Almost Gypsy Soul

When I started pushin' 30, it started pushin' back ......and I compiled this Dirty 30 list . I'm now  3/4 through my 30th year. My progress report? Well, I'm starting to get nervous that my Dirty 30 is going to flow over into my 31st year. Does that make me a failure? Even though I reserved the right to change some things, these are things that I really kinda want to do so I think I might just fail the Dirty 30 and try to come up with a cool name for a 31st year. Eh, you win some, you lose some. I'm adding on to my first quarter report (shown in brown ) and my running totals after the second quarter are in green now the third quarter accomplishments are in red And remember when I reserved my right to change and amend my list....yep I'm doing that and those are in purple. 1. Hike a 14'er 2. Run Complete the Tower Rock 10K 5K I made it, with very little no training (I do not recommend this training method, its painful), but its in the books! Thank g

Yes, you read that correctly....the single girl has a 3 year anniversary. Where's my cake? And this anniversary feeds my soul. Grab the button (its at the bottom of my page), link-up and let us know what feeds your soul. Tomorrow, September 28, marks the 3 years since I made the decision to become a Be The Match registry member. The registry is a connection resource to match donors with people with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Assistant Pack Leader beat the hell out of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a blood cancer and has been clear for just over 3 years now. While she was fighting, it made me realize how precious life is and how lucky I am to be in a position to help others. When they started talking bone marrow transplants for her, I knew I'd be the first to sign up to be tested for a match. The Drs. ended up using a procedure that utilized her own marrow, but I decided that I would sign up for the National Registry , you just never know when s

It all started with 3 girls in grad school + one high school friend, we decided that 3 Master's degrees + one in progress deserved a big vacation and Alaska '08 was born. From there we decided that we should get together every year to celebrate 'birthday weekend'. Birthday weekend doesn't have to be on the same weekend every year, but we do our best to make sure we do something fun! And we usually name our vacations and have funny quotes of each other, cuz we are cool like that. Alaska '08 "Good show, young man, good show" Birthday Weekend '09 "That's Jeri's tree"  Arivada '10 "Do you girls just get together and party?" AZ State Patrol Peaceful Mountain '11 The Wedding of 2012 Yeah, we are the fun ones! And speaking of fun....don't forget to come back tomorrow and link-up with me for Soul Food Friday!

If you remember back when I was in Kansas and we lost the goats and we made lost goat pizza ....well here is the delicious recipe, only slightly modified and by modified I mean that I added some more yummy ingredients. Ingredients 1 pizza crust 1/2 c Skinny spinach artichoke dip 1 1/2 chicken breast 3 slices bacon veggies - I used mushrooms, red pepper and red onion 1 c. low-fat mozzarella cheese Directions 1. Prepare pizza crust according to directions on packages 2. Spread skinny spinach artichoke dip over pizza crust 3. Pan fry bacon, drain grease on paper towels 4. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and cook in 1/2 tablespoon of bacon grease 5. Spread veggies, bacon pieces and chicken onto the pizza 6. Spread cheese over the top of all toppings 7. Bake according to pizza crust directions. 8. Give thanks that the goats made it home safely and enjoy Lost Goat Pizza!

I love, love, love spinach artichoke dip, so when I found this recipe that is a bit better for diets, I tried it immediately. And its a go! I might have made a few modifications, that is what I do. And I forgot to take pictures, that is also what I do. Ingredients 8 ounces neufchatel cheese, softened (do not use fat free) 1/2 cup light sour cream (do not use fat free) 14 ounces artichoke hearts, undrained 7 1/4 ounces roasted red peppers, drained - I omitted these as I didn't have any $ left in my grocery envelope 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry Directions 1. Preheat oven to 375F and lightly spritz a shallow baking dish (1.5-2qt) with cooking spray (Pam). 2. Using food processor, mix light cream cheese, sour cream and artichoke hearts by pulsing until even consistency. 3. Add roasted bell pepper and Parmesan cheese and pulse until creamy. 4. To bake dip: Place mixture into prepared baking dish; add spina

I can't believe that this recipe is even remotely healthy or lower calorie because it is super, super yummy!!!!! I was so hungry cooking it that I forgot to take a picture of my own, so I'll be stealing one off of Pinterest for you to look at (you are getting hungry, very, very hungry!). Click here for the full recipe from Hope or take your chances with my abbreviated version. #aren'tyouhungrynow Ingredients 1/2 lb whole wheat pasta (just use whatever you got in the cupboard) 4 slices bacon 1 large chicken breast (or 2 smaller ones),  cut into bite-sized pieces, salt & pepper those babies 1 Tbsp flour 1/2 pkg ranch dressing mix 1 cup lowfat milk 1/2 lowfat shredded cheese Directions 1. Cook the pasta, follow the directions or just cook it however you want 2. Fry the bacon, drain with papertowels, keep 1/2 Tbsp of bacon grease  in the pan 3. Add chicken  and cook until its not pink anymore 4. Sprinkle flour and ranch dressing mix over cooked chicken

[Linking up with Jeanett @ Life Rearranged ]  Well here is a new link-up for me because I just learned about actually using Instagram....yeah I'm kinda an old lady when it comes to technology. I think InstaFriday is really supposed to be all in one week, but I really don't take that many pictures so this will catch you up on a couple of weeks. Hey, I do what I want! Here we go. Who wants to marry me? Buckin' horse race @ Sweetwater Downs Rain on the Desert G-Ride for the Day, Feathers and Cash: Miller Land & Livestock/67 Ranch Horses 2013 Goat Minus the lack of food in the fridge, its been a pretty good couple of weeks! Don't forget that next Friday is Soul Food Friday at Almost Gypsy Soul. Come by, link-up and be awesome!

Pre-game at my house complete with Mint Juleps, good thing The Retired Guy and Ma brought some Bud Lights. I can honestly say this was worse that the margarita contest concoction that I came up with. It was the worst drink I've ever had and I followed the recipe exactly. At least there was plenty of jalapeno poppers to take away the taste. The races started out with me picking a long shot, who came out of the gate weaving....he was a long shot for a reason. Throughout the next few races it became quite clear that I didn't have any beginner's luck. Conversations followed like this: "Jen, you can't just pick horses, you gotta have a reason why you pick them" "I do have reasons" "Well how come did you pick 1,7,5?" "Well, 1 has an OSU orange bridle, 7 has a cool name and 5, well I just like him" "Jen, who are you betting on this race? I want to make sure that I don't pick them" "Hey! You better watch i

Last week was the week, I headed to hunting camp. As much as I enjoy a good week-long camping out/elk hunting trip, antelope hunting has inched higher and higher on my list of favorite gun activities. And here's why It's warm More likely to tag something Easier on the out-of-shape-factor It's warm Hunting camp includes mattresses and pillows...at my house It's warm Because I'm a procrastinator, I waited until the weekend before hunting season opened to make sure my gun was still sighted in....and it wasn't. 6 shots and I wasn't even on paper, in the next 6 I got it dialed in and my arm felt like it was going to fall off. I decided to take a break and come back the next day. We were right on track! Only to find out that it was no longer sighted in on opening day. :( It was a hunting disaster, I had a couple of shots which I proceeded to miss quite big. I was so upset with myself, thinking it was just me. We headed back to the range and sure e

I really wanted to leave this 5-part series, "The Dirty Game" published by SI, alone, really I did but Part 5: The Fallout sent me reeling, flying off the handle if you will. I wanted to leave this story alone because I am an OSU Alum and I am proud to be a product of Cowboy Country and therefore some may think that my opinion is biased. Yes, I am proud to be a Cowboy. No, I am not a die hard football fan. gasp. In fact, most of the names in this "story" I didn't even really know who they were, but that does not change my opinion of the final part, The Fallout. I'm not going to discuss my thoughts on the first 4 parts, The Money, The Academics, The Drugs, The Sex because I do not think that a legit investigation has been completed yet. There were definitely not enough facts presented by Mr. Dohrmann and Mr. Evans to convince me that the OSU Football program was, beyond a reasonable doubt, guilty of the accusations. Now I will say this, I'll be dis

So I found a pin on Pinterest about calling someone and pushing the numbers on the phone to "sing" happy birthday to the person on the line.....So, I'll be trying that out on the Assistant Pack Leader today as its her HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Happy birthday Sister, I hope you have an awesome day!!!!

WOOF! Hey there, Tylie checking into the human's blog. She is a bit more of a gypsy than I am, so I'm pretty thankful she dropped me off at Grandma's before she took this crazy 3,000 mile journey. I was a little nervous about staying at the ranch because Grandma got a new puppy, I don't really like puppies and would really prefer to be the center of attention and get all the pets. Hey I'm an only dog child. But, I concede....Lexi is alright. I had to set her in her place so she would know not to jump on me, but after that we got along great...we even switched food bowls almost every day! This is my buddy Lexi...she's a little bit bigger than in this picture. We are friends now. My favorite thing that Lexi and I did was rake hay. We ran back and forth making sure Grandma drove straight. Sometimes we would get hot and thirsty so we would run down to the river and get a drink. Lexi is crazy, she likes to swim in the river....I just get in to my belly so I do

Moving right along, my next stop(s) are in Kansas, my motherland! OKTrailerPark Friend and Mr. OKTrailerPark Friend have recently moved to Kansas and bought a new place and new goats to go with their new jobs! The Mr. was at work, but us grad school girls had a good time on our own! And those goats....lets just say its a good thing our schedule was WIDE open! We let the goats out to graze the weeds while we held down the patio table with some ice cold Bud Lights when all of a sudden they were gone! And I mean gone, they didn't even come when OKTrailerPark Friend called them. We continued to stomp around the pasture in our flip flops...keeping a good eye out for snakes for about 4 hours, then we wished them luck in the dark of night and went to bed. Morning resumed with breakfast and lost goat search, which we completed just in time for lunch! Next stop, Grandpa's house! I found out that Grandpa and Grandma are moving to town in the fall and of course trying to ge

So, you are probably tired of hearing me talk about giving blood and encouraging you to also give blood. FYI - one donation can save up to 3 lives, just sayin. As I was getting ready to leave on Really Big Road Trip , I received an email letting me know that I am eligible give blood again. Then while I was in Stillwater on an unexpected stop in my road trip I saw a sign at Gallagher-Iba Arena that there was a blood drive. I went in to see if they had openings....side note, blood drives at OSU the donor always comes out with a free t-shirt...and apparently OSU alumni donors get 2 free t-shirts! WIN! So instead of wowing you with a picture of a needle sticking out of my arm again, I'll share a few of the banners that were in my view while I gave blood this time. I opted for the whole blood donation this time because its a little faster....in and out in 45 minutes, including the interview! And props to Oklahoma Blood Institute, they had Gatorade (in cans, never seen that

By this point in the trip I can successfully say that I have no idea what day of the week it is and NO clue what number the day is. I rarely planned more than a few hours in advance, sometimes that worked for me, sometimes not so much. I anticipated not being able to go to Stillwater because I had several people that I wanted to see in other parts of Oklahoma, things didn't work out so I headed to Stillwater to catch up with some folks. High points the Okie portion of my trip.... #1 - NEW BOOTS! I've had my sights on these boots for a little over a year now. I talked myself out of them once and I thought I might be able to pass them up again until I got to Joe's in OKC Stockyards and found only 2 pairs left....one in my size and one not in my size. Yep, couldn't say no. Should I have buyer's remorse? yes. Do I? nope! I LOVE them!   #2 - Friends Family I got to see tons of people that I miss very much!!!!! I am so thankful that so many people really made an

A couple more marks on the Dirty 30 list! Colorado It was a really busy few days in Colorado before "real" vacation started, but I wasn't at work so I guess technically it was still vacation. I stopped by and saw Gypsy Friend and to pick up the horseshoes that he made for me to finish my wedding gift. We took a little drive around the farm before coming back for some BBQ before I hit the road to my Momma's. While we were surveying the quality of corn and the damage of the hail on some of it, I was inspired to snap this photo. Being the excellent photographer/blogger that I am, I even had to borrow Gypsy Friend's Iphone to catch it. That should make some good silage! Tylie and I stopped for the night at Mom's and had beef and noodles waiting on us me for dinner. Mmmmm.....my favorite. Tylie was nervous that I was going to leave her there, she usually has good reason to be worried. Mom and John have a newer puppy who loves to play. Tylie does not lov

[Linking up with Heather at Undercover Blonde ] 41 hours......that is how long this book is on cd. I knocked er out on the Really Big Road Trip. It was recommended to me by a co-worker and I thought it would be perfect for this insanely large road trip that I was about to embark on. I don't know if I'm proud of this fact or dismayed that I drove at least 41 hours by myself. ouch. And since I just got home from said 41+ hours, this is my dazed and confused book report. Its good. Its about knights and earls and monks. Its 41 hours if you do the cd version which probably translates into alot of pages. I don't think I'll read it again, but I will read this author again. Its got fighting, losses, triamphs and 32 cds. oh and did I mention It's 41 hours.

The second Saturday in August is reserved for the Blues n' Brews festival in Rock Springs each year. Its a festival that I've wanted to check out since I moved here, but never had until this year! And I think I'll go back. Blues n' brews is held in Bunning Park which is surrounded by trees so its nice and shady, which equals not hot. They bring in bands all day till about 10 pm and have food and brews from several different breweries from around the area. A lawn chair and some friends are pretty much required. I don't own a single blues cd, but I just like live music and so it doesn't even matter if I don't know a single word or song for that matter. So reserve the second Saturday next August and come visit me!

While the Couch-to-5K might be a great workout plan for beginning runners, if taken in the literal sense it doesn't work out very well. If you know me, you aren't wondering what I mean. I hate running. I want to like to run, hell I want to be addicted to running, but I hate it. Signing up for a race = get my rear in gear and train. not.this.time. I was much too busy traveling and learning to wakeboard and _________(insert ANY activity here) to be bothered with training. Folks I'm here to tell you do not try this literal C25K training plan, it doesn't work. What it does do is inflict pain. At least they had little cinnamon rolls at the end. and oranges. and a banana. and brownies. But I finished and I finished 6th in my age group. and we will not talk about finishing time. because it doesn't matter because I finished and I checked it off the Dirty 30 list. Did I mention they had mini cinnamon rolls and brownies at the finish line? AND we made the Vernal ne

I had a little surprise on an old Letters to a Soldier blog post a few days ago, a comment from an anonymous user. Now I've had some spammy comments so I was a little unsure as to the validity of the comment, but decided to check it out.  I tracked down the FRG of this particular unit and asked about the validity of the deployment, names given, mail stop date etc. I quickly got a reply back that yes they were a real unit, those are real names and they were just deployed not too long ago. So this is the comment that I received (with a little editing) MAY I PLEASE HAVE SOMEONE SEND MY TEAM AND I SOME DUCK DYNASTY CARE PACKAGES TO AFGHANISTAN WHERE WE ARE DEPLOYED. I included there sizes just in case. I didn't tell any of these people that they would receive a care package just in case it doesn't happen. You can also find our address on face book. Now since I am currently without an adopted soldier I decided to take on this request and I'm asking you to enlis

Is it really September?   Where did the summer go? But, I must say, fall is my favorite season; the air is brisk, hunting seasons open, fishing gets better, you can wear hoodies again, and college football is full swing… gotta love fall! So, head for the hills and watch nature take its course as it buttons up the hatches and settles in for the winter. This is also the time where I head back to workshop and try to build things out of wood and metal (FYI, everything is for sale, wink, wink).   Now I’m rambling, let’s get to the music… I am going all Wyoming on your a$$es this month (sorry Red Dirt faithful) We should probably start with the best known Wyo artist, Chris Ledoux; Riding for a Fall And then the lesser known, but up and coming Chancey Williams and the Younger Brothers Band; Six Figure Job Then back to Chris Ledoux; Powder River Home Maybe one more Younger Bros tune; Country Music And then then even lesser, lesser known Jared Roger