Tomato tomahto

Yesterday I made tomato sandwiches for lunch and unwittingly passed on some sort of tradition. As I stuck Tiny's sandwich in a plastic baggie and gave her two paper towels to contain the mess I realized that my mom used to do the exact same thing for me. I also realized that every time I eat tomato sandwiches I think of my mother and how we used to eat them together when she would come home for lunch during the summer. We were the only ones in the house who liked them and so it was just our thing that was never intruded upon by my brothers.

I found myself wondering what kinds of things will become like that to Tiny and Diva. What little things will we do that will always be important memories to them? I know that my mom doesn't realize that tomato sandwiches meant something to me. They really didn't mean anything to anyone at the time. But once I was on my own, in my own apartment, it became a reminder of the good days of my childhood. I told Tiny how Grandma and I used to eat these sandwiches together and she seemed to grasp that it was somehow important that I had now made them for her so maybe this will be a memory we can all share together. I know for sure that the next time I sit down with my mom I'm going to tell her about this experience and make sure she knows that it mattered to me.

What's for dinner?: Chicken and dumplings from the crockpot (made last night but with poor planning and timing so we're eating it tonight)

Primer root of all evil

Something about having both children napping makes me feel like a good parent. I don't know why. When you stop to consider it all I've really done is plopped one down in a crib and let her cry until she either banged her head hard enough or got sick of listening to herself and assed out. I then turned off the tv and forced the other one to try to find something to do that didn't involve a screen of moving pictures. This resulted in total shutdown as opposed to the near total shutdown that occurs in front of the tv. And we have snoring. Viola! Am good mother. Deserve trophy.

I would love to be able to tell you that I finished painting my entryway last night. I would love to tell you that after spackling, sanding, edging, painting, caulking, edging, painting, borrowing ladder, spackling, pulling down a shelf that should've come down 24 hours earlier, spackling, caulking, sanding, edging, and painting that I have a perfectly cute little back entry area that allows one to breathe a sigh of relief at being home. Of course that is not the case as I'm sure you little smarty pantses have figured out. The acid green headache that is in my kitchen is still haunting my entry. I asked, then insisted that I would need a primer to cover the hideous tint. I was told by my father and the paint guy at Home Depot that two coats should be fine since it's not really a dark color. Please know that if the color gives you a headache, you will need a primer. If you also experience heartburn as a result of the color, you may want to just sheetrock right over the damn walls and start afresh. After two good coats I can still see green and will need at least two more coats on the edging and one on the rest. This is a nightmare ya'll.

On the plus side, my new webcam came in the mail today so I can Skype with my hubby when he leaves. I'm excited to have a new toy, not so excited to need it. I also managed to get my new closet organizer up, and learned that I still need about four feet of hanging space to be happy. I'm hoping that I can get a unit up in the girls' closet and then commandeer a portion of it for the growed ups dressy clothes. I should be getting new pulls for my kitchen cupboards tomorrow and a baby jail one day this week. I can't wait! I love getting new things even when they're functional items. My goal tonight is to get my computer desk put together and clean out my laundry room so I can start painting in there tomorrow night. Then I can set up my craft table and stuff in the laundry rm so I can figure out what kind of storage type items I need to buy for that area. My poor husband, he deposits the money and I spend it.

What's for dinner?: Spaghetti feed and silent auction to benefit a man who is in the guard with Mike. He's recently been moved to the VA hospital somewhat near us and things aren't really looking good for recovery.

Cooking

For the last ten days or so I have been trying to be the best housewife I can be. I have been trying to make sure we get up and dressed at a reasonable hour and that I have put at least some extra effort into my own appearance. Some days I choose to give my hair ten extra minutes or maybe to slap some makeup on my face. I wish that I could go all Donna Reid with the pearls and heels but that just isn't practical in our day. I've also tried to keep up on dishes and sweeping the floors. I've continued with the scrubbing project in the kitchen which is making my arms and ass hurt so at least there's an added benefit there.

But the biggest thing I've been trying to keep up with is meal planning and cooking. Each week I sit down and go through my cookbooks and try to find something, anything that my picky husband might eat. Then I make grocery lists and shop accordingly. This helps me to get to know my new grocery store as I'm constantly looking for something different and not just wandering around aimlessly. I have to change some of the recipes to fit Mike's craziness and some to fit the items that aren't available in such a small town. I've also been trying to make sure to put out all my ingredients earlier in the day so that there's time if I need to run out and grab something I forgot and I reread the recipe so I know if something needs to marinate or cook for way longer than I expected. As part of this, I'd love to know if you have any suggestions for a good cookbook AND if you'd like a cookbook of your own, go to Small Town Mommy and enter her giveaway. Or don't, cuz I'd like to win and you entering really doesn't help my chances any. So never mind, don't enter, but still go there if you'd like. She's also from a small town so maybe she can let me know what recipes to avoid because I won't be able to find the necessary foodstuffs.

What I'm going to start doing, at least on the days I write, is to let you know what's for dinner at the end of each post. If I'm writing after we've eaten I'll let you know how it went over. This probably won't interest anyone but might lead to me posting more regularly because my people will NEED to know what we ate! Ha!

What's for dinner: Cheesy chicken enchiladas- got the recipe online somewhere and it's my first time cooking with chiles, I'm scared.

Der, take your cohesion away from here

You know how when you're mad at someone, every little thing they do just annoys the crap out of you? Yeah. I was ready to scream by the time we went to bed last night and Mike hadn't really done anything out of the ordinary. They way he chewed his food, the tone in his voice when he talked, the amount of time he spent in the bathroom. It was all just so freaking annoying. GAHD!

Today I want to thank my mother for all the times she mopped the kitchen floor when I was a kid and no one ever said 'thank you' or even 'my, what a nice clean floor'. Thanks Mom! I spent about 30 minutes scrubbing my floor with a brush today and have done maybe a quarter of the kitchen. It is my belief that the people who lived here before never did this and thus I am scrubbing at least ten years of dirt out of the ugly linoleum. Even the parts that I've already done don't really seem to be clean and are nowhere near the spotless shine I had been hoping for. I'm using the Clorox green works natural dilutable cleaner and that may be part of why it isn't quite as clean as I like things. Perhaps my overuse of products containing bleach has led me to expect a clinical environment. Perhaps I will resort to dumping bleach on the floor tomorrow.

Holy hell! How the E F F did I not say this first? Diva is a crawling fool yo. She still kind of drags one leg a little but as of this morning she is a crawler. It makes me a little sad because, to me, this marks the end of the true baby stage. From this day forward, my baby doesn't need me to bring her the toys she wants or to chase down the binky that she flipped across the room. She can get her ass grooving and capture that wascally wabbit herself. I also know exactly how much more work is going to go into keeping her safe and my stuff unbroken. *sigh*

Heard a moment ago:
Mike: look at the goatee on this guy. It's a freaking troll doll on his face.

And it was people. It was. Ryan Franklin of the Cardinals, please get that thing off your face before you get it stuck in a damn escalator. I tried finding an image but there's nothing that even comes close to showing the glory that he was sporting today.

I'm excited, Mike just gave the green light to a trip to Minneapolis to visit the closest Ikea if we get our tax rebate in time. Yay! Confusing swedish furniture and a five hour drive each way. Honestly, I cannot wait. I'm sure we'll end up screaming at each other in the MOA and having one or both of our children lost for at least twenty minutes and I'll come home with fifteen new bruises and maybe a stitch or two. This is how road trips usually end for me. So, let's hope we close on this stupid house very soon so I can go to the cities.

Scrub a dub

Mike refuses to give Diva a bath and for some reason I am unable to just let it go. It pisses me off every damn time! One of the reasons I believe that my second marriage is so much better than my first is my ability to let things go. Some may say I don't sweat the small stuff, but I prefer not to sweat at all so, I'm not a fan of that saying. I have become remarkably good at biting my tongue until I either realize that it never really mattered that much or I see/hear something that makes me so grateful for my life that I can't help but move past my anger. This works remarkably well in keeping the peace but doesn't really do much for my neck and shoulder muscles.

Mike has never given me any reason for this denial of duty before and so I always tried to give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he didn't want to admit that he was afraid. This always seemed a little silly as he knows my track record and nearly drowning our children but it was all I could come up with. Unfortunately it seems that his reason is far less noble. He's too grossed out to give his daughter a bath. He thinks it's icky. He really dislikes the idea of sitting in a tub of water to the point that he cannot watch someone else do it and would be horrified if I took a bath and then came to bed without showering quickly. I honestly think that his 'aversions' to things are beyond ridiculous at this point and there are days that I really just want to tell him to grow the fuck up and get over it. Onions aren't going to kill you, corn is not the enemy, and wood isn't the devil. I spend half my time while grocery shopping or menu planning trying to decide what will and won't set off one of his many issues.

In his defense, he's very good about just making his own dinner if he doesn't approve of what I've made, but then he never sits down to eat with the rest of the family (which is a post unto itself). Do you have picky eaters in your house? Can you buy cooking utensils without having to decide if it's going to make your husband throw up? Do you ever tell them to just shove it?

Fashionably late as usual

I feel like I've forgotten how to do this. Well, here goes.

HI GUYS! I've missed you.

Honestly, pretty much every day I have composed at least one blog post in my head and wished that I could sit down and actually post something. And of course, when I do actually sit down to post, my brain takes a giant dump and I can't come up with an interesting story or anecdote, hell, not even a limerick. What do you do right?

We are finally living in the tiny town with such very limited shopping. We are hoping to close on our home early next week but have gone ahead and moved into it while we wait for the bizzo at the bank to get her shit together and stop wasting our time and money. This is not the original house that we spent a couple grand and over three months on. This is a lovely little twinhome that's about the same square footage but not laid out as well as the other place.

(sidenote: Michael seriously just restricted the amount of ice cream that I put into my bowl! He claims he's just doing it for my own good but I know he just doesn't want me eating all the delicious goodness. Stupid dairy! I'm gonna be wishing I had listened to him in about 20 minutes but it just tastes so good.)

We have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with no way to add another bedroom even though we have tons of space. There's just no way to put an egress into the basement without going to way too much effort. We may at some point stick Tiny down there in a not fully legal bedroom but that would be in a few years when it's time to have another baby if we haven't moved by then. And let me tell you, we are not in any hurry to move ever again. I'll be lucky if we're unpacked by the time Mike gets back from Kosovo. Not to mention the fugly colors this place has been painted. Why oh why would you choose to paint all the baseboards and trim dark colors? Hunter green, maroon, it's all just too much. I'll post before and after pics whenever I find my usb cables. Also, I seem to have a couple of rugrats running around that I have tons of photos of. Summer is such a great time for photo ops.