Mmmmmm!

Pot roast is in the slow cooker, all the roasted tubers and veggies are prepped and spiced up in the fridge waiting to go into the oven. We roast extra veggies in the oven cause the slow cooker holds more meat than veggies and there's always a fight over the potatoes.

I'm still working on the mountain of laundry but things are looking up. I've got a load of dishes in to wash, four loads of laundry done and two more working in the washer and dryer.

Still working on the living room but its picked up and the couches have been vacuumed and sprayed down for uber freshness. All that's left is vacuuming the rug and running the swiffer over the floor. Dusting the shelves lightly. I can clean the kitchen up after the kids get home, get them started on the homework portion of the day, toss in some snacks to keep them quiet and put in a movie after that's done to keep them entertained. Then its floors in the kitchen, and hitting the counter tops.

I may make the brownies ahead of time and put them aside so when its closer to dinner I can do the veggies and bread without having to do the brownies last minute. Yep...I think I got a handle on this!

A new respect for the old cliche "Nit picking"

We've had a rough week! First Catherine goes to the emergency room, then everyone is struck with a stomach virus and to top it all off on Sunday we discovered (to my great dread) that Isabel had a case of head lice.

My first response was "OMG what? Not my kid!" but there they were. I immediately got online and started researching what to do, how they got there, who to hunt down! Out of all five of my kids and all the years of raising them I have never had to deal with lice. This is our first case.

I looked through the articles online and read that most moms say the over the counter stuff doesn't work, (Great, now what?) so I dug deeper and began researching home remedies. I thought what the heck, before I rush out and spend a ton of money on things that might or might not work lets see what I've got in the pantry that might fix the issue.

There were a lot of posts that said to try Mayonaise and white vinagar. I knew from growing up in the 80's that mayo was good for your hair so I figured we would give it a go.

We slathered her head in mayonaise (Real mind you, not miracle whip. Only the best!)and put a plastic bag on her head for three hours. We heated it gently with the hair dryer (evidently they don't like heat) and crossed our fingers!



This is Busy (Isabel) with the bag on her head, oddly in a great mood for a kid distraught about the "bugs" in her hair. We call her Busybell, cause when she was a toddler she was into EVERYTHING. It's stuck and been shortened to Busy over the years. She is a very girly girl and not ten minutes before the pic was taken she was near hysterical about the whole thing.

So...we let that sit for three hours then into the shower we went. I rinsed and shampoo'd her head with the tea tree shampoo to get the mayo out then rinsed with the vinagar. Liberally. On to the combing with the nit comb. (go to the pet section and get the metal flea comb, the cheapo plastic combs that come in the kits break too easily) Two and a half hours of combing and picking the nits and we shampoo'd and conditioned with the tea tree shampoo and conditioner. I checked and double checked and triple checked her, then the others who were louse and nit free. Then I shampoo'd them with the tea tree stuff just to be on the safe side.

We vaccumed the mattresses on ALL the beds, stripped all the linens and washed them with hot water and laundry soap, adding liquid lysol to the wash cycles for good measure. Vaccumed the floors and furniture and sprayed them all down with disinfectant spray and I am currently washing all the bed linens, clothes, jackets, hats mittens...basically everything we own is getting the hot water and lysol treatment.

I took them into school this morning and had the nurse check us ALL over. Her amazed response was "Are you SURE she had lice yesterday?" I did such a good job of decontaminating us all she thought I might have made a mistake. LOL

Listen sister, I don't mess around! I am determined this will be our one and ONLY brush with this issue, evah! Still I guess one out of five kids is not too bad. It was bound to happen with them all in public schools. I am assured by all the MD websites that this is not a hygine issue but one that is all too common in public school systems.

I warned Busy's teacher and the nurse they should check the classroom and now all is right in the world, though....I admit my nerves are still jumping with phantom itchies, though I have been assured I did an excellent job and have nothing to worry about by the nursing staff at the elementary.

The upside to all this?



Busy is none the worse for the wear, mayonaise is an excellent deep conditioner and white vinagar rinse leaves your hair extra shiney!

My girly girl was thrilled!

Tuesday

This was my view of my daughter most of the day on Tuesday. We spent the better half of Tuesday and that evening in the emergency room at Texas Children's Hospital. She had a seizure at school that lasted longer than we all felt was safe so we took a little ambulance ride and spent the day with the good folks at TCH.

The seizures are not dangerous they tell me, just scary for her and for those of us with her when they happen. Luckily we discovered she had them last year and now the school and I know what to look for when they are about to happen.

Catherine knows what they feel like coming on and can try to warn her teachers. She did a great job of it on Tuesday, letting them know she felt sick and that she needed to get to the nurses office.
The school nurse was great with her and they called me immediately. I am so glad we live so close and I was able to be there very quickly.



She was fine and slept most of the time we were in the hospital, waking up long enough to have some chicken nuggets and fries and then returning to sleep.

We got home around 9pm and she watched a little television and sat between Niky and Isabel who were hesitant to let her leave the room without them. They are very protective and hated having to stay with their father while we were at the hospital. Much happier when we got home where they could take care of her themselves.

She is fine now and we have an appointment to see the neurologists next week to try to find out what causes the seizures. For now she is glad the weekend is almost here. Lots of things to do and see and we are headed out to the country to see her Uncles and Aunt Cam.



Today she is all smiles even though I made her get up early.

I much prefer this view to the first one, don't you?

Extended family

We got sad news the other day. Our dog Bocci, who had retired to the country with my parents passed away quietly in her sleep. She was almost 12 years old and dearly loved by all of us. It's been a quiet week among the family. Even the cats seemed to notice. We are not alone though we do have our kitten heads below.




The caramel and brown torte is the elusive Bailey, named so because my husband said she looked like the Irish creme he likes to put in his coffee. She is rather anti-social, but since we got word of Bocci's death shes been oddly affectionate. Well..for her. She allows us to stroke her back or tail as she goes by, or might even approach once in awhile before dissapearing to one of her favorite hiding spots. Shes bigger than our marmalade kitty Ottis.




He is mischief on wheels that one, sitting beside me on the desk now to make sure I spell his name correctly and do not misquote him.


So though we are sad we are not without love. An aloof, feline love. A "when I want something, or need something or hey....are you sad?" kind of love but I suppose we will take what we can get and like it, right?

Vote!

I don't care who you vote for today. I am not one to try to sway anybody to my way of thinking, but I do urge you all to get out and vote for SOMEONE! A lot of generations have given up lives and loves, fathers, sons, brothers and sisters. Mothers...children so that you have the right to stand in the little booth and cast your vote and give your opinion.

Just not voting is like saying to them that their sacrifices were not worthy of your time or consideration.




And do you really want to let someone else decide their future?

It took maybe 20 minutes of my time.

Vote, please.

Finally, cooler weather!

We woke up this morning to crisp, cool weather. Cool enough to merit the "big coats" as the kids would say. (True, we here don't really know what big coats are but let us dream.)

All I could think of was a cozy fire, a quiet house and a cup of hot chocolate.

The problem with that is I don't mean cocoa, I mean hot chocolate like I used to get as a kid. Growing up with an Argentinian godmother and a Spanish co-godmother I got spoiled.

When I say hot chocolate, what I mean is Chocolate a la Taza.

Chocolate a la Taza is the thickest, creamiest, richest hot chocolate in the world! You melt chocolate a la taza in simmering milk. The solid dark chocolate bar transforms hot milk into a rich and thick chocolate brew!

All you do is add about 2 or 3 squares of a Valor bar per cup of milk, which is simmering on the stove, stir occasionally until it thickens (due to the small amount of rice flour in the bar .) How thick you want your hot chocolate is up to you -- you determine its thickness by the number of chocolate squares you add to the milk; and how long you let it simmer on the stove -- usually for about two minutes or so.  You can add cinnamon or chile powder, even peppermint if you like.

 My problem now is finding the Valor chocolate bars. I had to call my mother to get the name of them, I didn't remember and now I have to check and see if the international isle at the grocery store has them or if I need to go to a specialty store like The Chocolate Bar downtown.

Sounds like a good excursion for me today. Why not, the laundry is all done and if I am grocery shopping or looking for chocolate, well....I can't possibly do all those dishes in the sink now can I?

Muahahaha... *ahem*

And in the end I still end up curled up in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and my fuzzy socks. Woot!

 

 

I was online, dreaming of plans for a home library in my future, someday house that I build from the ground up. (I do this often, it's half decorated in my mind.) 

When I came across this advertisement for fake books for home libraries.

I just stared, mouth agape.  I mean I couldn't believe it. It's listed as home decor!

Now, I am not so small minded that I don't appreciate the value of enhancing life in unnatural ways. I too aspire one day getting that boob job and body lift that will make me look like a 20 year old again.....and when my oldest daughter came to me and said she wanted to change her eye color with contacts I admit it made me twitch but I tried not to close my mind to the idea that she needed to express herself. And yes, I lighten my hair but my GODS what has this world come to?  Fake books? *shudders*

You have to understand, I LOVE books. I love the feel of them, the smell of them, the turning of the pages. I love reading them, collecting them, I even love cleaning them (though I don't do it as often as I should...) but to hang fake husks of books on walls and in bookshelves...w-whats the purpose?

That to me is my worst nightmare. Padding down the stairs (cause all my dream homes have stairs doncha know...) to skim my fingers along the spines of all the glorious choices in a home library, seeking something to curl up with in front of the fire only to find *GASP* they are all fake husks of books, no stories no adventures just...the empty disappointment of finding nothing to read! It's enough to make me tear up. Who would do such a thing?

 Some might think that this blank canvas of a book shelf would be my worst nightmare but no, this is my dream! To have these kinds of shelves to fill with all my favorite books and all those books I long to own and have at my fingertips.

I would LOVE to have these in my home and someday I will. A room FULL of books to read at my leisure. A fireplace and a big over stuffed chair  to curl up in. A huge table to open up many books at one time so my children can reference anything they like. That....would be so wonderful! One day it will be mine and NO fake books allowed!

Mmmonkey bread!

I was shopping around online for something simple to make for a rainy day after school snack for the kids and found Monkey bread!

Now my kitchen smells like cinnamon rolls and I am anticipating great and glorious whoops and hollers when the kids come in from the rain.

Wouldn't you whoop and holler for gooey cinnamon sugary goodness?

Dizzy Blonde

Walking was an adventure this morning. Rolled out of bed with a flare up of vertigo. Must be the damp weather but man did the floor spin and the room went all wonky.

Made driving the kids to school very interesting. It's kind of like taking too much cough or cold medicine. Not something that will stop you completely but it sure forces you to work on focus for each step. After it calmed down a little it was more like wearing reading glasses to try to walk. Where you aren't quite sure where the floor is when you step. It slowly eases up and I've only walked into one wall after dropping them off.

It's an inner ear thing and I'm told by the doctors it will never fully go away. When I first discovered I had it, it was much worse. Laying in bed with one foot on the floor to try to stop the world from spinning for two days was not my idea of fun. I will pay closer attention and make sure I'm not coming down with some kind of inner ear infection, that always plays havoc with it.

Sure does make life interesting sometimes though, like a carnival ride without having to pay for the ticket!

Back to it!

I finally did lay down and go to sleep last night at nearly 4:30 am. Got some rest and started again on the cleaning at about 9:45.

The last of the laundry is finished, working on the kitchen and living room now. Just some dusting in the living room and a once over with the swiffer. Tidy up the couch cushions and spray everything down with febreeze.

I really don't want to do dishes. I HATE doing dishes. And I really have no room to complain. I have a dishwasher. It's not like it is difficult. It's just my least favorite thing to do. I would rather scrub toilets than do dishes. I think it's because it is a never ending process. You clean out the sinks and get the dishes done and turn around from closing the cupboard door and there are dishes in the sink. They just appear, multiply out of thin air. You can be in the room alone and turn your back and boom...there are more dirty dishes.

BUT I want to make dinner tonight and I cannot cook in a kitchen without cleaning it first. OCD thing I guess. So I am off to go hack away at it till it is finished and then I can do what I want to do which is cook dinner.

Hawk rarely asks for specific meals but this time he wanted pork chops and green beans with new potatoes. So that's what I am doing. I'm even going to break out the bread maker and make some bread to go with it. Sweet tea and dinner will be done. Though I don't know what to do for dessert, he still cannot have chocolate so, well I will think of something. Maybe a fruit tart and some ice cream.

I wanted to go to the bank today but Columbus day snuck up on me. It can wait till tomorrow I suppose. Oh well, enough break time...back to the grind!

This is me...not sleeping. I really hate it when I cannot sleep. Not that I've even tried. Not really. It's almost a dread of going to lie down. I don't know why.

I've surfed the web, read email, read junk mail, looked through pictures, read blogs. Its almost 3am and I am still unwilling to just go lay down.

I'm tired, don't get me wrong. I've worked hard today, cleaning and sorting and doing laundry. Maybe that's whats wrong, I'm too tired? Can you be too tired to sleep? Sounds like its crazy.

I did find an old picture of me, way back when I was 21.


Yeah that really is, or was me. A friend's brother took this for me. The deal was he could use any of the four rolls of film he took for his portfolio and I got a portrait for my parents for Christmas. This wasn't the shot I chose for the portrait. I picked the one where I was leaning forward from the tree I had been leaning on, laughing. They never did get the portrait to hang up but I gave them the picture. They liked it.

I kept this one for myself, though I never could quite grasp that it was me. I like it though. Its that one picture everyone has that they like of themselves...yep this one is it. The only one. Seems like forever ago. It was taken the same year I met Hawk, just at the beginning of the year. We met after that summer.

I thought I was fat then. Hell, I thought I was fat when I weighed 118 lbs in high school too. I didn't know what fat was. lol Life sure is an education.

I am going to try to get a new picture taken. I don't like posed studio pictures but I have some friends who are photographers and maybe I can get them to just take some casual shots for me. Then I will post the before and after pics for the weight loss. A few people have asked me to do that and I guess hitting 40 this year has broken down my vanity wall cause, well I don't care lol.

If I can take a web cam pic of myself at 3am with no makeup on I can certainly survive a before and after post. *grins*

I was always so conscious and critical of myself that I hated pics taken of me. I have none of the fun candid shots all my friends have of good times etc...only the ones others have given me. Lately I've indulged in a few. I got a picture in December of me with three of my oldest and dearest friends. Like family they are. I think I will start posting them, regardless of the inner twitches.

See what insomnia does to you? lolol

It's cleaning day. Hawk has been out of town for almost two weeks and comes home tomorrow so I am trying to surprise him by having the WHOLE house clean. Oddly enough since the older kids moved out and I've stream lined the living room and gone through a lot of the things that lived here that didn't actually belong to me and boxed them up, the house stays fairly put together. Once we took the carpet out of the living room life got easier. Even the kids keep things pretty ok in their room and it is just a matter of making them go pick up. They are all finally old enough to understand and for the most part obey when sent to pick up so its the floors and bathrooms, and the dreaded kitchen that are hardest. With the new bed our bedroom isn't bad at all. I have about four loads of laundry, including bedding and its all done. The smalls picked up their rooms and all I really need to do is go in and clean out from under the beds and reorganize their dresser drawers. The kitchen is the big task. I am splitting it into two days. Today I will do all the dishes and clean the counters and floors. Tomorrow I tackle the fridge and cabinet faces. For now I have done the bathrooms and still need to do the floors in there, vacuum the hall and bedrooms. I have the chicken thawing out for panko chicken tenders for dinner with mashed potatoes and okra. This afternoon I am going to round up the kids and head for the grocery store. I found an HEB close enough to justify the drive from the house so we will go over there and stock up for the week. Niky made lunch for he and the girls and I can keep working on the bathrooms By tonight it should be relatively done. I just need to do the floors really in the living room and bedrooms and the baths. That's the big task for today. Sadly I do not resemble the pic above, I look more like this when all is said and done.



Still, strangely enough I am having a pretty good day. Check with me when its all over and see if I am still chipper. lol

"Modular home" anxiety and Ginger snap mornings

I love this picture. I would definitely live in this cottage if given my "druthers". It just looks like me. *nods* Like a cross between a cottage in a wood and a hobbit hole. Perfection.

The move progression eeks forward. We are downscaling our three bedroom house slowly so it will fit into our three bedroom modular home. Weekends we work to get the land and houses ready for the great migration to Dayton. The hurricane helped with the clearing the best it could but in the process took two of our trailers (er Modular homes) down with the trees so we are trying to patiently wait our turn for the insurance assessment to see if we get new ones to replace them or maybe one new one and one pole barn or ...no new ones and a pole barn and a small check. (Hey, we are forever optimistic here in the labyrinth!)

I try to keep positive about selling the house and keep in my mind the idea that we will be able to cover our note and get about 10k above and beyond so we can move. (Keep your fingers crossed for me please) That would mean we could move the position of the Modular home (gotta keep remembering to say that, the word trailer makes my hubby twitch) and perhaps enable us to remodel and make it as nice as we would prefer to live in.

I look forward to starting the business and the work in the gardens. I will keep pics and updates on it as we go here...just in case someone actually stops by to read them.

Today is a ginger snap day...I could use a nice cup of hot tea and some ginger snaps.

I love the mornings when fall sneaks up on us....

Shadow people

I'm noticing an increase in the weirdness that is me....

Always around mid July and August I start noticing more and more strange situations. Seeing half shadows, waking up in the middle of the night because of voices or knocking on the wall or windows.

When I was younger I would actually stop to talk to people and have others tell me I was nuts because they saw no one and I had a shadow that frequented the cracked door of my room. I always thought it was "just me" till it scared the bahjeezus out of my older brother one night. I kinda felt better after that, I mean....at least I knew it wasn't just me.

Lately the shadow people have been an issue. Those dark, almost there shapes you see in the corners of your vision. The last week or so I've been awakened by various noises or voices....to the point I hate to look up at the mirror opposite the bed over my bathroom vanity when I am half asleep.

Tonight it was knocking on my window. I had the new roommate up and outside to search for "pesky neighborhood teens" who might be out and about at 4:30 in the morning knocking on people's windows to scare them but ....of course, no one was found.

I don't know why I still, always look for the logical explanation first...I should know by now there is not some teen on the roof or outside in the shadows having a giggle at the silly woman inside but I almost wish there were.

It lasts usually through November, getting progressively worse in nature. I don't know why it peeters off then, maybe the worry about the holidays takes my focus away from it, or maybe the thinning between is not as much by then.

Who knows...but this getting up at 3 and 4 am really does suck rocks...

So far it has been an interesting summer! Thought I would catch up with everyone and try to start blogging again. The pool is closed for maintenance today so I have a reprieve from the kids and the other moms.
Last I wrote I had just been fired from my job. Oddly I was heartbroken. I was beside myself with panic for the first day or so....crushed that I had lost the job I loved so much. Then...not so much.
Slowly I realized I did love the actual work I was doing...and most of the people I worked with were fabulous, couldn't ask for better. I certainly loved the paycheck and that's where most of the panic stemmed from....but I hated the commute, and gas was on the rise. As time wore on all the panic left and a huge sigh of relief replaced it, my shoulders climbed out of my ears and life, though now complicated by financial worry seemed somehow much sweeter.
I discovered I HATE working in the corporate world. I've since spent WONDERFUL time with my kids, swimming, playing, goofing off and running amuck. We eek by on savings or month to month but we are making it and an odd sense of rightness glosses over the anxious bits.
My mom and stepdad came to visit and another layer of purpose came into focus. I am starting my own business. My stepdad developed a raised bed gardening system and a soil used in that system and I am going to be the Houston distribution office...though....things are still in the "figuring the logistics out" stage. We took a road trip to Missouri and Oklahoma in June and the week long trip turned into an almost three week long trip with exciting ups and downs. We found the PERFECT 130 acre farm/ranch, within our set budget but things did not pan out for buying it....yet. BUT now we all know what we want!
When the blow came that we couldn't get the land and farm we all fell in love with it was daunting....the whole "How can we do this now..." question came up but my hubby was jazzed. Excited....and extremely positive! He said "we will just do it from the back yard and eventually when the company grows enough we will expand and buy some land or a store front and go from there." Up till last week we were going with that far more complicated and difficult version of the plan...but doable none the less, trying to stay positive. (Hard to do when you're so scared but hey...we try)
Now the Universe has offered another avenue...a scary one that involves moving about half an hour, forty five minutes out of town but...still, oddly comforting and doable. We went to see the land and housing and after the initial butterfly gut we are all pretty positive it is workable. Now we just wait and see what the money side looks like so cross those fingers for me!
This weekend we all got together to discuss it and had sea food that was uber yummy, shrimp and salmon. I've been trying to get more sea food and fish into the family menu for the kids and for myself and so far things have been pretty well received. Even picky Niky loves fish!
My older brother is in Europe taking classes at the Globe theatre in London and seeing all the museums for another week. I read his travel blog and laugh and smile, excited that he is having an adventure and enjoying things there so very much. I do hope he can make it an annual thing and travel in the Summer from now on. He enjoys it so much!
So yeah, still unemployed...oddly not ooooverly concerned about it though. Yet...lol
I will keep you guys posted on the business end, and in the mean time if you are curious about the Raised bed gardening I am talking about go to www.gardeningrevolution.com and take a look. I will be selling the soil product and teaching people how to build the beds and plant, harvest and even hopefully...eventually how to can and cook with the food from their own gardens! Times are getting tight for everyone, produce and fruit...food in general is getting so expensive and I don't know about you but the produce I do see in the stores is ugly and sad looking... raising my own small garden (or big if the opportunity pans out) to help take some pressure off the bills and give my kids a healthy alternative to the tasteless store bought stuff in cans is something I am really excited about!
Well...that's all for now. If you haven't heard from me or thought I was just being an unfriendly snot it really wasn't the case. I was just running around like a nut from state to state, stumbling from hope to fear to hope again...trying to sort out things from day to day.
Just like every body else. ;)