Looking for a good fried chicken recipe

I really like fried chicken but rarely eat it because it is so terribly bad for my heart (in the long term) and my colon (shorter term). But I'm thinking of finding and trying three recipes for modified, less fattening fried chicken. I figure I have three freeloading hens that aren't laying any eggs so, heck, let's make a taste test out of them.

Grumble, grumble. Sigh.

I'm not serious, of course. But we are still waiting for an egg. The girls and I share a birthday tomorrow: I'll be 31 and they will be 6 months old. The books I've read say that heavy breeds are supposed to lay by 6 months but apparently, no one has told Tallulah, Dixie or Sydney.

In other news, their coop has been winterized. I stuffed straw under the coop and have 4 bales along the north and east walls for insulation. The girls also have a light now and we'll put in the heated water bowl in the coming weeks. The $200 egg has gone up to about $230.

Baby A-plus is fabulous, if screamy. She has a thing about fighting sleep and feels she must scream for a few minutes before konking out. On the flipside, she is working on smiling. Like the proverbial egg, we are waiting for our first baby smile. Last week, she half smiled at a toy she was looking at. I must say, I was a bit irratated with that. "Does that toy get up with you at 3 in the morning? Does that toy feed you 8 times a day? No. So how about directing that smile towards your mama instead, Tootsie." Speaking of getting irratated, she also witnessed her mom yell at some poor kid on Thursday. At least, I think it was a real live person; however, I may have chewed out a robocall....

We got one of the now famous calls from the McCain campaign on Thursday. I don't think it was a robocall because I picked up and said hello, and then a girl said, "Hello? Hello?" I said "Yes, hi." And she said, "Oh, hello. I'm calling from the McCain campaign because you need to know that Barack Obama associates with domestic terrorists...."or something to that effect. After Wednesday night's debate and both candidates being taken to task for their negative ads, I thought that they would be shamed into better behavior. But no. Not the case. And I lost it. "Are you kidding me?! You can't tell me what John McCain is going to do so you need to smear Barack Obama instead?! You know, I respected McCain and thought he was a man of integrity before this campaign and his recent behavior but now, I would never vote for him! And when he loses this election, he's going to have no one to blame but himself. And I hope in 10 years time you look back on this and are deeply ashamed for having been a part of it!" And I hung up. Yeah.

I want this election to be over. I'm tired of the nastiness, and we don't even have a TV so we've not seen any ads! And I want Sarah Palin to be sent back to Alaska to get mauled by a moose. Or a wolf. Or a salmon. I don't care. Just send her home.

To leave this post on a more positive note, here's video of our stupid cat enjoying one of Baby A-plus' toys: the swing. And no, I didn't put him in there. It was his idea.