rain

Today it decided to downpour on the way back to my car from class. That was fine, anyway, no big problem getting wet, and I decided to go home and change into dry clothes (since I was soaked through) instead of going straight to work as I usually do.

Except the draining system in Athens is pretty stupid since if it downpours the drains can't handle it and thusly the streets fill with water. And the road are crowned too, so it makes the gutters crazy deep. So, I being already drenched through, and being that I was driving down Milledge which is popular walking area, made sure to rooster tail the gutter water with my car onto all the people walking with their umbrellas. :D Needing to mention that with the water and the speed, the water was spraying up a good eight feet.

I'm sure this sounds horrible, but indeed it was quite hilarious, and just to note, there were only two people stupid enough to be walking in a torrential downpour, of which I only got one of them with a full rooster tail (of which she looked like she just got out of the pool after I went by), and the other was standing far enough away, and I was slowing down for a red light that there wasn't a full on tail.

So, that was the highlight of my day so far. Still have to finish eating. Eating the mexican pot roast from recipe #4 since it made like several quarts of stew/chili. If you need to serve like six people heartedly, I recommend this -- topped with cheese, it's way better that way. Well, lots of things are better with cheese.

The roommates are trying my patience slowly but surely. Well, maybe not the guy, but the girl is. Well, I already knew I have a hard time getting along with girls. Whatever, more on that later.

guinea

So, tragically, the guinea pig died. Even after I looked it up online a day later, he had an upper respiratory infection, something apparently quite common in guinea pigs that are bought from a pet store due to the environment. Anyway, so, those stupid vet people didn't even recognize it, even though he had all the symptoms and it's quite common. Not only that, but it was a very common antibiotic to fix him, and so this all could have been avoided if I'd just self diagnosed and told them what I wanted. Anyway, so, I was going to go to another vet and ask for the medicine, but that would have involved more vet expense and more medicine expense, and well... frankly he was only $16 anyway. So, yes, tragically he has passed. I guess I have to get him a friend. The other one seems fine and in good spirits. I'll just have to play whit him more to keep him from being lonely.

recipe #5-Roast Chicken

So, I've been quite busy lately, and so, this time I'm just going for something quick and easy. Roast chicken. Basically the only real difference for this is the way you cook it, and I can still throw in potatoes and other veggies to make a meal. I might even decide to go the lazy route and since I don't have any of these spices and don't know if I want to go all out and buy all of them just for chicken, I might just get a basic chicken rub or some other rub combination that I come up for myself. I'm also not going to be letting it marinade for 24 hours either.

SIMPLE ROAST CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 (4 pound) whole chicken
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, mix the salt, sugar, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Rub the chicken with the mixture. Cover chicken, and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C).
3. Stuff the chicken cavity with the garlic. Place the chicken, breast side down, on a rack in a roasting pan.
4. Roast 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce heat to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C), and continue roasting 15 minutes. Baste chicken with pan drippings, reduce heat to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C), and continue roasting 30 minutes, to an internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C). Let stand 20 minutes before serving.

guinea update

So, since there has been gathering interest into the health of my guinea pigs, here is the update. The big guinea seems to be in good spirits and good health. In fact, he's acting more outgoing than ever. John and I have taken to force feeding the other guinea pig orange juice from the mini water bottle. Mainly because the guinea hasn't been eating or drinking, so at the very least he is getting vitamin C and fluids and some sugars. They recommend a syringe for force feeding, but since we don't have one, that really isn't a possibility. I don't even know where you buy a syringe at. I guess if he can get enough energy to feed himself that would be good. I'll have to buy some soft fruit or something for him in the meantime.

a day in the life

So, classes have begun. Just for a brief exerpt on those: Classes so far aren't that bad. My journalism editing class I haven't had a chance to get a good read on it yet. So far, I'm excited about it for the most part. I have an assignment due on Friday that requires me to diagram sentences with like parts of speech and all that, and I don't remember that at all. It shouldn't be that difficult though, once I get back into the swing of things. My journalism credibility/ethics class I think will end up being pretty interesting and fun. It has no midterm or final, just two papers to write that are like 80% of the final grade. It shouldn't be that difficult, you write the paper and read the material that the paper is on in your own time (before the due date of course), so it's feasible that I could knock that part out early. Anyway, then there is my comparative literature class, which, I don't think will be that bad, but it's been a while since I've written a comparative literature paper... and the class is now part of this new Writing Intensive Program (WIP - no pun intended) that UGA has set up, so there's supposed to be ... duh, intense writing. Again though, no final or midterm, just two papers and some random response papers. It should be fine. At least with writing your grade is how much you put into it. My french class seems like it will be a bit better this year. The teacher is funny and slightly eccentric (and old), but we don't have to buy the stupid French workbook, so I already think this class will be easier. Also, he doesn't grade, he just sort of assigns everyone a letter grade at the end of the year based on all the work, which basically means, as long as I participate (and my French speaking is probably at least a bit better than the writing) then I should be fine. The UGA Key has his grades as all A's and B's, so I'm probably in the clear. Not to mention, Elyas said he'd help me -- he's the exchange student from Africa that has a degree in French.

I just got offered a promotion at my job to QA, quality assurance person, which basically means I get a flat rate of $8 to review jobs that come in that other people have already typed up, and I just correct for errors, and then because I'm also agreeing to close for them on weekends and have a key to the building and the key code also, I negotiated working Shift Premium rates without having to fulfill the hour requirments that normally are involved with Shift Premium. Which basically means that I'll be getting over $10 at all other times that I'm not QAing jobs. Which means, that working less hours, I'll be making more money. Which is a good thing... considering....

I just paid $96 at the UGA vet school just for them to look at (not treat or diagnose) my guinea pigs for two hours, just for them to tell me that they're sick and are going to die, and it'd be best if I just put them down (if I didn't want to spend $60 on eye-drops that they weren't sure was the problem or $600 for them to actually figure out what the problem was and treat them). I felt bad telling them that I wasn't going to do either and that I'd just take them home as is. But seriously, I only spent $16 on them a piece. Anyway, so, I took them home and yeah, the little guy is on a slippery slope to death now. He's not eating or drinking or moving much. I feel bad. His eyes are all dischargey and gooey. I cleaned him up, but it's not looking so good. They said the other one was sick too, but he's eating and walking around and hasn't gotten gooey eyes or anything, so he might be okay. They both had cloudy eyes when I bought them at the pet store, but they said that they were just hard of sight. I asked the vet guy about it and so while they had them back in the back for two hours, no doubt being prodded by vet interns/students, they thought it was because they had clamydia, or the mom did when they were born (which causes blindness in children born to mother's that have that as I thought too). So, well they determined that the guineas are indeed blind. The vet guy was wow attractive by the way. He walked me and my guineas all the way out to my car (which was parked a good distance away). I don't know if that was just his hospitality after telling me my guineas were going to die or what. Well, anyway. That's a bummer. At least I didn't name them yet. Still, I feel that the other one might be okay, and maybe I'll go buy him a friend at some OTHER pet store, a baby guinea so he can get used to me from a young age. Still, I wont be shopping for live animals at that store again. I bought a beta fish there one time and the fish within 5 days (two days too late to return him) got fin rot and died. I'm going to see if I can get a refund or something. Afterall, I have the documentation that I took them to the vet, and I think I still have the receipt, but even so, since the guineas I bought were all from the same litter, if they still have some, or some of them got the same sickness, then they can't tell me that it's not true.

So, to top it all off, I had to work eight hours today, and that normally would be fine, but because of the extra long vet appointment, I missed my first four hours of work, the class that is the break in between, and so thus had to work 8 hours straight (which I didn't do because it was physically impossible unless I wanted to work 4pm-12am and then still be awake reading all night which I didn't.) Anyway, so, overall, it's been a pretty lousy day. And what can I look forward to but watching small guinea waste away and die and come in there one morning and find him all stiff and dead. *sigh* depressing really.

Anyway, I have to go read for my comp lit class tomorrow.

recipe #3- Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole

So, tonight it's already 10pm because I don't get off work until 8pm Mondays and Wednesdays, so tonight I'm having spaghetti with Ragu and adding my own sauteed mushrooms and onions to the sauce. Not so fancy. I've been looking for a good recipe to try out my crock pot that mom gave me. It's kind of big, so I donno if it's too big to make stuff in, but at least I could cook a whole chicken in there if I really wanted to I guess. In looking for a crock pot recipe, I realized that with an eight to nine hour cook time I'd have to actually be gone for only eight to nine hours, which really only leaves weekends and fridays for cooking with the crockpot. That's fine.

In the meantime of Friday, I still have Tuesday and Thursday to cook for, getting home around 6pm.

So, I've come up with these two recipes for this week. I had to look them up in conjunction so when I go shopping tomorrow, I can just pick up all needed ingredients.


Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole

Prep time 15 Min
Cook time 30 Min
Ready In 45 Min

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into bite size pieces
salt and pepper to taste
4 cups cooked white rice
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can southwestern pepperjack cheese soup
1/2 cup milk
4 oz can diced green chili peppers
3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese/ pepperjack cheese
4 slices soft white bread, cubed or crushed crackers or croutons

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. To Cook Chicken: Season chicken with salt and pepper to taste, place in a microwave-safe dish, cover and cook in microwave for 5 to 6 minutes. Turn and cook another 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked through and no longer pink inside. (Also can saute with garlic/oil in a skillet.) Let cool.

3. In a 9x13 inch baking dish, combine chicken, rice, soups, half the cheese, chilis, and milk and mix well. Add the rest of the cheese and top with bread crumbs, sprinkle with melted butter over bread crumbs.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly and bread is crunchy.

This recipe, I'd like to note, that I got from allrecipes.com, which I'm finding to be an excellent site because not only does it have the recipe, but it also has several reviews, and people add their own suggestions on how to make the recipe better. Right now this recipe looks excellent, but I already integrated the reader's suggestions into it, before it was just chicken, rice (not that much), only one can of chicken broth and no soup or chili's, and half that amount of cheese, and only cheddar, and no sprinkled butter over the top.

recipe #2-Mushroom and Swiss Chicken

So, tomorrow night, I'm assuming both Phillip and John will be home, in which case, I plan to be cooking this recipe. Brought to you by allrecipes.com. Anyway, so this one looks fairly simple. It's basically just getting the marinade right and people on the website added tips that apparently make it even better and less messy. So, I'll probably go with that.

MUSHROOM AND SWISS CHICKEN

* 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
* 2 cloves crushed garlic
* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon Cajun-style seasoning
* 1 cup chopped green onion
* 1 (8 ounce) package sliced fresh mushrooms
* 4 slices Swiss cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Combine oil and garlic in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Add chicken breasts and coat well with the oil and garlic. (Here they recommended doing the same thing except putting it into a ziplock baggie and smooshing the chicken around well and then pouring the whole mixture directly into the baking dish. Sort of like shake and bake I guess.) Sprinkle with the vinegar and Cajun seasoning.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

4. Remove chicken from oven and cover with green onion and mushrooms (and other things/ spices if desired); then add a few more sprinkles of oil and vinegar and return dish to oven for 15 to 20 minutes more. Remove from oven and immediately place 1 slice of cheese on top of each chicken breast; cheese will melt. Serve immediately.

Add any side dishes you desire!

We'll see how it goes.