Parmesan Chicken

Last night we had dinner at Deanna's apartment and she made probably one of the best meals I have EVER had! I had found a recipe for Parmesan Chicken on Pinterest and was dying to give it a try. When Deanna asked what we were in the mood for I told her I had all the necessary ingredients (minus the chicken) so I brought them over to her and let me tell you....I could not stop eating!

This recipe resides on a blog called The Enchanted Cook and after seeing (or tasting) how well this one went over, the three of us will definitely be trying more of her stuff in the future. The recipe is below and I HIGHLY recommend you give it a try.

Ingredients:

* 1/2 cup Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise
* 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
* 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
* 4 teaspoons Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs

THAT'S IT!

Step 1: Place mayo and cheese in a small bowl and mix
Step 2: Lay chicken breasts on baking sheet (line sheet with paper to make clean up easy) and spread mayo mixture evenly atop each
Step 3: Evenly sprinkle bread crumbs atop each
Step 4: Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes (on 425 F) or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

I repeat....THAT'S IT!

Dee also made homemade mac'n'cheese and I prepared a salad to go with it. We ate while catching up on our lives and then watched the 2 hour Glee while enjoying Klondike bars. A meal any health nut would hate, but it was like a mid-spring Thanksgiving. If only Tater didn't hate mayo so much I would make this meal for the two of us all the time!

National Teacher Day

Today is National Teacher Day and we are honoring that by remembering our favorite teachers as well as embarrassing Deanna at work.

Today I recommend you stop and take a minute to think about (and shoot, even thank) the teacher that has influenced you the most. 

I have had a handful of great teachers along the way but none so memorable as Mr. Schnably from Jefferson Middle School. He is SO COOL! He was my 8th grade science teacher and his skills in cartoon drawings are second to none, and he always included cartoons on his papers. Once he even taught me the trick to his special characters and I still doodle them on notepads today. He had his favorite students, what teacher didn't, and I am proud to say I was one of his (I'm pretty sure). I was ALWAYS part of his tests. "Molly's boyfriend Mark was in a surfing contest and got caught under a rip tide. Define rip tide..." or something like that. He is a die-hard Wake Forest fan (at the time I was a Tarheel) so we bickered back and forth during the 2002-2003 basketball season that left UNC with 2 losses against the Deacons. The thing I like most about him is his passion for what he teaches. His energy and dedication to his job inspire me to give 110% to everything that I am passionate about. He laughed, he joked, he taught with fierceness, and I will never forget that. I visited him several times after I left Jefferson Middle, and the next time I go home and have some free time during a school day I will go visit him again. Here's to you Schnabbs......Happy National Teacher Day!

Now, on to Deanna. She is an educator here in the upstate, and I owe a LOT of thanks to her students as they provide us girls with hours of laughter. If it wasn't for them and their stories, Deanna might not roll her eyes as much as she does today. We had chocolate strawberries delivered to her at school...I can only imagine the students that threatened to steal her treats as her cheeks matched the strawberry pink (we LOVE to embarrass her!). We love you Dee, keep up the great work!

Pigs in a Blanket Day

Today is Pigs in a Blanket day. So not only will the girls all get together to eat pigs in a blanket, I will tell you a story about another Little Piggie that is currently out of commission. 

Morgan and I are getting ready to move into a town home so I have been packing up some things in my apartment over the last few days. This past Sunday night I was packing some kitchen items when I dropped a full unopened bottle of wine on my left big toe. Disclaimer: I was completely sober! Maybe I should have been drinking or it wouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. My first reaction was to step on my left toe with my right foot, clench my body and wait for the hurting to pass. When it didn’t, I looked down at my toe and saw an array of reds, blues, purples and blacks. I ran, well hobbled, to the bathroom to wash it off when I slipped on all the blood that was flooding out of the underside of my toenail. Ew.  

After I washed it off, I surrounded my toe in a handful of Kleenex. I called Morgan and the phone went straight to voicemail. I called Deanna and hung up half way through because I remembered her aunt was in town visiting. So I did the next reasonable thing, I group texted the girls saying, “Can either of you come over ASAP? I dropped a bottle of wine on my big toe and I’m going to pass out if I look at it it’s so gross.” That wasn’t a lie. I was growing faint. I don’t do blood. At all. 

Morgan replied saying she was coming and before I knew it I heard a knocking on my door and Morgan stormed in with her first aid kit. Would you have known…she said my toe wasn’t as bad as she thought?! It’s been 48 hours and it is STILL bleeding! The good news is, there’s no broken skin, so all of the blood is coming from underneath my nail. As long as it keeps bleeding, I won’t have to puncture my toenail with a heated clothespin like my mother suggested. Gross! Also, the pain has stopped, which I am taking as another good sign. 

So, now that your brain is filled with images of a bloody, swollen, gross-looking big toe, I hope you enjoy your pigs in a blanket…with ketchup. Lots of ketchup. :)

The Color Run

A few weeks ago I made the girls (including Katie) sign up for a 5K in Atlanta. Now normally we aren’t ones to condone athletic behavior, but this 5K offered a lot of promise for us to have a good time. It’s called The Color Run and it's known as the happiest 5K on the planet, and after our experience I would have to say we agree!

There are only two rules for this one of a kind experience. The first is that you start with a white shirt and the second is that you end the race covered in color splatter. Each kilometer is given a designated color and as runners pass through each marker volunteers attack them with colored powder. Once we passed the finish line we were bombarded by colors from volunteers and other racers. The race was one giant photo opp, and hey, we actually burned a few calories too. Who would have known?!

I was VERY proud of the girls, as we were able to run the first kilometer and most of the second before giving up to the temptations of walking...which allowed us to enjoy Piedmont Park and all of the crazy outfits.

OH and let me tell you about ours! We approached The Color Run from a bright neon 80s themed perspective. Other than our mandatory white shirts, we each wore the brightest Nike Tempo shorts we would find as well as white knee high socks with bright color bands wrapped around the top. Katie had also gotten us bright blue and green bandannas that we wore on our wrists. 

The finishing touch was the neon hats, which yours truly spray-painted the night before the event. I found white trucker hats at Wal-Mart and bought bright yellow and pink spray paint to decorate them with. Not only were these bad boys the highlight of our outfits, they were also the envy of most of the runners we encountered in Atlanta. Everyone was complimenting our hats and asking us where we had gotten them. Wal-Mart actually came through for us this time!

But in all seriousness, The Color Run was the most fun we had in a long time. Sure the admission to the race was a bit pricy, but we got a goody bag of sweet treats, a kick a** t-shirt, a dozen pictures of four good looking girls, and the money went to local Atlanta charities. I highly recommend you look at The Color Run website and see when the 5K is coming to a town near you. It’s the happiest 5K in the planet, run it and you’ll agree with us too!

Famous Threes

Charlie’s Angels. The Fates. Red, Green and Blue. Huey, Dewey and Louie. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll. The 3 Blind Mice. The 3 headed dog. 3 Little Pigs. The 3 Stooges. Harry, Ron and Hermione. Turkey (in bowling when you get three strikes in a row). Gold, Silver, Bronze. The Triple Crown. What do all of these have in common? They are all famous threes. Well, now we can add Molly, Morgan and Deanna to that list. We are three college grads trying to make it in the big bad world together. Pay attention; you might learn a thing or two between laughs.

It all started at Clemson University, a place we all chose to go for different reasons. Morgan and Deanna were chosen as roommates at random and met on a hot August day in 2007.

There are two sides to the story of their meeting, but for the sake of time we will tell you Deanna’s side (because it’s the funniest and most accurate).

The dorm in which we all lived had 2 elevators, ten floors, and approximately 2,000 eighteen-year-old girls moving their stuff with their parents on this given day. Deanna was safely in her dorm room with her parents when Morgan walked in, sweating quite profusely, carrying a large heavy box. Now whether or not she said it or thought it, Deanna’s first reaction to Morgan was, “Hi! I’m Deanna, your new roommate!” Morgan responded with a brief “harrumph” as she dropped the box to the floor and walked out of the room.

Don’t worry folks; this didn’t deter their friendship. On the contrary, these two are the best duo I have ever seen (including such pairs as Bert and Ernie, Mickey and Minnie, Hall and Oats, Thelma and Louise, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Lewis and Clark to name a few). I am quite aware that I am the third wheel permanently attached to their friendship, but after the three of us met we became dramatically close. Had our show started while we were in college we would be on our fifth season now (at least) and a lot has happened since we all met. There might be a few throwback stories but for now we will focus on the present.

Currently we are all living in Upstate South Carolina. We all live in 3 one-bedroom apartments and we all are getting ready to move. Deanna will be moving to another single bedroom apartment to save a bit of money. My parents just got a townhouse/condo where Morgan and I will be living and paying rent.  It’s an exciting time to be sure, considering I have what’s known as Peter Pan syndrome (I don’t wanna grow up!). It’s a quaint little place that Morgan and I cannot wait to make our own. I’ll be sure to post new and exciting decorating ideas we come up with once our stuff is all moved over.