Reading and Recipes

So as I mentioned before, Davito and I have been reading "The Hunger Games" this past week. WE LOVE IT. I know it's a kids book, but whatever. In fact, I observe a high school teacher twice a week at Provo High and his kids are reading it. But so what. I love a good distopia, future society gone wrong sort of thing.

Anyway, I won't give anything away, but suffice it to say that there are some scary parts, and some sad parts, and maybe I get really upset if we read it right before bed. Just the other night, after a three-night stretch of bad dreams, I told Dave that he had to tell me a happy story before I could fall asleep, preferably a story about him when he was little. He proceeded to provide the following two anecdotes:

1. The time he left his goldfish in the car in Michigan when he was four, and it froze into a fishy ice cube. He couldn't remember if it froze upside down or right side up, which intrigued me. This reminded me of the time my fish Charlotte died on the second day I had her, and therefore, was far from a happy enough story.

2. Slightly less morbid but still hardly happy was the next one about the time he jumped off the playground, accidentally landed on a kid (this incited a laugh at least) and got a rock lodged in his hand. Gross, and hardly happy. Story fail.

Tonight, though, he did let me sob on his shoulder for a whole, very sad chapter. Also, last night he was reading and I fell asleep but he kept going aloud just in case I woke up and wanted to still be included. He is a dear, that David.

For the recipes portion of this post, I will share two insights:

This is the easiest recipe ever. I got it from my dance teacher and it lasted us three very hungry nights this week, and I still wanted it:

4 chicken breasts
Jar of mango salsa (Costco's is good, you don't have to use the whole huge thing if you feel like it will be too much)
1/2 cup of brown sugar

put it in the crockpot on low all day, or high for the afternoon (like 4-ish hours). Shred it in the crockpot, and eat it in tortillas with lettuce, cheese, and a little bit of sour cream. We are currently obsessed with the tortillas from Costco, the ones that you cook in the pan, and I have never been so excited for leftovers than I was last night!

Also, I tried the trend that is going around the baking blog circuit (I know, that sounds both wicked snotty and wicked lame. I do spend a lot of time looking at recipes and fantasizing about having and endless supply of butter, eggs, and baking chocolate) of putting some vanilla pudding mix in my chocolate chip cookies: my opinion is that it didn't take away, but it didn't really add. They were maybe a little sweeter than normal but other than that I wouldn't say they were any different. I wouldn't buy pudding mix just to make them. I stand by my Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe from like 1970.

Well...The Hunger Games is calling. Hopefully I don't have to have Dave try to conjure up a happy story tonight.