Win some, Lose some

Ever have the kind of morning where you wake up and just know, there is absolutely no way in hell you're getting out the door on time?

We had one of those mornings.

But rather than run around, rushing and trying to get out the door on time, I embraced the late-ness. We took our time and went through all of our routine and neither The King, nor I, was crying when we got into the car.

Small miracles.

We had a ridiculously busy weekend. I'll just put the pictures at the end of the post because I know that no one really cares what we did all weekend and also know that you probably had equally busy weekends. I will say that the "no-sleep" nonsense Ole Kingy is pulling the last two weeks is really old.

Amidst all of the insanity, I had dinner with two mom friends, which was a lot of fun. I don't do that enough. Naturally, dinner involved a lot of chatting about babies and men. We talked a lot of nonsense and compared war stories but the one thing that stuck with me was our discussion about making our relationships better.

One of the two friends mentioned that her pastors wife had given her some advice over the years and one thing she told her was to get dressed every day. Like, when your husband gets home from work, don't be in sweatpants, with no makeup and your hair piled on top of your head.

Uh oh.

Now this feels pretty old school but it did kind of make sense to me. As soon as I get home from work, I put on the sweats. If it's the weekend, sweats. It's kind of hard with a little guy to wear nice clothes. We're always outside playing or he's inside, covering me in food. If we leave the house, I try to be presentable but a majority of the time, baggy sweat pants are my go-to.

And let's be honest, I'm friggen tired. I don't have energy or time to do my hair and make up every day. Neither of which, I've ever really bothered with anyway.

My mom once said to me and my sister when we were seriously slobbing it up,  "I don't know how you girls plan to keep your men when you look like that!"

She said it jokingly but she was kind of right I suppose. The woman does her hair and make up every single day. It's actually kind of annoying to me because it takes forever but I guess there is a method to her madness.

On top of that discussion, the pictures that were taken of The King and I this weekend were awful. Not him of course, just me. I look really, really tired. I have bags under my eyes, my hair is a mess, the laugh lines and crows feet stood out like neon signs on the side of a deserted highway.

I asked my mom if I looked old and she in a very nice way said yes without saying yes and then suggested "maybe I should start putting some eye cream on at night."

At least she was honest.

How the hell did I age so much in just a year?

Oh, and I found a gray hair on my sweater this morning.

Icing on the cake.

I can't imagine PB is really very thrilled with the looks of his baby mama either. I wouldn't want to snuggle up to me either.

So, call it what you want, but sister needs to get her act together. Maybe look a little less "seasoned" or "weathered", to put it nicely. I do not take care of my self and I know this. I can't promise I'll do it every day but I'm going to make a pointed effort not to look so awful or you know, try not to look how I feel...exhausted.

I guess I thought I'd share this because there has to be a few others out there like me. Maybe you're less vain or something and think I'm stupid, I don't know. But relationships take effort and I oughta try a little harder.

To the mama's out there who have it all together, bravo.

To the mama's out there like me, let's do this!

The weekend:

My buddy

Cousins at the orchard

This is PB from behind. Scary.

Pickin

Wagon ride

Pulled over to watch the farmers cut the corn. 

Had to pull his own pumpkins

Fishin in the yard with dad

He loves to get scared by PB

Carvin

Hope you had a great weekend!

xxoo
ma

The Freakin Weekend

Almost.

Only five more hours over here. Sorry for you west coasters.

I've got nothing to offer today other than some tunes.

When I first heard this song I thought it was Dierks. Jake should have released this a few months ago. You know, when it was summer.



Can't wait for Dierks' new album. Also, love Kacey Musgraves.







Have a good weekend!

iPhone Drama

For those of you that picked up the new iPhone or have updated to the new operating system, I think you'll want to read this article.

iPhone Privacy Settings

I heard about it the other day on Big D and Bubba radio show. I guess there are some crazy privacy settings that pretty much track your every move if you don't disable them.

I'm sure there's more to it but I'm not interested just yet. My phone won't let me update due to lack of space so I'll read it when I make room. I have a problem deleting pictures and music from my phone. I just can't do it.

Hope this is helpful!

I'm alive!

Hey friends. I'm still alive.

I had a day trip to DC on Tuesday which just about killed me. Day trips are nice because I'm only gone for a day, obviously, but getting home after midnight and having to work the next day is brutal.

I also made a terrible decision to eat Chipotle for dinner in the airport and am pretty sure I ended up with a mild case of food poisoning. I don't know what the hell was wrong with me but I'm not so sure there will be Chipotle in my future.

At least the near future.

Who am I kidding?

Anywho!

Monday night I made meatball subs for dinner from The Family Flavor cookbook and I will never, ever make them again. If you have a good meatball recipe already, stick with it. If you like meatballs that taste like the fake frozen ones from the grocery store, this recipe should be your go to. We did not like them at all.

Last night I made "Michelle's Sweet Soy Chicken and Rice" and it was wayyyyy better. If you've picked up the book, you should know that I have pretty much doubled everything for any of the dinners I've made. The desserts are fine but for some reason, the recipes are pretty small. PB doesn't eat a ton but he definitely eats more than the portion sizes in there.

So in total, we're 5 for 6 on the Family Flavor recipes. That's pretty damn good.

In other news, we're stilllllll working on the house. The roof is almost finished but we now have to patch the enormous hole PB made when he fell through the ceiling. Sweet.

PB thinks I'm going to be able to help him put up sheetrock, like pick it up and hold it above my head, over and over again. I'm going to give it hell but I'm pretty sure I'll be pissing him off all weekend. Should be fun.

It's the effort that counts, right?

Buck is the best puppy the world has ever known. Grace is Grace. The King is on a marathon of night wakings and 5am wake up calls. Why? I have no idea. The air conditioners are coming out and fall is in full swing.

As for me, just living the dream. Working for the weekend


How about those orange hot pants?

Donate

I have a really bad habit of reading terribly sad stories.

I just stumbled across "Kisses for Cami" which is a parents' blog documenting their daughter's battle with cancer. Cami recently lost her friend to cancer and just a month later, learned that hers has returned.

Please read it.

The good news is that we could all potentially save a life by donating bone marrow. I've never really heard of any of this and didn't realize it was so easy to sign up. I'm sure the process itself is much more complicated if you're a match but the initial process of adding yourself to the registry is simple.

You can learn more about the process and sign up to donate here.

Cami's dad also posted on the blog and addresses some of the myths about donating. All it takes is a quick swab of your cheek and they will actually send you the kit in the mail. It's so easy.

It's super hard for me to read this stuff since I became a mom. I can't even imagine what I would do if I were in their shoes but I know I'd be begging for help. From anyone. So I immediately signed up to donate and quickly got a "sorry, you're not a good match because you have asthma. Try again in two years."

I hate that. I hate it a lot.

So, my hope in posting about this is that a few of you will "pick me up" and sign up to donate. I should also mention there is absolutely no obligation to go through with it if you are a match and chicken out. You can pull your name at anytime.

You could totally save someone's life and you might even be a match for Cami. Who knows?

Please, please, please take a second to at least consider it.

And I'm sorry for making you sad.

Foooooood

I mentioned in my last post I did some serious cooking this weekend. If I had to guesstimate, I probably spent around 24 hours in my kitchen. No joke.

Saturday I made braised beef stew and double chocolate chip cookies. Sunday we had a lobster cookout and I whipped up corn chowder and honey butter dinner rolls. Oh my word. So, so good.

The stew, chowder and cookies are from The Family Flavor cookbook I picked up a few weeks ago. I've only mentioned it like eight times. I can't find the recipes online so I'm assuming they are not out in the web-universe yet, which means it's probably not a good idea for me to share them here. It feels like I'd be stealing money out of her pocket and stealing is just wrong.

But you could totally go buy it on Amazon.

And I'm not making a nickel. I just love the book that much. I had almost every single ingredient in my house and only had to pick up bay leaves for the stew. The recipes are simple and delicioussssss.

Now the dinner rolls. They were puffy little clouds of heaven and I found the recipe on this blog, Chocolate Moosey.

I've never made anything with yeast so I was pretty nervous but it worked out perfectly! We ate them alongside the lobster and chowder and the men smothered them with the jalapeno-peach jam I made a few weeks ago.

I'm fairly certain every single person at my house had a food coma. It was marvelous and I was happy happy. I love feeding people.

Let me know if you make them. I think they're going to be a regular round these parts.

Honey Butter Dinner Rolls

 

Save Print

Serves: 12 rolls

Ingredients

• 2 – 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 package (1/4 oz) yeast
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 3/4 cup warm water (120 – 130 degrees)
• 3 Tbsp LAND O LAKES® Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt, divided (or unsalted butter + 1/2 tsp salt) - I USED REGULAR salted butter
• 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 tsp honey
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• 1/8 tsp onion powder
• Pinch of sea salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt (if using). Add water and 2 Tbsp butter. Beat for 3 minutes or until smooth. Turn off the mixer. With a spoon, stir in the cheese and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (1/2 – 1 cup).
2. On lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 4-6 minutes. You may need to add a little bit more flour if the dough is still sticky, but don’t add too much. Cover and rest for 10 minutes.
3. Grease a 9-inch round pan. Divide the dough into 12 pieces, shape into balls, and place in the pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375F. When ready, bake the rolls 11-14 minutes or until lightly browned.
5. In a small bowl, combine the remaining 1 Tbsp butter, honey, garlic powder, and onion powder. Brush over the warm rolls and sprinkle with some sea salt. Let cool until the glaze sets

Enjoy!!
ma

Monday Monday

I'm almost, almost, ok with today being Monday.

I know, right?

We had such a busy weekend that today feels like a break.

I spent Friday night grocery shopping, canning and cleaning in hopes that it would free up my Saturday and Sunday. Boy was I wrong.

The King decided to start his day at 5am on both days. I've never had to spend seven straight hours entertaining him before. When 9am rolled around and he was no where near a nap I was terrified, to say the least.

But, we powered through and I got creative I guess? We did chores, played with the animals, painted pumpkins, cooked, went duck and frog "hunting", went on an adventure in the corn field, played in the mud, did some gardening, had a breakfast date and played with playdoh. I mean you name it, we did it. I pulled out all the stops.

It was unbelievably exhausting but we really had so much fun. I totally expected him to be a beast but he was totally content and happy and funny. Anyone who has a toddler or who has been around one that's tired knows that they can be ugly and whiny and cry and scream for no reason at all. There was minimal ugliness. I could hardly believe it.

In between entertaining Kingy, the rest of the weekend consisted of housewife chores, cooking a TON of food (I'll get to that later), entertaining guests and chasing dogs. The usual.

Speaking of dogs, Buck is the oddest puppy I've ever seen. He is sort of anti-social but pretty smart and scared of just about everything. If no one is playing with him, he sneaks off and sleeps in the dog house by himself. Even better, he's already figured out how to use the dog door to let himself out and had only two accidents all weekend. It's kind of a relief but he really is weird. I like him though. He and Grace are buddies. She totally needed a friend.

See below for the weekend in pictures!

When did he get so big?

Manly

Raspberry Jammmm

Up before the sun to play with the tractor I guess

Feeding his buddies

Here fishy fishy

He actually relaxed for 10 minutes and I planned our meals for the week. Both activities are RARE in our house

Plant corn you get corn: The Cookie Monster Family

Sneaking cookies off PB's plate

We take pumpkin painting seriously. Also, I should not draw faces. Ever.

PB's haul

I mean.

This guy ate more lobster than  I did. This is his "Champion" pose.

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend!

xxoo
ma

Thank God it's Friday

Can I get an Amen?

Amen!

The microwave situation has improved. We still haven't bought one but I've used the oven in its place and its not nearly as fast but it makes me feel good.

I still haven't figured out why that it is. 

In other news, Ole PB is in the doghouse. 

And not the serious doghouse, you know, where I'm contemplating killing you or leaving you forever. Just the doghouse where you might want to sleep with one eye open, in the spare bedroom, and watch your back. 

His list of offenses is quite lengthy this week. It's almost comical. 

First, he put the kibosh on seeing two of my favorite country singers, one that was in town last night for $8 and another in a few weeks that I somehow managed to have front row tickets at my finger tips and had to pass up.

The man has suddenly decided he doesn't like anything he used to like anymore. I'm sorry, come again? I've known you for going on 13 years and you have ALWAYS liked these things. Don't give me that shit dude.

Annoying. 

However, he really broke out the big guns last night when he interrupted The King's bedtime routine to tell me that "there was a woman at the door giving out free humidifiers and she wants to talk to you". 

To which my response was "tell her no thank you?"

To which his response was "I already told her yes and that you'd talk to her' followed by a tehehe

You're joking, right? 

He was literally giggling because he knew how bad he just effed up. 

Son of a betch!!!

So the idiot accepted this woman's contraption and because he did, I had to politely sit through a demonstration of the bigger, better machine.

Seriously.

And yes, I realize I could have just said no thank you and sent her on her way but PB totally set me up, her boss left her here to "go meet the neighbors" and I'm just not that rude. My house was also trashed from dinner and I was so embarrassed. Great start.

So she lugs in a big box of crap and starts talking about the BMW motor and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, PB is tip toeing around the house giving me the "this is hysterical/I totally fucked up and I know it" face. He's trying to put The King down for bed, who is now screaming because he wants to play with this broads vacuum and flirt with her. 

He gets better. 

PB finally gets The King down and then magically disappears for the remainder of the session. Leaving me to politely oh and ah at the broad when all I really want to do is eat some cookies and watch football. 

The whole thing was interesting at first and I'm not gonna lie, the shit that came out of my carpet was narsty. The concept made sense and the house smelled good after her fancy oils demonstration.

I almost asked her a few times "hey, can you hit that spot over there where the dog sleeps?" but I resisted. That would be ultra douchey considering I knew I wasn't going to buy the damn thing. I also really felt bad for her because she was doing my housework.

When she finally got to the end, AFTER TWO HOURS OF DEMONSTRATION, she spilled the beans that the vacuum/ loud ass air purifier was a cool $3,000. 

Yes, three thousand dollars.

If I had been eating cookies and milk, like I wanted, I would have choked.

Who the hell spends that kind of money on a vacuum? 

Cough, cough...mom...cough.

For real though?

So I have to politely decline the offer by saying I can't make major purchasing decisions without ole dad and he's out cold in the bedroom. 

Lie. 

He's in the bedroom snickering over the nonsense happening to me in the living room and watching mother freaking football.

That d-bag.

Then her boss comes to pick her up, who could not have been more annoying, and they spent another 15 minutes trying to pitch me this god damned vacuum with different offers and payment plans. 

See below. 

After the fifth yawn and decline of all their "special" offers, they finally got the hint and got out of dodge.

At this point, it was 8:48pm.

How is that even legal?

PB came prancing out of the bedroom like he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize or the Super Bowl for dodging annoying sales people.

I could have killed him. Right there. On the spot.

Needless to say, he's gone for the day and I'm sitting here wondering how the hell I'm going to get those two hours of my life back and get the rest of my carpet as clean as the spot where Vacuum Lady performed her services last night.

Maybe if I rub $3,000 of cold, hard cash all over the floor it will all magically disappear?

Have a great weekend friends!

xxoo

ma

Recipe

PB requested scalloped potatoes and ham for dinner last night (vomit)

But I obliged. Even though it is the tuna casserole of my childhood.

Per usual, I went with Pioneer Woman on this one because she usually has good hearty recipes.

The verdict: PB fell asleep at 7:30 and didn't even try a bite.

Bastard.

So I ate a small bowl alone, by candlelight.

Just kidding, it wasn't that pathetic but I did have a small bowl because I was hungry and there was a pumpkin candle burning...so maybe it was pathetic.

In my opinion, the food was just ok. Again, this is totally not my favorite dinner so I wouldn't be doing cartwheels over it anyway.

If you like it scalloped potatoes though, this may be your jam.

The link to the recipe is above and she has the pretty pictures as well. Here's how you go about it according to the Pioneer Woman.

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

Prep Time:

 20 Minutes

 

Cook Time:

 1 Hour

 

Difficulty:

 Easy

 

Servings:

 12

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes, Washed Thoroughly
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 whole Yellow Onion, Diced
• 3 cups Diced Ham
• 1-1/2 cup Half-and-half
• 1-1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 1/4 cup Flour
• Black Pepper To Taste
• 1 cup Grated Cheddar Cheese
• 1 cup Grated Monterey Jack Cheese
• Chopped Parsley (optional)

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a large casserole dish.

Heat butter in a large skillet. Add onions and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until they start to turn translucent. Add ham and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat and set aside.

Combine half-and-half and cream in a microwave-safe container and nuke for a minute or so, until no longer cold. Whisk in flour and black pepper until totally combined. Set aside. (You may add salt, but cheese and ham are salty, so add sparingly.)

Combine the two grated cheeses. Set aside.

Using a mandoline or slicer, slice potatoes into 1/8-inch slices (very thin.) Layer 1/3 of the potato slices in the buttered casserole dish. Sprinkle on 1/3 of the ham/onion mixture, then 1/3 of the cheese, then pour on 1/3 of the cream mixture.

Repeat this twice more, ending with a sprinkling of cheese and a pouring on of the rest of the cream mixture. Cover dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes at least, or until bubbly and hot.

Cut into squares and serve. Sprinkle on chopped parsley if you'd like!

(Note: To speed along the process a bit, you may boil sliced potatoes for 3 to 5 minutes before assembling the casserole. Just drain and slightly cool before assembling.)