I’ve always had all this energy that I directed toward my boys while they were growning up. You know the drill – driving them all over God’s green earth, helping them with incessant homework and their ongoing activities, and feeding them constantly. It’s stunning how much two teenage boys can eat! And they wanted to eat more than once a day; the nerve.

Well, with them on their own, I’ve been left with a lot of extra time and energy. The first thing I did was throw myself into my job. I didn’t do it conciously; it just sort of happened. In fact, I had one boss that bought me a book on Co-Dependency and ordered me to read it. He said I was co-dependent on my job for my self worth and happiness, and he was doing his part to help save me from myself.

Now my current boss, while he has always appreciated my “above and beyond” approach to my job, encouraged me to blog instead, use my computer skills to start a website, fill my free time doing something creative. I started with a little blog on Spaces a few years ago, where I actually met (literally and figuratively) a really great group of friends (lifelong friends). Then I expanded to a Vox blog and did both for awhile. Vox had a different kind of community. Then I ventured out on my own building my own site here at Yellow Jeep Blonde. (I’m totally lame and can’t think of a better name for myself. If YOU can, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me some suggestions)

I started just telling ordinary stories; just day to day life stuff, sharing pictures and jokes and such. But something was missing. I wasn’t passionate about it (translation: not nearly interesting enough). And apparently, I need to feel that passion. I was, afterall, passionate in raising my children. I’m passionate about my job (which sometimes gets me into trouble – I care TOO much) So I, again, asked myself what I wanted to do with myself.

That’s when I got a camera and started taking pictures. I LOVE photography and thought “How hard can it be?” As it turns out. . . it’s a lot more tedious than I thought it was. And I don’t have a natural eye. My oldest boy has a natural eye for composition and color; a real talent. His pictures put mine to shame.

My pictures being just so-so, I thought MORE about what my passion is. Excluding my family and my job, I’m still left wide-eyed wearing a big question mark as a top hat. Looking around my house and seeing the 14,503,649,218 cookbooks and cooking magazines and questioning my freakish obsession love in finding really good new recipes, a lightbulb went off. Ding! I’d share my recipes. Some tried and true old Southern classics, and my new recipes that I’d find delicious.

It sounds good in theory since I love to cook. I’ve dabbled in that for awhile posting delicious recipes on this site, but the site, Yellow Jeep Blonde, has NO relevance to cooking. SO, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into branching off into a different website that is totally devoted to cooking. I realize that there are a bazillion cooking sites out there already, BUT it’s what I love to do – my passion, so to speak. I love all things food related!

My problems lies wherein WHAT to call my little branch of a website. Yellow Jeep Blonde Cooks is kinda dumb. Jeeps and cooking don’t have a lot in common. In fact, being blonde has no relation to cooking either. (I’ve HEARD that brunettes can cook too) So I’m two for two on the ix-nay YellowJeepBlondeCooks-nay. This is where I need creative help. Does ANYONE have any genius ideas on what to call my little cooking site? “Self-professed cookbook hoarder” is too long. “Cookbook Slut” is too abrasive. I need something that is JUST RIGHT.

Help me, please!! Pretty please!

With my youngest child getting married and adding a new wife/daughter-in-law to the family, this quiet young girl has had to adjust to our dingdong family traditions pretty quickly. And along with all the different personality traits she’s had to become accustomed to, there’s also the holiday traditions and. . . . birthday traditions!

I LOVE doing birthdays! Not MY birthday. Other people’s birthdays. And sweet DIL just celebrated her 21st birthday. I couldn’t let it slide under the radar. That’s just not my style. No sir.

And apparently I taught my male child well in the art of birthday tradition because he did a VERY good job surprising her with a cake with 21 candles, a dozen roses and a birthday card with a heartfelt letter inside. (We women love those!)

I took them to dinner

along with my oldest boy and their dad. (It was only awkward for their dad. I don’t know why. I don’t get awkward around HIM.)

And then I made dinner on Saturday for her, Adam, Chris and my mom complete with birthday cake.

See how adorable she is! The cake is sad though. She had asked for a strawberry cake, so I used a cake mix, canned frosting and squirty stuff to write with. I’m not used to either of those. I don’t often make cakes using a cake mix, or frosting out of a can. And apparently I’m inept in the art of picking out the squirty stuff to write with. I picked up what was called “Cookie Frosting” and me using my Donna Logic thought, “How different is cake frosting and cookie frosting?” I just wanted something with a little squirty tip so I could write Happy Birthday. Frosting is frosting, right?

Well. . . . not so much. It’s VERY different. Nothing like practicing on the real deal too. It didn’t turn out very pretty. Everyone seemed to like it though, I didn’t so much. Maybe I’m just a cake mix snob. Who knows.

Either way, I think Shelley had a great birthday WEEK! At least she knows what she’s in for next year.

My oldest STILL dresses up. He loves Halloween and loves the “shock factor” even more!
Tonight, he’s going to a Halloween party at his friends’ house dressed as a baby; more specifically, Baby Herman in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”.

I can’t wait to see this! My boy is a hoot! Completely unafraid and funny as Hell. And I’m pretty sure that his baby bottle won’t be filled with milk. I will post the frightening results tomorrow if I can get my hands on some blackmail pictures.

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Here are some repeat Halloween jokes just to get you started in the Halloween spirit. Most of these jokes are real groaners (get it, Halloween…. GROANERS hahahaha hehehe uhhh yeah). Sorry, anyway…

Q. Why was the student vampire tired in the morning?
A. Because he was up all night studying for his blood test!!!

Q. Why should a skeleton drink 10 glasses of milk a day?
A. It’s good for the bones.

Q. Why don’t witches like to ride their brooms when they’re angry?
A. They’re afraid of flying off the handle!

Q. Why don’t skeletons like parties?
A. They have no body to dance with.

Q. Why do mummies make excellent spies?
A. They’re good at keeping things under wraps.

Q. Why do vampires drink blood?
A. Because coffee keeps them awake all day!

Q. Why doesn’t Dracula have any friends?
A. Because he’s a pain in the neck!

Q. Why are there fences around cemeteries?
A. Because people are dying to get in.

Q. Who did Frankenstein take to the prom?
A. His ghoul friend.

Q. Where does Count Dracula make his withdrawals?
A. At the blood bank.

Q. When does a ghost need a license?
A. During “haunting” season.

Q. What was the witches’ favorite subject in school?
A. Spelling

Q. What would you call the ghost of a door-to-door salesman?
A. A dead ringer.

Q. What kind of mistakes do spooks make?
A. Boo boos

Q. What do ghosts serve for dessert?
A. Ice Scream

Q. What did the Mommy ghost say to the baby ghost?
A. Don’t spook until your spooken to.

Q. What did the Mommy Vampire say to the Baby Vampire?
A. “You are driving me batty.”

Q. What did the monster eat after the dentist pulled his tooth?
A. The dentist!

Q. What do you get when you drop a pumpkin?
A. Squash

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Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.”
–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest

“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
–Mariah Carey

“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.”
–Winston Bennet, University of Kentucky basketball forward

“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”
–Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC

“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it.”
–A congressional candidate in Texas

“Half this game is ninety percent mental.”
–Danny Ozark, Philadelphia Phillies manager

“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
–Al Gore, Vice President

“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.”
–Dan Quayle

“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
–Lee Iacocca

“The word ‘genius’ isn’t applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
–Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback and sports analyst

“We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.”
–Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor

“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”
–Department of Social Services, Greenville, SC

“If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.”
–Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

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Feeling smarter yet?

I love it! In fact, I like the whole site – www.roflrazz.com. It’s got a whole bunch of celebrity look-alikes, funny pictures, cute pictures, clever pictures, etc. But THESE really caught my eye as funny.

NOT because I’m a big Star Trek fan, because I’m NOT. But my boss is. As is evidence of these guys standing around our office.

Seriously. These guys are part of our office staff. Their main job is to scare the crap out of the cleaning crew. DeWitte and I even move them around the office from time to time to scare the crap out of each other. (He screams like a little girl when I catch him by surprise)

I just realized that I posted these guy’s picture before – one year ago this month – for National Boss’s Day. . . back when I LOVED my job. Truly, there WAS a day when I did.

**singing “Memories!”

Frosting these cupcakes was my first attempt at using a piping bag; a homemade piping bag. They turned out o.k.a.y. for a first attempt, but you probably shouldn’t use your mother’s birthday cupcakes as the guinea pigs. Bless her heart! She knows I put love into making them, no matter how much they look like a little orange dog dropped a poo on each cupcake.

I truly am my own worst critic when it comes to cooking. I will tell anyone the honest to God truth about whether I did a good job or not. And as a matter of fact, aside from the orange poo cupcakes, yesterday’s dinner was excellent. The most outstanding thing was the mashed potatoes.

I know. Everybody on the planet knows how to make mashed potatoes. There’s no secret there. You boil a potato and you mash it. Season to taste and BAM! Mashed potatoes. But that’s not necessarily true. I learned something totally by accident.

Little back story: My boys LOVE my mashed potatoes! Particularly, they like them lumpy and with the skins on. They ALWAYS request them with dinner no matter what I’m making. If I’m making lasagne, they still want mashed potatoes on the side. It doesn’t matter. But I’VE never been crazy about them. I mean. . . they’re good. They’ve just never been knock-my-socks-off good.

I’ve always used red potatoes and I’ve always chopped them up and boiled them, then mashed them. Yesterday, I wanted to make potato skins as an appetizer, so I bought regular white potatoes (for no reason other than they were bigger). I washed and dried them, drizzled them with some olive oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt. I baked them for a little more than an hour.

I let them cool for awhile because I’ve never been fond of playing “hot potato”. Besides, I had plenty of other dishes to prepare that kept me busy. After they were cooled enough for me to handle, I scooped out the insides. At this point, I had my skins and I had my potatoes for mashing. The hard part is over. The rest is a breeze.

Potato Skins

5 lbs baked potato skins
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Cheddar cheese, shredded
Bacon, crumbled

At this point, just sprinkle the insides of the potato skins with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon. Broil for 5 minutes, or until lightly brown and crispy. Serve with a side of sour cream. Yummm!

Awesome Mashed Potatoes

5 lbs baked potato insides
1 stick butter, softened
1 – 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup milk
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded

In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, butter, cream cheese, salt and pepper. Mix with hand mixer (or a Kitchen Aid if you have one), adding milk to reach desired consistency, whether you like them lumpy or whipped. Pour into a baking dish and sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

My mother and my boys LOVED these potatoes so much that I was instructed to write it down before I forgot what I did. They think the BAKED potato makes the difference in the flavor of the potato rather than the boiled. I have no idea, but I do love the two-fer I get out of baking this one little bag of potatoes; a great appetizer (I mean, who doesn’t like potato skins?) and the best mashed potatoes EVER.

I think Mama had a good day! Good dinner, good company, cool presents, and orange poo birthday cupcakes. You can’t beat that! Happy Birthday Mama!

Yep, things at work still suck. My nasty Monday has turned into nasty Wednesday and will turn into Thank God It’s Nasty Friday. I see no light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve managed to piss off all but a handful of people, but you know what? I’m standing my ground. People just need to do their jobs and stop bellyaching about being “busy”. Hello! We are ALL busy! If people spent less time “talking” about how busy they were and just did their jobs, they might get something accomplished at the end of the day.

The sad part is that I’ve learned who does and who does not have my back at the office. Who has respect for the work I do and who doesn’t. The list has surprised me. And saddened me. Now I need to get a grip and just deal with it. If the last ten years of proving my work ethic doesn’t do the trick, then I don’t know what will. It is what it is. At least I know where I stand now. My head is officially OUT of the sandbox.

I DID manage to find just what I was looking for though – a place to rant. It’s called “Work Sucks“. It’s perfect! These folks did a fantastic job with this site. It was just what I had in mind, only now I don’t have to create it myself. So if you ever find yourself having a bad day, go check this site out. It’s great!

Oh! and I have a toothache. **I’m on a downhill roll, huh?** I had been thinking it was an earache (and would pass) because my cheekbone and ear have been hurting for a couple of days. But today it’s worse. I’d been craddling the side of my head in my hand and that’s when I realized the origin is not my ear, but my tooth. Yikes.

I guess I’d better go on to the dentist before I lose my job AND my insurance. Whee!

Oh! And now that I’ve found a great place to rant, I won’t be torturing you all with my whining. I’ll be back to posting recipes and happy thoughts in no time.

Fall? . . . well, I’m working on that one.

Let’s see. The benefits of Fall are:

1. Better hair days
2. The tree out front should stop dropping those nasty berries on my car
3. Football Sundays/dinner with my boys
4. Flannel pajamas (so comfy)
5. Great photo ops of colorful trees (I have a thing about trees)
6. Thanksgiving (My favorite meal of the year)
7. Get to leave the windows open (love love fresh air)
8. I DO like Orange.
9. This list is a work in progress (tougher than I thought it’d be)

I need to think positively. I need to think positively. I need to think positively.

Oh! And if you haven’t seen Law Abiding Citizen. . . it’s a really good movie starring Gerard Butler. My oldest baby took me to the movie this weekend. We couldn’t remember the last movie that I’d seen in a theater. I don’t go often, but I’m glad I went to see this.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!