update on the Fried Chicken Catastrophe

Not only is our sink still not functioning properly (drain backs up), but now our dishwasher is clogged too. I will never live this down.

my Waynick family

Thanksgiving Day- 11/27/2008

Chris, Sara, Michael, Geoff (Candace's bf), Candace, Donya, and Mark

Chris and Me

Happy Thanksgiving! (Round 1)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! :)

Today, I rolled out of bed at about 9:00 and immediately smelled the wonderful aroma of thanksgiving dinner.

I went outside to watch Chris and the fam make a funnel cake for the first time-

two deep-fried Snickers bars (YUM!!)

and potatoes to make french fries. (we didn't get a photo of the yummy fries)


Then came the fried turkey project.

This is 3rd turkey that my hubby has fried and it was the most delicious.

Absolute perfection.

the fried chicken catastrophe continues...

Got home from work today and my poor sweet husband is plunging the sink. The dirty dishes are strewn all over the counter. I asked him what the heck was going on. The kitchen sink is clogged and neither of us can figure out why. These things happen I guess.

In any home problem/crisis we have a system:
Step 1: Attempt to fix problem ourselves
Step 2: Call the Father-in-Law (FIL), aka: Mark, aka: Master-of-home-repair-and-handyman-tasks

Well, since Step 1 is failing miserably we resort to Step 2.

As Chris plunges away, I'm talking to the FIL on the phone. He stated something brilliant as the MIL was reading the first part of "the fried chicken catastrophe" on her computer. He asks "Where'd you put the chicken paste? Did you put in the sink?"

I think to myself "Chicken paste? What the heck is chicken paste?" and in the midst of my thoughts, Mark adds, "Well, it's really not paste, it's like dough, the flour that you cooked chicken with..."

OOOHHH, the chicken bisquick goo! Of course! Well, Shhhhhhugar cookies. I ruined the batter AND clogged the sink with it. Awesome!!

Chris and I cracked up. At my expense. Again.

the fried chicken catastrophe

I think I'm a decent cook. Chris can show me up any day, but he reads cookbooks and recipes for fun.

So to the point, last night I decided I would fry up some chicken breast tenders, basically because I was too lazy to do anything else with them. Normally I just throw the chicken in the pan with some oil, dash on some salt and pepper, and done! Well, I got crazy and decided to use cornmeal to cover it and make it extra unhealthy. I couldn't find any white cornmeal in my pantry, so I got out the Bisquick. How convenient! There is a recipe for the "Ultimate Chicken Fingers" on the back of the box! Sweet!

I tend to not measure most things when I cook and it always turns out fine, so I skimmed over the ingredients for the batter: an egg, Bisquick, paprika, garlic salt, pepper, ok got it. But I did not read the directions- I can do this myself, right?

Made the batter in 5 seconds flat- threw everything in the bowl and mixed it up. Wait. Oh crap. It's sticky. Is it supposed to do that? I think so? Umm...? No worries, I saw all the ingredients.

Picked up the raw chicken tender and attempted to slather a handful of Bisquick-goo onto it. Slid off, stuck to my hands, plopped back in the bowl... did everything but coat the chicken. My hands were coated though! Dadgummit, I was going to make this work. I tried to take a smaller blob of batter and press it onto the chicken. Didn't stay- it just got sucked back onto the dough that was all over my hands. The batter just got stickier and stickier the more I fooled with it... kinda like cookie dough or bread dough. Oh Lord, I did something wrong. What is the problem here?? Ok, so about 1/8 of the chicken tender ended up with batter on it and I just chucked it in the pan. Did the other 5 tenders the same way.

My hands were covered in goo. Had to use extremely hot water to remove the nasty-eggy-bisquicky-raw-chickeny dough off my hands. EW!

In the pan were several chicken tenders with blobs of dough stuck on them in various places. It sucked.

Meanwhile, Chris came in to observe the madness. Busted out laughing when I told him what happened (still not knowing what I did wrong, but obviously HE knew.) "Honey, you dip the chicken in the egg, THEN you shake it in a baggie of Bisquick to coat it."

Wow... DUUUUUH, Sara.

Note to audience: Read the directions next time.

p.s. If you have a funny cooking story, please comment so I won't feel so stupid. LOL!

currently...

1.) Got a new job within Medtronic effective Nov 3: Associate R&D Scientist, working on a pharmaceutical treatment for acute back pain. Love my new team and I'm learning a lot. It's fun to be a nerd. My first official day on the job was spent in California with my boss working with lab rats.

2.) Chris is receiving interview offers from all over the place. We will be travel-fiends this winter that will ultimately result in a ranking list and a determination of where we will be living for at least the next 3 years. (See the Countdown to Match Day ticker on the side of my blog.)

3.) Avery turns 3 on November 20th. Happy Birthday puppy! Now if we could just find a way to get rid of his durn fleas!!!!

4.) No issues with Crohn's or joints- God is so good to me!

5.) Christ United Methodist Church is moving toward some really excellent (positive) changes to benefit the kingdom of God. Chris and I have been an active part of this process and look forward to the changed hearts of the congregation!

Other than these changes, our lives are pretty normal from day to day. Go to work, watch movies, go to Grace Group, go to Side by Side, eat, clean house (sometimes), do laundry (only after the basket overflows onto the floor), sleep...

shootin' range

I fired a real gun for the first time in my life on October 18. (BB guns don't count)

My friend Jen and her husband took me and Chris out to the MSSA to go shootin'! I was a little intimidated at first when we arrived due to the constant pops and bangs of various handguns, rifles, and shotguns. However, I was put more at ease when we went into the office to sign-in and the room was plastered with PRO-McCain, PRO-bush, and Anti-Obama stickers. Praise the Lord. I want the sticker that says "NOBAMA '08". Love it. But I digress.

Anyway, we went down to the pistol shooting area that was set up with various targets and metal dummies. They started me off easy with a 22 handgun. I was scared as heck to pull the trigger, but it turned out to be pretty fun and I have good aim. :) I could hit those cans with my BB gun 10 years ago, so hitting a large paper target was cake. Ha.

After practicing my preciseness (is that a word?) on the target for a while, I decided to try the 12-gauge shotgun. After all, it belongs to me and Chris and I have no idea how to use the thing. God forbid an intruder come in the house. I watched Chris fire it a couple of times, then I went for it. My hands were shaking. Of course I had to let that stop before I proceeded with firing a large gun. I nestled the butt of the gun into my shoulder and BANG!

WHOA! Holy &%*$*&%$! That is more power than a dang nuclear bomb! Chris had to keep me from getting blown plum backwards! Holy cow. I don't like it. But I fired it again. BANG! Wow. Why did I do that? Here, Chris, take this crazy thing away from me. Ok, I'm done with that. Pray to the Lord that I never have to use that thing in self-defense. At least I know what it feels like now.

Somehow we convinced tiny little Jen to fire the shotgun. She hated it as much or more than I did. We are too small- could barely hold the dang thing up to fire it in the first place.

And I totally passed on the 45 handgun. No thank you. Chris loved it though.

Then Dan's friend showed up with a plethora of firearms. We played with an AR15 (which is an automatic rifle). That thing was awesome... made me feel like GI Jane. We put 22 gauge bullets in there, so it made hardly any noise. I kept my earplugs in, though, don't you worry. I'm already deaf enough from years of drumming. There is a cool little site with a red target in it. Neat.

I was done after that. They busted out another rifle that was louder, and I got a little emotional for some reason (Just like me to get all sensitive), so I went to the car to get a snack. As I watched my friends fire guns from a distance, I started to think about all of the soldiers in Iraq and other places who to have to fire guns at people out of self-defense. They have to listen to POP POP POP and BANG all day... usually without earplugs. I pity them. Sometimes it's just a necessary evil, unfortunately.

So we wrapped up the day with some pond-fishin'. We used live night-crawlers which worked much better than plastic lures. I caught a pretty good sized bass and a little blue-gill. Jen and Chris caught a blue gill and Daniel got skunked. Not literally, thank goodness.

It was an awesome day outdoors doing some good ole' southern activities!!!

ryan is home :)

Ryan came home Thursday the 9th! This young man is a walking miracle. Praise God for his healing mercy.

Read the CarePages post from Dan:

Progressing Every Day
Posted Oct 11, 2008 11:32pm

Here’s a bit of family pride I’d like to share... Of course as parents we wanted to be with him every minute of his hospital stay. However, did you know his big sister Megan was there to support him every single day during both the hospital and rehab? His oldest sister Cara had to go back to Memphis to continue dental school but before she left, she purchased Ryan a card and a gift for each day she was gone! She then wrapped each of them up so he could open one each morning when he woke-up! What great kids we have!

Ryan was in the trauma unit for a week, the step-down unit 4 or 5 days and Vanderbilt Stallworth rehabilitation hospital for nearly a week. He is now back at home and is doing absolutely great!

Ryan had been asking to come home ever since he woke up in the hospital. Now that he is home, he’s resting very comfortably and getting better quality sleep than ever. That’s not much of a surprise though, because in the step down unit and even in the rehab center they regularly gave him pills, shots, withdrew blood, checked blood pressure, and applied salve to his many road burns and cuts. They did this all day and night and it’s hard to sleep at 3 AM when they are drawing blood from your arm. At home, he’s still getting waited on hand and foot but we mostly push food and drink rather than needles. Are you comfortable Ryan? Want some water? What do you want to eat? Can I tuck in your blankets?

Sherry and I are still taking turns watching him 24-7 to make sure he doesn’t injure himself somehow but we are getting more comfortable with his ability to manage on his own. He is now fully aware of the extent of his injuries and takes precautions to safeguard himself. Although we trust him more, we are working to accident proof the house and we still carefully watch him whenever he walks anywhere. This level of caution may seem a bit over the top but he’s still in danger from the surgery. For those of you that haven’t seen him, they removed a large section of his skull on the top / left side of his head. How big? If an average sized man puts the tips of his middle fingers together, then the tips of his thumbs to form an oval, that’s about the size of the open area in Ryan’s head. Not to mention the open wound in his throat from the tracheotomy. He’s amazing because he actually jokes about all this quite often.

Other than the remnants of all the terrible but life saving surgeries, he is physically O.K. He’s tired quite often and has very little stamina but that will dissolve soon enough. I have no doubt that once the skull is put back and heals, he will push himself to exceed his pre-accident physical condition. His mental condition is what I most consider a miracle. From what every doctor, nurse and therapist who has seen him said, with the extent of the brain trauma he suffered he should not have rebounded like he did. He remembers everything prior to the day of the accident. On his second day of speech rehabilitation therapy, the therapist told Sherry she was having difficulty finding any tests hard enough to challenge him. She said she had given Ryan a page of math questions where Ryan was calculating percentages in his head faster than the therapist could with a calculator!

Ryan’s brain swelling has also decreased dramatically in the last week. You ask; Dan, how do you know that? You aren’t a doctor! Well, as Forrest Gump once said “I might not be a smart man but” I can actually SEE the swelling going down! When Ryan was in the hospital, the area of skull they removed was almost “inflated” due to brain swelling. Right now, the same area is actually concave and has sunken well over an inch, maybe two. While kind of gross to consider but this is great news because that’s exactly what the doctors want to see before putting the skull back.

Please pray for Ryan’s continued healing and for the remainder of his brain swelling to go away. Our next goal is outpatient therapy and to meet with the surgeon regarding the possibility of putting the skull back.

God bless you,
Dan

ryan is coming home!

Ryan Corning has made miraculous progress and will be coming home either tomorrow or Saturday! Praise the Lord!

Here's the latest post from CarePages: (Ryan's mom wrote it)

Rehab and counting
Posted 13 hours ago

Ok, this will probably be my one and only time to do this. I'm not really the techno kind of person, but here goes... It has been such a privilege to spend all of my waking time with "my boy" the last 3 days. What an inspiration he has been. He knows that there was an accident and that he has been recovering in the hospital, he definitely knows he has to have his skull put back in place at some point. He for sure knows that people all over the world have lifted him up in prayer and that by the grace of God he is a miracle! One of his therapists shared with me her textbook on brain injury and explained to me that with the extent of Ryan's injury he should have had so many obstacles to overcome. I had realized this, but seeing this in print once again made me realize what a miracle he is. Driving home tonight I was thinking of the poem that I'm sure everyone has seen at one time or another, "Footprints". I've finally slowed down enough to realize how true this is, God carries us thru these tough times because I know for a fact our family could not have made it thru the last 3 weeks without Him. God is good and we will be a testament of His mercy, grace and goodness. Ryan should be coming home either Friday or Saturday. Can't wait to get my "boy" home! Thanks for all the support, prayers and encouragement.
Sherry

look-alikes

This website is fun: http://totallylookslike.com/

There are all kinds of funny and uncanny examples of look-alikes on there... Enjoy! :)

Example A: George Burns totally looks like a monkey with glasses

Example B: Tom Selleck totally looks like the Red Baron

Example C: Posh Spice totally looks like Falcor (from the Neverending Story)