Butt Warmers and Slow Cookers

This morning has me in a very pleasant mood. My Mom is out of town this week and left her car with us. Always a nice treat to drive, but this morning called for my favorite accessory of her beautiful hybrid Lexus, the butt warmers! Ahh, the butt warmers! Seriously, I LOVE whoever thought up this brilliant idea! Walking to the car this morning I got a bit chilly, but within 30 seconds, I was feeling nice and toasty:)

For a few months now, Chris and I have been looking at cars. You know, researching cost, durability, maintanence, things we both want in a car, kid proof (for later, of course), dog proof (for now!) etc. This morning it occured to me, butt warmers are not on the list of want/"need" in a new car! What am I thinking?! We may need to do some revising of neccessary perks in the vehicle we decide to get;)

From time to time, I come across something that must be shared. This certain something came from the lovely blog, Laurie B. Lowndes. Last night I made the Slow Cooker Chili Chicken Tacos she posted a few months ago. They were exactly what I hoped they would be, quick and delicious! This literally took me five minutes in the morning to put together! I mean, who doesn't like coming home to an already prepared meal? And who doesn't love delicious Mexican?! Thank you, Laurie, for the great dinner idea! The recipe comes from Martha Stewart, but I have also posted it below.


Slow Cooker Chili Chicken Tacos
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 6)
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup prepared tomato salsa, plus more for serving (optional)
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped canned chipotle chiles in adobo
1 tablespoon chili powder
Coarse salt and ground pepper
8 hard corn taco shells
Cilantro, shredded cheese, lime wedges, and sour cream, for serving (optional)

In slow cooker, combine chicken, garlic, salsa, chiles, chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and teaspoon pepper. Cover; cook on high, 4 hours (or on low, 8 hours).
Transfer chicken to a serving bowl, and shred, using two forks; moisten with cooking juices. Serve in taco shells, with toppings, if desired.

This Too Shall Pass

It's funny to me that the theme of Summerfest this year was perseverance.

This afternoon, some major problems were discovered with my car. Apparently, it needs over $2000 worth of work. Wince with me, would you. My car is hardly worth putting that much money into. What do we do now? We don't know yet. So now we are the proud owners of two cars in pretty shabby condition.

To top it off, the IT people spent the entire day at my desk due to several issues I was having, all to find out the my hard drive is likely failing. Not good news. I hardly got anything done today and I hate that feeling.

I am completely exhausted.

However, I take comfort in knowing a few things:

1. God is in control and will take care of us...completely.

2. Even though material things may fail, I am incredibly blessed to have a loving and devoted husband to come home to and know that we are in this together.

3. These situations are building character.

4. As my Mom reminded me this afternoon, this too shall pass.

You should know that I still have a smile on my face and can't wait to celebrate the great victories as well as the trials we have faced the last year of being married. I wouldn't change it for the world!

I'm thinkin' that getting treated to a pedi should ease some stress =)

Hives, Fire and Utter Chaos

Man am I glad it is Friday!

I didn't have the best day yesterday and I am incredibly happy to be starting a new one, despite being really tired!

Here's how it all went down: On Wednesday, after Summerfest, I noticed some strange red spots on my stomach. Didn't think too much about it because they didn't itch or hurt and they didn't look suspicious. Decided I'd see what they looked like in the morning and if anything changed I would go from there. And the next day I forgot about them.

That was until about 1:30 Thursday afternoon when I noticed more on my chest and my arms. And by now they were starting to itch. My main concern was that I have never had chicken pox, only the shot and that I would be around kids at Summerfest. I called my doctor, who scheduled me an appointment just to make sure it wasn't some sort of bad allergic reaction. A little bummed I had to cancel my dentist appointment, but nothing too inconvenient. So I get to the doctor exactly at my appointment time only to find out I was at the wrong office! What made me mad was that I clarified with the nurse on the phone and she still told me the wrong place. Anyway, knowing I would miss the appt. time, I called to cancel and just took some Benadryl as instructed. Once we got home I immediately fell asleep and made the decision to skip Summerfest in case I was contagious. Plus, I had a bad headache. Crisis averted, right? Wrong!

About two hours later I was abruptly woken up by Abby barking like crazy, loud noises outside my window and someone ringing the doorbell. I reluctantly stumbled out of bed to see who it was and heard some random lady say, "The fire department is at your car!". What?? I ran out there to see what the problem was and found out my car has a gas leak and had started a small fire on the pavement. (I'm guessing from the heat, but don't really know how that happened) So I had to immediately call and have my car towed to a repair shop, but I didn't know where Chris takes our cars! It figures I couldn't get a hold of ANYONE!! I was starting to get really stressed out. Thankfully, the USAA rep on the phone was so nice and patient with me as I was trying to collect all the neccesary information. After an hour of humiliation (did I mention there were about 10 neighbors standing around being nosy and giving me wierd looks?) I finally got my car safetly towed away.

I kept thinking, what would have happened if I wasn't home? It would have been towed to an impound place where we would have had to pay a pretty penny to get it out! The weird thing is, my hives are almost gone and there is still no explanation for them. Talk about everything happening for a reason!

I also found out that we have a really sweet couple of neighbors. After it was all said and done, a girl we've seen around, and who adores Abby, came to say she didn't mind helping us out if we needed anything and even offered to drive me in to work at 6am! How sweet is that? My Mom had already planned on coming to work early, but I still really appreciate the offer!

I don't know what I would do without Chris, who is taking care of my car this morning and helped calm me down. And thankfully, the fireman said the problem was minor and pretty inexpensive to get fixed. Praise the Lord for that!

Hopefully our anniversary weekend will go off without a hitch. It all starts tonight with Chris making me a surprise dinner! I can't wait:)

I love this picture because it's our wedding and it started to rain, yet our faces still say, "Nothing's gonna rain on our parade!". This is totally how I feel. No amount of car trouble is going to bring us down this weekend:)


I am so looking forward to getting off work today because my Mom and I are going for pedi's this afternoon:) Yay!

Hope your weekend is lovely and free of car troubles and strange rashes! =)