June Cleaver in Disguise

There's nothing like dealing with health insurance companies to make your blood pressure rise to very unhealthy levels.  It's like this EVERY YEAR.  The first time one of us goes to the doctor, I end up coming home and calling the insurance company because the doctor's office either says we don't have coverage or the coverage isn't what we think it is.  This year there were two issues:  they didn't have information on whether my children had additional health coverage (they don't and probably never will because my husband is the one whose company has insurance) and we hadn't filled out our online health assessment, so we didn't have the $500 in our account that we were expecting.

I filled out my health assessment (which, by the way, is a big waste of time for me and money for the company) a few minutes ago.  One of the questions was "What is your blood pressure?"  Well, when they took it in November for the mandatory health screening is was "108/71".  Today it's "through the roof/heartattack waiting to happen".  Another very important question was "How many alcoholic drinks do you have on a daily basis?" and they were kind enough to tell me how many ounces qualified as 1 drink.  Normally I go for weeks without taking one sip of alcohol, but today I want to have several.  They are driving me CRAZY!!!! 

On the up side, at least I found out before it was too late to take the online health assessment to get our $500.  On the down side, I have a 14 year old home with strep.

One of my friends on Facebook mentioned having hot chocolate and Kahlua.  That sounds really good right now.  Maybe I'll have some and go take my health assessment again.  By then at least one of my answers will have changed.

I keep repeating those words to myself, but it doesn't seem to be working.  It also doesn't help that I keep making recipes that are really good and really high in calories.  I have a high school reunion coming up (I'll just keep how many years my little secret) and I would love to lose about 10 pounds.  What with the rain, the cold weather and the good food, I'm not losing weight very fast.

I was thinking about going to play KENO with some ladies from church, but I just didn't get everything together in time to go.  We were going to all make a different kind of fudge for everyone to try.  I found this Cappucino Fudge recipe on Recipezaar.com.  Can you say heaven in every bite?  Even better, it's easy to make.  It took me about 20 minutes or so and was well worth every minute.

I think I'm going to drag my recumbant bike exerciser thingy into the middle of the living room floor.  Maybe if I see it sitting there I'll actually use it.  Nah, probably not.  Maybe tomorrow.

I made these last night and we were practically licking our plates to get the cheese sauce off (not really, but only because we were trying not to teach our 10-year-old that licking your plate is okay, although it totally crossed my mind once or twenty times).

I got this from The Living Proof Ministries blog.  If you haven't visited check it out.  It's written by Beth Moore and her daughters and is very uplifting.

Sunni's Cheesy Enchiladas

Ingredients:
(I always half this recipe)
24 flour tortillas
2 lbs. ground beef
2 lbs. Velveeta, cubed
2 cans Rotel tomatoes
4 (8-oz.) cartons sour cream
¼ cup butter
2 med. onions, chopped
1 dash garlic salt
Salt & pepper to taste

Brown meat with one chopped onion. Add garlic salt and salt and pepper. Drain. Coat large sauce pan with non-stick spray. Add sour cream and tomatoes, mix well. Add butter and heat on medium heat. Add Velveeta, stirring constantly. Add the remaining chopped onion. Turn heat to low and simmer for about 5 min. The cheese/butter should be melted by this point. Add a portion of the sauce to meat. Spoon meat mixture into tortillas. Lay in casserole dish, seam down. Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas. Cover and bake for 15 min. at 350 degrees.

We have a family of four (two really big eaters) and this was enough to halve and put one pan in the freezer for another night.  You could also make some Spanish rice and serve some chips and salsa to make it go even further.

Hubby and I were planning an entire dinner party around it.  Conversation:
"Now how many people can we feed with one recipe?"
" If we add rice and chips and refried beans we could invite another 3 or 4."
"How about margaritas with that?"  (Once again, not really, but they would be good since we would be going totally Mexican.)

If you try them let me know what you think. Did you want to lick your plate, too?

I have two very sweet, loveable OUTSIDE dogs.  Do you know what happens when you bring two very sweet, loveable OUTSIDE dogs inside because it's so cold?  They cry and moan and try to escape from the area I set up for them.  Because, number 1 they want to be in the same area of the house as us and number 2 because they are bored.  In turn, my oldest son and I get no sleep because they are crying and moaning and actually escaping from the area I set up for them.

My oldest dog Spot (very original, huh) is very vocal.  He is a shepherd mix (in other words, a medium sized mutt) and he "talks" a lot, especially when my husband is around.  I don't have any idea what he's trying to tell us, but sometimes I think that's probably for the best.  It sounds like a high-pitched whining and can make you cringe like nails on a chalk board.

My other outside dog is a Basset Hound named (and tell me if you don't think this is a perfect name for a Basset Hound)....Tallulah Belle.  She is not only vocal, but very smart.  When she's not crying or moaning because she's bored, she's trying to escape and run rampant through the house.  Last night we caught her actually opening the baby gate.  It isn't attached to the wall and she figured out how to use her nose to gradually slide it open.  We managed to fix that (thanks to my oldest son's obsession with Duck Tape.  "Mom it will fix anything"), but then she managed to push it open a different way, so at 1:30 this morning we were chasing dogs through the house trying to corral them back into their area.

At 12:30 this afternoon, I finally let them go outside to stay for a little while in the backyard.  They do have houses with straw and the sun is shining.  I will let them in a little later and we'll just pray tonight goes a lot better.

Oh   My   Goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Every time I think about writing a new post for this blog, my brain starts going in a million different directions.  I can't post about everything all at once can I?  I need to save something for that day when I have writer's block, which I'm afraid will come a lot sooner than I expect.

I guess I will go with what's at the forefront of my brain.

I'm sad/glad Christmas is over.  I'm sad because I just love the generosity of people during the holidays.  Christmas seems to bring out the best in people.  It also makes people think about the "Reason for the Season".  They might not think about Jesus much throughout the year, but they do at Christmas.  I wish everyone had the Christmas spirit all year long.

I'm glad it's over because I feel overwhelmed by the decorations in my house.  I am a minimalist and don't like a lot of clutter.  When I put out all of that "stuff" I enjoy is for a few days, but by New Year's I am ready to see it go.  It also doesn't help that I just don't really like most of the "stuff" I put out.  It's a lot of cutsy, knick knacks and I want ELEGANT (i.e. like Martha Stewart came in and decorates my house).  I have a sister-in-law that has the most beautiful decorations.  Her tree looks like a designer decorates it and she has beautiful wreaths and greenery and bows and ornaments and (you get the idea).  My husband said maybe we should get some ideas from her and I told her we would also have to get some money from her.  As much as I would like to, I just can't justify spending a whole lot of money on decorations that will be put out for about a month, so I guess until I get rich (LOL) I will keep using cutsy decorations.  At least my family doesn't care, as long as there's a tree up with presents underneath.

I would love to see pictures of your decorations (cutsy or elegant).

How in the world can it be so cold in North Texas?  I was watching the news last night and the weatherman had a graph of last year's temps vs. this year's temps.  It was 86 degrees last year on Jan.3.  86 DEGREES  What happened?  Okay, I really don't want ti to be 86 degrees in January, but I also don't want it to be 44 degrees in January like it was yesterday.  I need to become independently wealthy so I can move to a warmer climate, like Jamaica or the Virgin Islands.  Do you know what the current temperature is in Jamaica?  81 degrees.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
82° F | 69° F	80° F | 66° F	80° F | 68° F	80° F | 71° F	86° F | 71° F
Chance of Rain 20% chance of precipitation	Chance of Rain 20% chance of precipitation	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Chance of Rain 20% chance of precipitation
Is that perfect or what?  Unlike this post because for some reason when I copied the 5-day forecast it messed up something and now I can't figure out how to fix it. Oh, well, at least you get the idea.  I think I'll just go hang out in my laundry room where it's nice and warm from drying all of those clothes.

2010..... Twenty ten....It sounds so space age. How many of you thought we would be zipping around in flying cars? Living on the moon? Having robots clean our houses?

The first two sound okay, but that last one? The one about having robots clean our houses? That sounds AWESOME!! I have to admit, I do have a Roomba vacuum. It is my favorite cleaning apparatus. I had forgotten how much I liked it. Unfortunately it died over a year ago. The battery just went kaflooie (That's one of my new space age words.). For Christmas, as a complete and total surprise to me my husband had the battery refurbished. (How wonderful is he???) Now I can vacuum any room, any time and not even have to be there. Just put it down, push a button and leave.

I vacuumed the master bedroom first. I won't go into gory details. Let's just say it picked up a lot of stuff. The best part is it can go under beds and get all of the dust bunnies and other miscellaneous items. I found two washcloths under the bed before I started Roomba. I have no idea how they got under there. Sometimes it's best to have a don't ask, don't tell policy in my house.

Next I ran it in the boys' rooms. The game room is next, but I have to make the boys pick up all of the stuff off the floor first. Since I made them help me clean their rooms, I thought I would wait a few days to torture them again, alhtough my youngest might be game, because he was amazed at how much stuff it picked up in his room. He's a clean freak until it comes time to take a bath. The child would rather rot than take a bath. (My highschool English teacher would have marked up this paragraph with so much red you wouldn't have been able to read it. Not proper writing style at all!!)

Speaking of writing, I'm really going to try to do better about writing on my blog. I have a list of daily computer chores and that it one of the things on the list. "Write on blog". I won't be as witty and charming as Big Mama (I just love her), but I will try to be somewhat entertaining.

Hope you had a wonderful New Year's Day. Although this warning is a little late, whatever you did on New Year's Day is what you will be doing all year long. At least that's what my Mama always says.