Escaping

Hubby and I were watching the movie Date Night the other day.  It’s a hilarious comedy with Steve Carroll and Tina Fey.  At the end of the movie, the main characters, a husband and wife, discuss if they’d ever wanted “out” of their marriage or been tempted to stray.  The wife, Tina Fey’s character, shared that the only secret temptation she’d ever to just escape by herself… check in to a hotel by herself and just be alone.   Let me tell you, I laughed out loud because I can relate.

I wasn’t able to put my finger on it until I heard Tina say the words but I instantly thought, “THAT’S IT!”  That’s exactly my idea of a perfect escape… sometimes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life.  I love being a wife, mother, teacher, house cleaner, laundry person, chef, errand person, taxi, dish washer, boo-boo kisser, nurse, argument solver, etc. etc.  I do… I really DO. 

But there are always those days that pop up… those speed-bumps or detours in the road of an otherwise perfect week or month.  You know what I’m talking about.  Those are usually the days you could find me hiding in the bathroom, playing Sudoku on my phone just to get a few moments by myself.  Now don’t even try and pretend you haven’t done the same thing now… the game you play on your phone might be different but that’s about it! 

Hubby asked if I ever secretly dreamed of the same form of escape as Tina’s character.  While I downplayed my whole-hearted agreement with Tina, I did answer truthfully.  And while I didn’t actually say out loud that a surprise weekend at a local hotel by myself would be the best gift he could ever give me, I may or may not of secretly thought it. 

What about you?  What’s your idea of a perfect escape?  Most of the time, I know we’d all pick a getaway with our hubbies.  But if you could get away solo, what would you want to do? 

Me?  I’d pack a suitcase so full of books, I’d struggle to drag/push/shove it into my hotel room.  I’d take a nice long soak in the tub, pull my hair back, put on a comfy new pair of jammies, brew some coffee and break out the snacks.  I would never step foot out of my room the whole time if I could help it. I’d just rotate between reading through my suitcase full of books and watching movies on tv…

… and wondering what Hubby and the kids were doing…

… and missing them desperately.

No wonder my poor husband can’t figure me out.

REMEMBER!!!

 

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no
forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died
in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will
remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the
…children. “- President Bush

Summer Has Struck!

I’ve been so bad at blogging and had to apologize so many times you must be sick of the broken record.  Truth is, I came to the realization that I just couldn’t  juggle all my homeschooling, laundry, dishes, cleaning, parenting AND blogging.  So I had to take a break, at least for the rest of the school year. 

But guess what??!!  School is OUT!

**kids run, screaming, right on outta the house** 

So that means, blog posts here I come! 

So no more apologizing.  Just know that if I’m not here it’s not because I don’t want to be, it’s because it was the ball that had to be dropped in order to keep the rest of them up in the air.

Coffee, LOTS of Coffee!

I love my country.

I love most of the reasons we are different from the rest of the world.

I love my freedom.

I love my culture (mostly).

I love my freedom to worship my Lord.

I love my freedom to choose to home school.

What I don’t love?

Daylight Savings Time.

Why must America be different from almost every other country when it comes to time change?  I really don’t see any reason to be different in this area!  Sometimes peer pressure can be good, can’t it?  We have electricity after all (another thing I love and appreciate), if the sun goes down and you have more work to do, FLIP A SWITCH for goodness sakes and get back to work!  Why punish us all?!  

“Falling Back” in the Fall isn’t too bad.  But this “Spring Forward” is the pits.  It’s the second day after loosing an hour and I’m all out of whack. 

Yesterday I took a nap after lunch because I was so tired after being up an hour early. 

That’s not so bad though, right?  After all, it was Sunday.  Isn’t that what everyone does on Sunday afternoons? (At least when it’s not football season)

But then I couldn’t fall asleep last night!  Not only was I wide awake because of the nap but I was trying to go to bed an hour earlier than normal!  I was trying desperately to fall asleep and couldn’t. 

  

I watched tv. 

I crocheted. 

I read a book. 

 

I even did my nails.  Fingers and toes.  We won’t talk about how long it’s been since I had enough time and energy to do both of those in the same sitting.  I’d have had to set my bonbons down to do them and I just couldn’t part with those!  And certainly couldn’t tear my eyes away from my hours of soap opera watching to watch where I was apply the polish.

Uh huh.  Yup.  You’re darn-tooting right! 

Anyway, you get the picture.  I wasn’t tired.

You know what’s coming next… This morning I had to get up at 5am.  Yes, that would be 4am per my body clock.  That was no bueno folks.  No bueno at all! 

I just finished my second cup of coffee and I still feel as tired as I did before the first cup. 

My kids are whiney and tired.  My solution is to let them watch tv while I try to pull my own self out of its funk.  I’ll get to the kids’ funk after Curious George… but maybe I’ll wait until after Jane and the Dragon instead. 

How’s your Spring Forward coming along?  Are you dragging yourself back to the coffee pot for the 3rd time in 2 hours?

Don’t worry.  I won’t tell.  

Want to sign my “Banish Daylight Savings” petition?

I’m Slower Than A Turtle

I realize that for most of you, a huge winter snow storm is upon your town and fall colors are long gone.  For me, we finally have snow on the mountains, rain dripping from the sky and puddles to jump in.  Much rejoicing at that.  I love the rain.  And I pretend to love the mess that puddle-jumping brings. 

We still have a few leaves clinging to tree branches but most have fallen to the ground and are awaiting an attack from the rake.  (I personally love the fact that two of children can rake leaves all by themselves this year!)  I did get some photos of our fall colors before they started nose-diving to the ground.  Thought I would share.

You know, bring a little color into your blindingly white surroundings right now. =0)

Happy Friday everyone!

Operation Tomato

About a week ago, I can home with a 25 lb box of beautiful Roma tomatoes from our food co-op/ministry.  We’d had a plethora, and I mean plethora, of tomatoes that week and I just couldn’t stand to see them go to waste.  Besides, my friend “P” had pointed out that she was going to take a box home and make marinara sauce for the freezer.  Being the competitive person that I am, I hastily decided I could/should do it to.   See that Band Wagon rollin’ by??  Watch me jump right on!

Yes, this good ol competitive nature of mine gets me into trouble all the time.  Let’s just say I’m a huge work in progress and leave it at that, shall we?

Anywho… I love P, I loved her idea and I loved the prospect of being a thrifty provider of sorts for my family.   But I don’t think I fully realized the magnitude of marinara sauce that 25 lbs of tomatoes was going to make until I started chopping.  See, added to the whole time issue (good marinara sauce has to simmer for hours folks… hours!), I don’t have a food processor.  My hand-me-down processor from my sweet mother-in-law broke about a year ago and I’m just too cheap to go spend $50+ on another one.  I have hands and a nice big knife after all. 

However, eeeoons  a couple hours later,  after only getting about a third of the tomatoes chopped, I realized I was in trouble.  Not quite like sinking-of-the-Titanic-kind-of-trouble but trouble none the less.  Thankfully, my dear friend A dropped her processor off at my house and saved my sanity the day.  Thanks again A!

I now have many, many, many ziplocs full of marinara sauce in my freezer and I feel prepared for the end of the World.  Or for an army of hungry Italians… which ever comes first.

All that to say, try my Marinara Sauce recipe!  It’s actually my Mom’s recipe for her Lasagna sauce with a few tweaks and additions.  Like onions.  Onions and my Mother are mortal enemies, like they are with a lot people, and so we grew up, for the most part, with onions always omitted from recipes.  I can attest that this recipe is still delish without the onions.  But if you have a not-so-secret love affair with onions like I do, throw those bad boys in and live it up!  

The recipe is listed on the left side of this page, under “Cooking”, or on my Cooking page (click on the “Cooking” header at the top of this page) or you can save yourself the hassle and just click right here. 

Let me know what you think. 

My mom’s Lasagna recipe to follow soon…

Advil Is My Friend

The braces are off my friends!!!

And all I can think about is how badly I want them back ON.

Pathetic isn’t it?!

Retainers aren’t all they are cracked up to be, let me tell you.  My ortho tweaked the bottom one because of a slightly wayward tooth that he wanted to fix.  So the bottom retainer is really tight.  It hurts so bad to pop it off and on that I seriously consider whether or not I need to eat at meal time.  I mean, how hungry am I really?!  And how important is it that I brush my teeth with the retainers off?

I’m kidding, I’m kidding!  I know I have to eat (otherwise I wouldn’t be able to take the Advil that’s pumping through my veins right now without getting sick) and I know I have to brush everything in my mouth separately… I just don’t want to.

At least with braces I could still talk. 

All of a sudden, I have a lisp, I can’t enunciate and no one can understand me.  I feel the need to explain to everyone I talk to, especially complete strangers, the reason “forth whyth I thpeakth the wayth I amth”.

To top it off… gulp! I’m so embarrassed to tell you…

I’ve even whistled a few times while speaking! We’re talking, a mid-sentence, totally loud WHISTLE resounding from my retainer.

Isn’t that horrifying?!  When it happens, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  Maybe I should just immediately stop and holler out over my shoulder, “Train’s a comin’! Get outta the way!!” and then calmly turn back around to the person I was talking to and continue my sentence.

Think that’ll distract from the random retainer-whistle or draw more attention?! lol.  Course, it’d sound more like this:

“Twainth a comin’!! Geth outtha wayth!!”

The absolute cherry on the top of all this is I get to wear these babies, 24/7 for a whole year!  Then I get to go to just at night time. 

Oh glory days.

A Conversation between a 4 year old and a 2 year old

I overheard a hilarious conversation earlier today.  K, a 4 year old friend and girl, and Lil Blue, my 2 year old son, were outside playing around on the bikes.  I heard a bunch of babbling going on so I tuned my supersonic mommy-hearing in to fine-tune the babble…

K,”Yeah!  And you know what?  When I was three I couldn’t use the pedals but now I’m big and I can”

LB, “Oh! Yeah! eyoi soi choo!  Cows POOOOP!” (face scrunched in gross-out expression)

K, “…and I also couldn’t get my shoes on, or brush my hair but now I’m BIG and I can do EVERYthing!” (staring at her cute shoes as she pedals around the back yard)

LB,”Oh! Yeah! babble crabble soo-soo AAAAAHHHHH! Horse POOOOOOOP!! (again, face scrunched in expression of extreme gross out)

K,”…yeah, I love to dress up.  I do it all the time” (twirling around, again staring at her cute shoes)

LB, starting to tune her out since he has no more animal poop statements…

K, “…and I’ve memorized all my multiplication tables and I’m learning to divide and figure square roots.  Last night, just for fun, I started reading War and Peace” (this time twirling a section of her hair with her fingers)

LB, completely tuned out now and sucking on the muzzle of a (plastic) squirt gun while holding the grip with both hands and pedaling around on his trike.

Okay, so K didn’t really say anything about her multiplication knowledge or reading skills.  I tend to exaggerate just a tad.  But that’s what she might as well as said since I felt like my 2 year old was the blunt caveman of the pair.  I almost expected him to blurt out something like, “Fire HOT.  Me HUNGRY.  You COOK!” 

Actually, that might be a little too much vocab for him.  We’ve got a few more animal pooping facts to work through before he’s ready to move on to more caveman vocabulary.  Hmmm, should we discuss sheep, pigs or birds at lunchtime today?

** as a side note, the whole pooping statements started last week when we were at Poppet’s riding lesson.  LB and I were talking and petting the horses when one moved to just the right angle to completely display his pooping excellence to us.  LB just stood there, two feet from the action, his eyes bugging out of his head and a very serious furrow to his brow.  The pooping comments have been never ending ever since.  And he’ll throw ‘em down at any given moment.  He likes to show off like that.  **

*** As an additional side note, there’s nothing quite so soothing to a frazzled, over-analyzing momma brain, than to see her young son walking around with the muzzle of a gun in his mouth.  Yeaaahhh… I’m going to have nightmarish mental flashes of that one for eternity **

Works For Me Wednesday 4/15/09

I just saw the most fabulous tips on TLC… brought to you courtesy of Swiffer. *wink*

Do you have rugs on your hardwood, tile, or linoleum floors?  I do.  Instead of buying those no-slip rubber pad thingies to put under the rug… you know, the pads that cost as much as the rug itself?  Yep, those are the ones.  Well, put that bad boy back up on the shelf and whip out some caulk instead.  Do some zig-zaggin’ lines along the underside of your rug, LET IT DRY, and then lay it back down on the floor. 

An instant, non-slipping rug!

I don’t know about you, but that makes me smile. 

AND thank Mr. Swiffer for sponsoring such a fantastic, CHEAP tip that I can actually use.

Now I’m off to locate our caulk.  It shouldn’t be too hard, we only have half a zillion tubes of it between our garage and shed.  Please tell me we’re not the only ones with a plethora of caulk.  No? Huh?  Maybe we are the only ones…

Anyway, GO!  Be off with you to locate your caulk too!  If you can’t find any, I’d be happy to mail you one of my half-empty spares.  And after that, go check out We Are THAT Family for more great tips and advice.

A New Favorite

Have you noticed my absence lately?  Well, it’s for a few different reasons.  Trying for better time management, trying to NOT ignore my children and NOT to escape so much into bloggyland… but also I’ve been struggling with Satan.  He was working OT last week on my emotions.

One of the emotional battles I’ve been dealing with is because a couple weeks ago I received news that a childhood family friend was diagnosed with stage 5 cancer.

He’s been given 3 months to live.

He’s 37.

He has two children, 7 and 5.

BUT!  He has an amazing relationship with his Lord.  He is happy to have the opportunity to live in the light of only months to live. He is looking forward to meeting Jesus face to face.

I had a weird thought as I was watching LOST this week… is it weird to be in his shoes and be watching a show like that, knowing that you will never know the answers to all these plots that are going on? I’m afraid I was quite peturbed by that thought. I think because it actually put a little of his diagnosis into perspective. I mean, I am far more grieved for his children, who will have to grow up with out him and for him to miss out on their lives, than I am by him missing tv – TRUST me. But I think that is kind of a “fuzzy” thought to me. I can try to imagine what it would be like but I really cannot grasp that concept. But somehow, in relation to LOST, it hits home. I hope that makes some sort of sense.

About the same time as I got word on my friend, a (different) friend and I had the opportunity to go to the Rock and Worship Concert in our area. FABULOUS! It was an effort headed up by MercyMe and Jeremy Camp to put on a great show for a low cost ($10 you guys! Seriously! That’s all it was to get in!) . I confess I went mostly to see them as a fan not really for the worship opportunity. But wow! Did God ever have different ideas for me. He used it to help begin the process of breaking me out of a serious funk. One of the bands was Tenth Avenue North who I had never heard before. I instantly loved them. They actually posted the words to their songs on the big screen so we could sing along… I felt invited to actually worshipwith them instead of just being a concert-goer.  And when the songs have such powerful, no-holds-barred words, well, you can’t help appreciate it.  Here’s a few of my favorites that I found on youtube. 

The third one you have to go to youtube to see.  Click here

I think I went a bit overboard in my youtube-ing but know that I did practice some restraint… there were at least three more that I wanted to share with you.   In fact, one I’ve saved to share with you on Easter. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I promise I’ll have happier posts in the future