Author: Diana

Diana

Diana

By Diana

Diana is the sister.

Not exactly sure what to put here, but this is basically my family’s website and I have a bunch of content on here. Most of the stuff is mine, but that’s OK!!

Right now I am really working hard on the site to make it something great. I love the new layout and I need to focus on adding the meaningful content. I am currently doing daily blogs and will soon be adding some sort of vlogs. Not sure if that is going to be like a daily or weekly thing or maybe just for something special. I am having a hard time starting that so we will see how it goes.

Merry Christmas!!

By Diana

Merry Christmas everybody!!!  We had a special breakfast this morning where Paul, Samantha, Becky, me, mom, and dad were all supposed to eat together, but everyone was late :(  So, me, mom, and dad got to enjoy the yummy breakfast together instead :)

Our family doesn’t really do Christmas, we don’t exchange gifts and stuff like that so today was just like any other day really.  I made the special breakfast and chicken and dumplings for dinner.  Tomorrow Paul, Samantha, and Becky are coming out again, this time for dinner, Lasagna :)

I have been playing with the site today, trying out new themes and I found one that I think I like.  The only problem is I couldn’t get the links to work so I reverted back to this one.  I will eventually find the one I like, just gonna take time and lots of playing with themes.

I had planned on doing a vlog of me making breakfast, but I just didn’t have the guts to do it.  I don’t understand what my problem is, just do it already :)  Maybe tomorrow I will actually do it.

Alright, gonna get back to trying out themes, bye!!

Yummy Lasagna

Yummy Lasagna

By Diana

This is such an easy and painless recipe for lasagna and everyone just loved it :)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds ground sirloin
  • 1 (45 ounce) jar Prego Fresh Mushroom Italian Sauce
  • 40 ounces cottage cheese
  • 6 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 box uncooked lasagna noodles

Directions

  1. In a large skillet over medium heat brown the ground sirloin.  Drain the grease.  Add spaghetti sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together the cottage cheese, 5 cups of mozzarella cheese, and eggs.
  3. To assemble, in the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish evenly spread 3/4 cup of sauce mixture.  Cover with 4 uncooked noodles, 1 1/3 cup of the cheese mixture, and 1/4 cup sauce.  Repeat layers twice.  Top with 3 noodles, remaining sauce, remaining mozzarella cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil.
  4. Bake in a preheated 350 F for 45 minutes.
  5. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
  6. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Pictures

IMG_2672IMG_2670 IMG_2669

Yummy Biscuit and Gravy Bake

Yummy Biscuit and Gravy Bake

By Diana

This one is a great presentation for the good ole fashioned biscuits and gravy :)

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Prepare a 9×13 casserole dish with cooking spay.  Layer 1 can of biscuits on the bottom of the pan.  Bake for 10 minutes.
  2. Brown the sausage until no longer pink.  Sprinkle flour on sausage and cook for an additional 4 minutes, stirring frequently.
  3. Add milk and continue to stir occasionally until the mixture comes to a slight boil.
  4. Pour gravy over cooked biscuits and add additional biscuits to the top by tearing them into small pieces.
  5. Bake for an addition 15 minutes, or until biscuits on top are golden brown.  Serve immediately.

Pictures

IMG_2665 IMG_2667

14. Compassion

By Diana

I recently have been chatting with a new friend and one thing that he does very well is show compassion.  That is sometimes a very hard thing to relay, especially if you are not in a place where you can be around that person.  I say something isn’t going great and I feel like he is genuinely caring about how it is having an impact on me.  I am not really the best at this one which is why it has made my list.  I care about people and I care if they have a good day or bad day, but I have a tendency to be very distracted in conversations if something else is going on.  I am very used to multi tasking at work, listening in on several conversations at the same time – and one sided at that.  So it is a little bit hard for me to focus on what a person is trying to relay to me and that makes it seem like I don’t care as much as I do.

I am not saying that it is OK to complain and keep on about something just to do it, but if you say something like I feel like crap today and they say, I hope you feel better instead of something like – keep that crap to yourself – that is compassion folks :)

I admit that I am a bit of a whiner, but it’s something that I will pay more attention to and I will also try very hard to make sure people know that when I ask them a question or they are telling me something that they have my attention and I do care to hear what they are saying – I will be picking up what they are putting down!!

 

The Day There Was So Much Chocolate :)

By Diana

So, tomorrow I am sending a friend of mine a bunch of chocolate for being such a great person.  What had happened was we were talking about bacon and I made the super bold statement that bacon does not belong on anything but rather should be eaten all by its self.  He, like most people I have this conversation strongly disagreed and proceeded to tell me how it pretty much belongs on everything – typical response :)

But I did have to give in on bacon and chocolate.  I do like bacon chocolate and it most certainly does belong as a thing, a thing I love.  He on the other hand, Mr. Bacon himself, had never had chocolate bacon!  Can you believe the ridiculousness of that?!

I called the local chocolatier, Peterbrooke and ordered 3 dozen chocolate covered bacon, half for him and half for everyone here.  I also grabbed up a bunch of small chocolate pieces because they have great chocolate in any form and also the two best things they have: mint Oreos covered in dark chocolate and chocolate bar with sea salt.   AMAZING!!!!

Like I said, I am mailing it tomorrow in hopes he gets it Christmas Eve and it isn’t all melted together.  I am not sure if sending to his house is even eligible for next day – I guess I will find out tomorrow.  If not I may have to just wait to send it and hope that he doesn’t read this or I don’t just blab :)

Alright, I am going to wrap this up because I really wanted to get started on the year review – or whatever I am going to end up calling it.

Some chocolate with sea salt from Peterbrooke Chocolatier :)
Some chocolate with sea salt from Peterbrooke Chocolatier :)

 

 

Eddie Izzard – How Could I Forget?!

By Diana

I can not believe I didn’t blog about this show!!  Paul and I went to see Eddie Izzard on December 3, 2015 at the Florida Theatre and it was AMAZING!!

We had a hell of a time getting in – the Ticketmaster app was not playing nice, but the show itself was great.  I was so worried because the last time I saw a comedian he wasn’t that funny, but not this time.  Some of the material was old, stuff I have seen on his specials, but for the most part it was all very typical Eddie.  We had great seats and could not have asked for anything more :)

On our way in we ran into Tom and Alexis and her bother and sister.  It was totally appropriate seeing him there and I really enjoyed the little bit of catching up we got to do.  I miss them a ton.

Eddie Izzard ticket stub
Eddie Izzard ticket stub

Happy Happy Times

By Diana

I wanted to follow up with the Beckley blogs because it was so much freaking fun!!!!  The first day riding around with my awesome friend had me a bit giggly because it was so windy and up and down and just crazy.  He assured me that he was taking it much easier then he normally would be :)

We went high railing a couple times, once was just a little but, but the second time was like 20 miles and it was so amazing.  I also got to go to like 6 different towns and saw all kinds of cool things in Thurmond and Hinton.

I didn’t really do anything crazy like food wise, but we did manage to go to a place called Biscuit World.  It was good, had a shaved ham and cheese, but the biscuit was HUGE :)

One of the most memorable things about the trip was two things really, but very related :)  First my TomTom is set to avoid toll roads and when I was getting the rental car the lady asked me if I wanted the toll thing and I was like No, that’s crazy!  Um, I realized that I had made a huge mistake when TomTom had me turn down a single lane road…  When it was all done it was about 45 minutes longer than if I would have paid a whopping $4.00 in tolls :)  My friend found this hilarious.  The related item was when we were at a location he asked me before we got out of the truck if I had a jacket, um yes yes I do, that is a silly question sir.  Turns out it was freezing and I should have put that stinking jacket on silly, but no I walked all the way in and stood there freezing :)  But no real foul because I ended up not actually having my jacket – ha ha ha jokes on you :)

Another thing worth mentioning is the last nights dinner.  Not because it was good food, even though it was very delicious food, it was because of the awesome “show”.  It was called Fujiyama and was in Beckley.  It was a hibachi restaurant and the person who was doing the cooking was amazing.  He kept putting the sauce on the food, sorry, the sexy sauce :)  And he was squirting it in a very suggestive way :)  I wish I would have even thought to take video – PRICELESS!!!!!!

There were so many random times that I just could not stop laughing uncontrollably.  It was such a great time.  I have thanked my tour guide so many times, but he really did go above and beyond and it was GREAT!!

 

Silver Medallion – Finally!!!!

By Diana

While I was on this last trip I finally made silver medallion status again on Delta.  I feel like it took forever this time, I should have done a little bit more to not lose it last year and I would not have been suffering all year :) Actually it wasn’t that bad.  I got first class a ton the last couple months of my status.

I can’t believe that I forgot to blog about this when it happened, but I was still going a little bananas over how amazing a time I was having in WV.  I had to pay a ton to check my back on the first flight, but not the rest of the flights so that was nice.

Status – that’s what it’s all about!!!!