Switched emails

I switched my yahoo groups that were on my other gmail account to my stampsandstitches account. This way I'll be logged in all the time (except the occasional logout by google) and it will be easier to log in to blog. I do have to keep logging in to blog but it's not as slow when I'm logged into gmail. Hopefully this will keep me blogging more often.

Also here's a recipe that is Sammy's favorite. She would eat this every day if I let her.

Easy Chicken A'La King

this is the lower fat version. I will post the original version but not today.

2 tbs butter (I use smart balance buttery spread)
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 large can chicken (about 12 oz) or the same amt of leftover cut up chicken
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 small can mushrooms cut up (optional)
1 small jar pimientos (optional)
rice or toast or biscuits or whatever you want underneath the sauce

Melt butter and cook onion in it until it's done. Put milk in a shaker cup and add flour. Shake for about 30 seconds. I have to time myself because I was actually shaking it for about 5 seconds and wondering why it wasn't all mixed. You have to shake it for a long time (to me, 30 seconds is a 'long time'). Add some of the chicken broth if necessary, to make it easier to shake up. Add flour mixture and chicken broth to the onion/butter in the pan, stirring with a whisk to avoid lumps. Keep stirring and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for a minute or two, stirring constantly. Add cooked chicken, peas and mushrooms and stir. Heat through. Stir in pimientos (or don't-I don't use them). Serve over rice or toast or biscuits or whatever. We use rice and call it "chicken-rice-peas" or just CRP when we're too lazy to say the whole name.

Daisy update

I'm blogging twice in the same day! I get extra credit for that! Anyway update on Daisy. Last week we weighed her and she was 27 lbs. Wow they really grow like weeds! When we got her, on August 27th, she weighed a mere 10 lbs. She has lost her 'puppy look'. She has one week left of obedience class and I suspect she'll be getting a big fat F when she graduates. Well to be fair she is the only puppy in the class and all those other dogs just get her all riled up. She pulls horribly during the heeling part. She is terrible about sitting when we stop. However she is very good at the sit/stay and down/stay as long as it isn't for too much time. At home she does much better. She is made to sit for everything-feeding, letting out, throwing a toy, everything. Petting is something she doesn't get much of because she bites too much. She is teething, complete with bleeding gums, so I guess that's why. It's very annoying. We just try to keep her busy chasing toys and chewing on them instead of us. She will be 5 months old next sunday so I know we have a long time before she's out of that chewing-on-people stage. She got a brand spankin' new doghouse yesterday-it looks like an igloo and is supposed to be very warm. She seems to like it a lot. Here are a couple of pictures. The first is just the face shot. The second she's carrying one of her beloved squeaky stuffies. She LOVES to squeak her toys.






She is getting a couple teaspoons of pumpkin in her food every day and doesn't go through a whole can in a week-so I have been on the hunt for low-fat pumpkin bread and muffin recipes and will try to post them as I try them out. I will have at least a cup or so each week to use up. Thank goodness pumpkin is healthy. Who would have ever guessed it's good for dogs and that they like it so much.

Halloween catch-up

I know, it's 2 weeks past halloween (almost). I need to blog more but I'm going to make a big excuse here-I hate logging onto blogger. It takes forever. Apparently google hates me now because it takes about 10 tries to log into gmail or blogger and when I finally do, they insult me with the "this is taking way too long-perhaps you'd like to use our option for ultra slow connections-the dreaded html mode". I don't like html mode-I'm not used to it. Anyway that's my excuse. And I have no idea why I made two different google accounts (one for gmail and one for blogger) because if I used the same account, I could just stay logged in.

Halloween was pretty much the same as every other halloween. We went to some friends' houses and grandmas where the kids got candy, soda and money. I am adding a picture of all three kids in their costumes. Jenny insisted on being a tiger. Guess what-there is no such thing as a big-kid tiger costume. Anywhere. I could not talk her into being something else so I had to MAKE her costume. I bought the amount of fabric on the pattern because I didn't want to run short. I only used half of it. I guess we'll have a few tiger striped pillows around the house now. And she has some spiffy new tiger striped pajamas. The paint is regular halloween face paint and I found a site online that showed how to apply it. It looked better in real life-the camera flash made the white part look whiter than it really is. Sammy was easy-she was a ballerina/bunny. She already has all the ballet paraphernalia so I just had to shell out $4 for bunny ears, tail and bowtie. She didn't want her face painted, which is a shame because it would have been much easier than the tiger face. Jake loves ready-made costumes, thank goodness. He was the blue power ranger and he also had a gen-yoo-wine power rangers gun/sword weapon. Cool! I added a picture of Jake by himself since he didn't have his mask on when I took the group picture (how did I not notice that??)