Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Mildly Freaking Out...(Part One)

My baby will be 4 in two weeks. MY BABY WILL BE 4 IN TWO WEEKS. OMGMYBABYWILLBE4INTWOWEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Trying to subdue my intense feelings of despondancy over my "not a baby" anymore, I have taken on the following tasks, all of which I aim to execute with a Martha Stewart meets Geneiveve Gorder type precision.

1) I am repainting Brynn's room. I painted it a lovely shade of lavender when we moved in last year, and I have a very long list of justifications as to why this lavender no longer suits, but my most important reason is that my "not a baby anymore" would like it pink. So... not just plain pink paint will do for her... I have decided to paint pink stripes, get new bedding, new curtains, etc. My further justification for this is that I will not re-paint it until she's at least 12... 0r 9 ... or until I go through another parenting crisis. (and she would be just fine with plain pink paint.... but I self-imposedly have decided to up the ante.)

2) I am planning a birthday party for her in our backyard, with all of her friends. I am greatly concerned that nobody will show up, and she'll be the only kid at her party. OMG. I am also concerned about the length of the party and what to serve, and keeping the kids entertained with games for the whole time period. We are having strawberry cupcakes, but what else do I give the kiddies?? The party is from 2-4 on Saturday June 5. I am thinking fruit kabobs and hye-rollers (tortillas with meat and cheese all rolled up swirly burrito-style). Too much? Too little? Not appropriate??

3) I am also planning a family birthday party for her, on her actual birthday (June 9). This will be for approximately 10 adults (OMG). Since this is during the week, I will not have all day to plan and execute another brisket-level catastrophe. I am currently planning on making lasagna-shells with garlic bread and salad, as I could make that up ahead of time and just pop it into the oven when I get home from work. My dilemma is this : who wants to eat heavy pasta in the summer?? It's not really seasonally appropriate.... but alas... we don't have a grill because Husband decided a 1000" tv was more critical.

Part Two will follow after I've calmed down from writing Part One.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

I’m working on a new post about something super dirty, but until then let me give you an account of why I’m so superduper tired… and why I keep telling my coworkers that I’m about to motorboat* my computer keyboard because I can’t keep my eyes open.

Wednesday night –
7:30pm-9:00pm – rake and spread dirt all over the yard. (yes, yes, I must confess this is what my upcoming “dirty post” will be all about)

9:15pm – make a deal with Husband (who did about 200% more work in the yard than me) that I will go to TacoSmellHole for him if he tucks in Brynn.

9:45pm – make a deal with Brynn to make her stay in her bed and close her eyes. Her usual bedtime is around 8pm so I am already fearing our cranky morning.

10:00pm – fold 2 loads of laundry and watch 2 episodes of Billy the Exterminator. I can’t help it. I love him. I have so many questions.

Thursday morning—
Around 1:30am – Brynn wakes up crying hysterically and appears magically at my bedside. Her juice cup is no longer on her nightstand ( I put it in the fridge). We get her juice and I bring her back to her bed. I crawl in with her and fall asleep instantly.

2:15am – I wake up in Brynn’s bed to hear Brando in his room jibberjabbering. I go lay on the couch and wait for him to really start crying, in the hopes that he’ll fall back asleep. I instantly fall asleep.

2:30am – Time to get up with Brando. He is chipper, I am not. He slups n’ burps. I change his stupid Huggies diaper and put him back to bed. He thinks this is funny. Me—not so much.

4:45am – The cat finds me and starts to lick me. I throw him off of me.

4:45:30am – The cat finds me and starts to lick me. I throw him off of me.

4:46am-The cat finds me and starts to paw at me. I throw him off of me.

4:46:30am – The cat finds me and starts to paw at me. I pick him and bring him to the basement and shut the door.

6:10am – I wake up and realize I don’t want to wake up and I don’t hear any children crying.

6:30am – I wake up and hear Brando babbling. Time to get up.

*The whole concept of visualizing somebody "motorboating" completely cracks me up. Just typing about it makes me laugh. Motorboat, Motorboat, Motorboat! Yeah! So, while I don't condone actual "motorboating," thinking about it is perfectly supercool. BAM. Larson OUT>redbull has kicked in.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Things I Do...

I enjoy cooking for people, and I enjoy hosting small "get-togethers" at our house. I have two major flaws however: 1) I shoot big and regret it later and 2) I don't eat meat and have no clue what the food tastes like that I serve. Oh my.

Several weeks ago, I decided to have Jeremy's family (mom, dad, sister, bro-in-law, gma, gma) over for a Mother's Day lunch. This was going to be a present from "us" to them, and it was going to be super fun.

And then last Saturday, before the "Bachelor Hot-Tub Experience" I got the bee in my bonnet to make a brisket. So this is my brisketventure....

I did tons of research -- I learned the difference between a "Point-Cut" and a "Flat-Cut" - I learned to look for marbling and a fat cap -- I researched marinades. I was set.... until I went to the grocery store and got lost in the aisles of meat. Nothing said "Brisket" on it. Turns out, briskets are not big sellers (notice: foreshadowing). I was led to a side-cooler where the choices were all wrapped and frozen. The meat clerk told me this is the one that I wanted:

Since the meat clerk seemed to know about briskets (he mentioned "marbling") I took his word for it that the 4.3 lb of frozen brick-like meat would be satisfactory for my brisketparty.

Since it was frozen, I had to defrost it. All I can say is "HOLYSHIZ This is a huge piece of frozenness" and "This looks like a cadaver on an autopsy tray"

Here is my sous-chef. Since the brickmeat was so HUGE, I had to cut it in half to fit it into the crock-pot. It was supposed to marinade overnight in a freezer bag... however, there was not a chance in hades that this THING was going to fit in a bag. (Unless it was a body bag.) So I marinaded it in the crock-pot. Please note: My sous-chef was in charge of putting the spices in the bottom of the pot, and had no contact with the raw meat.

And here it is with the five-million spices we had to put on it. The Gerber Graduates were optional spices.

Then it came time to dump some apple cider on it. I had to dump some beer on it later.



And here's where the drama begins. The recipe said that this needed to cook for 10 hours, and the recipe was for 3 lbs of meat. I was cooking 4.3 lbs. I had important people arriving at 1pm. I had a previous Halloween Roast Incident where the crockpot cooked the meat at the speed of light and it turned out brick-like. I rationalized this out -- I have a new crock-pot cookbook. It HAS to have taken into account the faster cooking times of crockpots. I cannot risk a shorter cooking time and have people show up to a pot full of raw meat.
I woke up at 2am to turn the crock pot on and to add the additional liquid marinade.
I woke up at 8:15am (MY Mother's Day Gift) and it smelled like lunch-time. AH Shiz! Really?
This is what I found:





If you can't tell. It looked like 2 bricks in a pot full of fatty juices. I turned the crappot off and got ready for church. Brynn was singing this morning, so the whole family was attending. I spent the service brainstorming damage control methods (and taking turns with Jeremy walking around with Brandon).
So, when we got home, I sliced/shredded the brisket and sifted the marinade to get the chunks out (peppercorns, mustard seeds, etc) and then dumped the liquid over the meat. It went into the oven on LOW and I hoped that this would help the meat soak up the marinade and make it the tastiest thing ever.
This is what it looked like after damage-control:
And this is what it looked like when I served it to people. Yep, that's right. It had a "bland" flavor and additonal salt was needed. (If you can't tell, Jeremy is salting the entire pan of meat in this picture, as a favor to everybody else.)

I was going to take a "final" picture of the brisket sandwiches along side the beans that I also made, but at this point, it just felt like more unnecessary work.
And I refuse REFUSE to give anybody this recipe. Don't ask.







Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Ones that Needed Take Two:

Here's Monday Morning. Yes, this is how I felt, however it wasn't a good starter for the exciting blog. And here's Tuesday. Here's the lovely Xtina holding up the Doolittles menu. Do you see the ear to her left? That's our supervisor. This picture hit a little too close to "not-fun" for Tuesday.

And here's Chantel. I call her Channy. I had a blast taking tons of random pictures of her this week and threatening to put them all up on the blog. I think I semi-had permission to post this one as she posed.... right??

Thoughts on the shoes? Brynn thinks that they are fabulous which made me start to question my judgment.


And here is depressed Brynn at the park before the girl with the leg tattoo agreed to play with her.




And here is Wednesday night with the TV showdown. This is my father-in-law "the enabler with the pick-up truck" that helped to haul the thing home. (I love my father-in-law -- it's all good.)






Thursday -- I really don't know what to say about this one, except "That's my girl!"



Friday: Here's at the BBQ. Mr. Mumbai was cooking something superduper yummy with red curry. What makes this picture funny to me was that he was jamming out to Queen and I was told that he might be bustin' a move while he was cooking. So I sneakily snuck (how's that for alliteration?) inside to get a good shot. He wasn't dancing. I was a bit forlorn. I asked him to dance. He wouldn't.


Saturday -- apparently everybody was beautiful. Oh the prettiness.
Sunday -- I struggle and fight with Brynn about her hair. It is snarly and she wakes up in dreadlocks and then we fight about getting it brushed. Here's just one of many shots of me not being able to see her face because of the craziness that is her mane.


And here is a parting shot, taken by my assistant. Had I known that she was actually physically able to press the button down, I probably wouldn't have agreed to make funny faces for her.


To conclude this "Week in Da Life" let me say this -- I surprisingly really enjoyed it. Like a lot.
The End ... for now :)








Monday, May 3, 2010

And.... It's Sunday.

As is customary 7-days a week, I get up with Brando and do the early shift. We headed downstairs (very addicted to the instant netflix stream) and he was adamant that he play with his favorite toy. The remainder of the family joined us later on and a fight was a-brewing. Dang you Brandon for wanting to play with Brynn's favorite toy that she forgot even existed and hasn't laid eyes on in at least 6 months!! That was very naughty of you!
And here's my veggie burger lunch with ketchup (mmmmm) and swiss cheese (super mmmmmm). Let me take this opportunity to thank my sponsor, Coca-Cola, and also let me take this opportunity to thank my daughter for snatching my lunch before I got to eat it. (just kidding... kind of)



A couple weeks ago I made the rookie mistake of complaining about my daughter being invited to a birthday party. Murphy's Law attacked and we've had a birthday party just about every weekend since. Here she is before the gymnastics party started, and before she injured the birthday girl with a bathroom door and made her walk around with a bloody foot.



Here's Brynn with her daycare boyfriend. I think she was saying, "Does this frosting make me look super sweet? Tee hee." I think he's a keeper, because he 1) Likes the frosting look and 2) He totally put the straw in her juice box for her.


I'm pre-emptively stating that Boomy is sprouting at least 1 new tooth. In dire times such as these, I resort to the Gerber teething biscuits. They are only to be used in emergencies because, even though they make the baby very, very happy, a parent/guardian/supervisor/random adult MUST commit to a bath immediately afterwards (always for the baby, sometimes for the grown-up).
Here's BEFORE: (Notice the emergency -- no time to get the shirt all the way off.)






And AFTER: (Notice the "Something About Mary" hairdo -- but with biscuit.)



And that was our day -- more or less. I forgot to bring the camera to church, but Brynn and I did go. Let me confess that we only attend so that she can go to Sunday School, and that is all part of my "preschool readiness plan," as the whole preschool-kindergarten thing has me truly freaked out. It's all I can talk about to these parents that keep inviting us to these blasted parties.
Sunday was going to be my Blooper Reel day, but since I'm posting Sunday on Monday, then perhaps Tuesday will be the outtakes.
And as Firehouse once said, "That's All She Wrote." (Did you think I was going to say that you were "The Love of a Lifetime"? Ha! Nope.)



Saturday, May 1, 2010

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

Brando woke up at 5ish this morning (pretty darn good, eh?) and had a bottle. I put him back in his crib and he was quiet/accomodating until 6ish. So, I took him downstairs and put him on his tummy (which he HATES) and then ran upstairs to get my camera, computer, etc. I was shocked that he wasn't fussing at all and thought "Huh, maybe we're turning a corner and he will start to crawl around 9 months after all!" Um.. no. This is what I found when I returned downstairs: While he may never learn how to crawl, he very likely may be a champion eater and be able to open stuck jars for me. Go Boomy!! I then proceeded to watch "The Boy in Striped Pajamas" with my boy in football pajamas.

Brynn woke up around 7:30ish. She wore her new poofy skirt today that Auntie Steph mailed her.
I ate some Vermicelli Salad for Brunch (along with a left-over day-old piece of pizza and some flat Coke).



Brynn entertained her brother while I tried to straighten up. Brando is a drooler. We go through 3-4 bibs a day.


Wildman took a nap. That musta been some dream he had.





Brynn and I then went to some rummage sales. Please check out my haul:
5 - pants
2 - 1 pc summer outfits
9 - shirts
1 - Vikings jersey
2 - Hoodies
6 - PJs
1 - pair of brand new sparkle shoes for Brynn
------------------ Total $4.10 -------------------------




I then went over to my coworker Chantel's house. I just went to drink, others went to eat. Her husband made brisket, and being a vegetarian, this fascinated me. (truly, it did. I never know what to make for my family, or how to make it.. or if it tastes decent). Here is his recipe (I plan on getting more details before attempting):


And then Chan was all "LET'S GET IN THE HOT TUB!!" She offered me some clothes as I was suitless, and I did not want to pass up a hot tub Bachelor experience sans the eligible man, hot bodies, roses, and champagne -- so I made sure to have her snap away. Needless to say, when I came home and threw a wet bra at my husband, he seriously questioned if I was ever going to leave the house without him again.


CHEERS!






Friday is Supposed to be Fun.

and while this Friday had its bright spots, it also had a huge, looming, forboding, obnoxious, repulsive, undeniable STENCH about it. Let's look at the highlights first:

Remember a couple days ago when I told you that at work "we" had visitors from Leon, Mexico and Mumbai, India? Well, being as I pretend that i'm part Mexican, it was decided after I put the bug in a coworkers ear, that we should take our visitors to Acupulco (a restaurant that I frequent so often that the hostess has stopped me at the grocery store to chat and ask why I haven't brought the kids in lately). Here is what I ate (MMMMMMMMMM it's so GOOOOOD).
Ms. Leon, Mexico gave Acupulco two sombreros up, and we continued on to the grocery store as everybody needed to pick something up for later tonight. However, since there wasn't enough room in the vehicle for ALL of us due to carseat issues, I got to sit in the bitch-third-row fold out that was only accessible via the hatchback. (I hope you appreciate that this was documented for you.)
When we got home tonight -- where do you think Brynn headed??? Yep, that's right.

Okay, and now on to the dark forboding stinking putrid cloud. Do you remember previous posts where I discuss how much I dislike my job? How I cannot stand my supervisor?? If I knew how to link to previous posts, I would bc I must have at least 3-4 of 'em. Well, tonight, in honor of our visitors, my superdupervisor decided to host a BBQ in his smoky garage... (which is why we all had to go to the grocery store... Blech).
He handed me a beer. (++) And then he asked, "Kimberlie, would you like to have a cozy?" (---) "Um, what?... Oh a CAN COZY." And here is the "cozy" he gave me:



And here is a team picture -- I don't know if we intentionally took it while the superdupervisor was in his house or not... but we did and here 'tis:


When we left my supervisor gave me a hug. (shivers). When I got home, Brynn was still awake, so I was able to "cozy" with her, and Jeremy poured me a Morgan Coke and I took advantage of the instant Netflix stream.