting for the cake to cook.

Into the microwave for 30 seconds. Fast!
It is called Molten Chocolate Cake, but there really wasn't anything molten about it. Maybe they meant the warm fudge on top.

As for taste, it was a little chemical tasting. Not that that is a huge thing for me considering my usual diet of convenience foods, but in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to mention it.

It tasted like warm cake mix cake. Okay, but not fantastic or memorable. I think it was also brought down by the amount of preparation I put into it. It would have been more tolerable if I could have plucked it out of the package and tossed it in the microwave instead of having to locate implements of measurement and dirty up a spoon to stir the mix.

Grow Your Gardens!

I read an article on CNN today (http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/ wayoflife/06/26/growing.xtra.ap/index.html) about growing gardens in your yards to help out food banks with their shortages. I've been thinking about growing a garden anyway, as part of the homeschooling the kids. This will be a nice thing to do with the fruits and veggies!

I guess I'll have to read up starting a garden! Any ideas? Should I buy plants or seeds? Is it too late in the season? Texas stays warm through December, so I should be fine to plant now, I think.

The only problem I may have is my aversion to dirt. I think plants need the stuff to grow.