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Case in point- Fajita Soup

Here’s the background. One of my local grocery stores has a weekly meal deal. They pick an item, that when you purchase a full price, you get a TON of other things to make a full meal for free. A couple of weeks ago the meal deal was fajitas. I purchased pre-seasoned fajita meat for about eleven dollars and got the following for free: sour cream, cheese, tortillas, salsa, a tortilla warmer (bet people outside of Texas don’t know about those). I could have also received some soda, but I don’t particularly like what was free so I passed on the offer.

Now, this meal deal is enough to feed an army, but I was strategic. I froze the cheese and tortillas. Have used the salsa and sour cream for other meals (including snacks for the Bible Study I lead) and separated the pounds of meat into one-two person sized baggies. They were then consequently frozen. Enter, a stocked freezer with enough supplies to make at least 7 one person fajita meals.

So, one day last week I made my first bag. Turns out, I stink at cooking the meat and I wasn’t terribly impressed. But, I was DETERMINED to make full use of my left overs. So, when I came home for dinner I used the left overs and a bunch of other things I had on hand to make soup. And, I must say, for an accidental-on-purpose-leftover meal, it turned out well!

Here’s the accidental recipe. Feel free to alter and or add to as you see fit with things you have on hand.

Ingredients:
All my left over fajita meat (don’t ask me how much, it was the left overs of 1/7 a pre-seasoned package.)
One can of chicken broth
One can’s worth of water
1 to 1/5 tsp of chicken bullion
1 can of corn
1 can of black beans
1 can of pinto beans
1 can of mushrooms
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of diced tomatoes with chili’s
Some brown rice
1 package of Fajita seasoning
Extra frozen, precooked chicken strips

I literally threw all of this in a pot, brought it to a boil and then simmered it until the rice looked cooked. I thought that the extra fajita seasoning would make it too spicy, but I almost think it needs a bit more flavor. I measured absolutely nothing for this soup, and it was liberating.

I made some cornbread to eat with it, but it would also be good with tortilla chips. And in my humble opinion, Coke Zero is a must.

I have a TON of soup left over, so I think I’m going to freeze some of it to save for a day when soup sounds good and I’m too lazy to make it. Not that this required much work. I actually managed to finish a last minute project for work while the stove did all the cooking.

I just never cease to be amazed at how one small item, like chicken fajita mix, can multiply into sooooo much more! If you live in Waco– come over and have some soup. It is like an accidental loaves and fishes scenario.

Anyone can speak, but it takes intelligence, self-control, and maturity to set our own interestes aside and focus our attention on the needs and concerns of someone else for a change. Not only is it hard to feel validated in a relationship where you can’t get a word in edgewise, it’s just not a lot of fun. A good friendship is built on the mutual sharing of ideas, dreams, concerns and fears. If we find ourselves on the short end of the sharing stick, it might be difficult to keep the friendship going. And one way we can learn to identify a good listener is by being a great one ourselves.

We can start by asking about our friend’s day and then shutting up. We can inquire about our coworker’s weekend and then just let them talk about it. Or we can simply stop fiddling with our phones and BlackBerrys long enough to make eye contact and let them know we’re genuinely interested in hearing what they have to say. In our drive-up, fly-by, fast-talking society, listening is a lost art. But I’m convinced that we classy ladies can be the ones to bring it back.

Oh, may she be right.

This passage has encouraged me to think about how I approach friendships, my time with students and colleagues. Not only that, but it helped me really think about the friends I have who are great listeners, and how grateful I am for them!

Are you a good listener? Or is this an area where you, like me, need to be a little more Hepburn and a little less Hilton?

Check out Jordan’s book here:

visited 35 states (70%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Seeing this visual makes me want to take some vacations to knock the rest off. Maybe first up should be finishing off the northern border.

Anyone want to join?

However, I am now a much more mature, disciplined individual. Right?

After a bit of thought I’ve signed up to sell Avon again. I love the products, and the company. I think the products sell themselves. What’s cool about Avon now, is that each representative can have their own webpage where their customers can shop, order and pay for their Avon products. Gone are the days of needing to have a representative where you are– you can order online and have your product mailed to you.

That’s a pretty sweet deal.

Seriously– check it out.

So, if you are in the mood for makup, bath products, shampoo/conditioner, and a wide variety of other things (kitchen gadgets, clothes, bags, etc) check out my avon site. I can give you a real brochure if you would like as well!

Have family or friends that might be interested? Pass this site along to them as well!

While it is not really a first, a couple of weeks ago I the chance to drive to Fort Worth to see my favorite author, Donald Miller. You may remember my previous post detailing my excitement about his newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. A couple of friends joined me, and we drove to Fort Worth to have dinner with a few of my favorite former students turned friends, and then on to see Don. Let me just tell you that it was more than worth the hour and a half drive and the $15 ticket. After Donald finished speaking we had the chance to wait for autographs. Kelcy, a student who joined the trip, remembered to bring her book however, I left mine on the kitchen table. We waited in line for her to get her book signed, and I got the chance to meet Don in a moment of awkwardness and awe. Highlights of our 30 second conversation include that he called me “nice” twice. Ahhhh. . . . Here’s a photo of me and Don.

Also recently I tried a new vegetable- acorn squash. I have seen them in the grocery, but never tried it before. My friend Steph posted a link on her blog with a simple recipe so I decided to try it. I must admit, acorn squash was very yummy! You should check out Steph’s blog for yummy recipes.

Tuck recently had a big first. In preparing for Thanksgiving, I felt really guilty about leaving him with other people so often this year. So, since Southwest Airlines recently changed their policy regarding pets, allowing animals aboard flights, I decided Tuck would come along for Thanksgiving. For the first time in his life (that I know of at least), Tuck got to spend lots of time in a crate and flew. The flight out was relatively uneventful, minus the three times Tuck busted out of the cage and decided to try to wander around. Luckily the people sitting around me thought he was cute and wanted to play with him. He was much happier when we got in the car with his grand-people.

May you have a happy Thanksgiving filled with a few firsts!

One step I recently took was learning that my site had comments blocked unless you were registered with WordPress. Oops. That’s fixed now! Comment away!

And, while you’re at it, check out some of the photos I recently uploaded to my Flickr. I’m in the process of editing some recent ones, so more new shots will be coming!

We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We are blessed beyond measure. Yet we live way beyond our means and find ourselves in financial pitfalls that we could avoid if we tried.

Living paycheck to paycheck sure is stressful. I’ve done it– most of my college career to be exact. As a sophomore, our RA paychecks were unexpectedly cut (do to lack of budget planning at the university level, oops), and I went from earning $200-$400 a month to about $90. Talk about stressful. Most of my friends did not have to work because their parents provided spending money, whereas mine made it very clear when I left for college that I would have to earn any spending money I needed. Since responsibility is an overactive blessing and curse in my life, I took that charge to heart and made some financial decisions that were dumb and cost me a lot (i.e. my first credit card). That year’s pay cut, coupled with my inability to say no to my friends and ask for my parents help, has ended up costing me a lot more than the price tag on those few movies or dinners out.

Fast forward a few years to 2009.

I realized this summer that I still continue to be a poor manager of my resources. I make more than $90 a month now, but I still could not seem to shake that habit of living paycheck to paycheck. Not only do I get a decent salary, I have a paid for apartment, a meal plan, free gym membership, and free or severely discounted entrance to division one sporting events. Despite that, I still found myself, most months, waiting for the next paycheck. Despite my renewed focus on budgeting last November, I do not have much to show for it (minus a small emergency fund).

I have a job that I love. I have an apartment that I love. And, I have the chance to make some good, but tough decisions now for the future. Decisions that mean when the day comes that I have to be a big girl and pay for my apartment, utilities, etc, I can with little stress. Decisions that mean when I ring in 30 in a few years, I will ring it in with no debt.

For the last six weeks I have been taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class. It’s a 13 week course focused not only on teaching people how to manage money, but helping break some of the strongholds years of habits have formed in peoples’ lives. The more I learn, the more I am convinced, many people are poor, and living paycheck to paycheck that do not have to be. They just routinely making choices that keep them there. Most are doing things they only way they know how, most have never learned any better. Most live broke, and will die broke.

I do not want to be like most people.

I am daily choosing to live like no one else, so that later I can LIVE like no one else!

I am now living a different kind of paycheck to paycheck. When I got paid at on September 30th, I paid off my first credit card.

That same card that I opened years ago so I could live like all my friends. That’s right, it’s history. Like the lifestyle I chose to create it in the first place.

I did some projecting that night, and realized, that with my next paycheck, on October 30th, I will pay off the next one. I have been looking forward to the next paycheck all month!! In a few months, I should have paid off the next one, and be on to knocking out my student loans.

I have a brand new perspective on what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. This perspective is WAY more fun, and WAY less stressful. The longer that I live this way, the more I am convinced that our country would be in a very different place if people chose to pay themselves first and not be a slave to debt.

I still have a long way to go, but I’m getting there– paycheck to paycheck.

Buckingham’s newest book originated from a realization he had while visiting the Oprah show– that despite progress in women’s rights over the last several decades, women are profoundly unhappy and under a great deal of pressure. Reading one personal story after another, Buckingham set out to determine what makes women happy and successful- what is different about those women than other unhappy women.

I have to admit– I found this book rather slow moving. I took the “Strong Life Test” before I got the book to discover my “lead” and “supporting” roles. I was anxious to discover more about those and how to apply them to my life. However, the chapter with this information did not even begin until 97 pages in. Leading up to the 97th page was a lot of information about how unhappy women are and why living a strong life is important. I liked the information about the different roles, but I think there is still a lot of room for developing these roles deeply like StrengthsQuest.

I will say that I felt my results of the Strong Life Test were pretty spot on with who I am. My lead role is caretaker and my supporting role is creator. I would have liked to see Buckingham expound about each of these roles more than he did, but I do think that they make sense and help affirm things I do well.

Overall, I think that Find Your Strongest Life is an interesting book, and that the Strong Life Roles seem to make sense. I would like to see further development of these things, including a better test, and more research on validity of the tool. Find Your Strongest Life is not my favorite of Buckingham’s book, however, it is still somewhat helpful in the quest to better understand one’s self. Overall though, I think this book is really best for working mothers, but there is not much for women who are single career women.