3am Post! Sweet!

So I watched the Women's Conference from the comfort of my house, which was great. I remember in years past going to meet with the stake and feeling the awesome spirit of sisterhood, but guess what, you can feel it at home too. Plus its much less interfering with baby bedtimes.

While Alice was a bit of a buttface during some of the talks, she was amazing during President Uctdorf. I think that has something to do with the fact that I typically lie down with her between 7:30-8 and by the time he spoke it was already 8. Lucky her, late night fun! OK she was pretty cranky until I told Daniel to stack up blocks into a tower for her to demolish.

For some reason it just makes me feel better to knock things over and destroy all order. I mean it makes HER feel better.

So President Uctdorf shared this little example about how men and women are different based on cooking styles. She makes fabulous foods from around the world set and some immaculate tablescape and they will sit down and she will say "I put too much ginger in this." or "Next time I will add this to it." etc etc. The food he cooks best? Fried eggs. Sunny side up. Or something that had a nice sounding name, which was twice toasted toast. And he said when he makes it he feels like a hero.

Gotta admit, the foods Daniel makes the best either come from a box or its...tada! eggs!. His even have cheese. Sliced American. And the eggs are barely cooked. And even though he scrambles them you never add milk. Milk doesn't add anything to eggs. Ever. Or so I have been told.

I don't think I am buch a hardcore cook though. Occasionally I will get a table set and have more than three foods on the table (like pasta, veggies, and fruit! or even more rare dessert). Yeah anything beyond cooking some one dish meal, or having some meat bread and veggie belong to company. And in our case, its the missionaries.

Why don't we have people over?

One word folks. Laziness.

Mine.

Not that I am lazy. Its just the effort to invite people and find a time they CAN come, as well as planning a dinner. Ok I admit, company days are days I get to cook whatever I want. That means things that if cooked for Daniel will get the compliment "This looks god for what its supposed to be." Yeah, it looks and tastes like how curry is supposed to. Does he like it though? No. Does he even like the sides? No. Rice is ok.

Meh. I like rice, and I like to occasionally cook something amazingly different like curry! Or stinky stirfry. Cause soy sauce is gross.

Thats why sushi is great. I can make some, roll it and keep it in the fridge for whenever. Then slice and eat!

How did I get on this topic? Oh yeah, President Uctdorf. You know I can't even remember what else he talked about. I remember things from other speakers, but I am guessing waking up after being in bed for 4+ hours is getting to me.

Oh and people from the ward came and helped rip up our backyard! That means the fall yard project is now started and I can pressure Daniel into working on it more. As in actually grading the yard. ANd my homemade tortillas that I made the dough the refridgerated...they stuck together hard. Still tasted good, but they were funny shapes from peeling them apart.

FYI when you have kids, you will pass out at 9:30 sometimes. And when you get joined in bed at 1:30am by your husband, he will wake you and then you will be awake.

Maybe thats not a kid thing. But it happens to me at least half the time when he stays up late working on school. OK, I gotta get up in the morning. Not early, but I gotta get up. Plus my brain stopped working.

Follow the trail of crumbs...

So Alice decided to play Hansel and Gretel with me. I gave her a roll to eat and she took it with her on an excursion of the downstairs. Ok, it was from the computer room to the living room, but whatever.

So I hear her cry. I ignored it cause sometimes she just wants to know someone will find her and I figured if I called she would come.

Unless she was on the stairs.

She didn't come, and cried again. Great she is on the stairs. I knew I should have put up the baby gate. She has this thing where she wants to stand, and will climb up the legs of chairs, tables, people etc to get standing. Then she is stuck.

Its a similar thing for stairs. She climbs up a step and gets stuck.

Well I go to get her, and I notice that she left some crumbs of her roll on the carpet, I assumed I would run into the remainder of the roll, but no just lots and lots of crumbs.

And there she was on the stairs. Almost past the turn! Dang it. The turn had stumped her for a while now. Alas, she will be much more dangerous soon.

I grabbed her, out her on the floor, put up the baby gate. Then I saw it.

Thats strange. Was that here this morning? Is it a poopy diaper from last night? That would be Daniel's fault, and why he left that there is beyond me.

Then I saw Alice starting to stand using her swing's legs. I saw her pink rear sticking out. I was mooned.

Crap.

I picked her up and realized her dress was wet.

Double crap.

I went and grabbed the diaper. It was also wet.

Dang it.

I grabbed her and the diaper and went to get a dry one and dry clothes. I got the diaper on her and started taking off the wet dress.

She IMMEDIATELY started taking off the diaper.

UGH!

We like BumGenius diapers. We really do. But she has learned that if you grab at the velcro you can be free.

So I put her in a one piece outfit that snaps in the crotch. Try to get the diaper off now!

So yeah, I get to vacuum up a trail of crumbs, and clean up a wet spot on the stairs. Oh yeah, and I get to start shopping for a couple of diapers that are stuffables like BumGenius but use padlocks, chains and electricity to keep them on and little hands off.

Daniel has an interview

So there was a job posting at work and Daniel told me about it. I told him that he should apply. Not necessarily because he will get it, cause who knows, but from things he was told after his last application makes it sound like its good to get your name out there.

So after stressing some he got his resume updated and completed a dreaded cover letter.

He doesn't like cover letters. Its complicated. (those are his words)

And he has an interview Tuesday at 11am. Scary, scary!

Rachel and Jesse are coming to visit this weekend. Yay! We are gonna be kitchen-ing it up and cooking all morning. As in, we are gonna make lots of food you can pull from the freezer and skillet or microwave. I don't think skillet is ever a verb, but I used it that way.

The plan is: french toast sticks, burritos, roast, fajitas, um and I think maybe something else, but I can't be sure. I have a notebook all prepped with recipes as well as things I want taken care of before Saturday. That includes making a pile of tortillas. Homemade tortillas are Muy Bueno, plus if I make like 50 of them toward the end they might look all perfect. Maybe. Before they skillet themselves. (Thats twice, one more time and I have made that word mine...even though its not recognized by Miriam Webster or Wikipedia as you Panheads all know)

Um, so I am at a loss for what to write. Maybe I should just go get the clippers and cut Daniel's hair. Gotta look good for the panel of supervisors...you know so he can't hide behond his hair in shame. Face them with shame boy! Do it!

*Note* All referances for shameful facing are not going to be true! Hopefully. Unless its shamefacedness. Then totally.

Saturday is a Special Day

Its the day we get ready for Sunday!

Well I don't know how much of what is going on today is in preparation for Sunday, but whatever. Alice woke us up late (as in around 8am) out of the kindness of her heart. We had decided to go grocery shopping and wanted to do it either quite early or quite late. So off we went.

We found some random gerat deals at Aldi. The strawberries were starting to die so a pound of them were 85 cents. I went through a few before I found a container without visible mold, but its worth it. Strawberries (no matter Daniel's dislike for the seeds) are the food of gods. I am soaking them in some vinegar water and I plan on hulling them and freezing them. Oh my goodness, I just remembered that freezer jam is made from strawberries. *Drool* Of course I would need some geletain, and I don't know if I want to actually go to the store again. Oh well, freezing the strawberries is still a good plan.

We also got 75 cent bacon cause it expires next week. That will be frozen as well. Possibly even cooked and frozen, but I have no desire to cook bacon. Its yummy stuff, but such a hassle to get to. Then again if I actually cook it, it will be more handy for the days I actually cook breakfast.

And then when we were just about to check out they had a huge cart of bread that was marked 20 cents a loaf. I already made one of the loaves into ham & cheese sandwiches and threw them in the freezer. Then I noticed the date on the loaf of bread we were already using was the 19th, so we are finishing that off before touching the next one.

All in all it was a productive morning.

I also looked at the bulk bins at Hyvee. Its all 'organic' stuff so that can mean overpriced (to me since I think most of the "organic" hype is just hype. And yeah, I am not paying $12/lb for organic oats. I don't even like oatmeal. The lentils that were 70 cents/lb thats a maybe. I did want to see what flax seed looks like, but it was empty. In fact there was lots of palces that weren't stocked on all the aisles. It was strange. Usually you go to Hyvee and see Tons of food on the shelves, especially the produce. Plus it always looks really fresh. But today, I only found one last bag of oranges and it looked nasty (and yes it was organic as well). See pesticides and wax mean my food stays fresh longer. :-)

Oh yeah and we are getting set apart for our "New" (as in additional) Joint calling. Yeah the bishopric has a thing for this. They call husband/wife or companionship teams for several callings. I guess you have a back up that way, but I have never seen it in other wards. So we are now also sacrament meeting choristers. I told Daniel that its pretty much his job, and I will be backup. I mean come on I tend to do lots of the bulletain every week, so he can do lots of arm waving every week. Plus I still have additional callings in Relief Society. Yeah. Alice is grumbly.

I fixed the back door!

So our back door stopped opening. It had been fine, then it got really hot and we finished putting the back of the house back on, and tada...its no longer functioning.

It only took a couple of months of me not being able to open the door to see if I could fix it without removing door trim and the whole nine yards. You see, there had been this little Styrofoam pad thingy on the top of the door and I took it off when we put them in (cause I thought I should) but it left behind some glue residue.

Well Being the smart one I am, I got a butter knife and a folding chair and Monday night I scraped glue off the door.

In about half an hour I had lots of little glue blobs sticking to my hands and fingernails, but the door opened and shut just fine.

I did wish I had some goo gone, but it was a such a small area I let that wish go away.

After cleaning off the glue, I wiped the residue with an alcohol based cleaner.

Thats it folks!

On a side note, I actually opened the door myself before scraping it. I hadn't been able to open it all summer (you know since it hit triple digits around the beginning of July). In celebration I pulled up some of the weeds growing in the back yard. (We are going to have a fall project of pulling up everything growing in the back and seeding and prepping a garden spot.)

I stopped when I ran into leaves of Three let them Be!

(Turns out they had thorns on them which equals brambles (blackberries/raspberries) and not poison ivy! Of course once I did that research I had rinsed with cold water, wiped with alcohol soaked cotton ball, AND showered. Cause you know you can't be covered in poison ivy when you have a tiny someone that wants to live on your lap.

How to replace a Kitchen Faucet!

We had to replace the faucet on our kitchen sink. It had been somewhat drippy since we bought the place, but when you moved the turn off handle toward the cold side and push down hard...OFF. Tada.

Hence, a new faucet was purchased and not put on.

Last Wednesday morning I turned the water on to fill the pitcher, while holding the baby mind you. The handle came off in my hand.

Yes, I am that mighty.

I had to put the cranky (cutting tooth #2) baby down to finally finangle the thing back on. Only it wasn't really on. The thing was leaking. Not even a drop every once in a while leaking. It was a small trickle.

Crap.

Some pushing hard and it got to be just a drip. Not a really slow drip, but a drip.

Meanwhile the baby was screaming.

I had to go maintenance the baby. After a diaper change and feeding, she fell asleep. Then I heard it.

Drip.

Drip.

Talk about a torturous noise. It is like the beating heart from Poe, only instead of guilt I felt pure annoyance.

I tried turning the thing off again. No luck. Oh well, mop bucket to the rescue.

Daniel was informed that tonight was the night to replace the faucet so he couldn't work late.

He came home and I being the amazing homemaker that I am had dinner just coming off the stove. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was planning on shutting the water off the moment dinner was ready and the pitcher was filled. It was not a motive for forced manual labor.

So we started draining the pipes in the house. You see the really nifty thing about all the sinks in the house is that they don't have stop valves. So the water went off, and all the faucets got opened.

We ate dinner letting them finish dripping empty.

Daniel disappeared with the laptop.

In annoyance I yelled at him to come down and start already. Mind you he had been home around 2 hours and it was getting close to 8pm. He had forgotten that Home Depot (unlike walmart) closes at night. Talk about a random lapse of memory.

So we ran off with the little one. To the store. At 9pm. Yes her bedtime is 8pm, but I wanted running water dang it.

Well, lets just say the first 20 minutes went really fast. It seemed like we were doing great.

Then an hour later we were still at the same point.

Then the hacksaw and the reciprocating saw joined the team.

After carefully removing the old faucet we were ready to cut the water lines under the sink.

Around midnight we went to bed.

Got up at 6. Went to home depot before dropping Daniel off at work. The idea was that I would finish cutting off the other copper piping and then hook on the compression fit valves.

Lets just say I spent lots of time under the sink with a whining baby trying to climb under there with me. She mostly wailed and chewed on my legs. I put on on and it seemed strange. I tried the second and was having issues, so I started cutting the pipe lower. yeah, little pipe cutters give you blisters.

Fast Forward a bit and I took the baby upstairs for a nap. I joined her. We slept for a few hours. (Read Daniel called and woke me at 5:32pm...only 30 minutes after he got off work, oopsies).

So yeah he got the second compression fitting on and turned the water on with the intent of showering.

It shot off and we had old faithful under the sink. I got a pile of towels. We consulted the neighbor who wanted to smelt and has experience and all. We went in search og things to attach to the pipes and different stop valves. After some consulting of a plumbing guy, we got some nifty ones you smelt right onto the pipe.

Within 20 minutes of getting home they were both on and we could turn the water on. Ah a shower. The ability to flush the toilet. Washing of the baby diapers. So many fabulous things happen with running water in the house.

Thank goodness for neighbors.

Teething and cooler weather part 2

So we put the groceries away and I tell Daniel to call his mother (she called while he was at school and had poor reception so we talked for about 5 minutes between two different calls and I figured whatever Daniel can call back when he gets home).

I come down after Alice passed out within 30 minutes to find the strangest looking rice crispy treats I have ever seen. Daniel got too excited about eating them and didn't melt the marshmallows down enough. That means there were random marshmallows amongst the cereal. Plus it was REALLY sticky (also because it wasn't cooked long enough).

Alice wet herself awake every hour for the next 4 hours. I passed out with Daniel on our floor reading right before midnight.

Alice woke me up a few more times. The last time it looked bright. I woke Daniel and asked what time it was. 10:10. Oops. We rushed about getting dressed and the bulletin printed and off to church where we were surprisingly not late.

Sunday night was a similar thing. Only, her fever which was really low until then, spiked to 103.2 and at 5am I was sitting in a bathtub holding a crying baby and pouring water over her.

Alice woke us at 8:20. Daniel works at 8:30. She felt really really hot. Her temp was 104.4. She got a blessing and fell asleep and began feeling cooler. She still had abit of a fever the rest of Monday, but we drugged her. Between benzocaine on the gums and tylenol down the gullet she was manageable.

By Monday evening she had no fever and had little daggers coming out of her gums.

Daggers for chomping.

She also thinks she needs to be standing all the time. This results in falling. And bruises. She had a nice shiner on the edge of her chin that looked like a tiny fist clipped her. It was part pf the chair she was climbing. Luckily she seems to get over the pain rather fast.

Daniel said I needed to correct things from my last post, but I don't remember what they are. Oh well. Maybe I will post them some other time, maybe not.

Cooler weather and teething

Well it feels like fall is here. Its been drizzling and cool for a few days, the leaves are starting to die and fall and I somehow have tomatoes finally growing. My guess is that it will get too cold and we will have green tomatoes, but you never know.

Alice has Teeth! Well right now we are looking at tiny little nubs on the gumline, but if you stick your finger in her mouth, tada teeth. I have a efeling that every time we get teeth we are gonna be facing torture though. Forget the middle of the night crying, the worst part is the fevers. She spiked to 104.4 yesterday morning.

You see, the fever was discovered Friday morning, and it was rather low (about 101.4 without tylenol) so we figured what the heck, she will be fine. She was also somewhat cranky and acted sleepy all day. Besides, she was goign to bed earlier and earlier and some nights waking up every hour, but the last few we got a few hours without hearing from her once. It wasn't a big deal as it was pretty much the weekend and I can get baby duty relief, right?

Wrong.

Someone hadn't done any school work during the week. None. In fact the only thing he did Friday night was the discussion online thingy that he had to do.

Saturday morning he went to his Chem lab. It was rainy and gross, and the baby was cranky but wouldn't allow me to sleep.

The teacher had indicated that the lab would only take them until noon. He came home around 2:30.

Daniel was banished to take a nap and do homework. We went grocry shopping. Daniel decided he wanted rice crisy treats (and we have TONS of cereal but never remember to buy marshmallows), we needed a vacuum belt and I just wanted out of the house. We went to Dillons and the price of marshmallows made Daniel decide we were going to Hy-vee. Dillons is closer, but they tend to be the most expensive store in town.

So off to Hy-vee on the quest to find a vacuum belt. (and get marshmallos for less than $1.60 a pound, i mean come on marshmallows are sugar and fat...why spend that much for Generic brand?) So I had no clue where the vacuum belts would be, or the marshmallows. So we ended up going down 6 or so aisles before finding Marshmallows (not on the baking aisle but 2 aisles down with the Jello) and vacuum belts.

In our quest to find the marshmallows we ran across the canned food aisle. And everything was on sale. And we have no canned food. I prefer frozen veggies, or fresh, but canned is really handy, and it was a great price, so we got some...or rather TONs. I don't think I have bought that many canned foods at a time ever.

We also bought 4 bags of marshmallows. Yeah. I know its excessive.

continues in part 2...you know when the baby lets me.

Alice sells UPS Tshirt Bags

So this is from the trip to the family farm. Alice in a bag of future soiled diapers...they were clean at the time. My cousin took this and posted it on her facebook, but I figured I would share it with all the good time stalkers on the net. :-)

This is one of my Tshirt bags. In fact this is the second one I made. The first looked way more like a Tshirt. Daniel was even surprised this was a Tshirt at one point. The best part is this Tshirt (a free one from campus) has a big UPS logo and phone number on the back advertising for students to work for them. Alice sells UPS!

*grumble* Rude Financial Aid Laws

I was going to call them dumb laws, but I guess it makes sense... Anyway, I will describe this using the analogy that Rebecca mentioned.
Basically, there is a financial aid credit based upon
1. GPA
2. Total attempted classes &
3. Percentage of passed classes over attempted classes.

Basically, I have bad credit. I got financial aid this semester because they always approve new students at this school. However, based upon the criteria of #3 I do not qualify. I'm not talking about student loans specifically I'm talking about any financial aid, loans, grants, scholarships. Of course, I never knew that this would matter and conceptually had never even considered the idea. Then again when I previously went to school I didn't want to get financial aid and didn't even attempt to get it. But... regardless due to #3 with my dropped classes or stopped attending classes I don't qualify. The sad part is that if I were to pass every class I take from now on I would not qualify under #3 until I have already not qualified under #2. Well, that's true at least with the community college. Now, with the 4 year college that I would go to their % requirement for #3 is actually higher. Assuming they count everything that I think they will that means that I wouldn't qualify for #3 until I've actually already gotten my degree. Can't we just forget about Waubonsee? The 4 year college probably won't even accept anything from there.

I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that no one ever told me about this, and that I was naive enough to think I could waste my money by enrolling in school and then letting myself drop out and that it wouldn't have greater repercussions in the future. It also annoys me because if I had gotten financial aid before, I would of forced myself to complete my classes. Well... Now I know what to tell my kid if I end up having one like me. It still feels pretty unfair.

I guess I'll get to appeal things... every semester for the next 4 year or so. :-S

I want to stay at home...

So I was looking for something about making a food menu using the Angel Food Ministries food box. This is something I read about and we are taking one for the team and trying it out. I mean its $30 worth of food, and even if we don't care for all of it that much, we will suck it up and eat it anyway. Even if we have to have the missionaries over for dinner every week for a month. :-) Anyway, back to the reason for the post.

I didn't find what I was looking for, but I ran across this lady's blog. I would post a link if I thought it was a satire, but I am almost positive its not, so I feel bad thinking the whole thing is so funny. So she is a stay at home wife, and she goes to great great lengths to find work at home. I am talking she writes little articles, runs her parent's store website, take photos, and blogs. And she blogs hard. She defends adamantly her choice to stay at home and take care of the house/4 dogs. She defends her choice to not work and hang out with family. She defends the fact that she works 40+ hours a week and makes less than $200/month (according to her tallys on her blog)

I laughed. I read them to Daniel. He laughed.

Now I cannot understand wanting to stay at home by myself with 4 dogs. Ever. There are days I don't want to be with Alice, but the nice thing about having a kid...they learn how to talk and bathe themselves. That's 2 things dogs don't do. Plus even when she is dirty she doesn't smell like wet dog.

Somedays I feel really unproductive at home. Thats mostly when money feels tight. But then I find myself some project and we are good. Like making grocery bags/whatever bags out of old Tshirts. The first one is housing 4 zucchini and 10 lbs of potatoes in the pantry. (For the record I did some 'cooking' but I haven't touched the zucchini. Someone needs to help me with that!

I did slice a few pork steaks and debone some chicken breasts and throw them with marinade in some baggies in the freezer. There was some pork in a soy sauce marinade that would make great stir fry...maybe we will break Friday night Pizza tradition and make stirfry instead. Poor poor Daniel. He even bought cheese for the pizza.

I also have like 20 mismatched/hole in the toe socks. Something should be made from them. Daniel suggested a Tshirt. I guess that way I could make Tshirts out of old socks, and bags out of old Tshirts and it would be the circle of life. I should turn a Tshirt bag into socks. It would be great. (cue Cicle of Life)

Today needs to be a cooking day

So I haven't checked the garden in almost a week. I know, thats not allowed. I had one zucchini still on the plant last time I was there and I was monitoring it from the computer room window. Only it ended up that that zucchini composted itself and I was monitoring a different one. Oops. Here is what I found:

For the record our tile is 12x12. Yeah the big one was too big for me to carry while holding Alice.

Alice saw the camera and got excited! It took me 2 minutes of shouldering the back door to get it open. I am not sure why it seems to want to stay shut. Maybe 'tis humidity or heat, or something happened that warped the frame? Who knows. I just know I don't want to have to take it out of the house to get it in right. Yucky.

I forced her to lie down by the zucchini to compare sizes. She didn't like it very much. Notice the pointing finger. Thats her new thing. Pointing. What a rude little baby.


As you can see sitting up next to the zucchini was more acceptable. So now I just need to motivate myself to cut them all up and freeze them for stir fry and zucchini bread. You know come winter when we won't have a prolific garden. Instead I vacuumed. And I cleaned out the sink. We bought a bag of 10 lbs of chicken legs that I want to cut into pieces and stuff, but I need lots of sink space for that. Sink space and disinfectant. Gross, raw meat.

Sugar Crash

We went to the farm for Labor Day. *grumble grumble grumble* It was alright.

We ended up calling my cousin that lives in town, and figured if she actually wanted to go we would go and take her along. Lets just say 2 hours each way, with a baby AND holiday scary drivers...not my idea of a great day. The cuz was excited about kittens (which went into hiding before we even got there, and were never seen) and Rachel sounded so sad about not seeing us (even though because of the 'meal at the farm' thing we were only there maybe 2 hours and didn't hang with Rachel much as my mother monopolized her time with food stuff).

Partly I find the whole thing annoying. They decided this would happen, and planned it Friday at some point. I saw one of the earlier emails and then about 4 more Saturday evening. Its like my mother has the idea that if they get a paid holiday they should meet with EVERYONE. I mean come on, we met on the 4th of July. And the Farm is about an hour farther away. I am not complaining about being with family, and really not even so much complaining about being on the farm. Its just so so so far away. And we havent' seen Daniel's family in months. And since we are celebrating Christmas with thier Family in October, we will be forced to drive to the farm two more times this year. We told them that we refuse to drive there at least one of the holidays, you know since we are spending Christmas with Daniel's family. Even if its not at the traditional Christmas time. I know the holidays are about families, but what about OUR family.

And, today we were going to replace out kitchen faucet that has dripped since we bought the place. The same one that we bought a faucet for and have had for about 10 months. Yeah that one. Its not even a cute faucet, and I sort of would like to go pick out a cute one, but really I would be happy with anything that does not drip. Or have so much mineral deposits that I can peel them off with my fingernails. I guess the current one doesn't have that anymore.

We still have to feed the missionaries tonight. Ugh. They were going to be part of the excuse to not go to the farm. Well, one bonus, we ended up getting sent home with lots of extra food. Meaning, I don't have to cook. I can nuke (or serve cold) the fried chicken, and baked beans, and potato salad is always cold. So tada, dinner is done. I almost want to not eat at the table. Partly because I am not hungry and we eat in an hour. If we don't eat at the table, its not so noticeable that Some of us are forgoing the food.

And I used And alot in this post. Plus, I used alot. Is that even a word?