My dad made this for us when we were visiting at Christmas and it was SO GOOD I’ve made it twice since then. He BBQ’d his but I baked mine. Either is good.

For the seasoning I use garlic powder, Garlic Dude Dust and pepper. Just clean the chicken then dry it, season it, open the can of beer and dump 1/4 out, place the can in a roasting pan, push the chicken down onto the can using the legs to support it, then bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/4-2 hours or until your thermometer reads at least 160 degrees.

I’m not even kidding, guys, this is SO easy to make. It’s like five minutes of prep then let it be. When it’s done I let it rest for about 10 minutes then cut it up. Although it’s so tender that you only have to cut the breasts off, the rest of the chicken will just fall apart. I pull all the skin off and set it aside to use when making chicken stock (will post that recipe soon!) and since the chicken cooks upright all the fat drains off and you are left with lean, flavorful, tender and juicy breasts. *giggle*

My dad made leeks and green beans to go with it so that’s what I made too. I took green beans, leeks, a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper and Garlic Dude Dust and sauteed it till the green beans were cooked but firm and BAM! Complete meal.

I haven’t gotten the nutritional facts together for this yet but the only fat you end up eating is from the tablespoon of olive oil in the green beans and I made enough for 8 servings so even that fat is a pretty small amount. It’s just protein and green veggies and SO GOOD.

If you make it, let me know what you think, what you did differently or what you’d do to make it better.

Enjoy!

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Then we tried Danica and she came in the pen and crawled in between Ben’s legs and put on her cute face. And we were hooked. We introduced her to Kumo and they did pretty well together. There were two moments, one in the pen and one in the room before we left, where she got a bit snippy with Kumo but I think it was just because Kumo was really excited and once he got a little too close to her neutering incision. But the girl has spunk for sure, that was clear right away. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she ends up being the alpha even though we have taken steps like feeding him first, allowing him to walk in front of her and out the doors before her. But I just figure they’ll work it all out eventually.

We weren’t prepared to be bringing a puppy home THAT DAY but we had pretty much everything we needed left over from Kumo anyway. Crates, toys, bowl… all we needed was a NAME. When we adopted Kumo we had to wait four days for him to be microchipped, fixed and the last of his shots and it took the entire four days to come up with his name.

So on the way home we started throwing out names. We knew just from meeting her that it would have to be a strong, sassy female name. Ben threw out Danica right away and I liked it but we didn’t want to jump at the first name.

Me: What about Seven of Nine!
Ben: Well we’d have to call her Seven, not Seven of Nine.
Me: What about Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One.
Ben: *sigh*
Me: What?! I’m just throwing stuff out there!

And then Cassidy’s head exploded from the geek overdose. What can I say, I love my Star Trek.

We ended up going with Danica because it fits our theme. Our cat Hans’ full name is Hans Devise Stuck after the Hans Device, a racing neck brace, and Hans Stuck, a famous German race car driver. Kumo is named after the Kumho brand of racing tires. We dropped the ‘h’ so it would be easier for the kids in his Kindergarten class to spell his name.

So Danica just made sense.

So, blog friends, welcome our newest family member Danica Hirsch:

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1/3 cup of Danon Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt
1/2 Fuji Apple
1/2 cup Puffins Peanut Butter Cereal

Calories: 168
Carbs: 20
Fat: 1
Protein: 4

Snack @ 9:30AM: I forot to take a shot before I ate it! DOH! I’m new to this! I’m sure I’ll start to remember in no time!

5 Ellie Krieger lemon shrimp
1/4 cup Ellie Krieger Soup cream & Chives Smashed Potatos

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Have I mentioned how much I love Amy before? Because I do, a lot. She’s absolutely adorable. Kumo loves her even more though. When we get into the parking lot at PetSmart he starts to whine and attempts to climb out the window. I can’t exactly see his thoughts but I imagine it’s Kumo and Amy running towards each other in slow motion with Bolero playing softly in the background.

We got through the basic new commands rather quickly so Amy was teaching us some tricks to work on with him for fun. One of the tricks was pointing your finger at the dog and giving a loud verbal “BANG” which the dog responds to by laying on his side and playing dead. Ben was giddy watching this new trick. He had a huge grin on his face and I could clearly imagine him at the dog park showing Bob, and anybody else who showed up, this awesome new trick that Kumo had learned.

Amy mentioned that she had worked on the same trick the week before so while all the other dogs had a whole week to learn it, we’d be back the NEXT day so in order to not be shown up by all the other dogs, we’d have to get on it!

Amy: All the other dads had all week to practice!
Ben: We’ll get it!
Amy: Yeah, he’s such a smart boy! He’ll have it in no time!
Ben: Because he’s a GOOD BOY!
Amy: Yes he is! He’s a good smart boy!
Me: Yeah! And Ben will be home all day tomorrow BANGING THE DOG!
Ben: ….
Me: WHAT!?
Ben: HONEY!
Me: OH! OOPS!
Ben: *glare*
Me: *giggle*

And that is why often times when Ben has to leave the house he tries to lock me in the crate and take the dog with him instead.

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Then I decided on a whim to check my flickr stats for the first time in quite some time and I saw that the following image’s stats have shot up 300% in the last two days. And it dawned on me that WHO AM I KIDDING!? I’m neither graceful nor eloquent. So I leave you with the same sentiment and image from when I cast that first primary vote back in February of 2008:

*Title Quote: John F. Kennedy

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My family will look for any reason to throw a party and because we are so spread out all over California, it’s hard for me to get to attend a lot of them but every time I do I am reminded just how completely awesome they all are.

I’m writing today because on a few occasions, various family members mentioned the blog to me because my dad had talked to them about it. When this happens, when somebody from my real life tells me that they are going to be checking out my blog, I always have this double edge reaction.

Reaction 1: Awesome! It’s a great way to keep up with what’s been goin’ on in my life and stuff.
Reaction 2: Shit. Maybe I should start to rethink my habit of using the word ‘fuck’ as a verb, noun, adjective. adverb and Proper Name in pretty much EVERY SINGLE POST I WRITE.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

So I figured the best way to welcome any new readers who happen to share the same blood as me to the site is to finally write that post I promised about the newest edition to our family: the boob mug.

The boob mug was given to Ben by a good friend who picked it up for him on a holiday cruise trip to Mexico. I immediately fell in love with it and don’t know how we managed to live such a happy life for so long without such awesomeness being present within our blessed home. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a decent but not completely skankerific 365 shot using it as a prop. So, if you have ideas, please let me know.

The best part of owning the boob mug so far was the following exchange I had with Cassidy when I decided it would be better to tell her about it than have her open the cupboard some random day and be accosted by the drinkable nipple jumping out at her:

Me: So, have you seen the boob mug yet?
Cassidy: The what?
Me: The boob mug. It’s a mug that looks like a boob. It’s in the mug cupboard.
Cassidy: Oh, it’s a boob?! I saw it this morning and thought it was a REINDEER.
Me: A WHAT?!
Cassidy: A reindeer!
Me: Bwahahaahahaahahaahahahahah.
Cassidy: What?!
Me: That’s just hillarious.
Cassidy: Well, a boob mug in lame.
Me: NO IT IS NOT AND YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF IT THAT WAY!
Cassidy: Whatever.

Welcome, family! This is what I write about! If you manage to make it past this post, I’ll assume that means you think I’m as awesome as I think you are.

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At dinner tonight Cassidy asked about the relationship between cat and human years. I didn’t really know but I assumed that the general 7 years used for dog life would be close so Cassidy determined that KC was 70 years old. Her jaw dropped and she exclaimed that, “OMG KC IS REALLY OLD!” So I told her, “YEAH! Remember that next time you feel like chasing her around the house like a lunatic!” Then I told her that we’re really lucky that KC is still alive and with us because 10 is actually getting up there for a cat.

The conversation eventually turned to death and how it would feel to not have her around anymore which turned to:

Cassidy: I’d probably cry.
Me: I’d probably lose it, like, mentally. Seriously.
Ben: So it would be like… a Tuesday.
Me: I hate you.
Ben: *grin*
Me: And I’m totally blogging that later.

The ability to laugh at Ben making fun of my mental state is the best part of having a “normal” mental state.

And for the record, after doing some research I realized that KC is actually only 56 years old. Assuming she doesn’t get any fatter, or lazier, or bitchier, I think she still has a few good years in her.

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HALLOWEEN 2006: SKANKY DEVIL It took three days to wash that crap out of my hair but but it was pretty badass. Also, I still love those tacky red lashes.

HALLOWEEN 2007: SKANKY WITCH! I think I’ll wear that hat again! LOVE IT.

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Now all you get is this sad little post instead.

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