Saturday, June 29, 2013

Saturday Funny: June 29/13

Goood Saturday morning peeps!
It's that time of the week again to get your laugh on!

So lets see what I found funny on Facebook this week!


Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Shish Kebabs with 30 min Steak Marinade

Hello Everyone!! I am still NOT on my OWN PC but My fabulous Sister has lent me hers for today so that I would at least post something of the eatable verity! YAY for SISTERS!

So here is one of my oh so fave go-to meals that I LOVE to grill. Shish kebab's! That is because there is no right or wrong way to make them... As well you can use what ever you have laying around in the fridge and freezer for a very quick weekday meal.

Today I will be using My 30 Min Steak Marinade. Please follow the link for the ingredient list needed for that. This will make about 8-10 Kebabs.

 
What You Need:
 
 
1 pk. stewing beff
1 yellow pepper
1 orange peper
1 small red onion
8-10 grape tomatoes
8-10 skewers 
 
Putting It Together
 
Make 30 Minute marinade as directed 
 
Place Stewing Beef in marinade and let sit
 
Meanwhile place skewers in pan of water to soak till ready to assembler Kebabs. (This helps prevent burnings and the skewers from splintering into your food) 
 
Chop up Peppers and Onion into large size chunks
 
Start assembling Kebabs where meat starts first then how ever you like your Peppers and Onions. Placing the Tomatoes on the top.
 
Fire up the grill to at least 350 and start grilling rotating after about 5-7 minutes
 
Once Grilled remove from heat and let sit for about 5-10 minutes. this allows the meat to rest.
 
then Plat up serve and enjoy!


Saturday, June 22, 2013

Saturday Funny: June 22/13

Hello everyone!! Well first off I want to apologize for not being around this week. We are having technical difficulties with the PC. I can blog from my phone but can not format the pictures or layout. Very frustrating. 

So with all that said I think some good old laughter is needed!

Here is what I found funny on Facebook this week!

 

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Saturday Funny: June 15/13

Hey everyone! I hope you all had an awesome week! I know with a lot of us summer is kicking into high gear. As well for all us Military folk it's moving season! So I'm sure you need a little humor and if that's the case I got it right here for you!

This is what I found funny on Facebook this week. 
Hope it makes you laugh!


Friday, June 14, 2013

People With Service Animals Have Rights!! #KarateAmericaOrangePark

Well here I go again I am climbing up onto my soapbox bullhorn in hand so that I can address the world.

Some of you may or may not know that with my very large family we have 4 people that are exceptional and have been pared with a service dog. Now this faces obstacles when going out into public places because first off when 6-13 people walk into lets say a restraint and 4 of those people have mandatory service animals people tend to not be so accommodating as if it were just one service dog.  But there are laws that prevent them from turning you away. Every State in the US and Province in Canada prevents you from being discriminated against due to your disability no matter what that disability is. Meaning if I walk in with 4 service dogs you have to accommodate me and my party. Now I as well as my husband have been asked "is it really needed that the dog joins you?" our answer has always been "Yes it's needed. Period" We have had other patrons walk out or just out right complain to us and the staff about our service dogs. Only to be told there was nothing they could do because they dogs are vested and papered and are working.

So the above brings me to something that was brought to my attention late last night by my sister on Facebook. This woman by the name of Kristle Helmuth husband a Military service member was denied access to Karate America Orange Park based solely because her husband had his service companion with him. Here is her post:

"Karate America Orange Park I am absolutely disgusted at how you chose to handle the situation regarding my husband and his service dog. Instead of educating your leaders and students on service dogs and the laws regarding service dogs you chose to tell us that it would be in our best interest to just go elsewhere. The law clearly states that you cannot refuse admittance, segregate, isolate or treat patrons less favorable than others. You cannot claim allergies or fear as a valid reason for denying access. Tonight when you chose to meet my husband at the door and not allow him to enter because you have individuals inside who are afraid of dogs you discriminated against a disabled person. When approached about this situation you chose to accommodate the other party again, that is discrimination. I will get my money back, I will find a place where my whole family can be treated with respect, and one way, or another you will be educated on the laws regarding service dog teams."

I have personally contacted Karate America Headquarters there phone number is 1(866)306-5426 to register a complaint about their bad business practices. Businesses like this need to be taught a lesson in respect and dignity.


Thursday, June 13, 2013

Southern "Un-fried" Chicken

Now because I have a small amount of the south in me (Meaning I talk with an accent even though I'm not from the south but my Step-ma is) I must admit I'm all for southern home cooking. 

The catch of it is myself & my family can not eat due to allergies most of the main ingredients used in such cooking. Total bummer let me tell you. That was until I came across this recipe & my family went crazy for it. We don't get to eat this kinda stuff as take out. So having a way to do it at home was a sure fire hit!!

A little side note it tasted even better the next day cold!! So pack it for your summer picnic
 
 
What You Need:

 
8-12 pieces of  skinless chicken
1 box of Southern fried chicken coating mix ( It can be shake 'n bake if you like)
 3/4 cup of ranch dressing
13x9 baking pan
 
Put it Together:
 
Take chicken and put it in 13x9 baking pan
 
Take Ranch dressing and coat chicken in dressing on both sides
 
Refrigerate for 30 minutes to marinate 
 
Then take seasoning mix put on plate and coat chicken
 
Any left over seasoning sprinkle over chicken.
 
Preheat oven to 400 and bake for 45 minutes
 
Once cooked put on plate to cool for about 5 minutes
 
Then Serve and Enjoy!

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Saturday Funny: June 8/13

Good Saturday morning!!! Another crazy week in our house. Even now as I woke up screaming the house awake because my calf Charlie-horsed. Not funny in the moment 'cus darnit all that hurt. But now I kind of find it funny. Yup just goes to show you my very odd sense of humor. 

So with that said here are a few things I found funny floating around Facebook this week.  


Thursday, June 6, 2013

An Open Letter to Military Benefits Haters | SpouseBUZZ.com

Normally I would not get on my soap box and express my opinions to the world let alone on this here blog to do so, but after the shear outrage that has been going on in the Military community I feel I must share this letter with my readers. I have to agree with the writer of this as what is being portrayed in the media is very far off from what actually happens. Without braking OPSEC (Operational Security) which are rules for all military and there families on how we conduct ourselves online and just about everywhere lol I will say this: As a young family its very hard to live off a military paycheck with small children even after being in service 5-6 years. Even after 10+ years its still really hard. Mostly because it does not matter how many hours the service member puts in the pay does not change. 80+ hrs a week and most times in the worst conditions one can think of with no change.

But then I saw this blog post and thought YES I so agree and wanted to share!

Have a read and let me know what you think.

Dear Military Benefits Haters  –

We’ve been having a rough go of it lately, haven’t we?  There you are, a civilian, absolutely convinced that the average service member is not worth his weight in pay and benefits.  And here I am, a military family member wondering how we got to this point – and why you are so misdirected about the value of the military.

I think the problem may be that you are confused. You’re there, sitting on your civilian sofa in your civilian house in the town of your choice after coming home from your civilian 9-5 job. You are feeling a little annoyed by the crazy awesome salaries that service members and military retirees score because, in comparison, yours aren’t that amazing. And hey! Your taxes are paying for us to have this fabulous stuff! You are incensed by the very existence of commissaries which, you gleefully note in news articles like this one,  is supported by tax payers all so that military folks can have access to “15 types of ketchup” at Lejeune. You think they should close.
And over here, you proclaim our benefits – the things we get in exchange for the willingness to die for America – as lavish.

It isn’t so much the idea of shutting the commissaries that bothers me. While they do seem like a vital part of life overseas, stateside the argument that they are superfluous at most bases doesn’t seem that farfetched. In most cases, as the author of this peachy story notes, there really are other options. Same thing goes for fitness centers and recreation on bases around the country.
Don’t get me wrong – I love that stuff and I use it all regularly. But I could live without it just fine. If it comes down to bullets or bagels, I’d go with the bullets any day.

What bothers me about these and other stories and columns like them is your tone.
Service members, retirees and their families, the tone says, are acting like privileged brats for expecting, accepting and clinging to the benefits which encourage them to stay military or even to join in the first place.

In fact, the tone says, it is a waste of tax payer money to meet military personnel needs or even give nice-to-haves in exchange for keeping them around.

Service members are overpaid, coddled low-skill workers who should not be given compensation for the inconveniences of military life, but who should still be expected to do their jobs anyway.
It’s a tone that says if you had to join the military to make it through life you are, logically, a substandard American worker and you do not warrant compensation in excess or even equal to the civilian market. Civilians are people who have choices and didn’t take the easy out of Uncle Sam.

Military are people who are living off the tax payer.
The tone is supported by the flinging of inaccurate statistics to support your claims or, worse, the promotion sof weeping generalities about who servicemembers are and what they deserve.

Bad Statistics and Comparisons

Here’s this gem from the Post’s story:
“Over the past decade, military salaries have grown at a faster rate than those of civilian workers. The average enlisted soldier now earns more than 90 percent of Americans who have less than two years of college. Most Army captains – the third-most-junior rank of officer – will take home more than $90,000 this year.”
I’m going to disregard that ridiculous first sentence that ignores the fact that we also, over the past decade, have been paid for deployment after deployment and all the tolls of war. Let’s just focus on the compensation “facts.”

Only one in five Americans is even in good enough physical shape to join the Army. That means that to be the “average enlisted soldier” the author talks about, a recruit already had to do something most Americans can’t – be fit. A whole other group of Americans is ineligible because they didn’t graduate high school or because they have a criminal record. He also had to be willing to join the military at all, which puts him in a group with less than one percent of Americans.

After he joins that soldier then holds a more than full time job, often over 80 hours a week, for which he must continue to meet requirements such as staying fit and felony free. He very likely does an intricate task that no average American with less than two years of college could do without months of dedication and training. He probably has also spent more than nine full months multiple times away from his family working around the clock where he put his life on the line and accepted the continuing burdens of war as part of the gig. He’s likely to have held this same job for around five or six years.

Why is it unreasonable that this soldier make more than 90 percent of Americans who have less than two years of college? And how is that a good group of people to compare him to at all?
And then there is his statement about Army captains and what I can only assume must be a gross misuse of the term “take home,” which is generally accepted to mean “income after taxes.”
Army officers – or any officers, for that matter – are compensated at a higher rate based on education and responsibility, at least in theory. While a captain may make “more than $90,000” before taxes in a very high housing allowance area such as D.C., the average captain certainly does not. A little math reveals that a captain with seven years of Army experience living in San Antonio, Texas with dependents, for example, makes about $86,000 before taxes. But a breakdown of average hours worked by our case study during a year in which he does not deploy shows that he earns around $25 an hour.

And no matter how you shake it out, none of these examples are “more than $90,000″ after taxes.
 In 2010 the average male graduate just out of college earned about $22 an hour. After graduating college and spending seven years on the job with countless additional months in training, an Army captain is making about $25 an hour for putting his life on the line, being willing to live wherever the Army sends him and leave his family for months at a time. He also has met all the qualifications of the “average enlisted soldier” that made that person valuable including, again, an interest in joining to start with.

Are high personnel costs really a problem?

As America rolled into sequestration and other budget cuts, DoD leaders decried the high cost of personnel. After all, they said, supporting current and former military members takes up a third of the DoD 2013 budget.  And with the DoD budget as a whole taking up the biggest “single slice of the federal budget at Social Security,” something surely must be done.
But what they fail to note is that personnel costs really aren’t that ridiculous when compared to the normal market. As the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) points out, in civilian companies with big air fleets (the closest they could get to a military comparison), personnel costs hover at similar levels.
For the United Parcel Service, for example, personnel costs make up 61 percent of the budget. For FedEx, it’s 43 percent. For Southwest Airlines – generally recognized as among the most cost-efficient air carriers – personnel costs comprise 31 percent of operating revenue (which includes profit, so the percentage of expenditures is higher).
The idea that the Defense Budget is so out of control is also misleading, particularly when you look to past trends. This MOAA graph shows that it hovers below 20 percent – whereas in 1962 it was closer to 50 percent.

If it’s so great, where are you?

But here’s the thing that really gets me.
If the pay and benefits for members of the American military are so lavish and such a steal of a deal, where are you, Benefits Hater?

Because that’s the thing that’s so great about the American military. You don’t have to be special or an elitist to hang out with us. You don’t even have to be an American citizen. You just have to meet the requirements and be willing to run while wearing boots.
This isn’t some exclusive club. We like all types of people. We’re cool like that.
So perhaps you don’t join because you can’t meet the qualifications that us low-skill, not worthy of benefits folks met.

Or maybe you just love your freedoms and hate danger. Maybe you like picking where you live. Maybe your spouse has a career she doesn’t want to destroy by moving every three years. Maybe you don’t want to risk getting blown up in the street while driving through a far away land.
Those freedoms? We gave you those and make sure you keep them.
Try remembering that and then see how you feel about military benefits.

Sincerely,
Amy



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

AND THE WINNER IS..........

THE WINNER OF THE MY MEMORIES DIGITAL SCRAPBOOK SOFTWARE
IS...........
 
 
MAYLA MOORE!!!
 
 
CONGRATULATIONS!
 
AN EMAIL HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU.
 
 
THANK YOU ALL ONCE AGAIN FOR TAKING PART IN THE FUN.
DON'T FORGET TO COME BACK AND SEE WHAT OTHER KINDS OF FUN THAT'S COOKING!

Fall Off The Bone B.B.Q Ribs

Now I must admit this is not something I came up with. It's a recipe out of Patricia Corwells cook book: Food To Die For.  But this is my so go to for making ribs!!

It takes a bit of time because they are slow cooked first in the oven. Let me tell you it's sooooo worth it!! My family LOVES them!

What you need:


4 1/4 cups water
1 tbsp. Liquid smoke *you can get this in the sauce section at your local grocery store*
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 groundpepper
4 lbs pork ribs
1 1/2 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce

Put It Together 

Pre-heat oven to 275. 

In a large shallow pan mix together water & liquid smoke 

In a small bowl mix together salt, garlic powder, & pepper

Put ribs in water meat side up & sprinkle seasoning over meat


Cover tightly with foil & cook for 2 hours 15 minutes


Once cooked bring out of oven & let stand still covered for 15 minutes


Meanwhile you can heat up your grill to medium heat. * If you don't have a grill you can use your broiler in the oven* once they have set I like to cut them up & get them on the gill. 
 



Next take sauce after the ribs have been filled on each side about 4-5 min & coat them with sauce. *add a little water to your sauce to make it go a on even*
Once coated remove from grill
 

Serve & enjoy!