For the last 24 hours, Joey and I have been in high gear on all things baby. The crib is assembled, the curtains are (mostly) hung, and we are currently in the process of adding some major decal action to her wall. We’re talking dozens of cherry blossoms, three fat lazy pandas, a flock of butterflies, and two stalks of bamboo.
We are loving it.
Here’s a preview…
We went out for an early lunch; I ate only half of my meal but still felt so stuffed I might spontaneously explode as we walked out of the Ritz carrying my leftovers in a nice little white bag. I felt incredibly drowsy on the way home and, even though I have a policy against naps because they jinx me and then I can’t fall asleep at night, I mumbled to Joey as walked up the stairs to our apartment that I was probably going to fall asleep and there wasn’t much that could be done about it.
I found my book, changed into lounge pants and climbed back into bed…all before 12:45.
“So…when do you want me to come make sure you’re not asleep?” Joey asked me.
“If you haven’t seen me by 3:00, come get me.”
I had him leave the door open so I wouldn’t fall asleep. But that only worked for ten minutes, because I only read one chapter in my book before I was out cold and probably snoring like a lumberjack.
Joey woke me up at 3:00. Or at least he tried, but I kind of refused to get out of bed and he made the mistake of leaving me in the room by myself and I fell back asleep nearly immediately. He noticed it was eerily quiet again in our house about 3:15 (around here, if it’s quiet it either means I’m up to something, or I’m up to something so Joey has learned to investigate quickly) and came back into the room and sat on me.
“Get up,” he said, and bounced a bounce or two to jog me awake.
“I refuse,” I mumbled.
But he was all TOO BAD, you’ll already never sleep tonight, and I discovered that there was no way to argue with that dizzying logic. I was already up a creek from sleeping for 2 1/2 hours. (If there are rambling posts on this blog at 2 a.m., you will know why.)
I finally dragged myself out to our Extremely Uncomfortable Futon that is going in the Dumpster whenever we move out of this apartment because it is in bad shape and doesn’t deserve to be moved anywhere. Sometime in the last year one of the boards has popped up and pokes you uncomfortably in the bum if you sit in the wrong place. Trust me, that can be a real surprise if you throw yourself down nice and hard. Joey was going through old pictures trying to pick out some good ones, and in the process was going back a year or two. I tried to wake up and watched him pick pictures for about twenty minutes, vetoing some of the really weird ones he picked.
Here’s what I learned:
Two rounds of IVF in the space of six months is NOT A FRIENDLY THING TO THE GIRLISH FIGURE. Holy Holsteins, Internet. I mean, they say the camera add ten pounds, but in this case I think it was actually the Follistim.
Dear Follistim, Ganirelix and Menopur…thank you for making me not only afraid of needles and shots, but also larger than I was before you found me. How nice of you to leave me a tangible memory of your impact on my life. Love, Jenna
And, with that encouraging piece of information, I’m going to go watch the Preakness after I cut up a peach and some raspberries because that’s what sounds good to me right now. That, and Joey said I could get the raspberries ONLY if I ate them all this time.
Last time I didn’t eat them all.
I don’t want to lose my raspberry privileges, they are hanging on by a thread.
So, the toilet in our house clogged this morning. I won’t go so far as to actually tell you WHO clogged it, but you’re all smart people.
Henry woke me up at 6:57 because he was feeling like a wild child, he jumped up on the bed and bounced on me until I scratched him behind his ears. Then he started licking my face and I drew the line there, so I sent him off to play with his Strawberry in the other room. I just lay there for about ten minutes before thinking I’d never fall back to sleep, so I got up and grabbed my robe and book, intent on making Triple Citrus Cupcakes for Joey to munch on while he’s studying for his exam later.
Joey was still quite asleep.
I was sneaking around, trying to be quiet, when ALL OF A SUDDEN I noticed the toilet in the bathroom was just centimeteres away from overflowing. (WOAH, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!)
I have this leftover childhood terror of overflowing toilets. They make me quivery inside and frighten me to my bones. Once, when I was about four, the toilet overflowed in the bathroom at my Grandpa Richardson’s church, right before he was going to preach. I guess it traumatized me so bad I have been terrified of the experience ever since.
For a second, I just stared at the water as it kept rising. Then, I realized What Was Going To Happen, and I started screaming bloody murder.
“JOEY!!!!!!! THE TOILET!!! It’s OVERFLOWING!!!!”
Poor guy was still asleep. So I kept screaming. ”HELP! IT’S GOING TO GET EVERYWHERE!”
And I was still just standing there, staring at it like a deer in the headlights. My heart was pounding and I was feeling all cold-sweaty. Joey was STILL NOT COMING.
So I kept screaming.
And then I started screaming and jumping up and down on the floor, because maybe THAT would make him come sooner?
I heard rustlings in the bedroom, and soon a very, very bleary-eyed Joey came stumbling into the bathroom, shaking his head to wake himself up. He said, “Pick up the rugs,” and I looked at him like, you want me to get closer to that toilet?
But at least he was awake and he could save the day.
Instead of taking the rugs up, I started taking the tissue box and candles off the top of the toilet because I guess I had taken leave of my senses. Once I got that stuff off, I grabbed the rugs and ran out of the bathroom.
“Do we even have a plunger?” Joey asked, as he examined The Situation in the Bathroom.
“Um, we used to…” I said. But we’ve never used it.
Well, the water wound up not overflowing, but we still can’t find the plunger. I have this really bad feeling like I threw it away. (I have this problem with throwing stuff out: I threw the ranch dressing away last week because I thought it “looked weird”. Joey says I’m not allowed to throw stuff away anymore.)
Anyway, the end of the story is that the toilet is still clogged, we’ve torn apart the house to check in all the logical places and can’t find the plunger, and it’s too early in the day to go purchase another one because the stores aren’t open yet.
Let’s hope nobody has to go to the bathroom around here for another couple hours.
I woke up at 8:30 this morning and discovered it was one of those lovely Saturday mornings that seems like it belongs in a Leave it to Beaver episode: crisp blue skies, cool breeze, and the air smelled fresh from the rain that had just fallen.
Henry was wound tighter than one of those creepy tin-soldier windup toys and he was running circles around himself (and me) so I decided to take him outside for a second. It was so beautiful I wanted to take him for a walk right then and there, but he’s also really clean from his bath last week, somehow, and since the ground was so wet still I knew he’d get his paws majorly muddy.
So instead I came back inside with grand plans to make some pancakes to wake Joey up with.
Well, Henry and I managed to wake him up first, and when I told him about the pancakes, Joey immediately got out of bed.
Because pancakes are His Thing.
No sooner had he moved into the kitchen and began whipping our All-Clad off its hooks and onto the stove did he holler, “Um, are we out of flour?”
And then I remembered that YES….we were out of flour.
Can’t make pancakes without flour.
He had filled up my 1 cup measuring cup (incidentally, it’s All-Clad too and looks like a mini replica of my pots) almost to the top with flour…but not quite. ”Looks like we’ll just have to have bacon and eggs,” he said, with great sorrow.
And I sat here and thought about what was in my pantry cupboards, and I remembered that while I may not have any more white flour, per the recipe, I do have: wheat flour, oat flour, soy flour, cracked cornmeal, bread flour, and cake flour. SURELY ONE OF THOSE MUST WORK, right? OK, maybe not the cracked cornmeal.
I suggested one of these options to Joey, The Pancake Master, and he said I might as well top the measuring cup off with the wheat flour.
Thus, I did so. And all the while, the mini Pops that always sits on my shoulder whilst I’m in the kitchen jumped up and down and waved his arms and hollered “COOKING IS CHEMISTRY! COOKING IS CHEMISTRY!! THE RECIPE CALLED FOR WHITE FLOUR!!! THEY WOULDN’T HAVE SPECIFIED WHICH FLOUR TO USE IF THEY JUST WANTED YOU TO USE WHATEVER YOU HAD LAYING AROUND, WILLY-NILLY!”
It is true that because of my Pops’ influence, for most baking I am a total recipe Nazi. You level off that measuring cup with a KNIFE, not a SPOON, because if you use a spoon you might not get the correct proportions. And if you throw off the proportions then who knows where the chemistry of the recipe will go?! And don’t you dare go messing with a bread recipe. That’s dangerous.
Cooking IS chemistry.
But we really wanted those pancakes. So I ignored the voices in my head telling me NOT to substitute flours, and I dumped the flour mixture into the bowl which Joey instantly snatched from my hand and began mixing other ingredients into it.
I’ll save a bite of pancake for the mini Pops who always sits upon my baking shoulder…just to see how he thinks it tastes.
****UPDATE****
The pancakes are….weird. They turned into small, thick, globs. When one is making whole wheat pancakes, one must use an actual whole wheat pancake recipe.
Lesson learned, Pops.
I whipped up some fettuccine alfredo (with chickens and broccolis) for dinner because about an hour ago Joey, who was working on page like 25 of his doctrinal statement which is STILL not done, looked at me with forlorn eyes and begged for dinner.
It was 4:30 when he did this.
I asked him if he could wait about an hour, and he sort of agreed, so I got out my fingernail polish remover and activated charcoal facial mask and sat on the couch by the fire. After about ten minutes of nail clipping and de-polishing, Joey looked at me again and said, “um, are you going to start soon? I’m really, really, really hungry.”
That shower I had been planning to take this afternoon? Not so much.
By this time my face was about to explode, because WHO KNEW that activated charcoal masks get super tight and itchy after ten minutes? I was happy enough to go wash it off and get started on making dinner for my (apparently starving?) husband.
It took a bit longer than I expected, but by 5:15 I had fresh fettuccine with homemade alfredo sauce dished up into bowls, topped with chicken and broccoli. Joey was LURKING over my shoulder, so I asked him to get water in the glasses and set the table. He did so super quickly, and reappeared to continue lurking.
But fortunately dinner was ready.
I must have starved him today somehow. I don’t remember lunch being really bad or that long ago, but dude was HUNGRY. He ate his fettuccine so quickly that he polished off all the noodles and broccoli before he even ate any of the chicken.
That’s how you know something is off. Joey always, always eats his meat first.
So there we are, happily sitting there eating our dinner and relaxing after a SUPER long day of housework (we have been awe-some today), when Joey said, “We should go see Prairie Home Companion live sometime.”
He knows I hate Prairie Home Companion, but I hate it mostly because it riles him up that I hate it. Some of it I can tolerate, but most of the parts I can tolerate have nothing to do with the crap music they perform on there. I’m just sayin’, I don’t think they are any good at singing on that show. Especially not that one guy.
But I digress.
I just looked at Joey, twirled up fettuccine noodles on my fork, and said, “I would rather sit under a bridge in Minnesota during an ice storm than go see Prairie Home Companion live.”
Joey choked on a fettuccine noodle.
Then I got terrified. Because…because what if he had actually, legitimately wanted to go see Prairie Home Companion? So, I hesitantly asked, “Um, were you serious?”
He was all, no way…I just wanted to see what you would say.
Good.
Because I really would rather sit under a bridge in Minnesota during an ice storm than go listen to this stuff live. I’d have to pretend I was all into the music.
So I guess we didn’t get enough winter back in December and January, because what is UP with this freezing weather situation we have going on today? My toes are numb, Joey just turned on the heat, and he’s building a fire. At least that’s what it looks like he’s doing, I haven’t asked. (He may just be cleaning out the fireplace, and if he’s doing that then major kudos to him because it really needs to be done and I keep forgetting.)
We had serious shopping we had to do today, because we had some really good coupons we needed to use before they expired. We left at noon and got home three hours later, our shopping bags heavier and our bank account lighter.
Our last stop was Central Market, and we took our sweet time moving through the aisles (because it was a Saturday and we hate going on a Saturday, but it’s not worth risking road rage trying to dodge the crazy Saturday People who have the carts that are the size of Greyhound busses and stand there blocking traffic while they yakkity yak on their cell phones.)
By the time we made it to the end of the store, we were bushwhacked.
So Joey decided to run and get the car while I loaded up the bags and paid for our groceries. Because it’s fah-reezing outside and I was a moron and didn’t wear a coat because I thought it would be “inconvenient”.
What wound up being more inconvenient was me squealing with cold every time we went from the car to a store.
But whatevs.
So I handed the produce tags to the cashier and told him they were the prices for our fresh items, which we do not put in plastic bags, we have our own cotton ones we bring every week. He was like, woah, you two are power shoppers, and I was all, thanks dude, I KNOW.
I stood at the end of the conveyor belt and loaded up our reusable bags with our purchases.
And the checker dude, who appeared to be mid-twenties?, looked at me with the reusable produce and shopping bags and he said, “You guys are seriously organized. Are you going to get married anytime soon?”
I busted out laughing. I couldn’t contain myself. I mean, I realize I had no makeup on (confession: I do not wear makeup on Saturdays unless dire circumstances call for it; and I don’t do my hair neithers) so I looked like I was about 20. But I kept laughing and said, “Oh, we’ve been married for five years now.”
Checker dude just about lost his jaw because it hit the floor so fast.
“Well….well…..did you propose to him or did he propose to you?”
Internet, no one has EVER asked me that question before. Never. Ever.
I tried not to laugh again, and told him that Joey had proposed to me. Because we were old-school.
When I related this little story to Joey later, he was totally fixated on fact that I had said we were old school. (I guess he doesn’t think we’re old school?) Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t. I guess it’s up for debate.
(This just in: Joey DID start a fire. The man reads my mind. I love him.)
Ohhhhhhh I love Saturdays.
I love the feeling I get when I wake up naturally in the morning, sometime between 6:30 and 8:00, and the house smells fresh because we just cleaned it, the refrigerator is stocked with the groceries we bought on Friday night, and the day is laying there ahead of me like a new novel…just waiting to be experienced.
Joey got up before me today, and he made me breakfast. He did this last weekend too, and he seemed to like it more than I expected he would. But by the time I slid out of bed at 8:15 (but I woke up at 6:40, instead of getting up I just laid around) he had pancakes, eggs, and bacons waiting for me.
SUUPER GREAT.
I had just enough time to eat, take a speedy shower, and dive in the car to hopefully not be TOO late to practice.
And I forgot that it was the St. Patrick’s Day parade, so I left at 9:15 instead of 9:00…and I was excessively frustrated by the green-dressed morons who were parking in our lot, jamming up the roads, and already screaming at SUCH AN HOUR OF THE MORNING.
It makes me grumble under my breath.
Do not get me started on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I hate it.
But I love Saturdays, because by the time I FINALLY made it home (thank you, St. Patrick’s Day Parade traffic that I had to sit in for ages ages ages about 100 yards from the access to my own – jammed – parking lot) and Joey and I took Henry on a leisurely walk, then came home and heated up leftovers.
Joey’s working on homework in the study now, the windows are open, the herbs are basking in the sun, and I’m in the middle of making Buttermilk Biscuits for both dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.
I’m making Joey’s favorite: Biscuits and Gravy for lunch after church.
He will loves me so much extra after he discovers this.
But since the recipe yields so many, I’m making it tonight and keeping the unbaked ones we don’t eat with dinner in the fridge until tomorrow.
I love being in my kitchen on Saturdays. Ohhhh, I love it. It makes me feel like I’m awesome, even though I’m just pretty much average. (Everybody needs something that makes them feel awesome, if you ask me.)
Tonight we’re having an early dinner and then going to a matinee of The Blind Side at the dollar theater. Literally. It costs $1 for a matinee, and the show we’re seeing is at 5:50, so that’s the last possible time we could go. (Granted, this theater is so ghetto that it costs only $1.50 for an evening show. But I really prefer a matinee because it feels less….dangeresque with the sun is still shining.)
I’m baking Panko Crusted Tilapia with an herbed cream sauce I’ll make, and we’re having Buttermilk Biscuits and sauteed broccoli.
Anyone want to come for dinner?
I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
And by now, I think my butter and shortening have sat in the freezer long enough, so I can probably go back to putting the biscuits together.
I love to surprise Joey with special food. Especially on Saturdays.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: DON’T FORGET TO CHANGE YOUR CLOCKS! DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS TOMORROW!!
I don’t know about you guys, but in our house we regular use this little thing called “toilet paper”. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. We usually keep plenty of it around because we like it so much it would be a shame to run out. Well, in the middle of last week in the middle of the night sometime….WE RAN OUT. Like when I say “ran out” I mean NO MORE TOILET PAPER ANYWHERE, Internets.
So the Kleenex box took quite a hit that night.
We rustled up a roll or two that was under our bed (?!?) and then we forgot to buy some on Friday when we went to the store. And because it was so utterly shocking to run out completely in the middle of the night (because who can think straight then anyways?) we made a special trip to Target today to get some.
And right before the trip to Target I decided that since I am Treat Lady for Sunday School tomorrow, I’d make the cinnamon rolls in my The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook that I got from my FIL#1. If I get super fat due to trying stuff in that cookbook, I’m hitting him up for the cash to buy new jeans.
(I warned you, FIL#1. I warned you. Just see if I don’t.)
So our list went from containing only toilet paper to suddenly requiring a 2 lb bag of powdered sugar, a 5 lb bag of flour, 1 lb of butter, maple flavoring, and basically a heart attack in the name of Holy Cow That Tasted Really Good.
We walked into Target and Joey grabbed one of those basket thingies. I was looking at the list and adding up the poundage we’d be buying (flour, sugar, butter) and tried to suggest gently that maybe the cart would be a better route to take, but Joey was feeling Manly. So he was all, PSSSH, I don’t need no carts Woman.
Ten minutes later when we found a lost cart stranded in the aisle by the chips, I didn’t say anything when he smoothly dumped the extremely heavy basket into it. And then we went to get the toilet paper.
We buy Cottonelle in this house because it has the cute dog on it.
I’m not ashamed of the fact that advertising works on me.
So off we puttered to the checkout lane, Joey pushing the cart and me getting distracted by colorful displays and/or who knows what. When it was time to check out, Joey responsibly put everything on the conveyor belt and swiped his Amex card while I played with the groceries we’d bought.
Then came the toilet paper.
I don’t know what came over me, I was in a really weird mood, but I decided to balance the toilet paper on my head while the checker finished our transaction. I was doing a pretty good job, and loudly announced the fact, and the cashier turned around and looked at me with a face somewhere between You Are So Annoying Shut Up And Get Out Of My Store and WOW YOU ARE COOL.
Then the 12 pack of Cottonelle slid off my head and that was the end of that.
As we walked out of the store, I put it back on my head again (I’m always practicing for my next beauty contest) and tried to walk without it falling off. It’s harder than it sounds, Internet.
“I’m doing it!” I squealed to Joey as we walked out the door. ”I’m doing it!”
Then I saw a red gummy bear on the floor and hiked my leg back and STOMPED on it with all my soul.
And the toilet paper fell off my head.
You know, looking back on it, I wonder if anyone I knew saw me walking around Target with 12 rolls of toilet paper on my head? Hmm. I’m not sure if it would have made any difference. I still think I would have done it.
Now I wish I had gummy bears to eat.
I’m not the most fastidious housekeeper, but I do like a tidy home. And combine Olympics with being sickly for the last couple weeks, and what you have in my house last night? AN OLYMPIC SIZED MESS.
Like, we didn’t even put our clothes away before getting into bed.
We piled them on the chair in our bedroom.
I KNOW, RIGHT?
This morning, it took an hour to straighten up the house enough to even be able to clean it. And I’m sitting here now with the windows open (oh Texas, how I love you…) and breathing the fresh lemon-scented goodness that comes with dust removal and thinking that yes, this could very well be a good weekend now.
Because my house is very nearly clean.
All that there is left to do is mop the floors and grocery shop and then BAM, we’re done. Just in time to collapse on the couch and watch Olympics for the last 24 hours that they’re on.
By the last few days of Olympics, I have a love-hate relationship with them. Because they totally destroy my house, but what other nationally televised even makes me cry over the profile videos, or scream “FALL, FALL, FALL” to the opposing teams at my TV (or whatever semblance of TV we have rigged up) EVERY DAY FOR TWO WEEKS.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Two and a half more years until I get to do it all over again.
(Want to know something? If I ever got to go to the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, I think I would cry for about…a year straight. Six months before and six months after, just from sheer excitement.)
Coco Before Chanel was playing in the cheap, ghetto theater in Garland this afternoon and I’d been wanting to see it. So we buzzed over there and caught the 3:20 matinee; we paid a whopping $2.00 for both of us to get in.
On the way to our theater, we walked past some pretty rough looking dudes who were shuffling around near the back theaters. I wondered if maybe they were just hanging out in the theater because it’s SO COLD outside today. I mean, that’s why we were there. But soon we found our theater, we were just a few moments late and caught the tail end of the final preview. We awkwardly tripped our way through the dark aisles and got seats smack dab in the middle, about halfway back. Perfect seats.
It was one of the bigger theaters; the screen was about the same size as our entire apartment. I glanced around and noticed that we were among about ten people watching the film. Another thing I love about the cheap theater, aside from its ghetto creepiness and basically free tickets – there is usually nobody in the movies we go to see.
Just kidding about liking the ghetto creepiness. I don’t really like that part. But I am willing to tolerate it for the sake of cheapness.
The movie began, and I noticed with a fair amount of surprise that the opening credits were in French. For some reason I had thought the movie was in English…Joey didn’t want to see the movie in the first place, and homeboy doesn’t know French. So I leaned over and whispered, “Sorry, I thought it was in English. Maybe they’ll subtitle it?”
He assured me it would be just fine.
And shortly we were pleased to discover that there were indeed subtitles. Except they weren’t positioned properly, so they weren’t showing on the screen. Nearly impossible to read, but that’s what happens when you pay $1 for your ticket, yes?
About twenty minutes into the film somebody in the back must have done something to fix the titles, because they suddenly were bumped up to a readable place on the screen. That made the rest of the movie much easier to understand because, honestly, my French just isn’t that good anymore.
So there we sat, shivering half to death (the theater had to be maybe 63 degrees) and trying to figure out what was happening in the film, when in from the back of the theater came a fair amount of ruckus. Several of the shady dudes I had seen out in the hallway had decided to crash THIS movie, and they stomped, quite literally, down the aisle and discussed amongst themselves where they’d like to sit.
In their normal, everyday voices.
When they finally settled on a spot, there was a lot of commotion; kicking, bags rustling, EXTREMELY LOUD CHEWING, and manly hollering.
I was intensely annoyed, but also midwesternly traumatized because they SCARED ME and of all the seats in the theater, they picked the ones TWO SEATS AWAY FROM ME.
So my heart started racing about as fast as it does whenever I think about riding on an airplane, or that dream I had where Sister crashed us in to Iowa, and I tried to ignore the scary shadies sitting just a popcorn bag’s throw away from us. It was not easy, Internet. Not easy.
And then, suddenly, one of them got up and started stomping around again. I really thought he was coming over towards us, but he turned at the last second and stomped back a couple rows, then went back to where he had been originally sitting.
I decided to try to ignore them.
Although they looked to me like the kind of dudes who might have guns, they also looked like the kind of dudes who couldn’t afford guns. So hopefully they didn’t have any, or if they had some I hoped they hadn’t brought them to the theater. My exit strategy was going to be to yell, “I AM FROM IOWA, LEAVE ME ALONE” if they tried messing with us.
Fortunately that didn’t happen. And as soon as the credits rolled, I pretty much lit a fire under Joey and told him to get out of here already.
We may have been the first people out of the theater.
