Comfort and Cheesy Chicken and Rice

There are a lot of advantages to being a nanny. Like being "part of the family." One of the disadvantages is that when the family is sick, you are "part of the family."

So I have some mysterious virus, and after a day of working on a sore throat, all I wanted was something creamy, and gooey, and warm. So I came home and made Cheesy Chicken and Rice for dinner.....and it was everything I hoped it would be!

So I thought I would share it with you! It may not be gourmet, but it is the absolutely perfect thing on those days when you need a true comfort food that takes more unattended time than effort, and gives you exactly that warm gooey feeling you lacked before.......

Cheesy Chicken and Rice

2 Chicken breasts, uncooked and halved
3/4 Cup rice
1 Can cream of mushroom(or chicken)soup
1 1/3 Cup water
1 Cup cheese
Garlic salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix soup, rice, water, half of the cheese, salt, and pepper. Lay the chicken on top. Cover and cook for 50 minutes.

Cover with remaining cheese, and let sit for 10 minutes until thick (and creamy, and gooey, and...you get the point)

Serve and enjoy!

*Add veggies to the mix to incorporate even more goodness!

Try it, you'll thank me later :)

Happy Wednesday!

Watching "Julie and Julia" and drinking coffee. I have a love-hate relationship with this movie, mostly because I don't like the way Julie treats her husband, however, I absolutely adore the rest of it! The cooking, the romance, the writing. It makes me want to be a better person. It almost makes me wonder if June Cleaver is truly the proper model of homemaking. Of course the answer is yes, because she is all the good things Julia Child is, only better - because she has the advantage of being fictional.

Truth be told, I don't much feel like going to work today. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't enjoy my job. I suppose it's just spring fever, or summer fever as it were. I'll be taking the summer semester off from school and, completely contrary to my typical scholastically ambitious character, I am thrilled! So I guess my psyche is just preparing for the thrills of freedom prematurely. All I want to do is drink coffee, and read, and cook, and bake, and write. But hey, the time is coming. And of to work I go. In honor of Julia, I shall wear pearls.

I realize when I refer to you readers as if there are more then 3 of you, it possibly sounds silly, but:

I hope you all have wonderful Wednesdays!

It is my express wish to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday for the rest of my life.

Wiffle Ball and Other Life Lessons

I did it. I played wiffle ball.

Yes, it IS a big deal. People play wiffle ball everyday - but I don't. In fact, I have managed to get through 21 years of living without subjecting myself that particular game. Actually, I have spent the last 21 years avoiding any game or situation with a large possibility of looking stupid, making mistakes, or general humiliation of any kind. And Wiffle Ball is a game where the primary purpose is to hit a ball a couple inches wide, with a "bat" that has the circumference of about a nickel, and if you actually manage to succeed at this, you then have to run faster than the opposing team can catch.

Insecure? Me? Maybe.

But working with a bunch of teenagers can cause you to do surprising things however, and after spotting the "cool" kids sitting on the wall, refusing to play all for the sake of not looking "stupid" it suddenly occurred to me that I did not want to be a "cool" kid sitting on the edge of life! So, against my better judgement, I played.

I wish this was one of those Hollywood stories where I tell you that I hit a home run, scored the winning run, or at least saved myself from acute embarrassment. If that is what you are waiting for, you are about to be sorely disappointed. If that's what you would like to think happened, you have my permission to go ahead and leave with nice happy vision of my success in your head. I need all the help I can get. In actuality, I was pretty awful. You think I'm exaggerating? I have at least 30 witnesses that can attest to the fact that, at one point, I actually batted the ball into my own head. Yep. Absolutely disgraceful. Here's the thing though: I had so much fun! Our team won 13-1 (without my help, obviously, but I still take part in the victory), and it was amazing to simply let go and play a game!

Now, I realize I'm probably taking this wiffle ball analogy a little deep. It is, after all, just a game. Life is a lot more than a game. But is it really? Beyond the real reasons we're here, our purpose, our mission to live the life God has for us, isn't the rest about getting up every morning and choosing to get out of bed and step up to the plate of life (I know, it's so very very corny), even at the risk of looking like a complete idiot. And isn't that kind of what the big stuff is about too? I know it is to me. I am completely ashamed at how many hours of my day are consumed with thoughts designed to keep me saying the right things, doing the right things, being the right person. And when I say "right" I don't really mean "right." All I really mean is cool.

Well, I am done. Done being the "cool" kid on the wall, and ready to be the moron risking personal safety and the good opinion of all to have a little fun, and maybe, just once in awhile, actually score.