Eat, Drink & Be Merry

I am a brain donor. But hey, I'm happy... so it's okay. At least, today I'm happy. Tomorrow I'll probably be about 17 shades of tired, and most likely a little grumpy by the end of my 12 hour shift (esp after staying up past midnight tonight), but when the opportunity to go to dinner & a movie with Chris & Jo comes up, I'm .... well .... I'm just a girl who can't say no.

Tonight after work (I get off at 8:00 pm, remember) I met them for dinner - after which we drove back a little closer to home (and also to the theater where you're allowed to bring in food from the surrounding food establishments - hello, Cold Stone!) for a movie. I got home at 12:15 and, sadly, am wired as all get out ... so I thought I'd share my night with my online audience. (I know, you all wish I'd just go to bed already, but first please allow me to give you a little insight into my Fabulous Friday Night.)

Hello, PF Chang's - one of my many true loves when it comes to food. Tonight I had my fave - Mongolian Beef, with about 3 cokes (because we all know that I love myself some sweet & fizzy coke along with my salty & spicy food). It was, as always, amazing. Mmmmm......

Hello, Cold Stone - my one true love when it comes to places that serve frozen confections. Tonight I had the Very Berry (however-that-goes) with toasted almonds. Oh, that ice cream's a little piece o' heaven, I tell you...

And then we went and saw this movie, which I am not too proud to tell you ... I had no desire to see. (Renee Zellweger gives me a bit of a headache, and well ... as much I do enjoy hearing Harry sing, he's not really that great of an actor.) Nonetheless... Christine had seen it with her roommate last week and I had it on good authority that I'd think it was pretty funny, so... $9.75 later, I was in. And let me just say... holy freaking crapping cow, this movie made me laugh so hard that I thought I was going to break something loose inside of me. Honestly - the wacky Minnesotan hair-do's and the accents, not to mention the local colloquialisms.... seriously - about the funniest thing I've seen in I-don't-even-know-how-long. Wow.
So, there you have it - a night in the life of me. And my favorite part of the whole night (and you'll have to admit that topping my fab dinner, my favorite ice cream in the whole entire world and the funniest movie I've seen in a good, long time is something to say) was when Jo turned to me in the movie ticket line, as I was standing there tired and bleary eyed (but still happy to be there, out with two of my favorite people EVER) and said "I'm so glad you came... I love this spontaneous part of you ... the eat, drink & be merry part." Do you see why I love her? "The eat, drink & be merry part" ... now, that's pretty great. It's not every day I hear something that so sums my life up. And even though I know that's probably not the most flattering picture of me ever painted (if you take it in the direct scriptural meaning, which you know I don't ... as I never like to think of myself in an un-flattering light), I do think it's pretty accurate... Gosh, it's great to have friends that know me so well - and love me in spite of myself. I am, truly, the luckiest girl ever.

G'bye Girlies....

From youngest to oldest... looking their best (not covered in mustard, root beer, syrup or anything else) - these are my girls. It's been a fun, albeit tiring and somtimes cranky-making, 5 days.

Domestic Diva

Okay, so... this week has been a mix of doing things I do well ... and doing things that I don't do so well. Clearly, the peed-on-pillow-fiasco was not a highlight. Breakfast for dinner, however, was FABULOUS. So fabulous, in fact, that I had to call my mom to tell her how amazing Julie's pancake recipe is. (For those TMM aficionados out there, it was a "I must write Mum" incident, for sure!) When I called home to tell her about how fab the pancakes had been (as well as to tell her how opposite-of-fab the bed peeing episode had been), Judy told me I should put the pancake recipe on the blog. So, here it is, per her request... (And I'm just saying... FREAK, these pancakes were great. Esp when had with buttermilk syrup. Seriously... fabulous!)

Buttermilk Pancakes
3 cups flour
3 Tab white sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat together buttermilk, milk, eggs and melted butter. Keep the two mixtures separate until you are ready to cook the pancakes.

(I know... it sounds like a ridiculous amount of liquid for only 3 cups of flour - but trust the recipe. When you mix the two mixtures together, it's surprisingly thick and gooey.)

And... kids that grew up in our house know that all pancakes are better with buttermilk syrup. (I found out this week that hash browns covered in buttermilk syrup are pretty yummy, too.) So, that having been said...

Buttermilk Syrup
1 cup butter
1 1/2 - 2 cups buttermilk
2 cups sugar

Melt together and bring to just a boil (on low) --- turn off the heat and add:

2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking soda

(The soda will make the syrup fluff up a little... so make sure you have enough room in the pan for the mini-explosion.) Stir the syrup well before serving, because the butter & buttermilk separate when it sits.

DELISH! Makes a fabulous breakfast... or dinner. :-)

Domestic Disaster

Yeah, so... I learned the hard way that you can't wash a pillow in the washing machine. Turns out they go all wonky in the water (or maybe it was getting off center in the spin cycle). Pari had done a number on her bed last night. She somehow managed to pee through her pull-up, enough to soak her entire sheet, her fuzzy footie pj's, and (disgusting) her pillow. (Yeah, I have NO IDEA what she drank. And I did have her pee in the potty before bed. ...It's a mystery.) The good news is that Julie has A TON of extra pillows - so this one won't be missed.

Calgon, take me away... (as if it were that easy)

You Belong in Rome

You're a big city soul with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian people - could life get any better?

What City Do You Belong In?

Yeah, this quiz isn't kidding. I was made for Rome, I'm pretty sure. Maybe I can get Julie to upgrade my thank-you-for-watching-my-children-while-I-was-enjoying-a-tropical-paradise-vacation gift from a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts to a one way ticket to Rome... It's worth a shot, right?

Homemade Give-Away BONANZA!

Here's how it works: The first five people to leave me a comment get something made by me just for them. It can be anything I want, I get to choose. It can be silly or serious, edible or not, but don't plan on anything alive.

Here's something fun I saw (and signed up for on my friend Peggy's blog). You want me to make you something? Okay... but you'd best be leaving me a comment - and soon.

There are a few rules involved (aren't there always?)

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It will be done sometime this year. (Don't expect grand things if it takes a long time. I'm just lazy!)
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. (The choice is mine! --insert evil laugh here--)
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange and/or silly.

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they've posted on their blog win a hand made, super creative, possibly lovely whatever in the heck I decide!

Be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

I know a picture would save 1,000 words, but...

...this isn't a picture I could post online - so you'll have to make do with my 1,000 words. (I'll try to keep it at less than that, but in order to paint you a literary picture, I'm gonna have to get just a little wordy.)

So, tonight's my first night here with my cousin's girls. They went to sleep fairly quickly and painlessly (halle-freakin-lujah!), and by 8:30 I was so tired I was yawning my own face off, so Cousin Lisa (their aunt) went home early so I could go to bed and get in some good sleep before tomorrow comes and I have full-time-mom duty.

No sooner had Lisa left than I heard crying coming from one of the girl's bedrooms. As I am a firm believer in letting kids cry it out (now that I've let that slip, I'm sure that none of you will ever want me to watch your kids, and I'm fine with that), I let her sob her little heart out. After half an hour of incessant crying... I started to worry. (Not about the crying kid so much as I was concerned she was gonna wake the other three up. Can you imagine the horror that would have ensued, had that happened?!)

I went in to check on her, and Par was FAST ASLEEP, crying her fool head off. I patted her back and tried to turn her over (thinking maybe her arm was stuck in a bad position or something)... and DANGIT ALL TO HELL, she woke up. I mean, bright-eyed-bushy-tailed woke up. Heaven help me.

So I picked her up to cuddle her back to sleep - which didn't work (she just kept crying). So I carried her downstairs to get her away from the other sleeping children... and she still kept crying. So I did the only other thing I could think of - I sat down in a dark room, grabbing my cell on the way... and called her mom (who is in Hawaii) to ask if this is normal behavior, and what in the crap could I do to make the kid fall back asleep. Julie gave me the run-down of what I could do to calm her down/stop the crying... and by the end of the conversation, Par had zonked out on me. (I guess taking kids into dark rooms and making long distance phone calls is the best way to get them back to sleep. Who knew?!)

Anyway, so now I had Par asleep on me... but I needed to get her back in bed. So I picked her up and carried her like a baby (because it's the easiest way to control her body - making sure that she a) doesn't flop about while I drag her back upstairs, as well as b) stays asleep.

As I took the first step up the stairs, both arms wrapped firmly about the 4 yr old I was carrying, I realized that my pj bottoms were... uhm... falling down. (They're a little big. That's right - I buy them big, because I want to be comfy. And big pj's are GREAT, to sleep in. It turns out they're not so great to carry sleeping babies in. Good grief.) By the time I hit the 5th stair, I was stepping on my pj's --- because they'd just kept slipping, and me walking on them wasn't helping. By the 8th step, the elastic waistband was around my knees - and... you guessed it, by the time I reached the top stair, I was wearing pajama tops, a 4 yr old sleeping child and ... my panties. Nice. ... And there was not a blessed thing I could do about it. And as I was carrying the sleeping child back to the last bedroom at the end of the hall all I could think was "thank heaven they're all asleep, they'd be FREAKED that I'm not wearing any pants". And then I had to giggle... I mean... LAUGH OUT LOUD giggle at how ridiculous the whole thing was.

And as I thought about how funny/stupid the whole thing was... I actually got a little bummed that there wasn't anyone to share the memory with (kinda like when I peed my pants in the movies last summer and then blogged about it) ... so I had to tell you all. Judge me if you will... I don't even care. I'm just bummed that all the laughing at myself totally woke me up and now I don't know how I'm ever gonna fall asleep... and I've got to get some sleep tonight, because tomorrow I have to pack sack lunches, get kids off to school, potty-train a 2 yr old and then deal with piano practice and dinner tomorrow night.

Ugh... Pray for me (and my slippery pj's), please.

The OTHER four cutest girls...

Today I head to Utah to stay with my cousin's girls for five days. That's right... as of this afternoon, *I am the single mother of 4 girls. Heaven help us all...

*Disclaimer/Warning to all the mothers out there whose phone numbers I have in my cell... be prepared for "ohmigosh, what do I do now?!" phone calls.

It's a tie...

...between the two cutest pics of the four cutest girls.

Aren't we adorable, and don't we look like we were having the most fun EVER?!


... It's because we are. And we DID! (And now I'm so tired that using these few words has worn me plum out and I must go to bed - at 9:00 pm. I know - weird.)

Oh, sweet mystery of life... at last I've found you!

I'm in love. And I'm not even kidding this time.

Honestly, these are *the best treat EVER!

*Disclaimer: these are the best treat ever that can be purchased in a drug, convenience, grocery or all-purpose store (such as the CVS, Circle K, Safeway or the Wal-Mart). There are some treats that surpass this in quality and enjoy-able-ness that can be found in Sees' stores, or other such specialty confectionaries.