September Acres

I thought I would try to post something useful for a change. I saw this Recipe Swap at Life as Mom and thought that would be the perfect way to post something useful - and yummy. (She also does a Frugal Friday series which I have enjoyed.) Today's recipe theme is Mexican - Yum! When we moved to AZ 10 years ago I was bummed to be leaving my beloved mid-atlantic seafood restaraunts with their soft shell crabs & hush puppies. I figured some great Mexican restaraunts would take their place. Boy was I wrong. The Mexican food is OK but nothing great and really doesn't compare to the Mexican restaraunt in my small North Carolina college town (who'd have thought?) My friend made this wonderful salsa for my husband's 40th birthday party in October and since she has taught me to make it I haven't bought salsa at the store. It is quick, easy and delicious. Guests will be asking you for the recipe. And it's easy to adjust to personal tastes. 3-4 fresh tomotoes

Last night was 'Rat Pack' night. Jamie Foxx was the 'mentor'. I have to say that all the performances were very good. This group is very talented. My take on the whole thing (in order of their performances): Kris- Excellent job tonight. No guitar, just the voice and the band. Sang "The way you look tonight". Judges liked it very much. Allison- Very well done. She sang "Someone to watch over me". Simon was a bit critical saying he wasn't sure if she wanted to win. Give her some slack, she's 17. The other judges seemed to enjoy it. Matt- "My funny valentine". Good job. Judges seemed to like it. Simon swooned over him which he hasn't done before. Danny- Great performance. In my opinion, his best yet. I was starting to get bored with him but he was great last night. Judges agreed, some of them indicating they would see him in the finals. Adam- He did his thing - again. Enough said. Who will go- I think this is the best top 5 eve

This conversation took place on the way to the mall with Little Miss: Little Miss: "Mom, it look like you have some grey hair on the side of your head." Me: "Yes, I know. I need to color it again." LM : "Maybe you should get some hair dye at Walmart ." Me: "I have some at home." LM : "You should probably get two boxes." Alrighty then. I did feel better when the cashier at Walmart CARDED ME when I was buying my bottle of wine. I think they are supposed to card you if you look like you're under 40. Works for me. My husband called a bit ago and asked what I was doing. Me: "Getting ready to email the Art teacher to find out why Little Miss got a 92 in Art." Husband: "Okay, psycho mom." So, I ask you: Am I a psycho mom for emailing her? Little Miss does not remember not turning something in or not participating. I thought I would ask the teacher to find out if something was going on that I was unaware of.

On My Bedside Table: 'Firefly Lane' by Kristin Hannah (still...) On My TV: Nothing, yet. Later I want to watch "Town Hall for Hope" w/ Dave Ramsey, which I Tivo'd last week. On the Menu for tonight: Pizza Hut (using my Daughter's 'book it' coupons. My husband has a business dinner and Little Miss & I are having a 'girls' night.) On My to Do List: Laundry Changing Sheets New Recipe I tried last week: None In the Craft Basket: Mother's Day gifts Looking forward to: Girls night tonight w/ Little Miss, which includes a trip to our newly opened Michael's, Walmart (ugh) and Pizza Hut. Homemaking tip for this week: Write down a daily chore list. You (meaning 'me') are more likely to do it and it always feels great to cross a completed task off the list. Favorite Blog Post of the week: I got a great laugh from this post last week. We have all been here at sometime. Getting a tick

So, we leave in a little while for an out of town hockey tournament. Little Miss is thrilled beyond belief that she gets to leave school early (1pm instead of 2:30). When we travel I usually do the packing for all three of us. And I usually forget something. And it's usually something for my husband (like we are going to Yuma in July and I forget to pack a sweatshirt - yeah, we'll need to bundle up if it dips blow 115 - so it's usually not something TERRIBLY important). So a few trips ago I decided I would pack the underwear, socks and jeans/shorts (usually both - you never know what you'll need) & he could pack the rest. So far it's worked out well. I still pack his toiletry items because I am nice like that. I called him this morning @ work about 8' ish to see if he would need his shaving stuff. And he says, 'gosh, I haven't even thought about it, do you need to know now?' Ummm , yeah, I pretty much do as you want to leave by 1. Appa

Go visit Tahoe Girl and enter her beach bucket giveaway. Aren't these too cute? I have to run and see if I order one for Little Misses friend and have it arrive in time for her birthday party next Sat...

Yep, it's that time again. Last night was Disco/70's night. What could have been a disaster turned out to be a pretty good night. Of course, there were a few standouts: Adam - Yes, he was amazing again. No more can be said. Kris- Fabulous again. He sang, get this, "She works hard for the money" originally sung by Donna Summer. She has never been a favorite of mine. I even said to my husband, "I hope no one tries to do Donna Summer." Well, Kris did a great job with it. It was like a totally different song, thankfully. Danny - he did his thing again. Sounds and looks great. A few were good: Allison- She also sang a Donna Summer song, 'Hot Stuff'. It was not so hot for me but okay. And I think she will still be around for a few more weeks. She can sing, for sure. Matt - I loved his rendition of ' Stayin ' Alive'. It was good. Judges seemed to like it too for the most part. Anoop - Another Donna Summer song. Remember

None of it important. First off, I have a weather update: Yesterday ended up being 101. Today is supposed to be 103 & tomorrow, 105. Cool down is coming on Thursday - 99. Tonight Little Miss has hockey - can you imagine putting all that gear on in this heat? Luckily, the kids are more tolerant of it than the adults. Well, who didn't see this coming? I just heard on Fox News Radio that Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, announced his candidacy for Governor of California. Yippee. No offense to anyone, but what a scoundrel. Glad I don't live in California. And just wait, if he is successful (which is not out of the realm of possibilities) he will likely try to make the next step to the White House. You heard it here first! At least all his dirty laundry is public knowledge. I hope so anyway. I believe I have mentioned in the past how much I love my car . Anytime a tire needs air a little light comes on and lets me know. It's like magic. The light came on

No, not like this . More like it's going to be 101 degrees on Tuesday, hot. And 95 today. 99 tomorrow. Really? It's April for Pete's sake. It's going to be a long summer, I can tell. Have already taken out the bins of summer clothes since we will need them, pronto. The big question is how much of my summer stuff will fit? Could be scary...

... or the Idol update. The judges used the 'save' on Matt the other night. He and Lil were in the bottom 2, Matt having the lowest number of votes. But the judges came to the rescue and gave him another week. That's the good news. The bad news is that next week is going to be Disco/70's night. This will be when the cream (Adam) really rises to the top. If they can nail this one it should be a good week. But it could also be a train wreck. Stay tuned. I am helping my sister do a remodel in her rental condo she has here in town. You could say I am the general contractor. So far, so good. The kitchen has been demo'd - it's down to the walls. New cabinets, countertops, tile, fixtures & paint have been picked out and purchased. The kitchen tile is gone and the carpet should be gone by this weekend. I am going over tomorrow and test the paint colors. Before we buy oodles of gallons of specially mixed paint I want to test it out to make sure it's

I thought I would post my Idol recap tonight instead of tomorrow because: ~ I am not sure if I can post tomorrow - busy day. I have a little project I am working on for my sister. Details later. ~I know you are dying to see my opinion on this show! Tonight was songs from movies night. In my head I had this as 'show tunes'. So I was thinking we would hear things like 'Oklahoma' & 'Grease'. No, that's not what they meant. All in all I think everyone was pretty good. But we are down to the top 7 so they had better be good. And they'd better bring it as 'good' isn't going to cut it much longer. Here's my take on the whole thing(in no particular order): Allison : She sang "I don't want to miss a thing." The song from "Armageddon". Really great job. One of her best performances, in my opinion. Great reviews from the judges. Anoop: Again, one of his best perf

No red & no bow but my hair looked like this when I got up this morning. I washed my hair last night and went to bed while it was still wet. What was I thinking? It took forever to 'flatten' it down this morning. Of course, when I wanted 'big' hair, back in the day do you think I could get it? Why, of course not. I just heard on the news that Al Franken has been declared the winner of the Minnesota senate race. Yikes. I am sorry, people of MN. Maybe Gary Coleman will get another shot at Gov of CA, too. Of course, Franken may do a good job - you never know with politicians these days. As I was preparing Easter brunch on Sunday morning, my microwave went out. Lovely. So brunch ended up being a little more like lunch. The repair man comes today between 11 & 2 to look at it. Thankfully, it is still under warranty & I have the receipt. ( I didn't register it so I need the receipt. I don't register much since nothing ever breaks. Lesson learned

As a general rule, Debra doesn't assemble things. So when I bought my new vacuum the other day and it was in a short box I knew I was in trouble. I brought the vacuum home and opened it up, hoping I would just need to 'click' the top to the bottom. No, it couldn't be that easy. It was in several pieces and I actually considered returning it when I saw the bag of screws. Take a deep breath, I said. Look at the instructions; can it be that bad? After reading the instructions I decided to attempt it. Just then my husband called to say the countertop guy was coming over to put the countertop on our kitchen desk. PERFECT, I thought, if I really mess this up I am sure the countertop guy will help me. It actually only took about 15 minutes and - get this - it worked when I went to use it! This is quite the accomplishment for me. And I love my new vac! (For the record, my husband would have put it together when he got home but I wanted, no, needed to vacuum before t

Last night the contestants sang songs from the year they were born. I could have lived without watching this as all but one contestant was born in the 80's. The 80's, in my opinion, had some of the worst music ever (with the exception of Rick Springfield, but did anyone sing "Jessie's Girl"? No they did not.) So I wasn't really thrilled with any of the performances but they all did fairly well considering what they had to work with. Adam - the last performance but clearly head and shoulders above the rest. Another FAB performance. Danny - Another stellar performance. Kris - Another good one for him. Matt - Good performance, too. Anoop - He brought his 'A' game this week - great job. Allison - She also brought it this week and was back on top. Scott - Not his best performance but I enjoyed it. Judges weren't wowed. Who knew he could play the guitar? Lil - Not her best performance. Judges agreed. I was disappointed because I really like

So, my husband comes home from his hockey board meeting last night & I ask how it went. "OK" , he says. "Did you get anything accomplished?" I ask "Well, we are doing another fundraiser." He says. Of course they are - it's only been 4 months since the last one they did! Yippee. And that long since I have complained about it (well, maybe I have complained more recently.) They are raffling off a 50" plasma tv. Tickets are $10 and each child 'has' to sell 20 tickets. Yippee. Did I already say that? The really cool (sarcasm) thing is that all but one of the kids on my daughter's team go to the same school and most of the parents are friends outside of hockey & have many of the same other friends. Today Little Miss was supposed to have school pictures taken - again - we do fall and spring pics. Not surprisingly, the spring photos are a fundraiser for the school - of course. We get to school after much attention was paid to

On my bedside table: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah On my TV: nothing, tonight the NCAA men's final basketball game. Go Tarheels! On the menu for tonight: bratwurst, baked beans, salad On my to do list: start spring cleaning, vacuum, mop New recipe I tried last week : Nothing In the craft basket: Nothing Looking forward to: my stamp club today, sister's visit this weekend. Homemaking tip of the week: If you have any food scraps that will smell up the garbage (like shrimp tails, crab shells, etc) put them in a zip lok bag in the freezer until garbage day. They won't stink up the house or your big 'outside' trash can yet they will be out of the way until the garbage man comes. Favorite Blog post of the week: none that I can remember. Favorite photo of the week: Spring is here and Easter is on it's way! Lesson learned the last few days : Don't try to pack too much into your days - especially when little ones are involved. On my prayer list : My sister to

I painted my dining room wall (just one) yesterday. It used to be a sage green (no before photo, sorry). I wanted to paint it a pale blue to match the kitchen since the kitchen & dining area are basically one room. It actually looks a tad darker in real life than in this photo. And it looks really good - hard to tell here. Now, almost every wall in the house has been painted since we moved in 10 years ago. The above wall has been painted twice. The funny thing about this wall is that my husband still hasn't noticed it! I can move his recliner 2 inches and he spots it right away but paint a wall and he's none the wiser. I even mentioned it to him today but he hasn't noticed it since he's been home. You can't see it when you walk in the door - actually you can't see it unless you walk into the kitchen/dining room. But still...

to American Idol tonight. David Cook will be on and I think we will see some of his new music video. Should be good... I watched last night's Idol with my husband. I was not totally thrilled with the show since the contestants could pick any song on itunes (or something like that - but the choice of songs was huge) & I expected to really see what these people would do if they were to make an album. I didn't get that from any of them except Scott (he sang 'Just the way you are') & Kris ('Ain't no sunshine'). The rest of them were decent performances just not really defining. Adam, the front runner, sang 'Play that Funky Music'. He put a new twist on it which was neat but it's just not my style. That being said, I appreciate the talent it takes to do what he did & it was enjoyable to watch - just not something I would buy. So, who should go tonight? Since you asked: Please let Megan go home and put us all out of our misery. She has bee