Mishaps and other haps

Mom dictated a chicken crockpot recipe on the phone earlier this week and I decided to cook it today since I would be around the house and could check up on it. We haven’t eaten it yet, but it smells really good. Here’s the recipe:

Combine in crockpot (or just pour over the chicken):

3-4 boneless chicken breasts (frozen is fine)

1 cup of salsa

1 can Rotel tomatoes (I used tomato & green chiles, but it also comes in a cilantro-lime variety)

1 large can (15 oz) tomato sauce

Cook all day on low (10-12 hours). Shred up the chicken. Serve over rice (or with tortilla chips, my dad recommends).

EDIT: Black beans go well with this (I heated them in a separate pot on the burner and sprinkled them into my bowl, since Michael is not a fan of beans).  Also, it works really well to sprinkle cheese on top when you serve it– I used pepper jack, which was tasty.   I do recommend using bowls for serving as there is more juice than the rice can soak up.

We receive a small, free paper in our mailbox called the Fitchburg Star.  It has very Fitchburg-specific news, frequently about business development, local events and community programs.

An article on the front page of the most recent issue reported on the progress of Fitchburg’s very own LIBRARY!  We haven’t been a city for too many years, so residents have been mooching off Madison’s libraries.  But not for much longer!  A website has been established to keep us all posted on events related to fundraising for and eventual construction of the library:

http://friendsoffitchburglibrary.com/

I went out to shovel snow a little earlier and someone was coming down our road … on cross-country skiis.

It’s at least 6 inches deep in our driveway.  I am sure Michael will have to help me before he will be able to pull into the garage.  I’m shoveling like a maniac, but not making a whole lot of progress.  Then again, I haven’t been at it that long.

So Spring is coming up in another six weeks or so, right?

OK, so our cats are not perfect angels 100% of the time.  I came home today to find that they had gotten into the pantry and maimed:

a bag of tortellini

a bag or two of miniature marshmallows

a bag of powdered sugar

We learned early on not to leave a loaf of bread out on the counter because Xaxxon likes to chew through the plastic bag and eat half a loaf at a time.  However, when offered a chunk of bread, he will only recognize it as a toy and play with it.  The lure is in the sneaky thievery, I guess.

But the cats were fairly satisfied with their dry food until Xaxxon got sick and we took him to the vet and came home with WET food.  The vet recommended routinely feeding the cats wet food as well as dry since carnivores traditionally get much of their liquid intake through food, rather than a water dish.  We have noticed that our cats tend to spurn the water dish for other sources of water around the house, so maybe it’s good that they are getting a little more liquid through their food.

Now they expect to be fed practically any time I am in the kitchen.  Or, if I am not in the kitchen, they try to direct me to the kitchen so that I will feed them.  I guess part of this could be that I do give them treats sometimes when it is not their designated dinner time.  Could they subsist on dry food alone now, or are they spoiled forever?

The Credit Union was slow to send out 1098s and 1099s this year, so my final documents came in at the end of the week. I was able to file taxes this morning and I did! For the first time, my line item deductions were higher than the standard deduction, which means that I paid a lot during 2007, but will be getting more back from Federal than in previous years.

State was about the same as usual, I guess. When I rented, my State return was usually higher than my Federal return because Wisconsin allows a significant deduction for renters.  But I am no longer a renter.

All of my work bonuses, tax returns, and “extra” money this year will be applied where it will make a significant difference for the future. Lisa Prometheus is at work here. But watch out for falling chunks of concrete! It’s a hard hat zone.