Ramblings

The other day I got suckered into gluing my feet to the kitchen floor and chaining myself to the stove. Secretly, I think that I was forced into some type of volunteer slave labor, just sayin. Here's how it went...

I baked and baked and baked. Something like 40-ish cupcakes, 2 sheet cakes and one biggish stacked cake (but it was chocolate, so that one doesn't count). Anyway, I'm mixing and beating and baking and frosting and throwing powdered sugar everywhere while at the same time making bean soup for a church meeting later in the day.

I'm singing to the radio and tapping my big toe (because the super glue missed that one) when I think, "That soup's been cooking for awhile in the crock pot and it still doesn't smell." *BIG sniff* Hmmm. I open the lid and still no smell. Then I realize that the beans have been soaking in flavored water for the last 5 1/2 hours because I forgot to turn the stupid crock on! grrr. But because I'm a genius, I only threw a mini-tantrum of kicking and screaming and pounding my fists on the floor, and got out the biggest pot I own. I threw the beans, carrots and celery into the big pot and turned it on high.

Side note: to cook beans, you have to let them soak overnight, cook them all day in a crock pot or just boil them good and hard for about an hour.

Now I'm back into the groove of throwing powdered sugar and my soup is happily boiling away. Here's the end product of all that flying sugar.




Mmmm.... 2 1/2(ish) feet of chocolaty goodness....

Meanwhile, I sniff again. BAH! The beans cooked too fast and now they've decided to become one with the pot! After another tantrum I scooped them out (avoiding the crusty ones) and put them back into the crock with about 6 cups of water and then I doctored it up with ham and salt and other tasty things.

Fast forward about 10 hours....

Monkey #4 is sleeping so nicely. I'm sleeping nicely too except for the weirdest dream I'm stuck in the middle of. (Let's just say that the bean soup was coming back to haunt me.) Then, when the monkey woke up, I realized that it wasn't the bean soup that tickled my nose - it was his diaper. Joy.

Oops!

The other day Ian was showing us a super cool science experiment that he did in school. It required 2 glasses of water, green and blue food coloring and 2 stalks of celery. We filled the glasses and got the celery ready while Ian added 2 drops (what I really mean is the whole bottle) of food coloring to each glass. We put the celery in and then sat, like Johnny Bench, staring at the cups as the celery drank and drank and drank. Then we had company come over for dinner and the experiment was left to sit on the opposite counter.

Fast forward to the next morning when the forgotten green and blue water/celery are whining that they got ignored by everyone because someone cooler came around. (Wahhhh!!! Puh-lease) They got me back for neglecting them, though. I was moving stuff around, cleaning up after our par-tay when they decided to JUMP up and down to get my attention. But they're a little clumsy, see, and they tipped right over! Green and blue celery water went EVERYWHERE.

After using some highly offensive language (dagnabbit! (I learned that one from Abbey)) I got my cute kitchen towel and started to mop up the mess, tossed the towel into the laundry hamper and gave myself a pat on the back for a job well done.

Fast forward to today. (Psst...it's laundry day, in case you didn't know)

I started sorting the laundry and found a beautifully tie-died towel half way down the pile. "Wonder where I got that?" I shrugged my shoulders and kept sorting. Then I came to Jeffrey's Granimals Underoos (we'll call them his "G's" for short, k?) So I found some of Jeffrey's G's and they're tie died too. So I started a load and dumped soap, vinegar (because it makes your whites brighter, apparently), and even some Oxy something-or-other in the tub for good measure. Hopefully it'll all come out. It may not. But if it doesn't, isn't Jeff lucky??? He gets to have green and blue underoos! I'll bet he's going to be thrilled when he gets home! Oooh! Even better, I'll just wash them and tuck them nicely away in his G's drawer so he can discover them on his own!

Now THAT'S Entertainment!

Every 6 months or so the local PBS station has an event to bribe/guilt you into donating to their cause. To do this, they often enlist the help of the group Celtic Woman. We like these ladies - they sound like angels. High pitched angels, but angels none the less. During the last "give us money or you'll all become uneducated rednecks when we go off the air" event they showed the answer to Celtic Woman; a very manly, testosterone filled group called Celtic Thunder! (Or Celtic TUNDER in our home.) The kids have fallen in love with these guys, mostly because there's a someone for everyone in this group. There's the tough, macho guy for Ian to emulate, the flirty 30-ish guy for the moms in the room, the older teenager as well as the 12 year old who has the voice of a man 10 years older than him. (he's awesome - no kidding)

Here's the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTZLe4iWEY

Anyway, the kids have decided that these foreigners are the most neatest, coolest, awesomest (is that a word?) people on the planet. Ian has begged and pleaded for Jeff to find the songs online and burn them onto a CD for him so he can blast it 50 times a day. He's convinced the other kids that these guys are so cool that they should also embrace the Celtic Tunder! They've choreographed a little diddy to go along with the songs and they sing along with them. I have to say that it's quite interesting to watch. Ian has his Wolverine Halloween costume on and he tries to act very tough and intimidating while singing all of the wrong words. It's great.

I Can handle This

I've been pretty spoiled lately. My hub had a talk with the Big Cheese at work and declared that there would be less traveling OR ELSE!!! I'm not sure what his real plans for the "or else" were, but he tried to sound as menacing as possible. Too bad they all know he's all about his stinkin' work ethic and can't help but do a good job even when alls he has to do is lift his little finger.

*snort*

So he's a traveling man again, leaving on a jet plane - like John Denver. Only he knows when he'll be back again. Thursday. But then he'll skedaddle a couple of days later and head out to Dallas. Blah, blah, blah - needless information. My point is that he's gone and I'm going through withdrawals worse than a meth addict who's trying to dry out. Or air out. Or get clean by scrubbing themselves with Irish Spring. And the kids can feel it. Maybe because they see the carpet bags under my eyes or the fact that I can't seem to make them stop sweating all the time. (Silly sweating eyeballs.)

Anyway.

They smell blood and are going in for the kill every chance they get. Which is why at 7:02 last night the bedroom doors were closed, lights off, prayers said, teeth brushed and potty-ing was done. Because I was done. Like a turkey on Thanksgiving afternoon. Only it was night time and I wasn't being served with a side of cranberry sauce. (Which is good because I don't particularly like cranberry sauce.)

Today starts a new day. I've made a calendar for the urchins (I mean that in the nicest possible way) that will chart their kindness/happiness levels for the next month while Jeff is away and there will be heavy amounts of bribery involved.

Wish me luck.

Tuesday's Confessional

Forgive me, blogger, for I have sinned. It started when I decided that I was going to have an "I'm just as awesome as Martha Stewart" day. I've decided that she's not so bad and it's okay to follow in her footsteps.

Occasionally.

So I'm busy imitating Martha when out of the blue I get jumped! I screamed a little (because I was scared), I cussed a little (because I was mad) then I did what any sane person would do. I used the handy dandy knife, that I just happened to have in my hand at the time, and I stabbed that sucker in the heart! So I guess I'm confessing to being a murderer. Multiple times. Of course, it'll never be proven because I was oh so smart and disposed of the bodies! They're chopped into little itty bitty bits and GONE! Flushed down to the bowels of the city's sewer system.

Aren't I a genius???

In my own defense, those little buggers had it coming to them. One should NEVER hide and be all sneaky and expect no retribution after jumping out to scare a Martha wannabe! I guess next time I should be a little more sensitive when crafting and not destroy some one's house or food supply, huh? Lesson learned, I guess.

Your turn! What heinous thing have you done lately?

P.S.
I puffy hate canning peaches and the earwigs who like to play hide and seek in them.

Play Time

I just have to take two seconds and thank my lucky stars, the Man upstairs and my friends for helping to give me my sanity back. Abbey started kindergarten this year, which is AWESOME because it's all day long. Every other day. The girl is over joyed to be at school when she can and super mean and grumpy when she can't. She pouts because she thinks that there is absolutely nothing better to do if she isn't in her classroom. (what kid does that?) Every day at home is filled with my lame attempts to one-up her teacher. We play computer games, we go to the library (sometimes), we run errands, we even occasionally go to Costco for lunch! Nothing competes with the smell of over cooked mac & cheese and dirty mop water. BUT this week there is, as we speak, a play group being formed AND we get to be a part of it! Yay! Yay! Yay!!!! Her friends are way cooler than me and she's excited about going. Wahoo!!!

Hide and Seek

Do you ever play hide and seek with your online friends? I am a member of the facebook community and have "friended" a bajillion and three people. Some of them I actually have regular contact with. Some are people I hung out with in high school and some are people who say they remember and know me from the 2nd grade and, if I think really hard and concentrate A LOT, I'm pretty sure I remember who they are. Meh. If they annoy me or are especially crazy or are stalkers I de-friend them and they probably don't realize it until later.
Anyway...
I was wasting time over there earlier today and someone from my long lost past was online. I decided that I'd rather pick leaches off of my big toe than talk to her so I clicked the little button that lets you stay online but be "offline". I play hide and seek a lot that way. What about you? Do you hide from your friends when you're feeling anti-social?