Very Belated Thanksgiving Report

Wow, it seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve actually blogged a decent post aside from menus. I haven’t had much in the way of computer time recently with Darling Hubby being off from work for the week and it being Thanksgiving and all. Plus, it doesn’t help that Baby Girl naps in my computer room and I can’t be in there (how I wish I had a laptop that could connect to the internet from any room in the house…Anyone want to buy me one?) I’m finally getting myself back on track after having my schedule thrown off for several days. Today was the first time I’ve vacuumed my rugs since Tuesday morning, and with 3 dogs, a cat, a kid and a husband, you know it was in dire need of a good vacuuming. Hairballs and crumbs were everywhere.

We had a good Thanksgiving. (Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, by the way) Better than we’ve had in the past, in my opinion. Thursday morning we got up, got all spiffied up, snapped our Christmas card picture and headed down to my parents’ house 2.5 hours away. We enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner with my mom and dad, talking about this and that and listening to Bug sing his ABC’s in between handfuls of peas, carrots and cranberry sauce. It was a nice quiet dinner and I could actually hear myself chew it was so quiet. I was very thankful for that quiet meal. Holiday get-togethers usually give me a headache they are so loud. After some more chatting, playing around with pots and pans and Grandma and some pie and jello for dessert, we bundled back up against the wind and headed to DH’s grandpas’ house.

Generally, we have lunch with DH’s family first and head over to my parents’ house, but we did things a little different this year just for a change of pace. Anyway, we went to Grandpa’s house and had a quick (and again quiet) meal, just the 4 of us. It was nice to spend some alone time with Grandpa. Usually when everyone else is there we can barely talk to one another, so again, I was thankful for the quiet time we spent together this year. He’s getting on in years and has several health problems so who knows how much time we’ll have left to spend with him. Overall, I was thankful that we got to spend some nice quiet time with family. I do feel bad that we didn’t get to see all the aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, but if you read my prior post about my state of mind you know that I was really stressing this get together because of all the noise, plus it really makes Bug act out because the other children as terrible influences. It really is a zoo and I’m glad we managed to avoid it this year. Some how I don’t think we’ll be as lucky come Christmas. I was also thankful that Bug was a good boy for the whole trip. He hardly had any meltdowns while we were out and about, despite the fact that he only had a 10 minute nap in the car. Bedtime was another story, but at least he was good the rest of the day.

I cooked a turkey for the three of us Friday and we put up our Christmas decorations Friday and Saturday. The outside lights are up and finally working properly, after 2 nights out in the cold checking bulbs, forays to three stores looking for replacement bulbs that would fit and not blow out the second you plugged them in and finally the purchase of 2 new strands of lights. The Christmas tree is in a new place in the living room and looks good, as always. Now if I could get Bug to leave a couple of the ornaments that he’s obsessed with alone we’d be in business. Baby Girl on the other hand hasn’t touched it. Go figure. On another happy note, we are pretty much done with Christmas shopping. We bought only one gift per person and a few extra for each other and for Bug from Santa. I feel like we are being stingy, but with a limited budget we had to go easy, so one present a person. At least I didn’t have to go out on Black Friday. That was a relief. I don’t think I could handle the crazy crowds. I hate going to the stores anytime between Black Friday and Christmas even if it’s for something other than Christmas shopping. Too many crazy people, if you ask me!

Oh I don't think I could write a post without a complaint, so here it is. Gotta be good at something...LOL. A family member on DH"s side of the family has a son who's a year or so older than Bug and a son a year or so younger and we've been swapping clothing back and forth since Bug was a baby. Hey, it saves on having to buy a ton of clothes every year and I'm not one to say no to hand-me-downs. This time I brought down two diaper boxes full of clothes that Bug has out grown for her youngest boy in return for a big garbage bag of clothes her older son outgrew. Everything in my boxes was clean and folded. I didn't send anything down that was super stained or that I wouldn't let Bug go out in public in. When I opened the bag of clothes they smelled of old cigarette smoke (which isn't unusual since DH's dad lived there for a while and was a smoker) and many of the clothes were stained...very badly. I always wash the clothes before I put them away, but as I was attempting to get the dinginess and the stains out, I felt disgusted, almost dirty. I started to feel like I shouldn't bother and that I should just box the clothes and return them in the next swap. I'm not talking the occasional stain here...No grass on a pant leg or ketchup stains on a sleeve. I'm talking all over stains. I mean, the stains were so set in, I was sure nothing would work and I was right. And as the clothes were going through the wash cycle, I peeked inside and was sickened by how dirty the water was. I know that wash water gets dingy and turns gray, but this was nasty brown water, like when I wash the dogs bedding. I had to give them a second rinse just to make myself feel better. Granted many of the pants and some of the shirts and sweatshirts were stain free or mostly stain free, but still…I mean…how would you feel opening a bag of clothes to find what I found? Would you say anything? I mean she is family and we’ve been friends for a long time but I’m just not pleased about getting a bag full of stained and filthy clothes. She has three kids, a husband and several animals, but that doesn’t mean the clothes can’t be clean. I do Bug’s laundry once every week in addition to everything else I do around here, and hardly anything of his is stained as bad as this stuff is. I’m not ashamed to let him out of the house in my clothes. I don’t even want to let him go out to play in these clothes. I feel like people would look at me like I’m a lousy mother allowing my child to wear stained and dirty looking (even though they are now clean) clothes. I know kids get dirty and stain their clothes, but come on! Am I being petty? Am I thinking too much about what others will think than about what’s reality? I know that kids get dirty, but would you share your stained up and dirty clothes with someone else? Ugg…it still gets my goat thinking about it.

OK, rant over! LOL

I'd better go get busy around the house and do something productive. I'm gonna try to be better about posting...really, I am....lol

Food for Friday - 11/26-11/30 & 12/3-12/7

Ok, here's a late rendition of my food for Friday. I haven't had much time to post lately with Darling Hubby being off from work this week and all our traveling for the holiday. We still plan to shop tomorrow so here's my menu.

Monday - Craft night - Sadaf's turn to cook - dinner to be determined later
Tuesday - Cabbage rolls with ground beef and rice
Wednesday - Rotisserie Chicken Breast with potatoes and fresh carrots
Thursday - Game night - Dinner to be determined later
Friday - Homemade pizza

Monday - Craft night my turn to cook - Spaghetti
Tuesday - Oven-fried Chicken Fingers and Fries
Wednesday - Sloppy joes - Bernie style
Thursday - French Toast
Friday - Barber's Chicken Cordon Blue and fries

My State of Mind

Have you ever felt like the world is out to get you?...that nothing goes right no matter what you do?...that you just feel angry all the time? That's how I've been feeling lately. I feel like I am going to loose it. Bug drives me nuts and Darling Hubby drives me nuts. It seems I'm going nuts.

Yesterday could have been the straw that broke the camels back..thankfully, it wasn't. I haven't had a decent nights sleep in a long time and if you know me, I NEED my sleep. I'm cranky and grumpy...which seems to be my constant mood lately. Anyway, I was awakened in the night by Bug's coughing and after that, I had trouble going back to sleep because my stomach was bothering me (which it does most of the time...) After DH left for work I conked back out and either Bug was very quiet or I was just dead to the world...This spells DISASTER! I was finally awoken from my slumber by a great crash and Bug saying, "All done." This can't be good. I just think about the fact that we rearranged his room the night before and I'm sure he's found an all new thing to get into.

As I toss on my robe I push open his door and hurdle the waist high baby gate. I've failed to place my glasses on my nose and therefore can't see completely clearly. What presents itself is this:

I see Bug, dressed in blue car PJ's with what I at first glance assume is powder ("No big deal," I think, "powder comes out easily")....that is, until he politely hands me the empty jar of Seudocream (diaper rash ointment from Ireland) saying, "Here you go, Mommy." I am very quickly annoyed and he's quickly ushered into the bathroom where I try in vain to remove the white cream from him...he was coated up to his elbows and had some on his face and hair...This stuff is a great solution to diaper rash as it stays on the bum very nicely...that was the problem with it being on hands and face...it doesn't come off easily. Thankfully after several scrub downs with baby wash and warm water, it came off...Next was to get him out of the soiled jammies and survey the damage done to the room.

Without glasses on, it looked pretty grim. I could just see white everywhere. After stowing Bug in his bed and telling him to stay put (and removing the very smeared top blanket (fleece) on the bed) grabbed my glasses and a wet cloth to try to clean up. It was everywhere...all over the rocking chair (which thankfully isn't fabric), all over the changing table, on the side of the dresser, the bottom of a book, all over an old pair of slippers, all over the fleece blanket in his bed, his blankie and his jammies.

I got him dressed, tossed the soiled fabrics into his laundry basket and ushered him down the stairs. After parking Bug in the chair at the table and giving him a bowl of cereal I attempted to tackle the job of getting white zinc oxide cream out of everything. After tossing the slippers in the trash (they were getting small anyway and I didn't want to mess with them) wiping up everything with paper towels as best I could, I sprayed everything with a liberal coating of spray & wash. Hey, it says it works great on grease and grass so I figured if it would help break up the greasiness of the cream, why not. I rubbed it in a little and then poured on some water, followed by a good scrub with Dawn dish washing liquid. I figure if they can use it on ducks in oil spills, it should be safe to use on a fleece blanket. After that, everything got tossed into the washer with warm water and washed...twice...just to be safe. Thankfully, it all came out and you can't even tell it was ever there.

The book on the other hand is still up in the air whether it is a lost cause or not. At first glance, I saw that there was a little cream on the bottom of the pages and the sides, like he was flipping through reading it with dirty fingers...this was far from the case. Two whole sets of pages where lovingly fingerpainted with white goodness and stuck together. I wiped off what I could with paper towels and then, after DH's suggestion, used a spackle knife to scrape the pages clear of the rest of the mess. The pages are mostly dry now and they are see-through...They still feel a little on the slimy side and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. On the brightside...it smells ok...

So as punishment, Bug was without his favorite TV shows and his favorite computer games for the day. I don't know if he truely understood the punishment, but everytime he asked for one of those things, I reminded him about what he did that morning, explaining that what he did was bad. He knew Mommy was mad and he did apologize, only after I told him he had to...

So this set my mood for the day. I was on edge all day. The littlest things set me off. Don't get me started on our dog Max who barks at the drop of a hat and is very needy so he's right next to you following you around all day. I can't take a step without kicking him or put my feet down from the couch/chair without stepping on him. Needless to say, his clingy behavior got old VERY QUICKLY. Poor DH came home and after dinner he was planning to go to the local game store for a bit. We made it through dinner and afterwards he said something benign, but I just snapped, told him to drop it, that I wished everyone would just leave me alone and told him to just go to the store. He left without another word. Of course, I cried after wards.

I don't know what it is. It seems lately the littlest things set me off. I have such a quick temper it's not even funny anymore. I think I'm feeling overworked, under appreciated, and stressed. I'm stressed because of the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. I'm stressed about all the noise that I have to deal with when the families get together, which is often like visiting the zoo on giveaway day. Everyone is there and it's loud. I'm stressed about the fact that we are low on funds and the number of presents that we have to purchase. I'm stressed because we ordered a bunch of presents online this past weekend and when the package arrived...it wasn't our order. Now we have to have those items shipped back and the order redone. I just want to get everything done BEFORE Thanksgiving. I hate shopping after Black Friday. I'm stressed because I have No. Bloody. Clue. what to get DH for Christmas.

I'm feeling over worked because it seems that I'm constantly doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, babysitting, etc. I know I have free time each day during naptime to do what I want, which generally consists of reading or watching tv since I need something quiet to do since Baby Girl is such a light sleeper. Sometimes I want to sew, but can't because my sewing machine is in the room where she sleeps. I can't bake because even the slightest clanging pots and pans and the opening and closing of the fridge wake her through the walls. I just feel like my free time really isn't mine because I'm so limited.

I feel under appreciated sometimes because I do things around the house and no one seems to notice. The carpets are always vacuumed and the floors swept, the cat and dog pans are cleaned, the laundry is washed, hung, dried, folded and put away, Bug's toys are picked up, dinner is cooked, all the bills paid, the checkbook balanced and the finances and meals planned. I clean the bathrooms and bedrooms as necessary, gather the garbage, empty Bug's diaper pail, walk 3 dogs all on top of caring for 2 small kids. And sometimes I even do a bunch of they yard work outside. It's when I fail to do something that I get, not necessarily criticized verbally, but I can see the disappointment from DH in the way he acts. Our kitchen counter is a catchall for papers and I'm not always good about keeping it cleared and he gets annoyed when there is no counter space left to use. If I don't do the dishes and they pile up I can tell he get annoyed. It would be different if we had a dishwasher that actually functioned, but since the one that came with the house barely kept itself clean on wash cycles, we took it out and never replaced it. We needed the space it was in for the garbage can/returnable bottles and never had the money to buy a new one. Honestly, I'd just rather spend time with Bug and DH than be stuck in the kitchen doing dishes. It feels like all I ever do is clean anymore and no one appreciates that. I try to be good about saying thank you when DH does something like empty the dish drainer (which is his job). I just feel like I never get any thanks at all. I'm sure that's not the case and that Dh enjoys coming home to a clean house and a home cooked meal and is thankful that I do it all, but sometimes I just feel like no one notices.

So after getting in a small fight this morning when DH woke me up at 6 (which I really wish he wouldn't do) I had a good cry about how I was feeling. He told me he's felt the same way at his job and that you just have to keep doing what you are doing and get through. I'm still feeling like the world is out to get me, but I'm feeling a little better...at least I think can get through today and maybe tomorrow.

Food For Friday - November 12-16 & 19-23

Here's the menu I came up with for the next 2 weeks. Things are gonna be kind of hit or miss in terms of dinners at home with several get-togethers plans with friends for craft and game nights and the Thanksgiving holiday with family. Hopefully I can keep myself under my grocery shopping budget this month since I have a lot of the meat I need in the freezer downstairs. That way I can do a little Christmas shopping without feeling like I'm going to break the bank.

Monday - (craft night, my turn to cook) Chicken Caesar Wraps
Tuesday - Beef Tacos
Wednesday - Teriyaki Chicken Salad
Thursday - Game Night - dinner to be determined later
Friday - Homemade Cordon Bleu, veggies and potatoes

Monday - Craft night - Dinner with Bernie and Rose
Tuesday - Hamburgers and fries
Wednesday - Pork Chops, rice and veggies
Thursday - Happy Thanksgiving! - Dinner with the families
Friday - Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce

Tuesday's Random Thoughts

I have many weird things floating around in my brain right now. I figured I'd write a random thoughts post.

• Today was so chilly outside when I walked the dogs that I could see my breath.
• They are calling for snow for Friday.
• I was glad that I raked all the leaves from the backyard Sunday when I heard they were calling for snow on Friday, but after last night's rain shower my backyard looks like it did before I raked it...sigh
• I'm ready to start listening to Christmas music and decorating.
  
• I have the urge to organize and toss things, but I really have nothing to organize and discard...I guess that's a good thing.
• I'm dreading figuring out our taxes for 2007 since I basically have had a home business babysitting this year. I have a feeling I'm going to get raped by the government. sigh...nothing ever changes
  
• Bug has decided he's going to become a vocalist for Cirque de Soleil. His act consists of standing on the arm of the futon like it's a balance beam, swinging from the cat tree and singing Weird Al's song I'll Sue Ya and the ABC song. He needs to come up with a cool dismount for his grand finale.
  
• I'm tired of snot. At least Bug now knows how to let me blow his nose instead of me sitting on him to use the booger sucker.
• I hate the hiccups.
  

Oh, and I have to share this conversation that I had with Bug yesterday. Here's the backstory. It was laundry day (darks) around our house and Bug has become my designated helper. He has to help put the clothes hangers in the shirts so I can hang them to dry on the rack. He has to hand me each piece of clothing from the basket so I can drape it over the rungs of the little rack. If you are wondering, I hardly use the dryer except for sheets and things that I can't hang inside. I do hang things outside during the spring/summer when I can. Anyway, Bug's also very good at carrying small piles of dry clothes into my room to put on my bed for folding. This was our conversation while he was handing me Darling Hubby's boxers and shirts.

Me: Hand me the next one, please.
Bug: Here you go, Mommy.
Me: Thank you.
Bug: You're welcome (it actually came out like "webcomb" since he has a stuffy nose.) Here you go, Mommy.
Me: Thank you.
Bug: You're welcome. Here you go, Mommy.
Me: Ok, hold on, this shirt is inside out and I need to fix it before hanging it up.
One second wait
Bug: Here you go, Mommy.
Me: Hold on a second.
One second wait
Bug: Here you go, Mommy.
Me: Thank you, Bug. You are a good helper.
Bug: You're welcome...Here you go...

Either he's very literal when I said hang on a second or he's really gung ho about hanging up laundry. Either way, it was a cute conversation.

Well, those are my random thoughts for today. It was actually kinda fun and it made me feel good to get them out of my brain. I'm thinking maybe I should do this every week.

Turn Your Clocks Back, I'm a Winner!

Ok, my title may be a little misleading. I really just wanted to tell you 2 things.

First, tonight is the end of Daylight Saving Time. Don't forget to set your clocks back 1 hour tonight before going to bed. Can I just say that I really hate this time of the year? I hate that I lose an hour of my very precious sleep all because the congress feels the need to mess with my clocks...I also hate that it falls on a Sunday which is my day to get up with Bug to let Darling Hubby sleep in...now I'll be up super early...but I digress.

The other thing I wanted to say is that I am a winner! I entered several of the giveaways in the It's Fall Ya'll Giveaway contest sponsored by Shannon at Rocks in the Dryer/Bloggy Giveaways and I won one. I'm in shock! I was sure that I wouldn't be chosen. I guess all the time I spent entering wasn't for nothing. Sarah over at Short Stop was giving away 4 books and I am the recipient of one, The Dangerous Book for Boys. I can't wait for it to arrive. Thanks, Sarah!!!

A Superman Halloween

Halloween has come and gone. I'm happy it's past and sad all at the same time. Is that even possible? I'm sad to see all the all the scary decorations come down (except those creepy spiders. They just freak me out! I'm glad to see them go) , the creative costumes the people come up with be put away and I'll very much miss all that candy. Ok, I still have some candy left so I'm not going to be missing it anytime soon...I've got Christmas candy to look forward too. It's not like I haven't had enough candy over the past month (just ask my Darling Hubby about the 2 HUGE bags of candy we bought wholesale...just ask him how much was left Halloween night..Ok, you don't have to go pester him...I'll tell you. Of the 2 HUGE bags, there was less than 1/2 of 1 bag left. Yep..I have no will power when it comes to candy. I saw a picture on someone's blog this morning (I wish I could give credit where credit is due, but I can't seem to remember where I saw said photo. I've been entering all those wonderful Fall Y'all giveaways and it was one one of those 650 blogs) that had a whole handful of candy wrappers next to their computer...that was me weeks before Halloween...That's one reason I'm happy Halloween is overThe other is that I'm simply looking forward to Christmas which is only 54 days away!!! I'm so excited for the decorations and the music. I so need to get on the Christmas shopping ball. I love to be pretty much done by Thanksgiving. At least we've got Bug's shopping done.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic....what I wanted to do is share some of our Halloween pictures. Click the pics for bigger images.

Last Sunday one of the local malls held a Halloween party. We dressed Bug up in his Superman costume and took him down there. They had pumpkin decorating and cookie frosting. There was a dice game where the kids would toss 2 large foam "dice" with pictures of Finding Nemo characters taped to it. If you got 2 matching pictures you won a prize. Bug had some fun painting (he loves to paint) and the cookie was a big hit later when it was getting close to lunch time and we were doing some Christmas shopping in the bargain room of the video store. (Best place to shop...you never know what great finds you'll stumble over.) He did have a great time tossing the dice around. If you've read any of my prior posts you'll know that Darling Hubby and I are gamers and Bug loves to play with our dice, so this game was right up his alley. The most comical part of the day was during the dice rolling game when he dropped the 2nd die and instead of picking up up and attempting to throw it again he basically cherry bombed it across the room. Too funny!


Later that night we carved our jack-o-lantern. Let's say that Bug was less than thrilled to stick his hand inside the hollow pumpkin once he found out that it was wet and goopy in there. He sat off in the wings watching Daddy do all the work. I think that Daddy did a great job on it. He freehanded the outline of the skull onto the pumpkin. I couldn't have done it at all without it looking like a cartoon straight out of Bugs Bunny.

Here is the finished product.

On Halloween we once again donned the Superman costume and headed over to the public library where they were having trick or treating in the children's room. While I picked out a couple new kids books to read, Bug trick or treated from the nice librarians. He got a whole page of stickers and even a coupon for a free ice cream cone. After that we went to the "Malloween" celebration at the big mall across town. The stores were handing out candy and they have a costume contest at the end of the evening. We only did the trick or treating this year. He didn't get too much candy, but got a decent score, and most of it is stuff that he can eat- lollipops, tootsie rolls and chocolate bars. After that, it was up, up and away home (Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Superbug!) where we had a healthy dinner of mac and cheese with veggies and hot dogs and then played a rousing game of catch while waiting for the few trick or treaters to make their presences known by setting off Max, our alarm dog.

Oh, and here is my favorite picture of the night.Me and My Superman!

So, I have next Halloween to look forward too (as well as this Christmas). I think that we may get together with some friends of ours next year and create themed costumes and go trick or treating together. I think it would be fun.

Off to watch my all time favorite movie. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl...Savvy?