A New Favorite Cheese Dip from the pig pen

It's amazing to me at times what a small world it really is.  I am almost reminded of this daily.  Well one of those reminders came to me about 8 1/2 years ago.  8 1/2 years ago, The Farmer and I were appointed to our state's Farm Bureau Young Farmer & Rancher committee.  This was a 2 year commitment that absolutely changed our lives.

Any way, one of our fellow committee members was a good friend from college.  I hadn't talked to her much in the few years since we graduated, but it was sure good to see her familiar face when we walked into the meeting room for the first time and we have most definitely stayed in touch since that meeting 8 1/2 years ago.

After seeing my good friend Cris' queso dip blog post, my long, lost friend told me about  a cheese dip recipe that she said "we had to try."

Well we tried it over the weekend and it was delicious.  In fact, no leftovers made it to the next day.

Now, I had about 5 other things going on as I was making this dip so I forgot to take a lot of pictures, but here's what I got.

3 simple ingredients:  2 bars of Cream Cheese (full fat, reduced fat, or fat free will work), 1 can Rotel (undrained), and 1 pound ground sausage (browned)

After you brown the sausage, combine all 3 ingredients in the crockpot so the cream cheese can melt and all 3 ingredients can combine together.

Stir occasionally and Enjoy with tortilla chips.

 The best part of this recipe is thankfully I remembered to use one of the greatest inventions ever... a Reynolds Slow Cooker Liner so when we had eaten all of the dip all I had to do was take out the liner and I had a clean crock pot.

When life hands you lemons

I really try to think of myself as an optimistic, upbeat, glass half-full kind of person.  I remember once reading the quote, "Attitude is the reflection of the inner you."  I truly believe this and have always tried to make lemonade when life hands me lemons. 

Well professionally, life has been handing me a lot of lemons lately which results in a tad more lemonade than I would prefer.  (Don't worry, I still have a job, just a lot of changes and then more changes on top of that.) Any way, these "lemons" have made me more than ready to bring on 2011 as I hope they will quit heading my direction in the new year. 

Although the lemons have been plentiful professionally in the last few months, thankfully, I still have my faith, family, friends, and health which is truthfully all I need and for a bonus, my kitchen table is still clean. 

Neglect...

Neglect...

Accoring to Merriam-Webster, the definition of neglect is as follows:

1.  to give little attention or respect to : disregard


2. to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness

Well, I have neglected a lot lately starting with this blog.  It is been well over a week (ok, almost 2 weeks) since I last blogged and I have been anything but consistent this Fall with my posts. 

I have lots of posts written in my head, but finding the time to actually type them out has not happened.  I thank those of you that have continued to follow along and have faith in me.  It is because of you that I will try to keep going and get on a more regular schedule because when I'm not blogging I'm also not keeping up with my friends' blogs and that is not good either.  For example, I have yet to join in on my good friend Leah's Hunk of Meat Mondays linky party.  I mean what kind of friend am I ? 

Besides not following my friends' blogs, I haven't done a real good job of keeping in touch with a lot of my friends lately by any means of communication and I really hate that.  I would describe my status the last several months as treading water and I'm sure some of you can relate.  I think I might finally see the light at the end of the tunnel as things at work should be changing around the 1st of the year which should help... I hope.

And since I haven't done a good job of blogging lately, I didn't get to tell you about the amazing cake our cousin made for Thanksgiving.  Check this out...

Yes, every part of it is edible.  She is absolutely amazing and just yesterday got a call from Food Network. Be sure to check out her blog, A Couple of Sweet Things.

So now that I've spilled my guts on just a few of things I've been neglecting, I'm proud to say that there are a few things I haven't neglected.

Thankfully, I've been able to plan out a work schedule that has kept me close to home most nights and that is huge for this pig pen. 

We finally got the house decorated for Christmas after I had to battle our pre-lit tree.

When I first plugged it in, this is what it looked like.

Thankfully, after a few good shakes and one extra strands of lights I know have a tree that looks like this.

Unfortunately I took this picture during the day so you can't see all of the glowing lights. :-)

I've also been doing a pretty decent job on my Christmas shopping and am almost done thanks to my pre-Thanksgiving shopping,  Black Friday shopping, Macy's, Amazon, and my sister-in-law's Etsy shop.  Now I just have to get everything wrapped. 

And most importantly, my kitchen table is clean with nothing piled on it.

So even though I've been neglectful, this full-time, working farm momma knows, it can always be worse.

This pig pen is headed to the Indiana State Fair with some GOODe friends

Are you ready for some State Fair fun???

I know that this pig pen is especially since it is Year of the Pigs.

Some GOODe friends and I are getting ready for Family Fair Days with GOODEness Gracious 'N Friends at the Indiana State Fair! We will be visiting the State Fair and giving you some behind the scenes looks at awesome State Fair activities sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance! Big Thanks go out to the Indiana Soybean Alliance!

So to kick things off today, the Indiana Soybean Alliance has given me and all of my friends each 4 Indiana State Fair tickets to giveaway on our blogs to our readers! How cool is that?!?

So here is how you enter to win 4 Indiana State Fair Tickets courtesy of the Indiana Soybean Alliance that will be chosen at random on August 10:

Each person is eligible for 2 entries:  1 for following my blog and 1 for commenting on this post.  Please leave a separate comment below for each entry. (If you are already a blog follower, please just post a separate comment letting me know.)

Now be sure to hop on over to all of the following blogs for multiple chances to win!

2 Maids a Milking

Alarm Clock Wars

A Latte with Ott, A

Beyer Beware

Fence Row to Fence Row

Frugalista Farmlife

Gal in the Middle

Going Jane

GOODEness Gracious

Life is a Highway and Mine’s Surrounded By Corn

Off the Cuff and Indypendent


Good luck!!!

Faith, Hope, and Love are required at this pig pen

This past weekend, I traveled to Fort Worth, Texas to spend the weekend with 4 of my college sorority sisters (Tequila, Tutti Fruity, Miller, and The Captain) and great friends till this day.  (If you remember, I have decided to give all of my non-blogging friends the names of beverages that make me think of them for some reason.  I will leave the reasoning for this set of names to your imagination.)  

Tutti Fruity, Miller, The Captain, Me, and Tequila - July 2010

We graduated from college 11 years ago and have tried to get together every year since graduation in some way.  Some years it has been a Purdue University football game and other years it has been a trip to Florida.  This year we decided to travel to Texas to visit The Captain as she became a first time mother to twin boys earlier this year and this would give us all the chance to meet the boys.  

Although our lives have changed over the past 11 years, the one thing that remains constant is that we are are still there for each other and always will be.  

Later this week, Thursday to be exact, my husband, The Farmer, and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  At times it seems way longer than 10 years and at other times it seems like just yesterday that I made the best decision of my life in marrying The Farmer.  It has been quite a journey over the last ten years and I can only wait to see what the future holds.  

The Farmer and Me in Seattle - January 2010

Both of these events were all put into perspective for me this weekend as we suddenly lost an amazing friend, mother, wife, and woman in our community.  Earlier in the week our friend was celebrating her 49th birthday and now we are preparing to celebrate her life. 

We don't know what God has planned for any of us, but more than ever, the events of the past few days have reminded me to not take anything for granted and to always take the time to tell the ones we love that we love them as we don't know what tomorrow or our next moment holds.

Big Sissy, Bubby, and Little Sissy - April 2009

Ultimately it all comes back to having faith, hope, and love and thanks to this, on a happier note, my good friend Meggie, The Hoosier Farm Babe, will welcome her baby girl into the world any day now. 

Faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.  

1 Corinthians 13:13

Farmer Fridays - This Farmers on Vacation

As you know, I love being a farmer and being a part of our family farm; however, occasionally it is nice to get away.

This week has been a crazy one for me.  On Monday, I flew to New York City for meetings for work and returned Wednesday night.  Although this was a work meeting, it also had some fun involved as my mother-in-law and Big Sissy went with me.  They had a blast seeing the city while I was in my meetings, but we did sneak in a little bit of together time including a trip to American Girl and seeing Mamma Mia on Broadway.

(The only mishap in the entire trip was that somehow my memory card with all of our family pictures from Christmas forward got deleted so we had a brief breakdown, but that was it and we have all made it home in one piece so it will be OK.  At least I keep telling myself that and at least I have pictures from American Girl on my phone.)

When I returned home from New York City, I unpacked and repacked my bags and loaded up all 3 kids to take to my sister's house 3 hours away as I headed to Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday morning for a weekend with my college sorority sisters and some of the greatest friends a girl could ask for.

So although it has been a crazy week, it's ending with a mini vacation for this farmer and because of that I don't have a new Farmer Fridays for you this week, but tune in next week to see what's happening on the farm besides my husband, The Farmer, and mine's 10 year wedding anniversary. 

Have a great weekend!