When The Cat's Away

You know that saying.... well, the mice played in the MAN CAVE today. My mom's been itching to get rid of junk in there and I agreed. A friend is having a ginormous yard sale to raise money for a Destination Imagination team her son is on, so I figured there was no time like NOW to do a little purging.  Calm down Mike - your old stereo is still gathering dust and what not and is right where it was left on the ground several years ago.

While we worked, Pixie was excitedly exploring the man cave. We got her to come out with us and locked up. A few minutes ago she was yowling so loudly under my window above the door to the man cave that I thought

Oh no! Chino must have gotten in there and I didn't know it! Pixie is alerting me to his distress and yowling for his immediate rescue!  What a smart cat! What a good feline companion she is!

Well, she just wanted back in the man cave. Chino was on the front porch. I guess Pixie heard me say WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY THE MICE WILL PLAY and she wanted back in there to do something about that. 

Shades of Green

 Don't you hate it when you try new recipes instead of going with the same ol - same ol - and they end up being much worse than eating the usual?!

You will thank me for not including a photo: for the 2nd night in a row, I kinda bombed out on dinner. I take all the blame for last night's. Tried a new recipe for orange cauliflower - yuck.  Made up my own for chicken tenders with some leftover dipping sauce and shake & bake I found in the pantry. Double yuck. Mariah and I choked a little bit down; we warned Gib off.  I threw it away. We all went to bed hungry.

Tonight I was supposed to make another new recipe involving ground beef, but it was still too frozen for me to have the energy to deal with it. So I supplemented with YET ANOTHER new recipe I had planned to try tomorrow... you see where this is going right? And usually Allrecipes.com is good - wah!  So I ended up making Cheese & Spinach Enchiladas Verde. How can you go wrong? Cheese, lots & lots of cheese, sour cream, verde sauce, and guacamole. The problems were encountered with:

• low carb tortillas - yeah, not so good as enchiladas
• green on green - spinach, verde sauce and guacamole don't look good together
• speaking of green on green, I used the veggies I had planned to cook with the beef tonight - asparagus and shredded carrots.  Now we have guacamole, spinach, verde and cooked asparagus. Really disgusting combo visually.
• I ran out of white cheese so I used some colby jack cheese to cover the tops of the enchiladas along with some red pepper rings. Now we have cooked carrots, colby jack and red peppers....

Ai,Yi, Yi.

Maybe the ground beef recipe will work? 2 out of 3 have been half-a-star... dare I even try it? Maybe I'll order chinese.  I bet right about now, somebody is pretty dang happy to be in Mississippi eating at restaurants.

Monday "-un" day

Monday STUN day - After today, there are only three more Power Monday's for the high school year! That's both a big yahoo (for the kids) and a bit of a shocker because I know it will be here before we know it.  In other news, the school board is voting tonight on whether or not to let school out 2 DAYS EARLY!! We might be done on 5/21 instead of 5/23. The teachers will then have professional days instead of school since we had so many snow days stockpiled.

Monday RUN day turned into FUN day - in keeping with our discovery of how much nicer it is to go to the allergist in the middle of a school day instead of late afternoon.... Mariah has once again skipped Monday Run Day in lifetime wellness and instead enjoyed some super duper quality time with her mom.

We giggled at how funny it would have been if I had done the lion cut on Diego and then we played BINGO together while we waited the mandatory 20-30 minutes after the allergy shots. Then we made a stop at Starbucks on the way back to school. The dude at the counter asked us what we were doing on such a beautiful sunny day, and I said "skipping school - it's Monday Run Day" and he busted up laughing. I live to make people smile. We only have a couple Run Days left to skip - Mariah smiles at that!

Monday PUN day - there was a person who sent twenty different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Here It Comes

Exciting events unfolding this week:

Today:

Gib is at an Ultimate Tournament. There are 12 teams competing. I am pretty sure his HS team is playing without subs. I hope he has a great time!

It is also the 1st plant sale event of the Spring!! Grammy & I are leaving soon for that. This year it is at the Carnton Plantation. I hope there are alot of vendors and plants. Last year we were pretty disappointed, but the venue has changed slightly and there might be a better turn out. And it's free. So other than it being outdoors in 40 degree weather, there's nothing to lose in going.

Tomorrow:

Is the annual youth fundraiser at church - an Italian dinner, plus a silent auction to raise money for the Ecuador mission trip. I'm working the kitchen with another person. The kids are all servers. And, last Monday, the kids were servers at Genghis Grill and everyone who came to the restaurant and said they were with our group helped raise money for us. We packed the place and turned the tables 3 times, so more than 60 people came out for dinner and to support the youth and I think we ended up with 20% of the take from those tables. Mariah and I made a great TIP bowl. We used a one gallon fish bowl, decorated it with pennant shaped pictures with kids from San Jose Obrero and put inside a cup filled with glow sticks. We got almost $100 in it! It was awesome. And Genghis Grill asked Gib to fill out a job application. So now he might get a summer job there. I worked at warp speed a couple months ago for the silent auction - I called in all sorts of friend-favors and came up with some unique ideas to go with the gift certificates I was able to get from local businesses. I think I ended turning in 8-10 items! Once everything is purchased for the medical and educational supplies the team is taking to Ecuador, the leftover is applied to the tickets. There are about 12 people on the team.  For the longest time, Mariah was the only female going. There was some concern but I wasn't worried because I know Gib would take care of her. But the team leaders all corralled their college daughters who have gone before and now Mariah will have 3 roomies.

Next week:

The Spring Chorus performance is coming up. Mariah will be in rehearsals this week after school. I'm kind of sad she won't be in Chorus next year because it is amazing and she has a wonderful voice, but her heavy-liberal arts high school focus path is taking her to photography, and continuing in fashion/interior design next year. No room for Spanish or Chorus again. She is also dropping Theater. Mariah has to pick up the pace in traditional academics with Honors Pre-Calculus, AP Human Geography, Honors English, and Honors Biology.

Saturday is PROM!!!  I can't hardly believe it. There are only about 25 days left of school - give or take a few depending on senior exam exemptions for Gib. I am excited to see Gib in his tux and to take some photographs, but have mixed feelings about everything else!

Trek

Today the high school  has a senior picnic and a panoramic photo of everyone in their college destination apparel. I was excited about it because that gave us a deadline to meet, and now I'm excited because the decision has been made! 

Another decision is looming - the Philmont Trek. Which one will it be? Last night, the Scouts gave a ranking of 5 treks in order of preference. Oh, and more good news, Gib's crew is stacked with strong backpackers and even the adults will be able to handle the most extreme trails! He is going to have an amazing time.  check out for a description of the treks and if you are so inclined, vote for the one you think they should do... there's a map and stuff on the site.   www.philmontscoutranch.org

Their TOP 5 - choices will be submitted to Philmont and we'll hear back which one it is.

1. Trek 33

2. Trek 31

3. Trek 30

4. Trek 32

5. Trek 27

INSERT: Email from adult crew leader this morning.

You know what they say…..be careful what you wish for.  We got our first choice. 

Indie is also in the middle of decision time - Washington University -St. Louis accepted her. It's #1 in the nation for her masters and it's also the most expensive. She is waiting anxiously to hear about financial aid. It may trump University of Tennessee if they give her enough. Otherwise, it's a pretty expensive option and she'll have to do some research to see if there is a benefit for her to go there over UT.

Mariah got her permit on Monday. We took the day off school and actually left at 7:30 and didn't get back home until 3:30. Three doctor appointments, the DMV, brunch at IHOP, and a little shopping. We found one pair of shorts at Platos and we succumbed and bought our first pair of TOMS. Gib got shoes too. Mariah, always thinking of her brother, said that with full tuition at BSC, the dude ought to get something as a congratulatory prize. We liked that so we did it.