Best Calling Ever

I was called to the nursery last week. 

Today was my first day.  Best. Calling. Ever.

Little kids are fun.  

It was a great day...aside from the being pinched in the neck. 

P.S. Happy two-monthiversary, Husband!

Curry Makes My Belly Happy

I make this curry all the time now.  I've made it so often that I almost don't have to look at the recipe.

I decided I should tell y'all how I make it because the recipe tells you to do things way too fancy.

Sauce:
1/3 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar

Remaining ingredients:
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced onion
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon Madras curry powder
3 small dried hot red chilies, broken in half (Ash H. way: or a couple squeezes of sriracha sauce or you don't have to use it at all if you don't like spicy things.)
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup dry-roasted salted cashews, chopped
3 cups hot cooked short-grain rice

1. To prepare sauce, combine first 5 ingredients, set aside.
2. Cut chicken across grain into 1/4-inch slices; cut slices into 1/2-inch wide strips. Cut strips into 3-inch-long pieces. (Ash H. way: just cut the chicken any which way you want.  Bite size pieces are best.)
3. Heat a 14-inch wok over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil to wok, swirling to coat. Add half of chicken to wok; stir-fry 2 minutes. Spoon cooked chicken into bowl. Repeat procedure with 3 teaspoons oil and remaining chicken. (Ash H. way: Cook all the chicken all the way through with oil in the bottom of the wok.  You don't even need a wok if you don't have one but it sure makes it a lot easier.)
4. Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to wok, swirling to coat. Add onion, ginger, and garlic; stir-fry 1 minute or until lightly browned. Add curry powder and chilies; stir-fry 30 seconds. Add sauce and chicken, stir-fry 1 minutes. Spoon into a serving dish. Sprinkle with cilantro and cashews. Serve over rice. (Ash H. way: Add everything but chicken and sauce.  Cook til it looks doneish.  Add chicken and sauce.  Keep cooking. You don't have to use cilantro or cashews if you don't want.)

Makes 4 servings.

Bowl-A-Rama

We went bowling with Jaynee, Ryan, Brandon and Tiffany on Friday.  It was super and epic and really late.

Man...new bowling shoes...so good!

Team Awesome and Turd Ferguson

Tiffany, Brandon, me

2/3 of the trifecta

We're real cute.

Or we both ruin it.

But sometimes we get it right.

Our last game was played by each of us choosing a different way of bowling.  The scariest of all?  Bowling through someone else's legs...

That is the look of absolute terror on my face.

Saturday was spent cleaning and running errands.  Husband and I didn't see much of each other...tear, sad face emoticon. 

Me: "I'll be in the closet."

Husband: "What are you doing in the closet?"
Me: "...Coming out...Bwa ha ha!"

Husband: "I was expecting that."

Ahhh...He knows me so well.  I think I'm funny...he humors me.

What if...

What If is a party game that my friends and I play a lot.

It's really easy and the only supplies you need are pieces of paper and pens or pencils.

You play by writing a question down that starts with "What if".  Then everyone folds up their what if question, puts them all in a pile in the middle or a hat or a bowl or whatever you have.  Then everyone chooses a piece of paper.  Everyone then answers the "what if..." question that is on the paper he or she just picked up.  Then once again put all the papers in the middle...here's where the game gets fun and silly and hilarious.

Everyone chooses one more question.  This time you should have a question and an answer.  One person starts by reading his/her "what if..." question.  The person that goes next reads his/her answer.  It gets pretty funny.

While playing with some friends recently I got the question:
"What if Anthony was a millionaire?"

I wrote:
"Then Ashley would quit her job and spend her days laying by the pool."

Those sound good together and it's honestly something I would probably do.

When we read the questions and answers we got this lovely combination:

"What if Mike wore a polka-dot bikini?"
"Then Ashley would quit her job and spend her days laying by the pool."

Ah, geez.  I didn't even know Mike before this day.  We all laughed so hard tears ran freely, snorts were uttered loudly and people tumbled out of chairs.  

You should play this game at your next get-together.  It's really fun.

Whining = No Privileges For You

I teach p.e. to two 6th grade classes once a week.  When it's cold outside, I have to be creative to get that many 6th graders in the gym.  Yesterday, I thought we'd play crab soccer with a giant ball. I think it's a fun game.  Apparently 6th graders don't.  They all grumbled and whined and complained.  I cancelled p.e. and had them write essays about why they should be respectful and thankful that they get two p.e.s a week while all other grades only get one.  Here are some of the gems I got:

"I'm sorry if we disrespected you.  To tell you the truth, I didn't want to play crab soccer at first, but then I wanted to.  Some people I talked to wanted to do it.  I'm really thankful though that we get all the fun things you provide for us."   ~TI

"I'm not very happy that some people were giving my teacher an attitude but I have to live with it."   ~NK

"We should be bowing to our teachers because they work their butts off to teach us and just hand us p.e."   ~CV

"Our teachers are really nice and kind to give us their extra time.  They could let us do art or something, but they think an extra p.e. would make US HAPPY.  That is what they think about."   ~CB

"We didn't have p.e. today cause we weren't thankful for what we have.  I guess you don't realize what you have until you've lost it.  Everyone said, "That game stinks!"  I realize now that we need to stop doing that cause it's rude and ignorant.  I am sorry!"   ~SL

"I don't like some of the games we play but I don't complain because I'm too busy being thankful."   ~JB

"I'm mad at everyone that had groaned.  It's not nice, what they did.  It's rude to you and to everyone who doesn't get to play now.  I think people are rude when they do that.  Now we can't play and it's unfair to everyone.  But, because we did that we shouldn't be able to go.  Your choice was fair and I'm ok with your decision."   ~KW

"All the other grades only get p.e. once a week so when we whine or complain we are basically saying we don't want or deserve to be there.  We need to appreciate what our teachers do for us and make them feel appreciated or maybe one day they will just stop."  ~FT 

I think they'll appreciate any activity we do in p.e. from now on...or at least for the next 3 weeks.

I Know My Birthday's Over...

...but I really want a Silhouette. 

I'm still not sure if I'd actually use it but I see all these amazing projects that are possible and I think, "Hey, I could do that!" 

So if any of y'all have $300 laying around that you'd like to send to Silhouette for me, I'd appreciate it.

Trifecta Toms

Yep, we each have a pair now.

Bieber Fever?

If you know my sister Court, you know of her obsession with Justin Bieber.  Obsessed might not be a good enough word for how she feels about the Biebs.  She's crazy obsessed...and she's 21.  She says things like, "I'm so obsessed it's embarrassing."  I'd link to her blog with all her pictures of Justin but it's private so I'll give you this one:

Yep...Justin = Court's phone background.  Creepy?  Probably.  Funny?  Seriously.

This obsession began when she saw the J Biebs movie.

Being alone in her obsession with Mr. Bieber, she decided Grandma and I should go see Never Say Never so we could love him as much as she loves him.

Us right before the movie...look at the excitement in Grandma's face.  You know she loved J. Bieber long before seeing this movie.

 The movie was cute...Justin is a nice cute kiddo...good singer...talented.  But I am not obsessed.  Sorry, Court.

After the movie I asked Grams if she had Bieber Fever.  She said, "Well, I don't know about that but you know what I like about him?  You can understand all the words he's singin'.  And I like the ways he smiles."

She's totally got Bieber Fever.

What's Today?

It's my birthday!

Yahoo!!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I woke up this morning and did my normal blog reading.  And guess what I discovered.

I won some super cute earrings from Lindsay at Paint Me a Picture.  The birthday month gods are smiling on me.

Head on over there to enter another one of her giveaways and tell her how super she is.

Snacky Snack Snack

We've had many interesting snacks lately.

First, passion fruit:

"Looks like boogers...tastes like Heaven."

Then we had Lemon Plums.

 I forgot to take pictures of these at school but brought home an extra for someone to try.  Court was the lucky one to try it.  After being amazing at what it looks like, here's how she felt about the taste:

Our last odd fruit is a lychee (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong).

After peeling,

But don't eat the pit...it's poisonous.

Funny/Worrisome school happenings: A 3rd grade teacher had to confiscate pits one student had been gathering out of the garbage can, from other kids, basically anywhere he could find them then stuffing them into his pockets.  His plan was probably diabolical.

How's it taste, Court?

Much better than the lemon plum apparently.

Something That Always Grosses Me Out...

...touching a wet door handle at the school.  You never know what that could be.  Hopefully, you get lucky and it's just water but you never know...spit, snot, vomit, other bodily fluids.  Eww...just eww.

Funny Like a Bunny Dipped in Honey

After we corrected an assignment, I had a slight emergency and had to leave the classroom for a moment.

To keep the students from running amok, I told them to write a nice note to the person who's paper they corrected.  Most said things like, "You're nice."  "I like to play basketball with you."  Ya di da ya di da.

This was what I got from one student however:

Chocolate + Marshmallows + Cake + Infinity = Weekend Bliss

Not 100 percent sure where the infinity comes in but whatev.  It's my blog I can title this junk whatever I darn well please.

I made this cake over the weekend.  It's from Dana...as in Dana Made It...as in Made...my favorite blog to stalk and pretend I know how to sew and dream of all the cute clothes I'll make for my own babies and nieces and nephews and oh...the beautiful dreams I have.  Dreams.  I'll never really make any of the adorable things on her site.  Remember the sewing a dress for myself debacle?  Ay, yi, yi.  Terrible.

Super huge tangent.  The cake.  The wonderful cake.  You should make it...just saying.  It's delicious.

I'm making it for my birthday party Friday.  Hope everyone enjoys chocolate and marshmallows as much as I do.