Remember This Book?

Yay the Scholastic book order came in! I remember this one from when I was a kid and I ordered it for my kids. Alex probably will like it even with his high reading level ha ha

I also previously have ordered and received Shell Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends but neither kid has shown an interest yet. Its partly my fault that I keep forgetting to read it to them!!!

...and the M.O.T.Y. award goes to....

...some other mother who actually pays attention to the world around her and not just her own selfish needs!!!!!



Oy. Its another holiday. You know, the one where love is supposed to be in the air and we are all supposed to trade cards and candy even if we don't really know or like the other person all that much. NO i'm not talking about your spouse/significant other.

Remember in school when Valentine's day came around and it was almost as good as Easter or Christmas because you KNEW there would be a party with candy and chaos! And as you got into the older grades you couldn't wait to see what little foldable piece of cardboard that cute guy or gal you'd been crushing on since Halloween would choose for you!!

In my kid's case, it was what Valentine I chose based on what the kid's name was and what I thought they might look like. Pretty names got the "Will you be my Battle Brawler" Bakugan cards, and boring names got "Time to Brawl!" Bakugan cards. Each card had a freakin tiny little tattoo that was supposed to go in it. SOMEONE please tell me HOW THE HECK are you supposed to keep the tattoo inside the card? All you have to keep the card shut is this tiny little red heart sticker that rips when you take it off the sticker sheet. SO I had to scotch tape each tattoo to each card.

You may be asking, why isn't Alex (the child in question) doing all this hard work?

Let me tell you why. Because he has ME for a mother! When it comes to sitting down and having heart to heart talks about important stuff like, "Honey let me show you what a black lung looks like on Google Image search. Don't ever smoke" and, "Honey let's look at what cirrhosis of the liver looks like on WebMD. Don't ever drink." I AM YOUR MOMMA.

But when you need someone who's head is screwed on in the correct direction who knows how to read a calendar and also knows what month and even sometimes year it is you may need to look elsewhere. Supermom I am not. Hell I barely remember my own birthday. There is something about appointed dates and times that my brain just does not like to hold on to. I know I am not alone with this. But sometimes I feel so bad for my kids that they are the only ones who didn't have Valentine's to pass out to their friends. Or the ones who's mom said she would send in a package of Butterscotch Chips to a peanut free classroom and she bought Peanut Butter chips because it was the same color as butterscotch.

Anyhoodle, this morning around 10:30am I remembered I had not had the kids make their Valentines (WHICH my Mother who IS closer to Supermom and still possesses super powers of ESP went out and BOUGHT FOR ME because she knows I am a tard and never remember). Luckily for Alex we were bringing the baby to his Valentine's party at 1:30pm. I returned home from a trip to Burlington this morning at exactly 1:01pm and feverishly prepared his cards using the list provided by the teacher that I came THIS close to chucking in the trash yesterday. I only made 2 duplicates and left out 1 other kid so hey 21 out of 22 kids got their cards.

And 1 out of 2 kids ain't bad I guess. Poor Alicia.

Homemade-ish Tomato Alphabet Beef Stew Soup Edible Mostly Food

This dinner is rated SM for Super Messy!

What are YOU lookin' at?

I have been wanting to make my own tomato soup for a long time. I hate how much sodium is in canned soup and while there is probably a reason for it (i.e. tastes like doggie doo with out it) there must be a way to make it taste tasty without it.

Ok well that was a nice dream. Here's what I really did:

I took 1 can Campbells' tomato soup (sodium and all)
1 pack stew beef thawed
1 can water
1 cup alphabet pasta
chopped 1 celery stalk
2 cloves garlic
teaspoon or so of oregano
4 shakes of dried basil
1 huge can of diced tomatoes

I started this adventure around 3:30pm. Honestly I had no idea how long it would take, but I was so damn lazy all day that this was when I remembered I was going to make it!

So I hear that roasted tomatoes make tomato soup taste amazing. I am new to roasting, and cooking in general so I looked at Astrid's recipe. It said to heat the oven to 450 and drain the tomatoes, put the nast...I mean tasty chunks in a roasting pan (I used a 13x9 non stick metal brownie pan) drizzle with olive oil and roast for 15-20 minutes (until carmelized). She has some beautiful pics that seriously if I had not had them to look at I would have been baffled. It showed this strainer thingie that I do NOT own so I asked Maggie, "What, should I use pantyhose or something?" She suggested my bare hands. BARF no way. In one of my "mystery cupboards" as I like to call them I found one of those collapsible collanders that I used to like to wear on my head as a child and pretend I was one of the Star Troopers.



Here is my "Life Lesson for the Mentally Challenged" tip of the day: Do not use a collapsible collander thingy to strain diced tomatoes. You may as well use your bare hands. Trust me on this one. Go to the Dollar General and BUY A STRAINER for a dollar. :)

Once I had cleaned up the huge mess of goo from straining the tomatoes, I dumped them into the pan. OH and save the juice. Hopefully if you are crazy enough to read this and follow the instructions, you read them all first and aren't like me who does things as she goes hahaha

ANYWHO put the juice in a pan of some sort.


Now, just because I like to think outside the crack pot, I decided to chop up the garlic cloves with a Kitchen Aid (yeah I need a lot of that) chopper thingy, and throw it in with the tomatoes because I LOVE roasted garlic.



I also chopped up about a third of an onion and put it in the tomato juice just because I can.


PS. Kitchen Aid Chopper Thingy does NOT work well with onions.



I should have called this blog "Creative Cooking" LOL!!!

I found out that to roast things you want the oven rack in the middle, not up at the top. No, I didn't find that one out the hard way. Although unusual, sometimes I DO manage to think ahead like a normal person and ask questions of those more mentally endowed than myself :)



I let the tomatoes roast for 15 minutes. I'm still not sure the answer to "Does carmelized mean burned into the pan" but whatever, I scraped them out and threw them into the crack pot. Then I poured the juice in with the onion also. I garnished with the oregano and the basil and put the lid on.



As I still have no sense of smell due to this annoying cold that won't go away I had to have my husband do a taste test:

He likes it! He really likes it! Ok ok it was really hot and he's trying not to drop the baby

The only thing I regret doing after all was said and done was putting another cup of Alphabet noodles in. I did it for my daughter's sake. It made a hell of a mess in the bottom of the ceramic part of the cooker though. I left that for my darling husband.

Here is the finished product:

If my 5 year old looks at it and says "That looks DELICIOUS" then I feel that I have accomplished something today.

The cat, however, did not throw up during the making of this meal so perhaps she was just humoring me...

Autumn sez "I'm scared."

OK Did Someone Tell This Virus I Don't Have Insurance??

OMGoodness I am sooooooooo sick of this I keep getting the same cold over and over. Its becoming like an old friend. I am gonna buy stock in Puffs Plus Lotion!! I buy it in bulk now about every 3 days!!! The edges of my nostrils have grown plate armor and I have decided it makes more sense to just shove the tissue up there and leave it. My baby looks at me like I have three heads (or just one really freaky looking one) but she never seems to get sick. Why is it soooo cute when they puff that lower lip out?

For dinner tonight I plan to make a Tomato Beef Alphabet Stew. I am kind of taking a different recipe that my good friend Astrid posted on her blog and adding a few things of my own! I am doing the alphabet noodles because my picky middle child LOVES that PBS show "Martha Speaks" about a dog who can talk because she eats Alphabet Soup so I'm hoping that appeals to her. We'll see if she can look past the tomatoes and spices!

I have spent most of the day on my netbook (not unusual) chatting with friends and trying to promote myself. I joined Twitter (follow me...I don't really know what else to do!) and created a Fan page on Facebook for my little business that I renamed Moonshine Designs & Photography. I have high hopes that I will be able to get back into jewelry making soon. My friend Maggie is inspiring me left and right and I'm starting to get the itch again!! Its kind of exciting!

Laundry Stats:

Clean Laundry: 5 baskets
Folded Laundry: 1 basket
Dirty Laundry: 2 baskets

I think the laundry's winning. Oy vey.

I Know I Said I Wanted To Go Hiking.....

...but this is ridiculous!!!

Laundry to do

Can't this crap fold itself???

Seems like everything is happening in mountains today. Mountains of laundry, mountains of dishes, mountains of kleenex on the floor from my damn recurring headcold. Luckily I have this cute baby who keeps smiling at me non-stop and makes it all go away:

Like Fish Out Of Water...every time we went around a turn!

Yes, those are fish in a bucket between my knees on the floor of my car. No, I'm not driving hahaha!

My mom pointed out a pattern she sees in my life: Get 1 cat, and then another and another and another. Have 1 kid, then another and another. Get 1 fishtank, then another and another...

So what happened yesterday was I went to the Colchester Winter Carnival where 3 of my photos were auctioned off. I met up with my friend Astrid there and she mentioned that someone she knew had some large goldfish they were going to FLUSH (calling Mr. Rotorooter...). Me, being a sucker for all living creatures, piped up and said "I'll take them!!!" My husband, always wanting to make me happy, said "Sure why not" and we agreed to meet up at her house after the carnival.

Now, when I say large goldfish, I don't mean 3 or 4 inches long. I'm talking 10 INCH LONG FISH. Like the kind you can fillet and pan fry in lemon and butter sauce. Hey, they ARE part of the Carp family!!



The sweet woman who was giving them away also gave me beautiful 10 gallon tank on a stand that she kept them in.

The only thing left was to get them home : a 20ish minute drive on back roads!

Since they were so big we had to put them in a plastic mop bucket (just like if we caught 'em ourselves) and pray that no one rear ended us on the way. Our first challenge: making it down the extremely long dirt driveway from the house we got them from. Kris did good...right till the end where a surprise row of potholes got my gorgeous fake suede faux fur boots wet. All I could imagine was one of those suckers jumping in my lap and me having to TOUCH IT!!!

We made it home with most of the water still in the bucket and now Fluffy #2 has a new entertainment center!



PS: If anyone knows of a 20 gallon or bigger tank that is either free or cheap please send me a message or leave a comment as these Big Beauties are cramped in the tiny 10 gallon tank! I only need a tank, not all the other stuff (although a stand would be appreciated) :)

Yeah, I gotta Muffin Top. What's it to ya?

I've had it with wearing sweatpants. From about the 7th month of my pregnancy (around mid July 2009) I became too large to comfortably wear jeans. Jeans were my secret obsession up until this baby. I literally owned close to 50 pairs all size 2 up to a size 9 (Juniors. HA HA yeah like that will happen ever again). See, before I got remarried in 2007 I was an average of 120 pounds at 5'7". Yeah, I was skinny. And I loved every minute of it.

Marriage plopped about 10 lb onto me. See, I have this ridiculously skinny husband who is one of those freaks of nature that can eat an entire pizza and lose 5 lb from the effort. At first, I was hoping I was also a freak of nature. Turns out I'm just a freak.

Next, I got pregnant. I tried to keep up my walking and was doing the Shred with my neighbor every single morning at 6:00am (walking was at 5:30am on those days). I managed to make it to 7 months pregnant with this exercise. Then my neighbor moved from right next door to about 5 miles away. Way inconvenient. I vowed to keep getting my sorry butt up at 5:30 to walk since it was summertime, but I was working full time and slowly all dissolved into laziness. I enjoyed sleeping an extra 1.5 hrs and then in the evenings I was so exhausted from being pregnant all day that I just sat on the couch and watched TV and then went to bed. Three months of that and I hit 186 lb by the time I gave birth. Oy.

When you are large and awkwardly shaped, sweatpants are about the only thing that fit you. And yoga pants, which are essentially snobby sweatpants with a convenient panel at the top that skinny people roll over to hold them up and fat (or pregnant) people can use to pull up over their belly to disguise embarrassing things that may hang out from under their shirts!

I am now 14 weeks postpartum, and let me tell you I am sick of my biggest clothing decision being "The black sweatpants today or the brown?"

Luckily I had a pair of Daisy Fuentes size 10 women's jeans that I had bought at Goodwill for this very occasion. I am not really a size 10 yet, more like a 12 or maybe a 14 I really have no clue. All I know is that I have only lost 10 lb since coming home from the hospital at 169 lb.

I dug through the Jean Graveyard in the back of my closet (essentially a large wicker hamper that houses my dreams and fantasies) and found my Fuentes. What I love about Daisy Fuentes is she is a curvy Hispanic (or is it Latina? Eh, whatev.) and she makes her jeans so that if at first you don't succeed getting them on, wiggle, jiggle, and try again! Eventually they will fit!

I got these bad boys up to the tops of my thighs and almost shed a tear in exhaustion. Then when I was about to give up a little voice in my head said, "Pull a little harder and wiggle to the right". POP! Up they went over my generous backside and WOO HOO I got them buttoned! I did the usual squat and contort that all us girls do when we are trying to "break in" a pair of stretch jeans. The moves that loosen them up in all the right places so that when we sit down we don't immediately SPROING back up again from the tension.

I wore them all day. I felt like a human being again. My husband started looking at me like he used to pre-pregnancy. I'm scared. :)