The Axis of Evil

No, not Iran, Iraq, and North Korea: it's my crock pot today. We're having dinner guests and it was nearly a year ago that this crock pot recipe was entrusted to my ears.
Turkey, turkey, turkey. It's not just for Thanksgiving anymore. Buying a whole turkey is such a waste because we never are able to use the WHOLE thing, no matter how hard I try. So I get the turkey breast. I put a little water in the crock pot, then the turkey, then I slather the turkey breast in real butter chunks and slices of cream cheese. Yep, cheese. Then put in a bunch of Italian seasonings like oregano, bay leaves, and garlic salt. Cook it on low all day, and at dinner time you have a delightfully evil fattening turkey breast.

One time I tried this recipe with pepper jack cheese, because I forgot to buy the cream cheese. It was BRILLIANT. The cheese really does cook into the meat, giving it a great flavor.

So tonight I will be using my new corn creamer that we found at a Las Vegas cutlery (some people gamble, we go find kitchen supplies) and I will make Pioneer Woman's Corn Casserole. MMMMM....more butter.....

And since the lime tree is dropping limes faster than I can give them away, I will make a lime curd and pour it into little individual graham cracker cups.

To top it off, I found a bottle of THUNDERBIRD at the grocery store (less charming and classy than the MD 20/20) and we'll probably sip on that. Yeah, right.

Amphibious Car

Over the years I've seen a few amphibious cars drive out on the lake, and I've seen this one, too.
This is probably the biggest I've ever seen....

http://www.flixxy.com/worlds-fastest-amphibious-vehicle.htm

Jeepers John

John McCain has been scaring our family for two days now. I acquired him from a friend on Sunday, and immediately put him up on the back sliding glass door. Well, then my heart stopped SEVEN TIMES on Monday because every time I walked through the living room I saw a 6 foot tall person at the back door.
After Shay went to bed we decided McCain should be moved to his hallway, so we could hear him shout in fear the next morning.

We heard nothing, because Shay says he knew I'd do something like that.

A couple of years ago, after I showed the kids the Blair Witch Project I promptly created a stick figure like those that were hanging from the trees in the movie, and hung them outside their bedroom doors. And I made little pyramid piles of stones on the floor. That scared them. Just last week I found one of the stick figures hidden in my linen cabinet. Someone's trying to spook me.

I Have This And You Don't

How many things do we own that are unique and one-of-a-kind? Not sold at Wal Mart and Pottery Barn, not reproduced for every Tom, Dick, and Harry...

Well I have something that no one in the world has.
Brandy made it for me.



And what's even cooler about this (I'm referring to the quilt) is even if she made a duplicate one, it would STILL be unique because the denim in the pattern was taken from her family's old jeans. The backside of the quilt is all denim, sewn together with LOVE because that's how she rolls.

I've repositioned my desk in this room so I can peer over my laptop whenever I want to gaze upon my beautiful gift that Brandy hand-delivered to me in June.

Busy Busy Days

August has historically been one of those months where we don't have much time to sit and say, "Aaaaahhh..." and this one hasn't been much different.
After cleaning the house for two days upon returning from Pebble Beach (I super-cleaned it before we left, but apparently this was home-base for some crackheads while we were gone) I got back to the office work that I've put off for a couple of months. Didn't get much done there because my office needed reorganizing.
Then on Friday I found out about an MMA fight that was going down on Saturday evening. Hmmmm...well we had a town hall meeting in Kingman on that afternoon (one hour from here) so then I'd have to drive home from that, change clothes, then make the one hour drive in the OTHER direction to get to that.
No problem.
The town hall meeting was cool because our Congressman, Trent Franks, was received quite well by the people and we managed to get lots of info about the issues in D.C. from him. No yelling, no name calling, and the few protesters outside left after a short time. Amateurs.
Here's our Congressman, with the current health care proposal sitting on the chair next to him. He said it was handed to Congress at midnight, and they were required to vote on it at 8am the next day. Why is it so thick? Because there's lots of stuff in there that has nothing to do with health care.


What a joke.

Shay and I made the long drive home and then rounded up Steve so we could get up to the MMA fights.
Four fighters from the gym we train at were fighting that night, and we were very excited to be there for their support.





Then Sunday we made the trip back to Kingman for the annual Republican picnic. Our Congressman was the featured speaker, but we also had the State Mine Commissioner, the State Treasurer, our State Senator, our two State Representatives, the Mayor, City Council members, oh and of course our County Supervisor Buster was there.




Shay got a picture with the Congressman:



And Steve was in heaven because he got to speak to the Congressman about current issues that he feels very strongly about:



And I saw him speaking to the State Treasurer at length as well. Yeah, this is the same guy that whined about being dragged to the picnic all of Sunday morning.
He whined last year too, but then he ended up really enjoying himself. What a baby.

The Ladies of Pebble Beach

Now that I know how to dress at the Concourse de Elegance, I have found myself researching my outfit for next time. I could wear the same outfit and save a lot of time and effort....
Or I could wear something a little saucier...













That last one was a trophy girl, who walked to each award winner and handed them their trophy. She had to have been freezing, because it was easily 55 degrees. But dang she looked good.

Santa Cruz

Since I was a teen, I knew the destination of Santa Cruz California was one for bicyclists and skateboarders. When I saw on the map that we were about 45 minutes south of there, I HAD to check it out.

It is definitely a different kind of place. Hippies, musicians, and homeless people hang out in the downtown tourist area.


Lots of people riding around on their bikes and sipping coffee at the sidewalk cafes.
We chose to try the Bad Ass Coffee:



It was a cute place with a very relaxed vibe.

Little did we know, that the huge fires that would lead to California declaring a State of Emergency were sparking up that day. As we were there in Santa Cruz! And the next day, I read that a pre-historic whale carcass had washed up on the beach and paleontologists were called in to determine how many millions of years this thing had been floating around in the ocean. It just happened to wash up in Santa Cruz, the day we were there. Blasted!!