Thursday, May 29, 2008

Back in the saddle




Well, we're home. And let's just say that we won't be flying (voluntarily) any time soon. Travelling with a firearm is pretty near impossible, so I guess the main point is: don't do it! And this is the for the people who are Allowed to. Sheesh! I won't bore everyone with the hassles we had at the airports, but know that even calling the corporate office of the airlines and talking to the supervisor who knows airline policy will not help you one bit. Everyone we talked to and everywhere we went had their own policy and we didn't fit into any of it. So then we had to check the gun, in its case, after it was taken apart and then lock the suitcase. On the way back we had to buy a different lock because locking the suitcase wasn't good enough. This was after we missed a flight (and almost the second one) because we didn't do the right things to be able to carry on-flight. And of course the security checkpoints.....


Everyone, even the baby, got patted down and of course we all wore tennis shoes! Arrrgh!


On the way back we got smart and wore flip flops, so of course we weren't chosen. But everyone at the airport is So so cheerful.....(sense the sarcasm).


Anyway, we all made it back, though 2 of our largest suitcases will be turned over to trash due to rough handling by the airlines. Rr. ayah.


Anyway, today has been busy doing all those things that you have to do when you get home after a long absence. Revel in your home toilet (this is a family thing). Hug your pillow extra hard. Scan the house with your bottle of bug killer. Sigh and huff over the mess your house sitter left. Only 2 casualties, our oldest fish and a bunny. The housesitter thinks that he (the bunny) died because it was too hot in the house. I guess that's what the air conditioner is for.
That and maybe Fresh Water. The other bunny was liberated this morning. We have high hopes that he will live to populate our town with more little bunnies that we will not have to foster.

We also had the kickoff to our library's summer program this morning at 10. We made it....barely. Then we went grocery shopping! No food in the house?! Aaaaack! But it's all better now. And then there's the bills and junkmail to sort through and balancing the checkbook that was neglected and doing online billpay and bank checking. Ew. Making tea and putting stuff away. Deadheading my rosebushes. Listening to Chris fuss because the housesitter told him that he mowed and he didn't, thus the waist high grass in the yard. Then he fussed some more because he ran out of gas and the mower is not the best tool for waist high grass.


But my garden is beautiful! Oh boy, we gonna have squash in a few days! And tomatoes! Woo hoo!!!! Get out my cornmeal and oil because I'm having fried green tomatoes!


But we had a marvelous time in FL. Leaving is just rough though. We are very ready to be closer to family (and Publix and Sonny's).


Waiting on Chris's exam results. He is not as hopeful as I am. We are wanting this so bad, we don't want to get our hopes up too high. Erin is up from her nap. She learned to crawl like lightning and got 2 teeth while we were gone. She is having fun exploring the (dirty) house. Her legs are blackened! But we are back. Back in the saddle, back to reality, and back to the grind. That's what Chris was thinking as he went back to work anyway. That and he'd really rather be mowing at Grampa's house on the riding lawnmower....


Will post more pics later, but they're all still on Chris's phone.


Saturday, May 10, 2008

No more days


Finally, it is the eve of our departure.

I found at least a few of my lists and actually got some of them done. Okay, I got everything finished except the dishes. Hold on, I think Erin just ate a receipt. Yup, all gone. Hope it wasn't important. (oh, and the picture? this time it's not dirt, it's her first Oreo. There's no turning back now.)

Some good news! A car was seen going very slowly past our house and possibly writing down the number of the real estate agent! It had out of state plates (Texas). Why not move to Westville and into our house! Bring it! It was an older man. I am expecting to hear an offer on the house while we are gone or when we get back. Really really really hoping and expecting. It's hard to visit the family and then leave to go home. So far away. And it's hard to come back to the job that is increasingly frustrating and fruitless.

Erin has just hacked up a spitball. I guess the receipt didn't taste good. Ew.

So Ian has been crackling like a sparkler on the 4th of July all day. You know how you can whirl them really fast and almost write your name? Well, Ian was literally running around in circles a lot of the day. Making Erin dizzy so she'd fall over. Making me frazzled because there was just so much craziness! Especially when I was trying to clean up and to pack suitcases and he was just scattering stuff all over.

Friday I had to take Erin to the doc's and it turned out she has a small ear infection in each ear! We've got at least 24 hours of meds in her, but I am really praying that our flights tomorrow will be quiet. For everyone's sake.

And I will be sure to give a report to everyone on how our experience is. Chris is a police officer and he is going to take a class, so he has to take his firearm. Firearm + airport =? We'll find out. Hopefully we won't all be bodyslammed by national security troops. We did everything the airline said to clear it, but we're still nervous.

That being said, I will not have access to a computer to a couple of weeks, so I'll be on hiatus until we get back!

So have a great May and we hope to have lots of pictures to post when we get back (except for Chris, since he'll be in class the entire time. :( He's already said about 40 times that the next vacation is HIS vacation. So it looks like we'll have to do whatever he says; good thing we trust him.)

Got the bathing suits? check. Got my sunscreen? check. Got the kids? we'll check that off in the morning. Got sleep? getting there. Ok, we're off to Florida!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Waiting it out


We are going on a trip soon and Ian is making me nutty! At times, I wish I had just waited and gotten him up at 5:30 on The Day and said, "Get up! We're going on an airplane!" Instead, I opted that anticipation is almost as sweet as the gift, and we have been marking off days since day 15. Now we have a few days left and he is stubbornly insisting that today is day 2. Today is day 2. Today is day 2. Aaaaah! Sorry, honey, nothing I can do can make it day 2 any faster. But the 3 year old mind is not a mind of logic. Just of unsurpassed stubbornness.

Erin on the other hand, is now a crawling machine. She is getting fast and discovering all sorts of fascinating things. Especially Ian's toys. Usually to the chorus of "Ew! Baby goober is making it all gross! We need to wash it off. Mommy, NO! No, Baby girl!" All the while, she is happily munching on the Hot Wheel, train, book, etc, enjoying the commotion.

Well today's commotion was as usual. Then Ian walks casually over to me and, still watching SuperWhy, remarks, "Baby's girl's playing in poo poo diapers."

I heard the crackling, but discounted it as normal play noise. Ha ha. She was in our room, sitting on the floor bapping around the trash bag that houses the yucky diapers. Said diapers were littered all over the floor around her. She wasn't sure why I ran in there, but happily lifted her arms when I came in. I practically bathed her in Germ-X. I warned her not to taste her fingers for a while, but I'm not sure she listened.

Chris slept through the whole thing. I really wish we could just switch brains for a day. It would be really educational...and I would get more sleep.

On Tuesday afternoon, we broke out the bike trailer and our bicycles and went on a family bike ride. Buddy had been sleeping in the bike trailer all winter, it looked like, but Chris vacuumed and I sprayed Febreeze and Chris scrubbed and vacuumed some more (notice my huge contribution; whew!) and finally deemed it ready for our offspring. The kids had a blast. Ian protested all the way home because he didn't want to GO home (it's starting already). Erin just enjoyed the fresh air and enjoyed sitting next to Ian and I think she liked it a lot. I'll let you decide.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Crawling, Squash and Peeing Outside


Well, Erin is now crawling like a pro. It's slow at times, but she is definitely finding out the mysteries under the computer desk, how it smells inside Daddy's work boots and every clear scrap of cellophane that has been camouflaged in the corners of the living room. She has not ventured off the carpet yet. I guess hardwood floors are harder on the knees than we had previously thought. I caught her eating a 3x5 note card, so she is now paper free and swinging, with some Puffs in her tray.
Ian woke up with a tummy ache and a need for extra loving, so he got 1/2 of a Kid's Tums, a cup of juice and some pretzels and bundled up on the couch with Mommy's special fuzzy socks on. Don't worry. They are grey. And OLD. And the treads are almost worn off on the bottom and I've had them for years. But they are fuzzy inside and go up to his knees, so they are Magic Socks. Thank you very much.
Well, I was making supper last night, which is always interesting when you have two days to go before a grocery trip and you are on the last legs of the offerings in your freezer. So we ended up with fried chicken drumettes and the startings (can't say fixins, truthfully) of a squash casserole. My favorite squash casserole has the stove top stuffing in it, but I live with my darling husband, the chief eater of meals (besides me) who has been incurably burnt out on numerous things, including stuffing, through his culinarily traumatic childhood. Add to this list beanie weenies, meatloaf, sloppy joes, tuna casserole and anything else that could possibly have onions in it. We don't DO onions in this house, no ma'am. Not that I'm an onion lover, but I do like green onions in some stuff. Chris likes them sparingly, like if he sees them in the fridge, once a year.

Back to the squash casserole. I have the added bonus in my life of having the cookbooks of three separate churches. My home church from 10 years ago, my Gramma's church of 5 or so years ago and our church here, from a few years ago, but hey there is a rocking Women's group here and they ALL cook. Thus my never-to-be-traded pizza crust recipe. he he he. The reason why we will never order out again. Oh. Yeah.
I also have my own binder of a collection of recipes. And more on the computer that haven't been printed out and stuck in the binder. So I finally decided on the recipe for the squash casserole and cut up the squash and started cooking it. I figured I could substitute bread crumbs for Ritz crackers, a house staple since we have kids. I looked in the cupboard for the cream of chicken soup I always keep on hand and realized that I'd already used it for who knows what. So here I am, in the middle of cooking this recipe and I don't have a key ingredient. I decided to take a leap of faith (we leap a lot around here). I grabbed a can of cream corn and got out some sour cream. The sour cream was to mask some of the corniness and the cream corn was to preserve the texture (not because 'cream of chicken soup' and cream corn both have the word cream in it--give me a little credit here). So I made the thing and it was good.
Good enough, may I boast, that Chris ate it (badum ching). He said it he wouldn't mind having it again (though I'm sure he didn't mean for breakfast the next morning). That is the ultimate Pass/Fail in our house. This variation got a big thumbs up. Yeah, it was corny. And somewhat mushy. I should have added more cracker crumbs. But I DID have it for breakfast and I still give it a thumbs up.


I must add at this time that Ian is having fun being potty trained. He is enjoying the boy part of himself that has the freedom of peeing outside. Now, since he has shocked and traumatized poor Ms Geraldine, the old lady across the street, he is working on the other neighbors. Nothing satisfies him but to pull his pants and underoos down to his ankles and then pee for hours (it seems like hours to the embarrassed mother who is trying to teach him discretion (ha ha)). Everything is fascinating. The fact that you can make funny pictures, the fact that if you point it up it goes farther, etc. Groan! We'll hope he learns how to at least turn his back before he's 6.


Friday, May 2, 2008

Cucumbers and Centaurs



That's what we've been eating a lot of recently: cucumbers. Because Erin likes it, that's why. And Ian does too. I'm glad we planted a lot of garden (even though I secretly think we won't be here to harvest...that makes me want to raise the asking price a little. Maybe $30 or so) because these 2 could eat a centaur out of house and home.


Just in case you're not brushed up on your C.S.Lewis, a centaur has a horse's body and legs and the torso and head of a man.


Courtesy of "The Silver Chair,":


"A centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys [remember, Lewis was British, don't retch] and bacon and omelette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer [there's that British part again]. And after that he attends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats and a bag of sugar [that part in particular reminds me of Ian, should he ever have his way]. That's why it's such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the week-end. A very serious thing indeed."


Back to the subject, Ian could clean out a farmer's market and Erin is not far behind him, especially when she finally gets some teeth. She's doing her share as best she can, gumming the cold cucumbers to a mealy, squishy end.


On a more humorous note, let's change gears a little. To me, choosing vegetables at the grocery store is a serious thing for me. Having grown some of my own vegetables, I'm pretty picky about what I eat. I don't like asparagus that's too thick, because it's tough and nasty. I don't like overgrown stuff because it's tough, as a rule. Bigger is not always better, unless you're going to make zucchini boats. Then it seems like you can't find a zucchini bigger than your finger.

Anyway, after you find the right size of vegetable, you want to make sure that it's ripe and so forth. So you squeeze it a little to make sure there's not any mushy or bruised spots that will make you throw half of it away when you cut it up.

Last, but not least, it's always good to smell it. That way you can smell any mold or overripeness easily. And that way if it doesn't smell like the fruit or vegetable you're after, you'll save yourself a little more trouble. For instance, if it's an orange that smells weird, it could be sour! Or a strawberry box that smells musty is probably molded at the bottom. Now that we've had our lesson and you're all determined to go and choose produce this way from now on, please finish reading.

I was at Walmart with the kids during our normal grocery shopping trip and finally made it to produce, that last stop before checkout for us.
I was choosing a couple of cucumbers and discarding a few of the larger ones right off because I really hate to get those big tough seeds when you eat a cucumber slice. So I picked one up and squeezed it and it was a little mushy, so I got another one, squeezed it and then smelled it and put it down. I chose another one and was just sticking it up to sniff it when I noticed two guys standing a few feet away with really strange looks on their faces. They did not look me in the eye and I couldn't figure out if they were horrified or laughing or just turned on when I realized that a cucumber is one of those things that guys get a kick out of because they can be phallic symbols, for lack of a more delicate phrase.
I felt my face turn red and burn and quickly grabbed some bananas and left. I no longer squeeze and smell cucumbers, or zucchinis for that matter, in public. I still feel my face start to burn when I pass the cucumbers. I told Chris about this and he about fell out of the car laughing. He still teases me about it. Notice that we never have any of this kind of stuff to laugh about when it comes to men. That's because they don't have the guts to tell the stories. Yes, that has to be why. ;)