5QF:Chef Mom

Where did the week go? Really.?
I cannot believe that it's Friday!
The days fly by and I am running out of time
to get my kids Halloween costumes finished.
I am looking forward to another fun weekend with the kids
and my husband. The kiddos are going to Grandma's house Saturday
night and having a sleep over.
ALONE time for mommy and daddy.
Oh how I'll miss them.

1. Who is the better cook, you or your spouse? I am, because I do all the cooking and LOVE to cook. I enjoy cooking meals for my family and relish the praise when they enjoy what I've cooked.I have taken family recipes and altered them to my liking and perfected them. My husband tells me that each time I recreate a meal it gets better.

2. How often do you talk to your mom? Pretty much everyday except on weekends. I'm so busy with my family doing recreational activities that I don't call her then. My mom and I have a pretty good relationship when I don't tell her too much of my personal life.

3. Are you adventurous in the kitchen or stick to the recipe? I will stick to the recipe the first time I make something but if I taste-test it and it doesn't seem right I might add something to it. If I make the recipe again I will most definitely alter it and make it differently. I have made several recipes of my own and love to get creative in the kitchen. I had made some pretty fabulous dishes and a few duds. Trial and error, only one way to find out.

4. Is your second toe longer than your big toe? Yes it is. On both feet. Isn't is something special if they are? I thought I heard that somewhere.

5. Do you dress up for Halloween? (Bonus question: What will you be this year?) Depends. I did two years ago when I dressed the kids as The Lion and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I dressed up as the Wicked Witch, it was so cute! We met up with some friends to go trick or treating and they didn't even recognize me. I wore a fake nose and green makeup that I did myself and it was pretty good. Pretty fabulous.

This year, I won't be anything. Just me.

PYHO: Pour Me A Large Glass

All it takes is one wrong word or something to set the mood in a bad light or some one not doing what they should be doing. The stress sets in and the mood changes. Then something else happens and escalates the mood and before you know it you can cut the tension with a knife.

That is just one moment of what it was like before I broke down and went to to doctor. Ten months ago I decided that I couldn't stand treating my family with such anger and meanness.

I have had stress issues since my teen years and they had manifested into much more after marriage and children. But you try to ignore the problem and after an outburst you say it's the last time. But I can say it's like a drug. You say "this is the last time". And then it happens again. Something irritates you and you get mad and when it's all over you apologize. You say it won't happen again, you won't get mad but you're only fooling yourself.

Then it happens again. But it's meaner and nastier than the last time because mentally you got away with nasty last time so you push it more. The best way I can describe it is like seeing red. You get so upset that you don't realize how mad you are and anything can irritate you while you're in this rage.

I broke down in tears and called my doctor one morning after yelling at the kids. I gave into turning to medication because praying for strength and asking for forgiveness of my sins wasn't working anymore. It only took eight years to come to terms with the fact that I needed help that I couldn't find alone.

It has been the best thing that has happened to me. Not many people know I take medicine to stay calm. Because honestly, the people that don't know never saw THAT side of me. That part of who I was was not publicly shown. There's no reason to tell them about that part of me because I'm not proud of it.

I hope to one day wean off the medicine. My doctor says it possible. I know that it's not going to be anytime soon. A good example would be this weekend. I got food poisoning and missed a day and half worth of my medicine. My irritability creeped in on me today. The small things started bothering me. It's possible that it was a combination of tiredness, missed medicine, and being overwhelmed that contributed to my irritated mood.

For those people out there that are feeling lost, moody, overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, angry, tired... or any other contributing factor added with stress of raising children, keeping house, keeping a husband happy it's ok to admit defeat and seek help. Maybe you won't need medicine, maybe counseling with a therapist is what you need. Don't feel like a failure. Because for many years I felt like if I asked for help that I was admitting there was a problem and I didn't think there was.

My Apologies

Today should have been my first edition of OH NO YOU DIDN'T, but the fact that it was Tuesday morning slipped my mind. I spent the last 24 hours with food poisoning and Monday was pretty much a blur. I won't go into details but one of my favorite foods will no longer be consumed by me unless I make it myself.
Sunday evening my husband and I got some Chinese takeout from our regular restaurant. But this time I tried a new dish and I thought it was soo yummy! Famous last words. Ugh. I am still recovering today from being so sick and just realized that it was Tuesday.
Just thinking about Chinese Food is making me nauseous. So I promise that I will start next week.

"Bored" Games

I was talking to my mother today about organizing and cleaning closets. She is standing there telling me that she was reading an article on organizing and removing clutter from your house. She goes on to to tell me that my brothers and I still have items in our old closets in her house. She wants us to go through the stuff and take what we want or it's gone.

She is finally tired of hanging onto my prom dress, a bridesmaid dress from my brother's wedding that I wore when I was 15. Ugh. That ugly pink dress that my crazy sister in law had to publish on Facebook. She is even ready to part with my almost 39 year old brother's Boy Scout uniform that he wore in like 9th grade?

But then she mentioned that she was going to go through some old board games that she had been saving.

That piqued my interest. Old board games? She said she wasn't going to part with the original Monopoly or Life games she has. She actually has the old LIFE game with the pink and blue cars that you put the corresponding colored "baby" pegs into.

I started thinking about how great it would be to play some of the old board games I used to play when I was a kid. My brothers and I would spend summer days playing Go For It, Monopoly and Scrabble. Those were the good ol days, before internet and online gaming. Before Gameboys and Wii.

I asked her if she still had the original Battleship game marketed by Milton Bradley. She didn't know and hasn't sorted through them yet. I told her if she was going to part with Battleship I would take it. I want to show my kids what it's like to enjoy the company of some one in front of you playing a game where a machine doesn't show you the next move. A game that actually involves some thinking.

I know that a three and seven year old can't play it yet, but what does another three years sitting in my closet matter? It's probably got 15 years of dust sitting on the box anyways. That is unless my younger brother, who is a board game fanatic, took the game when he moved out back in 1999. I sure hope he didn't.

I'm crossing my fingers. Maybe soon I will be calling "Hit"!

5QF:I'm back!

Oh how I have missed blogging while my computer was down without power. I was slacking before that, I know. Writer's block, it's true. It happens. But it's nice to be back in my grooove and I have missed playing some 5QF with Mama M. Happy Friday!! I can sleep in and I'm gonna need it since it is 12:30 am and I am still up, but no school for the kids. Ahhh.




1. What is your favorite Halloween candy? If I had to pick a candy that I only consume at Halloween or the month of October because it's all over, is CANDY CORN! But it has to be the original yellow, orange and white made from Brach's. I bought a bag that was store brand and usually store brands are pretty much the same as premium brands but nope, not those.

2. Do you fold your socks? yes I do. I fold my socks and my husband's socks and they are folded a particular way. The kids socks since they are so small are folded and then the top is folded around both socks to keep them in pairs. Anal, yep. I even make sure to match up new white socks with new and old with old.

3. What is something that you wish you had been warned about? that life doesn't get easier with kids after they aren't babies anymore. I thought that once they started school that it would be less hectic, nope. No way! I'll take midnight feedings over getting up at 5:30am every weekday even on my days off. Sometimes I wish it was summer already.. and we're only nine weeks into the school year.

4. What is the most significant difference between you and your significant other? he's messy and I am not. He likes it clean but doesn't have the drive like I do to clean, organize and clean some more. Even when I am completely exhausted from a long day of getting one kid ready for school, laundry, grocery shopping and a 2 hour and 15 minute of watching Miss K at dance class I will still find the energy to pick up the house, vacuum the floors and wash dishes at 9:30. Yep. Did I say OCD? lol!


5. What are three words you would use to describe yourself? (And, just for fun...if your significant other is around, ask him/her what 3 words they would use to describe you!!)

Hubs: strong, stubborn and .......judgmental
Those would not be the words I would have used! But I asked him to give me three words to describe me to some one. I wonder what he means by strong? Strength as in muscles? Or strong minded? Hmmmm. I agree with stubborn because it definitely runs in my family, that is hereditary. Judgmental, I am not touching that one. That was the old me, really. I try hard.


Check out my new meme starting next Tuesday! Come by and play!

Halloween Costumes

Photo Credit

So I've decided what the kids are going to be for Halloween.
Miss K is going to be a fairy, complete with wings, tutu, leotard
and all the glitter you can handle.
I'm being pretty crafty this year again and I'm putting
the kids costumes together myself.
I bought the tulle to make the tutu myself.
I went online and found instructions on how t make one.
Wish me luck!

Little E will be this!

Jack Sparrow the pirate!
He doesn't know that is who he is
going to be, but he knows he'll be a pirate.
We're changing it just a bit since I only have the headband with
dreads from the costume.
So it's going to be combination of Jack Sparrow
and Captain Hook.
Complete with eye patch, earring, hook and sword.
My little guy is going to be soo cute!

Raincoat not needed

When it rains, it definitely pours. Today has been one of those crazy days that you just have to laugh at the craziness. The highlight of my day was that it was my day off from work and that it's my Wedding Anniversary. Not having to worry about being anywhere and being able to enjoy the morning, except for driving Miss K to school, it should have been peaceful. Nope, not this day.

Spilled banana milk during breakfast before we have to leave the house at 7:35am. It was 7:10 am and the best clean up I could manage was paper towels and cleaning wipes.I guess I could have let the dogs lick it up. Ha!

Trip to BJ's in attempt to use my 60 day free trial club membership and halfway there realizing that I left the coupon on the printer at home. Yep, pretty fantastic!

Fully potty trained three year old, or so I thought, poops in his underwear today. Oh, and I won't be too graphic, but it wasn't your regular bowel movement. Sticky, stinky and gross!

Awesome quietness in the middle of the day with Little E napping I took the time to get a few loads of laundry done. I planned it out to wash towels and bath rugs which could be easily removed without folding and then I would wash the whites. I hate whites, I hate folding socks. So I washed them last so they could yes, be left in the dryer. Yep. I'm feeling lazy like that.

I screwed up my anniversary dinner. I thought that I would make a family favorite of spaghetti, salad and garlic bread. Let's just say that the salad was fabulous. The sauce was gross. It wasn't even worthy of saving for leftovers to try and doctor it up.

Woke up the little man to eat dinner and he took about a half hour to crawl out from his bunk bed. I went back in to check on him and he's sitting on the floor, looks over at me and says "I need dry shorts mommy". What? He peed in the bed. He was soaked, the bed was soaked. It was like a gallon of it. So much for my laundry sitting in the dryer. Remember the missed step before nap? Yeah, I forgot to have him go pee.

Bathtime before dinner took up my extra time that I use to feed the dogs and cats. Begging animals after dinner made me rush through the steps and I was remembering the linens and bedsheets in the washer. I accidentally dropped the cat's food bowl with wet and dry food all on the floor. Another mess! Did I need something else to clean?!

At least I wrangled the hubby into helping me put Little E's bedsheets back on the bunkbed. Or that would have taken me 20 minutes while I climbed up and down the ladder and tackled the sheets alone.

But it didn't end there. Before bedtime, Little E was begging for a drink. I told him no because I didn't need another mess. He took upon himself to get a sippy cup, fill it up with water from the fridge and tried to put the lid on the cup He spilled it all over two kitchen chairs, the table, his pajamas and the floor. Outfit #3 today for one child and he's not a newborn anymore!

Thankfully I think my mess day is over. Knock on wood!!! I'm not in bed yet and the dogs might find it in their sneakiness to make a mess for me too. I'm hanging up the apron and gloves for the night, where's the housekeeper?