My Kind of Pioneer Woman

I don't know if you've heard of The Pioneer Woman or not (surely you have!) but she's a woman that lives on a ranch in Oklahoma and has become famous for her cooking blog. She has a book and my mom bought it for me. I have yet to make a thing out of it, despite that I have heard that the recipes are fantastic, because frankly, they're ridiculously high in fat. She cooks like a southern cooker, and I can appreciate that. Well I was looking for a recipe to make for the holidays and I found one on her blog. So what you're about to read is my version of what she put on her blog for this recipe http://http//thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/11/pumpkin-cream-pie/. Ready? Okay, here goes:

Pumpkin Cream Pie

(See her recipe for full list of ingredients)

First, here's me with all of my ingredients set out. Oh, and it turns out that I have to wear glasses which is big news to me. I thought I had perfect vision!!!!!!!!! Anyway, that doesn't really relate to this blog post. (They're cute though, huh?).

1st you preheat the oven to 300*. Then you begin to make the crust. Crushed Graham crackers, 1 stick of butter (yikes!), and 1/2 c powdered sugar. Mix it up evenly and then press into the sides and bottom of a pie pan to make the crust. Pop it in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Mmmm Crust goodness.

Now you take pudding, ground cloves, nutmeg, whipping cream, half and half, and cinnamon in a pot and put over medium heat.

Oh, and don't forget the tunes. Bake happiness into your culinary creations. It tastes better.

Whisk your ingredients until it's fluffy and then remove from heat.

Add 2 tablespoons of whiskey. This pie says "I like to party"

** actually you can't taste it at all....

And here comes the star of the party. A cup of pureed pumpkin. Just stir it in. Then let the entire mixture cool.

If you're bored waiting for the mixture to cool, don't taste the pumpkin by itself. Not delicious.

Then I realized that I didn't have the 2 tablespoons of brown sugar that I needed. Ahh! Crisis! I looked online for a substitute. Turns out if you add regular sugar with molasses, Wa-la, you have brown sugar

(However I think it's a strong assumption that a person who doesn't have any brown sugar would have molasses lying around. I guess they were right because my mom had it!)

Looks normal! Tastes the same!

Now put 1/2 cup whipping cream in a bowl with the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

Then fold in the pumpkin mixture until combined.

Then pour it all into the pie crust that you made. Refrigerate over night. I added whip cream and some graham cracker crumbs for garnish.

Then serve it to your family and be delighted that they ate it so fast that you didn't get a picture of the entire final product. They LOVED it.

Make it! For Christmas! For Friends! Doesn't matter, just eat it. You'll be happy!

Read More

The Port-a-Potty

Technically Matt's the homeowner. I'll be a homeowner of said home in 6 months. Well 6 months 3 days. Don't judge me. Every wedding website imaginable sends me an email every day giving me a specific day to day count down. Matt's a really good homeowner. He idols Bob Vila. When we were all watching Sesame Street, Matt was watching "This Old House." (Although sometimes Matt is more like Tim Taylor from Home Improvement).

You know when you're a kid and working on the yard and improving the house was a chore? Now that Matt has his own house, it's a hobby. He loves it. Come to think of it, I don't think even when he's working on his parents house it's ever been a chore to him. Little Mr. Fix it. He has the tiniest little tool belt that his grandpa gave him as a kid. And a tool box with MATT on it.

Matt has single handedly put in an entire lawn at the new house. Like, he started with dirt. He built an entire flowerbed in the front and the back. He's done several walk throughs the house, making note of anything the contractor needs to fix within the first 6 months. He uses a tape measure for everything. So by now I should have convinced you that Matt takes pride in his home.

We are in a new neighborhood, so currently the two lots on each side of our house are being built on. Matt is talking to me on his way home and tells me that there's a Port-a-Potty on our side walk. I'm like, what? What do you mean? On our side walk? Do you mean more like on their property? He said no, like right in front of our house. I still don't believe him. That would be absurd right? I guess not.

Seriously? There it is, right in front of the house. So the next morning I call our builder and talk to a woman who must be 87 years old. I tell her that we have a small problem. I say that they've put a Port-a-Potty right in front of our house and that it's not very aesthetically pleasing. I even express that Matt has spent a lot of time working on Christmas decorations for the yard. She replies "Well that's not much of a decoration is it?" I said "Its like an enormous ornament."

The whole thing was easily dealt with, no blood was shed, and as of yesterday, no more Port-a-Potty.

Read More

The Weekend When I didn't Do Anything

I don't know if you've gathered from my blog or not, but I lead a pretty busy lifestyle. Always on the go, because I like it that way. If I can afford it, more often than not, I'm out of here. Well this weekend I was prepared (and excited) to do nothing. No OSU home game (although thank goodness we beat Texas! Who would have thought??). No visiting Matt. No major plans. I was pretty excited. I took my GRE study book home, made my thesis data available through my email, and even bought a new book. Here's how my weekend turned out:

Friday night- Went to Wal-mart and bought some toys for a stocking stuffing program for Adeepi alums to work on at the Ronald McDonald House on Saturday, and bought some ingredients for dinner- oh and that new book. I'm currently reading the Hunger Games series. I wouldn't call them a literary masterpiece, but they're entertaining and easy to read. However, if you want to borrow them I'm going to have to affirm that our friendship is secure because the last series of books I loaned out never came back to me because of a friendship fall out- and I guess she's too afraid to confront me and return my books. Soap box! Moving on.

After Wal-mart I cooked a nice healthy dinner and baked a cake made from Splenda (but let's not kid ourselves, it was just as bad, but just as yummy!). Danielle came over and visited for a few hours and it was great to spend time with her. We ended up talking for so long that we looked up at the TV and noticed the 700 club was on and I'm not sure what that guy was praying about, but he was very passionate about it.

Saturday morning I got up and went to the Ronald McDonald House to participate in the Tulsa Alumni Group project of stuffing stockings for families who suffer from an illness keeping them from home during the holidays. The Ronald McDonald House is Adeepi's national philanthropy, and a major reason why I joined Alpha Delta Pi. My heart goes out for those families, and it felt extremely rewarding to participate in a project that will make their Christmas a little happier. Props to the alums of Adeepi because they brought TONS of stuff and those kids are going to have a great time opening them. They're way cooler than the stockings we get at home! Also- Props to Miss Hasley because even though she knew she would be out of town visiting her dad, she arranged a time to meet up with me and still donated to the project. What a kind soul!

So there is me with my stocking and the table full of stockings for the kids.

After we finished filling the stockings I visited for a while and one of them alums gave me an awesome lamp and I'm really sad I don't have a picture. It's a paddle with Alpha Delta Pi burned into it and then it has a lamp fixture attached. You hang it on the wall. It also has "Spring Formal 1967" burned into it. VINTAGE! I'm pretty excited. I hope Matt likes it as much as I do.

So after all of the stocking stuffing I went to Steinmart and Hobby Lobby. I got some cool stuff for the wedding at Hobby Lobby and all of their wedding stuff was 50% off. Yay!

Well my friend Meredith asked what I was planning to do to watch the game @ 7:00. I didn't want to drive all the way back home and all the way back to Tulsa so I stayed in town and hung out with Meredith. I had a great time! We ate at Hideaway, went and saw Morning Glory (too cute!) and then came home, shared a bottle of wine and watched OSU beat Texas. We mostly talked through the whole thing and took the time to notice when we scored. I had a great afternoon getting to catch up with Meredith.

Sunday morning. I was prepared to do nothing. Maybe clean out my car. Study, yes I need to study! Hang out in sweats all day. Well my dad comes in and asks me if I'll take Joe to Tulsa to get some stuff for basketball. Credit Card included. OKAY! (Turns out that the credit card was in no way applied to any purchases for myself. bummer!). I'll tell you of a new deal I learned. Somehow in a game Joe ripped his basketball shoes. It was along a seam at the ankle part. I have no idea how he did this, but they were new shoes so I took them back to the store. They actually let me do an exchange, which shocked me. The guy told me something cool though. There's a "born on" date on the tongue of Nikes. If your shoe falls apart within 2 years of that born on date, you can send your shoes back to Nike and they'll give you a voucher for a new pair. Sounds like a good deal to me! Although, lets face it, it will probably take me more than 2 years to wear out a pair of tennis shoes. But good to know if you have an over active little brother!

So we shopped, went to Jamba Juice (Joe's version of Heaven), and then we went to the Bodies exhibit. I had heard that it was pretty cool, so we checked it out. It was neat. It was an exhibit from real bodies. Interesting fact: The bodies are all Chinese (due to their laws) and they are bodies from people who were never claimed and don't have any relatives (makes you want to make a friend, huh?). There were a lot of interesting things to look at. Some things disturbing. Another fact that they posted: Each pack of cigarettes smoked takes an average of 3 hours and 14 minutes of a person's life. Yikes! Over all it was entertaining and satisfied my curiosity about the exhibit, but it was $18 with the student discount and we were only there for like an hour. Soooo, it was interesting to see, but that will probably be a one time thing because of the cost.

We came back to town and I gave Serenity an early Christmas present that I got for her (oh I went to some garage sales on Saturday too). She's obsessed with Elmo and I found this tent that has a huge Elmo on it. There's no way I am keeping this in my house until Christmas, so she got it early! She loooooooooooooooooooved it! Elmo is bigger than her on it and his arms are open, so she went to give him a hug. Too cute. Now she has all of her Elmo toys in it. Money well spent!

Joe and I ended the night watching Charlie St. Cloud. I couldn't enjoy the movie because I had recently read the book and they are nothing alike. I'm surprised the names are the same. So meh, I give the movie a C.

I had a great weekend, now I'm back to work. So much for not doing anything though!

Read More

I am a Terrible Blogger!

Time for an update! I have been awful at blogging. Awful! I've been a little busy, and having a great time! Here's some highlights and I'll try to do better!

About 2 weeks ago was The Worlds Greatest Homecoming Celebration! I went up to Stillwater for "walkarounds" with a couple of girls from work and we checked out all of the house decs (I don't have the patience to posts pictures of all of the houses) but here's a couple of Adeepi/Farmhouse. They won 5th place! They did an excellent job and I couldn't be more proud! They work so hard! For those of you who don't know, what you see above is the result of "pomping". The image you see is made ENTIRELY of tissue paper, chicken wire, and pure creativity, engineering, and genius. Girls and boys work hours upon hours for WEEKS, MONTHS leading up to this special day. Placing in homecoming is incredible. So yeah, although I had nothing to do with their success (other than perhaps recruiting some of the leading ladies of the project), I am still as proud as an alum can get! (** Side note, I really don't know how to differentiate alum/alumnus/alumni/alumna, so you get what you see!)

We didn't win the game at Homecoming, but it was still a great time and a great weekend.

Oh- and the Sunday after Homecoming, my family went and saw Secretariat. Go see it. It's sooo good. Especially if you've ever loved a horse. It's such a great story and it was so fun to see that with my family. After we saw the movie, my family made their regular trip to Barnes & Noble (we're nerds) and after I picked out my book, I ran over to Alfred Angelo and tried on my dress again. We're good to go. I'm still in love with it. Just had to confirm! Picking it up this week!

The next weekend (so the 29-31st) I went on a very last minute trip to Midland to see Matt. It was so wonderful. We watched OSU beat K-State with our friends Ben & Sarah. We had dinner with several couples that Matt is friends with in Midland. It was nice to have fellowship with them. One girl, Sara, bought me a really cute Lolita martini glass with wedding rings all over it. I have really discovered with all of this getting married business that people can be so thoughtful!

So Matt and I reached a goal that we've been talking about for about a year now. We had an adult Snow cone. Kind of sounds like a strip club, right? Well it kind of looks like a strip club on the outside.

Well on the inside it look kind of like a gas station. Here you can go in and pick from a plethora (we're talking like 30 different options) of flavors of a snow cone. Then they just throw a few shots of rum or tequila in there. Add shots for $1 more! (Matt and I declined the extra shots). Texas seems to have a different take on "open containers" because see my "to go" cup.

It turns out that I have been all wrong about the definition of the "open container". In Texas you can have a Styrofoam cup filled with "adult Snow cone" and you just put it in a plastic bag, seal it with some heat and bada bing, bada boom, sealed container.

The sizes are regular- 20oz., Large, 32 oz., Gallon, and Bucket. I kid you not.

Crazy, but delicious.

Matt made every part of this super cool chalk board/dart board combo for the back porch. He painted the wood with chalk board paint so we can keep score. Well he challenged me to a game of darts. Knowing for sure that he would beat me. Well to his dismay, I am a little known dart playing shark and I kicked his booty. You have to get exactly the right score to win. I needed a 12 in the last round. I hit the 4, 3 times. Proud moment for me.

Matt was a little surprised and unhappy about my super victory and I am now reigning champion of the darts at the Padgham house. Never underestimate your opponent!

See, look at the dart board, before we ever played he put Matt- Infinity, Shanna-Zero. Showed him!

November 2nd was a big day. I got up very early to ensure that I had time to vote. I voted before the sun came up. I wore my Red, White, and Blue. Although the results didn't all turn out like I wanted, I am still thrilled that I took the time to vote. It makes me crazy that people fought and fought for the right to vote, and now that everyone can (except felons), so many people take it for granted. If you didn't vote, don't tell me about it 'cause you're gonna get an ear full. I KNEW the odds were against my ideals, but it doesn't matter. Every vote counts.

The only part that I am really disappointed in was the gubernatorial election. I'm also realistic and was pretty sure what the results were going to be well in advance. Jari Askins is a really nice lady and I think she had the right ideas on her side. She would have made a great governor. She also maintained her integrity and acted like a lady throughout the entire campaign, which is more than I can say for her opponent. However, it is what it is, and I really do want the best for Oklahoma. This isn't a football game, it's our lives. So, I wish Mary Fallin all the best and I hope she's a super governor, focusing on the needs of all Oklahomans, not just big business. I sincerely hope she proves me wrong.

While we're on the topic. I'd like to take the opportunity to say that I'm not at all unhappy that Republicans took the house. I'm pretty disgusted with the entire "party" system anyway. My hope is that now that Republicans have the house, they'll be forced to make more decisions that are not so popular, but necessary. I hope both parties learn to work together. Or at least I hope that they're forced to. That would be great! Like I said, this isn't football. This isn't we win, you lose, this is for the American people!

Moving on. Later on November 2nd I got to watch Sean from Biggest Loser season 8 do a presentation at OSU. It was really interesting! He has lost the majority of his weight since he left the ranch. Good for him!

I could have talked to him for hours about questions that I have about the Biggest Loser show. He did mention that since his weight loss he has an excess of 30lbs of SKIN. Holy Cow. He said he's not done losing weight, so he hasn't gotten the surgery yet. Yikes.

I have been really sick this week. I had a terrible cold. Probably the worst cold I have ever had. Wash your hands constantly! It's going around!

Matt and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary this weekend. It's our last "dating" anniversary. Kind of sad, but really just an opportunity for new beginnings. We met up in Bricktown Friday night. I got him a Blu-ray player, a DVD from our first date, and a devotional book that I had been working on. He got me a piece of awesome luggage. I have flown 10 times this year alone with some olllllllld luggage. It was literally falling apart. Like leaving pieces behind as I rolled it around. My new luggage is nice, durable, has great storage, and it LIGHT WEIGHT so I can bring more stuff. He did such a good job! He took me to a really nice restaurant called "The Mantle" in Bricktown. It was delicious and we even had dessert. The best dessert I think I have ever eaten in my entire life. Seriously.

Then we walked around and we went to see "Due Date". It's a lot like The Hangover but with less characters. It was funny. A boy movie for sure. Completely inappropriate, but funny at parts. Somehow I never get him to take me to a romantic comedy on our anniversaries. What's wrong with me???

On Saturday we went to Stillwater to watch the OSU game vs. Baylor. Baylor has actually been really good this year. Usually they're the team everyone is going to beat. Not this year. At the beginning of the game I was a little nervous for the Cowboys. Well we beat them! Not even a close game!! It was one of the most fun OSU football games I have ever been to.

We had dinner with Matt's parents that evening and just had a "chill" night and watched "Switch". I had an absolutely wonderful weekend. AND I got to sleep an extra hour this morning! Now you're caught up! On to another great week. Have TONS to do on my thesis. I need to catch up on several school projects. AND there's the GRE in December. So, hope you enjoyed my super long blog! I'll try to do better in the future!

Read More