Prayers for Grandma

Quote:  "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."
               Psalm 46:1


Last week we got some bad news that my Grandma's brain cancer was back. Not only was it back but another whole tumor had rapidly formed on the other side of her brain this time.

 It's a tricky cancer because its Melonoma. Melanoma is "skin" related so that means there should be a primary site for it since the brain would be the secondary site. The problem is no one can find the primary site... it seems that it doesn't exist which is puzzling to everyone -including the doctors.

Anyway- She had brain surgery to remove the tumor a few months ago and then had radiation. They thought it worked but as of last week the tumor was back and multiplying.

SO today at 12pm CST she is going in for brain surgery. They are going to try to remove the tumor that is re-growing on the original site. Please keep her and my family in your prayers -especially around surgery time.

After she comes through surgery (I just know she'll pass with flying colors again) she will have to start radaition again in 3 weeks.

This is becoming an ongoing battle for her and her strength has amazed us. She is such a wonderful woman and has shown compassion, strength, and understanding even when she's been scared. She has been a rock through it all and has allowed us to lean on her while she leans back on all of us.

I love my grandma with all my heart and am constantly praying -today and every other day- that she'll be ok.

Grandma after surgery the first time. Dad and Uncle Andy shaved their heads too!

 Grandma with her new stylin' wig. We kinda thought it looked Beiber-ish!!

Grandma with me on my graduation from UGA in May 2010. Such a blessing to have her there, as well as my other 3 grandparents, to celebrate.



Beer can chicken

Quote:  "The belly rules the mind." -Spanish Proverb


Last night I decided to try my hand at cooking a whole chicken for my man friend and myself. I was brave and decided I wanted to use my new Beer Can Chicken holder. It's a weird little contraption that looks like this:

You have to stick a 1/2 full can of beer in the holder and then basically just jam it up the chicken's butt.

The thing that made me gaggy was having to take all the gooey organ crap out of the chicken. It.Smelled.So.Nasty. I cut the chicken out of its wrapping and the juices were horrible. So horrible. I know people clean turkeys and chickens all the time but this was my first experience and it made me want to vom a little.

So, like the brave little toaster (aw good movie) that I am I jammed my hand right up it's rear and cleaned it out, rinsed it, and patted it dry. Then I seasoned that naked little chicken up real good. I mean REEEAAAAL good. Just kidding I was lacking on the seasoning so salt, pepper, and garlic salt it was.

Then I went right ahead and jammed the beer up its A**. Just jammed it. Well first I jammed an onion up there for flavor but then UPPPP went the beer. The little seasoned chicken sat upright on that can like a champ.

Most people grill the beer can chicken but I live in an apartment and can't have a grill on my patio so in the oven that little chicken went. I cooked him at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 45 minutes. And let me just tell you that little chicken sat there perfectly the whole time!

The chicken tasted really really really good. I had Taylor cut it up because I just couldn't take mutilating the little guy any further. Just kidding... I let him carve it so he could feel like a "man". HA

I didn't take a picture of my actual chicken unfortunately but it looked almost exactly like this one. I made some fresh green beans and homemade sweet potato fries to go along with the chicken.

It was delicious and SUPER easy. I'd recommend going out and getting the beer can base and cooking this yourself!

Smell ya later. Chef Amy OUT.

Double Spelling FAIL alert

Quote:  "Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary.' - Thomas Jefferson to his daughter

Double Spelling FAIL alert

Ok so I am WELL AWARE that my last name is tricky. To me it's not though and if you really look at it it isn't that hard. BUT to most people it is terrifying for them to try to pronounce or spell.

I (along with my siblings) get the question -almost daily- "How long did it take you to learn to spell your last name when you were in kindergarten?".

To which we've had numerous answers over the years:

• "I don't know."
• "I can't remember."
• "I guess not long because it doesn't stand out as some momentous achievement in my memory."
• "Approx 16 hours straight." (lie but it made them shut up)

and the best one yet...

• "I don't know. How long did it take you to learn to spell Dumbass?"

The last answer isn't really very nice but it gets some great reactions.

Anyway... it doesn't really hurt our feelings or even make us blink twice when we see our last name spelled. I mean its long so we can't totally fault the speller.

EXCEPT FOR TODAY-

Today I saw one of the greatest name fails I've ever seen in regards to our name.

Phillip Lutzinkirchen

I mean come on.. this was on national television for the SEC Media Days. It's kind of a big deal and it's kinda viewed by LOTS of people. The best part about this was that it was a double name FAIL. Both his first and last name were spelled wrong. I mean all you had to do was go online and look up the correct spelling. Philip Lutzenkirchen. This wasn't an instance where you should just "guess" or "sound-it-out". Whoever had the job of putting the players names on the screen definately dropped the ball today.

I laughed out loud.

I'm not saying I'm the world's greatest speller but when I know alot of people are going to see my writing I try to make sure I look up any words/names I'm unsure of.

**Please don't scan my blog for spelling errors from now on since I just said that. I type really fast and don't spell check on this blog. AND because that would be lame guys. ha jk

Smell ya later.

Re-cizzap

Quote:  "A man cannot walk out of his own story." -Rango


This post is going to be a recap of my exciting/thrilling/oh-so-fabulous life as of late. Side note- its not any of those things. My life is pretty standard and I like it that way!

Friday night it was my mom's bday and my roommates bday. So Friday night we all went out for dinner and drinks at Taco Mac to celebrate my roomies bday. (I didn't blow off my mom we just planned to celebrate it at the lake later in the weekend). We got all dressed up to go to a mexican restaurant and then out to some bars but after a few beers at our apartment it was 9pm and we decided we'd rather just walk to Taco Mac. So 7 of us walked the few blocks to the Taco Mac. You can't go wrong with Taco Mac... it's always a good fun place for a group. It didn't let us down either. We laughed so hard and had such a good time. We walked home at like 11:30pm and decided not  go out to the bars and I was quite alright with that!

Saturday we went to my boyfriend's parents house for lunch. His mom and step-dad are moving to Boston and we had to go to say goodbye to his step-dad who has to move a month before his mom leaves. It was a nice afternoon. We ate fried chicken, salad, potato salad and bing cherries. Then we just sat around and watched Antique Roadshow and talked. It was a really relaxing time and we laughed alot. It's always nice to spend time with his family...especially since they are moving soon and we will hardly see them anymore. I really want to get to know them as much as possible in this next month before they leave.

Saturday afternoon-Sunday...Straight from Taylor's parents house I drove to my lakehouse to meet my parents and my sister. My mom's cousins drove in from Chicago to spend a week at the lake for vacation. I didn't really know this part of my family very well so it was really nice to get to know them over the next 2 days. They are wonderful and it's a blessing I was able to spend time with them becasue who knows when I'll see them again! We had good food as always and the weather was wonderful.

Monday night (last night) Taylor and I had Date Night. We went to Sal Grosso which is a Brazilian Steakhouse. It.was.so.DELICIOUS. I had been there once when I was 18-my dad took me for my 18th bday. Taylor had never been so I was super excited to take him becasue like most guys he loves meat and loves ALOT of food. The last time I went I ate so much delicious meat that I ended up puking at the end of the night (involuntarily...don't get any weird ideas). GROSS I know. But there is so much to try I just wanted to test it all and then I was beyond the "thanksgiving" type feeling of being full. It was not fun (ask my friend Kelley). So this time I was more careful and we took our time. We had wine and sat there for like 2 hours eating and laughing. It's nice to have a couple hours to just recharge and be with him because he's a nice fellow and I like his face.

Sorry to anyone who was looking for an exicing post. My life is not too exciting and if this made you bored then I'd recommend you don't follow my blog because I'm a dull little creature ha.

Smell ya later.

To cut or not to cut..

Quote:  "Gentlemen perfer blondes...but gentlemen marry brunettes." -Anita Loos


To cut or not to cut..

Lately I have just wanted to shave my head. My hair is at that awkward length where I either need to cut it or grow it out. I need to make a decision ASAP though because my limp stick straight locks are making me crazy. Its so hot outside that I wouldn't mind not having hair for the next 2 months (lets hope that doesnt happen for real though).

In other news.. 4th of July was nice at the lake. The weekend was overrun by 17 year olds. They had fun and I'm glad my little sister was able to bring them all up there because they all seemed to have a blast. It made me feel bad for anyone who encountered my friends and I at 17 though. Man are they giggly and loud at that age. I had a few friends up too and my entire family was there which was AWESOME. We had a great time.

All weekend we wore patriotic colored bandanas.. we looked super cool. 

 Wish I was back on the boat now instead of stuck in a grey cubicle. Oh well.


This wasn't a very good post but I guess my fingers didn't really have the creative juices flowing while they were typing today. Sorry if you've read this far expecting something good... you aren't getting it. ha

Smell ya later.

you scream, I scream, we all scream FOR...

Quote:  " I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream." -Heywood Broun 


ICE CREAM
Since moving into a new apartment I've had an itch to start cooking more. I have a whole folder on my computer full of delicious looking recipes I'd like to try my hand at. The problem with me and cooking is that I get impatient easily. I also always think it's ok to "guesstimate", leave out items, substitute items, etc. So basically I struggle at following recipes. WHICH can be a PROBLEM. ***Especially when baking -don't even get me started on baking...you definately have to follow directions there and I never do. Baking is like an exact science and I am a terrible scientist apparently. Anyway- back to cooking. I can't wait to start cooking and making dinners.

So in the cooking mindset I decided to get myself a homemade ice cream maker (oh brother). I saw it on Craigslist for $20 so I figured "Hey, for 20 bucks why not take a stab at it?". My neighbor always makes us homemade ice cream and it is suuuuuper delicious. The ice cream maker I got can make soft serve and then you can freeze the soft serve if you want regular harder ice cream. The one I got is pictured below:



So I met the guy at a QT parking lot (could be sketchier it could have been a shell station jk) and gave him $20 and took home this little beauty.

You have to freeze the canister for 24 hours so I put it straight in the freezer and waited a day. After work yesterday I came home to start making some ice cream. You have to prepare the ingredients before hand by cooking them on the stove (because of the egg) and then cooling them in the freezer for an hour. I, of course, didn't follow the directions exactly because I was short about a cup of light cream. I figured it'd be ok... like usual.

After I poured the mixture in the machine and let it do it's thang I tested the ice cream. It was pretty good but not quite perfect. It tasted a little off (kinda more egg-y). I think this was because I didn't use enough cream. But all in all my first try wasn't half bad and it was definately EDIBLE which was a surprise to me.

Next up I'm going to steer away from simple vanilla and make coffee flavored I think. AND I'm going to make sure I have the exact ingredients!

I'm sure after this long post about basically nothing your mouths are watering and you want an ice cream cone. I'd suggest going to Chik-Fil-A and getting an Ice Dream Cone. They are AWESOME.

Smell ya later.

Finally home

Quote: "Enjoy your life without comparing it to others."- Condobcet

Ok, so since the last post I have been "homeless". I mentioned that my new apartment smelled like crotchy mary-jane and that the apartment complex said they'd fix it within a day. WELL...they lied. They didn't fix it and we had to break our lease with them. We moved out 24 hours after we moved all our stuff in. So for like a week and a half I had all my stuff shoved in my parents garage. I had no place to sleep, very little to wear, and it was STRESSFULLLLLL. We have been fighting with the old apartment complex all week too because they charged us rent and we want all our money back since we never even lived there.

Now to the positive part of my tale-

We put an application in immediately to an apartment complex in the same area that we  really liked. They approved us and we were able to move in 5 days later. SO as of this past Monday night I have been sleeping in my new apartment. It's still a little cluttered because we all literally dumped our stuff in as fast as possible. My room is taking shape and although its a tiny little thing (I pay the least amount of rent...woo) I think it's great. I'll try to post pictures sometime soon-ish hopefully.

After all the stress of moving in, moving out, and then moving in again within a week and a half I'm super happy to start getting settled. It's been an unpleasant situation but it turned itself around and I think we'll be really happy. I'd like to give mad props to my family, friends, and most especially my boyfriend for getting their butts into gear and helping me frantically move out when I needed to within 24 hours. They are lifesavers!! Taylor especially because he's the only one who was able to help me re-move in to the new place. He's a trooper and I'm super super lucky. It's also nice that he's handy (imagine dating bob the builder) because he's had to install a fan/light for me. ( I was going to post pictures of him doing this but the blog won't let me.. sad).

So all in all everything worked out ok and I now live in Atlanta. Maybe my life will be like an episode of Sex and the City. PSH yea right... I'm definately not down for that much PDA with strangers- No offense Carrie Bradshaw. I also think martinis are absolutely disgusting -I'd rather have a cold beer- so I guess instead my new life can be like an episode of Cheers? HA

Ok- hope you have a wonderful day.

Smell ya later you little bloggies.