Clean all the things apron from Zazzle.com

Clean all the things apron from Zazzle.com

My favorite of all Hyperbole & a Half columns!

Evil Mother :->

When my darling works late I take the opportunity to not cook a full meal from scratch. For example, last night was our church's pig roast fundraiser. I got two meals to go but by the time I finished for the night it was too late to eat them. So I was going to serve them for dinner tonight and make something else for the kids.

Fast forward to tonight. Darling is working til midnight. So instead of eating at 4:30 as usual, I waited until 6 when the kids were good and hungry. Then I made us sit down at the kitchen table and eat an orange before I would give them any other food. Then I sent them away and heated the pig roast dinners. I gave them each a small portion of roast pork with gravy, pineapple bake and carrots. Then I called them back and made them eat that before I would cook anything else. Now that they've finished that I will make what they want - Ramen soup and popcorn chicken. Poor husband would never have had the patience to sit through this method, plus he is hungry when he walks in the door from work. And he would not have been as amused as I was with the look on Ed's face when he ate the pineapple bake!

None the less, the kids found out that they don't HATE roast pork and we didn't have to involve dad in the tasting process.

Giant Fucking Surprise that it annoys me to not decide what we're going to do for the day until 11:50 AM.

here kitty kitty

CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!

I can't find the new cat - Cleo. DAMN DAMN

I was holding her on my lap at 9:30 pm. She was happy and purring, keeping her eye on the other pets. Ed helped her through the cat door to the basement right after that. This morning Dave couldn't find her in the basement - no huge surprise, he's not a very thorough searcher. So I went down there all confident that I'd find her sleeping on the sofa down there. Nope. Called her, searched, nothing! Searched with flashlight under beds and sofas, nothing.

Now it's noon, and I searched again, shaking cat food bag. Nothing

AND I CAN'T EVEN POST ON FACE BOOK BECAUSE MY SIS-IN-LAW IS MY FRIEND AND I DON'T WANT HER TO KNOW I LOST THE CAT ALREADY.

I just had to tell someone.

PS: I haven't even told my darling husband that we have a new cat. What cat? I don't see a cat :(

Yes, I'm STILL pondering LOST

look for post #984

This is a pretty interesting theory on the alt reality.http://forum.lostpedia.com/06x17-end-questions-theories-discussion-t58202p99.html

A New blog

I just started a new blog. I noticed I write a lot about domestic engineering and decided to make a separate blog for those types of posts to spare those friends not interested in that stuff from suffering.

I'd love for you to join me if cooking and organizing is your thing:

www.bashfulbeckythedeadlyblade.blogspot.com

Coffee Station

This pic belongs with the bottom caption, just can't figure out how to move it


bottom drawer: this is coffee stuff we don't use every day: the carafe, grinder, 2 cup maker, travel mugs, wide mouth funnel (I use to pour coffee into the small coffee canister I use with the 2 cup maker). The front row of this drawer is what the kids use when they make themselves tea: honey (in it's own liner to keep the drawer from getting sticky), tea, electric kettle
middle drawer: the basics for coffee - regular, decaf, specialty, instant, filters, special tea. I used brown shelf liner for all the coffee station drawers, though I like the Ikea gray liner much more. Also, props for the Ikea drawers! Even this middle drawer is deep enough to hold the wholesale club size coffee cans standing up

top drawer: I'm not sure what I'm going to keep in here once the coffee cups are hung on the wall! Love the spoon rest and coffee spoons I got at Ikea. They are around an inch shorter than a teaspoon, so they're easy to keep separate from the other spoons. I wanted something specifically to keep in the drawer for stirring coffee, and a spoon rest to keep with them. I also have our everyday medicines in the drawer - stuff we want easy access to: daily meds (days of the week dispenser), multi vits and C (clear top containers), the pestle for crunching up the dog's daily med (I know, I know, but she's a member of the family and it's something we use every day), plus Motrin and aspirin and prescriptions to refill the daily med dispensers.

These pics may be a little misleading because I am posting this before the prep sink is in and the countertop is just the tile laid in place. The wall hanging will go above the coffee pot, and above the prep sink will be all my favorite coffee mugs hung as usable art on black hooks.

The spice drawer

The Obsession will now begin

Ok, I'll admit it....I might have an obsession with organizing like other people do with couponing, French cooking or computers. I can't help it. I have a quest, an internal drive to put things in order. I sat and daydreamed with a notepad about what would be the best place to put each item in my kitchen for optimal ease of use and storage. I made charts. I grouped like items together. I demoted less used items to remote storage. I spent a LOT of time arranging adjustable drawer dividers.

Why?

The gritty truth revealed:

I am a Messy.

I will never be one of those urban chefs with open shelves of ingredients and dishes. No Can Do. If there is too much stuff on the counter I get overwhelmed, demotivated, even...no, not ME...grumpy. I even feel that way after I've cooked dinner. I want to avoid the kitchen, hide from the piles of dishes and ingredients, secretly hoping that someone else will clean it up for me. They don't.

but I am a reformed Messy.

I know the tricks. Put ingredients away in stages (all the fridge stuff, all the pantry stuff) as I'm cooking. Just start the dishes and the peace will come as each dish is put away and order begins to return item by item. Don't fool yourself into thinking that washing them and leaving them in the drainer will work. Then the drainer becomes an area to avoid and the whole thing starts again.

So I make a choice.....be chronically messy or foster the obsession with organization. It's a little tiring because I can never let up without disaster lurking around the corner, but I lived for a long time as a Messy (just ask Nancy about my room on Woodcrest Ave.) and I don't like the feeling. Even now there's not much middle ground for me. Things look really good or really bad, and there's only a couple hours of middle ground for me to reign it back in or suffer the consequences.

Hmmm....I wanted this to be funny but it sounds like a confession!

Oh well! Now to start the fun :) Here's a pic of the spice drawer, located to the left of the cooktop (not yet installed). It took a lot of willpower to leave any of the spices in their original jars and not to run out and get stainless steel measuring spoons. I also have my tiny glass bowls and measuring spoons in this drawer so that Dave can measure spices for me - I am training him as my sous chef :)

Dang! The pic won't post. I'll add it as another post

a little

I hope this kitchen works out the way I envisioned. The 30 inch counter already has it feeling a little off, a little heavy on the left. I'm a little worried. Let's just keep that 6etween us.

interesting reading

My Kindle 6udget is providing some interesting results. I have always 6een a user of pu6lic li6raries, with a select few authors that I will purchase at retail price. I think working at a li6rary for several years engrained the 6orrowing ha6it in me.

So until Kindle ena6les a 6orrowing application, I will only purchase one new 6ook a month and the rest of the time rely on pu6lic domain to provide my free reading. This has led to my re-reading of some of my favorite classics: Jane Eyre, Little Men, etc. And exploration of some 6ooks that are very familiar to me 6ut not personally experienced: Thoreau's Walden is one I am working on, Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know with many more than the standard handful of tales, and currently, The Picture of Dorian Grey

A6out 5 yrs ago I decided to spend the summer reading classics that I had heard of most of my life 6ut never read: The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gats6y, etc. I expected life-altering revelations and found none. I guess the world has moved on.

And there are still novels I read as a child that I am trying to track down in digital format: Red Horse Hill and Speak to Me of Love are the first that come to mind. I can't even find them on Amazon, the titles exist 6ut not the right authors. I can't even find them in print, though 6oth might turn up in someone in the family's attic or 6asement. Here's hoping!

bizzaro world

reading a new _ook is like entering a different world. I guess the a_ility to totally get engrossed in a _ook is what makes me enjoy reading, _ut it's not something to enter into lightly. Until I am finished it almost seems as if the _ook world is my reality