Ok Ok I give already....

I have been trying to figure out how to use my new(ish) camera now for a bit. I don't really like to read to learn things, so I have been using youtube and just messing with it. But thats starting to get time consuming so I gave up and thanks to OnlineFreePDF I was able to find my operating instructions for my camera and I'm going to read it. Mark this down in history people! I, Angela, am READING the instructions!

Getting Wordpress on a Mac for Newbies.

1. Download Wordpress and unzip it.

2. Download MAMP.  Don't need MAMP pro from what I can tell so far...but you do have the option to upgrade later. Leave the Apache port at 8888 and the MySQL at 8889 (some instructions will tell you to change them...DON'T listen!).

3. Once you have your MAMP installed on your computer (placed in the app section). Open your Wordpress folder and copy and drag everything in it to the folder in your MAMP folder called htdocs and drop in there.

4. Next you will rename a file in that folder (so your still in the htdocs folder where all your wp stuff should be at). Rename file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php  Pretty simple step there!

5. Now open your wp-config.php file. Scroll down a little and you will find the below wording...the four things in BOLD and Red are the things you need to match....so it will say something else there but you need to replace it EXACTLY like it is here:

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'WordPress');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'root');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'root');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');

/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

6. Then follow this link's section of "using phpMyAdmin", ONLY follow this section of the page! To open the page of the MAMP they are refering to you need to open your MAMP app and click on the "open start page" on the front of the pop up.  This goes over how to set up your MAMP database. Use "wordpress" for your phpMyAdmin "create new database name". (this HAS to match your DB_NAME that is in your wp-config.php file!)

7. Finally click on THIS link:  http://localhost:8888/  (this is your local host setting you entered above and since you listened to me and didn't change you MAMP port it is still 8888) and it should take you the the enter user name/email/sign up for wordpress!

Now how to use Wordpress itself.....not even close to understanding that yet. Just this step took me days sine I couldn't find one location for the entire step by step process in terms a newbie could understand. But I feel very accomplished just figuring this out!

I have a name.

Well I have a domain name that is! After asking around it seemed like everyone likes GoDaddy. Then I also noticed that my uPromise account has Godaddy on it for 8% towards college...that was a no-brainer for me.
So I went with that and got myself my first domain name. A domain name is the www.DOMAINNAMEHERE.com So once I figure out hosting/template stuff and move everything over I will share, but not till then. I have a feeling this will be a bit though so don't hold your breath. And this blog will be moved into the new website, so don't worry you will not lose this oh so valuable info! Also if your annoyed with how many blogs I have...don't worry they are all going to be one nice pretty package when I'm all done.

How to Cook Black Beans (or Turtle Beans)

Raw bean, Soaked bean, Cooked bean.

 Here are the step by steps to cooking black beans (also known as Turtle beans):
 First step is to soak your beans over night. Rinse off your beans in cold water, picking out anything that isn't a black bean) and put in a medium size container. Your going to add 3 times the water as you do beans. So I added one cup of black beans to 3 cups of cold water...keep in fridge overnight (6-8hrs minimum, I couldn't find a maximum).
In the morning take all the beans that floated to the top and discard them, rinse the rest of the beans well.
Get a pot and bring the beans to boil, then reduce the heat and simmer. Check periodically and make sure you always have 1/4 inch of water above your beans. Since you did the overnight soak the cooking will be much "faster"....and by that I mean it took me only 1.5 hrs to get them soft. I threw in some garlic for extra flavor because I just love garlic on everything.

Some tips I read online but didn't try:
Don't add salt till they are cooked.
There are some spices that help decrease gas issues with the beans.
Also the fresher the beans the faster they cook, but I couldn't find a "born on" date with mine :)

Breakfast for dinner

My normal fried potatoes involved me getting a 1/4 a stick of butter and melting it down with a whole small-medium onion.....sauteed, then add a can of sliced potatoes. When all warmed and brown I dump a ton of garlic salt and Lawry's on it. Here I have no garlic salt, Lawry's and no canned sliced potatoes. So I have to go old school and learn how to make good old fashion fried potatoes. I followed this recipe for breakfast potatoes. Well I used it for a base that is.
I boiled 5 potatoes (I think they were white or brown, not red) then cut them up....wondering if next time I could cut them THEN boil them...seems it would be easier than cutting a hot potato and maybe faster cooking time. Then I used some bacon grease and some oil and threw in my onion and since I had no garlic salt I threw in some minced garlic cloves. Got the onions and garlic nice and light brown before adding my cut up potatoes. Next time I think I need to let them set longer or try the flour trick she mentions because they were cooked but they didn't get that crispy I like. I would have loved some Lawyr's on there but ...again I'm in Brazil where they just don't like any flavor but salt, so I added salt. :)
I made some scrambled eggs and the for mentioned bacon....and TADA! breakfast for dinner! At first when I made the potatoes we thought it would be to much...turns out we really like potatoes and had NO problems finishing them all.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Book #1 (goal is 5) for the year was "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen. I got the book on loan (love that kindle lets us share now!) from a friend. I heard that Reese Witherspoon is going to be staring in the movie version of this book and its due out in April '11. Since I love Reese and I try to see all her movies I wanted to read the book, because I can't read a book after I see the movie. One good thing about the kindle loaning program is that once you accept the book you have 14 days to read it. At first I thought this was a horrible idea....however it motivated me to keep reading at times this pregnant girl would rather have been napping.
The book was very well written and I'm excited to see how the movie does it. I usually think the movies drop the ball but this is a pretty basic plot and I can't see how they couldn't do the whole thing in 2hrs. The book being a very solid story so I was never really bored reading it.... I found predictable and lacking any real suspense to get that 5/5 star rating from me. I gave it 4/5 stars on my goodreads page though.
If you don't know goodreads is a great little website that helps you keep track of what you have read and want to read. If your like me you end up buying books only to realize you have already read them. Plus once you get a few like minded friends you can get great book reviews from them, which helps me pick what I should read next.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

My entire life I was always so impressed by people who made their own noodles. I thought for sure this was a couple day process! LOL Also my mom makes a pretty good chicken noodle soup, so I thought I would try doing both.
I followed this recipe for the noodles. I found making noodles was way easier than I thought. Ok my arms hurt a touch but that could be because of my t-rex stature. The only thing I wondered about was when to tell your dough is smooth.... I did some searching and found pics and went by those. Turns out about 7 min of kneading got me the smooth dough I needed. I was unable to find a rolling pin so instead I cleaned off a red wine bottle, because everyone has one of those at home. :) It worked really well actually. I also had no pizza cutter and so I had to use a knife to cut the noodles with....the knife isn't very sharp and so this took longer than I'm sure it takes most people. But the final results were great!

For the soup I asked my mom what she did, and her response was:
1. Boil a whole chicken in a pot for 45 min.
2. Pull out chicken and shreed the meat off of it.
3. Fill up pot with water and add a CAN OF BOUILLON (yeah I'm not kidding, I felt my heart throb when she said that!)
4. Bring it to a boil and then add a bag of egg noodles.
5. Once noodles are done add chicken.
Done.

Well since Troy had highblood pressure and the idea of enough sodium to kill a horse didn't sound that appealing to me I changed it up a little. This may be the first time I didn't follow a recipe and kind of winged it!
 Here is what I ended up doing:
1. Got a big pot and threw in a whole chicken with water and brought it to a boil. I boiled it till the juice was no longer pink. Took about an hour.
2. During that hour I made the noodles using the above recipe I linked.
3. Cut up 2 carrots and 1 medium yellow onion.
4. Pulled the chicken out of the pot and filled up the pot with more water to make it 3/4 full. And added 6 chicken bouillon cubes.
5. Shredded the chicken and added it to the pot while waiting for the water to boil again.
6. Once boiling I threw in the homemade noodles and let them cook.

It was even better than mom's! (sorry mom). 

**Things I would do different next time...

I would add a couple more carrots and I would skimmed the fat off the top of the water once taking out the chicken.
Edited to add: this makes about 12 bowls of soup.