orange chicken

Dinner rocked. I left a few chicken pieces out so kiddo would eat her "nuggets" and hubby loved the chicken. He went from grumpy to happy in about 3 bites. lol

Here's my recipe.

2 large chicken breasts, diced into bite-sized pieces
1 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 c milk (note: I used vanilla almond milk)
Vegetable oil (about 1/2 inch in your pan)
1-1/2 c orange juice
1/4 c honey (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp ginger
pinch of red pepper flakes

Heat veggie oil to medium to medium high heat. Mix flour, salt, and pepper in one bowl and pour milk in another. Dredge chicken in flour, dip in milk, then dredge again. Pan fry over medium to medium high heat 3-4 minutes on each side then set aside. After all the chicken is cooked, pour off all but 2 Tbs of oil, then add OJ and deglaze the pan. Add honey, ginger, and pepper flakes, then cook over medium heat until sauce is reduced by half. Pour sauce over chicken and serve over cooked rice and with stir-fry veggies on the side. Wooo!

i'm a bad mommy

my wonderful son has been really whiny the past few ... what are we on now, days or weeks? i'm not getting much sleep between him and work. i'm trying to quit pepsi so my head hurts. (hey, that might be a reason he's so fussy -- second-hand caffeine withdrawals). and i just need a freaking break.

he's watching kung fu panda and playing with the remote.

he's 5-1/2 months old.

he's in my lap and i'm interacting when required, but i really just want to chill. oy.

The Notebook

Why oh why did I watch this on abc family tonight??? (julie, i'm wondering how on earth that's appropriate for a family channel, too, but abc family has surprised me more than once before).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I guess I felt like I needed to cry. I've never seen it before, but I knew it was sad and I knew it'd make me cry.

I am a dork.

Owell.

That whole scene about "this is what we do, I'm a SOB and you're a PITA" kinda cracked me up. ah, it's a little familiar.

I did enjoy it, but I don't think I can tell hubby I watched it because he'll think I'm all depressed again like I get after every sad love story. lol

And the candy chicken is ...

GOOD! Kiddo gobbled hers up, hubby ate some before I even came home from my haircut (it was done, but we left it on warm until dinner time), and I rather enjoyed it too.

Plus, the rice I cooked in hubby's rice cooker turned out all fluffy and delish ... that thing is the new favorite appliance in this house.

Soooooo ... haircut. Tilly is the name of the gal I love to have do my hair. She's a sweetie and I really like her, and even though she takes a while to cut it, it always looks good. She does an awesome dye job, too, but we skipped that this time. I'll go buy a bottle later or something. lol.

Anyway. I was at the salon with her when hubby texted me for our second date (yes, he really did, and I really said yes, and we're really happily married, lol), and she did my hair for the wedding. I hadn't seen her in over 2 years because she had a baby and quit working at the salon, but I have had my hair done a few times in between by other people and never loved it because we lost touch. Then, we ran into each other when Mojo was just tiny (less than 2 weeks old). It's taken me this long (5+ months) to call her for the cut, and she had a baby in October (when I saw her, she was obviously pregnant).

She's never seen my hair this long.

I had her chop 5-6 inches off, then she layered it.

I LOVE it.

I didn't tell hubby I was doing this today, but when he saw me come in, he said, "Oh, I like your hair!" Kiddo said, "I liked it longer." Dork. lol.

To sum up my day:
Haircut: Good.
Dinner: Good.
Snow: BAD. I hate snow. I got stuck in front of her house. Twice. *sigh*
Temple recommend interview: Done.

I'd better get to work. I'm not done with that.

Menu Plan Monday

I did pretty good last week. Had chili on Wed at DisGrace's, made hot wings and ribs on Thursday (I was sick so I didn't enjoy them like I wanted, lol), breakfast for dinner on Friday instead of orange chicken, and fried chicken, biscuits, black-eyed peas, and veggies on Saturday instead of soup. I didn't make it to the store, so Sunday we had chili and cornbread.

I couldn't plan this week earlier because I didn't get to the store until this morning. I think that's gonna be my normal routine now though.

Monday:
Spaghetti, spinach (monday is spaghetti day apparently)

Tuesday:
Brown sugar "candy" chicken, rice, mixed veggies

Wednesday:
Glop (aka chili mac)

Thursday:
Orange chicken rolled over from last week, rice, stir fry veggies

Friday:
Ribs, biscuits, gravy, green beans

Saturday:
Turkey, mashed potatoes, veggie of some sort, maybe dressing?

Sunday:
chicken noodle soup (i made a double batch of noodles last time and froze half; might be turkey noodle though with leftover turkey from Saturday and turkey stock, yummy)

*I would do the turkey sunday except we have 1 o'clock church and our turkey roaster cooks too fast to leave it since it's a relatively small bird.

Friday Fave Five

1. My RING! It's here! I took pictures of it on my hand , but need to upload them from the camera and, well, that's not happening today. but it is just as pretty as this picture. it's more demure than my engagement ring, smaller, but I love it and it's not going to stab the baby.

2. Playing cards with DisGrace and her family. That was a lot of fun.

3. Catching up with friends. Kaje called yesterday to remind me about her son's baptism and we got to chat for a while. I am sad though because I didn't get to see Jess and her family while they were in Utah. *sniff*

4. The baby found his toes. It's so cute to put him on his back and watch him grab both big toes and try to get them in his mouth. Yes, I have pics of that too ... le sigh.

5. Eyedrops. I tell ya, they've been really handy since the baby puked *in my eye* the other day. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

The Dark Knight

I intentionally didn't see this in the theater because I was so sad about Heath Ledger's death. We rented it last week but just barely got a chance to watch it tonight.

I cried.

Not because of the movie, but again ... sad about Heath Ledger.

As someone who suffers from depression, married to a person with bipolar disorder, I get mental illness. I am glad my "calling" isn't acting or anything like that -- I think dramatic and creepy roles would be such a temptation for me, but I KNOW what my limits are and I'd have to just not take those roles. I don't watch the news because of the drama and try not to read sad stories. Heck, there is classical music I don't play because of the emotion it brings out in me.

Yes, I do stick my head in the sand. Just call me an ostrich. :P

I'm not a movie star crusher or fanatic, just liked him and thought he was an incredibly talented actor. His role as The Joker was amazingly creepy, and I understand why he ended up crazy enough to need medication, and understand sometimes doctors just give meds instead of giving someone real help. As my sister put it, someone who is that brilliant in that way is probably a little crazy anyway. It just made me incredibly sad that they didn't HELP him and he ended up dying from the combination of medications in his system. I really don't believe it was a suicide.

And I'm sad all over again for his little girl.

As far as the movie itself goes, I loved it. Lots of good action, creepy villians, sadness, some funny lines ... but I will never watch it again.