Monday, July 31, 2006

Hello from the new house

Yeah. You read right. We did get the new house that we were supposed to move into. I am sitting in the office/4th bedroom right now. Not that we have any use for it as a bedroom right now. Sigh.

So anyway, 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, eat-in kitchen big enough to house my big table that was too big for my previous two houses, and the kitchen has an island that is electrified. All the lower cabinets have these little roll-out shelves so storage space is doubled. No garbage disposal, which is odd, and electric stove, which I have to get used to using again. The sink does have a sprayer hose. I love those things.

What else? No AC but we have 3 window units and 6 fans, you think that'll do? We finally have our cable, internet and phone back again. Email me if you need my new info.

If you come in the front door it is a split level, you can go up to the main floor or down to the basement. On the main floor are two bedrooms, and if you go upstairs from there, there are the other 2 bedrooms, and the 2nd bath. So the kids are upstairs by themselves. Going upstairs to the upper floor, the stairs have a huge landing that is electrified and is ready for internet hookup as well. So in the event that we ever hear the pitter patter of more little feet and need to use the 4th bedroom for more than an office, we can just move all the office-y stuff to the landing.

The living room has a giant window made of three panels. The panels on either end open up for air circulation but the middle one is just for viewing. It has a lovely view of the huge front yard. Max the dog likes it to watch for bunny rabbits.

Downstairs to the basement and you find the laundry room, and a couple of storage areas, and a bit of semi-finished basement. It is carpeted with curtains on the 2 windows. I am going to put my treadmill and exercise bike in there. Any random crap that is left in boxes will go into the storage areas. Any spillover from that (shouldn't be much) will go out into the 2-car garage. Since we ony have one car , we are not pressed to find a place to put extra boxees.

This is the biggest house I have ever lived in. There are huge front and back yard and a long driveway. The backyard has a little deck that leads to our sliding glass door off the ktichen. There is a fire pit the size of a kiddie wading pool and a stone to sit on and watch a fire burn. Theere is also a fort of sorts for the kids to climb on. About 4 feet off the ground, it's a platform with a ladder. They think it is wonderful.

So that's about it for the new house, which is still mostly packed up because I am on the internet. I took a pic with my cell phone but I cannot load it up here so when I unpack the digital camera I will take a few pics and post them so you all can see the place.

Friday, July 21, 2006

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Add in some head thumps against my desk and pull out some hair in clumps. Yeah. That's my life right now.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

If I were my friends, I would be tired of hearing from me.

So. We are not moving to the nice new house that we were so enthused about. The move fell through on the day that we were supposed to pick up the keys. We had already forwarded the mail and I had to arm-wrestle two postmasters at two separate post offices to get my mail re-routed back to my house.

We have a phone-cable-internet trio. We arranged for services to be transferred, and then we had to catch them before they were actually transferred. We thought that the move was just delayed at that point, so we delayed the transfer by a week. Well they cut off our phone service, and gee, didn't get around to hooking it up for the next 11 days. It did not matter how many times we called, we were at the mercy of the cable company.

A week goes by and they cut off our cable and internet. They did this a whole day early, before we could even tell them that the move had been cancelled and we wouldn't need to transfer services after all. They did not just transfer services, but actually came out to the house (we were not home) and unhooked the wires on the little box that's attached to our building. We called them for 3 1/2 days, and each day, someone would lie to us and swear that we were going to have a tech show up and reconnect us. Liars, all.

We finally get our services reconnected and now life is trying to settle back down to normal. Whatever that is.

I rode my exercise bike today.Did I tell you we got an exercise bike? So that me & Steve don't get bored with just using the treadmill. So I rode it today, folded a mountain of laundry and washed the dishes so that I could cook dinner.

I am working on crocheting some blankets for pregnant friends of mine. One friend of mine is due soon, and we don't know if she is having a boy or a girl, so since I love to crochet blankets for my friends' babies, I made one of each. So no matter what she has, I can send it to her in the mail. Then another friend of mine will soon have 4 young children, and the older ones are still young enough to appreciate blankets, so I am making 4 for her. Another friend of mine is having a boy and I have already sent her blanket for him. Also, another friend who feels quite left out by everyone else getting blankets has kinda-requested one for her 1 year old son. If my still-pregnant friend has a girl, I will send the boy blanket to the mother of the one year old. If not, I will make another. No big deal.
I like to make blankets for my friends.

So that's about it.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Food!

When I was younger, I thought that Kid Cuisines and going to McDonald's was top cuisine. I also loved "make your own dinner" night at our house, when Momma didn't feel like cooking. Bring on the ramen noodles!

When I became a mother, it was a cross between balanced food and convenience foods. Prepackaged this or that, like juiceboxes or fruit snacks. Whatever was portable was king.

After my second child was born I had a pretty set menu of meals in my repertoire, few of which required much cooking. Still a lot of prepackaged cooking.

Then came the Food Network, and I think it can be divided into 2 time frames. At first, it was exotic food that no one would want to eat, like Suid Ink ice cream a la Iron Chef, or meals that look pretty and the chef can make, but when you try it's a horrible flop.

The second time frame was more realistic food, easier to cook, with fewer ingredients that are unfamiliar to the average cook. Or else they just made us more familiar with seemingly odd ingredients. That carries on now.

I became more aware of the food we were eating and how we were expecting garbage to fuel our bodies. Juice boxes usually contain only a percentage of real juice. They are mostly sugar. Fruit snacks are glorified candy.

Just eat fruit. I tried to implement this after the birth of my second child, and she eats fruit more readily as a snack than her brother does. But she is more familiar with the concept of fruit as a snack than her brohter is. I got her brainwashed young, ha ha. Jonathan is more recalcitrant. He might eat the occasional apple or grapes and he claims to love bananas. But every day at 10 and 3 when the kids say they're hungry for a snack, I offer fruit and Katie pounces on it while Jonathan balks.

So food has been a journey lately. I have replaced white rice with brown and am currently phasing out white pasta for wheat pasta. It has a nice flavor.

I frequently go looking for vegetarian recipes to introduce us to new vegetables and to show the kids that you don't have to eat meat every night.

I also feed the kids 30 minutes later on "new food" nights. Hunger makes anything taste good.

I made tacos recently and I cooked up some firm tofu with the taco meat. Everyone ate them, no one noticed anyting, but still my husband gagged when I told him about the tofu. I was hesitant myself to try tofu. It just seems synonymous with the word "yuck." When raw, it does smell like stinky feet, but the flavor is, well it has no flavor. It truly does taste like whatever you cook it with. I tried it raw and cooked. But it wasn't bad, it caused no digestive ills either, and so I will probably try it again in another dish.

I am not saying we can't eat some good old fashioned crap every once in a while. I get the urge to hit the drive through, or to eat a donut, mmm refined flour and sugar and no nutritive value whatsoever. The kids also come grocery shopping with me and get to pick out their own snacks, subject to approval. Right now they like YoGos, and I think letting them eat a little bit of measured-out junk food will make it seem less like taboo or forbidden fruit.

This food odyssey has caused no small amount of ill will from my friend Cynthia. She threatens me with reports to CPS. My poor kids, she says, having to eat the slop I feed them. Well tonight's dinner would have set her off. The reason I even made the recipe is because I could not say the name of the recipe without laughing.

Brown rice, Broccoli and Walnut Surprise. It reminds me of cafeteria food, where the word "surprise" would be randomly tacked on to jazz up the menu. I decided to make it to see if it was any good.

Fresh broccoli, steamed in my new steamer basket, brown rice, baked in the oven to prevent scorching since it takes so long to cook, and walnuts, 1/2 cup, toasted in the microwave. A few herbs & spices, top with cheese, and yum, a simple savory meal. Katie had 3rds, and Jonathan currently is still working on his broccoli. Sigh. He looked me straight in the face when I was dishing up and informed me that he would not be eating the broccoli. This is fresh broccoli, steamed, nice and tender-crisp, not soggy, and he has maybe 8 bite-sized florets. No tree trunks or anything. Give me a break.

I need to close for now, but one more thing: my own mom says I am cruel to make my family eat lima beans. This from the woman who made my brother eat a whole can of peas because he said he wouldn't eat them, or didn't like them, or something. I remember Ernie scooping spoonfuls in his mouth and swallowing them whole like pills, with a big glass of water. He didn't like the mush.

Anyway. That's it for now, about food.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

On again, off again, on again, now it's off again.

So we found out last Thursday that the birth mother was having twins. And we were excited, only to have our hopes dashed. The birth mother has decided that twins are a novelty, something cute, and all of a sudden she can support two lives.

Pardon the bitterness but when it was "just" one baby, she asked us to care for the child because she could not. She has no job, no home of her own, no car. But now she has decided that she can raise two poor innocent babies. I am sickened and disheartened. She just wants the attention that she will get from having twins.

I would like to apologize to the residents of the state of CT, where the birth mother lives, since she is going to be scamming off the state to receive benefits that legally, she shouldn't receive. She will be raising those babies on *your* tax dollars. So Congrats, state of CT! It's twin girls!

End rant.