$10, 10 minute Caribean Chicken recipe

INGREDIANTS
1. 4 chicken breasts ($6)
2. 1 tomato ($1)
3. ¼ c cilantro (approx) ($1)
4. 2 T lime juice (approx) ($1)
5. 2 T green onion, about 1 T of green and 1 T of white (approx) ($1)

RECIPE
1. Lightly grease a frying pan with oil. I used pam
2. Add 4 thawed boneless chicken breasts and brown on both sides
3. Add green onion and fry a little
4. Add clean, stem-less tomato to pan and mash it into chunks
5. Add half a cup water (approx) and cover
6. Cook for 5-10 minutes until the water is mostly reduced
7. Remove from heat and add lime juice and cilantro

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away

I have been friends with my neighbors, Jenny and Andrew, for some time. Their 3 girls play with Austin and Logan while Jenny and I chat about our lives. Jenny inspires me with her words of wisdom and her role as a Christian and a mother. I aspire to be like her in many ways.

I sort of ‘hole up for the winter’ so my conversations with Jenny are limited to mostly email until it gets warm enough to stand around outside. Andrew is having surgery today and in response to my offer of help, Jenny sent me an email with such inspiring words, I felt like she helped me instead of me helping her. I want to share an excerpt because it will be a reminder to me when I am feeling despondent and having a pity party.

***********************excerpt of Jennys email*************************
Thank you for your thought and prayers. God is good - even when life is hard. Our desire is to praise him through everything - no matter what! As Job said after he lost everything (daughters, sons, livestock, wealth) except his snarky wife, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21) I love that attitude.
**********************************************************************************

Andrew will be recovering for a few weeks and if you read this between now and say the end of the January, please pray for him to have a quick and easy recovery.

Cheap Family Vacation Alert – Wisconsin Dells 2 people, mid week, $199 All Inclusive

Do you like waterparks?

Do you like to eat and drink and not worry about the cost while you are on vacation?

Plus its in Wisconsin Dells so if you are in the Twin Cities, its about a 4 hour car ride.

The Chula Vista resort in Wisconsin Dells has an all inclusive package for 2 people/2 nights for $199 from now through January 27. This fabulous deal includes;
· 2 nights in a standard room
· All you can eat
· All you can drink (frozen drinks, mixed drinks, beer, and wine)
· Waterpark passes

This has been very fun and affordable for our family and we are planning to go again in a few weeks which will be our third time in the last 12 months. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.

GOOD
1. The food is pretty good and the buffet has all you can eat crab legs
2. The waterpark is enormous. It has 6 big slides and multiple areas for babies, toddlers, and bigger kids plus it has a lazy river.
3. The 2 room family suite, which is huge, is the same price as the standard room. It has a balcony which overlooks the river and the board walk. It has a separate bedroom, livingroom with sofabed, table/chairs, and a frig and microwave.
4. Free beverages include pop, wine, beer, frozen drinks, and mixed drinks. Bottled beverages are not included.
5. You can upgrade to a theme room or a Jacuzzi suite for only $50 more a night
6. You can stay an additional night or 2 for $99/night per 2 people

BAD
1. Some of the rooms are a ways from the waterpark. The theme rooms are the furthest and are a good 10 minutes. The family suites are closest to the restaurants and are about 5 minutes. I have not stayed in a regular room but I think they are similar in location to the family suites. I have heard that the Condos are the closest but I don’t think these are in the all inclusive deal.
2. Some of the rooms are not connected to the waterpark so I guess you have to walk outside. The theme rooms and the family suites are connected.
3. This probably goes without saying but because its all inclusive, you cant take food with you back to your room.
4. I think the service staff are used to getting stiffed because some of them have attitudes.
5. The frozen drinks are quite weak
6. Not all restaurants are included

UGLY
1. The lines can be long to wait for food or drinks at the waterpark grill and you can only order 2 drinks at a time. We eat dinner early at the buffet but I think the lines are long there too if you wait much past 6 to eat dinner.
2. The rates are only inclusive for 2 people so if you have kids, each kid is an extra $50 per night.
3. The deal is only good for mid-week, during pre-established dates. You can get an all-inclusive package at other times of the year but its several hundred dollars for 2 nights.

Go check out http://www.chulavistaresort.com/

Stampin Up: Whats New?

Stampin Up has a bunch of new stuff. Check out the links below or check out my website http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/winniethepoodle/


Simply Adorned jewelry - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/15579.asp
Simple, tasteful jewelry in styles that most people will like.

Un-mounted stamps - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/17053.asp
These will take up a less space and are more ‘transportable’.

New Punch Styles - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/17065.asp
These are slimmer and will also take up less space.

Sale-A-Bration - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/17080.asp
1 free item with every $50 purchased, excluding tax and shipping and this year you can now select from a bunch of sets in the current catty.

Digital Scrapbooking - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/15867.asp

Build A Bear - http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/Build-A-Bear_Workshop.asp

Shipping Costs on eBay

I know most of you wont care about this but if even one person agrees with me, my rant is worth it.

Here’s the scoop. There are a pair of shoes on eBay that I want to bid on but the shipping is $45. That’s domestic, priority shipping folks. Not overseas, not overnight, just regular USPS priority shipping for a pair of shoes that would fit in a flat rate box and mailed for $9. Even if you incorporate ebay fees, shipping *materials, and $5 for their *time, we are talking at most $20. This really chaps me because even if I don’t bid, someone else will and the seller will just keep on doing what they are doing.

Now you may ask how much are the shoes worth and what is the starting price? The starting bid is $1 and these are brand new Doc Martins and they are selling for over $100 at Zappos so if you could get them for $10 bucks plus $45 shipping is it worth it? Yeeee…..NO!!!!!!! No it is not!!!!!! Because you are allowing this immoral and unscrupulous seller to continue to gouge buyers on shipping and to go against eBay policy. Yes, eBay has a policy against this and they even have a tool where you can report the item and note that the seller has inflated shipping but the fact is, eBay doesn’t really care unless the (I have heard) shipping is inflated by $100 or more.

Why do sellers do this? Because the amount the seller is required to pay eBay is based on the final selling price of the item, excusing shipping costs. So lets say ebay charges (for ease of description) 5% and a seller has a pair of shoes he wants to sell. If he sells them for $40 and charges actual shipping of $10, the seller will keep around $38 of the $50. If the seller sells the same shoes for $10 and charges $40 for shipping (and ships first class for $6), the seller will keep $43.50.

Wow 2 days in a row on the soap box. Sheesh, I hope I dont start to like it up here.

*Note – The time and cost that a seller would incur to mail a pair of shoes domestically is next to nothing. After they get free boxes mailed to them free from the USPS, they can print the postage on line and schedule a free pick up from the USPS. You can literally run an eBay store right from your house and never have to leave if you don’t ship overseas.

Tipping Philosphy

This is the ‘tipping’ time of the year and I thought this would make a good post. I am a good tipper and sometimes get flack about it, which chaps me because, why do people care how much I tip? You would think I was taking it directly out of their pockets. I tip well because I was a waitress and sometimes the extra buck or 2 I got came at a critical time.

Lets say you are meeting some friends after work for drinks and appetizers at your favorite restaurant. There are 10 of you, its happy hour, and you have had a bunch of drinks and lots of food and your total bill is $150. You decide to split it evenly and everyone owes $15. A reasonable tip is 20% or $3.00 each for a total of $30. But wait, lots of people don’t tip 20% and even restaurants who enforce a gratuity on tables of 10 or more usually only require 15%. So lets say that 5 people only tip 10% and 2 don’t tip at all and the other 3 tip 20%. Now the tip has went from $30 down to (stops to get calculator) a measly $16.50 or barely 10%. This waitress who has been shlepping drinks and apps for you and your noisy friends for the last 2 hours is going to get a measly $16.50? Now you are probably thinking that its on top of her hourly rate but did you know that minimum wage for wait staff is substantially less than other types of workers? It is assumed that the wait staff will receive enough tips to make up the difference but this isn’t always the case. By the way, the 2007 minimum exception (wait staff, etc) wage is $2.87 per hour.

Here is my philosophy on tipping. If your bill is $15 and a reasonable tip is $3, why not go the extra mile and leave $5. If everyone in a group of 10 did that, the $30 tip just became $50. The $2 extra you are leaving doesn’t mean jack to you but the extra $20 might mean a lot to the wait staff.

My last comment is, just because I tip well on our group bill, doesn’t mean that some people in the group don’t need to. This is another thing that really chaps me. Lets say everyone has left decent tips and the last person writing out their check sees that there is already a $30 tip on the $150 tab. That person still needs to tip. I have seen it more than once and my daughter Jessica told me she has seen it too. What the hey!

Ok, I am climbing down off my soap box now but the next time you go out for dinner, throw an extra couple bucks on the tab. Those waiters and waitresses work hard. I know, I was one.

Gossip

A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?'

'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness.

'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed.

'Did you cut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.'

'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!'

From the movie Doubt.