I might not be able to fall asleep so quickly now...

So while combing through the national news a few weeks ago, I came across a particularly interesting article. The title read:

"Which Came First, The Chicken or The Egg?"

I can't tell you how excited I was when I read this headline. Someone had finally solved one of the universe's mysteries!

This topic has plagued my thoughts to such an extent that I could only allot time to solve this mystery right before bed. Why? Well I just get plain too sleepy and being sleepy isn't useful unless it is bedtime.

So what did the article deduce? Scientists concluded that the protein necessary for the formation of the egg can only be found in the chicken's ovaries. Thus, you must have a chicken to produce an egg.

You can find the MSNBC article about it HERE.

I know what you are thinking. "Well Jenny," you say. "Then where did the chicken come from?"


Very simple.







Case solved. Since it's bedtime now, I guess I will try to figure out how the pyramids were built.

I Love Planes.

I Love Planes. I Love Planes. I Love Planes. (If I say it enough, perhaps it will be true?)



This morning, bright and early, I have a flight out to see my grandparents and aunt. I am so excited that I get to see them. I am not excited about flying.

I have a problem of remembering weird, useless (sometimes disturbing) facts about random things. No matter how hard I try to forget, these thoughts jump in the front seat of my brain mobile and just start talking. What's going on in my brain today?

"Did you know that most plane crashes occur within the first five minutes of take off or last five minutes landing?"

"I sure hope the pilot doesn't have a heart attack."

"I really hope that Sully Sullenberger is flying my plane."

"I hope I don't sit next to a person that should have bought two seats."

"Let's hope we don't have turbulence like that plane in Kansas City."




But most importantly... "I hope I don't go into my "day sleep" mode.

What is "day sleep" mode?

I believe the most accurate way to describe it is deeper then night sleep, lighter then death. I am not kidding.

I am a light sleeper at night, waking up to almost anything. During the day, it's a different story. (Another reason I am pretty sure night shifters are half vampire...) I am certain that my house could be blown away by a tornado and I probably wouldn't wake up. During the day I sleep through storms, phone calls, door bells, people trying to wake me up, dogs barking... anything.

I just might have to be tasered on the plane to wake up...




So as you go about your normal day today, send a few thoughts my way. Oh and one more thing - I love planes.

I once wondered if my dog was a kid...

By... me.

I once wondered if my dog was a kid
He runs, He tumbles, and will not be outdid
He starts at the beginning of the day,
Looking for stuff to get in to, with things to play





I once wondered if my dog was a kid
He got into trouble and then he hid.
With his little puppy face and big puppy eyes,
He whined “I’m a little angel, I would never lie.”



I once wondered if my dog was a kid.
After a long evening, sleep he did.
And it is after the end of every day,
“Maybe he’s a kid in fur coat”, we say.

Cooking... at a Restaurant!

I love breakfast food.

Apparently I CAN cook breakfast food.

Success! (If anyone is keeping count, the score is Cooking 4,306 and Jenny 7.)



Recently, my friend and I took a trip to Berry Hill and visited the Pfunky Griddle. Berry Hill is known for their eccentric shops and restaurants, and the Pfunky Griddle did not disappoint.

When you walk through the doors, you are ushered to a table with a griddle. The griddle was not on top, it was actually IN the table.

We were instructed that with the exception of a few small items, we would be cooking our entire meal. Well, I came in with an appetite - hoping to have French toast and eggs. Needless to say, I quickly decided that I would only be having the French Toast for my brunch.

We were slightly apprehensive at first, but with the unlimited pancake batter, my friend dived in and began making her breakfast/brunch.

It took me a little longer. Look at the bread, look at the French toast mix, look at the bread, look at the French toast mix. (I was replaying the all the times that I have previously made French toast and had to add so much syrup to convince myself that I was not eating soggy egg bread.)

Well it was a success! My food actually looked like it was supposed to and my friend enjoyed her chocolate chip pancakes as well.

Although fabulous, we deemed trips to this restaurant should be done during the days with slightly colder temperatures as the griddle made the sitting area very, VERY, warm. (Especially since it was already 94 degrees outside.)

Here are some pictures of our cooking adventure…

What did I get myself in to…




The Cooking Process…




Our mission is complete and our food is done!





If you are looking for a place in Nashville where you want to cook your own breakfast food, the Pfunky Griddle is the place!



The Pfunky Griddle is located at 2800 Bransford Ave. Nashville, TN 37204 near 100 Oaks Mall in "Berry Hill."

Home Improvement

So Justin and I have recently gotten the home improvement “itch.”


No… not this Home Improvement



Although I did like the show… especially Wilson. Now that we have a good sized fence, I have had this weird compulsion to pull up a chair and talk to my neighbors – making sure to wear a hat and only have my eyes show.



More like this home improvement…



I would now like to answer a few questions that are currently on everyone’s mind…

- Yes, this is a wall in a room in OUR house.

- No, I am not pregnant. Too young for that – and as I have said many times: “The baby club is NOT one that we are ‘joining’ first. Got to have a few friends try it out to make sure it’s safe.”

- Yes, this is pink.

- Yes, Justin consented to this idea and picked out the paint and painting materials.

- Yes, we are talking about Justin Cotton, my husband.

- No, we have not gone crazy – just having some fun.



Enough for now, baby birds. We will feed you some more pictures later. Have a wonderful weekend!

Carping

So I decided to try it again…


What, you ask?

It’s a seven letter word that begins with a ‘C’ and ends with a ‘G’.

Let’s narrow it down.

Camping, no - Cabbing, no - Cadging, no - Calking, no - Canting, no - Carding, - no Carving, no- Cashing no- … Carping, YES!

Lost you yet? I am carping again (tending to make petty complaints… ) about cooking.

I have been telling people at work (with that big mouth of mine) that I was going to cook more things that didn’t have to be microwaved. Last week I made tacos. This week I would be making chicken and rice.

I am going to be honest. I truly thought I was going to get out of it. I asked the hubby to remove the chicken from the freezer while I was at work one evening and he had forgotten. *oops* We had an awesome Buffalo Wild Wings dinner that night. Whelp, I didn’t mention anything else about it and was happy as a clam until this afternoon when I found two completely thawed chicken patty things in the fridge.

“I thought you could make the chicken and rice that you had been talking about,” he said sweetly over the phone. (I had called him to see if he had any plans for dinner.) Dang it. “Ok…” I replied and smiled a sweet, but pained smile. I had been discovered! After hanging up I removed about 4 of the 10 cook books I own to find a simple chicken baking recipe. (I have had problems with cooking chicken in a frying pan.)

Well I went through two of the four cook books. I learned that for some of the chicken recipes I encountered one needed to have in possession a mallet. I had to look twice as normally I don’t see the word “mallet” in a cookbook. (Okay, when I happen to look through a cookbook. Maybe it is a more common occurrence then I thought.) Anyway, I didn’t have a mallet nor the 50 other spices it called for – so I moved on. I moved on to EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN .. except how to bake a chicken fillet. I am pretty sure I came across a recipe to bring the chicken back to life… maybe that wasn’t a cookbook. Anyways…

Did you know that most of the cookbooks (or the two that I was looking through) didn’t have a simple chicken baking recipe? I had asked coworkers previously about how to bake chicken, but the only thing I remember was olive oil, oven, but no temperature or bake time. (Probably the two most important things in baking with the exception of what I was baking.)

I will let you know that I didn’t back down. The chicken fillet patty things went right to the frying pan – with some olive oil. How come after staring at cooking chicken, everything starts looking pink? I was pretty sure the outside was cooked, but after about 8 minutes maybe that was looking a little pinkish too. I mean what exactly constitutes as “pink”? Chicken when cooked kind of looks like it has an element of beige – some pink influences – so when do you start saying that it is pink raw versus pink cooked? By the end of my cooking expedition, the chicken no longer looked chickenish and more an unidentifiable shredded mystery. (I had to cut it to make sure it was “cooked” by the color standard.) I am now quite impressed whenever I see full chicken fillets that have not already been sliced and diced and are complete cooked inside and out.

Needless to say, dinner turned out edible and hopefully cooked. I must remember two things next time when cooking chicken and rice – one, make sure to spend some more time looking for a recipe; two, cook two bags of rice instead of one when cooking for more than one person.

Oh the adventures of cooking… and thinking way too much.

While I Should Be Playing Outside...

I am inside writing another blog post.

Who am I kidding? It is too hot outside! (As evidenced by the immense amount of sweat I produced by merely retrieving the Sunday paper.)

So while we inside folk watch re-runs, those quirky summer shows, and entertain ourselves with all things cool (and inside) - here is a video to remind us of the nicer weather to come and all of those fun fall tv programing.

This web video was created by one VERY TALENTED Swedish young man who sings and plays a variety of instruments in this compilation of our favorite tv show theme songs. He recorded himself singing and playing the guitar and then recorded himself playing the piano. As you will see, he plays through one song and into the next with no mistakes that we can see, with the exception that he cuts away from the camera twice, which is still very, very impressive.


If you recognize all of the songs he sings, however, perhaps you do need to be watching less tv...

Enjoy!

The "Verbal Filter"

(Koalas seemed to be the focus of some of our conversations this morning, so I decided to include a picture of one!)



What is a “Verbal Filter” you may ask? I believe this is a tiny section in *many* people’s brains that gives us a prompt before speaking, popping up with a little grey box stating “are you sure you really want to say that?” We then are able to make the choice, either choosing to save face and bite our tongues and smile or say what is truly on our minds and then realizing that even though we might be a vice president, the administration can hide people quite well…

Anyway… Certain actions can disable this verbal filter. My favorite? Going to the pancake pantry after night shift! What can beat awesome breakfast and interesting conversations with 13 friends/co-workers?


Yep! It was another Pancake Pantry day!


Oh and the conversations have topped all previous ones I have had at the pantry! I wrote down some this morning before going to bed and now after getting some sleep, all I can say is “Oh my… yeah our verbal filters were not in use this morning.” Haha. I can only wonder what the tables around us were hearing.


So back by popular demand, here are some of my favorite events and quotes (as I remember them) from this morning… feel free to correct me or add more! I laughed too much and had a lot of fun!

(I have chosen to leave the quotes and people mentioned nameless... for obvious reasons! :) )

*****

If you wear UT scrubs, you just might have breakfast bought for you from a man at another table. “I thought he heard what we had been talking about!” “They said that they collected money from the others at the table for your meal!” “Yeah, I agreed to meet them outside later…”


There was one girl in our group that can do amazing impressions. She had us in tears.


“You spell it with an LY?” Now speaking to the entire table, “I would prefer if everyone would call me LySandy.”


“She just stared at me probably thinking ‘this ain’t no Starbucks.’ (In reference to McDonalds and their new coffees.)
“No, she was probably thinking, “Who goes online to figure out what they are going to order from McDonalds.”


“She’s not retarded; she’s just stupid like everyone else.”


“I worked as a t-shirt girl.”
“Did you shoot them out of cannons?”
“Who would you be shooting them at in Hawaii??”
“Maybe the surfers?”


“It might be easier with Koalas.”
“No, they can turn around and scratch you! They have big claws.” (Girl demonstrates turning around and clawing someone. Many at the table nod enthusiastically.)


“So you’re not Canadian anymore?”
“No I am still Canadian… but.. ”
(Another girl) “Because of your tattoo?”


“We had the Golden Girls waitress.”


“He offered to take my plates away. I took that as a sign that maybe I should stop eating.” (After ordering French toast, eggs, and sausage… none of them were small quantities.)


“Have you read Harry Potter.”
“Yes. But I am not obsessed.”
“I have never seen someone read all of them and not be obsessed.” (Being completely serious.)


“I can’t wait till the light shines down on me when I receive my wand.”
“I can’t wait to go to the bathroom!”
“Oh! The ghost will be there?!?”


“It just feels like the people aren’t real!”


“How does the goat stay still for that!”


“… at Kyle’s wedding.”
“Wasn’t that your wedding too?”


“She wants her second child to be named Bella.”
“But that would be incest!”


“You could just put some antibiotics in their food so they won’t go extinct.”
“But they are wild. Do you just throw it up in the trees?”
“Well you could give it to them, and then tag them.”
“But, if you tag an animal then they are no longer wild, right?” (The table was quite worried about the Koalas and their… um… PROBLEM.)

The Recipe for a Successful Boat Trip

The Recipe for a Successful Boat Trip



INGREDIENTS:

One Half Girls



One Half Guys



A Boat and A Lake of Water



Jump Off One Cliff



** Make Sure The Cliffs You Are Jumping Off of Aren’t Too High… ** (You can do this by having a 12 year old girl take a higher jumping spot)



A Pinch of Storms



A Lot of Laughing




A Lot of Smiling





A Small Moment Where You Think The Boat Might Be Stuck After Hitting Some Rocks… (Make sure you have some super strong guys to pull you to safety)



One YMCA slide that has the ability to be borrowed



One Island Adventure… Must Attempt to Circumvent this Island (only to discover the selected island is the largest in the lake, and the only one without sand to walk on)




COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix all of this together with a Tennessee summer day and add some reflection time at the end…



And there you have it – one awesome boat trip!