Sunday, January 17, 2010

Everyone needs a good dose of this every once in a while...



Headed home home (aka southwest MO) for the weekend and the fam and I got to have lunch with this stinkin' cute lil button...(oh yeah and his mom and gramma too) Saturday afternoon.


He's at that cute chubby cheek stage...



hello random lady in the back ground








Loves to eat...

Yep! Pretty much the best baby ever!




Hmmm...Kinda makes me wanna-----heehee gotcha!! Just kidding ; )
Have a great week!








Monday, January 11, 2010

Make these muffins! But only if ya want to : )







Not really sure what the deal is, but this Christmas break with no


class and too much time on my hands, all I wanna do is bake stuff!







I was aiming for Apple cinnamon crunch muffins, so these were


kind of an accident cause I didn't have the right ingredients, haha!





Bangin' Raisin Bran Crunch Muffins





Batter





1 1/4 cups flour


1/2 cup sugar


1Tbs. baking powder


1/4 tsp salt


2 cups raisin bran cereal


1/4 cup veggie oil


1/2 tsp cinnamon




Topping



1/3 cup brown sugar


1/2 tsp. cinnamon


1/3 cup chopped nuts














In a pretty big mixing bowl, combine cereal and milk. Let stand


~ 5 mins until cereal softens








(Yes, I used the cheap off brand raisin bran...I'm kind of a broke


college student what do ya expect?)




Ok, add your egg and oil and beat well. Add dry ingredients,


stir until combined. Pour batter into a greased muffin pan.






Topping:


Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts.


(Ok helpful hint...when chopping the nuts, definitely don't


put 'em in a plastic bag and beat said bag against the counter


cause the bag breaks nuts go everywhere!)






heehee






Sprinkle on top of batter.








Bake the whole mess at 400 degrees for ~20 mins


(and your roomies will love you forever!)










Yum










Sunday, January 10, 2010

Hey, horses like playin in the snow too!

So I'm kind of excited because it's only 10am and the temperature is
already the highest it's been for the past week (aka. 11 degrees...it's
pretty much a tropical heat wave)

Yesterday morning, however, this was not the case.

(Yep, that's right...-6)
This was me driving out to feed horses at about 7:30am. (Note the double
layer of gloves, sweet MU colored knitted hat, and early morning glare,
heehee) It may or may not have been just a little bit chilly.
But horses are horses, and they've gotta eat and drink too, so what else
can ya do?
You'd think that its a people-kinda-thing to want to play in the snow right?
Nope, not so much! Here's a couple of our horses that could care less about
what temperature is...they just wanna play : )
This is Champ, goofing/showin' off to the mares in the next pasture.
He's our newest stallion and is a cremello (aka. he has pink skin, blue eyes,
and a creamy colored coat. ) I'm not a nerd, I promise!



Here's good ol' Elliot! Galavanting around like a silly young thing.
You'd never guess that this old coot just turned 24!


Elliot again. Kiddo, tell me why it's a good idea to roll in the snow?
He's goofy, what can I say
Stay warm out there!

Friday, January 8, 2010

You really just can't make this stuff up

Ever have one of those days? Well then get ready for this story!

It’s 4:30pm Thursday evening; me and a couple other girls have just
finished feeding horses up at the University barn. One of the girls comes
up to me,

‘The automatic waterer in the weanlings pasture is broken,’

Me: "What?! They just fixed it Tuesday afternoon, must be the cold’’
(It was definitely 5 freakin' degrees yesterday afternoon)

So we call up the boss lady and are instructed to dump the 150
gallon tank from the indoor arena and haul it over to the pasture
and fill it with water. At this point I send the girls home
(they’re volunteers who aren’t getting paid to stand out in 5 degree
weather, I’m barn staff and most definitely am!)

Ok, tank dumped…loaded in truck…dropped off at front east
pasture. Wait a sec, the gate is frozen shut! Not a prob, I’ll just
chuck the 150 gallon thing over the fence. Whew!

Ok, tank in place…hose carried over…attached to nearest spicket
and filling tank with water. (At this point Amanda, another
barn staff worker, is on her way to the farm with
extension cord/another tank for the indoor arena/
heater for water tank).


I go inside the boarding barn to feed Elliot and wait for the
tank outside to fill.


(Ummmm...hi! Feed me now, please!)

……………………………20 mins later………………………………..........................

Me: ‘I’ll go outside and see how full the tank is,’ My happy ass heads back
out into the arctic blast, sees that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WATER in
said tank, and immediately assumes that the hose has frozen solid.

Ok, haul the huge, frozen hose into the heated bathroom of the boarding
barn. Head back to the spicket and start carrying buckets of water to
and from the still sadly empty tank. This idea had the potential to work
swimmingly, until I lift the handle of the spicket only to find that it too
has frozen completely solid!


(Spicket-much like the one in our story...
only not freakin frozen solid!)

It was just like the scene from The Day After Tomorrow where the cold
front is moving across NYC and freezing everything in its path.

At this point bawling my eyes out is pretty much the only logical option
to me; its 6pm, dark, freezing cold, and windy as hell. So I call up poor
Amanda who is on her way back from the store with everything and
we decide that the only possible thing left to do is fill buckets in the
boarding barn, put ‘em in the back of her truck, and haul ‘em over to
the stupid water tank--we only need to fill it half way in order for the
heater to properly do its job.

Amanda and her fiance arrive, we start hauling buckets back and forth,
and it only takes 2 trips before the tank is half full (or empty if you
choose to be that way!).

Tank-taken care of!
Extension cords-sufficiently long enough to reach from arena post
to tank!
Water heater-in place and working!


(This is the offending water tank the following morning)

Woohoo!!! I finally get to go home after being a dang Eskimo for the
past 3 hours!

………………………………....THE END……………………………….............



HAHA! I wish! It only gets better…

I go home, take the best shower ever, fingers are still tingling from the
cold, scarf down some soup and head over to Adam and Emily’s house
to chillax and watch movies.

I’m almost there, exiting off the highway when truckey decides she hates
me. The battery indicator light turns on, power steering goes away, I have
no acceleration, the lights are dimming, the radio shuts off, and I’m
coasting into the parking lot of a super sketchy gas station.

What to do?? Call the BF of course!

Me: “Adam what do I do? This, this and this just happened to my truck
and now I’m stuck in the sketchy gas station parking lot!”

Adam: “Ok, just relax, I’ll be there in a sec.”

Luckily he doesn’t live very far at all so I just hunker down in the
rapidly cooling off truck and wait a few minutes.

Then, I have no idea why, but I get the genius idea to try and start
truckey up again. And it’s a miracle! She starts right up on the first
try! So we limp on over to Adam and Emily’s and then to the mechanic
shop in the morning’.

And finally…the moral of the story is…there is none!

Winter sucks!

(Yeah, I think so too!)

: )



Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Dear frozen ice buckets, i hate you! love, me


You know its cold.



The kind of cold where the snot in your nose freezes the moment you
set one tippy toe outside.



The kind of cold where there's already a layer of ice crusting over the
horses' water buckets the moment you turn back around.



And by morning they're just about frozen all the way through. But ya
know what? There's just something about chucking said iceberg at the
ground full force and seeing all the chunks busting into a million pieces
that makes me feel just a lil bit better


: )