Not Inadequate

All right, I’m not trying to talk All Teevee, All the Time around here, but I HAVE to get some things off my chest.

• First, what the heck was Heidi Klum wearing on Project Runway last week? Hammer pants? I have googled the entire internet trying to find a picture of this, but maybe Heidi realized the error of her ways and had them all scrubbed out. Here is the video at Lifetime, the Pants appear at 4:15 in. You don’t have to watch it, but there are HAMMER PANTS. If embedded music didn’t make me want to drive a spike in my ear, and if I knew how to do it, then this would be the moment.

• Second, I hate cliffhangers. We have been finishing up our Tivo’d stash of the summer cable shows (Covert Affairs, White Collar, Burn Notice, Rizzoli & Isles…) and most of them ended with someone getting shot at the end! So. Annoying. Lookit. Here’s the thing – cliffhangers always leave me manipulated and irritated about it. They might as well flash a message on the screen in big letters:

We don’t think you’ll watch our show again, so here’s a big, stupid, dramatic ending! See you next year!

I watch the shows I like and I don’t watch the shows I don’t like. The end. As a matter of fact, I like shows that aren’t all soapy with big plot arcs. Shows where everything is nicely encapsulated, like on Law & Order. You miss one and it doesn’t matter; the cops are going to bust some new punks next week. I have very little tolerance in my viewing schedule for soap operas. I really like the show Parenthood, and that is soapy enough for me.

• Thirdly, how did I go all last year without realizing the hilariousness that is Cougar Town? They made a mistake naming that show. I found it so off-putting that I never even gave it a try. However, occasionally I would see little snippets of it and I always thought they were funny. I put it at the top of my Netflix cue and nearly peed my pants laughing three nights last week.

Okay, that’s it. Now, doesn’t everyone feel a little better talking that out?

Wait – one more time  – HAMMER PANTS.

This is what I made for dinner last night -

Fried Chicken! Which I normally don’t make, because I hate frying stuff. It makes a mess and then the house smells like stale grease for two days. But Big decided he might like chicken, and I jump all over any idea that is not noodles. It was easy and it only has 4 ingredients. That’s how I like it. If I’m doing real cooking (not just thawing-and-serving one of my freezer meals), it had better not have a lot of ingredients.

It was rated “we should have this again tomorrow!” by my crew, which is very high praise indeed.

Panko-Crusted Fried Chicken

• 1 package Tyson Trimmed and Ready Thin Chicken Breasts
• 1 box panko
• 2 eggs
• flour
• seasonings (salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, etc)

I like the Trimmed and Ready Chicken because I have Chicken Issues, and I don’t have to touch it too much. Feel free to do whatever you like if you are not similarly afflicted – chicken tenders would be great here. The thin chicken works well to accomodate my sub-disorder, Fear of Undercooked Poultry. Plus, I think the panko might burn in the time it would take to cook a thicker piece of chicken.

Get three paper plates and set out your dredging ingredients. Flour in the first one (season it with whatever you like); the two eggs (beaten) in the second one; and about 2/3 of the box of panko in the third. Season the panko really well, too. Dredge away – flour, then eggs, then panko. Have a hot skillet with a couple tablespoons of oil waiting, on about medium/medium low heat. I have a 10″ skillet and I fried two pieces at a time. Some of the panko fell off and got a little burn-y, so I wiped out the skillet with a paper towel in between batches and added fresh oil.

Fry till done, which is about 165 degrees for chicken. I have one of these, and I’ve never had undercooked chicken or overdone steak since.

Ta Da! Pretty quick and delish. The panko is the secret ingredient here. It makes super crisy chicken with very little effort. If you are one of Those People, you could probably make an oven-baked version of this easy-peasy. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!

• Get your cheese out of your pants

• Get your fork out of your armpit

• You better put that tongue back in your mouth before I pinch it off

• If you break your head open doing that, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you

Thank goodness Fall is finally peeking around the corner. I love Fall. Fall feels like the beginning of a new year to me more than January does. Sweaters, boots, new school supplies…and finally the end of summer.

I’ve kept this to myself, so as not to appear overly Scrooge-like, but I HATE summer. I REALLY hate it. The bugs, the heat, the glaring sun, the boob sweat, the swarms of sullen teenagers that seem to clog up everything. Every September, I breathe a little sigh of relief that it’s over. I do have to put up with football season, but I can’t have it all.

Fall makes me excited to knit all over again. I didn’t do a lot of knitting over the summer because it was hot enough without putting a big pile of wool in my lap. But now, the air is crisping up, and my thoughts are turning to Christmas projects and playing in the snow. I want to pick something and cast on, but I have a big stack of unfinished projects and I should probably figure out what I am doing with those before I start yarn-ho-ing around.

In each one of these bags is an unfinished project, or a work-in-progress as the optimistic call them.

First up, we have an abandoned sock monkey and about an inch of Tunisian Crochet, both destined for the frog pond. I do want to learn how to do Tunisian Crochet, but that bit isn’t going to be anything decent, and all it’s doing is reminding me that I have NOT learned to crochet. The monkey…well, the monkey was going to be a baby gift, but it was really annoying to knit. The yarn looks cool though. Maybe I’ll call the governor and get a stay of execution. Poor thing.

This one isn’t going to be frogged, but I don’t know if I’ll ever knit it’s mate. I should frame it and pretend it’s art.

Next, two more things that were are supposed to be gifts. This is a blanket that was is supposed to go to the same baby as the sock monkey. I started it back when they were still in the Trying To Get Pregnant Stage. The baby is now 8 months old. If I manage to knit 1/4 of a blanket every two years, plus time for sewing it up…I might have it done by the time he’s in high school. I should shoot for 1st birthday, though. It would still be a nice pressie.

This is a felted vest that I started for my son about a year and a half ago. The thing about knitting for kids is that their stuff is small and goes quicker. On the other hand, they outgrow things in ten minutes – or, you know, in TWO YEARS. All I need to do here is finish up the i-cord around the edge and I’m done. This would be good football knitting, and maybe I can give it to him at Christmas.

And he can then save it for his son, because it will be too small.

I started a matching one for his sister, but I’m not going to keep embarassing myself by showing yet another project with only 3 inches knitted. Besides, it lives in the same project bag as the blue sweater, so it doesn’t count.

Finally, we have some projects that actually have a chance of getting finished.

A Noro Two-Row Scarf by Jared Flood. I love how this is turning out. It’s easy and it’s pretty. I usually take it to Knit Night because I can gossip and knit it at the same time.

A weird ribbed hat in Denver Broncos colors. I love this yarn. I use it all the time and I know the gauge, but for some reason it’s turning out gigantic. Oh well, we always need more hats around here, and it wasn’t a real pattern – I was just making it up in my head after I saw something similar online. They’ll probably use it to haul legos.

Lastly, a fingerless glove.

This yarn used to be unbearably hideous and was a gift from my mother-in-law. She went to Peru last year and when she said she’d brought me back some real Peruvian fiber, I was SO EXCITED. But then it turned out to be 20 skeins in a variegated shade of Cotton-Candy pink, Needs-to-Drink-More-Water yellow, and white.

It was maybe the ugliest thing I have ever seen. And it was 100% baby alpaca! Such a waste. I took it to knit night to get some sympathy from my buddies, and one of them suggested over-dying it. I told her she could have half if she did it, and she put some kind of purple-y color on it. It’s about a thousand times better now. These will eventually be a gift for the same mother-in-law that gave me the yarn. If she remembers that this is not the original color, I’ll just tell her that it was too ugly for human eyes and I had to fix it.

So there they are, all my half-assed unfinished projects, lying naked for the world three people to see. Maybe exposing myself like this will inspire me to Just Finish Something Already!

I was over reading Connie at The Young and Relentless, and she was talking about turning 40 and setting goals and stuff along those lines. I have seven months left until I am f…fff….FORTY.

It hurts a little bit to say that number.

Forty is a number I associate with my parents. When my mom was forty, I was in COLLEGE. When I got married, she was all of forty-three. When I turn forty, I am hoping to finally be past the stage of my life when I am getting my foot peed on regularly by a potty training person.

Anyway, I like this idea of having some goals. Things to accomplish before I turn forty. Or Black Sunday as I might start calling it. One new thing a month, that’s not too much, right? Us elderly people have to pace ourselves, you know.

Seven Things

• Learn to make my own tortillas
• Learn to crochet, at least a little
• Learn to weave
• Touch every. single. thing we own and make a conscious decision about it
• Figure out how to use McLinky and host a blog hop
• Get a new camera and actually read the instructions (this one is far-fetched on so many levels)
• Figure out what I want to do when I grow up

All right, that doesn’t look so bad. Probably I should have put in a couple soft-ball goals, like Eat More Chocolate or Go To The Movies, but I’ll give these a shot.

If I fail, don’t think I won’t delete this post in 6 months and just pretend like this never happened. Being a better person wasn’t on the list.

I never go into the dollar section at Target. The stuff in it has always looked like mostly lead-infused choking hazards. But a while back I was reading Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and she showed us this fantastic pencil caddy she made out of some little buckets she found. So the next time I was at Target, I went into the dollar section and checked it out.

I hit the motherload. I found all these awesome flash cards for a dollar. A DOLLAR.

I bought every kind they had. Each card has a picture on the front and some quick facts on the back.

For example, did you know that Daddy Long-Legs are not spiders? No. They are merely 8-legged arachnids. They do not produce silk and do not have venom.

Did you know that a giant picture of a flea is, in fact, just as nasty as you might imagine? No? You’re welcome.

Unfortunately, I am the kind of person who initially made a bunch of stupid rules. Like they could only have only one pack of cards open at a time; they had to sit still and be super careful; and they had to put them back in the impossible-to-operate-if-you-are-three box when they were done. I don’t know what I was thinking. What was I gonna do – save them until they’re old enough to be gentle? By that time they will be going off to college and no longer interested. THEY WERE A DOLLAR. 

I told myself to get over myself and stop being such a stupid-head prissy-pants.

So I bought this incredibly ugly Flash Card Storage Facility (aka vinyl shoe holder) and hung it up in my office. We did away with the annoying boxes altogether and put one set of cards in each pocket. They can get to them whenever they want, and really – who cares if they get lost or bent or mixed up? THEY WERE A DOLLAR.

Sorry, I have to keep telling myself that. I’m trying to beat back my inner Martha Stewart. Who does not have a vinyl shoe holder anywhere near her. Ever.

Dudes. It’s so hideous, it hurts me a little. 

On the other hand, maybe I will feel a smug sense of Homeschool Mom Awesomeness every time I see it, since I put access to learning tools ahead of my own need for non-vinyl decorating accessories.

Dear Tiny People Who Live Here:

KEEP YOUR FOOD OVER YOUR PLATES.

I don’t understand this compulsion to discover what is going on directly behind you when you are eating. No matter where I put your chairs, you constantly twist around, spraying food in a 5 foot radius. Like a lawn sprinkler. Except with crumbs.

Knock it off.

Sincerely,

I-am-a-Mommy-not-a-scullery-maid

My kids are being so naughty lately. They don’t listen, they don’t do what I tell them, and every five minutes someone comes running in to tattle that they got hit or pinched or had their hair pulled. I tell them if they can’t play nice together, they should play separately. And then they start whining and crying about THAT.

I am at a loss. My daughter is three, which was a very tough age with my son. It’s been a shock to me, because for so long he was the difficult one and she was the little princess who sat in my lap and told me sweet baby secrets. Now she’s all like, “Check me OUT, Naughty Girl is HERE and there’s nothing YOU can do about it!” and then she rolls cigarettes up in the sleeve of her white t-shirt, throws her leg over a tiny Harley, and smirks at me from behind mirrored sunglasses. 

I am fed up. Tonight I shrieked at them to knock it off so loudly I thought my larnyx might explode. Maybe that’s the problem – my voice is pitched to that hysterical level only dogs can hear. I told them if they acted like this tomorrow, they would spend the entire day alone in their rooms. They are each sitting in a corner right now, and I am vomiting this up all over the internets because it’s better than listening to that awful screechy fishwife that passes herself off as a mommy around here. I don’t like her. I wish she would go away and someone who loves noise and dirt and glitter crafts would come instead.

*******

At one o’clock in the morning, Little woke up crying about monsters in her room. I gathered her Elmo doll and her blankie, and brought her into bed with me. She pressed her tiny warm body against mine; her small arms stole around my neck and she whispered over and over, “I just love you, mommy.” I squeezed her even tighter and remembered, “oh. . . I know you. . . .I love you more than anything on earth and we will be best friends forever.” And my tears plastered her silky hair to my cheek.

 Dear Politician:

I find it irritating to get a machine when I am the person doing the calling.

Anyone who thinks I am going to be thrilled to put down a plate of cupcakes only to discover a RECORDING on the other end of the phone is an arrogant moron.

Sincerely,

I-think-you’re-all-liars-so-leave-me-alone