Me…Winning!

As you know, I am a very famous and important blogger, definitely one of the “beautiful people” of the world.  If you borrowed my brain for five seconds, you’d be like, ‘Dude! Can’t handle it, unplug this b*$%#&!’ It fires in a way that’s maybe not from this terrestrial realm.  However, I have noticed lately that a lot of other “celebrities” are getting more attention than me, people like Brangelina, Oprah, and even that dude who runs the Make-a-Wish foundation and, to be frank, I want my piece of the pie. 

I tried writing good blog posts, fun stuff about Oreo-laden desserts, family trips to the beach, and cute guinea pig stories, but I’ve decided it’s all boring, jaded crap.  The problem is I have a different constitution. I have a different brain; I have a different heart; I got tiger blood, man.  I’m tired of pretending I’m not special.

So here’s my plan.  First, I am going to overdose… this is always an attention getter.  I am thinking chocolate or possibly sticky buns, but I will narrow it down closer to the time.  After I  am found lying in a sugar-induced haze, I will be taken by ambulance to the local Weight Watcher’s meeting but I will be sure to tell the media that my “accident” was just a shameful train wreck filled with blind cuddly puppies, because that totally makes sense and everyone loves puppies and trains!  My overdose will be a big one.  I will be banging seven-pound sticky buns. Because that’s how I roll. I have one speed. I have one gear: Go.

While at the Weight Watcher’s meeting, I plan to really tear the place up, I mean, chairs dangling from lighting fixtures, scales broken in half, Little Debbie wrappers scattered around-- real damage.  And then I’ll blame it on the Little Debbie’s.  I might have to pay for the damage, but just think of the blogpost I could write about that little incident!  That will get my name out there!

(I am also thinking of writing a few blogposts claiming things like “the Japan earthquake/tsunami never happened, it’s all a huge fake” and “all hamsters are terrorists”, because nothing generates publicity like a little conspiracy theory/anti-small rodent declaration.)

This leads me to my squeaky clean image.  I’ve got to dirty it up a bit, even at the expense of my family.  They will be fine.  They will be so thankful to me just because I let them close to my fame.  What they will come to discover is, it isn't how you get there, it's that you get there. If that's what it takes to get me where I'm at today, so be it.  I may have to shoot Dave “accidentally” in the arm and I may have to forget I have children for awhile, but they will understand and appreciate all I am doing for them.  To be honest, I’m really looking forward to kicking them all out of the house and getting two cats, my sweet little “goddesses” I will call them!  Dave and Ben are allergic, so this is my chance.  To be with two cats.  At the expense of my family.  Because I will be famous!  After all, I think I’m worth over a 100 BILLION dollars, and that’s just on a cellular level.

Finally, once I am good and famous, completely bi-winning and riding the tsunami of media on a mercury surfboard, I plan to launch my national tour!  The tour will consist of me and my tiger blood, up there on the stage, probably doing something awesome, like for instance I know a lot of Knock-Knock jokes, I may play air guitar and lip synch to many songs including “Livin’ on a Prayer” and Bette Midler’s amazing “The Rose”, or maybe I will just read a few of my blogposts to the crowd.  I think I will call it “My Violent Sticky Bun of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option”, and I believe I may earn a stunning $7 million dollars on this tour which I will use to buy kitty treats for the goddesses and alimony/child support (if I have to) and more sticky buns.  It will be magic.

People, I am on a drug, it's called Dirty Laundry. It's not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body. 

Me...Winning.

Separated at Birth?

I was at Jack’s birth, in fact I was a fairly active person at Jack’s birth, and I remember quite clearly that he was the only baby born to me that day.

However, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he did have a twin.

This is Jack and his friend Olivia.   They are in the same kindergarten class and Maddie is in the same 5th grade class as Olivia’s brother Nathan.  This winter, the 5th grade class had a little play, and both Olivia’s family and ours attended.  Jack saw Olivia there, ran up and gave her a hug, and I struck by how much they looked alike (and the next day I trimmed Jack’s hair, by the way…)

They are both blond, kooky, and full of life.

They are both the youngest (Olivia is the youngest of four!) and they both love to play and pretend and dress up and role play. 

Hmmm.  When I think about it, the one sure way I can tell they aren’t siblings is because they do get along so very well, no fighting, no whining, just happy times and a healthy give-and-take. 

Maybe Olivia is my future daughter-in-law!

Or maybe not.

Either way, we love having Jack’s twin spend the afternoon with us!

Walking–Talking–Squealing

Recently, my friend Stephanie posted this on her blog about our recent walks together.  We have a third friend, Ellie, who usually joins us but didn’t the day she took all the fabulous house pictures for that particular post.  Yesterday, Ellie and I took a walk without Stephanie (who is having a very busy week…wait until you see her surprise), and we had a lovely walk in the occasionally sleety, 35 degree weather.  Have I mentioned how ready I am for this doggone freezing cold, dreary winter to be over?

It’s so fun to walk with friends!  I walk so much longer than when I’m on a treadmill.  And if I had been on a treadmill, I’d have never run across this fabulous used balloon that totally matches the yellow accents in my sneakers!

Here’s a better shot of my sneakers.  You can see how close a match it is!

Sadly, we did not run across a cute blue one to match Ellie’s sneakers, which would have been totally the best! 

So anyway, we walked, and talked, and commiserated about stuff, and whined a little about other stuff and laughed a lot, and then Ellie stopped short, pulled my arm and said, “What the heck is that?”  She may or may not have used the word heck.  My memory is a little hazy because at that moment I looked up to see what she had seen.  And it was this:

Now, what was very odd was that it did not move.  I’m not kidding you, it was totally still.  I was afraid it was in some kind of a rabid, fixated state, probably drooling or foaming at the mouth, and quite possibly growling “I see you walking there and I’m going to bite you” under its evil little breath.

We walked closer.

My gosh!  It looks like somebody left a dead dog here and its sad little rigor mortis-racked face had decayed half off! 

Or…

Somebody left a chipped dog statue in the middle of nowhere. 

Hmph.  We felt a little dumb. 

But then we walked past that cute little yellow balloon again and the day just brightened right back up!

Dinner Wars

Last night a friend (Hi Angela P.!) posted on Facebook that getting her son to eat his dinners was becoming a battle of wills.  A few people commented with some advice or simply with a reassuring, “been there, done that” sort of comment designed to make Angela know it’s a universal problem, getting these kids to eat their veggies and meat, and to reassure her that her kid is not an anomaly and that she’s a good mom for sticking to her guns. 

I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that kids can be picky eaters.  We are the smart adults, they are the ones learning how to maneuver this world, and that’s why parenting is mostly a dictatorship, not a democracy, otherwise the little stinkers would definitely choose Pixie Stix for breakfast, Tastykakes for lunch, and a grape and a corn dog for supper and consider themselves well fed.  I know that Dr. T. Berry Brazelton would tell us not to make a fuss over what they eat, but that didn’t work for Dave and me.    Our rule is they must try everything.  If they don’t like something, they may stop, but it will not be considered a “good” supper and there will be no dessert or bedtime snack (although they may have fruit or carrots at bedtime).

I feel like the battle has finally been easing up in our house, as Maddie and Ben are old enough now to realize that they will just have to eat it, there are no alternative choices, and although they whine sometimes, there’s not as much “how many more bites do I need?” bargaining going on as the old days.  And Jack is not a picky eater!  He is my best eater, hallelujah!

Top Six Dinner War Stories From Our Home

6.  Maddie hates meat, it sometimes makes her gag.  The first food fight I ever remember was when she was about 2 or 3.  She absolutely refused to eat her meat and we told her we would not be joining the already planned family swim night at the local college if she did not eat her chicken.  She refused.  And we missed swim night.  We felt good about our choice, patted ourselves on the back for remaining strong, and figured she had learned a lesson and would always eat her chicken from then on.  HA!  HA!!

5.  Did Ben really think we wouldn’t notice his entire dinner dropped here and there onto the floor under the dinner table by his chair that time?  Apparently he did.  But he wasn’t the one who dropped it all.  Under his own personal chair.

4. Here’s one from my childhood:  I hated spaghetti, and I guess I figured if I poured my milk on it, I would not be able to eat it.  Instead, I sat at the table for hours staring at the bowl of cold, milky spaghetti until bedtime.  I never did that again.  My children have never tried that trick, but they have sat at the table for a long time until that last bite of whatever is gone to earn their dessert/bedtime snack.

3.  Okay, one more from my childhood.  My mom made us pig stomach, which here in PA Dutch country, means you take an actual pig stomach lining, and fill it with sausage and potatoes.  I know.  Weird, right?  (But now that I am an adult, I’ll admit it’s delicious.)  So my bratty brother Dave and I, not knowing the outside was the pig part (duh) ate only the lining, and not the sausage and potato filling.  I don’t think I ever saw my mom smile so big as the moment she told us what we had done.

2. Back to Maddie and the meat.  If there is the slightest bit of fat on her meat, she refuses to eat it, so we must cut it all off.  One time, she chewed a bite of meat, then spit it onto her plate telling us it had fat in it.  Fine.  But by the end of the meal we noticed quite a large pile of chewed up meat on her plate.  I guess she figured if it worked once, it would work for the entire pork chop.  It didn’t work.  She got another meticulously trimmed pork chop to eat.

1.  Oh my, here’s dear Maddie again.  Shortly after supper was over one night, Jack came running out of the bathroom.  “Mom!  Someone pooped up their peas!  There are peas in the toilet!”  Dave and I looked at Maddie who sheepishly said, “Wow.  That is so weird.”  MmHmm.  Now she may not leave the table to use the bathroom with a mouthful of food…

Do you have any funny food stories?  Let's help Angela know she's not all alone in her fight to nutrify her cute son.   (By the way...Nutrify: verb, to fill your child with vegetables and meat and all things healthy against his/her own will; Sit yourself down in that seat, mister, and nutrify yourself right now, and don't you roll those eyes at me.) 

Busy Week

Wow, time just flew by this week.  And I was so busy.  Not busy in a bad, stressed out, want to cry myself to sleep kind of way.  Just lots of plans and appointments and activities. 

One bad thing.  My girl was shooting hoops and came down wrong on her foot.  We thought it was broken (it was two years ago—same foot, same location), but it’s just sprained.  She’s been milking it big time though, and Jack was her willing slave for the first few hours until he decided it would be more fun to play Legos than fetch her drinks of water and adjust her ice pack.

“Now that my ankle is sprained, can I borrow your Snooki earrings and become a gangsta, pleeeeease???”

[I’m not sure that’s how gangstas look, but this is Maddie’s interpretation.]

 

My 40 Bags in 40 Days is going well.  I threw away so much in my kitchen, and look what was hiding under the bottom drawer of the kitchen desk:

I found 5 DS game cartridges, about 10 pads of paper, stamps, old greeting cards, 3 packs of Kleenex, and my super big find of the day:

Awesome!  Now, I just need to find a way to travel back in time to October 2007 in order to use this amazing deal!

 

Yesterday was a beautiful day, the kind of day that gives you hope that this long, dreary, cold, gray, cold, dreary, freezing cold never-ending winter may actually end.   The temperature got into the high seventies!  Jack played outside all day and was absolutely filthy by bedtime (a good sign that he had a fun day), there were 10 kids riding bikes in our cul-de-sac at one point, nobody sprained an ankle, and the windows were open!

And there was a soft breeze blowing those curtains up all day.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Of course, this morning it’s about twenty degrees cooler, but the sun is still shining!

Yes, this is a picture of my powder room, but just look at the sunshine glinting off that toilet bowl!  I am reminded of the time, right after we moved in, that I sat down to use the facility (you need to know that the powder room is right next to the front door) and one of the neighbor kids ran up the walk and knocked on our door.  Which was okay, I had the bathroom door closed!  But.  I did not anticipate that since no one came to the front door, the girl would slide over to the window and look in to see if anyone was there.  And I was.  There.  I’m not telling you anything else, I have buried the memory deep, deep inside the file cabinet in my brain in a file marked “Do not open. Ever”.  Now stop picturing me on the toilet.  I mean it!  Stop it right now!  Here look at this nice photo:

The stinkbugs are back.  I hate stinkbugs.  Over the winter we found about one or two a month.  They just magically appear and scare the poopydoops out of you. 

You may also recall that last month Deb and I embarked on our “Biggest Loser:  Blogger Edition”.  Well, it’s been one month and we agreed that we would provide you nosy people with updates.  So.  I think I lost the most the first week, Deb lost the most the second week, then things are hazy, I seriously don’t remember the middle of the month, I believe the info is in a brain file marked “You are too old to access this file”.  But, here is my end of the month result:  I have lost 2.3% of my body weight this month, a little disappointing, but at least I didn’t gain 2.3% of my body weight, right?    I would tell you how Deb is doing, but she has been mysteriously quiet and is not responding to my emails.  I  think she may be either in jail or having weight loss surgery, so you will just have to keep checking her blog for an update from her.

Enjoy your weekend.  May your toilet bowl be sunshine-y and may your children be sprained ankle-free, and may all your rooms lack stinkbugs. 

It’s not exactly as pretty as an Irish blessing, but it’ll have to do.

ZIP-ZIP- HOORAY!

My husband is a kid at heart.  Sure, he looks all serious and wise and cute and stuff.  All bookish and sensible and quiet.

But he still likes to play.  This weekend, using old lawn mower wheels, metal pipes, and two metal plates he bought ten years ago but never used (when he built our swing set), he made a zip-line. 

 

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a large enough ladder to use to tie the rope high enough in the tree, so when the kids tried it out, they sank to the ground almost right away.

Dave decided to head to his parents’ house.  They have more mature trees and a nice big ladder, so we went there the next day.

The other advantage to heading to his parents’ house was that his dad would be able to help pull the plan together…

 

So…higher ladder, higher trees…yikes!  Higher kids!

And they’re off!

Even the biggest kid got a turn…

They all took so many turns, I was getting cold and losing interest and suggested a few times that maybe we should call it a day?  And go inside?  Where it’s warm? 

But thank goodness for fun dads.  And thank goodness we have one.

Hedbanz

Have you played this game?  Everyone playing can read your headband except you, and everyone takes turns asking “Twenty Questions”-type questions to figure out what’s on their own headband.

Jack asked if I could play this with him yesterday, which can be challenging as he needs to be able to read and understand the meaning of the card he picks for me to wear (he must pick it otherwise I may unwittingly put something like “Tokyo” on my forehead which will utterly stump him).  But I found a card for him to wear and he found a card for me to wear and Round One went something like this:

Jack:  Do I start with a D?  

Me:  No.  Am I an animal?

Jack:   No, but you can get eaten!

Me:  Jack!  Don’t give hints!

Jack:  Am I a duck?

Me:  No, remember I said you don’t start with D.  Am I a dessert?

Jack:  No, I ate it the other day and you didn’t!

Me:  Jack!  Don’t give hints, just say yes or no! 

Jack:  Oh, yeah.  

*long pause*

Me:  Jack, your turn.

Jack:  What?

Me:  Your turn, honey.

Jack:  Ohhhh!  Does it start with a T?

Me:  Nope.   Did we have it for supper?

Jack:  I did, but you didn’t.   It’s brown and shaped like a suh-phere! (Sphere is pronounced with two syllables when you are in kindergarten)

Me:  Honey, when you give me hints, it helps me figure out who I am faster and I will win.

Jack:  Oh yeah.  It’s NOT brown.  I mean it is.  But I didn’t tell you that.   Do I start with a J?

Me:  Hmmm, maybe you should ask a question like “Am I an animal” or “Does it fit in my pocket?”  Go ahead and try.

Jack:  Am I an animal?

Me:  Yes!

Jack:  Am I a duck?

Me:  You said that already and it’s my turn.  Am I a hamburger?

Jack:  No.  I had them on my spaghetti at Pizza Hut!  Am I a rat?

Me:  Are you kidding me?  How did you get that? 

Jack:  Because it’s an animal! 

Then we went on to play a few more rounds.  I was an apple and he was a farm, I was a cup and he was a banana, and I was a hat and he was pajamas.  I only won one round (hat/pajama round) and needed a nap afterwards.

 

(Jack took this picture…did you guess what was on my headband??)

Forty Bags in Forty Days

Welcome to Lent! 

Sarah from Clover Lane has been participating in Forty Bags in Forty Days for a few years now, and I thought I’d try it this year.  The basic premise is you must tackle a room or a closet or a disaster area every day of Lent, filling one bag per day to either throw out or donate (ours will go to the San Juan Bautista church store in Lancaster) or yard sale, and as a bonus (some bonus) you also spring clean the area as you go.  Sarah’s post today includes some tips for you.

I’m looking forward to the purge, not so much to the spring cleaning.

I am planning to start in the kitchen today and clean out the junk drawers, the cupboards, etc.  By Easter I hope to have a cleaner and much emptier house.  Since Easter is late this year, I also hope we will have sunshine, singing birds, egg hunts that aren’t plagued by snow showers, and short sleeved Easter wear.

So.  Do you want to join me?

Those cherry blossoms are just around the corner!

Scenes from a Restaurant

You know how you go to a restaurant, and you bring along a bag of board books, Hot Wheels cars, rattles that suction to the tabletop, Polly Pockets, crayons/coloring books and even (dare I say it) some Smarties, and then you order for the kids and ask the waitress to bring those meals out as quickly as she can; then you play cars and read board books and shake rattles, trying to keep the soda consumption to a minimum so no one fills up on Sprite before the entrée arrives; you see the underside of the table more times than you ever thought possible to pick up a fallen shoe/book/pacifier/menu and then you start blowing your bangs up in puffs of air of frustration and you start to think this really just isn’t worth it, when thank goodness the kids’ meals arrive and you can relax for a few minutes while they dig in, and then, of course, your meal arrives just as they are finishing theirs and you realize the error in your strategy, so you eat fast and entertain, cajole, soothe, etc. until you decide it truly isn’t worth it, you hunt down the waitress for the check, and you skedaddle as quickly as you are able, which is really not that fast, considering you need to pack up a toy box’s worth of playthings, dress three children in coats and hats, and grab your supper to go…

We had 3 children under age 6 at one point.  But we’d still go to restaurants (occasionally) because sometimes you just have to get out of the house.  Or maybe we were just crazy.  Probably a combination of both when you have three under 6.

How times have changed.  Dave was gone last Friday night so I took the kids to Pizza Hut (he’s not so fond of Pizza Hut) to use Jack’s Book-It coupon.  Please excuse the quality of pictures from my phone.

Did I feel bad that they played on electronics the 10 minutes we waited for our pizza?  No!  Dude.  Did you read that first paragraph up there?  I have earned this.  I was also busy snapping pictures of them and emailing them to Dave who emailed me back telling me how cool I was to be emailing him pictures from Pizza Hut (he was being sarcastic because I just learned how to do this).   And then the pizza arrived and the electronics went away and we had a very nice, relaxed meal, and then we packed up and headed home, and it was totally worth it this time.

Maybe in ten more years a trip to a restaurant will be because they’re home from college and missed us and can’t wait to tell us all about their studies and their amazing professors and the good selection of books at the campus library and about this new strain of bacteria they’ve identified and named after me and that will be even better. 

But now is a good time.  I like now a lot.

Turtle Pretzels

I hosted neighborhood bunko back in January and I’m finally getting around to telling you about the Turtle Pretzels I made for the evening.  They were a definite hit, but a lot of work.  If you don’t like snacks that take a lot of work, just stop reading right now.

The first two ingredients you need are pretzel nuggets (I used Snyder’s of Hanover Sourdough Nuggets) and those little square caramels by Brach’s.  First unwrap about a gajillion of those caramels.  Then put 5 or 6 at a time on a microwave-safe plate and microwave for about 10 seconds on half power.  Then, one at a time, roll each caramel flat between some wax paper.

Next you’re going to wrap that caramel around a pretzel nugget and seal the edges.  It’s okay if pretzel peeks through and it doesn’t have to look pretty.

Mine definitely didn’t.

(At this point they look reeeeally unappetizing, but you will still be irresistibly drawn to taste test a few.  Stop it!  These take forever to make and you are eating them all!)

Wrapping up these little suckers is going to take you awhile.  Get comfortable,  pop open a Diet Coke, put on some of your DVR’d 30Rock episodes, and possibly get your children to massage your shoulders in exchange for an occasional funky looking caramel pretzel nugget.

Next you are going to melt some chocolate, and, using a toothpick stuck into the caramel, you will dip each nugget in the chocolate then place on a wax paper covered cookie sheet.  I also dipped about half of the pretzels in crushed almonds immediately after dipping in chocolate.  I have absolutely no pictures for you at this point because I was covered in chocolate and didn’t want to chocolify my camera.

The nuggets that were not dipped in pecans looked a little…boring.  So I melted a little white chocolate, put it in a baggie, cut a teeny-tiny hole in the corner and drizzled a cute little swirl on them.  They all need to go in the fridge to cool for a good long time.

They tasted great, and looked so pretty! 

And then after bunko was over and everyone went home, I realized there was a pile of dirt in the corner of the kitchen that I had swept up but neglected to sweep into the dustpan and throw out. 

Geez. 

I hope no one noticed.

 

Turtle Pretzels

14 oz. bag of soft caramels (about 48)

10 oz. bag pretzel nuggets

12 oz. chocolate (melting wafers or blocks)

2 c. chopped nuts (pecans, almonds, etc.)

 

Line a baking sheet with wax or parchment paper, set aside. 

Unwrap the caramels.  Microwave 5-6 caramels at a time for 10 seconds at 50% power.  One at a time, place a caramel between two sheets of wax or parchment paper (not the one on the baking sheet), then use a rolling pin to roll it into an oval about 1/8 in. thick.

Wrap the flattened caramel around a pretzel nugget, pinching the ends to seal.  Set aside on another sheet of parchment paper.  Repeat. 47 more times.  Ugh.

In microwave, melt half the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until smooth.  Place nuts in a shallow bowl.  One at a time, use a toothpick or fork to dip each pretzel nugget in the chocolate to coat, tapping off any excess, then dip in the nuts to coat.  Set on the prepared baking sheet.  Repeat.  47 more times.  Good Golly Miss Molly.

Let stand until set, about 3 hours, before packaging.  Can be placed in refrigerator to set more quickly.

 

I am linking this post with Foodie Friday.  I bet no one at Foodie Friday ever forgets to sweep up that last pile of dirt.

Happy Birthday!

It’s somebody’s birthday

I’m here to tell you,

It’s somebody’s birthday

Great hullabaloo!

If you go to our school,

on this flappulous day

Try to look like a book--

Any book, don’t delay!

Let’s be shmillyand silly

Like the folks in Dakota

But not grumpy and sad

Like those guys at Toyota.
 We’ll put apples on top

We’ll glue stuff to our shirt

We’ll look crazy, oh yes,

Like Old Geezer McGurt.

You could be Harry Potter

And then change your mind

(That’s why Ben’s not shown here--

He politely declined).

Happy Birthday to Seuss!

That fundazzling dude

To whom this here blogpost

Does kindly allude.

 He made reading so merry, so goofy, so fun!

(That Green Eggs and Ham is my favorite one).

There’s Horton, The Lorax, The Cat in the Hat,

The Grinch and The Sneetches, just try to top that!

To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
And If I Ran The Zoo are linguistical treats!

Thanks! Thanks! Dr. Seuss, for your jubilant rhymes

We’ve read them and read them sixteen thousand times.

I think I am done with my Seuss-alent rant

Now I’m off to the hills of Mazoo-ba-la-fant.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” Dr. Seuss