Not Inadequate

• I am at Heart of the Matter Online today, talking some more about Freezer Cooking. I am posting my amazing meatloaf/meatball recipe at the end of the article. I’d love to get enough questions to do a Q&A in a couple of weeks, so throw a girl a bone and ask me some freezer cooking questions in the comments over there.

You know, if you want. No pressure.

• My mother-in-law was here last week, so this will be brief and possibly lame as I struggle to recover.

• While I was getting ready so we could go pick her up at the airport, I was in the bathroom debating whether to wear makeup while Jim took a shower.

Me: staring in the mirror, fretting over wrinkles. “I can see the beginning of the old lady face. Look here, do you see this? I can see the bags of the future.”

Jim: “I can’t see anything….”

Me, thinking: AWwww!

Jim: “….I don’t have my glasses on”

• So far, everywhere we’ve stayed has ant problems. I am so sick of ants, I can’t even tell you. There was an exceedingly ugly incident wherein I thought I had an eyelash in my eye but when I looked in the mirror to get it out, IT WAS AN ANT.

I HAD AN ANT IN MY EYE.

MY EYE, PEOPLE.

It must have gotten on my hand when I was putting my contacts in.

There was screaming and then crying.

And maybe some cursing.

Anyhow, last week I was cruising around Pinterest and I saw a recipe for homemade ant poison.

That picture is disgusting, isn’t it? But I was encouraged by the comments that this stuff works, so I ordered some Boric Acid from Amazon (I love you, Amazon), and whipped up a batch.

It worked! I vanquished the ants! There were 3 or 4 ants milling around in the bathroom when I set the poison out. Pretty soon there was a whole line of ants, marching up and down the wall, taking the poison home to mummy. It was SO GROSS.

I may or may not have felt compelled to check on the ants every couple of hours and whisper “Die ants, DIE!” After about 24 hours, they were all gone!

I thought about getting a little ant carcass and hanging it in effigy to warn any future interlopers, but that seemed like a lot of trouble.

Nature needs to keep the heck out of my house.

• Happy Monday, y’all!

• Last week, we moved from our VRBO in Oregon (that link is to the actual house we stayed in) to a new VRBO in Washington. I miss Oregon very much. I could probably stay on the beach forever and be happy.

A little closer to a Target than we were, but still.

• The new house is bigger, and has another bathroom. We have a very narrow strip of pebble-y beach outside the back door, and are on a calm bay. The kids have been tormenting the local crab population and watching birds.

Yep. I’ve been sucked in to more dratted bird watching. I ordered Birds of Washington State from Amazon. It should be here on Wednesday, so brace yourself for more insightful bird news. We even bought binoculars. I’m annoyed that I am now the person who hollers from the window, “YOU GUYS! There’re BIRDS out there! Come look!” I never in my life gave a hang about birds. Until now.

Homeschooling is ruining my lust for inactivity.

In fact, I interrupted writing this post to go watch the seagulls dig mussels or something out of the pebbles, then fly up high and drop them. This must break the shell open, for they fly back down again and dig something gross and slimy out of it.

• I had to fix the toilet paper holder in this house. I know I am just a renter, but it was upside down. And dudes, I can’t live like that.

• My mother-in-law is coming on Thursday for 3 days. She has never stayed in our house longer than 3 hours. I am very nervous. Pity me.

• Last Thursday, Big brought over some Lego creation and told me it was a portcullis.

I was mystified.

I said, “what are you talking about? what is that? where did you hear that word?”

He’s all, “it’s a gate thing on a castle” and he showed me a picture of it in his Lego book. But I don’t see that WORD anywhere, and can’t figure out where it came from or if he’s using it right, or if it’s even a word at all. And he couldn’t remember where he heard it, either.

So I googled it.

portcullis – gate consisting of an iron or wooden grating that hangs in the entry to a castle or fortified town; can be lowered to prevent passage.

Uh-Huh. Okay.

I guess that’s it then. My services are no longer needed.

Bring on the bon-bons and Real Housewives!

• I love Pinterest so much that I had Sheila from Blog Designs by Sheila make me a new button. See? Up there on the left? By the Twitter button? Isn’t it cute? If anyone wants any matchy bloggy buttons, send Sheila an email. She always gets back to me in, like, 30 minutes with perfection. And if any of you are on Teh Pinterest, feel free to follow the navel-gazing pinboards of a compulsive pinner!

• We spent the weekend cleaning the house we’ve been in and packing up our stuff. We are heading to Washington state this week! Also, deep cleaning a house that I’ve only half-heartedly swiped at for the last 10 weeks has brought me to a new realization: we are pigs. Gag.

• Happy Monday, y’all!

• I am at Heart of the Matter today, beginning a series on one of my true passions – freezer cooking. If anyone is interested in how I avoid cooking for weeks on end, while still feeding my family something besides endless pb&j sammies, head over and check it out. I’m taking questions too, so don’t be shy. (Tressa, I was partially inspired to write this for you, since Sucky Friend Deb STILL has not emailed you any recipes. Now I can kill two birds with one stone! Lazy FTW!)

• My kids are still asking for Christmas dvds and Christmas songs. We’ve been listening to Christmas music since, like, OCTOBER. People can only handle so much of the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Boogie Woogie Christmas. And by “people,” I mean me.

• The government apparently wants to break the internet by passing some bill called the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA). I’m not sure why, but it is in keeping with their policy of “If Ain’t Broke, Quick! Do Something!” (more here, here, and here).

• Jimmie (one day we will wake up and discover that the amazing Jimmie has taken over the entire internet) wrote a great article on Hub Pages last week called Online Friends are Real Friends. I like this article because a) I think everything in it is true; and b) because it makes me feel better about how much affection I feel for my internet buddies. I know that non-online people don’t get what it’s like to feel like part of an imaginary community… Seeing people I know on Pinterest or homeschool forums is like running into a neighbor at the grocery store. Twitter is like bumping into a friend at Starbucks and sitting down to catch up for a quick minute.

Anyway. Not trying to get all mushy here. But AH LUV Y’ALL, MAN. Mwah!

• We will be leaving this house in a couple of weeks; and while I will miss the wild, beautiful, fairy-tale-like Oregon Coast, I am looking forward to moving on to a bigger house. Constantly explaining that “Daddy’s on the phone and doesn’t want to listen to your treatise on Proper Flushing Technique” is getting old; and the noise of six thousand Legos being stirred in a bucket is driving me to the very precipice of sanity.

Legos need a room of their own.

Preferably far away from my ears.

Amen.

• The other day, I was linking around the interwebs and somehow ended up at a rabbit hole called Blogthings. It’s a personality quiz site, and I can’t resist a good quiz. Back when I subscribed to the soul-sucking, inferiority-complex-causing publication called Cosmo, I always did the quizzes first.

I started at What Does Your Handbag Say About You and it was all downhill from there. The results alternately insulted me (You would fail 8th grade Spanish!), complimented me (You’re so Organized!) and confused me (You’re an INTJ! No, wait – You’re an ISTJ! Either way, you’re a Boring JudgeyPants!) Go take The World’s Shortest Personality Quiz and see if it’s even in the ballpark. It called me Status Conscious. Which I don’t think is true….I think it’s more that I like orange.

• Big lost his first tooth! As a result of this, I have morphed from the kind of person who thinks keeping baby teeth in a pouch forever is creepy, to being the kind of person who is searching for the perfect baby-tooth storage pouch. I know in 20 years when we are sifting through my stuff and we come across the tiny tooth pouch, that he will be all “mom, gross! who would save teeth?” And I agree that’s it’s gross. But I can’t seem help myself.

Actually, those last two sentences apply to many things about motherhood, don’t they?

• Happy Monday!

• Last week, my son made some kind of Lego army. He was trying to get across to me that it was an ancient battle they were fighting. He said, “you know mom – it was back in olden-lego times.”

• On Saturday, my daughter perused the stack of presents under the tree and asked me gravely if perhaps I had made a mistake and weren’t some of the ones labeled “Big” really meant for “Little?”

• I love all the planning and whispering and gift buying and secret keeping, and cookie making eating that comes with Christmas, but I’m pretty much over the big dinner. For one thing, the kitchen where we are staying is minuscule; and for another, I’m tired of being the person who frets over gravy while everyone else is playing with new toys or napping surreptitiously on the couch. I decided food requiring a large oven or gravy-making skills was out, but was paralyzed with indecision about what was in. PARALYZED. I didn’t get any cooperation from my family in talking about it, either.

Finally, I screeched told them that if no one wanted to talk about Christmas dinner, I would be dipping Cheetos in a can of frosting and they would be on their own.

We eventually went to the grocery store on Christmas Eve, where I bought fixings for about three different kinds of hot sandwiches, fruit, and marshmallow fluff to make fruit dip, which has to be the most delicious food abomination ever. Jim bought stuff to make pie.

It was fine. And frankly, no one around here cares about the big dinner. They might when they are older, but for now, setting food on the table where they can dash over and stuff a bite or two in their mouths before racing back to the action works for us.

I did have Jim make some mashed potatoes, because scrounging leftovers at 9 o’clock in the darkened kitchen by the light of the refrigerator is my favorite part of the day. Last night for Second Dinner, I piled my potatoes high with meatballs, sliced tri-tip and jus, and was content.

• Happy It’s-Over-Let’s-Relax-Finally Week, internet! I love you guys!

Lookit people. I just discovered this Handmade Ryan Gosling site. If you have ever done anything even remotely crafty, you’ve GOT to check it out. It’s hot. And hysterical. And hot.

I mean, come ON. This stuff is hilarious! Add it to your reader forthwith.

PS – he’s also on Twitter.

PPS – my husband doesn’t get it. I don’t get why he doesn’t get it. It’s bothering me.

• This is worth reading and thinking about. The slippery slope of moral and cultural relativism. A Teacher’s Surprising Discovery.

My question is this: How can we combat this increasingly pervasive attitude when we have no common ground of ethics and morals from which to begin? It would be more pleasant to stab oneself repeatedly in the ear with a shrimp fork than to reason with someone who doesn’t think hacking a woman’s nose and ears of is WRONG.

• We recently discovered Phineas & Ferb, which is actually a very cool show. I usually am pretty strict with the kids and teevee (in a completely hypocritical way, because I LOVE television), and have limited them to PBS Kids thus far. Watching Phineas & Ferb has the amusing side effect  of Big making all sort of Lego -inators like Dr. Dooffenshmirtz (which has to be the best name of a villain EVER). Today he announced he had made a disobeyinator which would make everyone naughty. I told him in that case, I might need to make a spankinator.

• Little has started back up with referring to herself in the third person, which I find absolutely hysterical. I asked her what she wanted for lunch last week, and she remarked rather coolly that “Little prefers cake for lunch.”

• Yesterday, Little and I were in the car waiting for her dad and brother to buy some Raid -

apparently ants are quite prevalent here and the owners sent over some all-natural, tree hugging ant whisperer to persuade the ants to exit the house. The ants laughed, then ran inside and set up a tiny carnival in the bathroom sink.

- and she announced that she had 100 babies in her tummy, and she was going to name them all after herself. Tomorrow, when she is finally a grown-up, she will be hatching them.

• Just so you know, I realize that this is not the most riveting blog content. I write a lot of this stuff down as a note to myself, because I want to remember it forever. I mean, I could have 100 grandbabies hatching tomorrow! Who wouldn’t want to remember that?

• Have a good week, peeps!

Updated to Add: This morning I received an email from a reader who told me about her brother, who is trapped in a Filipino hospital until he can pay his bill. He is a former Marine who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his family desperately wants to get him home to a hospital better equipped to treat him. After talking it over with my husband, I am going to donate. I don’t think it’s a scam, although I suppose the possibility exists. I’d rather lose a few bucks than risk ignoring a real need. I have a soft spot for Marines, so…  Here is a link to the donation page if you want to check it out – http://www.gofundme.com/b6w3k .

• The ocean! It’s big!

You are just going to have to get used to lots of ocean pictures. I’m enthralled.

• My daughter turned five last week. Five!

She was quite into it this year, informing us that she was going to be The Boss of Everything for the whole day! Every time I said anything to her, she was all “I knew that already, because I’m FIVE now.”

• Big’s birthday is this week, and he will be seven. Seven! When did those tiny babies grow up this much? Their birthdays are exactly one week apart. I know a lot of people think December birthdays suck, but I’ve always liked it because it turns the whole month into a big party. I also love that their birthdays are so close together, it’s something they can celebrate together forever.

• On Sunday we noticed that Big has a tooth coming in – behind his baby tooth.

The baby tooth is not loose at all.

And we are 2000 miles from our dentist.

The dentist that told us a month ago everything was fine in there.

So that’s awesome.

We found a local dentist who is going to take a look at it, and probably extract the baby tooth.

Even more awesome.

I wasn’t afraid of the dentist when I was a kid. But when I turned 30, the warranty ran out on my teeth and I have since endured three root canals. Three! Two of them were in the same tooth because I mistakenly thought I could put off getting a crown for a while. The thought of the dentist makes me a nervous wreck. I don’t want my poor baby to fear the dentist because he had to get a tooth yanked out on his very second visit.

Gah. My stomach hurts just thinking about that giant needle. I’ve seen smaller caulking guns.

• On Saturday we went for a long walk to the beach. We wanted to go in part because it was a very special low tide – apparently the tide is only that low once a month.

We saw clam-y things!

And starfish!

STARFISH, people!

Amazing!

• Have a good week, peeps!

Update: The local dentist discovered that the baby teeth are, in fact, loose, and will probably fall out on their own. She warned us that the new tooth will look worse before it looks better; and I’m just reading between the lines here, but “better” seems likely to happen sometime in the future when we begin paying a fortune for elaborate orthodontia. So that’s something to look forward to.

• I am writing this on Friday night, and we are getting ready for the drive to Oregon. We went to Target to pick up the requisite snacks for the drive, and I saw this -

SQUEEZABLE FRUIT. What is that? Just mashed up fruit? In a bag? Is chewing too much work now? I see the bag has some kind of spout to suck your fruit from. I suppose that would come in handy if you were an astronaut. Or if gravity disappeared suddenly. It’s organic. That’s…something.

Horrifying.

• Here’s what bugs me when I go into a Walmart or a Target – the entrance doors are on the left and the exit doors are on the right. Every time I try to go into a store, I have to negotiate a stream of people with full buggys exiting the store.

We walk on the RIGHT in this country. The RIGHT. I want to  enter a store on the RIGHT.

• As we were checking out, I saw that the checker was bagging cleaning supplies with  food. I don’t know if they don’t teach checkers this stuff anymore or what. It seems like common sense to me, but when I started rearranging stuff, she gave me A Look. I said apologetically, “I don’t want chemicals in with food”  and she goes “oh” with a blank look on her face. And then she asks, “what about a magazine, can that go in there?”

And I was all like MAGAZINES are FINE, just don’t put the ATHLETES FOOT CREAM in with the CHEERIOS, YOU NINNY. But not out loud. Because I have self-control like that.