Dilapidated gingerbread igloo

this isWhy do I do this to myself? Gingerbread mixes are $6!! I swear to god (BRUCE) that I followed the directions.  I mean King Arthur flour is THE source.  I mean is there anything I can't F up?

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/baking/documents/gingerbread.pdf

I spent at least $15 and 4 hours on this travesty: my arm muscles are actually SORE. I even MEASURED the thickness of the walls and THIS IS THE RESULT. This reminds me of my breadmaking experiments; $100 at Bread and Circus for some nice chewy pumpernickel until my friend Jane said "Do you know you can buy bread for $2?  I think I need a consultant to come watch me bake to see what I am doing wrong.  Or perhaps its that I am the only home sapien in the suburbs without a Kitchenaid mixer?  I can only imagine what the final product will look like.  Perhaps my time is best spent at work after all.

The other side of the house

Before picture with cute model

Since moving into this house I have not been able to stand my dining room and living room. BLECH!!!! I wish I took a good before and after pic - but for 10 years I have not been able to deal. Its not that a lot of thought hasn't gone into it...quite the contrary. I just hadn't found pinterest.com yet.  First of all, we inherited a high quality dining room set that was very 70's. You can kind of see the china cabinet here behind my cutie on her birthday.  I remember decorating this when I was pregnant. Apparently I was in a yellow/red/classic mood. Its like someone vomited gold and red all over the place.

As  you can see on the right under the dancing queens; the vomit fest expanded to the next room because, since I grew up in the 80's: I am obsessed with matchy matchy. Dining room furniture falls  somewhere below "things you do when your kids college fund is fully funded" on the priority list. I have not been very inspired here. I let that block me and said, welp there's not much I can do.

First thing I did was to move the monstrous china cabinet that I hated to the opposite wall. Now this is what you see. I bought these pictures as jpg files on line and framed them in cheap Michaels' frames. I put 2 lamps I had on the buffet and viola! I never would have thought to do this but I saw it on line somewhere.

Then, my Coup de grâce; THE ZEBRA RUG. I don't know where i got this idea but I love it! I got permission to mix an oriental run in one room with an animal print in the next room. WHOA!!! I ordered a similar rug from rugsdirect.com but when went to home goods the next day and found it cheaper: AND got this awesome pillow.  What do you think????

Getting the Virgo off my back

My monkey is a Virgo and it wouldn’t get off me for a few weeks. My head is full of nonsense; worrying about every little thing at work and home, feeling overwhelmed, not eating well, etc. I’m up half the night worrying about work and let me just say that I am not the obsess-in-bed-and-solve-problems type. Oh no; I get nothing resolved whatsoever. My worrying consists of thinking about every piece of minutia on my “to do” list backward and forward. I’m surprised I don’t suck my thumb while I do it. I have taken to getting out of bed and working at 4 am once a week because I just can’t stand sitting there thinking and wasting time. Why am I overwhelmed I ask myself? Well let’s see what I’m working on right now besides the usual work 50 plus hours a week, take care of house and kids, take kids to their activities, homework, worry about friends and family, etc but there’s

•   Couponing – otherwise known as printing, searching and going to 9 stores a week for deals; if you need some barbeque sauce I'm your girl. In my defense its a lot of work to make sure that the house has enough toilet paper. Ass wiping is serious business.
• Halloween prep - see previous posts
• Learning to wear makeup; aka watching youtube to learn what I was supposed to have learned like 30 years ago. Why do I care? WRINKLES. DUH.
• Trying to get my kids to eat or ..er ..trying not to feed the kids chicken nuggets every day. Searching for recipes; buying ingredients for recipes, throwing food away that I never make recipes with, etc. Nuff said.
• Pinterest; if you are not spending 3 hours a day on this you don't know what you're missing; I mean I thought I had enough to do but now I can add homemade beauty supplies to the list. Did you know you can make you own pore strips? 
• Obsessive organizing. I actually was up all night last week trying to imagine objects I could use to organize my cabinets on the cheap. One site actually recommended empty tuna cans for the junk drawer. This is not for me.
• Redecorating my dining room and living room and every other room in my house that I haven't finished. Post to come. 
• Waxing. My eyebrows. Its all I can do not to go every day.

I am not just your classic perfectionist; I want to do it all and I want to do it now. And don’t tell me to relax. I don’t do relax. The more I do the more I want to do and the more I expect.  In any case, funny what a downward spiral I can get myself into.  I have a headache, so I don’t go running, I stay up too late, and I have a bag of m&ms at midnight which makes me more tired and less likely to do the things that make me sane like working out and eating/sleeping well.  Stress builds up until I want to explode, or take a nap (it’s a black or white world for me my friends).  My runs have been horrible; every day I seem to get slower, counting every step of my torturous runs.  

Today rather than let myself go deeper into my own mental prison I forced myself to drink a half a gallon of water to cure my headache and went running; feeling like I may have an aneurysm on the way but it was better than the alternative. I had one of the best runs ever. When I came to the hill I normally hit where I have to stop and walk .....I kept going and said to myself YOU CAN DO THIS. I thought of the worst times in my life; my mothers death, stepfather's illness, breakup with person-who-shall-remain-nameless; ....all of it feeling like you just can't put one foot in front of the other.  And I just did it one step at a time. It was like that Bruce song the Rising - I was at the bottom of a mountain and started crawling, then jogging shedding layers of SHIT along the way - I could hear the song Eye of the Tiger playing and when I get to the top of the mountain (home) and I’m feeling like a trillion bucks and I look down at myself and my ...shirt ....is ....on ....inside out. TYPICAL.

Label it...ALL OF IT

I don't know what is wrong with me; I have 90 things going on and yet I keep starting other projects. My search for some rice I knew I had but couldn't find resulted in an OCD episode of magnamimous proportions. 9 trips to Bed and Bath later...all my cabinets are reorganized and labeled with new oxo containers that set me back way more than I care to admit. I even measured my cabinets dimensions before I went. I realized my label machine was broken last week and had to make an emergency trip to get a new one (with my $5 staples coupon and rewards printed of course). I must say I don't like the new one but my daughter has discovered the joy of obsessive organizing labeling; she loves it and hey - its good spelling practice. The good news is that when ditalini comes up on the spelling list my daughter will be way ahead of the game.

Labelling assistant

Can't you just picture her 40 years from now telling her friends how her crazy bitch super organized mother used to demand ask that she help organize the kitchen? One of my memories of my father who died when I was 13 was us sleeping while he vacuumed around us. This probably explains a lot.

I ripped everything out of all the cabinets and organized everything based on how I use it. Pasta (as you can see), condiments, baking stuff, Cereal, etc. I tried to buy the containers that made the best use of the space I had; as you can see the pasta containers are tall and skinny. We have many pastas!

I put the cereal in bags near the bottom of the cabinet so the kids can get at it and I don't have 90 boxes full of half empty cereal. I just wrote with a sharpie what kind of cereal it is. I put all my baking stuff on a high shelf together.

I have a giant pantry but there's so much space to the left and right of the opening that i can't get to. We won't go into the random stuff I found there. I bought these lazy susan thingies for the corners so at least I can get at them.

I am a little horrified at how much food I had to throw out. Seems kind of foolish to have been spending all this time cutting coupons only to throw food away because its buried in my pantry. Must move on from labeling to using what I have; if you are hip and cool you know this is called upcycling.

I'm hoping that with these small change the kids will let me sleep until 11 9 every morning.  No more kids rifling through the closet looking for school snacks; they are all labelled!

We even ran out of labels; there is nothing we can't find now!  

Here's all the sites I looked at to get ideas.

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2011/08/its-here-kitchen-cabinet-tour.html

http://www.thehouseofsmiths.com/

http://orgjunkie.com/2011/07/taking-action-on-your-everyday-papers.html

Next up....kid paperwork

The passing of Rainbow sunshine

It was a sad day for the Scearbos; Megan's fish Rainbow sunshine died today. He made it over 2 years which is good in fish life but Megan was very sad and cried herself to sleep. My heart aches for her. She learned about intestines today in health so she said she thought maybe it was a problem with his "intestints". Maybe so...probably had more to do with the toxic ph levels in his tank.   

For my sisters

Goodbye little buggies

God I hate fruit flies. I can sit in my house and slap away at them all day. This works!! I did it lastnight and I hate them so much that I had to take a picture of the dead little f'ers. Click on the title for the "recipe". Insert evil laugh.

I am a 45 year old pubescent

Most people discover their makeup obsession at 14. Mine happened at 44. I could spend 9 hours a day on this site; stopping and rewinding. Its really too bad I don't go anywhere to where all this makeup. Not to be like Madonna but these chicks make me want to go all brittish.

I had an awesome day at the ER

I was just thinking as I was running today that I have way too much to do..in fact I was actually running faster than normal (aka turbo turtle speed) because I had so much "important work crap" to do. Queue call from school nurse-who-knows-my-number-by-heart (am I the only one on the planet who wants to ask the nurse whether my frequency of visit is higher than average?). In any case she tells me that Matthew fell at recess and needs stitches.
I suffer from painful indecision as i try to weigh my new resolution not to leave the house without at least showering against my desire to save my injured child. I had to admit when I saw the offending "opening" it looked like I could store some stuff in there Pappillion style. I loaded up enough snacks and reading material to stay at the hospital for a week and we headed on down to the ER. Any time I've had an issue and tried to get into the ER I've had to wait like 9 days. Apparently having a cute little muffin with you helps; he got in right away.

If you've been to the ER you know how annoying it is that they ask you the same question 90 times. Matthew got me some redemption.

Nurse 1: How did you do this?
Matthew: I fell
Nurse 1: Did you hit your head?
Matthew: Does it look like I hit my head?
Nurse 1: No
Matthew: Well why are you asking me then
Nurse 1: I have to ask; nevermind, how much do you weigh?
Matthew: Why does what I weigh have anything to do with my cut?
Nurse 1: oh aren't you cute

Nurse 2: Hi Matthew what happened?
Matthew: didn't you talk to the other lady?
Nurse 2: oh yes but we have to ask alot of questions.
Matthew: whatever, do you want to see my cut?

Admission lady: Hi little buddy how are you
Matthew: ok but i have a cut
Admission lady: oh no do you feel safe at home?
Matthew:  Wow you guys ask alot of wierd questions

Doctor #1: Hi Matthew lets see your boo-boo
Matthew: ok you're the 5th person whose seen my boo boo
Dr: Well I hope I can fix it, we will need stitches
Matt: what are stitches?
Dr: its like sewing your tissue
Matt: there are tissues in there?
Me: (no not the blow your nose tissues)

So anyway, if you're waiting for the punchline, Matt is fine. He had 4 stitches and by the time they put the numbing medication on him he didn't even feel the stitches; he was playing his PSP the whole time while I paced around texting and emailing about my work crisis. Having your child in the hospital takes years off your life. Every minute is like living an extra year. I can feel the wrinkles coming on. At the same time I have a major crisis going on at work and I am on my laptop while waiting for the Dr. I think of that movie Despicable Me.  I am Efficient Despicable Me. She who makes even the Dr wait while I answer a critically assenine questions about a life threatening powerpoint. Now i get to work all night for the snafu of having missed a half a day.

Creepy candles

Halloween preparations start early around here and this year I've reached a new record of August. Im not overwhelmed enough with figuring out what to do with kids every week, prepping for both kids birthdays, 2 work projects in the shithole, obsessive couponing and learning to wear makeup at 44: I must prepare for halloween and do a detox diet also. My new years resolution is going to be complacency. In any case: Megan's birthday was Friday and the boys were at the red sox game; I tried to convince her to go to the mall so I could get a Sephora fix but she wanted to go home and CRAFT. The girl never stops; the more we do the more she hounds me. By this time we had already made 4 batches of brownies and a birthday cake for Matthew; have I mentioned that I CANNOT WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START?

Supplies you will need:
Masking tape
Toilet paper or paper towel rolls
Glue gun and glue
Battery operated candle lights
Black acrylic paint
Little tiny rocks

Tape the rock to the bottom of the paper towel holder; Megan did this by putting a rock on the masking tape, sticky side up and then putting the paper towel roll over it and sealing tape on the sides. Put a few more pieces of tape on it to hold in place. The rock helps the candle from falling over.

On the top side of the paper towel holder, put the candle on the top of a piece of masking tape, sticky side down and insert it into the top of the tube.  Do this a few times until the candle has a steady base to sit on.

Take the candle out and heat up your glue gun (what you don't have a glue gun?) , dripping glue all the way down the side of the tube. Repeat this process until the tube is covered. This is not a job for the kiddos but Megan had fun watching. Actually as I recall she said "is this supposed to be fun?". She's just like her mother, she likes to start things, not finish them.


Keep going until it looks like this.

Once this part is done and dried you can paint. I am painting mine black.

These will be part of the spookiness but we won't show the final product until Halloween.  Camera doesn't do them justice by themselves but we will make them part of the horror. 

Barf-o-Rama ALERT: Men who wear scarves

Is it just me or do men who wear scarves make you want to hurl? There are certainly metrosexual men who are attractive but this is taking it TOO FAR!! Marc Anthony just looks like a dickhead if you ask me so I guess he's kind of any easy target. And that idiot married to Tori spelling? What is that a scarf snuggie? Double scarf? This is just awful.

Give me a sports obsessed, leathery hands guy any day of the week over this! men who spend too much time on their appearance? No thanks.

Some people like shoes, I love office supplies AND shoes

I have an obsession with all types of office supplies so I LOVE to back to school shop. I also love gadgets (why heLLOOOOO staples!!). Have you been to one of these meccas lately? Have you seen the cute flowery folders and patterned notebooks? DIOS MIO!!! OH LALA!! If I wasn't contractually prohibited I would get a second job there so I could see the very latest and get a discount!

The only thing I remember from grade school is when we moved to a new school in kindergarten in the middle of the year and I was issued a brand new pack of crayons (this was when your tax money actually covered the cost of the crayons..imagine that?).  Anyway this was the one and only time I had the world by the balls because my crayons were new and no one else's were.  I was the envy of the town.  One my office supply edge wore off I blended into averageness.

In any case, it was hard for me not to buy anything myself at this most holy place but I did refrain.  I will have to happy with my kids' stash for now.

In all seriousness there are some good deals at Staples this week and if you sign up for their flyer through email you get 25% of your purchase in rewards.

PS Why does a 2nd grader need 12 (yes more than 10) glue sticks for the year?
PPS when do i get to help my son pimp his locker?

When is dinner ready?

Are you as tired as I am of this question? Kids home from camp and I hear this no less than 15 times per kid. for those of you who are math challenged that's 150 times a week during weeknights - 600 times a month - 7200 times a year!! ENOUGH ALREADY! I was thinking I might given them each $5 a week and charge them a dollar for every time they ask me and if they don't ask they can keep the money.  

Just in case I accidentally have a baby....

I got some free formula in the mail the other day. At first I thought, how great: free stuff! then I thought "shit I don't have a baby!". I figured maybe I was drunken couponing or forgot that I didn't have a baby when ordering some free formula.

I brought the package into the house with guilt wondering how I would explain to my husband how I had acquired this much hated liquid. I considered that maybe my couponing had gotten out of control but then realized that the package was delivered to the wrong address and promptly delivered it to the poor sucker nice mother who needs it.   

I'm going to write the book called leave me the f alone which is about the 6 am harassment following the all night go the f to sleep

Lunch

Mom can i have a ham sandwich? Oh I mean some bread.

the new free swiffer duster I ordered is in. Im sure my cleaning lady will appreciate my thriftiness.

Nice to ge free stuff so I can afford my lexus and cleaning lady.

the dog crapped on my deck and other ponderances

I've taken care of enough humans and their crap (kids, seniors, douchebags) and now I'm dealing with a geriatric dog who like to crap in random spots. I wish he would crap in the neighbors yard sometimes. Sigh. I will pretend I didn't see this and hope my husband picks it up. Or maybe it will rain and wash it away.....


I would like to thank Pippa Middleton for bringing brunette back. I am even going to wear a preppy dress tomorrow in honor of Pippa.

 

Re: unfriendly people. When I go running and I happen to see someone out in their yard or running by me I like at least acknowledge their presence. I mean we're all cohabitants of the planet right? I never did this when I lived in the city: you'd be saying hi to people you run by every 5 seconds and I would run out of breath. But here..I'm on these side roads with nothing but roadkill. It seems civilized to say hi. And those of you who know me know I'm not even that nice! BUT NO lately every time I go running and I say hi to someone they ignore me. I consider this a personal challenge: its like a Seinfeld episode: if you ignore me I will make it my mission in life to get you to acknowledge me. I put myself out there for humankind: you must acknowledge!! Today this happened. I said hi to this lady, she ignored me. I said it louder, she ignored me. Then finally she smirked at me. Ah success. Mind you don't try to talk to me. I'm busy running for christ sake.     

Coupon craziness

To add to my insanity I have a few more admissions. You can call me insane: I don't really care. At least I'm not Dead or watching reality TV.

- Megan and I went to price chopper last week and we had a goal to save $100. Now I'm not one of those people yet who actually calculate what I am going to save at the store in advance but this was a goal Megan set out and I was happy she was not bothering me having fun so I went with it*. We did very well and I think we saved $88 and paid $120. When we left the store it was pitch black and windy; storm was here. I went to put the groceries in the car and my receipt and credit card flew out of my hand and went flying across the parking lot. I had not even had a chance to look at my receipt and pat myself on the back for my hard work! Initially I was concerned about getting in and out of Matts' school before the torrential rain started but there was a crisis at hand!! I ran around the Price chopper parking lot chasing after scraps of paper for 20 minutes. Despondent as I observed papers flying across a major intersection I almost gave up hope but I spotted a peice of paper near the road, picked it up and it was mine!! BEHOLD the receipt that documents my 39% savings!!! I was exalted. Yet sadly i did not find my credit card (not that I was looking). I had to cancel that.

- The very next day I went to Rite Aid armed with my wellness card and list of savings. When the cashier told me how much it was I was a little shocked but ran the credit card through. When I looked at the receipt I noticed that she didn't give me my UP reward (cash for future purchase) for something. I mentioned it to her, she got the manager, BLAH BLAH. I was aggravated at myself that I was wasting my time for $3 but what is the point of doing the coupon thing if you're not going to check? So I get the 12 year old manager to give me a credit and I am on my way. When I get home I am congratulating myself at all the coach bags I will be able to buy with my Rite aid savings and I realize that they made 3 more mistakes. Back in the car I go back to rite aid where the 12 year old pimply manager cringes when he sees me. I try to give him the most endearing "I know I look like an old housewife but I swear I once was cool look" and he fixes my bill while I apologize all over myself for "being a pain".  Then I got in my Lexus and I drove home.

- My kids are now pissed that I won't buy any of their crappy food without a coupon. They love Jimmy Dean crap and I tell them I won't buy it unless they have a coupon so now they are looking for coupons with me. Double bonus.

- When I go running in my neighborhood on Thursdays I have to meditate to keep from stopping at every recycling bin looking for coupons. I don't do anything half way. 

- These were my sunday purchases. Do not tell me you are not jealous LOL. All this was $4.00 at Walgreens

All this was $30 AND I got a $10 gas card at CVS.
At this point I think I have saved enough money that I have justified:
        * a new camera lens
        * a picture for over my mantel (bought with a coupon!)
        



* My husband got me an I Pad so as soon as I get that baby I will likely be fully anti-socialized into communicating exclusively through digital means. I see no reason to leave my house except to avoid paying shipping charges or to go to the beach.

Demented crafts

Megan and Mercedes did this craft together today. Isn't it demented fabulous! It's a little of everything from the craft drawer including letter sponges, clothespins and jingle bells. I think I will be dismantling   saving this for a very long time. I think the intent was for the whole thing to spell HOME. I like to think about them in different orders: ME HO, HO ME. I never said I was normal.

Big daddy's turning 40!

My husband's gettin old. I didn't know what to do for his birthday so I thought I would do a throwback type project. I wasn't going to give it to him until his actual birthday but I am like a 2 years old when it comes to surprises. Its awful.



I love to do stuff like this.

Fix my mantel

I cannot stand my mantel "situation". I don't know what I don't like but its just bad. Is it the curtains? Picture? Crap on the mantel? LACK of crap on mantel?

Here's the pier 1 pic, I would put it on there vertically. It looks a little pink in the picture 

Cruella de ville?

Just sayin

Breakfast burritos

At 44 I thought I had discovered all my personalities; the crafty one having come out when the kids were born. the newest lady to make an appearance round these parts is June Cleaver. I would rather sit around the house blogging, cooking and coupining than going out. I saw this recipe on this blog
 http://moneysavingmom.com/tag/freezer-cooking

My kids like everything Jimmy Dean; egg sandwiches etc. and they also love tacos so I figured i would try this because "what do you want for breakfast" is a constant struggle here. I made half the recipe this time to make sure the kids like them. My son LOVES and my daugher is not convinced  yet.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup green peppers
1/3 cup onion
18 eggs
l cup chopped ham
20 flour tortillas
1/2 cup butter
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Beat eggs, milk and salt and pepper

Saute onions and pepper in butter until they are soft

Add eggs to pan and once they are formed shut off heat, add cheese and fold in until melted

Scoop half a cup of egg mixture onto each tortilla and fold ends in before rolling.

Wrap each burrito in a paper towel and then aluminum foil. 



Put these in a freezer bag and remove all air before putting in freezer. To serve take off aluminum foil and put in microwave for a minute.