You Must Use the Force

Ohai. I can haz blog, yes?

Despite my silence, or rather - because of it, I'm mentally prepared for Thanksgiving.

Please note I said mentally prepared not physically prepared. Walk into my home right now and you'd trip over eight loads of laundry. But damn, I am ready to eat me some turkey.

Every year I prepare all the holiday meals. Thanks food allergies! I get to OCD the hell out of the what we eat!

All kidding aside, I do love me some cooking so it's actually a treat for me to cook this much. I know, either I should share these drugs or the prescriptions not quite right - correct?

In any case, my parents are bringing cranberry stuff. Yes, cranberry stuff. Just cranberry stuff.

Whereas I am making veggies with dip, the turkey, gluten-free dairy-free dressing, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, spinach salad and corn. My dad would through a hissy fit without the corn.

For dessert, gluten-free (ha! oh please, IT'S ALL GLUTEN-FREE) pumpkin pie, cheese cake and chocolate chip cookes.

So, yes. I've mapped it out. I've completed two rounds of grocery shopping (hopefully only one more to go!) (don't look at me like that, I said "hopefully") (are you trying to tell me you don't have to go to three different stores to get your food?) and start tonight. Yes, tonight.

So, if any of you want to come over and vacuum and mop and put my laundry away I'd greatly appreciate it.

Alternate post title: Kiss a Wookie, Kick a Droid, Fly the Fuck On Through an Asteroid

Guess how many of my family members have this song memorized?

Stop, it's too Late, I'm Feeling Frustrated

This weekend Darwin asked me what super power I wanted.

I want to freeze time.

You want to freeze time?

Yes, I want to freeze time. I want to pause everything and clean the house. Or scrapbook. Or nap.

Where'd you get an idea like that, Mom?

From an '80's sitcom. Duh.

Doncha wanna be ElastiGirl instead Mom?

Well, although I appreciate her awesomeness, I'd rather stop time.

And it's true, time is just flyin' by. I know people say this all time, but it's true. And I'm struggling to keep up. I want to keep up, but I'm not.

I want lots and lots of things. Clean house. And organized house. Handmade things. A finished quilt (cough, cough, nudge, nudge). Time to play family games.

And it's a tired, broken record. And I'm trying - really I am. I'm not nearly as down as I'm certain the post sounds. But it would be damn nice for my fingers to realize it's November and stop typing October all over the place.


And if I could give Aaron a superpower it would be to grow an un-scratchy beard. And not having hoarding issues. And get shit done lightening fast.

Yes, in that order.

I Like to Take Each Step One-by-One

The trees have decided to be massive bitches and release all their leaves.

Yes, trees are female. Or, at least, mine are. Because "bitches" sounds better than "bastards," that why.

We're making the most of autumn, but we have our air conditioner running (the hell, right?) and the sun has been shining so it feels more like Summer v2.1 than autumn -- I'm certain we'll get an ice storm soon, so Kansas can show us who's boss and all that jazz.


But for now, we're chasing bunnies and rolling in leaves.

If You'll be My BodyGuard, I Can be Your Long Lost Pal

A quick stop to the thrift store looking for a replacement lid to my favorite casserole dish (broke months ago and I still cannot find a replacement, sniff) turned into rummaging through the children's books.


Which resulted in a huge bag of books for five dollars - way less than one book at the book store would have cost.

And look! Quiet children! 'Tis a miracle!

Cherry Ice Cream Smile

It's too early for me to be PMS'ing but there you go - I'm pissy. Pissy mckpisserson and I'm not quite sure why but I am.

I'm feeling a bit like this...


And a good bit like this...


With some of this kicked in for extra flavor:

And Different People Have Different Needs

Last week I came down with this amazing crap, because really, it was some amazing crap of flu ickiness that resulted in an eight-day fever.

So the only thing I can really remember over the past eight days is making fun of Kylie's latest stuff toy.

A beaver.

Of course I had to buy her a beaver. I mean, really, wouldn't you be disappointed in me if I didn't?

So I'm sure you can think of a slew of comments to add, but we keep telling Kylie not to get too excited by the beaver. She's really showing that beaver who's boss. Look how far she can get her tongue in that beaver.

And my personal favorite, best be careful to love the beaver, Kylie. It may just magically disappear if you do not.

Oh, and I bought her a sweater.


See? I told you all I've been running a fever for eight days.

Oh No, You Boys'll Never Care, No, You Boys Never Care How the Girl Feels

The other day I picked the boys up from school and noticed something about Griffin across the parkway (wish I could call it a quad, can I call it a quad? calling it a big ass sidewalk seems dumb).

Half his face was missing.

Now, okay, I get it: I'm a drama queen. Duly noted. But! Half of his face was missing. Which resulted me in yelling, in front of 500 bazillion young, impressionable minds, "Griffin! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?"

"Happened to WHAT, Mom?"

"YOUR FACE."

"Oh, I fell."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Stop freaking out."

"Oh, I'm not freaking out."

"Yes, you are. Quit it."

"BUT! YOUR FACE!"

"I just got it dirty."

"No, you didn't. Did you see the nurse?"

"Yeah, she washed me up."

So, after a call to the doctor's office, a call to the school nurse, a call with the doctor and consulting a shoe salesman (much prettier than Al Bundy, I might add). I decided to take him to the ER for a possible concussion.

Dude, after what happened to Darwin I have become this overprotective mother hen who's all hyper-sensitive to head accidents. I know, I know, that was horrible, awful, unfortunate accident but it create some kind of crazed monster in me of protecting my baby's heads at all costs.

So, yes. I full intended to take Griffin to the ER because! He could have a hematoma! It could pinch off some special nerve and damage him! HE COULD DIE!

And I called Aaron. After all, he needs to know our son is going to die, right? Right.

Well, okay. So Aaron talked me off that ledge. Aaron's idea? Motrin. And a mirror. So Griffin could see I'm not a crazy lady. Then a grown-up drink for me to calm my shit down.

After all...


... he only scratched it on pavement.

So if You're Feeling Low Turn Up Your Radio

A couple of weeks ago I got a call to participate in a survey. Normally I take full of advantage of having an advertising degree and work in advertising and be all yeah, no, I work in advertising ::click:: whenever I get such a call.

But this time, this time, they mentioned it was about music before I even had an opportunity to be bitchy.

"Music?"

"Yes, music. We're doing a survey for radio stations..."

"I LOVE MUSIC!"

"Um, great. So I have a few questions..."

"OKAY, DID I MENTION I LOVE MUSIC?"

"Yes, ma'am, you did. Does anyone in your household work in the advertising field?"

Gawdamnitdamnitdamnit. Sigh. "Yes, I do - but! It's on the internet! With blogs!"

"It what?"

"Is on the internet. With blogs. Totally unrelated to the music field." Squee!

"Um... hold, please." ::pause:: "Could I ask you a few questions?"

So after I answered the questions and she decided I could totally participate, I was told to expect a call in the next few weeks.

Last night, the call arrived.

"Okay, ma'am. We're going to play a part of a song for you and you need to decide how to rate it. One is unfamiliar, two is hate; three is don't like, four is tired of it; five is neutral, six is like and seven is favorite."

And then it went like this....




easy, favorite



easy again, favorite



duh, favorite



FAVORITE (and where's my goddamn "omg, this kicks ass!" button?)



like (whew, I bet they were starting to think I wasn't paying any damn attention)



FAVORITE (but kinda old. seriously? shouldn't you be asking me about new stuff?)



"Hey Griffin! They're playing Franz Ferdinand!" "Favorite it, Mom! FAVORITE IT!"



Favorite. Like, duh. Totally.



My poor seven button is gonna break at this point.

And then they played Creed. And honestly, I was going to embed it. But then I couldn't do that to my wonderous blog. Creed? Seriously? I punched that two button about a million damn times.

I Wanted to be with You Alone and Talk About the Weather

Autumn is here and in full swing.

I'm wearing socks, that's how I can tell.


I have lots to do outside, but I'm enjoying the process of just watching. There's plenty of time to do stuff. I just want to watch for now.






We're busy with soccer, homework, making lots and lots of soups and someone traveling his ass off. And a new obsession of baking gluten-free chocolate snack cakes. Nom nom.

I'd Get a Thousand Hugs From Ten Thousand Lightening Bugs as They Tried to Teach Me How to Dance

On Sunday, after "church" (yes, I know, quotation marks, been going for two years and will forever likely put quotation marks around it, SHUT UP) I went to a friend's house to learn how to can.

Oh yes, you heard me right. I am now prepared for armageddon. Between canning and learning all my mad skillz on FarmVille I'm ready for anything.

So I got together with some friends and made a bazillion pounds of salsa.


I got a wonderful lesson in saving every last drop of juice (the look on my friend's face when I wasted about five drops was astonishing), slicing hot peppers with gloves on don't do shit in regards to making your fingers not burn and that when squeezing a tomato that shit is gonna go everywhere.

My OCD nervous tick came out with rage when I begged to stop for a moment to wipe things down. "But we're not done yet, we'll wipe when we're done." Good Lord, these people tortured me.


We ended up "processing" (look at me! canning terminology!) slightly over 100 pounds of tomatoes into salsa and leftover juice.

And my goddamn fingernails are still stained. Pretty, pretty princess is not happy about that.