Catalog Living website

Oops! In all of my excitement, I gave you the wrong website. It should be

http://catalogliving.net

To Do: Laugh!

Tomorrow is Monday. Ugh! Sure, it's a short week with Thanksgiving, but still, tomorrow is Monday. Usually I am in bed by now, but my denial that I have to go back to work already, is keeping me at blogging. (Making up for lost time!)

But if you are having a rough Monday, you have to go check out this blog.

www.catalogliving.net

It makes fun of pictures that are in catalogs like Pottery Barn. Sometimes I literally catch myself laughing out loud!

Done: Visit University of Arkansas campus

There is one reason why I am glad that I did not go to the UofA:

Hills! Big hills! Sidewalks were much steeper than they appear. Imagine being a freshman and trying to walk to class without breathing heavy, stopping to rest, or having sweaty pits in August. At least they plant red trees all over campus to give you some school pride!

There is one reason I wish I did go to the UofA:

How cool is that? Once you graduate, you get your name engraved in the sidewalk!

Of course, it was hard not to walk and read names. Need a baby name, come visit campus! Of course, the first sidewalk we looked at had an Ervin.
But finding my maiden name, Flamm, would be like finding a diamond in the diamond dig (ha!). And just when I thought it was brutal to have the last name Flamm for 26 years, I am grateful my last name wasn't Flammang! (And to top it off, they had to add that extra "t" to Brentt just to make sure this child was ruined for life!)


It's too bad Matt isn't a student here--he might have been one of the cool kids! Actually, we saw lots and lots of scooters. Why didn't we think of that in the 90's?

And it wouldn't have been a UofA experience without the razorbacks!

To Do: Razorback game!

Sure my blood still runs orange & blue, but last weekend I pretended it ran red (the opposing team ironically wore orange and blue). Thanks to our great neighbors -who are die hard, and I mean die hard Razorback fans!- we were able to go to our first University of Arkansas Razorbacks game. And until you have experienced football in the south, you have no idea what a true fan means. Though I swore I would never "yell for the hogs", I didn't realize how much I would enjoy watching football. I've seen almost the entire game of almost every game this season (it sure is a lot more fun to watch when they actually win sometimes!) It's also fun to see how they do things differently. One thing is for sure...tailgating is big time! Check out this gig...

I wish I had a picture of the mascots. In the next photo, you can see the big one in the bottom right corner. He has 2 smaller hogs, called Pork Chop and Sue E. (if that doesn't make you giggle, you need some meds!)

And imagine our faces when we were walking down the street, heard a truck blaring loud pep music, and as it passed, we saw this:

Everyone else just acted like it was a normal occurance. (Obviously it was to them!) But no way did I expect to see a real, live razorback! Can we say U-G-L-Y!!

The game was a blowout, 58-21 Arkansas wins! And despite being 35 degrees (notice our new hats we bought...and yes, they are crooked but we were too cold to care)...we had a great time! More blogs to come on our great adventure the UofA.

I'll leave you with the best part....calling the hogs!

Done: Make my crockpot cake

Sorry it's been awhile since I sat down to blog. Hopefully I'll get some of the ones I've had in my head the last few weeks actually typed up. I'll blame this delay on the time change. Sounds like a good excuse to me!

Today I'm going to share with you another one of my "special" (not quite signature...yet!) dishes. And yes, it's not healthy. I don't eat healthy. --Though I am trying to cut back to 1 coke a day...maybe that would be a better excuse as to why I'm not blogging. Let me tell you, that first week the headaches were terrible after dinner! And yes, you occassionally may find me actually drinking water, even plain ole' tap water.

Anyway, back to unhealthy. That's more my speed. I got this recipe from my BFF Sophie. She too shares my recipe addiction. But, truth be told, she really only brought me this recipe as a gag. It's combines 2 things in life that I am thankful for...

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Crockpot Rocky Road Chocolate Cake

• 1 box chocolate cake mix (German chocolate, fudge, etc)
• 1 (3.9oz) package chocolate instant pudding mix
• 3 large eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 1/4 cups milk, divided
• 1 (3.4oz) package chocolate cook-and-serve pudding mix
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/2 cups miniature marhsmallows
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
• Vanilla ice cream (optional)

1. Beat cake mix, next 5 ingredients, and 1 1/4 cups milk at medium speed with an electric mixer 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed. Pour batter into a lightly greased 4 qt slow cooker.
2. Cook remaining 2 cups milk in a heavy nonaluminum saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, 3-5 minutes or just until bubbles appear (do not boil); remove from heat.
3. Sprinkle cook-and-serve pudding mix over batter. Slowly pour hot milk over pudding. Cover and cook on low 3 1/2 -4 hours (I do at least 4 hours--it will be slightly gooey)
4. Meanwhile, heat pecans in a small non-stick skillet over medium-low heat, stirring often, 3-5 minutes or until lightly toasted and fragrant.
5. Turn off slow cooker. Sprinkle cake with pecans, marshmallows, and chocolate morsels. Let stand 15 minutes or until marshmallows are slightly melted. Spoon into dishes, and serve with ice cream, if desired.

So Sophie, even though you thought this recipe was a poke since you get a kick out of my crockpot cooking, this is just a reminder that I love you anyway.

Oh, and thank you!

To Do: Get my clothes ready for tomorrow

Really? Like you care! I used to try to think ahead of what I might wear the next day, but who was I kidding... I knew I would change my mind. I'm the queen of changing my mind -- do you know how many times I buy something, then return it? It's bad. Real bad.

But as I look forward to the week being half over--which is a bigger feat this week due to walking out to pitch black at 5:30 every night--I wanted to share this survey I heard on the radio.

On average, women spend 76 minutes getting ready on Monday
(25 minutes on hair; 18 on make-up; 16 minutes trying on different combinations of clothes; and the rest showering and washing)
This is reduced to 40 minutes on Tuesday.
And falls to 19 minutes on Friday. (FYI--Not for me. My hot shower takes 19 minutes I'm sure!)

So, sorry, I looked cute yesterday! Sorry you missed it :)