I would like to thank the academy...

as well as my loving parents, all 850 of them, as well as my darling husband. Sometimes I crack myself up! It is award central here at Katie's Korner and it makes me very happy to be honored by such wonderful people. I got a little bit of sun over the weekend so I am not really blushing, at least I don't think I am. My friend Raouly or Raoulys Girl over at Who has the Thyme was gracious enough to share this award with me. She has temporarily dropped the girl portion of her name and she is yet another one who I don't know their first name. I don't feel quite so bad because Polly didn't either. Oh by the way, Polly is 5th Sister, she shared her name with me. I visit their blogs daily and they always leave me nice little comments on mine and yet I was not aware of their first name. Does that make me a horrible person? I hope not! I think everyone just gets caught up in their blogs and blogging identities.

Anyway, the stipulations of this award were to post it to your blog...check, share with everyone seven of your personality traits, heavens to betsy this is going to be a tough one...however we will still check it off, and lastly, share the honor with seven other people...that's going to be another toughy...but check check!

Here we go starting with my seven personality traits, my Husband is sure going to love this one. I am sure he has a couple of his own that he would like to give me.

1.) Caring...I wear my heart on my sleeve which isn't always a good thing.
2.) Anxious...I have an anxiety issue that the Doctor is going to be putting me on meds for. I don't understand why I am like this but I can take the smallest thing and blow it into such a large porportion that I make myself sick. This is not a good trait to have when suffering with Crohn's disease.
3.) Funny...I like to think I am funny, especially when I am around my family. I get this from my Mom. When you put her and my Aunt Karen in a room together with anyone willing to listen to one of their stories...lord help you...that is all that I will say. Also on that note, never tell these two woman something you don't want the rest of the family knowing. The story of my passing out after getting a shot in the tushy has been repeated at each family gathering for the past eight years, sadly, these people still find the humor in it.
4.) Crabby...boy can I be crabby, just ask my husband. When I am in one of my moods, which happens a lot lately with being sick and irritable, you might as well just stay away. Don't look at me, don't speak to me, don't breathe anywhere near me. God help us all when and if I become pregnant and have those pregnancy hormones raging through my body for nine months.
5.) Impatient...yet another one that I wish I didn't have. I am by the far most impatient person around, that is if my Dad's family isn't sitting around. I think the Murphy in us has done bad things to us. We don't tolerate stupid people, large groups of people, and in the case of my Dad, people in general. We also don't like to wait for things. I hate standing in line for anything, part of that is worrying about having to go to the bathroom while standing there. That's why I refuse to do large grocery trips without my Hubby.
6.) Fearful...I am the person who always thinks of the bad things. The what ifs and maybe's. You want someone to burst your happy bubble, you come see Katie. Maybe the medication will help me with that one as well.
7.) Emotional...I think this one sums up everything listed above and more. I cry at commercials, sad and happy stories, and everything in between.

I wonder if drinking would cure me of some of these horrible traits. I would love to be one of those happy go lucky people that are ready to conquer the world. My luck I would be the one who ruins her liver...see what I mean. How many true drinkers out there think about that? :)

So now it's time to share this award with seven others. Do I know seven others who haven't already received this award...it seems to be getting around.

Melissa over at Schweet N Savory
Sheila over at Alice and the Mock Turtle
Cassie over at Cassie Craves
Rachel at Rachel vs. "The Kitchen"
Pam at For the love of cooking

Two more to go, this is pretty hard...

Polly at the 5th Sister

and lastly,

Colleen over at Cooking This and That

I guess that wasn't too terrible. They are wonderful cooks and I really like their blogs. I am very picky about the blogs that I follow due to the fact I only prefer the ones that serve food I can see myself eating and I really am drawn to them by the way their blogs look. I guess I judge a book by it's cover because if it doesn't scream out to me, I pass it by.

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

Daniel loves the tortilla soup that is served at Max & Erma's and it has become my mission to try to duplicate it as close as I possibly can. I have also been wanting to use my crock pot more often seeing as most nights I don't feel like standing in the kitchen whipping something up. I found this recipe on my favorite site yet again and boy is it delicious.

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans
1 (15 ounce) can black beans
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer
2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
sour cream (optional)
crushed tortilla chips (optional)

Directions:

1.) Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, beer, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.

2.) Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded Cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips, if desired.

This soup did have a bit of a kick to it and the only thing I can think of is that it was the diced tomatoes with the green chilies. Now if you are like myself and prefer things without that kick in the back of your throat you can substitute that particular ingredient with just regular diced tomatoes. Another option is that instead of using the chicken breasts, I used chicken tenders, they cooked up much quicker.

Stay tuned for a new recipe tomorrow. We are celebrarting my Dad's birthday which was on April 18th, I couldn't make that celebration so I am throwing him a belated birthday dinner. Our family loves fajitas and just about anything served between two slices of bread so when I stumbled upon this recipe on Allrecipes I knew that I would have to try it out on them.

*I seem to be having problems with the template on my blog so I had to switch to this plain jane one. I will working on getting the blog back on the pretty side of things this evening.