Thursday, July 22, 2010

Chicken Pasta Salad

A few months ago Husband and i made a trip over to Idaho/Utah for a week. We spent a few days visiting my family in Preston ID, then we went south to visit friends and some of Husbands family in Utah. While we were visiting his aunt's house, they were having a birthday dinner for his cousin Marie. The dinner was great. Fresh homemade rolls out of the over, a fruit salad, and the most yummy Chicken Pasta Salad i have had in a very long time. It was one of Marie's favorites, which is why she had it for her dinner, and a few days before the 4th of July i was able to get the recipe. *i hope she doesn't mind i'm sharing this with everyone, its just so good i had to share... :]
I've made it twice since getting the recipe because Husband likes it so much. Which is weird, because it has mayonnaise in it and he knows it. He hates mayo.

Chicken Pasta Salad

12oz. bow-tie pasta
12 oz. spiral pasta
2 c. grapes
3 chicken breasts cooked and cubes (or you can use canned chicken...it makes it a lot easier)
3 green onions
1 pkg. crasins
1 small can cashews
1 c. mayo
1 bottle Kraft cole slaw dressing (it has to be Kraft)

Mix first 5 ingredients together. Just before serving add the crasins and cashews. Mix the mayo and dressing together then stir all together.


This is a large recipe. When i make this, i have to cute the recipe in half because this makes A LOT for 2 people, and even then, we have leftovers. The next day we just add a little more of the cole slaw dressing to get it back to consistency.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

My small Dilemma

Yea for Husband and I, our 2nd anniversary is coming up in less then 2 weeks :) Its amazing how fast its gone by. Last year Husband actually had to work (duty on base for 24 hours), and i'm looking forward to spending the actual day with him this year. It was about this time last year that he returned home from a 6 month stay in NC for school with the Coast Guard, so we've finally got a whole year together. He's the love of my life that will go into forever and by far my best friend, and i know i love him more every day. He's more then i could ever ask for. Blah blah, cheesy stuff you probably don't want to read right now. You get the picture though. We are cheesy like that when we're together, arguments about who loves who most and all that. It spills over into the blog sometimes, so i'm sorry. I'm pretty positive i'll get more into all that declarations of love stuff on our actual anniversary, so i'll spare you all until then.

But yes, its coming up fast and we've been talking about *gifts* :) He likes to buy me gifts for some reason. Sweet as heck, and i know i've said this before on here, but i'm pretty sure we would be broke if i let him buy me everything i want. He's slowly getting it into his head that when i say i like/want something, that he's not expected to get it. Usually. But birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays are great for presents still.

I've been dying to get a KitchenAid stand mixer for forever, and every time one of the gifting holidays come around Husband offers to get it for me.... But i've told him no every time. Crazy right? I want it, but i can't justify getting it yet. There are other things for around the house we can get can get for a lot less money.
So, no KitchenAid. For now.
One of the rooms i would like to fix up in our house is our bedroom though. Our room is a mess. Basically a mix-match of furniture and clothes all over the place. Its a little depressing and embarrassing to tell the truth. I try to keep the door closed when people come over so people don't see, but inevitable Husband goes in there for some reason and leaves the door wide open. Ghaaa! Seriously? I hang my head in shame every time and have to run up the stairs to close it without drawing attention to myself so people don't notice and try to peak in before i get to the door. We don't have a dresser, just the closets. There's the little tv in there, my 1st TV/VCR combo i got my junior year of HS that i use when husband has to stay the night at work. The queen sized bed. Nothing fancy there: a new mattress set, and the usual basic metal frame. I have the metal headboard i bought when i was in college for $7 at Kmart (on clearance) set up with the bed too, but i really want to make my padded headboard for it in a dark taupe micro-suede. SOON. I have artwork, lamps, and the duvet i want for the room already. And then there's the bedside tables.... yuck. I had 1 when i was single that was ok....but leaves a lot to be desired. i think i found it for $10 at Wal-mart originally to go beside my futon in my 1st apartment. The other one is this weird unfinished tiny little shelf table i've always used to improvise with so we both have something. I want new matching bedside tables though. Since moving in last November, i've gotten Husband to hang up his clothes 2 times. When i do laundry, i'll separate and lay all his clothes out ready for hangers. Hangers are torture to me, and to him apparently because he usually picks up his piles of clothes, including his underwear, and throws them on the floor so he can climb into bed. He says he wants drawers though. So, i've decided i want this:
Its nightstand sized, and there are drawers he can shove his clothes in, at least a few of them, and i like how they look. They would go great with everything i already have and plan to do with the room. And bonus, they're $70 each right now. If you've ever shopped for nightstands, you'll know thats a great price. So, this is on my list of potential gifts. I know, nightstands as an anniversary gift....not really romantic. I'm kind of practical, or something. But i don't care.

My other choice for a gift is this:
The Come Unto Me statue of Christ. I'm in love with it. It's beautiful. I've always wanted the Christus statue for my home, but i think i would love this one more. And right now, its on sale (like 70% off).

So that's it. Those are the 2 things i want for our anniversary. Stuff to decorate my house with. But i can't pick. Which would you pick?? I'm sure i'll get some See's candy as well, or flowers, because that's what anniversary's are for :) Husband has no idea what he wants so i'll have to think of something super special for him. He never wants anything, so he's pretty easy to make happy....if i can think of something. That's the hard part.


Friday, July 9, 2010

Blog Traffic

Do you guys remember this post? It was the one i posted with the invite for all of Husband's family that were going to North Carolina to come Parasailing with us while we were there over Memorial Day weekend. Just a short little invite, family specific, with a picture of some random people parasailing at the top. It was the one post i've made on here that wasn't really meant for drawing the general public of random readers to worry about reading....But for some strange reason, it's the one post that's drawing the most traffic to the blog.


Its been going on for weeks. I've been watching the Live traffic feed, and i think its safe to say that over 95% (if not more) of the random readers land on that page first. WHY? I changed the Title of the post from "Parasailing" to "Come Parasailing" hoping that might change the draw for people to land on it, like maybe they would get the clue that its not a post about the parasailing experience itself.... No go. So, i decided to just add the disclaimer in red at the top to redirect everyone.

But that still leaves the *WHY?*. Why is everyone landing on the blog for that post? I've Googled, Yahoo'ed, and Binged "Parasailing", and the blog doesn't pop up on any of the searches, so that leaves me with no idea what the draw is. There's nothing interesting about this particular entry. I've considered just deleting it, but i haven't obviously. I don't have a reason to dissuade anyone from reading about us (unless i start getting some crazies leaving weird comments, but that hasn't happened so i'm not too worried yet). So i guess, to any of you readers that may have stumbled onto the blog because of my "Parasailing" invite post, i would more then appreciate a hint for why you stopped by because i really want to know :)

Monday, July 5, 2010

By Aircraft?


Have you ever seen one of these signs? They have them here in California, but i can't remember if i've seen them anywhere else.
My real question is:

How does this work??

We drive down the highways enough, and i've never once seen any type of "Aircraft" flying overhead keeping tabs on our speed. Trust me, every time i see the sign i do search the skies. Are they lying to us to scare us into driving the speed limit? Or are they really hiding in their patrol cars off in the bushes in wait for us to not take them seriously? i'm sure if i Googled it, i would find out how it really works, but to be honest i think i find it more interesting to speculate what's really going on....but then again, i do want to know. What do you think?