Thank you, Thank you

Happy Monday everybody (writing this on Sunday, which may account for the cheery attitude)! Emily over at Sweet Bella Roos recently passed the Stylish Blogger Award to me. Thank you! I went to high school with Emily and she posts lots of yummy recipes. I can't wait to try the s'mores pie she made recently! So now I'd like to pass the award along to a couple other ladies.

Brittany at Every Day Life of an Air Force Wife just started her blog and I've been able to relate to every post! I'd love for you to go over and show her some bloggy love.

I recently started following Kitty at A Law Student's Journey. She's always coming up with great crafty ideas. I especially like her many uses for tshirts and her tea party lamp!

Getting this award also means I share seven things about myself, so here goes (I'll try not to bore you to death!).

1. Hubs says I'm narcoleptic. I'm not really, but I do fall asleep amazingly fast when the sleepy feeling hits! I usually only see about half of the movie when we watch at home. 
2. In college, our volleyball team won the national championship three years in a row! Now before you start looking me up on wikipedia, I went to a really small school so the national tournament wasn't like March Madness or anything (or even remotely close). It's still fun to be able to say that I was a national champion though and I have so many good memories from playing volleyball in college. 
3. I was shocked when my husband first mentioned joining the military, but now I couldn't be more proud of him. Sometimes military life still shocks me, but we've been really blessed so far and we're really enjoying California right now. (I guess that was kind of about Hubs not me, but I can't help it that he's so awesome I'm compelled to brag at any opportunity) ; )
4. I kind of hate running, but I also have been toying around with the idea of doing a half marathon. Yes, I'm crazy. I've been running a little more lately, so we'll see how it plays out. I know I'd be excited to say that I finished a half marathon, but the training is rather daunting!
5. Whew, I'm running out of steam here. I have a hard time writing about myself (if you couldn't tell by reading my less than stellar "About Me" section). So to make this into one of my seven things, I'll add that sometimes things sound way funnier in my head than they do on the computer screen. Hubs thinks my writing is becoming more entertaining, so hopefully people will stick with me long enough for me to get good at this whole blogging thing!
6. I LOVE dried mangoes. Seriously, this might be bordering on an addiction. It's fruit though and it's unsweetened so it's good for me, right? : ) Other Trader Joe's foods that I'm love with - Baked Jalapeno Cheese Crunchies, Mandarin Ginger Chicken (something like that, it's in an orange package in the frozen section), and slightly undercooked sourdough baguettes. I could really go on and on about TJ's, and if you don't live near one I'm very sorry (and I'm almost heartbroken to say I'll be joining you next year when we move)!
7. I'm the queen of indecisiveness...or am I? Yes, yes I am maybe. See what I mean? Picking paint - nightmare. Picking fabric - fun for me until I start stressing that I might not pick the *best* one, nightmare for Hubs if he happens to be with me because I take for.ev.er. Deciding whether to buy the thing at Target that I don't really need but it's awesome and they basically read my mind to find out that I would instantly love it - totally draining.

Well there you have it. Seven things about me. I hope you'll go visit the other ladies I mentioned. Now I'm off to run, ugh train for a half marathon, yay!

Crunchy Chicken

Busy weekend for us since my parents were visiting. I haven't really done anything crafty in the last week, so I thought I'd share an old stand-by recipe I started using in the past year...which I guess makes it not so old, but whatever. You only need three things: boneless chicken breasts (or strips), honey mustard, and those french fried onion things that you use for green bean casserole. You should use honey mustard for sandwiches, not honey mustard salad dressing. I think the salad dressing would be much too runny.

1. Squirt a bunch of honey mustard (HM) on a plate or in a tupperware dish. 
2. Dump a bunch of crunchy onions (COs) in  another dish.
3. Roll the chicken around in the HM.
4. Roll the chicken around in the COs.
5. Put them on a pan. Bonus: cover the pan in foil and then you don't even have to mess with cleaning the pan! 

Cook time depends on the cut of the chicken. I always at least halve breasts because they take forever to cook otherwise (it seems like forever when you're hungry anyway). Oven should be around 375 and cook anywhere from 10-25 minutes. Just make sure the chicken isn't pink and isn't burnt and you should be good to go.

I've also had success using crunched up Sun Chips. Perfect for when you only have crumbs left and nobody really wants to eat the last of them. Just remember your hearing protection if they're still using those terribly loud bags.

If you're looking for something even easier, go to the nearest Trader Joe's (or TJ's as we affectionately call it) and pick up some Mandarin Ginger Chicken from the freezer aisle. That stuff is AMAZING!! And I'm pretty sure that's the right name, if not it definitely has mandarin in the name and it's in an orange bag. We've had it twice in one week before. Just pair it with some brown rice and you have a meal.

Here's what we were busy doing this Saturday:

Seeing whales. Well, more precisely, seeing parts of whales. Unfortunately I didn't catch any Free Willy jumps, but then again these were gray whales so that probably isn't their style. It was fun though. If you ever go on a whale watching tour in central/northern CA, dress much warmer than you think is necessary...and have fun! :)