Category: Random

Resolution Work

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We had a big gardening day this past weekend (last last weekend). Peter completed the amazing lettuce table and while slightly bigger than we both thought it would be, it. is. awesome:

Stay tuned for more pictures of it filled with beautiful heads of lettuce and strawberries. Note the super cool pot shelf underneath. We were at the nursery and saw a similar table with a shelf – so he came home and just added it. I love having a handy hubby.

I worked on planting my two new rose bushes, a ton of bulbs and some seeds for veggies. I prepped beds for planting tomatoes next month and did a lot of fertilizing and cleaning up. I love getting my hands in the dirt. The smell is so earthy, it just feels good to get your hands dirty and stand back and see your accomplishments. Here are some of the highlights:

Roses on either side, Freesia bulbs in the middle and carrot seeds in a row along the front. Not sure if the carrots are going to grow, stay tuned.

Pots and pots of  bulbs, seeds and herbs:

More to come as all my pretties start to grow!

Stomach Flu 3 : Wands 0

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Warning: don’t read this over lunch 🙂

What the hell is this? Let me explain…

Baylor had the pleasure of contracting the stomach flu last week and then spreading it like wildfire to Peter and I and also various family members. Now a week later, a gallon of bleach and a washer that is tired of running 24 hours a day, I think it’s safe to say we’re done.

It started last Monday night. B woke up around midnight and after a quick rock, she was back out. I chalked it up to a bad dream. Two hours later, she was back awake and it was then I realized she was awake because she had tossed her cookies all over her crib. I felt like a horrible mom for not realizing the first time she was awake, but I don’t turn on the light when I go in and check on her and she didn’t feel wet…anyway, put a check  in the “bad mom” column.  Peter and I spent the rest of the night rotating on the couch with her and a bucket.

But by 7am, she was pale, but in good spirits. A day of the BRAT diet and it was like nothing happened so I assumed she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her or maybe a leaf from the backyard or something. So we had our play date with her cousin on Wednesday. And then I ended up in the ER that evening from the same virus. I broke my record of only having been in the hospital for my birth and then Baylie’s. Thankfully two bags of fluids, some pain meds and something to stop the vomiting and I was like new – or at least able to walk without being hunched over a bucket. I kind of remember Peter saying to the triage nurse “Listen, you couldn’t pay this woman to walk barefoot across a hospital floor let alone curl up in a ball and clutch your trash can on it”. It was ugly – but if I had to choose, I would so rather I have gotten the worse version than B. We’re very blessed that we have lots of family and all close and willing to help out so Bay went to Grandma’s house the next day and my sister came over in the afternoon after work to check in on me.

While this was great for me, it turns out it was awful for our family. We single-handedly spread the nasty bug to my sister, my sister-in-law, her infant daughter and my mother in law. When Peter came down with it this weekend, we decided it was time to quarantine ourselves and break out the bleach. The picture above is every toy that Bay has touch in the last week that would survive a bleach bath. This is them drying after soaking. Anything that could go in the dish washer, clothes washer or sink of bleach did so. The few remaining, battery operated toys got a through cleaning with antiseptic and hot water. Baylie loves to clean so being given her own pack of alcohol wipes and free rein to wipe anything and everything was like heaven. By Saturday afternoon, our home no longer smelled like a frat house after a date dash but rather a school cafeteria after it had been swabbed with bleach post lunch.

I may have burned out my sense of smell, but our house is clean, we’re all well and I won’t get any more calls from family letting me know that they too have contracted the virus from us.

That said, I wrote several blogs last weekend that didn’t get posted. So if you’re reading one about gardening that refers to “last weekend” just know it was last last weekend. And wash your hands and stay away from anyone who even KNOWS someone who has the flu!

Mom Bloggin’

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Do you enjoy reading The Goon Room? Does it make you laugh, smile and help pass the boring hours at work? Can you relate, disagree or have you made one of the recipes I’ve posted? Then please rate The Goon Room on The Mom Blogs! Note the new link in the blog roll on the right —->

Link to new page on The Mom Blogs:

http://themomblogs.com/blogs/detail.php?link_id=11847

As always, thank you for reading. I enjoy writing and especially love writing The Goon Room and it’s huge that you all take the time to read and comment. I’ll remember you in the acknowledgments of my first book.

Dare to Dream?

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I had the most vivid and crazy dreams the other night. None of it made any sense, but at least they weren’t nightmares.

The bad part about them is they felt like work – I was dreaming about writing the blog and some funny idea that I had dreamt about. Yes dreamt about…in my dream I was dreaming. And the really weird part is that the in dream I was dreaming about, I was making a salad and how it was this brilliant recipe and the blog was going to be about how it came to me in a dream.

The interesting thing is that this blog was, in fact, a result of my dream. However, obviously the content is slightly different.

If only the work I do in my dreams was more productive….if I could sleep type or sleep mop, then I’d be on to something.

My Resolutions For The New Year

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I really don’t like resolutions. I feel like they make what is already a sad time of year worse. There’s nothing more depressing than knowing the fun, socializing, decorating, getting and giving, drinking and eating of the holidays are over and now I’m supposed to add a new and undoubtedly unfun thing into my life too? No gracias.

Thankfully for me, I don’t have any vices I’m willing to give up. We’re planning to have more kids some day so I’ll give up the drinking then – why put off that good bottle of wine on a random Thursday night now? I don’t smoke so I’ve got a big check mark next to that resolution and I wear sunscreen and my seatbelt so we’re good there too. I already work out and I’m near wedding weight so that’s covered. I already pinch our pennies, clip coupons and work any discount possible so that’s out.

The two things I’ve come up with are actually very fun resolutions so the chances of sticking with them are good. First, I need to get back into volunteering more. I love Pets On Wheels as written about in Give A Little Bit, but I’ve gotten away from it because it can be a hassle wrangling Travis T. Dog and the kiddo into the car and then through the nursing home. Last time we were there, a resident was coloring which Bay was all to happy to help out with. It’s always a toss up whether someone is a baby person or a dog person and this lady was not a baby person. It was a little exhausting getting B out of her room without the markers and with little screaming. But I think I build it up too much in my head and need to just take it for what it is. If we stay for 45 or 15 minutes, that’s good enough and that’s what I need to focus on.

Second, I’m going to get serious about growing our garden. I love to be in the yard and I love to grow beautiful flowers, but I tend to become a slacker on fruits and veggies once it starts to get hot and requires more work to keep the plants producing and or alive. But I really want Baylie to know that food doesn’t come from the grocery, but from the ground. So in addition to the two beautiful new rose bushes I got for Christmas, we’re going to plant carrots and scallions in the same planter. Then our usual two tomatoes, but I’m going to put in some serious effort to keep them alive past May. The jalapeno and sweet pepper that already exist and produce despite zero attention are going to get some serious TLC. Peter is building us a Martha Stewart inspired lettuce table that will be home to spinach, red leaf, butter lettuce and also strawberries – it’s my damn lettuce table and if I want it to be a lettuce and strawberry table, so be it.

Lastly, as soon as it’s warmer than 60 degrees out, B and I are going to plant the flower bulbs that I put out every year. Growing up, we always had pots of bulbs in the windows of our house. There was nothing prettier to me than the little green shoots on a dark, cold morning. Something about them made me feel like it wasn’t going to be cold and dark forever because spring was just around the corner.

I think any more than this amount of self improving would be like trying to make a sunset prettier…it would just be too much 😉

Clean Up Clean Out

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The spring cleaning bug has bitten at our house. Peter and I have gotten into the “clean up, clean out, organize and get rid of it” mode. Slowly but surely, we’re making our way through the closets, the cabinets and the toy bins (yes, there are more than one) and getting organized.  And hopefully getting enough stuff out to make a few bucks at a garage sale.

It’s amazing the amount of crap that you accumulate – especially when you have kids. It becomes very apparent after Christmas and birthdays when there is an influx of new toys and clothes. Or after a growth spurt where the “too small” clothes are tangled in a pile with the new clothes.

Because we are planning to have more than one child, we don’t get rid of a lot of Baylie’s stuff. Rather, we clog up most of my parent’s storage unit, which they are undoubtedly regretting offering us to use. As first time parents and first grandchild for my mom, there is an excess of stuff. We didn’t have 4 bottles, we had 10. And 10 of the various size nipples that are required for each stage of baby-hood. Don’t get me started on clothes – first grandchild, girl, first child – enough said. I could build her a full size house out of the storage bins of just clothes. Toys that she has grown out of, the baby bath that’s too small, the beastly stroller we used until she was big enough to fit in the jogger and two baby carrier car seats all are wrapped in trash bags (we’re classy organizers) and marked waiting for their next owner.

That said, I have come across a lot of stuff that I just don’t think we need to hang on to. Like stuffed animals, we have 29,000 of them and maybe 5 get played with. I’m not saying I’m the grinch and I’m going to get rid of them all, but some of the little trinket ones need to goooo. And the books that have been chewed up, torn apart and ripped up are out.

Moving on to my side of the closet….When you gain and lose 50 lbs over a 2 year period, the sizes of clothing in your closet vary wildly. There’s the pre-pregnancy clothing (aka, the skinny bitch stuff), the gaining-a-few-pounds sizes, the starting-to-need-elastic-waist pants, the super-cute-maternity clothes and finally the whatever-will-fit-over-my-ass-belly-boobs-and-doesn’t-look-too-bad clothes. And the process reverses after the baby is here. As the pounds have come off, I’ve moved clothes to what else, a storage bin. But I’ve never done a full sweep of the closet and the off-season stuff I put in storage under the bed. I’m more than half way through, just two drawers and accessories to go!

Peter has been hard at work in the garage. We have a great garage; it holds two cars and lot of stuff, which is both great and terrible as it tends to get messy easily. Thus causing me to walk through a maze of Costco paper towels, boxes of diapers, the jogger, the wagon, a bag of trash…the list goes on. He totally changed the layout of the storage racks and added a HUGE work table complete with peg boards and a new miter saw. Not sure how that’s helping us organize…but it is helping him make me a new “lettuce table”. More to come on that in a later post. It’s nice having a hubby who can sue people AND make stuff.

The kitchen, office and laundry rooms are next on my list. I think the level of difficulty will go in that order with the hardest being the laundry. We have a lot of great storage, but do not utilize it well which means a lot of extra work trying to decide the most efficient way to set it up. Currently it is the catch-all for a lot of crap – I found dog treats under a lot of other crap on the counter across from the washer the other day and started to freak out. I was picturing being on that show Hoarders and finding things I haven’t seen in years when I finally clean out all the junk. It was a frightening thought and has only fed my need to keep going!

A Little Too Ambitious

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After a long, but fun weekend with family and friends, we decided that we needed to take down a few Christmas decorations. The two “live” wreaths are very dead, the red roses are done too and a few other things needed to go. So we started absent-mindedly removing a few things with the goal of taking it all down next weekend over New Years. As we both separately worked on our projects we would say “I’m going to do the manger too” or “I think I’ll take off the ornaments and we’ll do the tree next weekend….”.

Before we knew it, it was all down. It was packed and the boxes were awaiting transport back to the storage unit. Christmas was done.

Normally, I am elated when all the clutter and mess is gone. I love it through Christmas, but shortly after, I start feeling itchy at all the extra stuff in our house and get the very strong urge to get it out. But this year, I am struck with the fact that I miss the tree. I want the warm glow of it back…but I know by mid-week I will be deep into cleaning out closets, the garage and kitchen cabinets, behind all the furniture and the ceiling fans. And by next weekend, I’ll be ready to welcome winter / spring and will be into planting bulbs and a delicious new garden.

But for now, I miss the tree.

BTW – these are only the “pretty” ornaments. I didn’t get a pic of it fully decorated…sniff…

The Holiday Home Goods Parade

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I have a very large family and we get together often. But they’re almost all informal and involve food that doesn’t require utensils and paper plates. But for the holidays, we like to get a little fancier. The problem is that collectively, we have enough plates, silverware and cloth napkins for everyone. But alone, we come up short. So for each holiday there is a parade of items that travels from one house to the host house for use. I’ve pillaged my mom’s supplies for so many years of Thanksgiving’s and Easter’s, I don’t even  need a list of what I need to borrow and she usually just has it all out for me. 10 plates, the spare silverware, serving pieces, bake ware, a table-cloth or two and always the really pretty folding chairs all make their way to our house. It’s not that I don’t have these items myself, it’s that I don’t have enough for 18 people and 5 kids.

This Christmas is no exception. The folding chairs are in the back of the car already. Linen napkins too. My pretty silver shell dish is awaiting shrimp cocktail for Christmas morning and a spare “giant” table-cloth (we describe the length of the various table cloths that my mom and I own not in feet, but by the length of the table. I.E. “with one leaf in or with all three leafs in”. We have really big tables) is ready to go. And so the parade of items makes its way back across town. It just wouldn’t feel like the holidays if someone wasn’t walking in with chairs under one arm.

New Rules at Starbucks

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Well really, these are my new rules, but they should really consider adopting them.

1. If you are in line for longer than 1 minute and then you hesitate when it’s your turn to order,  you forfeit your turn.

2. If you are too consumed by your cell phone to notice the barista asking you what you want, you forfeit your turn.

3. If you cut in front of a woman with a child because you are too oblivious to notice that there is a line 12 people deep, I will say something smart like “No no, I wasn’t in line. Please, stand in front of me”.

4. If you don’t feel that using phrases like “excuse me” and “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was stepping on your foot” are beneath you, you forfeit your turn.

5. If your order has more than 4 instructions, you forfeit your turn (no Peter, a grande skinny vanilla latte does not count).

The things I will tolerate for my caffeine fix and because I have a gift card!

A House United

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I’m sure many of you have seen the cute little window stickers for couples where one attended THE University of Arizona and the other attended that other state school – they read “A House Divided”. Thankfully, we’re not that couple. Instead, both PW and I attended UofA. In fact, Peter is a second generation Wildcat. Both his mom and dad attended although they didn’t know each other until after college. We have many a UofA ornament and I made a UofA tree for Hal and Marilyn a few years ago that features a picture of each of the graduates in the fam.

I originally intended this post for last week for the annual Territorial Cup or the Duel in the Desert as it’s also known. It’s one of the oldest trophy rivalry games in the country. Unfortunately, we lost this year and I blame my camera. You see, it apparently called the computer fat and so the two devices wouldn’t talk and I could not upload my super cute picture of Baylie with her game face on thus costing the team valuable spirit points. Maybe if Zendejas had a little more spirit coming his way, he wouldn’t have blown those two kicks….but I digress. Game face: while not scary, it is adorable, no?