Creative cooking.

Can I just say that I am probably not the best cook ever? I kid you not. I can be a mean baker, but cooking can be a tad bit scary. Every time I have actually cooked something it was with an experienced cook, usually my mom, and they did most of the work or told me exactly what to do. Well tonight I was hungry and did not want to waste my money on delicious 99 cent Filiberto's tacos (so good!). Now being a college student there are two things that I have a plethora of; Mac & Cheese and Top Raman. So I pulled out a box of Mac & Cheese for dinner. Okay so here is some more background information on me and cooking. Living with my sister-in-law Morgan, I have learned a few things about cooking. At dinner we usually talk about cooking and trying different foods and all that fun stuff.  Can I also just say that she is an amazing cook and I am so grateful to be learning from her? In fact I have gone outside of my food comfort zone to taste her cooking. I have to say that it is super amazing and makes my mouth water just thinking about it! Okay, now back to making dinner. As I read the instructions I noticed that I needed milk which of course was not available to me at this time (as how cooking/baking usually goes for me) so I thought I would just add in water. While the water started to boil, which took forever, I looked through the refrigerator and noticed the sour cream. Confession time, old Cassie wouldn't have touched the sour cream with a ten foot pole let alone know how to use it in cooking. However, I have learned a few things this semester. Exhibit A: how to eat sour cream and have it taste good on food. Exhibit B: how to cook with sour cream. So after thinking about sour cream, I decided that it would work way better than water as a substitute for milk. Once the noddles were cooked and I successfully drained the Mac & Cheese without burning myself I added the butter and sour cream. I was getting excited because it wasn't looking half bad. Let's all be honest with ourselves plain Mac & Cheese just isn't as exciting as MEXICAN Mac & Cheese. This leads me to say that another lesson I learned from my sister-in-law is that Mac & Cheese can taste even better when you add in some flavoring. So I put in some salsa, rummaged through Morgan's spices and added some oregano, basil, pepper, and salt, mixed it all together and took a bite. Let me tell you I totally loved it! A little spicy but really good. Then my brother Doran came home from work, so I let him have the other half and he said it was really good too. I was super satisfied with the job I had done on the Mac & Cheese until I realized that Doran will eat almost anything and say it is good. If you don't believe me ask his wife, she knows how it is. Oh well, I enjoyed it and I am pleasantly full. Job well done Cassie, job well done!

Death by dancing.

I have wonderful friends. That's the truth. They are all super talented in their own way. Some are quite attractive, some are very musically inclined, and others can dance. I am not talking just any kind of dance, I mean ballroom dance. About a year and three or four months ago I started hanging out with this girl named Makenna; she is a ballroom dancer. Here in the Phoenix metropolitan area there is a ballroom dance studio called The Paragon where Makenna likes to bust a move. At an early stage in our friendship Makenna convinced me to come with her to The Paragon. There may have been some mention of cute guys as a bribe to get me to go, but nevertheless I went. After that first night I never wanted to go dancing again. I had no idea how to ballroom dance and I felt like a complete idiot. Eventually I decided that I really did like to dance and so I went dancing again. I remembered why I did not like to dance and it is not so much that I am terrible at it, because there are cute guys that are always willing to teach me, but I have come to find that dancing makes me hyperventilate. Seriously, just having Makenna teach me steps almost makes me go into convulsions. Just last Wednesday Makenna was teaching me some Cha-Cha steps. She taught me this one move that would have the guys hands come down around my head and I literally shied away from Makenna as she was demonstrating. Then one of our male friends, Noor, came over and started to dance with me because he heard about my hyperventilation problem. I was doing pretty good until he tried to dip me! Who does that? Really? Really. Of course Makenna and Noor found my aversion to being dipped as just another challenge. Thus, I was told/talked into being dipped. So Noor dipped me, I survived to tell the tale and now when I think about dancing anxiety overcomes my body. I still like to dance, however, I think it may be detrimental to my health. :( Oh well if you do not hear from me anymore it is because some handsome feller has literally taken my breath away as I dance with him tomorrow night. :)

Family Game Night.

First off I would like to tell everyone that Spring Break is here and I am so happy! Well this past weekend I went to my parent's house. To understand my family, and this post, you have to know that both sides of my family are GAMERS! Now I am not talking those fancy video or computer games, I mean old fashioned boardgames, card games, sports, basically anything related to these subjects we play it. We all have our likes and dislikes; and just like a society fads come and go. Such as when I was younger my dad and brothers would play Rail Barron almost every Sunday. Then Settlers of Catan (which, after a while, I refused to play because it caused so much contention in my family) came into the picture and many other boardgames. With the new generation coming up (my nephews and nieces) the simpler games are becoming popular again. Such as this weekend we played several games of what I like to think of as "Uno Championship". You know other families have one game night a week but in my family, whether we are with my mother's family or my father's family, it is more like family game marathon. Seriously, my family will stay up until 5 AM playing games, go to bed and get right back up at 7 AM to deal with kids and getting ready. So when I say we are GAMERS, I truly mean GAMERS. I love my family and they make life super fun and enjoyable.