Let me just start out by saying I might be cheap but I'm not free.  Also, as clearly indicated in previous post (and will be demonstrated in later ones as well) I am not in the least tacky.  Mostly, I'm classy, bitches.  Recognize.

Now that we have established our groundwork for the day I can move on...

I consider myself a thrifty woman.  I like to use the great powers of my mind to look for a bargain and comparison shop!  I'm one of those people who pulls out the calculator on her phone to calculate the cheapest price by ounce of a product before choosing which to buy.

I know what you are thinking.  You want to be just like me because I am so cool.  And you can!  For 3 easy payments of $29.95 I'll show you how!

As I am so thrifty, I have taken to buying whole chickens rather than pieces, naturally.  It's cheaper (I only purchase  them when I can buy one for under $5) and I have a few ways to cook whole chickens either in the over or crock-pot.  I freeze the left overs in serving sizes and add them to recipes as needed. It's a win/win, right?  Well, yes, but I but I don't always care for the texture when it is cooked in the crock-pot.  It's a little soft- stringy, or "shredded" tasting.  That perfect for soup and great in fajitas, and chicken pot pie, but that's about it.  (That seems like a good list, but it's still warm out here so that's not as great a list of foods as it will be in about 2 months.)

The other day I was folding up some laundry and watching the cooking channel when I, of course, became very inspired.  Let me just say that the dinner dishes from cooking channel days are a bitch.  I start thinking I went to culinary school or something and have about a 50% success rate in turing out eatable meals.  The dude on the cooking show, whatever the hell it happened to be, was slicing and dicing up a whole chicken talking about how it's less wasteful and basically Candace-tastic.  So I say to myself Hey!  Duh!  Slice that bitch up next time you buy a chicken!  So, I bought a couple chickens and that's what I did.

However, if it was a simple as that, there would be no point in interwebbing it.

Here is how it actually went.  I get this chicken (well, chicken carcass) and get it out of the plastic packaging it is in.  I've done that lots before so I have my trash sack close by to catch the trash and i'm next to the sink to catch the splatter and drips.  This time, tho there was this maxi pad thing by the chickens ass.  I guess it was jus a regular meat drip absorbency pad thing, but the position it was in was a little uninspired.

By the way, did I mention that this post is alternately titled:

My Case for Vegetarianism

Once I have this chicken in front of my and my very best dull knife in hand, I say what would be the easiest way to get this meet away from the rest of this thing?  And the answer comes to me like a voice from a television show, because it was, saying it is so easy to cut these chickens up!  Just remember to cut along the joints and it's easy peazy.  That is totally a quote because it is definitely true that more people than me talk like that.  

In my head this translates to: cut this thing in half first!

Well, that did not work.

So then I started hacking away and finally managed to get a leg off.  I spent another couple of minutes taking the thigh away from the leg.  Those two were really attached!

That's how it went with the first one.  Little son of a bitch!

So, I get it all done and take on the second bastard.  This time, I see my scissors and there is this light on them like a glow from heaven and angles started singing when I picked them up.  It was divine!  (OMG- do you notice how funny I am today?!!  Wholly Hell!  This is good shit!)  I use my handy dandy scissors to undress this chicken from its skin.  The act of was actually a lot less creepy than I made it sound right there.

I found out two things, at least, today about chickens.

1.  (this is about my knife but it's my blog so I can do whatever I want)  My knife is handy and since its so dull the back is almost as sharp as the front.  I want a double sided knife.  A kitchen sword!  ...i'm on to something here...

2.  Chickens are easier to cut up once they are undressed from their skin.

3.  If you chop up a chicken and then ask your husband to grill it, he will.

4.  Those chicken chopping people on TV have some mad skills and/or a very sharp knife and editing equipment.  All things I lack.

5.  I managed to get a full casserole dish of chicken (once it was all dismembered and grilled) for around $9.

6.  I am surprisingly good about at chicken humor.

7.  If meat wasn't so delicious I would not eat it because it is actually kind of gross.  Or at least chickens are.

That is all, for now, good folks.

This post is alternately titled

The delicious cookies born of DOOM and DISASTER!

Once upon a time in a village far far away lived a girl (used very loosely here) who desperately wanted to be skinny.  So much so that she even got a gym membership and used it regularly.  However, one fateful day in early september, her ever present craving for chocolate chip cookies became so powerful that she said, 'Imma make me some of those!'

This cookie making session began like any other, by locating the chocolate chips, of course.  Alas, upon reading the recipe on the package, our heroine was unsatisfied  decided to look up the toll house recipe on line (this one).  Our heroine, lady that she was, said "Ah hell nah!  I can't be having all that mess! Imma substitute regular flour for whole wheat and half the butter for organic low-fat-vanilla yogurt and all those sugars for raw sugar."  Secretly, she knew that she would be eating at least 75 of the cookies so this only made sense.

Our lusty heroine (why not, right?  There aren't any pictures here...) put the stick of butter in the microwave and heated it for 10 seconds as she dumped the sugar in <strike>my</strike> her mixing bowl.  With the help of her fine skills of observation, she realized that the butter wasn't quite softened enough so another 10 seconds was thought to fix that.  Into the bowl the butter went.

After mixing for a moment, she realized that her amazing powers of observation might not have been quite so amazing and the butter might not be quite softened after all.  Of course, the only logical thing to do in order to dislodge the too-hard butter from the mixer mixing thingy was to get her blow dryer.  Duh.  BOOM!  Worked like a charm!

Once the butter was actually softened and all fluffed into the sugar and vanilla, enter the eggs!  Now, our heroine being the master of efficiency she truly was saw no need to stop the mixer and raise the head to crack the eggs.  Rather, she cracked one on the side, but in a stroke of bad luck, most likely the result of some sort of curse, half the egg shell fell into the mixing bowl!  Forsooth!  (that fits here, right?)

Our lovely heroine tried to pull out as much of the egg shells as possible, but again, her powerful urge for cookies kicked in and she said, "fuck it" and went on with the business of making her own personal ambrosia.

The cookies, born of doom and disaster, with the help of a multi-purpose kitchen tool, aka a blow dryer, turned out delicious and delightful, albeit crunchy.  As a result, everyone lived happily every after and there was piece on earth.

The end.

PS- As for mixers, that'a the one I have and I LOVE it!!

Our youngest daughter Dagny is a very... interesting person.

She is also the funniest person she knows and has been since day one.   </div>

I quite enjoy her.

The other day I had my keys and sunglasses on the coffee table.  (Fair game, I guess?)  She puts the glasses on in her trademark style: upside down.  That's how she rolls.  My children are very stylish, something I'm sure they must have gotten from...  well, it could have been from either of us as we are both really just fashion icons.  I'll save that for another day...  I'll put up a fashion show post.  You'll love it.  Vogue ain't got shit on the Fortino's!  Lookout!

Oh... got a bit off track there...  that's what happens in my head all the time...

Back to Dagny....  If you could read her mind, I think it would go something like this...

I know I am out of focus in that picture mom is talking, but I am just so damn happy to have these things I shouldn't that I don't even care about being blurry!  Also, I am super cute and SO funny! I am also awesome and just a genuine badass.  Note it!

Wow!  I got really distracted by my awesomeness for a second.  It happens...  Oh wait, look at this...keys!  I could run off and lose them... that is always super fun!  .... but if I examine them, while looking very thoughtful, perhaps I can find something else to do with them...  

What is their purpose?

OH!!  I've got it figured out!!  

Oh glasses!  You are in the way.  But I will not be deterred.  Nor will I remove my glasses. 

Hell yeah!  Imma get this thing up in my eye!  It's on!!!  

Seriously, I really think this is a good idea!  I'm not giving up!  I have found the purpose of keys and I will not rest until it is fulfilled!!!

*Alternate Dagny thought* 

 Fuck all the hype, I'm done with the fun and games.  I only need one eye.  Lets do this!

(Get it?  It's all fun and games 'til someone loses an eye..? Get it?!)

No Dagny's were harmed in the taking of these pictures.  Really, she is quite sturdy. 

Also, I would not let her actually put a key in her eye.

So, in the past less-than-two-months, my life has undergone a few changes.  Some of them wonderful, amazing, eternalizing (that's is so a word!), another gut wrenching, heart-breaking, soul crushing, and still others (other) exciting, challenging and full of pride.

The wonderful, amazing, eternalizing part was when I married my husband.  (Well, it's been almost 2 months, so technically I did!)  He is amazing.  He is fun.  He is perfect- for me.  We are a mess.  We are absolutely fabulous together.  Our wedding was the funnest (another real word) wedding I've ever been too.  That may not be saying a lot since I haven't been to a shit ton of weddings and I don't generally like them and this was my own, but... it was FUN!  It was a tit bit stressful... just a tit bit.

My father has recently been diagnosed with clear cell renal cell carcinoma- advanced kidney cancer.  My dad is not only awesome, an awesome dad AND one of my most favorite relatives, but one of my most favourite (think favor-right) people.  Ever.  Gut wrenching.  Heart-breaking.  Soul crushing.  But hope remains.

My big baby, our five year old, started kindergarten.  She is so big.  She is OLD!!!  FIVE whole years old!!!!!!!  Well, that is how she looks at it.  Except when she is super pissed that she isn't six yet... or a grown up.  She really wants to be a grown up.  I am challenged by that.  I want her to enjoy being young.  Enjoy the joys of five.  She makes my heart swell with pride.  and joy.  She is good shit.

So, that's what's up.  Ha.  I went there.


But, the thing is, life is about changing.  nothing ever stays the same, or so says Patty Loveless

I would say that this "is just a stressful time," but I think that this is just life.  It's for the living and living is about experience.  Nobody said that "experience" was exclusive to travels and hindsight.  Experience is about... expereince-ing.  Love.  Pain.  Hurt.  Loss.  Fear.  Triumph.  Tragedy.   Pride.  Joy.  Thankfulness. Hope.

My new manta (and even having a "mantra" is new... as in this very moment new) is:<br />

Hope springs eternal.  

Because it does.