Chicken curry

Every so often I like to switch up our rather traditional meals.  I grew up with homemade.  Mom cooked every night...well, most nights.  We had spaghetti, baked steak, roast, stew and chicken soup.  We had a meat and potatoes diet and I loved it.  Seriously, I didn't have salmon until college.  Why bother when your dad raises cows? 

But, I like to switch things up a little more now.  One pretty easy dish, chicken curry!

  

Get a couple pots and pans going.  

Saute 1 apple, 1 onion, about a dozen baby carrots, and a few stalks of celery in butter. 

As that cooks away, drop some chicken breasts in water, add 2 bay leaves and garlic with some salt and pepper.  

Once the chicken is cooked, I shred it into the pan with my veggies.   I add a tablespoon of flour, 1and 1/2 tbsp of red curry powder, cumin, a bit of cinnamon and stock from the chicken I just cooked, to make the sauce.  You could puree the veggies and stock, then add the chicken, but I don't mess around with making more stuff dirty.  I also don't measure my spices, but wingin it doesn't seem to matter.  

 

I also use the stock to make rice.  

Simply serve the chicken over the rice.  Boom!  Meal.  

You should try it!  It has some heat, but it is not like melt your face off hot (which Zac specializes in).  Curry will also make your house smell fab!  And plus you get to put something new, and uncomplicated to make, on the table.  

Eat up folks!

Flying Solo

Monday the 5th was my first day of solo practice. 

I am officially in business for myself.  Talk about intimidating.

I put press releases in the local papers and sent them to the radio stations too.  I sent out friends and family letter and attempted to let everyone who wanted to know where I am located now.  

I was thrilled when I got to the office Monday and had a voicemail from a patient wanting to get in that day. 

I set him up with an appointment, and went to town setting up the "refreshments."

They looked pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.  

I saw two patients that day.

And spent a lot of hours learning my medical records software.

And figuring out how to bill people using my new insurance clearing house.  

I also took a trip to Cliff's daycare to feed him at lunch.

Then I cried in the parking lot because I had to leave him and he was exhausted and red eyed. 

But I made it through my first day. 

And then I made it through my first week.

Things are slow, but promising.

I've done a radio interview and had 2 different marketing events with a 3rd in just a day or two. 

Plus, my friends and family sent me flowers and notes of congratulations.

They believe in me.

I am so appreciative for everyone's supoort. 

I may or may not have cried over my flowers.

I may or may not be a hormonal disaster all the time. 

I am officially a small business owner. 

Ya'll better be prayin. 

2 Months

So Cliff will be 11 weeks tomorrow and I'm just getting around to posting this....one of my 20 blogs in the "drafts" folder of my account which I can't seem to find the time to finish.. anyway.

Cliffy B had his 2 month appointment on the 9th.  He is growing like a weed.  These are his new stats

Now weighs 14.5 lbs (94.6%) 

is 24.5 inches long (98.11%) 

and has a 16.44 inch dome (99.25%).

In case you are keeping track, that's another 2lbs, 1and 1/2 inches in length and 3/4 of an inch added to his head in 30 days.  He is huge.

Sadly, I have reached my photo storage max on blogger and don't know how to fix it without paying a fee which I am not about to do, so you will simply have to hop over to facebook and look at the 2 month pictures I took myself.

Prepare yourself.

He is amazing. 

http://www.facebook.com/abbiejfox

Just find his 2 month album and have yourself a great day.

When Mommy is away...

the men will play.

 

Last night I had my first real marketing event. 

Cliff spend the night with his dad.  They were flyin solo.

Mom met me to pick up Little Bitty around 1, and I didn't get home until about 9.

It was a long time to not see my little manny.

 

At about 6, I sent Zac a message to see how Clifford was holding up.

Making sure he was not a disaster.

I was expecting a text back like, "good, ate 3 ounces" or "peed through his outfit, sleeping now."

 

Instead, I got this picture....

 

with the message....

 

"he's shitfaced"

 

Hahahaha! Cracked me up.

I literally laughed out loud.

It is totally a drunk face!

How many times have you seen that same expression on a college student's facebook page?

 

Suffice it to say, that response was unexpected.

By now you'd think that I would have a handle on my husband's special brand of ridiuclousness.

 

 

 

Poor Cliffy.

  Let us all hope that in the future that you are a bit more photogenic.

 

 

Ladie's

Hey Ladie...can I use your bathroom?

As I understand it, the bathroom belongs specifically to you.

Perhaps if there was a "ladies" room around here I could use it instead. 

Darn the bad luck. 

I love unnecessary ' marks. 

I also enjoy public stupidity.

Big men

This is baby Clifford the day he turned 1 month old. 

He is wearing a 3 to 6 months outfit. 

Something tells me Cliff may end up big too big for this world. 

He gets it honest. 

A country home

Well folks, Zac and I are moving, again.

We're movin to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches.

I hope you all now have the song stuck in your heads...

Since we've been married, that will be 4 moves. 

4 moves in 3 years....

This time with a new business and baby to fret about during the process.  

I won't complain a bit though, because I am THRILLED!

Dad bought the farm directly adjacent to the "north end" of his cattle farm.  The north end is where Annie and Maggie have both built houses, and where Zac and I want to build.  

The man that lived in the house passed away.   His last name was Kraus, this is the Kraus House.  The Krouse :)  His kids have since cleaned out the whole house and had a big ol' auction.  These are pictures before they had a chance to get into it.  

The house is adorable and has so much potential.  The yard is huge, there are a bunch of barns and outbuildings.  Plus, it has a full basement too. It is just really gonna be so fab!

This is what we are starting with..

This is the back porch, looking out to the carport.  I'm standing at the doorway into the kitchen.

If I turn to the right, there is this little room.  I'm thinking a sewing room for me :)

If I walk into the kitchen and turn around, you see the back porch from the pictures through the door on the right.  On the left is my GIANT laundry room.

Do you see that!?  That's a fantastic double sink in my laundry.  If we cloth diaper, this will be amazing.

Also, notice that deep freeze.  I can't even tell you how excited I am about it.

I forgot to mention, within my laundry room...a second bathroom. 

We are gonna rip out that bad shower and spruce it up.  

What you can't see, is that outside of the bathroom to the left is a whole wall full of closets.  Awesome.

Directly across from the laundry room door is the kitchen. Let me just say, I am so excited about all those cabinets.  I've never had cabinet space.  Now I have more closets and cabinets than I'll ever be able to fill!

This is the other side. As you can see, it's a U shaped kitchen.

We are thinking we will remove the doors and knock off the back, and have open shelves here because...

On the other side is my giant dining room.

See.

This is the whole kitchen.

We are going to take off that slightly lower wrap around counter and paint the cabinets.  

Honestly, we will paint everything.  

The floor in kitchen, laundry, and dining room is not great.  We don't want to tear it out because it may contain some asbestos...so we think tile right over it.  

To the left (behind a wall of course) is the living room.

It is also big.

Zac already has lots of plans for it.

This is the wall shared with the dining room.  You can see the front door in the corner of the picture.

North Wall

West wall

This is more the east wall, but you can see where the door to the back yard is. 

This is obviously our hallway.  Both doors on the right are to closets.  

Closets everywhere!

On the other side of the left wall is a little bedroom.

Behind the door on the left at the end of the hall is the second bedroom.

Zac and I have already ripped the carpet out of the hallway and the living room.

The bedrooms and the hall are all hardwood.  

We are gonna sand it and refinish it.  Again, pumped!

This is the bedroom on the opposite side of the hall.

I love the little built-ins.  

It will make a great playroom for Cliffy B.

This is the other side of the bedroom.

You can see Zac going into the second bedroom.

This is the second bedroom. 

And it's closet that spans the ENTIRE wall.

Then opposite side of the closet, is the closet for the 3rd bedroom.

Right outside of bedroom 3 is the bathroom on the left. 

I am so excited to have a bathroom that is separate from master bedroom.  So excited.

Also thrilled to have a tub.  I dig a good soak.  Plus, it would be difficult to bathe Little Bitty without a decent tub.  

Welcome to our little house in the country.  I will put up more pictures as we work on it .  Plus you should all see the little buildings and the yard.  The yard is so fantastic.

I can't wait until we get to really start workin on it.  Unfortunately I told Maggie that we would wait until her house is done and they are moved in before we make it the project of the month.  

Besides, Zac and I still have to dig out an area and prep to pour a concrete pad for our future shed.  We also have to run water line from the shed to the septic tank...that we still have to dig a spot for and set into place.  Like I say, projects galore. Get excited for us!

We can't wait to live in our new Krouse.