Crawfish adventures...

Yesterday we went fishing with some friends. We loaded up their Trail Blazer and headed for Strawberry Reservoir. We were only slightly concerned about weather conditions justifying our excursion by saying that the overcast weather would help the fishing and it would be totally worth a few raindrops on us. Once we found a spot we drug all of our gear down the hill and started to make the fire... and continued to try to make a fire. The wind was blowing so fiercely that we all had to huddle around our little pile of sticks to keep the wind from blowing our little fire out before it grew big enough to handle that much wind. Needless to say we were cold for a while. Once we got the fire started I began roasting the hot dogs we had brought for lunch while Dave strung up his rod and had a round of unfruitful casting. Bradley was off to investigate every inch of the new area and see just how much trouble he could get into since mom was busy with the fire. We had a wet lunch given that as soon as I cooked the first round of hot dogs the clouds fell open and dumped right on us. I was beginning to think 5pm couldn't come soon enough. The weather calmed down a little bit later and since there was still no fish to speak of, Dave suggested that I tie a piece of hot dog on a line and see if we could catch some crawfish. I did as I was instructed thinking that it was the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard. I sat on the edge of a rock watching to see if I could see a fish or something swim by when suddenly I saw a shadow moving quickly across the rocks a little ways under the water. "Hey!" I called, "I think I see one!" Dave came running over and confirmed my suspicion. By then there were two of them and being the impatient person that I am (and not wanting to ruin a piece of hot dog if I didn't have to) ran over to get the fish net we had brought. I balanced myself on a dry rock by where the crawfish was crawling and reached out as far as I could without falling in. It wasn't quite far enough. The water was deceptively deeper than I thought so I had a decision to make. Either wait for it to get closer or step down into ankle deep, freezing water. Now this is our dinner we are talking about here. Not just some creature I wanted to poke. We had gone out to get dinner and no one else seemed to be having any luck so I made my decision. I stepped into the water as smoothly as I could and I ever so slowly glided the net over the crawfish. As I pulled the net up from the rocky bottom of the lake I couldn't believe what was in my net! One medium sized crawfish clung to the fishing net probably a little more shocked than I was. I ran him over to the cooler and dropped him in as quickly as I could so I could go scout some more. About 3 hours later we had 4 pieces of hot dog out on different lines in a few areas of the lake and I was scooping them out of the water every 15 minutes or so. As we were packing up there was a whole slew of them coming out to eat and I was able to come home with 16 in total!! We didn't catch anything else that day but with soaking wet clothes and my lucky net I was able to bring home the bacon (or in this case the crawfish). That was enough for my ego! I came home and started looking up recipes for what to do with them. Normally when you get 16 of something it's a pretty good meal. However, with crawfish you don't get that lucky. After boiling them with some spices and veggies I peeled them and barely got 2oz of meat out of them. My poor little ego shrank in embarrassment. We will be eating my spoils tonight with dinner instead of as dinner.
Not to fret though for I will be out there again very soon and this time I will bring home enough bacon (crawfish) to feed the whole family!!

Costco is domesticating me!

This past week Dave was able to get a discount on a Costco membership through DSA. We decided that even if we didn't have the money to go there for groceries all the time, it would be worth it to get the membership for the gas. Lately it's been all doom and gloom about the economy, gas, and all other things financial. I get it. People are scared, and it's better to be paranoid and prepared than ignorant and helpless. So we went to Costco last weekend and picked up some groceries since we had some extra money from our tax return. Costco also gave us a cookbook for signing up. I thumbed through it for two days, drooling over every picture. I have a soft spot for cookbooks. I get so excited just holding one in my hand. Yes, you can get a lot of the recipes online and there are tons of websites that are very helpful no matter what skill level you are cooking. I just don't get the same feeling from a website that I do when I am scouring pages in a cookbook. It feels like I am sitting in their kitchen talking with them about these recipes. Whomever "they" may be. I just love it. I could only hope to come up with enough of my own recipes that are worth publishing. I'm on my way though. With our Costco membership we have decided to expand my repertoire. Twice a month I will be experimenting with new ingredients. This time was a bag of frozen seafood. I saw it and immediately became enamored with the idea of a seafood medley alfredo. I love seafood. I ache for seafood at certain times of the year and the bag that I bought is enough to do three different dinners. Here is my first:


I used a simple alfredo recipe that only took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Added that to some spaghetti noodles I had in the pantry, and steamed some broccoli. It came out delicious! Even Bradley has been asking for more days later. I haven't decided what to do with the rest of the bag of seafood, but if it comes out good, it will be on here.

While at Costco I also picked up a few "dream" items as I call them. You know what I'm talking about. The items that aren't necessary for existence but they make your existence worth living... like strawberries. I love strawberries! I found 4lbs of strawberries at Costco and try as I might I couldn't leave the store without them. Best decision I have made in the last month or so. I have strawberries to snack on, strawberries for baking, strawberries for cereal and best of all... strawberries for pancakes with freshed whipped cream made by yours truly.


By the way, I make the best whipped cream on Earth! Not gloating... just fact. :)

I also made some rhubarb hand pies this past week that came out pretty good. It was the first time I had ever attempted anything like this. I got the recipe from a link to Kitchen Confidant on foodgawker.com. Best website ever by the way. Mine don't look nearly as good as hers, but I was pretty proud of my first attempt.



That is what I have been up to for the past week or so. I've spent more time in the kitchen lately than I ever have before and I couldn't be happier. Bradley loves coming and helping as well. Especially when it's tasting time. :) I hope that Bradley will remember these times and will be able to look back and smile.

2011 in a word...

This year seems to be cruising by, don't you think? I mean where did February go? It's the last day!! At least I have something to show for it this year. Two weekends ago we decided to tackle a pretty gigantic problem area of our house... the basement. The laundry room in particular. It has been our "out of sight out of mind" area pretty much since we moved into the house. We had so much stuff in there that it was starting to overflow into where I actually do the laundry. So we left all reasoning behind and decided to tackle it. Nine hours and eight garbage bags later we had defeated the mess! We threw away a lot of junk and gave some of the stuff to DI. My laundry room is HUGE!!! And everything we kept is nicely organized and we have extra tubs to continue storing things in. I am so proud of us!

Dave decided that he wanted our big screen tv on the main floor and the smaller tv in the basement. I told him that if he was going to move the tvs I wanted the basement cleaned up and organized. So he went to town. He rearranged the basement so we can all do our desired projects (crafting, music, tv, reading, etc.) while still keeping an eye on Bradley. It is so open and spacious now! I took the next day organizing all of my craft stuff and let me tell you I have quite a bit. Everything has a place now and I love it!! Here are some pictures of my craft area...



I papered the little boxes on the wall next to the window so they could be pretty while they hold some handy craft supplies. It was my first craft project with my new area. It worked out wonderfully!



My wonderful husband brought home a big box to hold all of my magazines. For the record I have 101 magazines that are now all cataloged and categorized. Sooo happy!!


In other news I have a few food pics to post as well. I have been slacking on cooking new foods. But I have done a few things here and there. Most of them were eaten before I could get a picture. Having two boys in the house is like having a pack of wolves nipping at your ankles every five minutes when food is being prepared. Not to mention WRX is a food fanatic. She ran off with a piece of raw chicken the other day.
It was ridiculous. So here are a few that I have been able to catch before they were devoured...



This is a chicken caesar salad that I threw together last month. The bowl that it's in is one that Dave did for me at Color Me Mine on our 1st wedding anniversary. Sweet isn't it? The salad was amazing and surprisingly filling with the chicken.




Now I've never been one for soup. I don't like slurping my food. Now there is a cure for that... BREAD BOWLS!! Bread bowls make everything amazing. I have done sourdough bowls and french bread bowls. I've made taco soup, clam chowder and I also did the spinach dip for the super bowl in a bread bowl. If you ever get bored of just soup and crackers, I highly recommend shaking it up with a bread bowls.

So here's to next month! Maybe I can get around to experimenting so more in March!

PS. The word for 2011 is ORGANIZED, and I love it!!

Super Bowl 2011

This year for the Super Bowl Dominique and I decided to go all out for the menu. We had an almost proper 3 course meal. (That ended up as more like a 6 course meal.) We started planning said menu about four weeks in advance, and broke the shopping list up so we were both spending about the same for groceries. Our menu consisted of the following: Stuffed jalapeños wrapped in bacon, spinach dip in a homemade sourdough bread bowl, shrimp dip, and homemade onion rings for the appetizers. For the main course we had bacon wrapped chicken strips with homemade BBQ sauce, homemade sweet chili in mini sourdough bread bowls, and asian peanut slaw. Dessert was white chocolate covered pretzels and Dominique's dad was bringing cheesecake. Needless to say, we had WAY too much food for the six of us. I figured we could pace ourselves and get through the food.... Boy was I wrong. We brought home so much food! It took us three days AFTER the Super Bowl to eat it all! At least the Packers won. Though that was little comfort for the tummy ache we all had for the next week. Here are some pictures we took of the food before it was attacked by the boys.




Dominique and I have decided that since we overdid ourselves this year, we will be using a much simpler menu next year - Pizza and wings. Because no one should have to be up until 3am prepping food to then stand in the kitchen for 4.5 hours to cook it. It was pretty delicious though. Maybe I'll do this menu again in a few years.

This week has been pretty crazy. I thought that last week would have been the week that I pull my hair out. What with Dave's birthday on Monday and then Bradley's birthday AND the Iron Dickson Cooking Competition on Saturday. The amount of to dos was never-ending! Monday we had plenty of getting out and checking items off the "out of house" checklist. It was long and painful but we got through it. Frankly the rest of the week is a blur of monotony. Saturday came bright and early with Bradley opening his door and saying, "Hello? It's my birthday!" We let him eat cereal and watch a movie that he picked out for his birthday. I love that he is still young enough that it is a treat to pick out a movie and cereal. It makes my job a little easier. I was running around so much trying to get the house clean and organized for the competition that I didn't get to sit down and watch it with him. Before long (definitely before I was ready) it was 3:30pm and it was time to put the cleaning supplies down and move away from the kitchen. I ran upstairs and got myself presentable. Everyone filed in around 4pm and we all hung out for a bit and got cozy. The competition kicked off around 4:10 with an opening ceremony including "pre-fight doughnuts" for everyone. Then another 2 1/2 hours of blur. Here is my dish:



I made apple cornbread and southern fried apples. The secret ingredient was apples, if you couldn't tell. All of the dishes were amazing and my house smelled incredible through the next day. Lisa is compiling all of the videos that Dave took during the competition and putting the together in a video. Hopefully it went well enough that we can continue to do this on a fairly regular basis and maybe we will have our own mini tv series!

In the apple spirit, Shayla brought "Apples to Apples". It's a vocabulary card game. It was sooo much fun! I thought we were all going to kill over from laughter! It was the best!

On a side note, I made the birthday cake for all of the January birthdays. We have made carrot cake the traditional January birthday cake since Bradley turned two. We learned the hard, carb-overloaded way not to have a birthday cake for each birthday in January. Dave and Bradley are five days apart and I have tell you.... You CANNOT eat a whole birthday cake in time to eat another one five days later! We have tried it a few different ways. A cookie cake for one and a regular cake for the other, a pie for one and cake for the other, etc. We decided that it was in our best interest to just make one for the two birthdays and we just have it on Bradley's birthday. This year I decided to play with my recipe a little. We bought a coconut for Bradley to try so I used some of the coconut milk in the cake batter and I baked coconut flakes into the bottom of the cake. Of course when I had to take it out to ice it the coconut flakes were on top but I think it was still pretty good. I made my own cream cheese icing and was pretty proud of it.

Everything went pretty smoothly that day and I was very impressed with everyone's dishes. Plus my cake was THE BOMB! I was a bit nervous about it but I will definitely make that one again!! Bradley had a wonderful birthday! Thanks to everyone who made it happen!!

Where's the fluff setting on this thing?

We have a fairly good schedule for our morning routine at the moment. I say at the moment because we have a problem keeping schedules. We have tried and tried over the past 5 years to make and keep to an orderly schedule. Something always seems to come up. We have an early morning or a really late night and can't seem to pull ourselves out of bed at the right time. I say "we" but it's usually me. I'm sure most of you know that once you slip or stray from your routine just once -even if you have a REALLY good excuse- you suddenly realize how good your bed feels and covers are just right and well just this once you want to stay in bed for another 10 minutes.... Well, there goes your routine. Yep, did you see that ghost-like figure fly out your window just now? That was your sanity. He didn't want to hang around for all the mayhem that is about to ensue from that 10 minute deviation. Now you are 10 minutes behind schedule (20 minutes if you are like me and took your sweet time pulling yourself out of bed and getting dressed) and you race around like a crazy person all day trying to get that 10-20 minutes back. Good Luck!

That is exactly how my day started on Tuesday. We have had a pretty good schedule since about half way through December. So it lasted almost a month. That's a pretty good record for us during the winter season! As I was saying.... Tuesday started out 20 minutes behind schedule but hey no big deal, right?! I got my list of to do's and headed downstairs. MAKE BREAKFAST...check! OPEN BLINDS...check! UNLOAD DISHWASHER.......



It took about another 20 minutes to coax her OUT of the dishwasher. Needless to say, my day never got back on track and one day I hope to find the time-space continuum that fixes this routine problem.

The Saturday Concoction

Today's adventure began when I loaded my dishwasher and thought to myself, "Hmm I don't have enough dishes to start a load yet, what can I do about this conundrum?" Within about 30 minutes and with the help of some facebook friends, I had a rough idea of what I was going to do with my day.
I successfully baked my first pie (peach) about a week ago and I'm still getting over the ego boost from it. Thus, mini apple pies were born.



Dave is going to a LAN party tonight at a friend's house so I thought they would make fun little treats for them to eat with their pizza. It didn't come out quite how I envisioned them, but I don't think they are bad for a first try. As I become more familiar with pie dough I will start being more creative. Plus, all I had to make the mini versions was a cupcake tin. Next time I make these I would like to have a tart tin. We shall see. I think they taste pretty good, which IS the main point of food, right? I should have brushed the tops with butter or egg yolks but they work just fine like this.

This is the first time I have ever "posed" food for it's photograph. So, don't laugh... yeah, okay you can laugh. I don't have much space or lighting so I did the best I could. My neighbor has a studio in his basement, but he is not here at the moment so I used what I had. I thought the block of wood was a nice touch. What do you think?

A day to remember a year

I can't really expect anyone to follow my blog in any form of regularity given that my posts are occasional at best. I do what I can to write when things of interest arrive, but generally it is just a passing thought that is then forgotten until I realize it has been months since I've written anything. Once I sit down to write a few paragraphs I end up sitting in front of a blank screen wondering what I have done with my life. Being a stay-at-home mom is wonderful at times and heartbreaking other times. By the end of the day I just can't put words down on a page. Day to day things seem monotonous and uneventful and the extraordinary things are usually too big of a mess for me to clean up. Once again I have arrived at a new year with the same resolution: To blog the memories so we have more than just pictures to rely on when we want to take a walk down memory lane. Don't get me wrong pictures are wonderful, but you can't capture everything in a picture. You can't capture Bradley saying, "Oh barnacles" when he is working on a problem. All you see is a kid with his mouth open and a quirky look on his face. So, here I am on the first day of a new year, trying once again to capture more of life this year than in years past. I will do my utmost to post at least more semi-regularly, and I will also try to not start out every post by apologizing for the lack of posts. I am sure you understand that life gets in the way and sometimes I am just too lazy to post. However; I will try this year to not think of the everyday tasks as mundane but as a peek into our life as a family. We maybe inexperienced and a totally out of our element as we raise Bradley and try to shuffle life around as need be, but we do the best we can and I can't wait to see how this year unfolds.

An Update...

Not a whole lot has happened aside from the normal crazy ninja-like conundrums. Last weekend was Easter and Bradley had a blast hunting Easter Eggs with his aunts and uncle. His entire cache of candy lasted all of two days. I think I'm still dealing with the effects from that. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. 4 years now!! We always joke about how we can still stand each other, but to be completely honest, Dave is a wonderful husband and I can't imagine being married to anyone else! I love you Dave!!
I am starting a new cookbook that promises to make me a better chef. *fingers crossed* I've just been taking notes on techniques so far but hopefully next week I can start using some of the recipes. I'm pretty excited about really learning how to cook. Other than that everything is pretty much the same. However, I do have a cute story to tell real quick. We were eating dinner this evening and I was putting the leftovers away for Dave to take to lunch. Then Bradley turns to Dave and says, "Daddy, Mommy is hooking you up!" I thought it was so cute. We couldn't stop laughing.

A story for your day...

Let's just skip the introductory apology about how I don't ever write anymore. I've gotten requests for an update and I have a story to write about today so let's begin...

Once upon a time there was a cute little boy who liked to do very devious things. This little boy was very smart and very sneaky. Today this adorable little boy had a friend come over to play. They played on the stairs and in every room that had an unlocked door. While they were playing in this little boy's room, he decided to open the window. He could do this only because he had super strength and had been able to take off the window lock on this particular window a few weeks before. So he proceeded to open the window and THROW EVERYTHING IN HIS ROOM OUTSIDE!! All of the clothes that his mother had previously put away in his closet, and a good percentage of his toys. All of these items were thrown onto the front yard during a mere 10 minutes of playtime. The only reason the fun stopped was because his mother saw a bright yellow tennis ball bouncing down the sidewalk in front of their house. So his mother walked up the stairs to see what this little boy was up to. While his friend was quietly playing in a corner of the room, there was this little boy running towards the window with a handful of toys to throw out through the screen that he had so carefully ripped to the size he needed to fit his toys. Although this ingenious little boy had succeeded to destroy the clean room he had, he did not get off so easily and is now grounded for life. The beginning of a sentence that I'm sure will be added to every few months.

I hope that this story can bring a smile to your face and allow you to remember the good times you had/have raising your children.

Saying "hello" again

I know it's been a while, daytime projects were so hard while I was working graveyards. It was pretty much all I could do to drag myself out of bed and try keeping track of Bradley. So for all of you that are curious... Walmart laid me (and all of the other holiday help) off on the day before Christmas Eve. They did give us 5 days notice, but it still sucked. So now I'm jobless again. I'm looking at probably trying to become a glassblowing apprentice, and maybe doing some web design/updating for a friend of mine. So we'll see.

Our Christmas was small but filled with love. I got sick on my last day at Walmart and I'm still fighting through it. Sad, huh. Bradley received plenty of fun new things, his favorite of which is the Fisher Price SmartCycle. He calls it his motorcycle and will spend about an hour in the basement playing the different games. It has been a HUGE help for me while I'm sick. Thank you to Grandpa Jeff and Grandma Ali for getting it for him! We went to the Dickson's house Christmas Day where Bradley got a DoodlePro and Dave and I got a faux fur throw that is pretty much the bee's knees. I love cuddling up in it and watching a movie!! It's so comfy!!!!! Thank you!! Thank you!!! We had a wonderful time there and you can see pics of our time there on Lisa's facebook page. Please comment on how absolutely adorable Bradley looks in his Christmas jammies!!! I love them soooo much!!

So now that I'm not working, I'm trying to spend a good amount of time with Bradley to make up for the time that we lost while I was working. I'm also trying to get used to having a normal sleep schedule again. So far that has not been going very well. I wake up around 3:00 every morning and can't go back to sleep for hours. It truly sucks. On the upside, I've been getting up and ready for the day around 8:30 which has been giving me about 30 minutes to myself before Bradley gets up. That has been really nice. Having the time to write out a to-do list or writing on my blog, or just sitting in the living room watching the cats play. It's my quiet time that I desperately need some days.

Well I guess I should go, my quiet time is almost up and I don't want to risk losing this post to an internet malfunction. I hope all is well for everyone and may you be blessed in the new year!!

Let the chaos begin!

I got the job at Walmart and started my orientation process on Friday morning. It was very long and extremely boring but I finally got through it. All of their training is done on a computer so I spent 8 hours on Saturday and an hour on Sunday working through the training modules. I was pretty much brain dead by about 2pm on Saturday. I had soo much information racing through my mind. But I got through it and thankfully I'm done with the training. Now I have my schedule and I start working tonight!! I will be working from 9:30pm to 6am. I know that it will be really hard to do this but hopefully it will help us get back on top of things. It's definitely going to take some getting used to. I really hope they can keep me after the holiday season is over. I'm going to try very hard to make it worth their while to keep me on after. I would like to work through at least next summer. I think that it would help us tremendously through the tough economic times and also help us save up for the things we need to do with the house and getting another car, etc. So keep your fingers crossed everybody! I know your fingers are probably sore and cramping from all of the finger crossing I ask for. You can take a break when you need. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt trying to give me luck. But I really appreciate all of your well wishes and luck that you have sent me! I will post more soon on how my new job is going!!

Where's my chalk?

I'm sure most of you that read my blog understand this frustration of raising a child. Those that don't understand, I hope that what I write will help you make a decision about having children. (THEY ARE EVIL!!!) I'm sure that most of what I go through is normal mothering stories and the hazards of raising a child. However, I have yet to encounter a child who can ninja 7 gallons of milk into his room in a 2 months. That being said, I often encounter children that I simply cannot stand. I don't know how their parents deal with them on a day to day basis. But as soon as I think, "Wow, I'm so glad my child doesn't act like that," he goes and does something horrible and I'm pulling my hair out trying to deal with him. I don't know how to deal with the complexities of this child. Perhaps I'm just not cut out to be a mom. I just don't think like a mom. I think like a homeowner. It's not a good way to think when your child constantly ruins something in the house. It's a rough way to live, you know? Note to anyone thinking about having children: Don't buy a house that you hope to sell if you are going to have children in that home! It's impossible to keep the house clean and worth looking at. Unless you are rich enough to buy another house where the child will live until you sell the first one. And it will still take you 6 months to a year to completely fix the house you are trying to sell. Unless you have an angel of a child. In which case, congratulations!! Go hold that child so close and tell him/her that you love them!

All of that introduction is for this purpose: I'm drawing the line at power tools! I know that makes no sense to you now, but you will understand shortly...

I'm currently on a medication regiment for anti-anxiety and depression. (No surprise there really) I'm also taking a prescription at night that allows my other medication to work better and also helps me sleep at night. The problem that arises from taking the night-time prescription is that I sleep deeper once I finally go to sleep. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

A few months ago we bought the child door knob covers to try to keep Bradley out of places like my bedroom, the pantry, the linen closet, etc. We also put one on the inside of his bedroom door so that he couldn't get out at night and early in the morning (like 5 or 6am). It has worked wonders for my sanity at night and I loved being able to get up in the morning and he was still in his room either sleeping or quietly playing in his room. It was also really nice for nap time. It really gave me a break from chasing him around the house all day long. He could go in there and either sleep or play quietly while I went to the bathroom finally or just took a break to scoop up the shredded pieces of my brain. It worked really well and I guess I got used to the security that it brought me. So Heaven decided I had it too good and He chose to throw a wrench into things and see how I dealt with it. Bradley figured out Monday last week that if he hung on the door knob cover, it would snap into the two pieces and then he would have full use of his door once again. At first I thought it was just an accident - and it may have been to start out with - but he cataloged that little tidbit of information and continued to use it all week long. I told Dave that Bradley had figured out how to take of the door knob cover (I didn't know how he did it until later) to which Dave replied, "No problem I'll just put some 3m adhesive on it and he won't be able to take it apart unless he has a large, heavy professional tool. So I thought, "Okay, problem solved! I can go back to my secure 30 minute-a-day break." WHICH I WAS SO GRATEFUL FOR! So one night Dave took Bradley into his room, reinstalled the door knob cover, and asked him to take it off. Bradley walked right up to the door, hung on the cover and it happily snapped into two pieces for him. I'm make this part of the story short. There is NO way to fix that thought process. You can't 3m it back together, you can't screw it into the door, there is NOTHING. So we are back to square one...AGAIN!!!

I've been dealing with square one for a week and a half now. It's horrible. There are no naps during the day, no waking up to happy ideas of making the most of the day. I wake up listening to the sound of my child doing something destructive. The worst part of it is that I sleep so deeply because of the night-time medication that he can ninja into my room and pretty much take whatever his heart desires - because we can't close our door for fear that he will move on to another room in the house and destroy something more important than tooth brushes, contacts solution and vitamins (And no that's not all he has taken). This morning I woke up and heard him doing bad things in his room with a towel rod that had previously been placed in our room. So I jumped out of bed, ran across the hall and surveyed the damage. To my dismay I found: the towel rod, a skate board, an empty bottle of cucumber body spray from Avon (and yes the house smells like cucumber was smeared all over the place)and worst of all... Dave's power drill!....Yes the drill that Dave had used to hang up some shelves in the guest bathroom. And perhaps I'm being over-dramatic with this statement, but here it goes... I DRAW THE LINE AT POWER TOOLS!

So out of this ridiculously long post rampant with the nonsense babble of a psychotic mother, I'm desperately begging for something to draw my line with. Chalk, pencil, marker, PERMANENT MARKER, anything. Because this line will not be taken back, It will be burned into the carpet of this house if it must. That line represents the last straw, the foot of authority coming down. I cannot deal with power tools! And as soon as I have an extra $70 I will be buying a door knob that has a numeric code on it so that I can get back to my sanity...if I live long enough to get that money....

Update?

Okay so we all survived the toilet incident. YAY GO US!!! However yesterday Bradley decided that he was going to be sick. His fever was up and down between 97.5 and 104.5. I called his pediatrician and they told me that if his fever went back up that he would need to go to the hospital. Otherwise, it's probably just the flu and it would just take some time for it to run it's course. So yesterday was miserable for both of us. Dave came home early while I was waiting to hear back from the nurse. I don't think any of us got very good sleep last night. Dave got up with Bradley once, but the rest of the time we were both restless. So Dave took today off in case we needed to take Bradley to the doctor and so I could go to my job interview this morning. I got there early and had to wait a little while. While I was waiting I found out that I'm being hired as an over-night stock and price person. My hours will be hard as I'm working full-time over-night. I had both interviews one right after another and they said that as long as my background check and drug test come back okay and no one is hired in between that time then I should get a call next week sometime for orientation. FINGERS CROSSED EVERYONE!!! This afternoon we have been running some errands. I finally got my license renewed while I was out doing the drug test. So I'm finally legal to drive now. YAY!!! Now I just have to not get a ticket. :) So I guess that's all I really have to update with. Sorry we are boring. You should have figured that out by now. lol Hopefully I will get to post if/when I get the job!!

Our First Homeowner Repair

So tonight has been interesting to say the least. We have owned our house a little over a year now. For the most part it has been a decent house: lots of space, nice sized kitchen, 2 bathrooms (which is so convenient), wonderful closet space, etc. I have loved that ,unlike our cars, we haven't had to dump a bunch of money into repairing this place before we could live in it. We just moved in and made it our home. I love that! And I love that I haven't had to repair anything in the house since we moved in. (Aside from the fridge/freezer which is a totally different story that your don't want me to get into.) Structurally our home has been very nice to live in.

Tonight is payback for the 15 months of smooth sailing.

A few months ago, Dave and I woke up one Sunday morning to Bradley messing around in our bathroom. Yes he is THAT ninja!!! We got up as quick as we could and we cleaned up all the mess, etc. Well apparently we didn't get everything. Our master bathroom toilet has been clogged since then with something that our child decided to try to fluch. We've tried dealing with it, but finally we just decided not to use that toilet anymore. So we've been using the hallway bathroom. THANK HEAVENS FOR 2 BATHROOMS!! Although inconvenient for us in the master bedroom, I didn't complain because of the fact that we finally had 2!! Tonight we went from having one toilet to having 0 TOILETS!!! Let me run that by you again. 3 people + 0 toilets = VERY BAD!!

Let me start this part of our story by saying that Bradley has been extremely difficult this week. Just plain naughty. So now that it's Saturday I was thinking it would be nice to have a bit of a break. My friend came over this afternoon with her little boy. The two boys play wonderfully together. They never fight or scream at each other. It's so nice to have someone that I enjoy Bradley playing with. I LOVE having them over! I can just hang out with my friend and I don't have to worry about Bradley beating up her kid or the other way around (which is normally the case). So my friend and I were getting dinner ready and just talking in the kitchen and the boys were upstairs playing. I thought they were playing in Bradley's room. I know...My mistake....

We had dinner and everything went fairly smoothly. Dave came home and we hung out for a bit and then our guests left and we started getting ready for the night-time routine. Suddenly I had to pee... Yes this all started with "I HAD TO PEE". Crazy, Right?!?!! So I go pee. And then I flush OUR ONLY WORKING TOILET..... And guess what happens......NOTHING.....It tried. It was trying so hard. So I get the plunger....NOTHING HELPED. So you know what we did? Do ya? Dave and I ripped that toilet out of the floor and got to business!!!!!! After about 30 minutes of heeing and hawing I finally feel something!... We tilted that toilet every angle it would go and finally with the aid of our newly purchased plumbing snake (THANKS DAVE!!) I was finally able to pull my hand out with our culprit....A plastic Snoopy. Ironic I know. As I am typing this I'm wearing my Snoopy Jammie Pants and I still feel gross even after showering and scrubbing tons! So we put the toilet back together and figured, "Why not go ahead and check the other one." So we go tear that one apart.... After the same procedure and a little more elbow grease we pull out............... an open contacts case. That was the cause of ALL of our problems!!!! Unfortunately that particular contacts case held Dave's old contacts. I don't know what upsets me more. I'll think about it...... the open contacts case. So that has been our evening. Fun, huh?

I hope I never have to do this again. It's going to take weeks to get over this one. If anyone has any ideas to keep this from happening, I'd be more than willing to read/listen to them!

My world revolves...

As I was doing my morning stuff this morning I realized that I hadn't blogged in a while. I apologize for that, but it has been a bit crazy around here. Nothing exciting I assure you. So I guess I'll just update everyone on what has happened in the last week:
I got up for my paper route early Friday morning. Dave went with me to help ease the stress of starting a job (It's been over 4 years since I worked and I was a bit nervous).We got down there at 2:30am and Annette (the manager) helped walk me through the process. I picked a route and started "stuffing" (putting the inserts in the paper). Then the main paper came and we rolled and bagged all of the newspapers that had to be given out that morning. My trainer, John, was wonderful in helping me to understand how things went. He has been doing the newspaper for 6 years!! We went on the route (which was all student house equipped with the most stairs I've ever seen in my life!!) We got done around 6:45 and came back home. I didn't do too bad, but I was in such pain for the rest of the day!! My legs ached and my knees felt like they were about to collapse. Soooo many stairs!!! So I called Annette and asked if they had any routes that weren't student housing. She had one that was mostly residential and just a little student housing. I accepted it and was totally excited to do a new route. We got to bed late that night and as we were laying down, Dave explained that he had a bad feeling about it. He listed off reasons that he didn't want me to do the paper route. All very good and logical reasons, like "how was I going to get to the warehouse to do the papers when none of the roads were cleared?" and "what happens when there is a problem with the jeep?" I understood all of his ideas and agreed that if he had a bad feeling then we should probably not do it. I called Annette that morning and explained that it just wasn't working out and apologized for the inconvenience. She understood and told me not to worry about it. So I'm done with the paper.
We went to a fire department breakfast that morning with the family and had a pretty good time (aside from the fact that it was freezing outside and I was exhausted still). We planned on working on the jeep at the shop that morning so after the breakfast we headed down to Doug Smith. We got down there and Dave honked the horn to get someone to open the bay door. Except when he pushed on the horn, nothing happened. He pushed on it again and guess what happened... the car died. Great timing, huh. I will say that if we had to break down somewhere, Doug Smith was probably the perfect place to do it. So we pushed the car into Dave's work area and began testing everything. We were dumbfounded. I began to panic about 30 minutes in to this diagnostic attempt. If my husband can't fix it, I just don't know what to do! I was of no help during this time as I have no clue what does what in that area. So I started tearing out the brake booster while Dave worked on the electrical stuff. I successfully pulled out the brake booster (after about an hour fighting with the interior bolts that held it to the firewall) and put the new one in. By this time Dave had been working on the electrical problem for about 6 hours. I finished up what I could do and began working with him to try to resolve the problem of the car that does not start. I was looking up wiring diagrams and ignition switch information in my Jeep Bible to try to find a solution or at least another angle to look at. After another hour (about 7 hours total) we gave up and went and got lunch. Scott came and picked us up and we got Cheryl's car to use until we could fix the jeep. The rest of our weekend is a bit of a blur. We were so stressed out about the car and how we were going to fix it. Plus we had to get our sleeping schedule put back together after the paper route didn't work out. It was just plain exhausting!
On Monday I started applying for a new job. I ran through a bunch of ads and looked online. One of the places I applied at was a hotel chain. Basically they rent out studio rooms, one week at a time. So it's like week-to-week renting. Cool idea but I don't think they have the logistics worked out all the way. Anyway, they called me yesterday for an interview and to fill out their personalized application. When I got there, the manager had to print off an application and he gave me a list of jobs for me to look over and choose from. The only problem I could see at that time was the fact that almost all of the jobs required you to live at the hotel. They gave you a studio; paid your utilities, phone, internet, and cable. All you had to do was live there and earn a paycheck. Which would be great...if I didn't have a family that I loved and would like to see every once in a while. There was only one job that didn't require you to live on site, but the hours are from 9am to 3pm. Which would mean that I would have to hire someone to come take care of Bradley while I went to work. Yeah, not going to happen. I filled out the application anyway and the manager said that he would call me in a week if they had any openings. I also went in and applied at Walmart last night in the hopes that I can find a job fairly close that will allow me to work at night and earn a decent paycheck. I know your fingers are really cramped by now, but please keep them crossed for me!!

So that's pretty much the update. Lots of information, I know, but really nothing all that interesting. Today Lisa and Cheryl are coming over to help me work on Bradley's room (we are going to paint a jungle scene on his closet doors) and so I'm totally excited for that!! I hope all is well with everyone!!

If I had only thought about it...

You know how annoying it is to lose something, right? You need that particular thing right now and so you rip the house to pieces and do a complete autopsy in every room looking for it. Then you get so frustrated because you have spent the last 3 hours of your life looking for it. And the smaller it is or the less important it is makes you more and more frustrated because you still haven't found it and it's not very important, but you just can't stop looking for it because you needed it and now it's gone. So you finally give up, you throw your hands in the air and wave the white flag of surrender.... Then a few days later, the item that you wasted so much time looking for, shows up. Just sitting there still laughing at you. And you are so mad whether at the item for not saying something while your tore your house to bits or at yourself for not looking in that one spot where it was. That's how I feel right now. And yes I'm angry at my book for not saying anything.

In other news, I received a call this morning from the paper. I'm to go to Provo at 3am tonight (or tomorrow morning, however you want to look at it). Wish me luck!! I'm so scared!!

Games, children and cats...OH MY!

Yesterday one of Bradley's friends came over to play for a while. They wanted to watch a movie and given that they had already destroyed Bradley's room, I conceded. I made the mistake of not wanting to watch Curious George all over again. I went upstairs while the boys were in the basement watching the movie. Things were fine for quite a while. I would periodically sneak down the stairs and check on them. For the most part they sat beside each other laughing at the monkey and the silly things he does. I got quite involved in a conversation with Bradley's friends' mother and neglected to sneak down in time to see the devastation they had created. All of the games that I was storing in a bookcase were thrown all over the floor!! Not just the boxes, oh no, all of the pieces and boards and cards. They chose the games with the most pieces and pulled them down. They then decided to take all of the pieces out and throw them, I guess. Titanic, Life, Monopoly, Scene It, etc. ALL OVER THE BASEMENT!! I know, I know, it was my fault. I'm virtually hitting my head against the wall, I promise.

In other news: The newspaper hasn't called me back. Not once in 3 weeks!! So I'm exploring other options. If you know of a job, please let me know!

The week so far...

Let me start by saying I kept my word about the fridge lock. I scoured websites online and found plenty of items...online. As a last ditch attempt to buy one that day, I went to Walmart and looked in the baby section. And there it was...the answer to my prayers! Plus, it was only $4.50!! I quickly grabbed it before another anxious mother took it right before my eyes, and I guarded it with my life until I got it home and installed it. I followed the instructions carefully, making sure I didn't miss any steps that would create a glitch in this wonderful invention. I placed it where I wanted it, took off the paper backing to expose that magical adhesive that would save my sanity, and pressed down REAL hard..... 10 minutes goes by and I'm celebrating (physically giddy with all the excitement this brought to my life). Life is going to be great from now on!! I can enjoy my life once again! I don't have to worry about bad milk any-.... What was that noise? Would you like to know what that noise was? Would ya? That noise that I heard coming from my kitchen? Are you sitting on the edge of your seat? Holding your breath anxiously waiting the answer to that noise I heard? That noise was Bradley. Him and all of my hopes and dreams being drop-kicked out an 80 story building and crashing on to a busy street being run over be 25 semi-trucks...and 3 dump trucks. That was the sound that my oh-so-wonderful, life-changing item (that I guarded WITH MY LIFE) made when my 3 year old pulled with all his might (with the help of gravity and his ninja brain) on the refrigerator door and popped that door lock right off!! That was the sound!! I called Dave frantic and on the verge of tears to tell him of this travesty. He calmly explained that maybe it needed to set up a little before the adhesive stuck the right way. I not so calmly ran that idea through my head and decided that he was probably right. SO I re-installed this magical invention and gave it a stern talking to explaining all of hopes and dreams and how I wasn't going to scrape them up from that busy street again. *TWO DAYS LATER* I have regained my confidence in this lock of all locks and I am starting to get used to the idea of grabbing the top of the fridge to open it. Dave hasn't had much success in remembering, but he's at work all day in a child-free environment, so I can't blame him much. I am going to get something from the refrigerator thinking nothing of it...and what happens?...I forgot to open it with the lock....That's right, after the testing and experimental phase of this wonderful lock, once I had regained my confidence in it and truly believed with every fiber of my being that it had had enough time to set up and the adhesive was perfectly sound, IT POPPED RIGHT OFF!!! I was devastated!!! It was like someone close to me had died. I lost all faith in humanity for creating what looked like the best thing ever and turned into just a drawn out misery maker. Dave once again was at my side with a creative idea to console me. I had given up completely but he had the brilliant idea of spraying 3m adhesive on it instead of leaving the stupid plastic adhesive on there. I had no energy to argue with him. "Sure," I said. "Do whatever you want with the worthless thing." So he did. He sprayed the special adhesive on it. Waited the allotted time frame and placed the lock back on the top of the refrigerator. We tested it out a few times, but I didn't hold my breath. I didn't want to put my faith in anything again....It has been 3 days since we made our improvements and I must say that I am impressed. Not once has it budged from that spot that Dave specified for it to go. And it has been 3 days since Bradley has gotten into the fridge. I am not quite used to sleeping in peace, but I'm sure I will acclimate soon.

Dave's blog

So I mentioned Dave's blog a few posts ago. Apparently when I typed the address for the blog, it didn't show up in my post. I apologize. Here is Dave's blog address: http://sonandi.blogspot.com. Hopefully that will show up.

In other news, I'm buying a fridge lock today. Yep! I'm not going to bed tonight until the refrigerator is securely locked. If I had the money I would have a motion-detected laser field placed around it, but alas it will not be today. Yesterday I went to Bradley's room around 7:30 to get him ready for the day. What do you think I found in that room?... An empty Sprite bottle and a newly re-filled hand soap bottle (not as full as I remembered). So I decided to have a grown up discussion with my ninja. I sat him down on his bed and asked, "Bradley, why is the soap in your room?" To which he answered, "Because my hands were sticky." A reasonable answer I must say. For a 3 year old, his logic in unparalleled. So I continued my discussion, "Why were your hands sticky." Without one hint of hesitation he replied, "Because of the Sprite." "Why is the Sprite in your room, Bradley?" "Because I was thirsty." Again with the logic!! How will I ever overcome that logic!? So I told him that if he continued to take drinks up to his room that the bugs would come in when he's sleeping and bite him. Faulty reasoning on my part, I know. For now, every night he still finds some ninja way to get liquid up there (last night he pulled a nearly full gallon of milk out of the BACK of the fridge!), but he is also terrified of getting eaten alive by bugs in his sleep. I will now accept my award for dumbest mom of the year. Thank you. So today I am off to find a fridge lock and I refuse to come home until I have it in my hand.