sleeping kitten

I think I have the cutest kitten in the world! :)

Chicken Enchilada Soup

Yesterday I made a really yummy chicken enchilada soup in the crock pot. I LOVE crock pot recipes because they require no effort, and dinner is ready by the time I get home from work. Usually I cook for T and I, but I wasn't sure this was something he would like (he's sort of picky), so I had been holding off making it for awhile. Yesterday he was going to be out for dinner so I figured it was the perfect time to try it. It was so yummy! It tasted very similar to McAlisters Chicken Tortilla soup, which if you know me at all, you know I love! When T came home I made him try a bite to see if in the future he would eat it if I made it again, and to my surprise he loved it too and ended up eating a bowl as a late night snack :) I will definitely make it again! :) yum! If you like this type of soup, you should totally try this

Recipe can be found here

Rodeo: Zac Brown Band

How is it already the weekend?!? Do I REALLY have to go back to work the day after tomorrow? This break has only made me more ready for summer haha.

I honestly cannot believe how fast this year has flown by though. I seriously feel like it was just yesterday that I was driving back from Colorado, interviewing for my job, and then starting in a whirlwind that first week of school. How are there only 10 weeks left? While I will be glad for school to wind down, I sure wish life would slow down a bit! yikes!

So let's see, the rest of my spring break ... Thursday I got up right after T left for work, picked up a few things at Lowes, and set to work painting the bathroom. When we painted my room back in November T thought that the color would look great in the bathroom too (the bathroom had previously been painted this ugly sea foam green color) so he painted a swatch on the wall before I could say anything. Yes it looked nice, but no I did not want to paint the bathroom haha! I had every intention of painting over Christmas break, but then I hurt my foot so I was clearly unable to. Since then we have had that dumb patch of tan on top of all that green. It took a few hours, and it was a pain in the butt, but it's done now! Hopefully the next people who live here don't ever try to take down the shelf because it is in such a precarious position that if we took it down for painting it would never go back up. So, I just had to paint around it. It looks perfectly fine, but if you take the shelf down there will be a green line where the shelf touches the wall haha.

My reward for painting the bathroom? The Rodeo to see Zac Brown Band! There was a group of 5 of us and it was a blast. Zac Brown was amazing! Seriously, I was way impressed with the guitar playing skills of that group! So glad I got to go! Sadly though, that was my last rodeo performance of the year. I just LOVE the rodeo (got to go 4 times this year for free!) so I'm a little sad it will be another year until it is back.

Yesterday I laid around and read for a few hours in the morning, then T came home after lunch so we just hung out watching tv etc until we finally decided to go rent a movie. If you haven't seen Due Date yet, go rent it! It was hilarious! It was directed by the guy who directed The Hangover and Old School, so you know it's good!

Today I'm laying low, trying to get a few things done for school (though I haven't even attempted those yet so we'll see what happens there. haha

tumblr

I keep forgetting to post this. I started using the instagram app on my phone so I've been taking a lot more random cell phone pics of things I'm doing. I didn't want to bore everyone on twitter with my day in pictures, but I wanted to have a place to post them so I have them later on. Thus, my tumblr page was born:

http://ksmccormack.tumblr.com/

If you want to follow it go ahead. A large majority of it is pictures of my kitten haha. But, there's also some fishing, camping etc thrown in there. Enjoy!

Rodeo: KISS

Oh Spring Break how I love you! It was so nice having T home the first 4 days of my break. As I posted yesterday, we filled our time the first few days with fishing, shopping, and camping. Last night a group of us went to the rodeo and saw KISS, then spent the rest of the night at The Hideout watching the Rob Baird Band.

First about KISS: I'm not a huge fan. Okay, I'm not a fan at all. I didn't recognize a single song they played so I was really not into the concert at all. However, the people watching at this event was spectacular. So many people with painted faces it was ridiculous! And, the place was packed! The other 3 nights I've gone we were able to sit pretty close to the front using the badges (for those that don't know, you can sit in any seat that isn't taken if you have a badge) but last night there were literally no seats on the first level! We ended up deciding to just stand at the top by the stairs and watch from there. This spot ended up being more entertaining than the concert itself and Raja and I decided it was most def the highlight of the night. You had to be there, but hilarity ensued due to a lady on a power trip yelling at people for standing in the wrong places, a creepy old man who looked drugged out, and a man in a wheelchair basically being forced against his will to move up to the handicap spot because that's where his friend wanted him to be.

After the concert we stopped to get some sausage on a stick (yum!) then head to The Hideout. This old cowboy came up to me and asked me to dance. I laughed and said I didn't know how and he said he would teach me. He then looked at Tony and said, "don't worry, I'll take good care of her, I'm a gentleman" I laughed and told him we were just friends and he responded that didn't change his statement. Here is the thing about two stepping: I know HOW to do it, I am just incapable of following someone else's lead. I get so caught up in making sure I move my feet right, if the person I'm dancing with switches it up at all I get lost. This man was trying to teach me how to turn and it was just a mess. I was cracking up the whole time. It was fun though! (I need some serious practice two stepping because I'd really like to be good at it). Later in the night T and May went out to dance and this boy started talking to me. I wasn't really a fan, but didn't know how to get away. Raja was standing by watching thinking I was enjoying myself but then he noticed I kept looking away etc so he swooped in and saved me by asking me to dance. Thanks Raja! haha After he helped me get away, we danced, then moved our whole group to the other side of the room to avoid the boy. I'm so ridiculous! All in all a fun night!

Unfortunately, T had to go back to work today so now I'm home and bored. I've already worked out, and cleaned out the entire back room (it's our catch all room for crap which doubles as the laundry room). I think I did a pretty good job! I can actually walk to the washer and dryer without having to step over a million things, and I was able to move this stacking drawer unit out there which has been sitting in the middle of the hallway for months since we had no other place for it, so I'm considering this a huge success!

I've got a few hours now until I am getting my hair trimmed so maybe I'll tackle some report card comments. Not the most fun way to spend spring break, but it has to be done and I can be lazy while I do it which will balance out all the work I did this morning.

Brazos Bend

One of these days I'm going to have to go to Academy and NOT spend a ridiculous amount of money ... that day however, was not this weekend. Saturday morning we went fishing on the boat with Sam and Gene, which prompted a trip to Bass Pro shop and Academy later in the day. Somehow this trip ended up with both me and Tony getting backpacks to use for backpack camping as well as some compact stuff to put in them. We spent Sunday loading them up with all our stuff and then hiked around the neighborhood to try it out. That's a good workout!

We made plans to go to Brazos Bend on Monday and camp but when we woke up on Monday it was pouring rain. I was SO sad! The forecast said it was going to rain until 8pm so I was pretty bummed, but around 1 the rain stopped so we were able to go after all.

When we got to Brazos Bend we set up camp then took off on a 5 mile hike with our backpacks (this is mostly just to practice for later in the summer when we go somewhere we actually have to hike to in order to camp.)

We found this great trail and followed it into the middle of nowhere. The backpack made it harder work to hike for sure, but totally do-able.

After our hike Tony made a fire, we ate dinner, roasted marshmallows, became annoyed by the people camping closest to us, and then went to bed. My new compact sleeping bag pad was amazing, it made sleeping so much more comfortable. :)

I don't know how I managed to forget my camera at home, but I did. So unfortunately all I have to document our camping trip are the above cell phone pics. Oh well, next time...

Oh, I tracked our hike using runkeeper on my phone. I didn't think to start it right away, and for some reason it stopped tracking at the end before we got back to camp (maybe I accidentally stopped it, I dunno) so it was actually a little longer than this (as I said, about 5 miles). But you can check it out here: Brazos Bend Hike

Green Thumb

Last spring I really wanted to plant a garden. Unfortunately, I lived in an apartment at the time so that was pretty much impossible. Now that I live in a house, I was determined to plant one this spring and have been talking about it for quite some time.

This morning T and I headed out to Lowes to buy some soil to fill the planter at the house and get some different things to plant. I ended up with strawberries, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, habanero peppers, green bell pepper, orange bell pepper, tomatoes, basil, and cilantro. My little garden looks so pretty :) I can't wait for everything to grow now! So fun! Pictures to come later.

Quilt for Baby Tate

My friend (and teammate) Courtney is having a baby in a few weeks. As a gift, I decided to make her a baby quilt. I picked out the fabric and sewed together the top piece a long time ago, but then got stuck on the actual quilting part. Thus far all I have done is quilting in the ditch, which means you just sew over the lines you already sewed to put the layers together. Because of the way this quilt looked on the back, this wasn't going to look good at all. After putting it off for weeks, I finally figured out my solution: freezer paper. I used freezer paper to draw a squiggly design, then pinned it to the quilt, and traced over it with the thread, then ripped the paper off leaving only the stitching. Easier said than done for sure ... there were major amounts of tears involved in this at one point. BUT, I finally finished last night! I think it turned out so cute, and Courtney really seemed to like it. I was slightly sad giving it away though haha. All my other quilts I have kept for myself so it was a little hard to let go of after how much work I put into it. Hope baby Tate enjoys it! I cannot wait to meet him (2 1/2 weeks!) :)

The front:

The back: