Intros for family, and a spice recipe

Let's start this off a bit differently. I've been (throughout the blog here) been referring to my Wife as such ... rather than addressing by name. Also the same goes for our children. So, for those that may be randomly happening upon the blog here, you'll know who each are by their name if you care. Starting off, my lovely Wife; Victoria. We met in our senior year in High School ... yep, high-school sweethearts so to say. Throughout the year we talked, but never really dated at all (hell, I never went on any dates ever, and even then the first one I ever really took could probably be classified as our honeymoon). Come our graduation though that changed.

We dated for quite some time, more than we wanted to originally really. I was going into the Marine Corps, and we never let on to our parents that we were planning on getting married eventually. We actually wanted to get married before I went into boot camp, but yea, family 'disturbances' kept us from really getting hitched.

After some time in Okinawa, I came home (proffering it as I wanted to go home to turn 21) and got married 3 days after my birthday. We went on our honeymoon to Bush Gardens, Tampa, and then to Disney the next day. Yea, a two day honeymoon. A few days later I went back to Okinawa to finish my tour over there, which was only a few months.

I got transfered over to California for my next duty station, and I brought Victoria with me. Along the way we of course had our fun...9 months later, our son Delden was born. Strange name eh? Well, we both wanted something unique, so I made one up on the spot... Well, somewhat. It did come from a fantasy book series I read many years ago (and still have BTW). Looked at a map, pointed, and it looked good.

Later on, after moving back here to Florida, we moved around a few times...at first in with my parents while we looked for a place. Then to live with my brother who was getting into a large rental house. After an old girlfriend of my brother's moved in, and brought drugs with her, we moved out. At the same time, Victoria's mother was going to be moving. We moved into their old place for a time, and had more fun. A large battle happened at Victoria's mother's house, wherein her (ex)girlfriend actually HIT Victoria while I was working at Disney. At this time my wife was due within a few months, and we didn't want to be around that kind of thing.

So we moved again, this time to our own place. A little while later our first daughter was born, Victoria named her Jasmine. True to her name, she thinks she's a princess all the time. A few years later, we had our last bit of fun, in the form of Karisma. She has a lot of charisma, befitting of her name.

Here we sit, almost 4 years after that, and that was also about the time that I had lost my last job. So yea, I can judge how long I've been out of work by the age of our youngest. Now, I say "last" in the previous paragraph as we had that fixed, on Victoria's end at least. I'd have done it myself, but as she could wrap hers up with the last birth, we did it that way.

We are looking to try to move out of this dump that we have grown into. Yea, some of the things that are wrong with the place have been around since the beginning, but the things that have 'grown', cause us to want a bigger place. Also, somewhere closer to Disney so that Victoria can get to/from work at a reasonable pace, rather than the current hour one way. I've applied at Disney myself, actually had done it one time previously about 7 months ago, and within a week I had gotten a rejection e-mail. This time however, I got the confirmation e-mail that they got the application, but it was modified from the last time one I had gotten. This one had a little blurb about doing background checks. This was written in after the 'form letter' reply, as it was a different text font.

Here it is another month after I just applied, and still nothing. I have already gone down to the casting center myself to see if they've rejected me, or if it's in consideration, or whatever. The girl I talked to said that my application was in the system, and whenever there's a position open, they'll more than likely contact me. To me that sounds like my background check went through OK, and I am actually qualified to do the job I applied for, I just have to wait my turn. Here's hoping, but in the mean time, I'll be spending the 3 days off that Victoria has this week doing some major application drop-offs. Perhaps I'll look at some of the 3rd party vendors that are based in Disney areas... maybe even at City Walk over at Universal, but of course, after the parking is free for that one.

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Now, I wrote in the title there that I'd be giving a spice recipe... well, it's not a full fledged "put 1/4 cup of ..." recipe so to say. But rather it's a mixture of stuff that I mix together sometimes to have a dry-rub for baked or grilled meats. You'll have to use your own judgement for measurements.

Sugar (the base of the mix, there's much more of this than the rest. Diabetic? Use splenda, it's good, also it's finer than regular sugar so yea)

(sea) Salt

Pepper

Spices ... yea, vague eh? See, we've got this huge spice collection that is over our stove, and I usually just grab whatever sounds good or smells good. Tonight's collection for the Chicken Quarters that were taken out earlier this morning:

Mint

Steak spice

Sesame seeds

Dill weed

Thyme

So yea, again, it's a mix-as-you-please type of thing... perhaps you could say it's a "little girl" rub (sugar, spice, and everything nice?).

Take the meat that you want to spice up, wash it off nicely, pull any excess fat off if you like, pat dry with a good paper towel (one that won't leave stuff behind in the form of the towel itself). I say paper towel as they're disposable, and if you're doing like I was tonight, with chicken, you don't want the risk of whatever was on it to be contaminating the rest of your laundry before it gets washed, or if you're like us and saving energy by washing with cold water, yea, much safer. Long sentence there sorry. Anyway, get a cookie tray, put aluminum foil on it, put whatever meat you want to spice up on that sheet, wash your hands and try them off. Using one hand sprinkle some spice mix over your meat (the one on the tray man!), you can rub it in if you like with your other (ok, seriously ... my mind isn't really in the gutter, but I can see where it could be looking that way). Turn the meat over with your wet / meat handling hand, and sprinkle more on the back of whatever meat you've got. Now comes the time you decide what cooking method you'll use, and just cook it till it's done.

For ribs, I'd suggest putting in the oven for like 45 - 60 minutes on a 250 heat. After that, turn off the oven, leaving the ribs in the oven, wait for like 20 minutes or so, then drag them out to the grill, and fire them up. Either that, or, if you don't have a grill, crank back on your oven to about 375, and check the temperature of the ribs in like 30 minutes or so.

Enjoy!