Cooper started out very shy.  He had to be near Mike, I’m not sure if he thought he was protecting Mike, but I think that could have been running through his mind.

By the end of class, Cooper was beat!! He had a great time and we learned a lot. I can’t wait to do some of the things that the trainer taught us!!

I am not one of those people that wants to grow old gracefully.  If there is a way to stay young, I want to find it. For years, I’ve used skin moisturizers that claim to reduce wrinkles.  I think it’s been pretty successful because I don’t think I really look 45.  I’m kind of cheap, so I’ve stuck with brands that can be found at the grocery store.

The morning my beautiful niece was born, we were watching the Cindy Crawford Meaningful Beauty infomercial and they mentioned that it helped with Rosacea.  My husband has that pretty bad, so I thought I’d order it for him.  I figured I could try it too, but it was mostly for him.

Since there is more than one step involved in this beauty system, my husband bailed on it, but I have kept with it.  I am happy to report that one of my biggest lines is barely noticeable anymore.  I’ve been using Meaningful Beauty for almost a year now, and I really like it. As an added bonus, it’s really not very expensive. They’ll try to up-sell you, but you can tell them no. I did. Every once in a while they send you a free gift, too. I would recommend Meaningful Beauty to anyone!

• nonstick cooking spray
• 6 6 inches corn tortillas, each cut into 6 wedges 
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken 
• 1 cup loose-pack frozen whole kernel corn 
• 1 16 ounce jar salsa verde 
• 3 tablespoons light dairy sour cream 
• 3 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro 
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 
• 1 cup crumbled Mexican Chihuahua® cheese or crumbled farmer cheese (4 ounces) 
• Cheese (optional)
• Light dairy sour cream (optional) 
• Snipped fresh cilantro (optional) 
• Chopped tomato (optional) 
• Jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced (optional) 

Trudy’s is one of those “Austin” places that everyone has to try.  We’ve gone to the one off Guadalupe for breakfast tons of times, but today was our first time to try the one off Burnet.  I’ve heard all my friends talking about their brunch for years, so when our friends came to town and wanted to do brunch, it seemed like the perfect place to take them.  For only $12.00, we had so many choices, I don’t even know where to begin.  They had migas, chilaquiles, enchiladas, waffles, chicken, tres leeches cake and so much more!  We got there early and they had more breakfast items than lunch but the waiter told us they add more lunch menu items as the morning progresses.  They had mimosas, bloody mary’s and a few other drinks for $2.00.  It was a delicious brunch for a bargain price!!  We sat on their patio and had a great time!! I definitely recommend Trudy’s for a Sunday Funday Brunch!!

A couple of weeks after Cooper ate my glasses and I finally went to the eye doctor.  It turns out that I have a lot more issues with my eyes than I realized.  Vision is not the only thing that determines if your eyes are healthy.  I have some kind of thing like a skin tag on my eye.  The doctor said it’s caused by sun and wind.  I never wear sunglasses and he told me I have to start.  They have to have UV A and B blockage, so that means I’ll be buying some fancy sunglasses soon!

Today is Saturday!! When I think of Saturday, I think of lounging around the house, going shopping, going to the lake, running errands, finding new places to eat, and mostly a day that’s all about ME and what I want to do!!  What I don’t think of on a Saturday is spending my day in a professional development training.  Well, that’s what I’ll be doing today.  I can’t even complain about it because I was one of the ones that voted to have it today and get last Monday off.  Seemed like a great idea a month or two ago.  Actually, if there was going to be a Saturday training, today would be the best day for it since Mike has to work today, too!!

I’m having the hardest time getting motivated today.  I need to get up and take Cooper for a walk, but I’d rather spend a little more time sleeping.  I’m going on my 3rd day in a row with really bad sleep.  I didn’t walk yesterday, so I guess I can’t skip today, too!!

I guess I better get going!  Hope everyone has a great day!! I’ll just pretend that my PD is on a beach today!  That should help! Right?

We are having a soul food luncheon at work tomorrow, so it is time for me to practice my easy cooking culinary skills again. I asked for suggestions on my Facebook page and I got all kinds of interesting suggestions.  My favorite one was from my friend, Leanne.  She told me about this amazing, EASY corn bread casserole recipe.  Don’t even think about counting the calories on this one, or you might not want to eat it. Ignorance is bliss, because this is one tasty recipe!!!


1 can kernel corn
1 can cream corn
1 box jiffy cornbread mix
1 stick of butter
8 oz sour cream
shredded cheese 

Bake it on 375 for 45-50 minutes. If you have a lot of people to feed, it doubles easily. It’ll still look jiggly in the middle, but the cornbread will look done around the edges.  

I really like cheese, so I may have put too much cheese on it! On the other hand, is there really ever TOO much cheese?!?! 

Today I was really excited when one of my friends gave me some new dog clothes!  There’s just something about dog clothes that is so entertaining!  It doesn’t really matter if they are in season or not.

I love cooking in the crockpot.  It has to be the easiest thing ever.  You just throw everything in and wait until it’s ready.  I found this really easy to cook chicken tortilla soup online, so I thought it was worth a try.  The most stressful part of the whole thing was going grocery shopping.  Since my husband was at work, I had to go myself.   I hate going to the grocery store.

I think that the biggest thing I learned from this is that our crockpot is really too small.  The next time I see a bigger crockpot, I think I will go ahead and buy it.  All of this BARELY fit in the one I have.


Ingredients

2 chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cans Ro-Tel 
1 can corn
1 onion, chopped
2 cans low-sodium chicken broth
1-2 cups of water
1 Tbsp garlic powder*
1 Tbsp chile powder*
1 Tbsp ground cumin*
1 Tbsp dried cilantro*  (I used fresh cilantro because I like the cilantro a lot)

tortilla chips
sour cream
shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

*Instead of these spices, you could include a packet of Taco seasoning if you prefer.*

Put chopped onion, rotel, corn, chicken broth, water, and spices in CrockPot and stir. Put chicken breasts on top of mixture and make sure they’re at least partly submerged in liquid. Cook on high 6-7 hours or low 8-9 hours. Before serving remove the chicken breasts from soup and shred it before returning it to CrockPot. Stir to combine.

To serve put a few tortilla chips in the bottom of a bowl, ladle soup over tortilla chips, top with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, if you like. It’s delicious!  Enjoy!

The original recipe also called for beans.   I don’t like beans, but you can add them if you want: 
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained