Excel Art - You Mean I'm Not the First?!?!?

I was mistakenly under the impression that I had started something new by engaging in excel art. But today in my boredom, I googled Excel Art hoping my blog would be first on the list. Much to my dismay, I found manuals or patterns on creating it and this was art much more sophisticated than any of my genius work. My sight came up on page 2 or 3. Woe is me, another get rich quick scheme down the drain. Oh well. As long as I am bored at work, I will create.

I call this one "Cabinets of Nothingness"

"Lone Wolf" (yes that was intended to be a wolf. I guess if this were an Atari game, it would be a great wolf)

Have a great weekend, and don't Labor on Labor Day.

Lola's Corner - Greatest American Dog

Hello again, I've missed you all. I hope you had a great weekend. Mine rocked!!! Grandpa and Grandma came to visit with uncle Beethoven. And then my Aunt and Uncle came over too. While Beethoven didn't much want to play with me, my grandpa and uncle wrestled with me and I had a blast. Which is good because I was just so excited to have visitors that I had a hard time calming down. I just wanted to play and couldn't really contain myself. Mom swears it's because I'm still a puppy. Thanks for visiting and playing with me!!!!!

So I don't know if any of you are watching Greatest American Dog. Me either. I just want you to know that it's me. I'm the greatest American dog. It's not titled Most Well-Behaved Dog. If it was, that would not be me. Anyways let's just say I'm rooting for the boxer. That's about all I can say since I've only seen it once or twice. Although tonight they had to do some kind of air apparatus where they jump off and zip line down to the ground without being pushed by their owners. Two dogs did it that I saw and one of them was the boxer of course. What a good dog. Not quite as pretty as me...but he is very handsome. I'd play with him.

Remember to send me pics of your furry friends to lolafrog@gmail.com.

XOXOXO
Lola

Beanchilada Casserole

I'm going to share the best recipe I ever made up on my own with you. Well I don't follow recipes to a t so think of it as a guideline. Do what sounds good to you.

Preheat oven to 350 or 400 or there abouts

1 can of black beans
1 can of fat free or vegetarian refried beans
1 can of corn
1 can of diced tomatoes or some rotel works too
cut up some jalapenos to desired spiciness if you don't use rotel
1 onion or as much as you can tolerate
shredded cheddar cheese heavy if you like, lite if you're going for healthy
several dashes of onion powder, garlic, and chili powder
If you like cilantro, throw some of that in too. If not, leave it out.

Mix it all together in a bowl

Get your favorite tortillas. Corn, Flour or whatever you fancy. I've had it with each kind and they are both good.

You'll need a can or 2 of enchilada sauce.

Pour some in the bottom of your favorite baking dish enough to cover it.
put a layer of tortillas down
Then a layer of mixture
then a layer of tortillas
then another layer of mixture
then a layer of tortillas and this should fill the dish
top with the rest of the enchilada sauce

If you prefer to spend more time, you can roll up enchiladas. I found this way to go much faster and is just as tasty after rolling them up once or twice. Oh and it's less messy.

Cover with foil Bake until it's good an bubbly. Remove foil and sprinkle some cheese on top for the last 5 minutes or so. You might want to put a cookie sheet under it to catch spillage. Unless you just have a large baking dish. I usually use a 9x9 dish which tends to cause a wee bit of spillage.

Makes enough to feed a reasonably eating family of 2 about 3 times give or take. But we usually stop after 2-3. Seems like it would be perfect for a family of 3 unless one of you is a wolf.

Oh I also like to add sour cream after it's on my plate....I'm sure guacamole would be tasty as well if you like that sort of thing.

Enjoy

"Air Birth Control"

Since we will be going on vacation in a couple of weeks, I'm going to hold off on great pics from around the world for this week as I promise to take many pictures to last for weeks. But don't hold me to that because I'm terrible at taking pictures.

So today I've decided to talk about this phenomenon I affectionately call "Air Birth Control." This applies to all the ladies who happened to get pregnant while on the pill which has a failure rate of less than 1%. I'm sure someone will correct me on my statistic. And if you or your wife happened to get pregnant while taking the pill, save it. Because unless you take your pill to an alarm everyday like I do and you have an independent verifier that sees the pill go in your mouth and down your throat, I can't confirm that you have taken the pill as advised.

My theory is that those that get pregnant on the pill either forgot to take their pill for a couple of days, can't be trusted to take it regularly, or literally throw the pill away and swallow air and claim they're on the pill. A friend and I crack up at the sight of this and if I were a cast member on SNL, I'd be happy to write a sketch about this to illustrate my point. I tried making a drawing to illustrate my point, but I'm a much better excel artist.

I take my pill every day to an alarm. Same time same place. I even worry if I forget and take it a few hours later. Even though logically I know that should be sufficient. I just don't want to be a statistic of failure. Which leads me to my theory on that statistic. I think that statistic is largely made up of people who took the pill improperly and lied about taking it responsibly. I'd say it's made up mostly of women who were trying to "trap" their boyfriend into marriage, or married women who were ready to have a baby before their husband was but needed something to blame other than herself. "Huh, I guess we're part of that 1%..." This is because there is only so much time you have available to you each month to even conceive and you want to tell me that you still found that time while taking birth control? hmmm...very interesting. My advice guys, don't trust your woman if she's on the pill unless you're ready to have an "oopsy" kid, or you see her take it every day

Just my theory. I know it doesn't apply to you. And that's fine. You really ARE part of that statistic. Good for you.

What I do know is that if anyone's going to pregnant while taking the pill properly, it's going to be me for saying all of this. But at least I'm at the point where I can handle it if I am cursed, I mean blessed with the true failure of birth control. I'll be sure to be truthful about taking it properly or truly forgetting it (unintentionally of course). And I'll admit it if I do turn out wrong. But you can be sure I'll be the first to say I forgot if I did.

Is a Little Efficiency Too Much to Ask For???

I found out this weekend that my brother and I make out our grocery list the same way. We weren't taught to do this nor did we know the other has this in mind when making the grocery list. I'm sure many of you do this. We try to make out the list based on the lay out of the grocery store. That way you aren't forgetting items on the list. Of course if your spouse adds items to the list wherever there's room, it kind of messes with the flow and you still end up forgetting things at the store. Still we have this in mind in an effort to save time and money.

This got me thinking to my desire for efficiency, mostly in the work place. Being a government employee is counter intuitive since no matter how much you'd like to be the person to "save the tax payers some money," unless you are the head of the agency making this demand, it's pretty difficult to do. And I don't know that I can be appointed head of an agency with such a desire, unless a governor is elected and decides to clean house. Which would be my dream to be able to clean house.

Then I started thinking about how there's always an ongoing joke about the nature of government, city, state, or federal, and their inefficiency. The thing is, they are all supported by our tax dollars, and we are all voting representatives into office. Why aren't we the taxpayers demanding efficient use of our tax dollars?!?!? We should be outraged that there is so much unnecessary fat that our money is wasted on. We should be calling our senators and congressmen, on the state and national level and demanding efficient use of our money or let them know we will vote them out of office next election.