Resistance Bands and Giblets

After Bootcamp this morning I would like to say, "Death to Resistance Bands!"

I thought we were home free this morning towards the end of class and then Boom Boom Pow came on and he got this extreme burst of energy and had us pick em up!! I never quit but my legs were shaking like they were in ice water!!

Sunday night I decided to use my wonderful crock pot again. I had a whole chicken in the freezer that I pulled out to thaw. After about 5 hours of thawing I take it out of the bag and begin examining. For some reason I was unaware I was going to have to pull the giblets out...Ew. Chad was of minimal help, my mom was on the way back from Florida, and my wonderful Father-in-law, Joey was roped into helping me from his house. So between my mom laughing and Chad saying, I'm not eating that, I was calling Joey for help. I was so confused because I couldn't pull it out. I had to put it in the bowl to continue the thawing process. At one point, I was so confused with trying to explain what I was seeing to Joey I took pictures and emailed them to him. I have watched my mom many times pull giblets out I have just never actually done it myself...I got Chad to hold the chicken up out of the bowl for me to take pictures...

That is what I was supposed to pull out...Rather gross but I did it and invented my first crock pot meal that I will share:)

1/2 onion

2-3 stalks of celery

1 chicken

1-1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup dry white cooking wine

3-4 red potatoes

1 bag of baby carrots

1 tsp rosemary

Cut up the onion and celery and lay in the bottom. Then dry the chicken with paper towels, season with salt and pepper and lay breast side down in the pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 8 hours. The meat fell right of the bone:) I meant to take a final picture but I forgot...Believe me it was beautiful and yummy!

Wipeout

The television show, Wipeout, brings a lot of laughter into our home. Chad and I watch this show when it is on because we find it hilarious. Granted, it is completely mindless television, we enjoy it thoroughly. I watch it for pure entertainment. However, last night Chad was the one that had me laughing harder than the show. I want to know if my husband is the only one that thinks he would dominate on this show.

This has been going on the last few weeks and it dawned on me last night, “He really thinks he would tear this show up.” As soon as the show starts and someone makes a mistake Chad is critiquing them and tells me how he would have done it differently. Throughout the entire show, he states that none of it is difficult.

I have to admit it may look easy sitting at the house but there is one obstacle that I have seen two people complete and that would be those, Infamous Big Red Balls. Honestly, I don’t know who could come up with something so cruel. If I did those I am most certain I would like the folks on the television show. But, not Chad. He thinks in his competitive mind that he would complete those and move on in about 30 seconds. I just laugh.

Last night was entertaining, they have this challenge called the dizzy dummy, I think. They spin you around while you are tied to this spinning contraption. Then it stops and you are to run and climb up another spinning thing and then climb across these balls that are floating on the water. It is absolutely ridiculous. Of course the poor folks were having a hard time. They do it 4 different times!! But of course Chad just doesn’t think that it looks that hard.

Then there is the obstacle course at the end. Chad dissects every challenge and tells me what he would do. Last night the catapulted into the water in kayaks. Then they climb up this water slide where a large amount of water is released at a random time and most of the time the folks go flying all the way back down. Not Chad, He would brace himself to the slide and wouldn’t go anywhere but up. The other parts of the course are difficult to describe but you get my point. Chad gets so upset when they give up or mess up. He’s like, “There is $50,000 dollars on the line!!” The winner last night finished I think a little over 4 minutes. Chad would finish in a minute and 30 seconds tops.

Why doesn’t Chad go on the show you ask? He’s looked into it. You have to be a resident of California to compete on the show. I wish he would so he can either prove or disprove all of those hilarious claims!! I personally think most of the folks on that show are very strange and are lacking something called common sense. Last night was an entertaining evening for me and I was curious as to how many others are experiencing the same thing???

The Hubby

1. What is his name? Chad Thomas Reichert. Goes by Chad or Chadsta:)
2. Who eats more? That’s a toss up! Depends on what we are eating. If it’s Mexican I have him by a long shot. But typically it’s him.
3. Who said “I love you” first? I did. About 2 months into us dating, I told him.
4. Who is taller? The Chadsta.
5. Who is smarter? When it comes to Math and Science that is all Chad. I was not made with that part of my brain. I was built with the reading/writing/history part of my brain. All in all I think we compliment each other.
6. Who is more sensitive? Definitely me. My feelings get hurt very easily. I didn’t used to be that way. I think it’s been a process since I graduated from college. Weird. Nothing used to bother me but now I take things way to close to heart. I am working on it though.
7. Who does the laundry? For the most part me but Chad does help and he will start loads. I think he quit when we got back from the Honeymoon and decided to do some laundry when he got home from work. There are just some things that I hang up. I don’t put everything in the dryer. I came home to find my brand new bathing suit in the dryer and I remained calm. I started using little garment bags. If there is anything in the bags, Hang it up:)
8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are on the bed I sleep on the right. Mainly due to the fact that we have one end table and I stay up a tad bit later then him to watch tv or read.
9. Who pays the bills? That is all Chad. I could do it I had to but for the most part he takes care of it.
10. Who cooks? Me- I love cooking:) I love trying new recipes. Cooking is my time to de-stress myself from the work day. It helps me relax.
11. Who is more stubborn? I think we are both pretty even on this one. We can both be a little stubborn at times.
12. Who is first to admit they are wrong? Me. Chad will be the first to try and make up after a disagreement or something but he won’t really admit that he was wrong. I don’t think I have ever heard him admit he was wrong; maybe once or twice.
13. Who has more siblings? Chad does; Brother Clay and Sister Cassie; both younger.
14. Who wears the pants in the relationship? Split evenly. I don’t want to be “the wife” that tells him what to do all the time. But Good Lord sometimes I feel like I have to say little things to help nudge him;)
15. What do you like to do together? We love to laugh and have fun together!! We have so much fun in the evenings just making each other laugh. We like to watch funny movies, spend time with family and friends, go to the lake (tubing), we enjoy going to our Sunday school class, and yes, we like to wrestle around and play fight…strange? Maybe, but we find it fun.
16. Who eats more sweets? If you define sweets by, a big glass of milk and too many chocolate chip cookies than Chad has that in the bag. However, on the other side brownies are my weakness.
17. Who asked out whom first? Chad asked me out by making a bet. At the time being a GA Tech fan he bet me that if UGA won I would have to go out on a date with him. If Tech won he said he would leave me alone. By that point I had made up my mind that I was ready to go on a date and of course UGA was going to win. Best date (hands down) I had ever been on. Dinner and ice skating=Happily Ever After.
18. How did you meet? We met through mutual friends at Chad’s 21’st Birthday Party.
19. Who kissed who first? Pretty sure that was me ;)
20. Who proposed? Chad proposed on Easter of 08’. It was so incredibly sweet and the fact that both of our families were there and I have it on tape means the world to me. I always said he would never get me. That I would always know when he was going to do it but he definitely got me that day!
21. His best features? He is so incredibly handsome and HOTT to me!! His laugh is contagious and he is always laughing and smiling.
22. What is his greatest quality? I don’t really know where to begin. He is so incredibly sweet and has such a soft heart. He is self-less when it comes to helping others. He likes to have fun and make others laugh. Chad is my perfect soul mate. He makes me a better person. This was a hard question because I can’t really narrow it down to a list.
23. Tag? Tina and Amber:)

Rockin' the "Self-Propelled" Lawn Mower?

Sunday night I was so proud of myself!! I used my crock pot for the first time! Needless to say dinner was ready when I got home last night:) How wonderful! Walked in to the house and all I had to do was heat it up...Whoo-hoo!! I have many recipes to try out so when I find some really good ones I will share;)

Since we were through with dinner pretty early last night Chad asked me the question I had been dreading to hear since getting married. "Do you want to go cut the grass?" In my head, "Is that a rhetorical question? Is he serious?" I smiled and said, "Sure! Why not?" I get changed and put on loads of bug spray, hair in a cute little ponytail, I am good to go! Chad is going to do the backyard with the riding lawn mower while I do the front yard with the "self-propelled" mower. Anybody see anything wrong with that picture??? I started on the yard and about 5 minutes into it I am dripping sweat from every inch of my body. I have convinced myself that there is nothing self propelled about this lawn mower. Chad's grandfather gave it to us and I think the (Propeller?) is broke! If you have seen or been to our house you know that have some pretty steep hills on the sides of the house. I consider myself to be pretty strong and was out to prove myself last night. I start getting to the steep parts and I am literally trying to get a running start and barely make it up this hill. At one point I was completely stopped and digging my shoes into the ground. I thought after I did that last night I was pretty sure that I burned about 2500 calories:) haha...

All of this to say...I accomplished my goal of mowing our front yard!! Go me!! I will post a picture of the "mountains" in our yard so you will feel my pain. As soon as I finished I called my Mom and Dad to boast about my accomplishment!! Mom's response; "You cut the grass?" Granted I hate yard work and always did as a child the hard thing for me was pulling the cord to get it started. I recall hating yard work so much as a child this always comes to mind. My mom and dad used to bribe us to pick up pine cones by giving us a nickle for each one we picked up...

What's funny about that? Even that didn't work. Making the effort to pick up the pine cones and place them into the garbage bag or bucket was just to much for us girls. We would pick up the ones in the front yard and throw them over the fence into the back yard....then when we got to the back we would throw them back into the front yard. Accomplishing absolutely nothing! Jenn and I thought we were so clever and our parents had no clue...no really...Turns out they are much smarter than we thought as kids!!

Writing that story makes me smile :)

I love stories like this one

A beluga whale (Mila) saved a drowning diver by hoisting

her to the surface, carrying her leg in its mouth.
Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralyzed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20-foot arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible with the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China.

But when Yun, 26, tried to head to the surface she struggled to move her legs.
"I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me - I was dead. Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface," Yun said.
Beluga whale Mila had spotted her difficulties and using her sensitive dolphin-like nose guided Yun safely to the surface.

Thought this was worth sharing!! Have a wonderful day:)

The Finale!!

Some of you will be relieved to know that it is all over, The Bachelorette that is.
My friend, Anna, came over and we all watched it together. Anna and I made shirts on Saturday. She was all about some Kyptin and I was rooting for Reid. Technically, we both lost. We were both wrong!! She chose the Mankini! They looked really happy together so I can’t say a whole lot other than Kyptin or Reid should be the next Bachelors!! All of the radio stations this morning were saying all Reid wanted was to come back to make his move to be the next bachelor which I think is stupid. I think he really cared about Jillian and realized how much he cared about her. If you say that about Reid you have to say the same thing about Ed. Who left on his own and came back. If Ed didn’t wear that horrible bathing suit and sit like a woman he would be alright. I mean she’s the one who will have to deal with that the rest of her life.

Kyptin handled the situation beautifully. He is such a stand up guy…They all go through the long limo ride out where they talk to the camera, cry and vent about the whole thing. He said a few things but for the most part just took it all in. What an emotional 6 weeks!!
I think it would have been hilarious at the end when they were showing Jillian and Ed throughout the whole season falling in love, if they played Wes’ song during the clips!! LOL! Just for a little humor:)

Here are some pictures from our evening last night:

We made our shirts on Saturday...Don't be jealous!!

Chad was just having such a wonderful time!!

Yes, at the end of the night we were pretty sad...oh well!! Good times!

Boot Camp

(So this is what I feel like I did yesterday...A little exaggerated??? Maybe :)

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:10 am to make it to a 7:00 am Boot Camp Aerobics class. This class started at the beginning of July and I had wanted to go so bad to help me get in shape. This however was the first week I was able to go. I stretched a little before the class and then it was time to start! As we began the first 5 minutes I began thinking, “Good Grief!! Is he serious?” I thought that my legs were going to fall off after the first five minutes!! The good thing is that it did not feel like a 45 minute class. All day yesterday my legs were shaking. I don’t think that I worked my legs out like that in awhile. I was so glad to get home and take the heels off. I began to move slower and slower as the day progressed. Of course Chad found it hysterical that I did a 45 minute class and it had that affect on me. I politely told him to shut up. I could tell my muscles were going to be sore today so I tried everything to prevent it. I took a hot bath, had some Advil, and yes with no shame broke out our brand new heating pad!! My Gluteus Maximus is beyond repair! (Thought everyone would enjoy the link. I know y'all know what it is). I’m sitting down slowly, rising slowly, walking slowly and as far as stairs are concerned you can forget it. My lower back is in pain, my quads are mad at me and making my life very difficult today, my shoulders, arms, and neck are in dire pain!! As you can see the workout covered my entire body. I know in the long run it is good for me but today I will continue to sit in pain while Chad laughs at me in the evening until it goes away. Despite all of the above I will be going back next Wednesday because I want to prove to myself I can do it!!

Any suggestions for sore muscles???

Our Fourth of July

To say the least was eventful!!

My father-in-law (Joey) had a great idea to spend an entire evening fishing out on Lake Sinclair on the pontoon boat. In theory: great idea! I was looking forward to it but I knew at some point I would get tired and want to sleep. We finally get to the lake Friday around 6:00 and get the boat in the water and we are on our way. So far; so good. We get about 4 miles away and decide on a spot to begin fishing. We pull over towards the grass near the bank of the lake. The water was probably about 4 ft deep where we were. The boys said it was a good spot so we went with it. We weren’t fishing with live bait yet at this point. We were fishing for bass. Tiffany and I were assured we would get to the marina around 10 for a bathroom break before it closed. We all start to get a little bored where we were so we decide to find a different spot. Wouldn’t you know the boat won’t crank!! At this point Joey is hanging off the back of the boat trying to get it to crank. He was dripping sweat. It wasn’t like we could get off the boat and go the restroom or anything. Anyone who has been to the lake knows that when you are near the grass and shallow water there are snakes and beavers and who knows what else!! We go ahead and fix dinner since we are parked. The boat had a grill so we made chili dogs that were pretty good if I do say so myself!!

The Trolley Motor saved the Day!!
The life saving trolley motor which we had at full speed of about 1/2 mph was going to get us back to the dock. We get turned around and get in with the current. At this point it’s 10:00 and we moving at 1/2 mph. We pulled the couches down to make beds and we begin to go to sleep. Clay and Barry stayed up fishing and driving the motor but decided at about 2:00 am that they were ready to get some sleep. Joey then swaps with them. Did I mention that it is freezing and all we brought were sheets because we thought it was going to be hot? Poor Joey…The only thing that kept him warm was the heat being put out by the motor in his lap. I swore we were just going to hear a loud splash and wake up to find Joey in the water!!

We arrived back at the dock at 4:30 in the morning at the point we layered up on our t-shirts and shorts trying to get warm. Anytime you moved from your “sleep spot” it got wet which made things that much better. We were up by 8:00 and heading to Aunt Sandra’s house for a fun day at the lake. First thing I did when I got to her house was take a nice warm SHOWER!

All in all it was a eventful and memorable 4’th of July for all of us. We got to see a lot of family and we had a lot of laughs and good times!

But I must give my condolences to something very special that didn’t make it through the weekend:

This is Barry's favorite fishing pole that is no longer with us. It cannot be replaced because it isn't made anymore. The pole made it all the way to the house but yellow dog got a hold of it. The reel survived but the the rest is gone. Barry is having a really hard time right now...Remember him in your thoughts :)

How was your Fourth?

Cow Appreciation Day!

So across the United States it is Cow Appreciation Day!! This is my first one being at the home office and I must say it has been a fun day so far! I was greeted this morning by a Chick-fil-A Cow and cowbells ringing:) If you have been in a Chick-fil-A today you figured out like my friend Anna:) She sent me a wonderful picture of her Chick-fil-A:

If you do not have a cow costume you can go to

http://www.cowappreciationday.com/ and print one out:)

They are giving away prizes throughout the day to those that are participating and I love prizes!!

I have been enjoyed watching this dynamic team "cow"paigning to win best dressed today:)

They are who I voted for!! What do you think?

His Mom must be so proud!

I have to say that I wasn’t surprised by what I saw Monday night. I’m just glad he finally showed everyone the jerk we all knew was there…

I find it hysterical after last week when his family was sitting there telling everyone what a wonderful man he was…GAG! He is the prime definition of JERK! Honestly, I didn’t find him attractive…Buddy needs a new shirt…and a good hair washing…

I almost feel like he was putting on a show…The whole limo scene…grrr! It’s not like he could get any of the girls in Spain anyway…And what ignorant girlfriend encourages their boyfriend to go on a National television show to pursue love…Other than the obvious so that he could get famous…Honey, He made you look like a fool!!

I will say though after Monday I found myself pulling for Reid. I like the way they act together. I’m not feeling it anymore with Kyptin. Nothing against him at all. My final thought is that it is going to come down to Reid and Ed. Reid’s going to have to tell her how he feels though…

Closing thoughts: KUDOS to Jillian for not using any of the overnight rooms!! Maybe the first one to not use them! What a wise decision…Maybe this will cancel out her hot tub scene from last season? Nah! That will go in the history books!
I’ll have an entry up soon on our interesting yet fun July fourth weekend…Get ready!!