House of Mouse

Note: The image you are about to see may disturb you.

Last Tuesday I found small droppings in the cabinet under my sink. I suspected mice, but I thought the droppings were too small to be mice. I googled "mice poop" and in fact, it was mice poop. I bought 4 mouse traps, 2 of the De-Con traps and 2 old fashioned wood traps. I set one De-con trap in the cabinet under the sink, one in the space between the fridge and the wall, and an old fashioned one between the fridge and the wall. Thirty minutes later I hear a "Snap!" and one of the De-con traps was closed. Erik was asleep so I made him throw it away the next morning. I thought the mouse was caught. I was wrong. I worked from 7 am until 11 pm on Thursday and came home exhausted and went straight to bed. Friday morning I get up around 9 and just casually glance at the remaining traps I left out just in case. To my horror, the old fashioned trap was flipped over with a mouse carcass sticking out. I immediately texted Erik and told him to come home as soon as his classes were over, and that I had caught the mouse. Well, Erik calls me at lunchtime and said, "I saw the dead mouse this morning but I wanted to leave it for you to see since you wanted to catch the mouse." Hello!!! Can you feel the love? Here is the picture I took of the dead mouse. Dee-scusting.

Just too funny not to post

Crockpot Chicken Paprikash

In a effort to save money and stick to a budget, I've been building a list of 30 meals that I can cook during the month. I got to #10 and realized that I was about 20 meals short! Now, I can cook a lot of things and put meals together, but I wanted 30 easy to make meals. So Monday I traveled through the blogosphere and found some new recipes. One of them was Crockpot Chicken Paprikash. Let me tell you, I love the crockpot. I am always in search of good crockpot meals, because they are so easy! This dish tasted great and I made homemade mashed potatoes to go with it. You can always throw in a green vegetable side to round out the full meal. Here's the recipe.

cooking spray
2 c. mushrooms, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp. garlic
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. chicken broth
2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 T. flour
1/2 c. sour cream

Saute mushrooms, onion, garlic, and bell pepper in a pan coated with cooking spray for 5 minutes. Stir in paprika, salt, and pepper. Put mixture into crockpot. Put chicken breasts (they can even be frozen) into crockpot. Add broth. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours. Stir in flour and sour cream and allow to cook another 10 minutes then serve.

This recipe makes really tender chicken and a nice sauce. Yum!

Note: Some of the recipes I try don't turn out great. This week I tried making "Chili spaghetti." Um, it wasn't the best, and it tasted like cheap canned chili, which was appropriate because that was a main ingredient.

Pictures

Last Saturday Erik and I got up before 9:00 (yikes!) and had professional pictures taken by our friend Rachel Shipp. Her husband Andrew is a third year law student and we met them back in March when we came to visit. They are also the ones who set up the guys to come help us move, so we became fast friends! Rachel stays home with her two adorable boys and has a photography business on the side. We haven't had any professional pictures taken since our wedding day, so I figured now is the time. You can view a few of these pictures at Rachel's website, www.shippphoto.com and then enter her blog and scroll down. We had a great time taking the pictures and then we when and got sunburnt at the Baylor game, which they lost.

I've Been Tagged....

Meredith Westmoreland tagged me to list 7 random things about myself so here I go:
1. I'm a very "homemaker" kind of person. I really enjoy decorating, especially for holidays, and cooking. I prefer to have people over and cook for them in my home than to go over to other people's houses. Every now and then I get cabin fever, but for the most part I'm a homebody.
2. I am not a morning person, nor a late night person. I admit it, I'm a bear in the morning until I've had a shower and some coffee.
3. My pets are my babies. We always had dogs and a cat when I was growing up, and it was just natural to have a pet around. Today Roxy and Sasha keep me company during the day when I'm home and provide lots of love and fun. I wish I could have more pets, but right now I'm doing well to keep the fur under control.
4. I am so glad we moved to Texas. So far I have a job that I enjoy ( most days), a husband who is enjoying school, a nice place to live, all kinds of shopping available, and a great church. What more could we ask for? Maybe some family near by?
5. I know lots of random pop culture trivia. I can take anybody down at Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. I dare you to try and beat me.
6. My favorite meal of all time is my grandmother's fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn bread, and black eyed peas. I can make everything like her except the fried chicken, which I don't even attempt to make so as to avoid gaining tons of weight.
7. One of my favorite TV shows is Jon and Kate plus 8. I TIVO all the episodes and watch it religiously. I think families with lots of kids are so interesting, but trust me, I'm not getting any ideas about big families!

We're still here....

It's true. I haven't posted anything in a while. No, it's not because Erik and I live this exciting life in Waco, TX (haha). Actually it's just the opposite. Erik goes to school 5 days a week from 8-5 and then studies a couple extra hours after that. I go to work 3 days a week and then try to recuperate after that. He studies, I cook, we play with the dogs, and most weekends we have people over to eat and play cards. This is our life right now and it's not too exciting. Add in the fact that I've had a sinus infection this past week and that leaves no blog posts. But I promise you, readers, we will be back!