No More Cable Ties...

I have been living without cable for almost two months now and guess what?!? I know that you probably want me to say “nothing happened,” but in reality a LOT happened!

I am getting SO MUCH MORE done! Because I have to plan and seek out the shows that I want to watch, it is no longer a mindless ease, it becomes a chore. And we all know what chores are… difficult. My channels are limited and the choices are too because of apple tv, netflix, or free channels from our antenna.

Which is EXACTLY what I needed. Limitations.

Be honest… you get home from work and are procrastinating on some stuff you don’t want to do but should. You are hungry so you make dinner and just will sit down for a *minute* to eat, and before you know it – it is time for bed. This happened to me constantly, and why shouldn’t it? I am tired, I have worked all day, and this is just what I “needed.”

Until my days and nights started to all blend together. I felt like I was only accomplishing things at work and doing nothing at home… and this was all a slippery slope of eating and TV watching and then nothing else.  I used to have hobbies I thought. I used to do stuff, whatever it was, and now all I do is come home and watch TV during the week.

Well, no more!

Here is what has changed in my life since cutting the cord.

1.  I watch the shows I want to watch because I have planned to watch them. Whether it is The Walking Dead, The Bachelor, Modern Family, or even watching Vampire Diaries on my iPad… I seek it out because I want to watch it. Which is very different from vegging out in front of the TV with a billion channels and a full DVR.
2. I am getting to bed on time. I don’t know what it is, but when I plan something, it works out so much better. Before, I was just getting caught up in watching something, some dumb show, and I would look up at the clock and be all like, crap.
3. Eating dinner at the table happens.  Because eating dinner at the table happens…
4. Cleaning up after dinner happens because I am not engrossed in a show. I don’t know when this started because my parents had a strict rule while I was growing up about not watching TV while dinner was being eaten.
5. I can think of about 7 extra shows that I used to watch regularly just because they were backed up on the DVR per week… that adds up to about 4-5 hours of extra time, and that night time after work is precious!
6. And finally, because I am not tied to the TV, it is easier to say no to it. I don’t know if I was addicted before, but now I am enjoying the sunsets on my back deck, cooking better meals, planning my next day which leads to a better morning, etc.

Things are just better. I didn’t expect them to be, and I may have even thrown a tantrum fit when we didn’t have the DVR any longer, but it is worth it. Oh, and the extra money is great too.

Sincerely, 

cold-turkey-cable-cutting-survivor

Easy & Delicious Now, Easy & Delicious Later

In keeping with my resolution, I have gone to bed much earlier than before! I think it has been lights out before 10:30pm every night since and although I would like that time to be 10pm, it is a start.

I have also fiddled around with the idea of freezer meals. One of the best things about our new house design is we are going to have a full size freezer right next to a full size refrigerator. This will mean SO MUCH MORE space to plan and prepare fresh meals! Here is one below that I love! I just tried it out last week and will definitely be doing it again.

Southwestern Crockpot Chicken Burritos (Fresh & Freezer)

What you need:

1. Boneless skinless chicken of preference. I bought a bag of frozen breasts that were on sale. Simple as that.
2. Cans of whatever you like, I used 1 jar of salsa (medium heat), 2 cans tomatoes with chilies, 1 can mexicorn,  and 2 cans black beans. You can add or subtract from this depending on how much chicken you are using and your preferences.
3. Spices, you can use spice packets, but I just added garlic, chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt, powdered onion, and lots of cumin. Spice to your taste and you can add more at the end of the cooking time if you want/need.
4. Burrito shells (about 15-20)
5. Shredded cheese
6. Sour cream if you like it, which I do.

What you do:

1. Add the chicken to the crockpot (I added mine straight from the bag while frozen) and everything else on top and stir all together, coating chicken. Cook on low and if possible, stir every few hours for about 8 hours total. When done, chicken should shred easily, which is the next step.
2. Shred chicken. See? I wasn't kidding. 
3. Now, fill all burrito shells with the mixture, add cheese, and fold. You can eat some now, but I wrapped most of mine up individually in foil for later.
4. Then place all foil wrapped burritos in large ziplock bags and put them in the freezer. 
5. Grab one in the morning and it should be thawed by lunch ***SEE UPDATE BELOW***. I take the foil off (duh), cut mine up on a plate, pop it in the microwave for a minute, add some sour cream, and voila! You have about 15 lunches ready to go at a moments' notice.

UPDATE: After cooking one from frozen, it tasted MUCH better than thawing it first. I defrosted it in the microwave on the "casserole setting" for about 3 minutes and then heated it on high to my liking, about another minute... the tortillas tasted much better and less soggy than it had before when I let it thaw out in the fridge first. I will be cooking these straight from the freezer from now on!

2015 Resolution

I  have a problem... I don't think I have been thinking for myself for a while now. It all started when I realized that I didn't like the music I was listening to as I was going from station to station in my car a little while back. I felt like I hadn't "discovered" a song in over a decade that wasn't already playing over the radio and through everyone's heads and that started to bother me. I used to love music. I used to buy albums and my favorite song was not always the A track... or even B track.

This lead to other realizations. My wedding, my house, my car, my clothes. How influenced was I becoming by others? By the media? I don't think I was always this type of person, one that was not able to be herself! When did this all start?

It might have something to do with social media. We are let into so many peoples' lives and sometimes that is a good thing, like for helpful hints or tips, but sometimes we can start comparing ourselves to others and that is a slippery slope. We become a nation of copycats and sheep and keeping up with the Joneses as your neighbor gets inflated to everyone you have ever known in your whole life. In the past, a simple call to your mom about why your baby is crying is now suddenly turned into hours of online research because there is just TOO MUCH DAMN INFORMATION AVAILABLE!

Taking on too much is also an issue. We think we can have it all because so and so has it all. They work and workout and have a clean house and even put elf on the shelf in the cutest little positions for their darling children says their pictures! So, that slippery slope comes in and knocks us on our asses. In my reality I am tired, pennyless, childless, anxious, and could lose a few pounds. But as my coworker says, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems, and it isn't.

Back to not only just having it all, but it is all at our fingertips! Recipes, directions, phone numbers, to do lists... we have conditioned ourselves to be able to turn on a crockpot and do three times the errands of our parents, and we just try to take on more and more like an insatiable creature. My sister and I laugh that my mom will tell us her morning is just "too full" to do anything. She says she has to pay bills and go to the post office. That woman goes to the post office more than anyone I know, and I don't think I have been to one since I had to drop off a return to Amazon.com a year ago, but she has a point. 

My mother sets aside all morning to pay bills and go to the post office while these are things that I do during my lunch hour at work and from the comfort of my own desk. Automatic bill pay, online shopping, emails... all things that are keeping me from getting fresh air, sunshine, steps in, and speaking to people. Oh, and keeping me from a truly "unplugged" vacation. What is this going to do to our generation?!

All of this brings me to the point of this whole post, which is to take some time to define my New Year's Resolution - to decrease stress. This is a complicated thing to try to accomplish (which sort of diminishes the whole "less stress" thing, don't ya think?!?) but I am going to try my best. I think implementing the following would be a great start to the new year.

1. Stop being so plugged into social media and frivolous news.

Yes. This. I run into complete strangers that know more about my life than my father does, simply because he does not have facebook. I have pared down my friends list and removed all picture albums over a year old. I will continue to do this over the coming years and be more discerning of what I share and what I don't. I heard once that for an entire year, on someone's birthday, that is when you can decide if you want to keep them as friends or not since it will go through each person day by day for the next year... not a bad idea!

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2. Stop worrying about what others think of you. 

I want to look at each situation as to what I want... will this make me happy? Do I actually WANT to go to that party? So and so does not give a crap if I am happy... am I? Not only do I want to let go of what others think of me, but I want to create some ME time. I want to do things that interest me, even if I have to do them alone.

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3. Stop being a stranger.

My mom once told me that if she ever gets a grumpy cashier, it becomes her goal to make them laugh or smile. I love that sentiment. It's easy to do and sometimes making others smile is the best way to put a grin on your own face. I want to call my friends and family more. Spending time with people that I WANT TO spend time with is a start.

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4. Stop saying “yes” all the time & get more sleep.

I have already started implementing this one... and it is a good feeling. When saying yes will negatively affect an aspect of your life; like sleep, anxiety, procrastination, money, etc., then say no! I also need to personally start going to bed a half an hour before I actually want to be asleep. Since when has getting up from the tv, brushing teeth, washing face, contacts, pajamas, moving laundry, letting the dog out, etc. taken only a minute.

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5. Stop thinking you have to get it right on the first try.

This is the hardest one for me. I am a perfectionist and sometimes it holds me back. I am afraid to fail... and I shouldn't be. It takes me longer to begin things sometimes because I don't want to do them wrong. Most of it is in my head and within my own fears. Seize the day!

Running on Fumes...

 Having one of those double caffeinated kind of days!

What A Northerner has Learned from the South

In response to this post, I did want to create of list of things that a northerner has learned from the south below. I have been here almost 10 years and would never leave it!

1. "Y'all" is the best word ever. It is casual and all-encompassing and I picked it up almost immediately. It feels good to say it to my northern friends, just as it feels good to call a coke a "pop" down here. I will, however, never say "ain't" unless it is for southern emphasis.
2. You can monogram anything. Seriously, and I love it! From baby butts to car windows, you will see monograms on anything and everything in the south. The availability of customizing your name or initials on items in this day in age excites me. Because my name is a little strange, I was never able to find pre-made name items as a child.
3. Fancy dress is common in the south. Although it might not exactly be on trend, Charleston is full of seer sucker clad, boat shoe wearing, bow tie donning, hat displaying folks that get really fancy whenever possible. Be it a football game or a wedding, it is fun to dress up in the south. the first time I went out with a group of girlfriends I was the only one wearing jeans and a "cute" top. They were dressed to the nines in dresses and heels for a night out at the bars. I was a little embarrassed, but I am a fast learner and quickly stocked my closet appropriately. Since then, I have gotten a little more lax with the "dress code," but that may have more to do with age and effort than anything else.
4. Invitations and parties follow Emily Post, as she is held to the highest regard when speaking of formalities and etiquette. I never heard of her until I moved here, and I think I could have done without her, at least until my wedding...
5. If you are not named a family name, consider yourself unloved. There is a lot of talk about future baby names at this stage in my life, and most of them contain the mother's maiden name. Personally, I think my maiden name (Pahs) is too weird to be a first name, but that wouldn't stop most southern women. It is also common for a woman to take her maiden name as her middle name when she marries, and I did do that.

South vs. North

A Northerner’s response to the some of the

“17 Things You Learn From Growing Up In The South”

now that I’ve lived here for a decade.

OriginalPost by Chelsea Fagan

1. Southern food is truly the best. Whether it’s spicy gumbo, fried chicken and biscuits with honey, sautéed greens, or BBQ meat that falls off the bone — the south has it locked up. You grow up with that food and it is the stuff you will be craving for the rest of your life. The day I arrived back in America after a few years abroad, the first meal I had was fluffy biscuits with sausage gravy, two sunny side up eggs, and a glass of real sweet tea. It was transcendent.

I’ll give you gumbo, collards, okra, and grits… but out of all the foods I have ever eaten, these are my least favorite. Sorry Chelsea.

2. Hot asphalt and hot vinyl car seats are the stuff of summer nightmares. RIP to all the bare feet and thighs that have been lost to their merciless sizzle.

Yeah, we have the sun too… crazy how that works.

3. “Southern Belles” and “Southern Gentlemen” still exist, but the people who openly identify as such often embody neither idea.

Completely agree!

4. People really are ignorant. The same people whose parents didn’t want them to be in science class when we learned about the Big Bang are the same people who, at age 25, are flagrantly posting Facebook statuses about Obama being a Muslim or gay marriage being dangerous to society. And on the one hand, you realize that they were kind of doomed from the get-go, but on the other hand, they have a vote. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that the stereotype about all southerners being backwards conservatives is true, either. There are Democrats and Republicans, just like you have anywhere else.)

Completely agree! Ignorant people are everywhere.

7. Spankings are definitely still a thing. When I moved up to Maryland (which some people still consider the south, but that’s debatable), I realized that a lot of my friends’ parents just “negotiated” with them from age two and beyond. This is not acceptable in the south. One of my most formative memories is being popped in the mouth by my grandmother in front of the entire line at Winn-Dixie because I called her a bitch. It was a moment equivalent in education to about four full years of schooling.

My 7 year old hiney can tell you that spankings are a northern thing as well.

8. There is no limit to how many foods can be fried. And, let’s be honest, you’ve tried (and probably enjoyed) 99 percent of them.

The fair comes to northern towns too, ya know.

9. American flag clothes are very much in fashion in parts of the country. My neighbor as a child had a collection of NASCAR memorabilia in his living room, including a box of limited-edition Dale Earnhardt Bugles (the corn chips). This man’s clothes were at least 40 percent covered with American flags.

Ever heard of the Indianapolis 500?

10. There are a million Honey Boo Boos. And the famous one is far more articulate than most of them. I had several Honey Boo Boos in my neighborhood except, instead of spouting adorable sayings, they mostly just ate push pops until their whole faces were orange and threw rocks at animals.

I agree, the south has rednecks, the north just has white trash. The difference is in the dialect.

13. There were very liberal “riding your bikes in the neighborhood” rules. Everyone pretty much had free reign all summer, and people were very rarely indoors. The sound of the crickets coming out (and the moms yelling from the doorways) were the only indicators of what time it was or that the day was actually over.

Me too. Just had to be home when the streetlamps came on.

14. All sodas can be referred to as “Coke,” even though this objectively makes no sense and only makes ordering drinks a step more complicated than it needs to be.

We called it “pop.”

17. Respect for elders is the most important thing ever. Talking back to an adult in the south, or not calling someone ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ is a one-way ticket to being punished into another generation. If you don’t have respect for grown-ups, you have no home training, and life is just going to be a struggle for you. To this day, as a 25-year-old, I still call older people “Mr.” and “Ms.” out of force of habit. I’ll likely do it until I am dead, and honestly, I’m a better person for it.

My friend’s parents were Mr. and Mrs. Last Name and we said “yes please” instead of “yes mam” and “no, thank you” instead of “no mam”. I do see a difference in language here, but do not insinuate that the north does not have manners.

Brooke & Davis - married!

It was a beautiful day for a wedding! All week the chance of rain decreased to 0% from about 40%... it was a gorgeous 72 and sunny. Someone was really looking out for these two! Custom dress, adorable white chapel and yard, key lime filled cake, fried green tomatoes... this wedding had it all. My heartfelt congratulations go out to Brooke and Davis! Have SO MUCH FUN on your honeymoon!

Bossy Pants

I have first hand experience with this quote below in my own life. I feel confident enough to share this story on the web as this particular aunt does not even own a computer. :)

I have a certain aunt who I don't think particularly cared for me when I was little. I was a little bratty and wanted to do things on my own, as I had a mind of my own. This did not sit well with her as she much preferred little kids who let her do whatever to them she wanted, like put them in pretty clothes and tell them what their favorite color should be... Let's just say, my spirit could not be broken.

Many years later after I had grown up and graduated from college, I think I finally got the respect I so desired from said aunt. I knew she loved me my whole life, but I guess I was just a little more difficult to love in her eyes sometimes. As it turns out, in the end we are very similar creatures - creative types who are strong minded and independent.

I think I have made her proud with what I have done in my life. She recently told me a story of a "young girl who showed a lot of leadership, just like you did when you were little." I looked at my aunt and smiled shaking my head and said, "You mean she was bossy?" She said, "No, a leader, for sure." I think that she changed her mind about me. :)