Let's talk about Big Brother.

And I don't mean the government, because television is far more exciting.

I remember when I was in high school and this show, Big Brother was being introduced. I think I watched one episode with my family and was bored with it, but now, I'm older, I'm wiser, and frankly, I have more free time. My sister has been an avid Big Brother fan for years and I never understood her interest, until now.

A few weeks ago, I was at one of the Schlitterbahn water parks in Texas with my church. I had volunteered to drive a van so that the teenagers could go. Travis came too, as well as a few of my friends, so I figured it'd be a day well spent. In our youth group is a student named David, and David loves watching television. It's crazy how much t.v. he is able to watch. Anyway, so he was asking me if I was going to watch the new season of Big Brother and I told him no. He then told me about how this season was different, and as he was explaining that there was going to be a saboteur on the show, and that's what I found to be intriguing. You see, there was once this show called The Mole where there was a saboteur to throw off the missions and screw up everyone else's game, and I loved that show! I was pretty upset that it was canceled.

So, I opted to give Big Brother a shot, and I'm pretty glad I did. Who knew that there were 3 hours of reality tv drama a week in the summer time, just when you're getting tired of summer programming?! Well, I guess the millions of Big Brother viewers knew, but whatever. Now I'm hooked. I like that right when you're wishing for the next episode, there's one to air that evening. Ok, let's talk about THIS season.

Annie, the Saboteur

I couldn't believe that the original saboteur was out during the first week, and that wasn't even why they tried to get her out. They had no idea that Annie was the saboteur.

Rachel

Brendan

Then, week two, my absolute least favorite person on the show, Rachel is the HoH (head of household, they get to nominate 2 people for elimination, only vote for the nominee if there is a tie, and they obviously can't get eliminated that week) and she puts one of my favorite people, Brittany, up for nominations, and I was a little bummed. Rachel is a girl from Vegas, she has an annoying laugh, and is just obnoxious in general. She's a "chemist" and has started in a showmance with Brendan, a high school coach and physicist. They've bonded over science and are known as a power couple. When she was HoH, she wouldn't make decisions without Brendan, and it was really obnoxious. Most of the house seems to find Brendan to be tolerable, as do I, but Rachel...not so much. She always, always, ALWAYS says something along the lines of, "Nothings going to come between me and MY MAN!" She needs to learn that saying, "MY MAN" is dumb.

Monet

Britney

Britney is a young girl from Arkansas, and I really enjoy when she talks about Rachel. It makes me laugh, and I'm pretty sure that she'd be pretty fun in real life. After she had been nominated for eliminations, (aka "being put on 'the block') she was in the Power of Veto competition. This is when the 2 nominees as well as 3 other house members compete for the power of veto, which can take someone off "the block" and then the HoH will put someone else in. It's the chance that a nominee has to save themselves, or for someone else to save them, however, if someone wins the PoV that isn't on the block, they don't have to use it. Luckily, the PoV went to Britney that week, and she was able to stay, while her friend Monet went home. I'm pretty happy that Britney got to stay, though I think that Monet tended to bring out her funny-judgmental side.

The Brigade: Matt, Enzo, Lane & Hayden

Andrew

Kathy

The third week, the winner of the HoH competition was Matt, a self-proclaimed genius, who is telling everyone in the house that his wife is sick, when she in fact, is not sick. He's playing the sympathy card with his housemates, and they all seem to believe him. His wife, however, was not quite as happy, but whatever. Matt is a member of the Brigade, a secret alliance comprised of Matt, Enzo, Lane and Hayden. If Matt's a genius, you would think that he would put Rachel and Brendan on the block, because you want to break up any known alliances in the house as soon as you can. What did Matt-the-Genius do? He put neither of them on the block, instead, he put Kathy and Andrew. Andrew, at times, can be annoying as all get-out, and his plans pretty much always backfire on him, and Kathy, though she has tarantula-eyelashes, is nice to everyone and I thought she was an odd choice, but apparently, she had made Matt mad, so he put her up. When asked by Julie Chen, the host of the show, to give a last minute plea for votes, Andrew decided to share secrets about everyone in the house, in hopes that everyone would realize that everyone's lying, but instead, everyone decided that he was a jerk and it was a unanimous vote that Andrew would go home.

After eliminations, was the next HoH competition, and who, of ALL people was the one to win HoH?

Week 4 HoH, Rachel

Kristen

The root of all that is evil in Big Brother: Season 12, Rachel. It's going to be another long week in the Big Brother house. I'm pretty sure that she's going to put Matt up, and normally, I like him, but his failure to put Rachel on the block makes me think that he deserves to go home. However, I think that she just may be smart enough to add a twist, and put Hayden up against his newly revealed showmance partner, Kristen. Part of Andrew's final plea included him throwing Kristen and Hayden under the bus, revealing that they've been in a showmance hat had fallen under the radar, and because Rachel likes being the center of attention, I can see her putting Kristen and Hayden on the block. After all, nobody is going to break up her and her man, right?

Ragan

The show producers have also thrown out something new, since Annie got eliminated the first week: they're going to offer a housemate the position of saboteur. They get $50,000 if they can stay for a certain amount of time, and it was America's vote for who they would offer it to. If the votes weren't $1 each, I would have voted, but since I didn't, I'm just going to hope that it's someone good. I think that Ragan, a college professor (who has kept his Ph.D secret from the house) would be an excellent candidate. People trust him. He's funny, he's nice, he's charismatic, and I think that he's creative enough to pull of being the saboteur without anyone knowing that it's him. I guess well see who it's going to be.

I'm sure that you were really curious to know all of this information about Big Brother, but I'm bored and it's what I was thinking about. :) Have an excellent Saturday & Sunday! I will leave you with a question, so that I can find fellow Big Brother viewers.

Are you a Big Brother watcher? What do you think about the season so far?

Happy Friday!

I decided that since Travis, my family and I enjoyed those rolls from the other night so much, I'd share the recipe, since I have 3 people that read my blog, and I'm sure it'll make me FAMOUS!!!!!!!!

Or not, but you know, whatever.

In case you're wondering what on earth Texas Roadhouse is, as I mentioned before, it's a chain of restaurants owned by Willie Nelson. The first one was in Indiana or something like that, and people here in Texas always say, "WELL WHY IS IT CALLED TEXAS ROADHOUSE?!?!!?!1?!!!!?"

Well, friend, that's because it was meant to be like a Texas roadhouse. Duh.

Anyway, it's delicious.

Texas Road House Rolls

Ingredients:

•3 c. all-purpose flour

•2 (1/4 oz.) active dry yeast

•1 tsp salt

•2 tbsp sugar

•1 c. milk + 1/4 c. water, warmed

•1 large egg slightly beaten
•1/4 c. butter + 2 T butter, melted

Instructions:

1. Place 2 cups flour in a large bowl. Add yeast, salt, and sugar.
2. In another bowl (I used a large glass measuring cup), combine water, milk, and egg. Stir.
3. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; pour milk mixture into the well.
4. Mix by hand, approx 150 strokes, frequently scraping bottom and sides of bowl.
5. Add 1/4c. melted butter & stir to incorporate.
6. Add remaining flour, 1/3 cup at a time, and stir after each addition.
7. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Set dough in a warm, draft free place such as an oven with a pan of the hottest tap water on the rack below.
8. Allow batter to rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.
9. Coat 12 cup muffin pan with butter, shortening, or spray. Make sure to do this liberally.
10. Punch down batter with spoon. Dough will be VERY sticky. I’d recommend not using your hands. I sprayed down two rubber spatula-spoons with non-stick spray.
11. Drop by spoonfuls into muffin tins. Keep in mind rolls should double in size. Brush rolls with 1 tbsp. of melted butter.
12. Let rise for another 30 minutes in a warm place; rolls should double in size.
13. Bake rolls on middle rack for 16-18 minutes at 400 degrees. After removing rolls, brush top with remaining melted butter.

Personal note: I made these in the muffin pan, and I believe that next time, I will try to put them on a flat pan in small rectangular-ish shapes, lined up next to each other. I think they may bake better this way.

Cinnamon Butter

•1 stick real butter (softened)
•4 tsp. cinnamon
•1/4 cup brown sugar
•1/4 cup white sugar

Beat ingredients together until smooth. Cover and refrigerate.

Personal note: When I was making the cinnamon butter, I doubled the recipe since I was having a large number of people over. I beat it for quite some time with my stand mixer, and it was REALLY dark in color and quite grainy in texture. I added another stick of butter and that helped a little, but it was still grainy. I decided to add a small splash of milk, (maybe 2-3 tbsp) and it helped a little. Had I not been in a time crunch, I probably would have played with it more.

I suggest for a single batch using 1/8cup of the sugars, (that's 2 tbsp if you don't have a 1/8 measuring cup), mix it and taste. If it's not sweet enough, I would gradually add some of each maybe a tbsp or even a tsp at a time.

I would also suggest beating the butter by itself first to give it a good, whipped texture. Whipped butter speads so well on warm rolls.

So there's my Friday gift to you. Let me know how it turns out! :)

Ok, quickly, I would like to add that I am so excited for the events in my life today. Travis's cousin is in the Navy and was able to get his leave a little earlier than planned to make it to a family wedding that we have tomorrow. The whole family is greeting him today, and we are just super excited to be a part of it. I'm even more excited because his aunt asked me to take pictures of it all, so that she can have pictures to remember the moment. To me, that's a special opportunity and I can't wait. :)

1950's Housewi--what? No.

I've said before that if air conditioning was available in every home and building I went to, I think it'd be fun to live in the 1950's.

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't.

I came up with the brilliant plan to have a large dinner for my mother and siblings last night. Not only did I want to cook them a nice dinner, I wanted to: try new recipes I had never had before and make the meal entirely from scratch. As far as timing goes, I really can't do anything but pat myself on the back for my good work. The main dish was coming out of the oven just a few minutes before Travis got home. I was a failure because I hadn't set the table in it's entirety, but at least I got the place mats and napkins washed and dried in time for everyone to get here.

The menu was oven-barbecued chicken, scalloped potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls with cinnamon butter, and cheesecake for dessert. The plan was to make the cheesecake before I went to bed on Tuesday night, (this is what I almost always do if I'm making cheesecake, I bake it the night before and let it chill overnight. It seems to set better if it has an entire day in the refrigerator) but when I opened the first cream cheese block, though not expired, it had gone bad. Probably because some jerk at the grocery store set it down on a shelf when they decided they didn't want it, and an idiot employee decided to put it back, because, you know, warmed dairy products are fine and all.

So, I woke up bright and early yesterday to run to the store and buy more cream cheese as well as chicken, since the grocery store I went to on Tuesday night didn't have any chicken. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I got in and out of the store pretty quickly, and immediate got to work on the cheesecake. It only takes a matter of minutes to get it ready, especially since I decided to make the crust the night before, and enjoyed what I would find to be my last minutes of sitting lazily on the couch while it baked.

Once it was baked, I figured I may as well do the scalloped potatoes, and then just warm them before it was time for dinner, since I only have one oven, and almost everything required using the oven at different temperatures. It was an easy dish to make, and once that was in the oven, it was time to get the cheesecake out of the pan, put it in the refrigerator and clean the kitchen up from everything so I would be able to cook everything else.

There's a chain of restaurants called Texas Roadhouse, owned by Willie Nelson. If you've ever been there, you've experienced their amazing rolls and cinnamon butter, and if not, you're missing out. A girl I met in college posted a recipe on her blog that was supposed to be the same as these rolls, and I decided to put it to the test. While the potatoes were baking, I embarked on my first-ever attempt at any type of homemade bread. The dough had to sit in the oven, (while it was off) for an hour to the yeast could do its job, and while that was happening, I realized it was just getting later, so it was time to my apartment in order before everyone arrived. My older brother and his girlfriend hadn't had the opportunity to see our apartment yet, so I wanted to make sure that everything was to my satisfaction.

Once the rolls had been baked properly, I was done cleaning the house, but it was time to work on the chicken, and in that process is when everyone started to call to let me know they were en route to my apartment and that I should be expecting them shortly, which led me to prepare chicken and clean up the counters as much as possible.

When everyone got here, they all said it smelled really good in the house, which is always a good sign. I started making the green beans, put the potatoes in the oven to keep them warm, took the chicken off the bone and started putting everything into serving dishes. By the time Travis got home, it was time to eat and if I must say, it was all absolutely delicious. The rolls were just as good as I expected. The texture was slightly different, but the taste was the same. My only disappointment with the whole meal was that the chicken wasn't quite what I was expecting in flavor, and that's always frustrating, but I think that the name of the recipe is what threw me off. It tasted almost like something you'd find at an Asian restaurant, not like barbecue, but it was still good.

I tell you all of this because by the time it was all said and done, my back was killing me and my feet were aching. I am not cut out to be a 1950's housewife, dressed in heels and pearls waiting for my husband to get home with a martini in hand. While it's a picturesque moment, I wonder if that ever happened as often as we see in the movies. Did Lucy always greet Ricky with such a smile when he got home each day? Probably not. She probably told him if he wanted a drink, he better make it himself, and that he better make her one while he's at it.

Moral of the story? I'm a 1950's housewife failure.

In case you're wondering...

...though you probably aren't, I have changed the name of my blog.

First of all, the previous title was just way too long.

Secondly, I felt that it just didn't fit, and it was just way too long.

And last, this title just came to me, I find it to be more fitting, and it was just way too long.

That's all. :)

Friendship

I managed to sleep in today until about 10:50 this morning, and as we all know, AM programming is really not that fantastic. My television has landed on ABC Family. where they air Full House from 11:00 to 12:00 every weekday. As a kid, this was one of my favorite shows, but as an adult, when I watch it, it's more of a, "What was I thinking" moment. Due to my familiarity with it, it's something I will admit I turn on when I want background noise while checking my Facebook, (I almost wrote e-mails, but I never have e-mails) and other daily website visits I do when I get up each day.

Today's episode was one where Michelle is trying to decide who is her best friend, and Uncle Jesse is upset with his best friend, Joey, for making him feel left out at work while Joey and his new girlfriend make jokes during the Rush Hour Renegade radio show.

While in my opinion, none of the happenings in that episode are realistic to adult friendships, it managed to get me thinking about my friendships since I was feeling bloggy. Some people seem to have an endless amount of friends they pull from, but when I talk to people like that, it makes me wonder how surface-level some of those friendships are.

I have never been a person with lots and lots of friends, but I have always had friends that I was close to, that I know I can count on. The person that I consider my best friend, (that isn't my husband) is Kim, who I have known for 15 years. I met her at a school-fundraiser party in the bathroom when I was in 5th grade. I had been in the party room talking to people, and saw someone I wanted to say hi to talking to a 6th grader. I went to greet the person, (I have no clue who it was all these years later) and the evil 6th grader gave me the finger when I walked up. Being the bright-eyed and innocent child I was, I was horrified and ran away to the bathroom, where Kim and her then BFF, Brittany were sitting on the counter playing with a Yak-Back.

They asked me what was wrong and started talking to me. Actually, really Brittany talked more than Kim did, because then, Kim was really shy. I remember they cheered me up and we kept playing with that Yak-Back. I remember really wanting one, so I guess I figured I'd play with theirs since I didn't have one.

A couple of years later, Kim and I realized that we had ridiculous amounts of fun together and we have been best friends since 8th grade. She's the one person who can really seems to be able to read my mind, and sometimes, it's like I'm reading hers. We are constantly communicating just by looking at each other, which I think results in 12 years of being best friends.

This past weekend, Travis, my brother, his friend, Chase, Kim and I went to New Braunfels, TX to tube down the Comal River. We all went down the river twice as a group, and then Kim and I decided that floating the river a third time just with us would be fun, since the boys were already talking about how they were excited to go back to the hotel. Normally, floating the river in a small group can be dull, but I am pretty sure that I had just as much fun floating with one other person than I did floating it with 4 other people.

Having many friends is a great thing, but for me, having a few great friends is even greater.

Congrats, Marissa!

Hello, all three of my readers! My childhood friend and blogger, MJokisch, had a beautiful baby girl today, and I am so excited for her!

Marissa, I am definitely praying for you and Ben as you have this whole new adventure to embark upon. I know that you will make wonderful parents to Emma, and I cannot wait to meet her in person. :)

Love you!

Confession:

I'm really, really excited for the next round of Teen Mom on MTV.

Don't judge me too much. I know several people that are equally excited.



That's all. :)

Dog/House-Sitting & Life.

This year, our church hired on a new music minister, John. We are so grateful for him and his wonderful family to be here and a part of our church. Anyway, so in the last few months, we've gotten to know them better and better because in June, they were FINALLY able to move into their house down here.

All of that brings me to say that we are spending the week at their house, mostly to take care of their dogs Radley and Annie, while they are out of town on vacation. While it's only 15ish minutes from our apartment, it feels almost like a getaway of sorts, just because it's a really nice house and it's in a super-quiet neighborhood. I actually managed to not step outside once today, though I did let the dogs in and out while trying to dodge the mosquitoes.

I continue to suck at blogging because I've been staying much busier than usual, yet I have nothing to write about. Boo.

This past week was fun. My church does an annual day-camp for kids ages 6-12 and we take them to places all around town. We took them to putt-putt golf, bowling, the swimming pool, a wildlife park the movies, a local boardwalk with rides and so forth as well as this place called Palm Beach. Palm Beach has sand and everything, but it has pool water instead of salt water.

I was able to invite my 4 year-old nephew, (Ethan) to the movies to see Toy Story 3, (yet again) and to Palm Beach. He loves the beach, but hates the idea of fish and other marine animals swimming in the water with him, so this is actually ideal. He LOVED it, and told me repeatedly how it was his favorite beach. Travis was the one who was able to bring him, and I'm glad that they got to have a little one-on-one time together, even if it was just the drive to and from. That's about an hour round-trip in the car. Ethan asked around lunch time to go home, because he was really tired, and oh, was he tired. His poor eyes could hardly stay open. He did make sure to tell me that he wanted to come back.

On Saturday, I got a call from Robert, (my nephew's dad & my sister's fiance) and he was letting me know that they were going to take Ethan to see Despicable Me and that we were welcome to come. He decided not to tell Ethan that we were coming, and he enjoyed the surprise. I didn't think it was going to work out though, because the theater was allegedly sold out of tickets. The theater that we went to is small and usually not too busy, so I was in disbelief. I decided to just buy tickets for another movie and then we would go see if there were any seats at Despicable Me, and sure enough...there were several. I figured if they didn't have the seats, it only cost a few dollars so we'd just pass the movie altogether, but it all worked out. The movie was really good. I feel like a kid lately because I keep watching these random kid movies. I've seen Toy Story 3 twice this month, Despicable Me on Saturday and today, I finally watched Up. Apparently I really like kid movies.

On Saturday after the movie, Travis and I ran by the grocery store to get ingredients for pizza. Sarah and Robert brought Ethan over and we had semi-homemade pizza and played Phase 10 while Ethan watched Toy Story 2. When it was over, he wanted to play Phase 10, too, so we just handed him a stack of the cards and let him make up his own game. I swear, I've never seen a kid love numbers like he does.

This past week has also been interesting because I have two friends that have had a baby in the last week (one today and one last Tuesday) and I have another friend, (mjokisch) who is having her daughter, Emma any day now...just so many new lives being brought into the world. It does give me a hint of baby fever, but I definitely know that we aren't in the right place for a baby right now, and I will just have to get past it, like I have before.

In other, much more boring news, my apartment is finally clean. It has taken me forever to find the time to get it done thoroughly, and I am so glad that I did. It feels so good to have it clean again, though I'm not there right now to enjoy it. I still like the idea of going home to a clean house!

Lastly, we're going to New Braunfels this weekend to go tubing on the Comal river. Holy heavenly goodness, it's going to be wonderful.This is by far my favorite thing to do in Texas. I have yet to find something that's quite so refreshing, relax and constant fun as sitting in an inner-tube floating down the river that's freezing cold while you're being warmed by the sun. Oh...it's so good. I cannot wait! Travis and I are going of course, and my best friend Kim and my brother Bryan are joining us as well. I still haven't developed last year's pictures, maybe this year I'll take the camera from this year AND last year to get those pictures. ;)

Goodnight. :D

Whew.

Today is one of the first days in a while that I've found myself at home, sitting in front of the computer for more than 10 minutes.

I turned 25 in May, and that was just in time for the summer. You see, my church won't let you drive a van until you're 25, and in the summers, our youth department goes all sorts of places, thus needing vans and drivers. My brother-in-law, his girlfriend and my friend, Emilee are all interns this summer, so I've been volunteering my time to drive them from place to place and to be a 'youth sponsor' for things like camp.

This has obviously cut my 'sitting around time' in half and I've hardly been home. We had Super Summer a few weeks ago, which is a week-long camp for students that are considered to be the leaders in their group, followed by a week off, but that included a trip to the beach and a few other outings that kept me busy. The next week I had responsibilities to be the 4th grade director of our Vacation Bible School, so I was busy with that, and then last week I was at our church's youth camp as an adult sponsor.

I have really enjoyed having reasons to be out of the house, but I also enjoy time to sit. On Monday I spent the afternoon at my friend's house watching movies and being lazy, yesterday I took my mom out looking for cars, because the one she had kicked the bucket, and we found one, but that took all day due to traffic, test drives, etc.

My mom isn't a person with a lot of money, and she had been driving my old car, which was a 1992 Buick LeSabre, but she was letting my brother drive it a lot, and he drives cars really hard, mostly because he's 19. My mom has been working the Census and has earned a great deal of money through that and with some other money she had saved up, she was able to buy a 2000 Infiniti I30. It's in excellent shape. It has a few scratches in the paint, but every feature still works really well and she said it drives well. She feels safe in it, and it's in her price range. She did the Carfax on it and found that it only had one owner, it had regular maintenance, and was traded in for a new Infiniti, so the previous owner was someone who is willing to spend money on a nice car and takes care of it. We're supposed to go get it today.

You would think that with how busy I've been that I'd have a lot more to say, but I really don't. I guess I've been talking a lot lately so I'm all talked out.

:)