Family Matters

In keeping with my usual theme, I'm way behind on this entry! A few weeks ago, I was gearing up for a nice, relaxing, "alone" weekend at my apartment, but I got a call from my mama asking if I'd be up for a couple visitors. Never one to turn down an opportunity to see people, I said yes and welcomed my mom and my Aunt Becky with open arms! :) They timed it out so they'd arrive when I got done with work, so that was nice. We had a pretty lowkey Friday night, and as usual, we spent a little time at Scotty's Pizza across the road. Such an interesting establishment! On Saturday, we did a little bit of shopping at TJ Maxx (found a few goodies, including the shirt I'm wearing in the photos below), and on our way back, I made a comment about there being this bar that I always drive by and am curious about called Off The Clock. I'm not one to go out on my own too often, so I've never stopped, but we happened to be coming up on it (hence why I brought it up), and in a split second moment, we whipped the car in to check it out. 100% worth the stop. I don't know why I was always curious about it, I never even got that good of a look at it driving by, but man, what a neat place! Not to mention that the people who worked there were incredibly friendly. We had lunch there on Saturday, went home and relaxed for awhile, ate dinner at a place called Beer Belly's, and then ended up back there to end our night! And then on Sunday, when we walked to Scotty's to get pizza for lunch and were informed they don't serve food until 4:00 on Sundays, we ended up going back to Off The Clock for lunch. Ha! Same bartender from the day before too, wow! She was so nice. Becky got brunch while mom and I shared pizza. And get this with the brunch. Whatever you order, it also comes with unlimited biscuits and gravy, breakfast potatoes, AND donut holes. Not just one of those things. ALL of those things. In addition to what you order. Say what?! So much food. And so delicious! Anyway, that basically sums up our weekend. Not like it comes as a surprise, but the three of us had a wonderful time and I'm so glad they came to visit. They'll be down again in a couple weeks for a concert, so I'm sure I'm in for some more fun! I included a few pictures from the weekend below, ones I know Aunt Becky would approve of. ;) A great weekend, and I'll do my best to add a few more posts in the near future about what else I've been up to lately. On the go as usual, but I appreciate you faithful followers! Until next time...

A nice one!

Charlie's Angels? :)

Sisters! (Love this one!)

Me and mama at Beer Belly's!

American Idol Update!

First of all, I'm sorry for being so MIA lately. Here's the thing... One, I've been really busy, and two, I don't feel like I have that many exciting things to report as of late. ;) Anyway, as you may or may not recall, it wasn't too long ago that I did an entry about a fellow UW-L alum, Reed Grimm, who was in the audition previews for American Idol. Well, it's been a little while since that post, and since there's probably a decent chance that most of you don't follow the show like I do, I thought I'd give you a little bit of an update. Basically, he's ROCKIN' it! He obviously made it to Hollywood week, and once there, he made it through his solo round (see video below) and two group rounds. They really seem to LOVE him. And as you'll see in the video, he originally planned to sing his solo acapella, and with less than an hour before his performance, he was told he couldn't sing without the band. After a minor panic, he pulled it together and put on a pretty cool performance. At this point in time, he's in the Top 42 (out of hundreds of thousands of hopefuls). This week, they perform solo again, and the judges will narrow it down to the Top 24, at which point they perform for America and WE get to vote. Not gonna lie, I think he's got an amazing shot at making it into the top 24. I don't know how far he'll make it, but I'm just so excited for him and hope people respond well to him! If you're interested, you can also check out this article on UW-L's website. Naturally, the school and everyone who went there is proud to have an alum repping us so well!

Lastly, IF you watch, I thought I'd let you know that I'm also a big, big fan of a contestant named Heejun Han. I've included his audition video below too. Skip to 1:15 if you just want to hear him sing. Love his voice, love that song, love everything about him. He's a bit awkward, yet hilarious, and he doesn't have a clue how good he is. I encourage you to search videos of him on YouTube. His Idol clips have been pretty awesome. He's been a HUGE part of the show up to this point, and I have no doubt in my mind that he'll be in the Top 24 given how much screen time they've devoted to him. I think he belongs there. I can tell you at least one person who agrees: L. He love, Love, LOVES Heejun. Almost too much. ;) Interestingly, L watched an episode of Idol simply to see Reed's audition (he doesn't normally watch), and now he's hooked and even claimed he'll vote too. Wow! I was equally impressed and am excited to see how this season plays out. I'll be rooting for both of them! :)

Drake Hall

This is a bit of a random post, but it hits close to home for me, so I wanted to write a little something about it. As you may or may not know, when I went to UW-L, I lived in a dorm my freshman year. While I moaned and groaned about being in the one female-only dorm at the time (a dorm that no longer exists), I do have to credit my on-campus living experience for introducing me to one of my best friends in this world, Shawna. We were randomly assigned as roommates and ended up living together for nearly 4 years. For that, I am incredibly thankful. Anyway, because I had such a positive experience living on-campus, it made me incredibly sad to learn about a recent fire in one of the dorms on UW-L's campus. It took place in the basement of Drake Hall, and while no one was hurt (thank goodness), I had a really hard time looking at images of the damage. If you have time, watch the video, but otherwise the images are just below that.

Initially, students were told they could move back into the dorm relatively quickly, but after the damage was assessed, officials said the students had to live elsewhere for the entire semester. Talk about a total nightmare for the residence life folks on campus. Anyway, I think you'll understand why people can't move back once you see the pictures. The fire was contained, but the damage was far-reaching. Selfishly, I keep thinking about how upsetting and frustrating that would've been if it happened while I lived in a dorm. All your stuff is packed into a tiny room, and then you have limited time to get it out before the building's closed for the rest of the school year. Your "home" is essentially gone. Did I hate my tiny room at times? Hell yes. But was it my "home" in La Crosse? Absolutely. No one wants to lose their home, no matter how big or small it is. So, I guess I just wanted to say that I feel terrible for the people who've been dealing with this, and also that I'm proud of everyone at UW-L for handling a terribly unfortunate situation with such thoughtfulness and professionalism. In times of prosper, I'm proud to call UW-L my university, but in times like this, I'm even prouder. Go Eagles. :)

One Year Ago...

If you're anything like me, you've probably been both excited and freaked out by how nice the weather has been lately. Excited because it's amazing, but freaked out because you fear it's only a matter of time before we get hammered with some sort of winter blast that we've seemed to escape so far. If you're not thinking it, you should be, because it is WAY too early for it to stay this nice. I'm convinced of that fact. As I've been sitting around thinking about all this, I had a horrendous flashback (a flashback that occurs relatively often), to the blizzard in Milwaukee last year. Take a look at my post from exactly one year ago. Remember that unbelievable blizzard? Yeah, "I" remember that unbelievable blizzard... I seriously still get chills and want to cry when I think about how much that absolutely sucked. And when I think about that, I fear that I will experience something similar again this year. We have had very little snow this winter (yet again), and it just seems too good to be true! Well, good for ME. Maybe not for those who might want to go snowmobiling. ;) Anyway, not much else to say on the topic, but I was talking with some people at work today about the fact that the blizzard was exactly a year ago today, and how different that is from the upper 40-degree temps we've had this week. My, how things can change from year to year!

Zuppa!

It's a two-posts-in-one-day kind of weekend, folks! :) Let's jump right in. I don't know about all of you, but I'm a huge fan of the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana soup. Never fails, whenever I get the 'soup or salad' question, I will 100% always respond with, "I'll have the Zuppa please!" Something about it just makes my mouth water, and you can't forget the fact that it goes perfectly with those delicious breadsticks! Anyway, through my periodic Pinterest browsing (I say periodic because I've kept my obsession in check over the past few weeks), I ran across a recipe that is suppose to be a clone of OG's version. Being the skeptic I am, I thought to myself that a recipe couldn't possibly get it exactly right. However, just because I was skeptical didn't mean I wasn't curious. I finally decided to give it a whirl last night because I have one of those RARE free, relaxing weekends to do whatever the heck I want! Got a few groceries from the store after work and then got down to business. Overall, the process to make it was incredibly easy. And rather than make you wait until after the photos to give you my verdict, I've got one word: AMAZING. Seriously, such a delightfully delicious soup! I will undoubtedly be making this again. And probably very soon. :)

You can certainly check out the recipe here, but for ease, I thought I'd include it right in this blog post as well. Trust me when I say you need to try this recipe immediately! Take note in the ingredients that when you see a *, it means that I included a note below about what "I" did when I made this recipe. Lastly, please forgive me for my less than stellar food photography. Blame my phone camera!

All the ingredients!

All prepped! (Onions, garlic, potatoes, and kale)

Fry up the bacon. Sizzle, sizzle. :)

Add in the Italian sausage.
Drain once browned.
(It was VERY hard for me to buy non-Smith Bros. meat.)

Push the meat to the outside and saute the onions and garlic!

Add in the chicken stock.

And the potatoes...
(Let simmer for 20 minutes.)

Now add in the kale.

And the heavy whipping cream.

And voila!! All done already!
I paired it with some crispy French bread. Heavenly!!
(Seriously, go make this. NOW;).

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 slices bacon, cut into a small dice
• 1 pound hot Italian sausage (I think the hot is key! I've tried regular & it wasn't the same.)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups (32 ounces) chicken broth or stock
• 3 cups Russet potatoes, cubed
• 3/4 tsp sea or kosher salt and 1/4 tsp fresh black pepper
• 2 loose packed cups kale, in bite size pieces
• 1 cup heavy cream or 14 ounce can evaporated milk (I used heavy cream.)
• Parmesan cheese, grated, for serving

Now for the fun part... The PROCESS.

DIRECTIONS

• In a large soup pot or sauce pan, cook bacon over medium until crispy. Add sausage and break it apart as it cooks. Once sausage is browned and crumbled, drain off the grease, leaving a tablespoon or two to saute onion.
• Push the sausage to the edges of the pot and add onion to center; saute until translucent; add garlic; saute until fragrant.
• Stir in broth and potatoes, season with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper; simmer for about 20 minute or until potatoes are tender.
• Add kale and heavy cream or evaporated milk. Bring to a simmer. Serve with Parmesan cheese (and crusty bread, optional).

SO GOOD!!!

You Can Call Me Shooter.

A couple weeks ago, I was up in La Crosse (big surprise, huh;) for an extended weekend. It had been quite awhile since I'd seen L, and even longer since I'd been up to La Crosse, so it seemed like a good time to go since he'd just gotten back from Hawaii and since we both had that Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Anyway, we didn't have much for plans, just basically wanted to chill. Friday night, we just relaxed, Saturday was lazy until we went to his friend Lisa's birthday party that night, Sunday was spent primarily in a bar watching playoff football (no, we don't need to talk about that horrifically painful Packers loss), and on Monday, we went with a couple of our friends to shoot some guns. Yes, you read that right. We went to shoot some guns. For whatever reason, L has been on a major gun kick lately. Not for protection, more for sport. He recently got a new gun and has been VERY excited about it. Couple that with the fact that our friend Hammer is a huge outdoors-y guy, and you have quite the combo. ;) Hammer lives in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, so L and I went with Hammer and his girlfriend (my good friend, Kayleigh) to shoot a few different guns. Let me tell ya, I was nervous as hell. I've never really handled a gun before, well, besides a bee bee gun, so this was scary for me! Thankfully, L and Hammer are good teachers and made me feel very at ease! It was a bit of a chilly day, and I wasn't really dressed properly, but overall, I had a blast! I'm not sure I'd ever be a full-on gunslinger, but I wouldn't mind going to the range and shooting once in awhile. In fact, L seems to think I need this gun so I can join the club, so to speak! At this point, I'm not THAT into it, but maybe someday I'll invest. Until then, I'll just hang with the boys and shoot theirs. ;) See some pictures below, and take special note of mine and Kayleigh's awesome stances. Ha!

Sadly, the only picture I got of Hammer shooting!

L firing his new baby. :)

Not sure why, but I love this picture. I look tough holding L's gun. ;)

L onto a new gun!
(Kayleigh and I didn't shoot this one. Too powerful!)

Kayleigh shooting the .22!

My turn with the .22!

Hammer teaching me how to hold the muzzleloader!

Apparently my face was hilarious when I shot this one. It's LOUD!

Kayleigh shooting the muzzleloader while Hammer observes!

It's A Rare Condition...

I'm not sure how many of you get excited about American Idol, but I watch pretty much every season. Not sure what it is, but I really enjoy it. The fact that I have a DVR makes it SO much easier to watch, too, because I don't have to commit to so much time in front of the TV as it's actually on the air. Anyway, I'm not nearly as crazy about the horrible auditions as some people are. In fact, that part of the show always drives me insane. The good singers, on the other hand? L.O.V.E. It's always so exciting and entertaining to hear people with such amazing voices. I often wonder how there are still that many people in the world who can sing so well! That brings me to the point of this entry. The new seasons starts tonight, and guess what?! I know someone on the commercial previews! Say what?!?! Well... I guess I shouldn't say I know him, but I went to UW-L with him and we've interacted a few times, so it kinda counts. :) Anyway, he's in a local band called Shoeless Revolution, and while I was in college, I saw them perform on a number of occasions. An interesting style, but I always really enjoyed seeing them. I actually even have one of their CDs. Since he had such a unique Idol audition, which I happen to think is quite entertaining and good, he was in a couple commercials (see below). Judges really seem to enjoy him, so how fun would that be if he makes it a long way?! Stay tuned, because even if YOU don't watch, rest assured, I will, and I will keep you up to speed! And if you do watch, his name is Reed Grimm so you can follow along. :)

As Days Go By (Family Matters Theme Song)



If I Only Had A Brain