Hey Peeps!!
We are back with another edition of my crazy life and, surprisingly, things have been...quiet? I know. I don't quite know who I am either. We have some news we can finally share now that it's officially official, and it's kind of a big deal around here. No, nobody is pregnant, nobody won the lottery, and the dogs haven't finally learned to pick up their own toys. 😂 More on that later... We had almost 6 inches of MUCH needed rain and the outside temperature is not the same as the sun. We had a trip to the fair and spent a lazy weekend making hats and tote bags for Mardi Gras season. I would love to tell you this was one of those weeks where I was wildly productive and full of energy, but let's not lie to each other.
🐾. The Doggie Diaries
Rouxby Sue has enjoyed being free from the leash and her confinement. She's been to the kennel for a little one night stay with her fur brother Reggie while we enjoyed the fair. They were welcomed home with baths all around and mom and dad who hung out at home pretty much all weekend. Coming up soon will be Reggie's trip to the Vet for shots, we'll need lots of good vibes and prayers when that day comes. The picture below is the two of them enjoying a beautiful fall day sunbathing session.
The pups get yogurt every night before bed and apparently I have the world's laziest dog, she can't even bother to stand up for her snack. 😆
👚What I've been putting on my body
Let's jump back to last Wednesday, Rouxby Sue had to go have her booty glands expressed so I had to put on presentable clothing yet again. Did you ever think you'd be reading a blog that talked about a dog's arse so much???
The t-shirt is another of my very worn Daydreamer graphic tees and the shorts are my Amazon (s) shorts. It looks like I wore those black croc sandals (8). I am nothing if not predictable in my wardrobe.
Thursday I had thought I was going to the Botanical Gardens fall plant sale but it rained and I just didn't feel like stomping around in that. Plus that ridiculous five hundred dollar water bill makes me not want to water flowers right now. So we stayed home and watched that rain gauge climb like a spider monkey.
Also, I used my face mask which scares the bejesus out of little Rouxby Sue every time I put it on. I slipped on those cute striped Wal-Mart shorts (s) with my favorite Prince daydreamer (s) t-shirt. It was also October 1 so I did my Cinnamon abundance ritual. Hey, in this economy we can use all the luck and woo woo we can get! I mean I need a second mortgage to fill up my gas tank!
Friday morning, I dropped the doggies off at the kennel and we left for the State Fair of Texas with RK and JK. We all needed our Big Tex and Corny Dog fix for the year! Don't laugh if you haven't had a Fletcher's corny dog then you really don't know what you're missing.
Just look at the amazing cloud cover protecting Big Tex.
I wore my Kut from the Kloth (4) shorts, my Vineyard Vines (s) t-shirt, my etnies (8) (yes, they still make them so call me a Skater Girl) and my Texas Rangers baseball hat (the playoffs weren't in the cards this year) We didn't have any rain except on the drive over but my hair was a wild mess with the humidity situation. Just call me Roseanne Rosanna Danna (SNL reference for you young whipper snappers)
Saturday morning, back to the kennel to get the fur babies, bring them home and give them a bath because they stink, stank, stunk. Hubster and I did some tote bags for Mardi Gras next year and then we decided to go grab a bite to eat for dinner. And no, I still haven't washed my frizzy hair!
It was in fact a beautiful real life fall day and I got to wear a new top I picked up at Anthropologie along with a pair of shorts. The perfect fall combo!
I grabbed my shorts (26) from Gap and my long sleeve shirt (s) from Anthro. It was still puddle-ly outside from the rain so I pulled on my old Hoff (8) tennis shoes and off we went for our Mexican food fix.
Sunday was another lazy day around the house and working on sublimating the trucker hats we'll be throwing next year. There was still a little chill to the air so I threw on my Freely skort (s) from Academy last year along with an old Patagonia tech type tee. Perfect for lounging around the house and enjoying the cooler temps. Not so fun fact.....I forgot to mirror-image one of the images and we did 5 hats before we realized it. We put the hats in the donation bin so if you see a homeless person in a trucker hat with a backwards Orpheus logo, that was me!
Here's the hat....you know for identification purposes!
It's Monday and apparently I decided today was the day to become a productive member of society, which was ambitious considering my general attitude toward productivity especially on Monday. I had to leave the house so I put on something mildly presentable. Don't worry, I basically ran to the optometrist office to pick up my new contacts, dropped off Amazon returns at Staples, got some VERY expensive gasoline for my car and dropped some non-perishable food items off in the town blessing box. Made a quick stop in the Dollar General and I was home lickety-split, kicking off shoes and general responsibilities.
I threw on my Sanctuary (26) shorts along with my cheap little graphic tee that I picked up at Five Below (s) I did actually comb my hair before leaving and put on some shoes, I personally could not tell you exactly which shoes that was but nonetheless, there were shoes. Also, it was back into the mid-80's but the mornings are nice and cool and fall like. Makes me want to sip coffee and do nothing all morning long. There's no need to point out that I still haven't washed my hair.
This brings us to today and I FINALLY washed my hair. As of the time I'm writing this, it has still not been dried because apparently washing it was where I needed to draw the line on productivity. One thing at a time, people.
For a day at home, filling bird feeders, hummingbird feeders, laundry, vacuuming, watering indoor plants and walking the dogs and don't forget washing of the hair....I tossed on easy and old clothes.
My Fletcher's Corny Dogs t-shirt and black shorts from Walmart which look like they are no longer available. They were less than $10 and I've worn the devil out of the two pairs I got at the beginning of the summer but you'll never know that joy unless you grabbed a pair when I wore them the 750 other times this summer and linked them up then.
That's it for the fashion diva that I am this week so let's talk about FOOD!!!
🍔 Let's Talk Dinner
Last Wednesday night I made a new recipe, New England sliders and we had French fries to go along with them. I was apparently VERY hungry and failed to take a photo. Either that or the dogs were duking it out like Mike Tyson and Ronda Rousey. Never fear, a different version of those sliders will make an appearance later in the post. I simply threw stew meat, Lipton onion soup mix and a can of French onion soup with about a half can of water in the crock pot. Yes, the meat was frozen, ya'll act like I actually plan things like dinner!! After it cooked all day, I shredded the meat, served it on potato slider rolls with horseradish cream, spicy giardiniera, french's onions and Wah-La, New England Sliders. They were pretty tasty but a wee bit too onion-y for me. Hang tight...they come back better.
Total aside.....THESE are finally back in stock. We've endured a long, hot summer without our beloved beverage of Texas. The drought is literally over now!
Thursday night I made a new chili recipe, cause it rained and we like to pretend that fall arrived. I also made a pan of cornbread to accompany it because of course you need cornbread with chili. RK and Hubster quite enjoyed the chili and I think it's a keeper recipe. Here's the link to the recipe I used, I also added a can of red kidney beans and I don't care because sometimes beans DO belong in chili! I said what I said!
The cornbread is my standard recipe, tried and true, never fails to impress, from Southern Living. Don't reinvent the wheel when the wheel rolls just fine the way it is.
Friday of course was fair day and we had so many yummy foods but first up, ALWAYS, is a Fletcher's Corny Dog! I mean, did you even go to the Fair if you didn't get a Fletcher's corny dog? I think not!
And yes, mustard is the ONLY acceptable condiment on a corny dog, there will be no discussion on this matter.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. 😭
Apparently I wasn't willing to admit defeat on a slider recipe because I went back for round two. And THIS version? Now we're talking. This time I used the same potato rolls and horseradish cream but added a packet of Velveeta jalapeño cheese and a little bbq sauce so it was like a beef and cheddar. SUCCESS!!!
We had frozen hash browns on the side because I used up all my creativity trying to improve the sliders.
And finally tonight, we picked up some Veggie burger patties at Costco to have on hand for the girls when they come to visit (you know because they are vegetarians and all) so I grabbed two of those and popped some fries in the air fryer along with the burgers. That was dinner, quick, easy, filling even though I think we'd prefer real burgers over these particular ones. Hopefully the girls like them otherwise I'm going to need to get really creative with those since we apparently have Costco memory loss and bought a box two different times. We have 18 of those left....can I make anyone a sandwich???
Let's wrap up because this girl needs to hit the hay!
📚READING:
I finished Big Cult Energy and you can find my review here. The book won't be released until June 1, 2027. It's outlandish, not as good as the first but there's Lizard Jesus 🐉, cherries 🍒, ridiculous amounts of amazon deliveries 🚚, a cult and an eccentric old lady that gets stuck in her floors. If there is a third in the series, I'll be reading for sure because where can we go from here?!
I'm listening to One Split Second by Robert Dugoni. It's #12 in the Tracy Crosswhite series. I absolutely love this series and I've listened to all of them on Audible so the narration is part of the series for me. Robert Dugoni is a brilliant writer!
I am currently reading another ARC book, Very Bad Neighbors by Sue Hincenbergs. So far....it's ok, more to come next week.
📺. Watching:
Amazing Race: My favorite reality show is back. I don't have a favorite team yet, although I do have a couple that I'm already ready for them to be eliminated. Can you say annoying?? 🏃
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe: Sunday evening we watched this whole season and let me tell you, those are hours of my life I will never get back. The first couple of episodes were humorous but it got worse as it went on. Sadly I cannot recommend this one. 🌎
Those are just the new shows we watched, we're still watching Survivor, Halloween Baking Championship and the Traitors. And in the best news.....Christmas movies start on GAC this weekend! Whoop Whoop!!! Bring on the cheesiest Christmas movies ever because I'm here for every one of them!
📆. What's Coming Up?
Okay, let's talk about the BIG BIG NEWS around the house because I've made you wait long enough... Hubster has graduated from work! 🎓His last official day of work will be next week, the 15th. It's about one year earlier than we were planning but sometimes circumstances beyond your control take over and you play the cards you are given. It was a bitter pill to swallow at first but he's had time to marinate in the idea and he's ready. We're already trying to figure out our first trip to celebrate, although he already had a trip to New Orleans scheduled for the 23rd, he'll just add a few stops along the way and not have to rush home on Sunday. I was planning to stay home with the pups since he's mainly going down to do some work in our Krewe den with our float lieutenant.
I have class tomorrow, it's a play reading class. We're reading through the play Our Town. I'm pretty excited to see how table reads work and I've got my script downloaded and my parts highlighted. I'll feel like I'm back in elementary school and counting ahead paragraphs to "practice" my upcoming section to read. Did ya'll do that too??? Or was that just early onset OCD for me? Either that or I'll be discovered and I'll be so famous you can say you knew me when!
Other than that we have a relatively quiet week coming up and the weather is inching up to the mid eighties during the day but so far the mornings have been cool enough to throw open the doors and windows and air out the house. I pretty much have the back doors open every morning for at least 10 or 15 minutes, even in the extreme heat and cold, I am so happy when I can extend that to a couple of hours of fresh air coming in. My air conditioners are also welcoming the break in the heat and the yard is actually green 💚again after the rains ☔ and in the most shocking news, I had to put on a sweater when I had my porch coffee ☕this morning! I know....what is this concept?!
Ok, that's a lot to unpack for the week...so I leave you with one final pic. The Hubster celebrating his work graduation by drinking samples of energy drinks at the fair. He thinks he'll need these to push through 7 more days of employment. 🤣
Peace, Love, Pomp & Circumstance!
