This Is How We Roll

We made our last six dozen tamales yesterday. Since we had a lot of the pork left, we started again (last batch this season, I swear!).  Deejo and Junior didn't get any of the previous batch because those were destined to be Christmas presents. Poor Junior was stuck at work, so he didn't get any fresh-out-of-the-pot tamales, but we froze a dozen for him to enjoy later.

We didn't even bother with plates when the tamales came out of the pot. Nope, we just grabbed a handful of forks and passed them around and dove in. Love Ashinator's photo bomb, but when we were done with our "afternoon snack", we all felt like that.

Grandma's Last Gift

I wasn't sure what to expect from Christmas Eve this year, as it would be the first without Grandma Mary.  We had all pretty much predicted that the family would fall apart when she died.  And it did.  To an extent.  Grandma's last gift to us was to bridge the distance between my dad and my uncle.  They are closer now than they have ever been.  I have to hand it to my dad.  I had little to no respect for the man.  He'd done nothing to earn any of my respect.  He was a narcissistic asshole who made promises he never kept and used people more than he ever helped them.

And then Grandma had her stroke.  We knew that my cousins who had been living off with her for years would not be able to take care of her.  After all, they're the ones who allowed her to stroke for three days before my other cousin and his wife visited and insisted they take Grandma to the hospital.  So the option of her going home to them after her stroke, well, wasn't an option.

Dad stepped up to the plate.  He moved in and cared for her 24/7.  He did an amazing job.  She was more active in the months after her stroke than in the years before.  They went gambling, they went to bingo, they went to dinner.  Dad seriously flourished in his role as a care-giver.  For the first time in 25 years he had purpose in life.

Uncle DeVito, my dad's older brother, went to work fixing up Grandma's house to make it wheelchair accessible and safe for her.

Together, the two of them worked side-by-side day in and day out toward one common goal.  To take care of the woman we all loved.  My heart is so happy to see the new bridge built between Dad and Uncle DeVito.  Thank you, Grandma Mary.

Sadly, my aunt didn't participate.  She retreated and pouted and pointed fingers, but she didn't help.  That's where the family fell apart.  We attempted to reach out to her, but she chose to be the victim in the situation and took her sons and their families with her.  My heart is a little sad over that, but it wasn't at all unexpected.

It was with some trepidation that I approached Christmas Eve.  We'd done Christmas Eve at Grandma's house for my entire life.  There was no question that we'd continue celebrating as a family at her house, but I wasn't sure what to expect.

It was AMAZING!  With my aunt and "her" family choosing to do their own thing and not join us, the stress level was non-existent.  I hadn't realized how much tippy-toeing around we did when my aunt's family was around.  We all contributed to a potluck dinner and spent the evening enjoying each other's company (and a margarita or four).  I can't say that I missed Grandma because she was there.  The love she gave each and every one of us shone that night.

Dad and Uncle DeVito

Digger, RCC, Ashinator, Monster and me

My brother, Junior, and RCC.  And I have no idea what they were doing.  They were the stone-cold sober ones.

Me and Nebalee (1st margarita)

Asset, Nebalee, Kyzzer, Mr. Nebalee, Auto Bot

With Digger.  Yes, I know the picture's tilted.  So was I (marg #3-ish)

With Monster and Ashinator.  Yes, I know the picture's blurry.  So was I (marg #4-ish)

I'm not sure how I managed to miss getting pics of most of my family.  Junior, Nonners, Chris, Uncle DeVito - I'm sorry.  I'm blaming the margaritas for the omission.
 
I hope everyone had as great a time as I did.  Love you all.

2010 Resolution Check-in

Before making my 2011 Resolutions, I thought it would be a bright idea to check in on my 2010 Resolutions to see how I did with them. 

Resolution #1: Be healthier.  I did well on this one for a little while, but overall failed miserably.  Guess what's going on the 2011 list?

Resoluction #2:  Continue writing.  Call this one a draw.  RCC and I did NOT manage to do weekly write-ins, but I did manage to get TALES FROM THE TRAIL queried.  I didn't even get a form rejection for that one, but in 2011, I'll research more publishers who I feel might fit my niche and query even more.  In addition to querying TALES, I'm going to finish HUNTED LYON and begin the edit process on that.

Resolution #3:  More time with my little girl.  Again, a draw.  I did make it up to spend time with her every week, but she got lamed up after HCR and I didn't get much riding done.  However, thanks to my followers, we managed to figure out what was causing her lameness and get her healed up enough that I could again get back up on her for the fall.

Resolution #4: Start my Master's program in Public Health.  Technically a fail, by one month.  I wanted to start by the May mod and didn't get started until June.  But I did get started and currently have a 4.0 (woo-hoo!).  Unfortunately, we ran into a snag getting my official transcripts from CSU (when I consolidated my student loans, my Perkins loans were not included, which I had no idea about), so until I get my officials I'm stalled out on my program. 

I suspect that my 2011 list will look pretty much like my 2010 list, since I didn't complete them.  No sense beating myself up over it; I'll just dust myself off and have another go.

Food Network, Part Two

I meant to add this to yesterday's post but forgot.

It seems like all of the cooking shows we watch are impacting more than just my palate.  Since I'd crowded my protein, I decided I'd just dump my stuff into the larger cast iron skillet that RockCrawlinChef was using.  He was deglazing the pan with merlot (getting the yummy crunchies off the bottom of the pan) to add to the Shepherd's Pie he was making and I told him, "I'm just going to dump this hamburger in there when you're done.  I'm not even going to rinse it [the pan] out, it'll give the chili a nice depth of flavor."

WTH?  Since when did "depth of flavor" become part of my speaking vocabulary?

It's time for me to put down the remote and step away from Food Network.

You Know You Watch Too Much Food Network When...

...the first thing that runs through your mind when you do this...

...is think, Damn, I've crowded the protein.  Now I'm just steaming the meat.

And you wait for the judge to ding your dish and lower your overall score.

Merry Christmas!

I had a big post all planned out in my little brain, but then decided that *everyone* is as short on time as I am.  So *crumbling mental paper and throwing it in the trash can* out goes the post.

Instead, I'm just going to wish all of my bloggy friends a Merry Christmas.

Love to you all.

Cheesy Pictures

I normally wouldn't take up two days' worth of posts for one subject, but we got such cool pictures that I had to share them.  And I'm still completely amazed at how easy the whole project was.

We started off by breaking down two heads of garlic into individual cloves...

Then it was a family effort to peel all of the cloves...

Asset ended up chewing on her clove, so we left that one out of this beautiful bowl...

RockCrawlinChef put them in a pan of vegetable oil and set them on the stove to simmer and roast...

We opened our big block of curd...

Got our ice bath ready for the completed bococini (also very handy for cooling off burning hands - the gloves only protect from so much heat)...

We broke down the curd from the big block to little manageable curd and mixed in some coarse salt...

Added some hot water and began working the curds...

And if, say Nebalee GunDiva someone was to screw up, it was easy enough to pull the curd out of the hot water, pack it onto a plate, strain the water and have another go at it...

A quick check on the roasting garlic...

Finally, the curd begins to cook in the scalding water (along with our fingers) and becomes workable cheese...

Pulling the cheese is a lot like pulling taffy...

A small bit of cheese is squeezed and twisted off of the cheese to form the bococini...

And then it's immediately dumped in the ice bath to help firm it up...



Our not-so-perfectly-round bococinis all nestled in a zip-lock to await their final packaging...

The garlic's all roasted and ready to be strained...



We poured the oil, sans garlic, back into the jug with the other oil so the flavor could infuse throughout and let it sit for a few hours.  The cheese got packed in water in the fridge to chill and finish firming up.

To package them as gifts, I put three in each jar...



Added the roasted garlic and thyme...



And a pinch of red pepper flakes...

Added the garlic-infused oil...

Capped them and voila! Christmas gifts for my co-workers...

Bococini Day

Okay, apparently, I've been spelling bococini "the Mexican way" according to RCC (bocaccini) and the correct spelling is b-o-c-o-c-i-n-i, which really just means "little mouth" or small bite.

I got a wild hair (as I mentioned earlier) to make mozzarella as gifts for my co-workers.  RCC suggested we make bococinis instead of the mozzarella logs that I had intended to make.  He's a smart man.  It would have been easier and faster to make the logs than the bococinis, but it would have cost us a lot more, just because it would have required more ingredients.  So we settled on the bococinis that we'll pack in garlic flavored oil with thyme and red pepper flakes (yum!).  Mozzarella being the mild cheese it is will take on the flavor of the oil and be extra yummy.

The whole thing, from beginning to end took Nebalee, RCC and I about two hours including clean up (not including packaging for gifts).  While we were making the mozzarella, we had a pan full of garlic and vegetable oil simmering on the stove to roast the garlic (took just under an hour on low heat).  When the garlic was completely roasted, we just removed the pan from the heat and let it sit.

The curd was cold, so it cooled the water very quickly, despite being drawn from Mom and Bill's instant hot water tap from the coffee maker.  Thank goodness for Auto Bot, who ran her little legs off fetching hot water for the three of us.  The minute the water cooled, the cheese making went south quickly.  Luckily, mozzarella is a good beginner cheese, as it's almost impossible to ruin it.  If something doesn't work (photos tomorrow), strain the curd, add more hot water and start again.  It's very forgiving.

I ordered 10# mozzarella curd from Cheese Importers in Longmont, which ran me $65.00 and change.  We bought the jars from Bed, Bath and Beyond for about $58.00; the vegetable oil, coarse Kosher salt, thyme, garlic, and beautiful hand-saving dish gloves from King Soopers for $22.00.  I spent roughly $145.00 for everything needed and will have gifts for forty people, which works out to $3.63 per person.  If you're like me, and have a lot of co-workers to "buy" for, this is the way to go.  Really, it just takes "sweat equity" and very few ingredients to end up with something very yummy.

RCC and I figured that we'd put about three bococinis in each jar, so we'd need 120 bococinis and we ended up with 137 (more for us!).  We might have had 150 or so if we would have stopped "sampling" the cheese as we made it.

Say "Cheese"!

I got a wild hair a couple of months ago after watching Chefs vs. City and decided I wanted to make mozzarella as Christmas gifts.  Lucky for me, I married a chef who has made mozzarella more times than he can count when he was working at a hotel.

He won't let me make the curds, though.  Something about curds and whey don't appeal to him.

I had to order the curds instead. *pout*  But since RCC knows me so well, he's probably correct in thinking that I'll gross right out making my own cheese curds.


So, this afternoon, we'll be picking up 10# of mozzarella curds and hauling it up to the lodge for a cheese making day tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

My Mouth Did It!

Today's post is brought to you courtesy of Nebalee.  Beside the fact that we look very similar (some people confuse us as twins), we also have inherited a lack of brain/mouth filter.  Sometimes we think out loud, and usually at the most inopportune times.  Since the parents of Nebalee's students will probably never associate her with me, I offered her a "safe" place to share her crazyass parent/kid stories.  Enjoy...

It was a VERY long week. I sometimes have those. Mainly because I tend to spew forth words that are best left in my head and not out in the open. This can be funny---in a bar, not necessarily with the parents of my second graders. Anyway, it was one of those weeks where I spent a lot of time putting out fires that I started so I should have known that when the bell rang Friday afternoon to forcibly shove the students out the door and CLOSE the door; not stand there and have conversations with the parents.


I overheard one parent say, “We’ll just go talk to Nebalee about that!” I thought, “Oh, God…Here we go!”

“What’s up,” I say.

“IS SHE ALWAYS THIS MEAN? She leaves your classroom mean everyday!”

“Huh? I’m not sure what you’re talking about. She is a pleasant, fun, engaging student in our room. What do you mean she’s always mean when she walks out of the classroom?” I question, as I am looking around at the children leaving my room, wondering who she was being mean to.

“She’s not mean to them! She’s mean to ME!”

“Oh… well, sometimes that happens,” I say. “It’s the age but I can assure you, she is behaving in class just fine. She is kind to her friends.”

“Well, that’s great but I want her to be kind to me!” the poor mom whined. “I want her to be my friend!”

Spewage started, “OH, NO YOU DON’T! GOD PUT YOU ON THIS EARTH TO BE HER MOTHER NOT HER FRIEND. SHE HAS PLENTY OF FRIENDS. SHE NEEDS YOU TO BE HER MOM!”

Now, I don’t necessarily feel my message was bad BUT I’m pretty sure in a public school I’m not supposed to mention, or refer to, God AND I’m pretty sure my delivery wasn’t subtle enough. I’ll be looking forward to my visit with the school board over this one. Maybe a nice Christian school will employ me?

Nebalee chose to leave off the ending.  However, she was dumb enough open enough to share it with me and it's just too good to pass up.

The mother and her mean child walked away, stunned I'm sure.  When they got a few feet away, FriendMom turned back to look at Nebalee, who couldn't let it go. 

Oh, no. 

Not if you're a member of our family.

Nebalee leaned forward, tapped her temple and said, "You think long and hard about what I said this weekend."

Want Free Books?

Real, paper books, that is.

I just signed on as a review for Blogging for Books.  It's a breeze to sign up.  I will get to choose a book a book, they'll ship it to me for free, and I write a review.  I can't wait to try it out - you all know how much I love to read.  If you're interested in doing book reviews, click the link and sign up (no, I'm not getting anything for recruiting - I just love free things).

Nook Deals has a whole post on how to get free books for review.  Click on over there for more details on getting free reads.

Oh Lord, Ashinator's 18!

I know I don't look much older than 18 myself, so I know it's going to be really hard for you to believe that I could possibly have a daughter who is just turning 18.

Rather than getting all sappy about my little girl getting all growed up on me, I thought I'd share a funny story about her birth (don't worry, she knows about this story).

I knew, from Digger's birth, that I don't do well with babies that don't look like babies.  Giving birth is a dirty, slimy, bloody business and I do much better once the baby's been cleaned up and looks like a baby.  Armed with that knowledge, I asked the doctor not to place Ashinator on my bare belly after her birth. 

I understand why they do it.  I know that the majority of women love it and feel that it helps them begin to bond with their baby.  I, however, had no desire whatsoever to have a slimy, bloody baby plopped down on my jelly belly.

I made my wishes very, very clear to the doctor and nurses.  I told them they could plop her down on my jelly belly as long as they put a towel down first.

So the time comes.  I manage to birth my second child and the doctor immediately flops her slimy, bloody body down on my bare jelly belly.

That's when the dry heaves started.

I'm sure I made quite an impression (probably not a good one) when, between retching bouts, I told them to get her off of me!

Yep, I almost threw up on my beautiful daughter.  How's that for a "welcome to the world, baby, we love you"?

Even if I had puked on her, I'm sure she would have still grown up into the beautiful young woman she has...

And - any dirty old men out there who might be getting their jollies by looking at my gorgeous daughter - remember that I earned the nickname GunDiva and I am armed.

Baking Weekend, The Next Generation

We grew up making Magic Window cookies, and now our kids are following the same tradition...


Final tally for the weekend's work:

If I did my math right, we ended up with 1,266 baked goods (including cupcakes and magic bars), plus 14 gallon-sized bags of Chex Mix and 4 gallon-sized bags of Oatmeal Squares Mix.

Lots of people are wondering what exactly we do with all of the cookies.  We divvy up the weekend's bounty between all of the bakers and give them to our friends, family and co-workers.

Next weekend, RockCrawlinChef and I are making mozzarella bocaccinis on Saturday.  I'm super excited because I've never made mozzarella before and it looks fairly easy, but we all know looks can be deceiving.  On Sunday, Mom, Nebalee and I will be making more tamales.  Nebalee and I cranked out six dozen right before Thanksgiving, but those are long gone.  We'll be making two to three times that number next weekend as gifts.

Baking Weekend, Day 1

I'll do a more thorough post later in the week, but thought I'd share some of the highlights of Saturday.

Here's a Magic Window cookie courtesy of Auto Bot...

The prettiest cookie courtesy of Little Miss Mantha...

And the day's total cookie count (Kyzzer was my lovely easel)...

At the end of eleven hours spent in the kitchen, we had cranked out an impressive 63.83 dozen cookies (766).

Wish I could say we were done. Today's the serious day...we've got another eight batches of Magic Window cookies to make, three of gingerbread and a couple of toffee chip and brickle chip.

My Girls!

This weekend is one I look forward to every year...Baking Weekend!

My girls and I don't get to spend hardly any time together throughout the year, but we do make a point every year to get together at least a couple of times.  July for our birthdays and December for Baking Weekend.  Yes, that's capital-B, capital-W.

It's a big weekend.

And I can't wait.  In addition to catching up on each other's lives, we'll be cranking out the cookies.  You won't believe  the shear number of cookies we'll end up with.  Or maybe you will if you've been around for a while. 

Either way, it's a lot of dang baking.

And a lot of talking.

And laughing.

 I love my girls who are an integral part of my family.  Anyone else have a group of friends that you don't get to see often, but when you do it's like no time at all has passed?

It Was Like Freaky Friday. But Not.

Most of you know (because I whined and cried about it) that I had to go to Las Vegas last week for corporate Deans' training. 

Most of you also know that my parents went to Las Vegas last week for the opening week of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (because I whined and cried about it).

I flew into Vegas on Thursday afternoon, called Mom hoping we could meet up before I had to go to my mandatory dinner.  I was, let's just say, a little cranky when I found out we wouldn't be able to meet up.  Call it a low blood sugar moment.  When GunDiva's hungry, ain't nobody safe.  I went to Margaritaville, stuffed myself with Volcano Nachos and a coupla drinks.  Yes, I drank before my meeting.  Normally, I wouldn't do anything that wild and crazy, but I knew that the wine and beer would be flowing at the meeting, so what if I got a head start?

Anyboozingituponcompanytime, I felt much better after my very late lunch and took a nap before my meeting.  I went to my meeting, had a glass of wine (just one - still working off the booze from M-ville) and went to bed after the meeting was over.  So I'm a light-weight.

I was cuddled up with Eloise, reading Tom Clancy's TEETH OF THE TIGER (which, if you haven't read and you're a Jack Ryan fan you'd better go get it) through my closed eyes.  What?  The eye lids were heavy and needed to rest a bit.

Come 11:00 pm my phone rings.

It's my mother.

Who wants me to get up and go out with them.

It's eleven o'freaking clock!  I'd been reading with my eyes closed for a couple of hours already.  I was tucked in.  I was not going to get up, get dressed, put my contacts in and go out.

My mother,  my mother, the most responsible mother on the planet, tells me to get my ass out of bed and go out with them.

I shit you not.  That's what she said.  Along with some other stuff about being young and in Vegas. 

I told her that 7:00 am was awfully early and I wasn't going to join her.

She told me to get up and get dressed.

And for the first time in my life - I won that argument.  I stayed in bed.  Until six o'clock the next morning when I had to go to work.

It was a total Freaky Friday moment.  I guess Mom wholeheartedly subscribes to the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" thing, 'cause I don't know what happened to my mother, but that crazy woman calling me at 11:00 was not the same mother I grew up with.

Review Time!

While I was in Las Vegas last week, half of my CSN order came in.  There's nothing like coming home to presents!

On Sunday, I tried out the 3-piece pizza stone.  It came with the stone, a cooling rack and pizza cutter.  Do yourself a favor.  Throw out the pizza cutter.  Or do one better and save the money by just buying the stone, not the 3-piece set.  I'm pretty sure that the pizza cutter might cut play-doh.  Mine went directly into the trash.  And I didn't even cry about it.

I love the pizza stone.  I love having a clean oven.  The two go hand-in-hand.  Two thumbs up for the pizza stone (and two thumbs down for the cutter).  Call it a draw.

Today, I got to try out the slow cooker.  I've been nervous about it ever since Terry commented that she's heard that some slow cookers heat too fast and burn the food.  I shouldn't have worried.  My slow cooker has three settings: warm, low, and high.  That's all I need.  I don't need the fancy thermostat do-hickies.  Since I was running late this morning, I had RCC throw in the food this morning.  When I got home, dinner was done and fabulous.  Two thumbs up for the slow cooker.

I thought I'd share my favorite slow cooker recipe and why I love it.  I'm not sure if I've put this up here before, but I'm gonna do it again because I love it so much.

Shredded Chicken

• Four frozen chicken breasts
• 2 cans Cream of Chicken soup
• 1 jar 505 Green Chili

Throw in slow cooker on low all day.  Shred with two forks when done.

Why do I love it so much?  You mean besides being the easiest recipe on the planet?

It is super versatile. 

The first night, I serve it over rice or egg noodles.  The next night, I can take part of it, mix with sour cream and canned Stokes Green Chili, roll it up in tortillas, throw some cheese over the top and call them chicken burritos.  Or, add some frozen veggies, dump in a casserole dish and top with Bisquick for chicken pot pie. 

A friend of mine eats hers over mashed potatoes, which I've yet to try, but she assures me it's divine.

I love versatile left-overs - it takes the thinking out of meal planning.

Thank you Dorothy!

On my way to Las Vegas last week, I was sitting on the plane, reading Eloise, waiting for everyone else to get their butts in their seats so we could get going already.  While everyone was still getting settled, the flight attendant, Dorothy, saw my nook and asked how I liked it.  She'd just gotten the nookcolor the night before and loves it, but she had owned the original nook for a long time and had no intention of giving up either.  We talked books for a little bit and she offered to write down a list of websites where I could find free or low-cost nookbooks.

I thanked her, but expected that she'd forget before the flight was over since she was - you know - working.  As we got ready to land, she handed me a slip of paper with the following sites on them and apologized for not being more thorough (she gave me a list of 11 sites and she was afraid she wasn't thorough?).

Since I don't want to be stingy right before Christmas, I thought I'd share with you.  So here goes (I didn't list the sites that weren't intuitive to use or that were clumsy):

• nook Deals - I visited today and picked up three or four new free nookbooks from B&N.  What's amazing to me is that this site has 40,000+ page views, but only 60 followers (61 including me).  Lots of great links from this site, and most of the books she's got listed (I'm assuming it's a she, I can't find "about me") are straight from the B&N website.
• Inkmesh - Inkmesh has links for all e-readers; Kindle, nook, Sony ebooks, etc.
• Smashwords - I've linked directly to the free books.  This is a good site to visit if you want to try new authors.  Terry Odell, a blog friend and WPA attendee, uses Smashwords to give little gifts to her readers.  Go check it out - her book is free through today.  Then be sure to stop by her blog and tell her thanks for sharing her books with us.
• Feedbooks - You have to join this site, but it's simple to do.  It has a place to publish your own books and find new authors, similar to Smashwords.
• Fictionwise - "Fictionwise.com is committed to providing the Internet's most comprehensive collection of fiction (and yes nonfiction too!) in the most popular eBook formats."  It's also owned by B&N, so I would assume the books are compatable with the nook.
• eBooks - Requires an account to be set up, and I couldn't find a link for free nookbooks, but they do have a very comprehensive list of books/authors and the prices don't seem to be too bad.
• kobo - Finally back to the free books!  You can also link to kobo from nook Deals.  There are some tutorial videos to show you how to use kobo, which I found helpful.
• FictFact - This site and I are going to be good friends.  I love reading series books, but often can't remember which is the next book in the series or can't remember when the new book in the series is due out.  Well, just register with FictFact and they'll keep track of all of that for you!
• Barnes & Noble - I thought I should mention this site for a couple of reasons. 1) If you want an ereader, but can't afford one, you can download one for your PC for free from B&N.  Click on "nook" from the home page and then click on "nook for PC".  nook for SmartPhones is also available on the B&N website. 2) Most of the free books that are compatible with the nook are from the B&N website, but there are literally thousands of them and I don't want to wade through them all, so I'll be checking out nook Deals instead.

Does anyone else have any great places where they find their ebooks?  What are your feelings on e-readers?  I love Eloise and I love "real" books - they'll never be completely out of my life.  I know a lot of people who think it's one or the other, but that's just not true for me.  I love the feel and smell of books.  There's nothing like walking into a bookstore and brousing through all of the titles.  But I also love the convenience of Eloise; I no longer have to load up my carry-on with a million books when I travel.

I'm Off!

I leave tomorrow morning for Las Vegas.

Sounds great doesn't it?  The opening weekend of Wrangler National Finals Rodeo...

Only, I'll be here...

Yup, in meetings. Seven a.m. to five or six p.m. Then back for mandatory dinner at seven p.m.
But...my boss and I did make plans to visit this place...

I hate the cold, so I'm not quite sure why I agreed to go to an ice bar, but it sounds like fun.  Luckily, it's in our hotel so I can just stumble my way up to bed.  I'll be in bed by nine-thirty, tops.  I'm getting too old to be out all night at the bar and then function for a fourteen hour day the next day.

I'll be back to a more regular-ish posting schedule when I come back. 

Have a great weekend!

Spammed Again

Grrr...
Please do not open any attachments from "me" even though the url has blogspot in it.  Don't know where it came from and am getting cranky about it.

So sorry.  Just delete any email without clearly identified attachments, please.  I don't want to be the inadvertent source of an ITD.

TST/Wedding Dress Story

This week, I'm doing a two-fer:

Who Put Me In Charge of these People?

and Once Upon A Miracle

Texan MaMa has a fun little linky going on this week, and Rachel's TST is always a lot of fun.  After reading Texan MaMa's write up about her lovely wedding dress, it made me think of mine, which was well...we had a redneck weddin'.

RockCrawlinChef and I decided that we were going to have a totally low-key wedding.  And I mean, low-key.  I swore I was going to wear jeans and boots to the wedding.  How much more low-key can you get than jeans and boots?

About a week before the wedding, though, I started having second thoughts.  I didn't want to look at our wedding album in twenty years and regret not wearing a dress, so off we went.  I was actually looking for a sundress to wear at our reception BBQ (yep, we threw us a big ol' BBQ - as laid back as you can get), so we went to Old Navy, where I found the sundress for super cheap.  Ashinator wanted a dress to wear to the wedding, so we went to Ross.

Yes, I did.  I found my wedding dress at Ross for about $20.  Now it's not a traditional wedding dress by any means, but it was a white dressy-thing that would suffice.  And I could still wear my boots with it.

Now, like a true cowgirl who got married in her boots, the redneck wedding wouldn't be complete without climbing into the horse pen and getting a picture with the equine love of my life.

And as a little bonus, in case my $20 wedding dress from Ross and my cowboys weren't enough, here's our cake topper.

Which, by the way, cost more than my dress!