Tuesday Tumblings

Hi dee hooo my peeps!!

This is gonna be super short & sweet today.  I'm still working on taxes and the Hubster is a slave driver and doesn't want me to work on anything BUT taxes and that included cleaning the house yesterday.  I did anyway, he may not have liked it but I gained control over a little something around here.

There are a few things Hubster should know about me and taxes.

1) For one semester (1 SEMESTER!!) my major was accounting.  It only lasted one semester because I hated it so badly. Nothing has changed by the way.

2) When you have a house, 1 rental house and 1 vacation home in a husband/wife LLC situation, you should probably hire someone WAAAAAY more qualified than me to do your taxes.

3) I hate doing taxes.

4) Taxes make my cry because I feel so stupid when I don't understand the question TurboTax is asking me.

5) Did I mention I hate TAXES and anything to do with bookkeeping, accounting, etc.

Bonus:  I have utmost respect for qualified people who do taxes professionally.



Let's get this started so I can get back to the grind!!

This is last week when I was foolish and excited and ready to get started on the taxes.

Oh how things have changed and you'll see that evidence a bit later in the post.

I was allowed  got out of the house on Friday and I've been so looking forward to trying these.

Instead this is what my face probably looked like.

Yeah...disappointed there mickey d's.

I think we're gonna need a bigger bed!

Saturday we made the trip down to Waco to watch Abogg play baseball.

Baylor Club for the sweep.

We took the Abogg to get something to eat before we headed back home. We stopped at Vitek's in Waco.  That there beautiful thing is a "gut pack".  It's the BBQ version of a chili pie.

That's all I have to say about that.

That's a small by the way....I could have eaten the large but a tow truck would have had to pull me home.

Abogg went to a Thrift Shop party Saturday night.

Just for the record nothing he is wearing came from a Thrift Store....especially not that plaid shirt.

#ohmywordnoitdidn't

This is the current state of my kitchen table amidst tax preparation.

There are no kleenex because I ran out so I'm just using a dish towel to cry into.

I'm not sure I can live through this.

This is my chair.  Yeah.....I have to sit so long my Ba Donka Donk is aching.

Please tell me something fun you are doing?  You know if we'd gotten some of that snow I'd feel better about being stuck inside doing taxes.   

Live Long & Prosper my peeps and I'll see you on the other side brotha' 

p.s.  If someone would bring me a big bag of Reese's pb cups (miniature size) I'd love you forever.

My ba donka donk won't but I will!!!

Macaroni & Tomatoes

Hey Peeps

Glad to see your still around and awake after that really  long post yesterday.  But I promised to come back and share with you one of my mama's specialties that I love love love love!!!

I got her to make it while she was here for a visit and I got to photograph her working and figure out what I was doing wrong when I made them and why mine didn't taste as good as hers.

First things first, we have to can some tomatoes. Some 40 lbs. of tomatoes mind you!!  While I love having the fresh canned tomatoes in my pantry I was not really up for canning 40 lbs. of them right now but anyway Hubster won that argument and here we go!!

First you have to peel tomatoes

and then peel some more tomatoes

and get the jars in the hot water getting all sterilized and such

While you have your mama and your husband peeling you get those tomatoes cooking down in a big pot on the stove.

Once they get cooked down you get them in the jars and into the water bath

Then you become a slave driver and make them keep peeling.

Then after they come out of the water bath you get to line them up in the window

looking all crazy gorgeous good and listen for that pop of the lids sealing.

Now we need to get Mama to work making our Macaroni & Tomatoes

She did boil a whole box of elbow macaroni

Then she put in a stick of butter

Then she put in another stick

(no kidding, this is where I figured out why mine never tasted like hers, cause you know I only used like 3 Tablespoons instead of 2 STICKS!!)

She even cubes up that butter so it melts faster

Stir the butter and some salt and pepper into the macaroni, after you've drained it of course.

Then she put some sugar into the pot.  I believe her words were "to cut the acid" from the the tomatoes.

She used about 1/2 to a full scoop of sugar.

(That's the Abogg helping Gran stir)

She added a full quart jar of those tomatoes and then she added another can of crushed tomatoes and I called the cardiologist to set up an appointment to check my arteries.  I mean I ate a lot ate a ton of these  growing up so I'm a tad concerned now.  On the bright side I now know her secret to making them taste great!

Just put all that back on the stove and let it slowly get all good and warm.

You will have to taste it to check your salt, pepper and sugar levels.

Don't check your cholesterol levels though S C A R Y!!

When it's all good and warm you can serve it up or just let it hang out on the stove all covered up and cozy like until it's dinner time.

Look at that joyous sight!!!

We had us some amazing fish that we had in the freezer from this trip

and some corn and some nice sourdough bread 'cuz you know there is not enough carbs in this meal already!! 

I seriously love this stuff and as you may or may not remember from yesterday

I might or might not have eaten these straight from the refrigerator the next morning.

surely not...but maybe only I will ever know.

mmmmmmmmm, hey mama can you come back and make me more??

What does your mama make that is just crazy good?  Have you tried to get her to show you how to make it yet?  If not you better get to it!!  You might need to see a cardiologist too!

Peace, Love & Buttered up Yummies!!

Tuesday Tumblings

Well it's Tuesday night and I've finally gotten all the photos moved to my computer and thought of the ten thousand other things I needed to do today so I'm just gonna sit here in the recliner watching "Justified"with Hubster and tell you guys what's been happening for the past 2 weeks.  I know the suspense is just killing you!!

Bear with me here because there is no rhyme or reason for the order of the photos, it's just the way they uploaded.  Oh, there's a boat load of them too after all I have two weeks of catching up to do!

Dear me....the Hubster found these at the grocery.

There's a reason I never let the man go grocery shopping.

My mama was here and we put her to work, canned 40 lbs. of tomatoes.

Anyone else want to come visit?  Ah come on, it'll be fun!

The Abogg had a birthday.  He's 22 and no, I can't believe my baby is that old.

He may be 22 but he's still my little boy.   I'll spare him the embarrassment of adding a cute little photo from his toddler days. 

We went to a new restaurant in Grapevine called Big Fish.

Good golly miss molly was it ever good!  No kidding I mean like seriously crazy delicious good!

Those were fish taco's, a half order, and that rice. Geez louise that rice.

That is a chocolate raspberry cake that was most excellent too.

Don't worry, I shared. No really I shared I promise.

When my mama was here I had her make us some of her most delightful Macaroni & Tomatoes.

I may or may not have eaten them cold the next morning.

(Don't worry, I plan on sharing the recipe a little later this week.)

This was my other birthday present from my mama.

The VB Grand Traveler in Safari Sunset.

I know I know, my mama is the bestest!

My sweet Abogg also got me the Big Betty wine glass.

Yes, it holds a whole bottle and yes, I tried it out.  Don't judge I was still celebrating my birthday.

yes, this happened and has happened a few times since.

Honestly if I hadn't watched it I would have never believed it myself.

I'm just glad I had my phone to capture the shenanigans and that I could stop laughing long enough to take the pictures.

I got some new medicine.  It looks like a bottle of chewy sweet tarts.

They're not and they have given me a headache for 2 weeks.

I should probably call the doctor...probably, maybe.

One of the gifts from the Hubster.

I love this necklace and I especially love that he had to hunt it down and surprise me with it.

When he's sleeping he's not a chewing machine.

I think I should have named him Chewbacca.

Fruit Loops with marshmallows for breakfast.

They always say you should eat the rainbow for good health.

This cereal makes for good mental health days for sure.

I made my first trip to Raisin' Canes.

The Texas Toast, the chicken and the fries were most excellent.

I'd rather not eat that sauce ever again.  Blek!

I made applesauce in the crock pot.

Tasted good but it was more like chunky apple juice.

I might have put a little too much liquid in the apples.

If nothing else those apples sure looked pretty in the crock pot.

Lest you think last week was all fun and games, it wasn't.

I kept finding small areas of the mess to clean.  It made feel a bit better and like I had some control.

This is hubster and Frankie working hard.

I had to get some concrete evidence that they were actually working.

Understand my need to find something to clean??

If nothing else I could just go out and look at this and all is right with the world again.

FancyNancy and I were out furniture shopping and it quickly went downhill so went stopped for lunch.

Went to a place called Stewby's.  If you are in Ft. Walton you should go because that was a crazy good fish sandwich.  

Hubster arrived off the plane with these.  He knows how much I love flowers.

I even brought them back home with me and they survived a 12 hour journey.

FancyNancy and I wandered across the street to the liquor store and found this for the Abogg.

We drank this in the Dominican and the Abogg loved it and I was quite excited when I found it.

One evening Hubster wanted to see the sunset.

I'm glad he interrupted my cleaning for this, sometimes you can miss out on the most beautiful things doing stuff that's not really important.

It was quite chilly down in Florida but it was still beautiful to look at.

Speaking of beautiful things to look at. Those are hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts coming down the conveyor belt to be gloriously covered in icing.  God Bless America!

We ate at another new place for us, Dewey Destins.  It was so yummy I didn't even eat my fries. I saved room for Turtle Cheesecake for dessert.  Oh yes I did, I had worked very hard and skipped lunch after all.

I had a few of these too.  Man were they good after all there's nothing left up there but the shells.

One of my favorite signs that spring is coming.

Sam Adams Alpine Springs.  ahhhhhh sweet nectar

So I figure I should show you the results of everyone's hard work.

This is the second bedroom.

And every good bedroom deserves a great bathroom

This was decorated with my friend LauraLoo in mind, she loves the flip flops!!

I saw this when I was picking up some paint.

It kind of confirmed this next decision.

This is the 3rd bedroom and wow have you seen that color scheme before someplace??

I'm totally in love with this room!  Hubster says it is his least favorite but I think it's awesome sauce even if that paint was crazy hard to get on the walls. 

This is the master bedroom.  Check out those new floors!!  DanDan, Frankie and the Hubster totally rocked the bamboo floors!

This is in the master bathroom.  It makes me laugh, just look at those faces.

It's hard to tell but the paint in the bathroom is Behr Sugar Berry.  Hubster wasn't even upset that I painted the bathroom pink. Of course he might have been delirious from the glue fumes from the flooring.

New key racks hung up inside the door.   It's always nice to have a place to hang your keys.  

No one believed me when I put something in the other condo and now it was asked if I could do it again.  You'd think they would know not to doubt me after all this time.

Sun going down the night before we left to come home.

I sure wish I could look at that every night.

When you leave at 5 am you do get to see the sunrise over the 3 mile bridge in Pensacola.

As we came into Mobile, Al we could see the blue fins of the "infamous" Carnival Cruise ship.

We only saw it we didn't smell it.

I was reading Texas Monthly, a fairly respectable magazine, and lo and behold I ran across this ad.

REALLY???  Poor Frankie almost drove off the road trying to figure out if it was a joke.

It wasn't and is Texas Monthly really the best place to advertise this??   I'm not sure the cowboys and ranchers find much appeal in this at all.

I picked up this goofball at the kennel this morning.  I mean seriously is that not the face of trouble with a capital T??  He's crazy but I sure do love him even when he's dragging my rugs out to the back yard.

OK well it's late and I'm tired and ready for bed and you've probably nodded off a few times by now!

I'll get back to you just as soon as I can with some food recipes and Mahi Mahi is on sale at Sprouts this week so I'm going to try and recreate a meal that Frankie had that was major good.

What've you been up to the past two weeks?  Do you find yourself feeling like you somehow got your grandmothers aches and pains?  No?  Maybe it's just me.

Peace, Love and Happiness!!