Merry Christmas + Happy Holidays from Mema & Jill.
(photo courtesy of Kay Meyer Photography)
Top 5 Reasons Why My Grandmother Should Be Jameis Winston’s Body Guard
While eating dinner, the subject of football season quickly approaching came up — of course. Mema, my grandmother, then volunteered her time to be Jameis Winston’s personal body guard.
In honor of #5, here are the top five reasons why she is qualified:
- She doubles as a chef and makes better crab legs than Publix.
- Who would mess with a grandmother, especially one with this much spunk?
- She wears matching head gear.
- Mema has a long standing history of cooking meals for the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity — since 1976 to be exact.
- If she’s gonna do it then, she’s gonna do it BIG then… and she’s done it for longer.
Seriously, the offer is out there. We will respond to calls, texts, tweets or flares.
Showering Alli & Baby Liberty
One of my best friends is having a baby in June and I had the privilege of being one of the hosts for her and baby Liberty Chandler’s baby shower.
Mema also helped host. She was the first one in the kitchen to wash the dishes. That lady is unstoppable!
Here are a few photos from the shower.
We are so happy for Alli and Chris and cannot wait for baby Liberty Chandler to be here 🙂
Egg-citing New post
What is Easter without deviled eggs? I figured I should actually try to make something this year, so I went with the Southern Easter classic.
Very simple, but I had a really hard time peeling the eggs, so any and all tips are welcome!
Here is the recipe I used for a dozen eggs:
– 4 tablespoons mayo
– 2 tablespoons mustard
– salt & pepper
– 4 tablespoons dill pickle relish
We boiled the eggs and made the mixture while they were cooling. After spending WAY too much time peeling the eggs, we combined the yolks and the mixture then placed in a ziploc bag to squeeze into egg holes.
Hope everyone had a great Easter 🙂
Happy One Month Noles
It has been a month and a day since we won the national championship and I cannot wait to celebrate for the next eleven.
I have done the most terrible job blogging, but wanted to share photos of the championship game. Mema, my grandmother, made us all Jameis Winston headbands to wear to the game. She distributed them to the family before we jumped on the plane. I’m pretty sure the rest of the airport was jealous.
The game was terrifying and exciting all at the same time with the Noles coming out on top in the last few minutes. I love this photo and the fact that Mema is still wearing her headband — she is a trooper.
Go Noles! >>—>>
Thank Goodness My Roommate Created Canned Pumpkin
With only one day left in October, it was time to channel our inner Betty Crocker and get in the pumpkin spirit.
My roommate, Libby, even created her own canned pumpkin for this recipe.
These pumpkin muffins (because a cupcake without icing is definitely a muffin!) are so easy to make. All you need is canned pumpkin, yellow cake mix and mini chocolate chips.
Cheers to Fall & sweater season!
#myamazinglife
My “Amazing” Life: The Accidental Lie of Social Media
Social Media is making a lot of us sad. That’s a trend I’ve had an intuitive sense about for some time, but a study released in August put data behind it. I couldn’t help but think of Brené Brown’s excellent work on shame and vulnerability as I read various summaries and ultimately the original work. People hide those things we fear will separate us from others and that drives us to share the very best parts of our lives via social media. Others see these idealized versions of life and their own shame is amplified as they compare themselves to a life that doesn’t exist.
From this springs a culture of envy, bitterness, sadness, loneliness, and cynicism. Even genuine posts regarding significant life events can be viewed with cynical detachment, as illustrated by this comic from The Oatmeal. Cynicism and deconstruction can be useful, but I’d rather think about steps we can take to make people less sad by our attempts to share our life experience.
#myamazinglife
This week I’m going to use a hashtag a lot in my social posts: #myamazinglife. None of these posts are going to be glamorous. I’m going to share the sorts of things we usually hide from people. This is not a cry for help–I’m quite happy with my life and who I am. Instead, this is an intentional counter to the posturing we all do naturally. This is an experiment to see what happens when our social media projections more accurately represent our full life experience.
My first post will be about my old, run-down car. One of the back doors won’t open because I’ve locked my keys in my car so often the lock is broken. Do you get the idea? I’d love for you to join me. Here’s how:
- Write a post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social platforms about something that is embarrassing, mundane, routine, or uninteresting about your life.
- Add #myamazinglife to the post.
I can’t wait to hear about your amazing life.
#dufnering
Stuffed Chicken Success
I have been traveling a good bit for work and wanted to try something new. I get bored with plain chicken, so I decided to try this recipe from PaleOMG — which I highly recommend.
Click HERE for the full recipe.
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts, butterflied and pounded flat
- 6-8 ounces of button mushrooms, roughly chopped
- 5 strips of bacon
- 4-5 cups fresh spinach
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- salt and pepper, to taste
I, of course, was drawn into it because of the bacon, which makes everything taste better.
I pounded the chicken with my super fancy apparatus — a hammer. I put cellophane over the chicken before pounding.
I cooked the bacon until it got nice and crunchy and chopped it up.
Then sauteed the mushrooms and garlic in a little bit of the bacon grease.
Added in the spinach and bacon — letting the spinach wilt.
Then put the mixture into the butterflied and pounded chicken and secure with toothpicks. 
Baked in the oven for 20 minutes and sauteed some veggies while it was in the oven. I didn’t have enough squash or asparagus for two so I just made two separate veggies.
The final product. 🙂 
And we added a little two buck chuck from Trader Joes! 🙂 This recipe was SO easy and it only took about 40 minutes to make everything happen.
My Grandmother Still Doesn’t Need Glasses
My aunt sent me this photo today and I just HAD to post it on the blog — it’s too perfect.
“My Grandmother is over 80 and still doesn’t need glasses. She drinks right out of the bottle!”
becomingmarketable 