Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and Gravy

Sounds good, right? Last night I decided to make fried chicken for dinner. It's been a while since I've made it and Ryan and I both really like it. (Note: When I say fried chicken I really mean chicken tenders.) So I cut up some potatoes, got them cooking on the stove and started in on the chicken. Some of the chicken was still a little frozen, but I figured after frying in the hot oil and then sitting in a warm oven it would be fine. At least normally it seems to be. I got all the chicken fried and into the oven and stirred the potatoes. They still needed some time, so I thought I would kind of clean up the kitchen. It was pretty clean when I started dinner, but I had made quite a mess and didn't want to deal with it all after dinner. I cleaned up all the fried chicken mess and then decided I would go ahead and put the oil in something. A glass jar (like the one pictured, but a little smaller) should be fine, I thought.

As I went and got the jar I wondered if the oil would be too hot for it still. No, it had been sitting for a little bit and it wasn't as if the jar was cold. So I put the jar on a hot pad to protect the counter and started pour in the oil. POP, sssss. "Oh, no! That was really stupid!" (Duh.) Ryan comes in the kitchen with Olivia as I scurry for something to clean up oil. What DO you use to clean up hot oil? Of course, I had no paper towels; it would take about a million napkins. Meanwhile, oil is running all over the counter. I grabbed some old towels. Ryan helped me clean some of it up and Olivia managed to somehow stay out of the way. I did end up using some napkins.
Ryan: "I'm surprised those towels didn't catch on fire."
Me: "Eh, yeah, well, they didn't. (sigh) Good thing."
A few minutes later, as we were finishing,
Ryan: "At least the house didn't burn down."
I tossed the jar into the trash can he was holding for me to dump stuff into. "Oh, wow", I said, "the whole bottom came off."
Ryan: "Ohhhh, it cracked."
Me: "Yeah." I kind of gave him a strange look. What had he thought had happened. I just missed the wide mouth of this jar and managed to dump oil all over the counter? "Were you putting it in there so you could use that pan for gravy?", Ryan asked. Gravy? I hadn't even thought about gravy. Another sigh (I've been doing a lot of that lately. In fact, Olivia came in our room the other day as we were getting ready to go somewhere. She stopped, slumped her shoulders and "sigh". Really funny, but I knew she must have heard me doing it.) "Actually, I had forgotten about gravy," I said.
"Oh, well, that's ok", he said hurriedly, "we can do without it tonight."
"No, it will be better with it." So I made gravy. It turned out really funny. Not sure exactly why, because I think I made it the same as I always do. The chicken wasn't salty enough, also not sure why since I'd been quite generous with it. The potatoes were good.  Actually, everything tasted ok after you put more salt on it. Oh, and, of course, some of the bigger pieces of chicken weren't completely done. Rather a disappointment after you had been looking forward to it. Ryan looked at me while we ate. "Do you need some Starbucks?"
"Anything with chocolate," I said.
After dinner I was washing Olivia's hands. "Was your dinner yummy?" I asked. Pause. "Or was it interesting?"
"Intewesting," she said. I laughed really hard. I needed to, and it WAS really funny.
While I was getting Olivia ready for bed, Ryan went to Starbucks and got us a Venti decaf Peppermint Mocha. "Us?" you might be asking. But yes, he bought it with his gift card he got for his birthday, so he deserved at least half. It tasted amazing!

Mom's Visit - Feb. 12-14

A week and a half after the fact and I'm finally posting about it! We had so much fun when Mom was here. I think Olivia remembered seeing her when we were in Virginia, because she attached herself to Mom right away. It was so cute. After we picked Mom up at the train station, we went to Chino's (a little chain Mexican restaurant) to get her some lunch. Before she ordered, Mom noticed Olivia was looking at her like she wanted Mom to hold her. Mom asked her if she could hold her and Olivia said yes! Within a few minutes of us sitting down to eat, Olivia had fallen asleep with Nana holding her. It warmed the cockles of my heart. No, really it did. We didn't do much on Tuesday - just let Olivia finish her nap at home and then Mom went to Norman and Vicky's for dinner and we went to meeting.
Wednesday we met Laura for coffee around 11 am. Then we went to Powell's to get some candy and to Target so Mom could get Olivia an early birthday present. Watching a kid shop is the most hilarious thing to see. Olivia was so excited to see all the toys. She kept going from one toy to another, pushing buttons on all of them. Then she found a toy shopping cart and was pushing that around while she shopped for more toys. Oh, and of course she was jabbering about everything and dancing when she found a toy that played music (she kind of does a chicken dance - flapping her elbows and bouncing up and down). So funny. I wish we had taken pictures, but of course neither one of us had remembered to bring a camera. Olivia went home with so many toys. I think her favorite is the LOL Elmo (a new name for Tickle Me Elmo). She carries it with her all over the house (she even took it outside once) and if you put her in bed with just her bear, she asks for Elmo, too. I'll have to do a post just about Olivia and Elmo. Anyway, so after our shopping trip, we went home, had a late lunch, and put Olivia down for a nap. We had to wake Olivia up when Ryan got home because she had slept so long. Then we went to Trader Joe's to get some snacks for Mom's train trip back up to Sacramento and ate dinner at Pier 46 (they're in the same shopping center). Pier 46 is supposed to be owned by the same people that own Giovanni's in Morro Bay. Needless to say, they have really good food. After that we went to San Luis to try to find something for the new baby. We went to Sear's and World Market , but unfortunately, all the good baby stores close by 6pm, so we weren't able to get anything. But...we did stop at Madonna Inn for some cake. So the trip to SLO was not in vain. :) (Sorry, Karyn, I'm probably making you sick.)

Olivia's entertainment during the car ride? Nana's iPad of course. :) She was learning her alphabet, matching letters all by herself, and "painting". She had a blast!

Mom's bus left the train station at 8:55 on Thursday morning. We were there about 30 minutes early, but we probably could have shown up 10 minutes early. 8:55 was when the bus actually showed up, then they loaded everyone up, the bus driver made a few notes in his note pad and off they went. It was sad to see Mom go. Olivia started crying when Nana got in the bus. I think she thought we should go with her. I'm so glad Mom made the trip down even though it was so short.

Famous Last Words

So in my last post I told how I was going to be on top of my house work so I would be ready for drop in company. Hahahahaha! Well, things did not go quite according to plan. Things got cleaned just not cleaned up. And on Saturday night, February 9, we had surprise company. We were invited to Jon and Frieda's for dinner along with the other FXBG girls and spouses. "So glad we could get you all out here at the same time", they said. "We've been wanting to do this for a while." Should have tipped us off. That along with Frieda asking me, quite casually, how far apart in age Olivia and Abigail are. We had a late dinner around 7, then us girls played a rousing game of Nerts (I need to work on my speed). Eventually the guys stirred themselves enough to get up from the dining room table and join us in the living room, where we sat around visiting for awhile. A little after 10, I heard a scream from Addie and looked up to see her running towards some people that had walked in the house. At first I just saw Curt and Jeanie's family and Maggie. "How fun", I thought, "she surprised her sisters." Then I saw that there were MORE people. Jimmy, Stephanie, Abigail, Brodie, Callie, and Carla. I was in a state of shock. :) So to make a long story short, we had Callie and Carla stay at our house Saturday and Sunday night. My house was not perfect, but it didn't really matter. I was a little embarrassed, but I got over it. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It's been fun having all of them out here at the same time and I'm so glad that they were able to do it. Many thanks to Jon, Frieda, and Caty for their part. More on our fun packed week later, but now it's time get ready to meet the girls for yogurt. :)

The Chore List

I hate chore lists. Actually, lets be honest - I hate chores period. But sometimes I find myself making lists just so that I know what to do next. I made myself a list not very long ago with different things to do every day, so that by the end of the week I would have a clean house. I was very faithful about following it for a week. My house looked amazing - at least I thought it did. I could have had drop in company and not been the least bit embarrassed. Even the kitchen was clean. The next week I'm not sure what happened. Life I guess. Then I was right back where I started. So my goal for this week is to go back to that list and at least try to follow it somewhat. Then maybe I won't feel so much like pulling out my hair at the end of the week. :) That's the goal. So far so good. I've made my bed 2 day in a row. Don't laugh at me (or gasp and say you could never live without making your bed first thing in the morning). I've also scrubbed my kitchen floor on my hands and knees, done some laundry, and dishes. Not too bad for a Tuesday.

Our Tale

Ryan told me I should start a blog. Olivia's getting to the age where she's talking more and it's fun to keep track of all the new things in her life. Besides the fact that sharing the blog with others will allow them to have a part in our lives that they wouldn't ordinarily have. So herein lies our tale. Our bad days and our good - hopefully mainly good.

 

This pic is almost a year old. Hopefully I can uplpad a more recent one soon.