our home in the cities

My trusty 6-year old laptop died over the weekend.  As in, it won’t start up.  At all.  Grr…  I hate problems like these because I don’t know how to fix them myself, so I’m hoping that my awesome computer-saavy coworker will be able to fix it tomorrow.  Because you know I’ve got stuff on there that hasn’t been backed up.  Like, say, all of the pictures from our wedding and honeymoon, and an entire year’s worth of work.  So, friends, let this be a reminder to you to go back up your files.  Right now.

I kicked off the weekend with a manic cleaning and laundry spree Friday night (Jason was out of town on business until late Friday night).  Early Saturday morning, we hit the road and headed to Milwaukee for the weekend to help my mom out and visit my grandma (keep sending your prayers her way… she’s fighting hard, but things still aren’t working as they’re supposed to).  We made a whole bunch of meals to freeze so that they’d have dinners on nights that my mom is at the hospital, we cleaned my family’s house, and did their laundry.  And we helped little brother Trevor make a wig for his school’s colonial days.  It was a whirlwind of a weekend.  Sigh. I’m tired just thinking about it.

I did manage to crank out an awesome dinner last night.  I made this taco soup recipe.  Delish!  Jason even gave it kudos, which is amazing since he hates soup.  Also, I think this soup makes enough to feed 40, so I’ll be eating leftovers until the end of time (because he also hates leftovers).

No laptop = no pictures of my culinary success.  (So you’ll have to take my word for it).  Basically, I pulled out the shiny new crockpot and threw in: 2 cans kidney beans (rinsed/drained), 2 cans pinto beans (rinsed/drained), 2 cans corn, 1 large can diced tomatoes, 1 can tomatoes and chiles, 1 packet taco seasoning, 1 packet ranch dressing mix, 1 lb browned ground turkey (could also use hamburger/chicken, but we had turkey in the fridge).  Cook on Low 8-10 hrs, or high 4-5.  We ate the soup with a side of tostitos, and Jason topped his with insane amounts of hot sauce – I opted for cheese on mine instead (Jason also hates cheese.  Someday, I might rename this blog “food items hated by Jason” because it seems to be a recurring theme.  At least he’s progressed from his only-lettuce-eating days…).