Songs = Memories

This morning it came across my newsfeed that CMT was playing a new video by the Eli Young Band called "Even If It Breaks Your Heart." I love music, especially country music and if you know me, I love to know all of the words to every song.

Somehow, I relate every song I hear to a memory or to a time period in my life and when it plays, I begin daydreaming. Sometimes a song brings me back to a good time and sometimes a not so good time but no matter what, I remind myself that the time, place, or memory that a song brings me back to has led me to where I am now.

The new Eli Young Band song states
"Some dreams stay with you forever,
drag you around but bring you back to where you were.
Some dreams keep on gettin better,
gotta keep believin if you wanna know for sure."

This is one of the truest things that I think anyone can relate to.

Some dreams do stay with you forever, one example for me is a wedding. Yes, I am married, but I still have this dream of my dream wedding that I began planning as a little girl. I know it is not realistic due to the price it would have cost, but I still can see that picture in my head. When I hear Dusty Drake's song "Say Yes" or Tracy Byrd's "Keeper of the Stars" it always brings me back to that dream.

No matter what I dreamed or wanted in my dreams, I am so thankful that I am where I am today. All of the wishes, hopes, and dreams has led me to where I am today.

Always dream. Dreams help you to keep believing and to keep goals.

New Year, Old Recipe

Dorito Casserole - a family and friend favorite old recipe that I love to make and know the directions by heart!

Here is what you need:
1 big bag of Doritos
1/2 Green Pepper
1/2 Yellow or Sweet Onion
1 can of cream of mushroom
1 can of cream of chicken
1 can of enchalida sauce
1 can of tomato sauce
1, 2 cup bag of cheddar cheese
1 pound of ground turkey, beef, deer, or veggie crumbles

First preheat your oven to 350 degrees... Then, start by chopping the onion and green pepper and cook them in a pan until tender.

Next, spray the pan with canola cooking spray and line the bottom of a 9x13 glass casserole dish with crushed Doritos. No, it does not matter if every single part of glass is covered.

Next, dump the sauces and soups into a bowl.

Mix it all up really well!

Brown the meat or meat alternative in with the cooked onion and pepper.

Next add the cooked meat, onion, and pepper to the soup and sauce mix and pour this mix over the Doritos in the casserole dish. Then put a layer of cheddar cheese followed by the Doritos.

Your layers should go: Doritos, meat/soup mix, cheese, Doritos, meat/soup mix, and then Doritos. Once this is done bake it at 350 for 30 minutes. Once 30 minutes is up, add the last layer of cheese on top of the Doritos and bake for 5 more minutes and then serve!!

Enjoy!!

-MES

Christmas Party

As I am getting ready for my Christmas party at our house this year, I cannot help but think about all of the great recipes that I want to prepare. How does one decide if something is proper or not to serve at a 6:30 Christmas party? Well, I started thinking along the lines of soup and sandwiches and then my husband mentioned smoking a Boston butt and making barbecue or grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. I love the hamburger and hot dog idea but that is one of our summer cookouts that we have and that seems sort of like a birthday party idea so we had to keep thinking! Well, finally after a lot of discussion, we decided to serve:
Pimento Cheese Sandwiches
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Rolls
Cocktail BBQ Weenies
Apple Pie Dip with Graham Crackers
Cream Cheese with Pepper Jelly Ball with Ritz Crackers
Sweet Tea
Coke & Diet Coke
and
Wassail.

On top of this, since we are newlyweds and most of our friends are young without much money, all of the girls were asked to bring a dish. So we have someone bringing chips, a cake, brownies, some kind of dip, cheese biscuits, and other things!

Also, I asked each girl to bring a wrapped ornament for an ornament swap! I think this could be a great tradition for years to come!

We are both so excited.... IF ONLY the house would clean itself. I know that no one receives an award for the "cleanest house" but I like to entertain, therefore I want my house to be spotless! It is difficult to get any cleaning done when my pup, Zoe wants all of my attention. Therefore, tonight she is going to stay with my parents for a while so that I can get some much needed cleaning done!

Next on my agenda after all this party planning has been consuming my mind all week is my internship. I am finishing up week 15 of my Dietetic Internship through Cedar Crest College. I cannot believe that I am halfway done. I have three weeks of foodservice left in January and then I move on to Community Nutrition until the end of April and then I am DONE! I cannot explain how excited I am that I will be Registered Dietitian Eligible come May. I am so excited to begin looking for jobs in January! This whole working for no pay is worse than being a college student because at least during college I was able to work two or three part time jobs. Currently, I am working 40 hours a week, taking 12 hours of graduate classes, and working zero part time jobs. I keep telling myself that May will be here before I know it.

Girls Night Out and the gym are the only things keeping me stress free and sane right now. Projects, papers, work, and life gets very overwhelming not to mention that I should be studying for the RD exam now! I am so thankful to have my friends around though when I need them and thankfully most of them are home from graduate school on break for a few weeks! Here is a glance at how my fall has went so far since it is  now coming to an end!

Millie & I

The Nutrition Girls at Emmies Wedding!

Emmie!!

Sarah & I at Jenna's Wedding

The Hubby & I

Jenna Suzanne's Big Day!

The Hubby's Graduation Day!

At my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's wedding!

Me & my sister-in-law

Whit & I at the fair

After the concert!

Hannah & I

Zoe Bug loves to have her picture taken!

Whit, Meg, Me, & Nat out on Christmas Break

Millie, Jenn, Me, & Whit before heading to dinner

Wedding season for me has officially ended. I attended my last wedding of the year in November for my sweet friend Laura.

 I love weddings but my poor husband thinks it is torture to have to go to so many of them. He had no idea that his wife had so many friends getting married :) Too bad he is my wedding date for all of them, but he is off the hook until next spring :)

Well, I better get back to work, so many projects left to finish and so little time!

Until next time.... I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-MES

Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

So I have become addicted to Pinterest and I found this EASY recipe!

Frozen chicken breasts (2 for us)
Buffalo sauce (3/4 of the Texas Pete bottle)
One packet of dry ranch seasoning
2 tbsp butter

Add everything to the crockpot, cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6. Shred chicken. Add it back in mix to soak for one hour. Serve with buns!

Let's see how this turns out :)

Okay.. so the buffalo ranch chicken sandwiches on Natures Own wheat sandwich buns was a success! Sooo good and I did not add the butter!

I highly recommend this recipe! Yummo!

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

Dinner is cooking now :)

Boneless skinless chicken breasts
One can of corn (I used frozen)
One can of black beans drained
1/4th cup of salsa
One can of rotel
One can of diced tomatoes, unsalted
One can of cream of chicken soup
One tsp of Mrs. Dash no salt seasoning blend
One tsp garlic powder
4oz of sour cream

Put in crockpot for 8 hours on low.
Shred chicken and serve over warm tortillas or tostitos with cheese!

Yummo!

Spoiled Mini Schnauzer!

Oh how I love my little pup, Zoe! But boy is she spoiled!

I promise the pictures were turned the correct way when I uploaded them! I'm not sure how to correct them.

Clinical Rotation

Today is seven and a half weeks that I have been in my clinical rotation. It really feels as though I had just stepped foot in the Medical Center to begin and now I have a week and a half left of staff relief and projects before I begin foodservice.

I am so excited to say that I really have learned so much these past few weeks! I have learned more in depth about the Nutrition Care Process and I have put it into practice versus just reading about it.

I also have seen so many unique patients! I have had patients who were in terrible car accidents, had brain aneurysms, had amputations, cancer, weight loss unintentionally, failure to thrive children, severely lethargic patients, substance abuse patients, post open heart surgery patients, hip fractures, seizures, motorcycle wrecks, strokes, patients with permanent feeding tubes, bariatric surgery patients, permanent TPN patients, and so much more.

I am so grateful to have been at the hospital I worked at since it is a teaching hospital with units of all kinds and specialized floors for patients.

I really enjoyed working in the surgery/trauma ICU! I feel like I learned so much during rounds in there!

The thing that has been getting to me is the 2 hours I spend driving to and from my site but in 7 days I will only have a 5 minute drive each way!!

The projects and classwork are time consuming and by the time I get home every day and eat supper and go to the gym it is after 8pm when I get home. Thank goodness for the weekend so I can catch up on everything!

Off to work I go! Hello med/surg floor :)