I love my fuzzy robe

For Christmas, my children insisted I needed a fuzzy robe from Bath and Body Works. They picked out the purple one and used up their entire "Grandma" budget to get it for me. Apparently, when I was in B &B works before the holidays picking out a gift for my secret santa, they noticed the robes and decided on their own that I just HAD to have it. Grandma and Pop take them out to buy gifts for Jeremy and I every year. I just love seeing what they think we "need." Grandma told me that both Joshua and Ruthie independently of one another insisted on getting this robe for me. I'm so glad they did.

For the last day and a half, I've lived in the robe. Seems Hannah's tummy bug passed on to me. I was up till about 3 this morning before I finally felt it was safe to go to bed. Why me and not Jeremy who stayed up with her and cleaned her up? Because he has a super immune system apparently. I never see him ill, ever. And I dont believe he's ever taken a sick day, at least not this year. I doubt he'll experience the joy that is this virus, and quite frankly, I hope neither do Joshua nor Ruthie. I, on the other hand, get every little bug, virus, and bacterial infection that my children pass along. In the meantime, I'm going to go re-plant myself back on the couch with my blanket, coca-cola and pretzels, all curled up in my nice fuzzy robe. I love my robe.

EZ bake this!

I dont know who is having more fun with the EZ bake real meal oven we gave Ruthie for Christmas. Joshua just enjoys the hot "treats" coming out of the oven. I say "treats" because they're not exactly the most tasty things. With the exception of the blueberry "muffins" we ate last night. Jeremy bought some just add water muffin mixes at the grocery store, and lo and behold, they work just fine in the oven. Just gotta cook it for a loooooooong time. Anything that can make Joshua eat a blueberry muffin and declare,"WOW! This is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! MMM! AWESOME!" must be magic. Yes, E.Z. Bake Oven. You ARE indeed special.

So, I thought to myself after seeing that one package of E.Z. Bake mix is almost $6, that there MUST be a way to make the mixes yourself. I am a staunch believer in the "Why buy it if I can make it?" school of thought. In fact, I have a reputation for going through stores and saying "I can make that. I could make that." It does save me money, because I dont buy impulsively. However, I usually dont get around to "making that" either.

Long story short, I poked around on the internet and found a handful of e.z. bake recipe sites, and began doctoring recipes and pre-made cake mixes to work in her oven. So, ok...it kind of defeats the purpose of quick and easy...but If made up ahead of time...or even made for gifts of friends and family whose daughters (or sons) have e.z. bakes...it might not be so bad.

Happy Baking. I'm off to supervise some chocolate chip muffins.

I have such a weird family...

This morning Hannah woke up with unruly hair.

"You look like a mad scientist," Joshua informed her.

"Let me go see," she responded.

Hannah ran over to the mirror on the living room closet door and laughed maniacally. "Muhahahahahahahahaaaaa!" Then as she began to walk away from the mirror, said, "I gotta see that again!" Running back over to the mirror, laughed maniacally again and then returned to the table to finish her breakfast.

Meanwhile, Jeremy was upstairs shaving, humming to his electric razor.

My Mouse

Here's a video compilation from Dress Rehearsal night. Sorry the quality is lousy. The camera didnt like the dark, but you can kind of get the idea.

Paybacks are...

There's this thing known as "The Mother's Curse." Basically, when a child is small, mother, in her frustration states aloud at her child "I hope you have one JUST LIKE YOU!" Well, good job, Mother. I have THREE just like me.

When I was small, I used to have this fool-proof method for cleaning and taking care of my laundry. It was known as the "shove-everything-on-my-floor-into-my-laundry-hamper" method. At least, I thought it was fool proof until my father, the laundry king, decided that I was old enough to wash my own clothes. I think I was seven, maybe eight tops. All I know, Mom told me years later she felt I was probably too young. Dad just figured it would cure me of my fabu room-cleaning techniques.

I honestly didn’t know things like this could be genetic. I knew my children would be handed down some personality traits, some physical features, but I didn’t know that they would inherit the "let-me-shove-the-entire-contents-of-my-room-into-my-laundry-hamper" gene. I've noticed lately, Ruthie's room has been cleaner than usual. Normally, you cannot walk through her room, which she, sadly, inherited that from her father and myself. Neither of us is all that tidy and have stories of messy rooms. At least mine never smelled. I've only heard the horror stories of his room.

Today, I decided to catch up on some much needed laundry. Everyone has been wearing their "play" clothes because that's all we have left. I asked Jeremy to carry Ruthie and Hannah's hampers downstairs to the basement. As I began to empty Ruthie's laundry basket into the washer, I noticed the top layer definitely contained smelly clothes. Digging deeper, I discovered the middle layer revealed the items being concealed by the dirty laundry. Hm, there's Elmo. And look, Goat (Hannah's purple bunny...but that's another story), and um, another stuffed animal? And a pillow? HEY WAIT A MINUTE!

Instead of putting the stuffed animals away, she shoved them into her basket, along with summer clothes that she was SUPPOSED to put in her under the bed box for next year. And of course, I had to wash the animals and the summer clothes because they reeked from the dirty stuff set on top of it.

I'll be doing laundry for the next three months. Smell ya later.  I've got another load to run.

Red tip indicates, do not put in eye.

I need sleep. This much is apparent by the fact that I nearly made myself BLIND by stupidity. But I think I'll blame it on lack of sleep. Yeah, that's what it was.

I wear rigid gas permeable lenses because my astigmatism is too bad for soft contacts. With RGP lenses, the smallest particle of dirt can cause great distress to the eye. Usually the only solution is to take the contact out, rinse it off, and put it back in. Usually, before I put the lens back into my eye, I put a drop of my conditioning solution into the lens so that it doesn't HURT. Why? Why would I subject myself to something that could be so uncomfortable? No, it's not vanity. I honestly see better with contacts than I do with glasses. And as an artist, I need to see as best as I can. So I put up with the inconveniences for better sight.

Yesterday, my right lens was bothering me. I went up to the bathroom to do the "take out and rinse off" routine so familiar to me from years of wearing these type of lenses. I rinsed off the lens, and then proceeded to put the drop of solution into it. Did I notice that the solution was cloudy instead of clear? Did I notice that the bottle was smaller than usual? Did I notice the RED TIP INDICATOR? Did I notice all the fail-safes the manufacturer puts on their bottle of lens cleaner to help the idiot consumer from sticking the stuff in his/her eyes? Apparently not.

It took all of a nanosecond to realize what moronic thing I had done. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I dont know if I've ever screamed like that in my life.

"AH help! HELP! HHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPP!!!!!! My eye! My eye! My eye!"

After fighting with my eye that wanted to stay closed, I managed to get the contact out. I started to flush it out as fast as I could, but wasn't quite sure how best to do it. I called desperately for Jeremy. I wanted him to call poison control. I couldn't read the bottle at all to find out how bad of a mistake I had just made. Finally, he made it upstairs, grabbed the bottle, instructed me how to flush my eye out, returned downstairs and called poison control.

Running back into the bathroom he gave me the bad news. "Well, flush your eye out for 20-30 minutes, and if it hasn't cleared up, we have to get it looked at. Because it can be fixed today, but if we let it go, it can't be fixed tomorrow."

That's when I started to panic. My eye was cloudy and I couldn't see a darn thing out of it. I've accidentally put stuff in my eyes before, but I've never had the sensation of blindness like this was, and hearing that it 'might' end up permanent if we didn't do something 'today' frightened me even more. I started to pray. And then I began to think clearly. I asked the Jeremy to call the eye doctor and tell her the idiot thing I just did. Then I asked him to call my mother because we needed some help with the kids.

The eye doctor gave him the same information, but added, "If it doesn't clear up after flushing, I want to see her."

Did I mention this all happened an hour before we were supposed to drop Ruth off to get her costume on for the matinee performance of the Nutcracker where her entire extended family of aunts and grandparents were going to watch her? I didn't? Oh, well, of course this happened before a very momentous occasion in my daughter's life. When else would something like this happen? I continued to flush my eye out. Jer gathered the kids up. My mother came to pick them up and take everyone to the Performing Arts center for the Nutcracker. We made a break for the eye doctor.

The good news was, I flushed my eye out well enough that the cornea was only damaged on the first layer. I was told by Sunday (today) my vision should be 80% improved, and completely healed by Monday. Apparently, the cleanser has an abrasive to it. The eye doctor looked at my cornea under the microscope and saw lots of dings and dents, bumps and scratches, but nothing serious. Even so, my eye was mighty uncomfortable.

She put a drop of numbing stuff in my eye, something to dilate the pupil to help the eye rest, and a drop of antibiotic to prevent germs from brewing before the eye could rejuvenate.

I'm happy to announce, that indeed, I can see better today. It still seems a bit blurrier than usual, but I expect by tomorrow I'll be back to 100% after a good nights rest.

Just another day in the life of a "should-have-been-blond."

Wheatina Part II

While Jeremy was reading my blog, laughing at the original Wheatina post from five minutes ago, Ruth walked past and makes a horrified face. She said "Daddy! What's in the POT?!"

Jeremy. laughed, "Wheatina."

Ruth said, "Blech, ugh. It looks DISGUSTING!"

So, he took his young apprentice and instructed, "Wait till you see how deliciously I prepare this." Ruth, not looking convinced tried to escape. "No, wait, come back. I want to show you."

"I think I'm going to gag."

"First I put butter and sugar in it."

"Blech"

"You like raisin bran don't you? And toast? They're all wheat. Take a bite."

"I guess it's not so bad. Can I have a little bit?"

Sigh. I knew if he could bring someone over to the dark side, it would be Ruth.

Ugh Wheatina

I think this is the stinkiest, smelliest, awfullest food in the world. I dont know how anyone could smell it cooking and then think, mmmmmmm...let me eat some more of that! However, the mr. loves it. And he's cooking it right now. It's been a few years since he cooked it in front of me. Usually he's kind enough to save this breakfast for when I've already left for work, so that I might return to a house filled with wheatina aroma. All I can say is, at least THIS time I'm not pregnant. He always seemed to cook the stuff when I was in my first trimester. I don't think I'll ever get over the trauma.

The Boy pt. 6

This past weekend was The Boy's tenth birthday. Where did ten years go, I wonder. How fast time flies when you're having kids.

Where did my baby go?

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I love to do this tradition with my kids that my mom and dad did with us. Every year, we woke up to a balloon in our bedroom. I imagine it started innocently. One of my folks taped a blown-up latex balloon and taped it to the door. But over time, it became the helium mylar balloon. It was a simple gesture, but I loved it. It became one of my favorite surprises. I never knew what my balloon would look like, but I knew I would get one, and that was enough to make me look forward to waking up on my birthday.

I decided to carry the tradition on to my kids. I don't put the balloon in their room, and sometimes I even let them pick it out because they asked one year to do that, and they loved choosing whatever balloon they wanted. But sometimes, I just want to surprise them. I usually tie it to their chair so that when they come down the stairs to eat breakfast, there's a balloon waiting for them. So, on Saturday morning, The Boy wandered down to the kitchen and found a Spongebob Squarepants balloon. He oohed and ahhed clearly pleased with his balloon. I had no idea he what he was envisioning to do with the balloon.

Now the girls, they walk around the house for days with their balloon, tugging on the string, making up imagination games, until it gets to the point I just must through the balloon away, resulting in little sulky faces as they mourn the demise of their birthday balloon. Joshua, however, is the only person I know that can turn anything, even a balloon into a weapon of mass destruction.

I would think by age ten, he wouldn't be quite the destruct-o kid anymore. I don't know why I keep thinking this, because he hasn't changed much in ten years. First, the balloon started out as an instrument. He made wonderful rhythms with the crinkle-y mylar until I hollered "AGH! Please stop doing that!" Then five minutes later, I heard "AHHHhhh! Stoooooooooooooooooooop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" along with some less rhythmical crinkle-y noises. Ruthie emerged and Joshua was chasing her with the balloon, a cutting a swath of destruction in his wake as he wildly swung the WMD back and forth trying to maul his little sister while issuing a battle cry not heard since Braveheart.

Needless to say, I stopped that activity pronto. I also began saving up for Ruth's future therapy bills when she has to deal with her issues of killer mylar balloons.

I'm still trying to decide if this is a "boy" thing that all boys would do, or if he just takes all "boy" things to a whole other level. I'm going to guess it's the latter. He is alpha male, after all.

Food Crack...

Any addicting food that causes cravings or inability to stop eating and requires drastic measures (ie keeping food out of home) to avoid eating. For me, this semester, it has been Goods Potato chips.

I've never liked potato chips. I grew up in pretzel land where you can buy one of about 20 different varieties of pretzels in the snack food aisle as opposed to just the stinky Rold Gold I could only find in Texas while living there...well I did find Tom Sturgis Pretzels at the commissary, but they're not my favorite.

Potato chips were never something I wanted to eat... UNTIL I encountered Goods Potato chips in the BLUE bag. Goods has two recipes, the BLUE bag and the RED bag. Both are cooked in lard, but the blue bag chips are curly and a little thicker and crispier than the red bag. Ugh. I can't stop. Add an extra stressful semester, I think I'm up three pounds.

(PS just FYI: imho, some good pretzels are Unique Splits regular, dark, oat bran, wheat, cheese, or Utz specials regular or extra dark, or Utz's honey wheat twists, mmmmmmmmmm)

An evening with the Piano Man

This week I received a flier in the mail from my Grandfather's assisted living home. The Piano Man was coming to do a Christmas carol sing-a-long and the local cable T.V. channel would be there to tape it. Gramps has been trying for awhile to get someone to come to one of these events to see the P.M. so I looked at my calendar, and thought, well, Saturday evening is open, the kids would love the entertainment, and it would be great to see Gramps.

I called the home and RSVPed that we would be there. I also called Gramps to tell him, and warned him I'd be late, most likely, since I was in charge of birthday parties at work. They never get out of the building when they are supposed to. Tonight I left at six, and the event started at six thirty. We ended up being ten minutes late.

I never expected such a packed house. Because we were ten minutes late, we ended up sitting in another room watching through large glass windows that divided the two areas. Since it was a sing-a-long, I sang, as did everyone else.

Now, I think I have a fair voice. I can carry a tune, most times, and I have always done well in choruses. But I have never had a lesson in my life. I tend to go flat, especially if I've had little to no practice on a song. But for some reason, some people think I have an amazing voice. I love the compliment, but I really don't think it is as good as they say. Either way, my voice got me into trouble tonight. The director of Gramps' home came over and begged me to sit in the room where the piano was, near the P.M. "Your voice will ring through the room, the residents will love it."

Embarrassed, but wanting to make my Grandfather proud, I decided to be a good sport, and I allowed her to shuffle me away from my family and Gramps to sit near P.M. Every so often there would be a time out because it was being recorded for T.V. and during one of those breaks, P.M. turned around and said "Is that you? You have a fabulous voice." The self-conscious feeling I was feeling before grew bigger. I was sure my face was a deep rouge.

During the next round of singing, a woman with a flashing lights Santa hat came over and put the microphone near me. I noticed the camera man motion to her to put it back and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived, however, because during the next time-out, I was asked to do a little solo. "Uh, sure," I replied uncomfortably knowing this would make Gramps' night. He had been trying for months to get me to perform for his friends. I haven't sang since high school. I just keep putting him off. Between family, work and school, I have no time to put together an hour of music. And really, that's not my thing anyway.

So, P.M. asked me,"Is there something you'd like to sing?"

I would rather sing nothing I thought to myself but instead answered, "I'm an alto, as long as it doesn't go too high, I can hit the notes."

"How about White Christmas."

"Ok."

"The cameraman says you have to stand up."

You've gotta be kidding me. "Ok." I replied as I stood up at the mic.

P.M. opened with a few bars of music and then nodded to me to start. I just prayed Please God, let me not get off key from the start. I always have trouble finding my starting pitch. Then I prayed, Please God let me hit the high notes. Actually, please let there be no high note surprises. And I started to sing. My nerves were so high, my stomach was physically shaking.

I made it through two verses he had written on the sing-a-long song sheet, and then P.M. did a musical interlude. He nodded at me to come back in, and by that time, my nerves were feeling a little better. The ending was in sight. I made it. I don't know if I hit any bad notes. I certainly hope not. Everyone complimented me at the end of the night, and my grandfather beamed ear to ear. I felt I probably would have been complimented out of courtesy if nothing else. The piano man told me I was a good sport. Not everyone is willing to do that. Now that was a compliment I could accept for face value.

I still felt embarrassed, and still do, but it was worth it to see how happy Gramps looked. Then the Mr. informed me he was going to tape the T.V. airing of tonight's show. Ugh. I didn't think about the possibility of being on T.V.! I'm now praying they edit me out, but if not, tune in and share with me my anxiety of my impromptu solo. All I know is, I doubt I'll be watching.