Overheard

I walked in on the kids watching T.V. this afternoon.

me: "What are you watching?"
Eliza: "Animal Miracles!"
me: "Why?"
Eliza: "Because, it's these animals that do these awesome things! Like this dog hunted down a man that wanted to kill a woman."
me: "What? I think it's time to turn this off."
Eliza: "But these dogs are so awesome!"
Mairyn: "But getting killed is not awesome."

True 'dat, Mairyn. Getting killed is not awesome.

The Complete Experience

Wherever we go in the world, we always take plenty of pictures. Some (maybe me) take way too many! But I just see so many great shots. **tangent** Spencer was wiping my laptop clean and said I have 35 gigs of just pictures. Hmmm. **tangent done** The point being, I think wherever anyone travels, you are trying to capture everything about the experience. We also get out the video camera (** another tangent ** What do I call my video cam? It doesn't have a video tape in it. It's a 30G hard disk drive that records.**) We try and remember to record when we have the chance. Just the visual of a panorama or a kid smearing spaghetti in their hair! The movement, sound and pictures.

Last summer, we met up with some friends that used to live in Egypt. We were reminiscing about the craziness that is Cairo: traffic, pollution, pyramids, etc. But then they brought up a very valid point.

"We have gigs of pictures, more video recording than we can handle and oodles of souvenirs. But what really rounds out an experience is the smells."

And you know what? That's very true. We've shown family video of the city, traffic, pictures of pyramids and the Sphinx, but they still don't get the whole picture. Smell is the last sense that rounds out an encounter with a different country or city. Don't you smell fresh baked bread and it immediately transports you back to your Mother's kitchen? Or some not so nice smells? Like the putrid piles of garbage bags on my way to the gym each morning?


I was driven down this road of thought when I dropped Grant off at preschool this morning. It has been a little warmer this week, maybe low to mid 70s. Nice. So some trees are now blooming. The garden area of his school has quite a variety; lemon, papaya, some tree that grows green fruit, and a few other shade trees. We walked through the gate and I was immediately overcome by the smell of blossoms. Like a physical curtain when I walked from the street into that walled nursery. I discovered that it was the lemon tree in the corner right by Grant's little classroom. It was such a gem of an experience. I looked up at the sun shining on those pink blossoms and inhaled that sweet scent. I noticed bees buzzing from petal to petal and just felt transported out of this country! It felt like Spring! (We don't really have noticeable season changes in Egypt. Just Hot, Warm, Cooler and Windy.) Oh the wonder and magic of our senses! I think I will miss some smells about Cairo. One of my favorites, the spice shops in the Khan el-Khalili. Open barrels filled to the rim with saffron, cumin, vanilla, ginger, vanilla. The list goes on and on. Even the stinky fish section at Carrefour will have a small (very small) place in my heart!

Easiest Chicken Enchiladas. Ever.

Corn tortillas
boneless, skinless chicken breasts (sliced & uncooked)
1 bottle (10 oz.) green taco sauce
1/4 C. dried minced onion (or minced fresh onion, green onion for less liquid)
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) cream of mushroom soup, condensed
1 can (4 oz.) diced greed chilies, with liquid
cumin
2 cups grated cheese
salt & pepper, to taste.

This is someone else's recipe. But I did it all different. I'm going to tell you how I did it. This is all in a crock pot. You just layer things in. I even used one of those crock pot bags, and I didn't have to wash the crock pot afterwards. Hey, easy. I don't have a number of tortillas to use or amount of chicken, it depends on the size of your crock pot and how many people you are making it for.

Since I used a bag, I didn't lube the crock pot, you may want to spray on some non-stick spray. That's what her recipe recommended.

1. Put down a layer of tortillas. My crock pot fit 2 with the middles overlapping.
2. Then put in the raw, sliced chicken breast and then salt & pepper & cumin to taste.
3. I combined the taco sauce, onions, cr. of mushroom soup and the chilies with their liquid in a separate bowl. Then just pour on a reasonable layer.
4. Sprinkle on the cheese.
5. Repeat until you fill your crock pot.

The Layers:
Tortilla
Chicken & dry seasonings
Sauces
cheese

Turn your crock pot on HI for 30 minutes then low heat for 3 hours. I messed up and forgot about it and left it on HI for an hour and then I turned it down low for an hour & a half and then I was worried that the raw chicken wasn't going to be cooked, so I turned it back on HI for the last 45 minutes. I would recommend HI for the first hour, then low for the last 2 1/2 hours. They are really, so good. The cumin wasn't in the other gal's recipe, but it's an ingredient that I can't omit from my enchiladas. So add and tweak all the flavors for your family. They inhaled it, we had leftovers for only one night. I served it with a salad and Mexican rice. I have a great recipe for that too, but I'll save that for another day.

Wordy Wednesday: Incarnadine

I ran across this article the other day about an albino bottlenose dolphin in Lake Calcasieu, Louisiana. The rest of the members of it's pod are normal colored. He's being dubbed Pinky. Yeah, that's original. I think that 'Incarnadine' would be more befitting. I mean, let's get a little more creative here. Case in point, Blue's Clues, she's named Blue, wow that's a shocker. It is a little deeper meaning seeing as how she's a hound, 'Ol Blue, but still, wouldn't Azure have been a bit more educational? I mean, she has a pinkish friend named Magenta. Kids will pick up on anything. You teach them about squares, circles & dodecahedrons, they'll find those tricky dodecahedrons! But I digress, all in favor of Incarnadine, the albino bottle-nose dolphin, raise their hand.

incarnadine • \in-KAHR-nuh-dyne\• adjective

1 : having the pinkish color of flesh

*2 : red; especially : bloodred

Example Sentence:

"Tavel [wine] … is noted for its assertive fruit and magnificent rich and brilliant incarnadine color." (Vick Knight Jr., Press Enterprise [Riverside, CA], August 11, 1999)

Did you know?

"Carn-" is the Latin root for "flesh," and "incarnates" is Latin for "flesh-colored." English speakers picked up the "pinkish" sense of "incarnadine" back in the late 1500s. Since then, the adjective has come to refer to the dark red color of freshly cut, fleshy meat as well as to the pinkish color of the outer skin of some humans. The word can be used as a verb, too, meaning "to redden." Shakespeare used it that way in Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”


** word of the day thanks to merriam-webster online **

Cougar Fever

This is something that I could not have predicted. Who knew 11 years ago how addicted I would become to football? That's American football, not soccer. I started BYU pretty unaware of the whole popularity of it. I grew up away from the heart of Mormonland and all things related. I was thrilled, of course to be accepted to BYU, but I had also applied to the U of U, thinking one school in Utah was just as good as another. Boy, was I wrong! Those two schools are the biggest rivals in the Intermountain West. (but let's face it, there isn't much more there besides them, either. ;) )

I started my freshman year and was immediately immersed into everything BYU. I had a great next door neighbor in the dorms, Jamie, that introduced me to the love of BYU football. Her father had played BYU ball as well as her grandfather, and if Jamie could have played, she would. We bought student price season tickets, wore completely blue clothes and cheered till our voices were gone. At first, I wasn't sure what exactly we were cheering for. If a guy in those little, tight pants made to our end of the field with the football in hand, I knew that that was good. Other than that, I was pretty clueless. Through her tutoring, and maybe another boy or two along the way, I was being taught the ways of the game.

When Spencer & I met, it was at the beginning of the school year and football season. I found out that he was a die-hard BYU fan as well. I impressed him with what little knowledge I had accumulated, but I had much to learn. Teach me, you big hunk! And so he did. Now I find myself drawn even to the off-season. I am waiting, with baited breath, for the Cougar football schedule to be released. So far, they only have 4 games announced on the schedule. They said the complete schedule will come out in a couple weeks. A couple weeks? Aww, but I want it NOW! But you know what's even more exciting? September 19th, BYU vs Florida, playing at home and I will be there! Tickets aren't on sale yet, but Edwards Stadium in Provo, UT is where I will be on that Saturday in September.

A Proclamation!

It is that time! Time to start thinking about a new blog title. I'll still have the same address: www.penrodpos . . . . blah blah blah. But the title, "Life, Kids, and Pyramids" won't apply after mid-April. So, I need suggestions. I like alliteration. P, p, p what begins with P? But I don't like cutesy, syrup-y gaggy stuff. "The Peripatetic Penrods" has come to mind. We're going to the US, but just for a year. Also, I've thought about not having such a location-centric title. That way I won't run into this problem again. Hah! I've been brainstorming and have a few ideas, but I'd like to open up the sphere of imagination and hear opinions. Give me some ammo and then I'll put all the options in a poll on the side bar.

** I know, awful quality picture, but my computer is having some upgrades done and I don't have my picture archives right now. **

Random Thought, Pet Peeves etc.

I couldn't actually come up with enough fully formed ideas to make one complete blog post. Since I'm drowning in projects and annoyed up to my eyeballs, I'll group them all together in one place.

--> I'm turning against my own kind. Although I'd rather not be counted among other MMB's (mormon mommy bloggers) some think that I should just "Semper Fi" . I can't stand the stupid pseudonyms ('Mr. Choopy-woopy & I watched offspring #7 feed #3 a pop tart. Yummers.' Gag me. What are they, the Borg?) acronyms (although, can't blame 'em for that. it's programmed in every LDS's DNA) bad grammar & spelling, over-sized fonts and brightly colored texts make me want to vomit. I'm no nit-picker and I'm not out looking for a fight, I'm just annoyed. I will use the occasional slang word or abbreviation, but come on people, make some coherent conversation. These are smart, intelligent (I think) women that can do better than pander to a stereotype. Yes, I do read NieNie. That's different. We both have some common grounds (barely out of our 20's, 4 children, religion) and, you know, I just feel for her. I'm usually able to overlook most of my pet peeves. 'Nuff said.

--> Grant's new favorite expression. ". . . put off my shoes." Well, you put on your shoes, the logical response would be to "put off my shoes." "Mommy, I need help to put off my shoes." I've made it over the initial lost-in-translation barrier and it makes sense now.

-->Turn right to go left. This is rule number one for driving in Egypt. If there is a left hand turning coming up, go around all the people to the right and cut right in where it convenient for you. I think watching the movie, "Cars" is a prerequisite to receiving your driver's license in Egypt. Following Doc Hudson's advice of turn right to go left!