I have food on my mind!

Today is one of my days off of work, and I'm proud that I woke up at 7:30 so I can get some things accomplished! Today, I'm giving everyone in "blog world" my opinion of two new foods that I tried today.

#1: Bear Creek Cheddar Broccoli Soup Mix
My Rating: Decent!

This soup mix comes in powder form, and is about $3 from Walmart, and about $5 from other grocery stores that I've seen it at. I was very skeptical about this powered soup mix, but willing to try it. It is the most simple soup I have made. You bring water to a rolling boil, whisk in the soup mix, and voila! Since I live by myself and the package makes half a gallon of soup, I cut it in half. I used half the amount of water, and separated the soup mix into two equal parts and used one of them. I am a lover of broccoli, and when I saw the green "flakes" of broccoli in the soup mix, I was somewhat disappointed, but that is an easy fix! I cooked a cup or two of frozen broccoli in the microwave for a minute, then chopped it up into little pieces, and added it towards the end. I also added some black pepper. It's very tasty soup to eat with saltine crackers. This Broccoli Cheese soup was not the best I have ever had, but it is very hard to live up to the big caldron's of broccoli cheese soup that we eat at family gatherings. I did feel better about eating it, knowing that it is less than 200 calories per serving, and I didn't pour loads of half & half or a big brick of processed Velveeta cheese into it. My overall rating is "decent"....not the best, but certainly not the worst, and it took 10 minutes to make!


#2: Homemade Fruit Smoothie
My Rating: Extraordinary!

I found this idea on a website, tried it, and LOVED it! It's simple. Take low-fat vanilla yogurt, and pour it into an ice cube tray. Pop it in the freezer for a couple hours. In the meantime, slice some fruit.....Bananas, mango, pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, ANY kind! Or, to make it much easier, do like I did and buy frozen sliced fruit. I got frozen strawberries and raspberries. Once all the fruit and yogurt is frozen, get out some zip-lock bags. Place 3 or 4 cubes of yogurt and about one cup of whichever fruit you prefer into each bag, until all the fruit and yogurt is gone. Now you have "ready to grab" bags of smoothie ingredients. Place the contents of one zip-lock bag into a blender, along with about half a cup of juice or milk (I used Cran-apple juice). Blend it until everything is smooth (Warning!!!: I started out only using 1/4 cup of juice, and my blender just laughed at me, and didn't mix anything up. If you add 1/2 cup of juice, it should work, but if it doesn't then add just a little more juice). The sweetness of the yogurt, juice, and berries is plenty....no extra sugar needed. The smoothie I created today was delicious, and my rating for this recipe is EXTRAORDINARY! Each smoothie pack makes about 10 oz - 12 oz, and is less than 150 calories. Can't beat that!

Something New!

Today was my first day on my new schedule at work. I used to work the 2pm-10pm shift and now I'm working 6am-2pm. So, I'm home for the day!

I'm used to sleeping in until 10 or 11 in the morning, then staying awake until 2 or 3am, so I was very nervous this morning about not waking up on time. Well, I woke up in plenty of time. I woke up at 2:29am and I thought it was 5:29, so I thought I only had about five minutes before I had to be out the door! I threw on some scrubs, put a little bit of makeup on, ate two miniature bite size muffins, and grabbed a bottle of water to head out the door. Then I looked at the clock again and realized that I still had at least 2 hours to sleep. The sound of my heart pounding from my little adrenaline rush lulled me back to sleep :)
Today at work went fantastically. It is very weird being home for the day at this time. I'm planning on tidying up my apartment, doing a load of laundry, studying, and my favorite TV show Castle comes on tonight. The dinner menu tonight is chicken casserole! It's a different recipe than what my mom always cooked, but it's delicious! Here's the recipe:

Chicken Casserole

4 cups shredded cooked chicken (I boiled mine)
1 cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 small can Carnation evaporated milk
1 bag Pepperidge Farm cornbread stuffing mix
1 stick butter, melted

Combine shredded chicken, broth, soups, and evaporated milk. In a separate bowl, combine stuffing mix and melted butter, and mix it up with your hands. In a 9x13 casserole dish, pat half of the stuffing mix in the bottom. Then pour the chicken mixture on top. Top with the other half of the stuffing mix. Bake at 350º for 30 minutes. It's delicious, and it would be good with leftover Thanksgiving turkey too!

As of Late

It's been awhile since my last blog. That's probably what most of my blogs start out with. Life is good, I can't complain! Work is busy as ever, and I'm switching from the evening shift to the morning shift starting in October. I'll be studying for RN school in the afternoons. That's my little update....now for the heart and soul of the blog.

It finally feels a little bit like fall in Texas. Highs in the low 90's, lows in the low 70's. I'm ready for highs in the 60's and 70's! Last week, Josh and I went to the West Texas Fair and Rodeo. I absolutely love the fair! I love the atmosphere and the smells. I had to go at night time because I wanted to see the fair lights so badly! All the bright colors and the twinkling lights go round and round on the fair rides. The comforting smells of sweet funnel cakes, smoky barbecue, and farm animals filled the air (I was made fun of a few times for loving the fair smells). The best part was the petting zoo. There were all sorts of animals, even a sweet little baby longhorn :). I fell in love with all the animals...except not the emu. That emu freaked me out.
Another "fall thing" that I'm loving right now is my crock pot. I love that I can fix lunch and dinner the night before, and let it cook all day. I check out recipes on Crock Pot Girls and Skinny Crock Pot. So far, I have made chicken tortilla soup, taco soup, Italian chicken, Italian beef, pot roast, and stew. I'm wanting to try Chicken A La King. It is one pound of chicken breast cut into bite size pieces, 2 cans cream of chicken soup, 5 tablespoons flour, 1/4 teaspoons black pepper, and 1 cup diced onion. Cook that in a crock pot on low for 6-8 hours, and add 3 cups of frozen peas about an hour before you're ready to eat. Serve over biscuits or puff pastry. Yum!
The last "fall thing" that I'll blog about today is my seasonal love for candles. I buy Tyler Candles from Village Boutique in Abilene, but the company is out of Tyler, Texas. (http://www.tylercandles.com) I'm currently burning Mulled Cider. They also sell wax melters for Scentsy melters. So, Warm Cinnamon is in my Scentsy melter, and the Mulled Cider is burning. It smells so deliciously like fall! Cabin Fever is also another great scent.
All of these fall things make me want to be in a cabin in the mountains, or on a park bench in Central Park watching the changing colors of the leaves. We won't have any leaves change colors here this year because of the drought. They're all already dead and brown.

My mom told me today that I'm creative. She thinks I write interesting things that people like to read. I'm considering writing a children's book. I'm brainstorming story ideas. We shall see!

Till next time..

My New Apartment

I moved back to Abilene a couple months ago and I thought my grandparents might like to see where I live! My parents and friends have already seen most of these pictures already. Anyway, my apartment is in a nice part of town and it is a gated community and I have my own covered parking space! I'd say it's around 650 sq. feet, but I'm not 100% sure. It's big enough for now.


This is my living room, looking towards the front door.



This is the rest of my living room, including my wood burning fireplace and TV. The stand that the TV is sitting on is actually my coffee table, covered with an old high school stadium blanket (Go Eagles!). I'll be purchasing an actual TV stand as soon as I'm able to, then the coffee table will be set in front of the long couch, as a coffee table should be.



This is my short couch, or love seat. It's a hand-me-down from my parents! This also has a view of my itty bitty kitchen through. The kitchen is accessible from both the left side by the dining room and the right side by the front door. The openness is nice and it feels a little more roomy than a closed off kitchen.



This is my dining room. The big sliding door goes out to the back porch area. It's small, but it fits a couple chairs and that's all I need!



Self explanatory...it's my bedroom! I love my fluffy white down comforter. What you can't see in this picture is the entertainment center that was given to me by my parents. It sits at the foot of my bed. Side note: I painted the canvases hanging on the walls!


This is the sink/mirror part of my bathroom. This is directly attached to my bedroom and there are no doors separating it. The doorway to the left goes into the toilet/shower part of the bathroom, and the doorway to the right goes to my gigantic walk in closet!



And just for fun, this is one of my most favorite pieces in my apartment. It's a $15 antique shelf purchased from a hole-in-the-wall place in Waco called Laverty's and I repurposed it to be a spice rack! I just love it :)


Hope you like my new place...I do!