mrtl

When Staying Home Is Better...

...than going out with a fun group of friends who are all prepared to wear matching "My Drinking Team Has a Hockey Problem" t-shirts.

After bath tonight, Jem squirmed about getting in her towel. She broke loose and ran to the little potty, sitting on it. Then she peed. So NOT ONLY did she pee in the potty, she peed in the potty without prompting AND she peed in the potty rather than in the tub.

How freakin' awesome is that??

SQUEEEE!!!!

This morning the daycare mentioned they had an absence that day; short notice but would I like to leave Jem?

Maybe I alarmed them by my maniacal glee at the implication and my rush to get home to gather her necessities.

It's still sinking in that I am child-free today. ALL day ::knock on wood that Jem doesn't have another great fall::

Now if only my hair man would call me back. I may have to go out and stalk him.

Another beauty of my day is that I've discovered a new drug: the green smoothie. I shall shout it from the mountain tops: this is the secret elixir. It's making me a bit giddy, overly energized. I've big plans for today and I know they'll be completed. I can hardly sit still.

Go on, try one. They sound gaggingly disgusting but are really good. REALLY good. Be warned, though, to not drink one if you plan to sleep (or have to sit still -- which I'll have to remember for our flight next week) within eight hours of drinking it.

Green Smoothie

Blend together the following. Switch out fruits and add other veggies as desired to taste.

a pear (or an apple, some pineapple, whatev - something sweet)
a banana
juice from a fresh lemon
a carrot
a thumbsize piece of fresh ginger
a handful or two of fresh spinach leaves
ice if desired
water to mix

Frozen blueberries instead of ice make the concoction a beautiful shade of aubergine (I love that word), rather than the ate-a-lot-of-seafood shit green. TMI. Sorry. I'm going to try adding plain yogurt next run, too.

Seriously, I could live off these.

Now I go.

The Sugarless Experiment

You know how there's a difference between "childless" and "child-free"? There's a not-so-subtle connotation with the word choices. Same works with my title of this post. I am at a loss.

After having a bit of a binge at the end of last week (in part blamed on the excess of candy required to assemble the turkeys -- consider yourselves warned), I decided when I awoke Friday that I would go the rest of the weekend without sugar. Not completely without sugar, as I've tried Atkins before and found it didn't suit me; I still had bread, syrup (lite at that) and the like. I didn't touch the candy, turkeys, or any other treats we seem to have in excess around here.

::tangent of wonderment::
It was suggested to me that I should just throw all the leftover candy away. Woman - you done lost your mind! Sure. I threw away all the Halloween candy that would surely go stale before I found myself in such an emergent state to actually eat any of it, but this is good stuff. Good stuff is not to be thrown away. One does not throw away Reese's Cups, unless, of course, some obscene act has been inflicted upon them. Rub my Cups on your dog's butt and I'll throw them away, but a perfectly innocent, clean, unmolested Cup deserves to be eaten. I'm just saying.
::end tangent of wonderment::

I thought this weekend would be very difficult. Surprisingly it wasn't. Friday was the worst; Ibby working overtime to entice me to have a turkey cookie, or at least to lick my fingers after helping Bug dismantle Wallace.

::tangent of clarification::
Ibby is the name I've given to my Inner Bitch. She's similar to the devil on the shoulder, trying to instigate bad eating. She also is extremely mean to me, ridiculing me in my attempts to get healthy and make better choices. It's difficult to restrain myself from punching the fuck out of her when she pesters me, as I'm sure she'd shave off an eyebrow and draw nasty words on my forehead while I was unconscious.
::end tangent of clarification::

It also helped to have some healthy easy competition. ---

We now interrupt the writing of this post to bring you, at 1:25 am, Bug. I'll have to finish this later. gah

::tangent of resumption::
It was a nightmare. She was dreaming that bad soldiers were coming into the house to kill us. Then she started shrieking, "Close the door! Close the door!" Egads she was terrified. And where she got the notion of soldiers coming into houses is beyond me; I don't watch the news when she's around; I don't want her to see images and be in the position of lying to her or telling her that they're pictures of Iraq because she knows her Daddy is there.

After calming her and getting to bed, she was frightened by the shadows in our bedroom, so we packed up and went up to her room. (Jem's been choosing to sleep in a playard in her old room.) She likes the shadows in there, she said. One nightlight makes what looks like the Northern Lights on her ceiling.
::end tangent of resumption::

The competition, with She Who Suggests Throwing Perfectly Good Candy Away (aka Crazy Lady), is a friendly one. I suppose we could take bragging rights. I'll have to take a moment to bask in my victory, as I kicked her ass all over this weekend. ::basking:: ::basking some more:: ::oh, just one more moment -- yeah, that's it:: I suppose it's a tad unfair that she's received a Harry and David giftie basket. And her opposition to artificial sweeteners is a definite disadvantage.

To note, my success this weekend did not involve a magic pink jelly bracelet. It also didn't completely involve the competition. Learning of AM's debauchery didn't encourage me to celebrate with [enter any available snackable here]. This is quite a feat for me, and I'm proud of it, damnit.

Turkeys with Tutus

Meet Andromeda. While making cookie turkeys with Bug, she determined that each needed to be named. I don't think we ended up naming all twelve. The first was Karen, which made me laugh. There was Henry, Superhero (she has a matchbox car with that name, too), Janet, and Wallace. I named Wallace and Andromeda. Andromeda was standing so straight, and when I mentioned that to Bug, she immediately determined that Andromeda must be a ballerina and thus needed a tutu. We whipped up some pink icing and tutu'd her.

We made these for a dinner party we were supposed to attend at Two Stomach's. Jem awoke on Thursday with some serious green boogerage and a temperature, so we ended up staying home. Although we missed out on great company and yummy food, it wasn't a total loss. Some laundry, dishes and random cleaning got done. We had turkey cookies for an afternoon snack, and rather than fuss over a traditional dinner (which I was prepared for before the invite out), I let Bug choose what we ate. Breakfast for Dinner! Sweet Potato Rainbow Pancakes! mmmmm...

Turkey Cookies

double stuff Oreos
malted milk balls
candy corn
Reese's cups
Twizzlers
chocolate sprinkles (or assorted colors just for fun)
white icing
chocolate icing
green food coloring

Mix up some green icing. Put some on top of one cookie for grass. On another, squirt some chocolate icing around half (if cookie middle isn't centered, put icing at thicker end). Add six candy corns, thin end down, to make feathers. Using chocolate icing as glue, affix Reese's cup to bottom portion of cookie, then set on top of grass. (Too much grass can be a problem. If your turkeys are unstable at this point, stick them in the fridge to harden the icing.)

Affix a malted milk ball as the head. To that add half a candy corn for a beak and a small slice of Twizzler as the waddle. Add six sprinkles as feet and a couple dots of white icing for eyes.

Oh, and I highly recommend this genius product from Pampered Chef -- Decorator Bottles. Weeee!

Too Lazy to Google It

I just saw an ad for one of the Law and Order shows -- can't keep the damned things straight and I couldn't really care less -- that features some extreme fighter "and Ice Tea's wife, Cocoa. Cocoa Tea? That's just gross.

One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor

'Twas the night after KTOG
And down by the sink
AM and mrtl were stirring,
In a big bowl, a drink.

The ladies had converged that night, taking care
That all necessary ingredients would surely be there.

Once Bug, Boog, Jem and Junior were tucked in and asleep,
All tired out from playing, not making a peep,
AM and mrtl to the kitchen did dash,
Standing over the bowl, with a squirt and a splash.
When the concoction was ready, they dipped in a spoon,
And tasting it, both took a moment to swoon.
They'd done it! High five! They grabbed for the ice.
The Perfect Margarita was so worth its price.

Makes four servings (or two quite large servings)

Combine:
2 cups Horny Toes
1 cup Cointreau
1/4 cup Torani orgeat syrup (more or less, to taste)
Juice from 2+ fresh limes
Kosher salt (for glass rim, optional)

Enjoy!

My Trophy

It all started when a fellow Mama casually mentioned the secret ingredient in the oh-so-delicious margarita of limey goodness. AM took it to task to procure this ingredient for our upcoming overnighter playdate (our daughters are the bestest of friends, and have totally hounded us to have a sleepover, and we have caved to their demands, because they were way demanding and are too cute together, like at the hockey game last weekend...

...see what I'm talking about? How could anyone resist the cutest of this combination? So the girls twisted our arms and we gave in and said, "Well, shucks, if we HAVE to.") Besides, I needed a reason to test out the new blender with the margarita dispenser. You think I'm kidding? Check this baby out (and no, mine didn't cost that much). (Note to mister mrtl - the old blender was sacrificed while making a ever-so-yummy butternut squash soup for a Halloween party.)

Anyhoo, AM got all busy doing -- what? MOM stuff -- and dropped the ball on finding the secret ingredient, although in all fairness I should contend that she didn't really drop the ball, but bounced it around a few times and then put it down in a safe place to get to later, and then got a bit distracted by other, much lesser-priority tasks (I don't know what, diapers or dishes or more crack-ho sock knitting), and so when I asked her how the search was going and she hemmed and hawed just that least little bit that she had tried here and there and had yet to try hither and yon, I cracked my knuckles, slapped my cap, and pulled out my mad Googling skilz. I responded to her email with name, number, and link to a local distributor of said secret ingredient, to which AM responded with, "You are the magical goddess of the internet! I bow down to thee!" and later in IM "you're the bestest super sleuth you need a medal." Rather than a medal I asked for a trophy and shared with her the awesome link I found today while perusing boredatwork.com: http://www.addcaptions.com/.

And behold, my trophy:

If the margaritas are worthy, I shall post the secret ingredient. Stay tuned!

I'll Take the Deluxe Version

It's the game that's taking the nation by storm.
Everyone's playing it!

It's Squish the Fish!

you can play in a drawer!

you can play on the floor!

you can play on a shelf!

you can play by yourself!

non-toxic! safe for all ages!

Squish the Fish, for hours of crunchy fun!

Great on road trips!

Deluxe version includes Horny Toes, so Mommy enjoys playing, too!

Where Has the Time Gone?

I seemed to have forgotten about my blog. oooops. Seems to have slipped my mind, what with dealing with a new addiction, the one to Google Earth. However did we househunt in the past without this wondrous program?

Yes, I said househunt. Mister mrtl has received his next assignment, where we'll be heading in the Spring. We've been busy scouring the internet for information about the area, figuring out where we want to drop our crap and send our kids to school.

As hard as it is to make such decisions, I think it's going to be harder for me to decide what to eat here first.