zimmerhouse

What? I'm not a Gemini anymore?

2012-01-13T06:22:00.000-07:00

I guess this news wasn't that earth shattering, or at least it didn't enter into my consciousness when it hit the papers...in January 2011. There's a thirteenth sign. It ended up moving around all the other signs.

I'm no longer a Gemini. I'm a Taurus.

My identity is really shaken right now.

Jason can no longer tease me about having multiple personalities.
I can't blame my fits of fancy, changes of mind and all around flakiness on my mercurial nature.

Jason's a Leo.

I'm not supposed to get along with Leos.

At least when I was a Gemini I wasn't, I'll have to look it up, maybe I do now?

See what I mean -- I'm really confused now (I was confused before, but that was part of being a Gemini, now that I'm not a Gemini, I'm confused for a specific reason and that's because I don't know how to be a Taurus).

Although, come to think of it, I have been feeling more stubborn lately.

Thank goodness I'm not the new sign, Ophiuchus -- I can't even pronounce it (it's not even in spell-check right now -- it's been a year come on spell check people!)

It's 2012, we've lost a planet (at least that news I was up to date on) and we have a new astrological sign...

I'm worried.

Do Taurus's worry?

Really?

2012-01-06T06:28:00.001-07:00

I was reading candyland to bandland's blog about the new obesity intervention public service ads that are running in Georgia. As we all know the South has one of the bigger problems with obesity then in other areas of the country and I have to say that I understand the intent was well-meaning. But if they seriously think the same type of campaign they do for not trying Meth is going to work for obesity then the creators of this campaign have no idea how obesity effects those who are obese.

It's not like you can say, don't try food because once you try it you're hooked and your life will be all about stealing money to buy that pizza you're craving. At first it's whining to mom you want the sugary cereal while walking down the cereal aisle and next it's stealing jewelry to get enough cash to score skittles in an alley from a dealer.

Here's one of the supporters/creators who talks about the research about being effective, what she's not saying is the research is most likely market research determining if people thought the ad campaign was effective in creating a dialogue about obesity, not if it's effective in the solving the problem of childhood obesity. For that you need evidence based research -- this is the problem when you try to move this out of the health arena and into the marketing arena -- this can not be solved by focus groups.

Okay, maybe they're not as scary as those don't try meth commercials (and have you seen those, they freak the he.ll out of my kids YAY). Yes, I do think that parents should get their heads out of the sand about it. But what research (and not market research but evidence-based research) shows is that health care providers, especially pediatricians are loathe to bring the subject up. Where is the ad campaign for them?

My kids' pediatrician? oh my gosh he's on board! My oldest is 95th in height and 70th in weight, he's quick, good in sports eats anything and is skinny and enjoys being active (I think he may have been switched at birth) my younger one didn't get so lucky, he's 97th in height and 105% in weight, which puts him at a too high BMI, even with that massive height. He's really built big, the kid has muscular thighs and shoulders that would have made the shoulder pads Linda Evans wore in Dynasty look discrete. But he also has a 'bowl full of jelly'. The pediatrician said he didn't want to do a weight loss plan for him, he just wants him to grow into his weight. He does snack too much, he does like junk food too much. He does Karate, but we've upped the ante and he has to spend some time on the elliptical if he wants to play video games and now only one snack after school instead of grazing. I tell him it's about health, not about weight. I tell the older one too. No sugar treats or soda during the week either, weekends in moderation.

I'm trying.

Even if I hear grumblings that I may be abusive when I tell them they have to eat all their vegetables and their reward is just a hug and not chocolate.

I don't want my kids to struggle like I have.

Okay, back to the actual issue....(if you've been reading my blog you know I digress, I also take liberties with grammar...whatever, oh look I digressed again --- so seriously, NOW back to topic)

Kids are in school more of their life then out of school, where is the funding to have health and nutrition classes? Why is physical education one of the items to be cut out of programs? Why is recess only ten minutes long? And have you seen the crap that's served in school lunches. A sugary fruit cup is NOT a fruit choice no matter how you cut it. This is particularly important because obesity tends to run higher in low income areas and those kids are getting free and reduced lunches, so if we want to help our children, how about lobbying for healthier school lunches, longer recess and PE every day.

Okay, so I feel a bit passionately about this, it's what I'm doing my Master's project in. That project I should be working on instead of doing this blog....so let's just call this research (wink wink). In an article I'm reading "Fighting an Epidemic: The role of Schools in Reducing Childhood Obesity" by Sara Pyle, et al says "Interventions targeting obesity in the schools should be designed to promote healthy weight rather than focus on losing weight or obtaining a specific weight" in fact focusing on weight reduction may cause other problems, such as growth decline or feelings of failure and exacerbate other issues such as depression or impaired self esteem.

So yes, let's get educated on obesity and obesity in children. We can do something about it, but let's go about it in an emotionally and physically healthy way.

Stepping off soap box now.

Would hate to break tradition....

2012-01-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

Jason and I have been together since we were 16 -- amazing I know, you don't actually meet a lot of high school sweethearts that "made it". Being together since we were 16 means we've had about 26 New Year's eve's together. We have stayed awake for only a few of them.

One was in Vermont in 1986. We were staying in this decrepit bed and breakfast of a friend of his dad's. The teenage kids were having a party (strangely, Jason and I were technically also teenage kids as we were 18, but we felt so much older because we were in college - 1st semester and not high school, so there was a distinction in maturity, at least in our minds). I was sick. The bathroom was down the hall. Our room had two single beds that we put together. Even with putting them together and both of us having all our clothes on, the thread bear blankets were not enough to keep us warm. Vermont gets really really cold. Periodically, I would make my way through the dark hallway to the dark bathroom and throw up. I would have to climb over making-out teenagers and two girls lamenting over some other girl being a slut and how some boy just didn't know a good thing when he had it. Jason and I decided we couldn't handle it any more and decided to leave. But his car wouldn't start (because it was that freakin' cold). By the time we got back to our room the teen agers had stolen our two pillows and our thread bare blankets. So we huddled together, miserable and rang in the New Year. His car started the next morning....thank GAWD.

The only other one I remember was 1999. My brother and his then girlfriend (who is not his lovely wife of today, and I'm so happy about that because his lovely wife of today is wonderful), Jason's sister and her husband and Jason and I went to a fancy party at a fancy country club, dressed up and partied like it was 1999 in a we're-in-our-early-30's-have a-six-month-old-and-are-sleep-deprived-and-have-never-been-drinker-partiers kinda way. It was fun, loved being with family, stayed awake to drink champagne with my sweetie. Very nice experience, not sure I'd do it every year (actually pretty sure I wouldn't do it every year, since it was the only year we did it).

In those 26 years we may have stayed up another time or two and watched the ball drop.

Other then that....it's Z's at the Zimmer's.

Yesterday Jake had two back to back basketball games (won one, lost one). They only had five players so those poor boys didn't get a break. He came home, took a bath and passed out. Isaac desperately wanted us all to stay up and out of the four of us, he's the one who could do it. But since Jake's basketball tournament continues today we made him go to sleep. Jason promised him he would set his alarm and wake him up to see the ball drop. Isaac, didn't trust him so he set his own alarm.

I vaguely remember Isaac coming in, waking Jason up, watching the ball drop, some people yelling outside and getting a sloppy nine year old boy kiss on my cheek and a whispered, "happy New Year mommy", then it was back to Z-land for me.

Best New Year's ever.

Being home with my family, one who loves me, one who I cherish.
I am blessed!

May everyone have a blessed, restful and happy 2012!

year in review - Christmas Letter supplement

2011-12-21T07:37:00.001-07:00

There's so much I missed in our Christmas letter like my mother-in-law finding her birth-family, meeting them AND they like each other.

Family

Before Meeting New Family

I don't think I ever posted about what happened. So, they never wrote back, I never put in the letter when in the summer Sher was coming, so they had plenty of time. The brother that received the letter believed it right away. He shared with another brother, who did not. They took it to their father (their mother had already died), their father is the man their mother married after Sher was born. He confirmed it. All this happened before Sher knocked on the brother's door.

So, Sher knocks on the door, brother, Paul answers and knows immediately who she is because she looks just like their mother. Tears flowed, hugs were given and an impromptu reunion happened the next weekend where Sher met one sister and three brothers (the mother and one other sister had passed away). Sher couldn't have been happier.

Her sister Maryanne came out for a visit last fall. She's wonderful, and confirms that humor must be hereditary. Two of Sher's brothers are coming out in January and we're looking forward to meeting them. During the investigation of family, Sher found out she has cousins in Wyoming and she and her sister (who also had never met these cousins) went up to visit them.

Weddings
The boys babysitter got married this past summer. Nothing makes you feel old like attending the wedding of your kids' babysitter. She was a beautiful bride and it was great to see her marry such a wonderful man. Unfortunately, we have to find a new babysitter. They asked Jake to be a ring bearer and he got to wear a tux. He loved that.
Kate getting married

Jason's cousin also got married this year. We're so happy she chose Hawaii because not only was it wonderful to see the beautiful and talented Emily get married, it was great to have a family vacation in one of the more beautiful places on earth!
Emily Getting Married

Fort lots of pictures of Hawaii, just click on to January on the side tab....

Kid stuff:
lego qualifying tourney
Karate tourney #2
baseball and swimming, same day
karate tourney #1
championship game
Jake pitching

My friends are so funny:
One of the best pranks ever was played on me this year...it still makes me laugh thinking about it

my funny friends

Enjoy the year in review...and hope to hear from you all in the coming year!

2011 Christmas Letter

2011-12-20T15:48:00.002-07:00

2011 has been quite the year. It was so hard to choose only a couple of pictures to represent what we've done. I'll start with what the kids have been doing, because, frankly, they are what have been keeping us busy!

Jacob Michael (Jake)

He's 12 and half now, and in his first year of middle school. He's 5'6, 98 lbs and wears a size 11 shoe. He's going to take after his name-sake, my dad, and will be a tall one. He's very much into sports, we're not sure where that comes from and seems to have some talent at it. He started a program called Sea Cadets which is a young-navy kind of thing. And....yup, girls seem to be in the picture, but he plays his cards close to his chest. I hear about it from the girl's little brother who visits the school nurse (at the school where I work).....gotta love working for the same school district your kids go to.

Here's Jake doing an 'exercise'. Not only do Sea Cadets help the boys get prepared for military service later, they also do community service. This time they helped put the Easter Seals camp to sleep for the winter. He's loving it and moving up in the ranks quickly. He's seriously thinking about joining the Navy when he grows up. We're stressing that he needs to go to college first and join as an officer, like his Uncle, Jose.

Basketball, kind of an obvious choice for such a tall kiddo. He really likes it.

He joined track at school and had a good time. Those long legs were ideal for hurdles...although the little guy next to him, beat him (he's on Jake's baseball team too and that kid gets to first base before his ball gets to outfield, he's quick)

Jake's baseball team made it to the championship game this summer. They won every game during the play-offs, but lost the championship game so came in second for the league. They did great. Jake's favorite position is third base, and he like to pitch once in awhile too.

He's our funny, well-liked, easy-going kid. He'll still give us hugs and kisses when none of his friends are around and once in awhile will even choose to spend time with us over his friends (but not often).

Isaac Gabriel (Isaac)
He's also going to be a tall one, he's 9 and 3 months, he's the youngest in his class and about a head taller then most of the kiddos. He's 5 ft tall and 120 pounds (mostly muscle, you should see the thighs and chest on this kid) and wears a 6 1/2 shoe. He's good at sports too, but enjoys solo sports over team sports.

One of Isaac's favorite sports is Karate. He's quickly moved up to a purple belt this year. He's been able to compete in two tournaments and brought home first place in his "Kata" and second in sparring both times.

During the summer he swims. He's been doing this a couple of years and that upper body strength helps him get to the other end pretty quickly. He's working on getting his dive and strokes down and is hoping to grow some gills....

They started a club at his school for lego Robots. The kids program the robots to do certain tasks. They also had to come up with a solution to keep food safe. Then they compete with other teams. They actually qualified during the first competition and went to state where they were in the running for rookie team of the year. This is right up Isaac's alley and it's something he and dad can do together too. (Isaac is very much his father's child).

Isaac is also a funny boy who makes us laugh all the time. His conversations run from discussing splitting atoms and pulling his finger kind of jokes. He's super smart, moves up a grade in math and argues with us all the time....to the point where he now starts an argument with, "Mom, I'm not arguing with you, I just want to discuss why I think it should be....."

This year

besides going to a myriad of sporting events we had a chance to go to Hawaii for Jason's cousin's wedding. One of our best vacations ever!

And, in case you were wondering, Jason and I also have a life...well sort of. Jason's working at Perficient, and has been there eleven years.

I quit my job as a dialysis nurse (being on call, beepers going off at 2 in the morning, driving to Denver Health during a blizzard and working 20+ hours a day -- all too hard on a family) and took a job as a school nurse. The job itself is interesting and the hours are perfect to help raise our two active boys. It's the best of both worlds (although I do have a soft spot for dialysis, it was a lot of fun and really interesting!). I'm almost done with my Master's in Nursing (next April!). Not sure yet what I'll do with that, but I know for sure I'm going to take time off before deciding.

All in all we've been very blessed, we have two such great boys, live in a great neighborhood, everyone is happy and healthy.

Our prayer for you all is that you too find yourselves in good health and are happy.

Have a wonderful and blessed holiday!

Love,

The Zimmers

Jason, Tracey, Jake and Isaac

Scrabble Tile Wall Art (my mother's day gift 6 months later)

2011-12-18T05:54:00.002-07:00

I so ripped this idea off from Remodelaholic, a ridiculously cool blog all about crafts and decorating. I emailed the link to Jason, last April with a note that said, "possible mother's day gift". In November, Jason asked what I would like for Christmas and I said, "my mother's day gift". He looked sheepish. The instructions on the Remodelaholic blog were pretty simple. But I'm married to an engineer.

Do I need to say more?

After four or five visits to various hardware and lumber (not lumbar, like I originally typed - thanks Martha for picking up where spell check is weak), places, he settled on some douglas fir posts around 4x4. Did you know that 4x4's are not actually 4x4? He then meticulously sawed a bunch of tiles out of that and sanded them.

Hannah wondering what we're doing in 'her' back yard.

After sanding he tried out a couple different stains and decided to just go with a clear polycrylic coat. Look how cute he was balancing each tile on styrofoam cups so that they dry nicely.

We went to a bunch of craft stores to find vinyl stickers or stencils. He even called some area vinyl lettering companies. We either couldn't find any with the right font or the right size to get the correct scrabble tile dimensions. I would have been fine with them not being 'perfect', but, have I mentioned I'm married to an engineer? He found the font online, sized them to the correct size and then printed them on freezer paper in a mirror image and transferred them to the tiles.

Then went over them with a sharpie. Below is what it looked like when he printed them out.

I can't find pictures of the next steps. The remodelaholic website hung each individual tile with hooks. Jason wasn't sure that would work that well, especially in the high traffic area of the front hall (I actually think that's the only hall we have on the first floor, but doesn't it just sound more grand, front hall). Anyhow, he glued then drilled them to strips of thin wood, leaving a couple of the end letters off. He attached it to the wall by drilling the empty spots then glued those tiles on. It's so up there.

Need I point out from first paragraph that there was the first email to Jason in April about what I wanted for Mother's day and then my next mention was in November. I do believe I showed tremendous restraint in not nagging, cajoling, guilting or strong arming to get what I wanted.

Good things come to those who wait -- I love my mother's day present.

Linking Here:

home is where my story begins

Home Made Christmas Ornaments

2011-12-17T06:05:00.003-07:00

Every year I throw an ornament exchange party and as a party favor give my guests a home-made ornament. I can't say that every year it is a success, but sometimes the ornaments turn out great. This was one of those years. These were super easy but seriously time consuming. The original idea came from here which I of course found on Pinterest

The original directions said to use 4" balls, because I was making so many, I went with 1.5" balls. Because the balls were so much smaller, I couldn't add the extra bow at the top.

Materials:

1.5" styrofoam balls
Cardstock
Pearl head pins
Ribbon: 1/4"

I ended up emptying out all the local craft stores of these guys and had to make an emergency online order, but could only find red ones, not pearlized ones, they were still cute.

Forget about the 1/2 inch ribbon in this picture, I took this picture when I thought I could still do the bow.

Punch a lot of daisies.....Ended up going through two whole punches.

Double up on the daisies and position the two to have more petals, place on the styrofoam ball and anchor with the pin.

Take your ribbon, cut and loop (I used a velvety ribbon, because I liked it, not for any other needed reason)

Anchor ribbon to ball with a pin and a daisy.

Then just start pinning daisies all of the ball until completely covered.

et viola. I made about 30, thankfully a couple people who RSVP'd didn't make it and my mother-in-law doesn't do a tree because I had just enough. I need to make a couple more this week for Christmas Eve (and for myself). It was the easiest ornament I have ever made, but amazingly time consuming. It took about 1/2 an hour for each one. And...I may have a touch of carpel tunnel from the whole punch.

Still worth it

Linking up here:

thrifty decorating
home is where my story begins
a bowl full of lemons

Lego qualifying tournament

2011-11-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

Isaac belongs to a school club where they program lego robots. There's a bunch of other stuff that goes into it too. This year the theme is safe food. The boys decided that they would speak about keeping flies off of food. They recently had a qualifying round. They were kind of the underdogs, they're the youngest team, they've only met one year, and have very little funding.

At the practice table.

The team showed their team spirit by spray painting their hair blue. Isaac's hair is pretty dark and it was hard to see.

In this group challenge the team members had to figure out how to get a huge rubber band into a small circle on the floor, they had to stretch it out and all let go at the same time. There actually isn't a right answer, it was just for the judges to see how well they work together and how they problem solve. It was pretty interesting to watch.

Here they are telling the judges what their solutions to removing flies (a mechanical fly trap). They won an award because they did a lot of community outreach with Children's hospital, and retirement homes to share their findings and their robots.

The actual robot tournament, they came in fifth here. The top eight, overall got to go to the district 'meet' in December. The programming portion was only part of the scoring. And because tech-ten did well in the other categories, as well as the programming they got to go on.

Yay, Tech Ten!

The 'passport' for the district meet.

my funny husband.....again

2011-11-20T07:04:00.001-07:00

So I didn't get our Halloween skeleton, who we've named Jack, back into the crawl space quickly enough. One night I was super tired and crashed like at 8pm and crashed hard! So Jason thought it would funny to pose Jack next to me and take pictures. I was so tired I didn't even wake up.

I did wake up later, however, after Jason put Jack away, came to bed, and did that laughing so hard he was crying thing.....He told me why he was laughing....and of course I laughed too. I'm just happy I didn't wake up next to Jack.

finally organized my desk and thirty-one party

2011-11-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Organizing my desk

It took me awhile but my desk is finally organized. It feels so good to have all that clutter off and only the things that have meaning are left.

When we were designing our kitchen I thought these little cubbies were so cute to have. Now I've realized that they are pretty useless. Instead of using them for mail I decorated them.

These are some antique nursing textbooks my mother-in-law gave me for my graduation from nursing school.

I bought this camera in Jr High....years and years ago when Jr. High was Jr. High and not Middle School. I saved up allowence, birthday money and babysitting money for almost a year. I used it all through high school and college. Loved that camera.

We got this little computer witch in Spain. They had little 'brujas' for everything. This one was for technology. It was supposed to be for Jason but I think I need it for school more then he does.

It doesn't look great but the clutter from my desk is appropriately stashed in here. Also stole the idea off of Pinterest of using cork board inside the cabinet doors for extra space for that stuff you need access to.

The family...the dragon fly in back is a project Jake did in school. In this picture Isaac has a bad black eye that he was strangely proud of. My friend Martha took a picture of him and put in in a frame that says, Live, Love, Laugh....it makes me laugh and love when I see this. Jason donned this silly hat at a birthday dinner at The Fort, he's a goof ball and he looks so young here (pre-children). And Jake's baby picture, he looks so sweet.

More photos of family and friends.

I love what this says, "I have always been jealous of those whose path appears clear. Mine has a tendency to keep changing" So my life!

This was one of those pictures I grew up with and I loved. My mom was de-cluttering and gave it to me. I still like looking at it. Have no idea why, but that's the wonderful thing about art, even though there's 'good art' (and I can't really tell what's 'good' or 'bad') there's also art that speaks to you and this does.

Just makes me laugh....the kids always remind their dad of this too.

Stocking stuffer from a few years back...I'm pretty sure the 'candy' gel inside is as gross as blood right now, but thought it was so cute it became a decoration instead of a snack.

Ahhhh, my little nephew Max. As well as a thank you letter from Isaac. And a funny card with canisters saying flour, sugar coffee and prozac, prozac's the biggest.

Thirty-One Party

I have a friend who is starting her own business, selling Thirty-One bags. If you haven't heard or seen this stuff, check out her website at Thirty One.

Mostly it's an excuse to get together....and eat....and talk...and laugh.

and to try out recipes I found on Pinterest (yes, it's a sickness, I know) This was some yummy crab dip, so going to make this again. You can find the recipe on this blog

Oh and the cookies....so easy and soooo yummy.

chocolate rolo cookies were so easy to make....like ridiculously easy! You can find recipe here

Little mini fruit pizzas aren't these so cute. The picture on the flickr website is so much cuter, but they were yummy and well, cute!

Actually Making Something off of Pinterest

2011-11-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

So Pinterest is my new favorite time-suck-website. I 'pin' so many different ideas but don't actually go about doing any of it. So I gave myself a challenge and decided to try one new recipe a week off of what I 'pinned' on Pinterest. Here it goes.

Bubble Up Enchilada Bake

This was a Weight Watchers recipe that didn't taste diety (stupid word-check, diety is so a word) at all. Because I can't leave recipes alone, I added 1/4 cup of roasted red peppers, 2, roasted green chilis, one chopped onion and a can of mild rotel tomatoes (drained). Super easy, will so make this again. You can find the recipe on this yummy blog.

chocolate chip cheese cake cookies

These sounded better then they actually tasted. I did use low-fat cream cheese and that might have been a mistake. The flavor was good, and frankly even though I didn't like them as much as some other chocolate chip cookies, it didn't keep me from eating them.

steak and mushroom pot pie

This recipe called for individual pot pies and the pictures are so much more appetizing on blog. But this was still way yummy! The hubsters really liked it. The hardest thing about this was doing the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit (356 F, by the way, we just went to 350 and baked until crust was golden). Thank goodness for nine year old sons who just had that in math class.

Creamy White Chicken Artichoke Lasagna

What can I say, this was so our favorite! This one came from a Kraft recipe site and not someone's blog. I used rotisserie chicken. Super easy, comfort food (on steroids).

Bacon in the Oven

There are lots of 'pins' from various websites about baking bacon. I used this blog's technique. Easy-Peasy, will be doing this again.

Roast Turkey Cuban Sandwhich

My pictures suck, anyhow, this was so yummy, although it's hard to press down in the panini grill because it's so thick and the cheese slides. This blogger guy is from Canada. So because Jason and I think we're so funny we were saying things like, "Say hello to my leeetle frrrriend" (spanish accent) Hoser" and "Next year in Havana, ey" It's got the essence of a Cuban and very satisfying, but alas the best way to get a Cuban is in Miami (and maybe Cuba, but I haven't actually been there).

I didn't get pictures of these other recipes but here are the links and what I thought, because really you're here to read my opinion...right?

Hawaiin BBQ chicken -- sounds better then it was, I was hoping for that sweet-tangy thing, but it just didn't work for us. Very cute blog though and I'm sure it's yummy for some and super super easy.

Slow cooker Tikki Masala -- yummy, I'm not a big fan of Tikki Masala, I actually enjoy Curry a little bit more. This was pretty good though. For a crock pot recipe it was a little more labor intensive then I expected, but the results are worth it.

Now, I just need to try some of those craft ideas I've pinned....I can't wait until I'm done with my Master's, then I'll have lots of free time!

Come find me on Pinterest.....

honey do project almost completed

2011-11-10T06:39:00.005-07:00

Family Message Center

I got so sick of telling everyone what's for dinner, like 500 times and where they need to be and when, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a family message center. When we remodeled our kitchen I didn't leave much space for hanging stuff because I wanted tons of cabinets (oh, darn...right?) so the pantry door was so the obvious place to go. A couple of people I talked to about it, thought that was kinda crazy...so I stopped talking about it and begged hubby to just do it. And he did. He's a great hubby. We bought some moulding, a thin wood board and a door handle for the chalk (that part hasn't been done yet, thus the 'almost' of the almost done).

Somehow this part of our kitchen is becoming a work station of sorts. This isn't all for the chalkboard project.

I love this stuff....Didn't even have to buy any because we have it around -- yeah, I'm cool like that.

Jason put up the wood board with screws, the kind that can go into hollow doors. Then taped and started painting. He and I (notice that, I do sometimes help with these projects I beg Jason to do) alternated painting, we did four coats.

Then the trim. We just chose simple wood trim, the kind that's already white, actually I'm not sure it's actually wood, but whatever.

Nail holes and edges were caulked and we still need to paint the trim and attach the 'holder' for the chalk

We found a door handle like above and then Jason'll add it to our chalkboard. (above picture was from an Etsy shop and this picture is making the rounds on Pinterest -- which is where I got the idea -- because I have no original ideas, I just recognize good ideas when I see them). I think I might get some vinyl lettering for the days of the week. I just don't have awesome chalkboard/chalk penmanship.

Edit HTML

And now, theoretically, the kids (and Jason) can just take a look at the chalkboard to know what's for dinner, or who needs to be where when. Yesterday, Isaac asked me what was for dinner, out of habit I told him and he said, "Mom, you're supposed to say, 'go to the blackboard'". He's a genius.

Linking up Here:

Remodelaholic Fridays
Home Stories A-Z
Thrifty Decorating
Organize and Decorate Anything
Home is Where My Story Begins
a bowl full of lemons

Fall Break

2011-11-03T06:23:00.000-06:00

Red Rocks

So excited to be a school nurse and have fall break off at the same time the kiddos do. Although, I'm still in school (Master's in Nursing --- why?) I was still able to carve some time out for family and friends. Jason took one of the days off and we took a family hike to Red Rock's Canyon

Fun fact...Red Rocks are relatively newer then the Rocky Mountains, but 'made' from the no longer existing mountain range that existed before the Rocky Mountains....as far as geological timing, I can't remember....I guess reusing and repurposing isn't a new thing.

You'd think running the seats at the amphitheater would have tired them out...but no.

Lunch at the visitor center grill. Not bad. Frankly, my favorite part of the day....I so need to rework my priorities!

Coffee with the Gals

Once a week some of the neighborhood ladies meet for coffee. It was hit or miss with me when I was a dialysis nurse and now it's mostly miss. It was a nice treat to be able to meet with them. Because we had a teacher in the group that didn't get a fall break (different district) but did have a couple days off, we had an extra coffee day at my house. I even made brunch.

Pumpkin Carving

Fun for the entire family. Even Jake, my "I'm-too-cool-for-anything-my-parents-think-is-fun" grudgingly contributed to the evening.

Gearing Up for Sea-leaguers Weekend at Easter Seals.

Jake belongs to the Sea Cadets, junior leaguers. The last weekend of break they went to the Easter Seals camp where they helped close it down (in the spring they go up and help set the camp up) as part of their community service. They also get to run around and play navy stuff. Not sure I'm supposed to say play, because they take it all seriously.

Also completed a paper for my finance class (ugh finance, I'd like to say necessary evil, but I'm not convinced it was really necessary) and a paper and PowerPoint for my leadership class. Also got through the clutter on half my desk....it was quite the job! All in all, it was a nice week off

Scavenger Hunt Sunday (a little late)

2011-11-01T05:29:00.005-06:00

Came across this fun blog where she gives her readers a photo challenge. Although I was up for the challenge I couldn't get to the posting portion until today. Something about my last week of two classes, one of which is titled Finance...need I say more. Thankfully projects and papers are in and I thought I'd take a moment and have some fun.

Cover

Could be interesting covering for hubby's balding head....or run for cover if you see a Dorothy looking like this.

Texture

There is a ton of texture inside a pumpkin. It's creepy in itself and feels pretty gross. Cleaning out pumpkins, not so much fun, carving them....spending time with the family....Halloween....lots of fun.

Macro

Okay, not as macro as I should have gone...but love the layering of the burger. We went to Red Rocks for a hike and it kind of reminded me of the layering of the colors of the rocks. And...it was really tasty!

Tree

Love it when trees, bushes and flowers grow where there's very little soil....It's amazing to me that something as large as a tree can take root and thrive in what is primarily rock. It makes me so hopeful -- life may be hard but there's always a way to grow.

Home

It's a little messy (okay a lot messy), tons on my to do list, but somehow it gets done. As much as I'd like things pretty and organized it isn't always going to happen. I might as well be honest, I'm a slob. But home is where I can be a slob and people still love me.

Check out Ramblings and Photos her stuff is great and the links to other people's scavenger hunts are inspirational. Maybe after my master's I'll take a couple of photography classes -- well after quilting and maybe pottery -- someone stop me.

An autumn day

2011-10-24T07:20:00.002-06:00

I love autumn! It's my favorite season. It's been unseasonably warm here in Denver, seriously, we had our windows open yesterday. Thankfully (and most of my friends may be upset with me), we are going to get some snow this week! This past weekend we went to nick's garden center to get some pumpkins and roasted chilies. We've been doing this for the last few years.

If he can lift it and carry it, he can have it...this one wasn't it.

He actually got this one on to the cart and into the trunk. Strong kiddo.

Same rule.

oh my gosh they're getting so tall. Not sure how many more years we'll have left doing this. I had to bribe them with candy to do this this year.

My car still smells like roasted chilies.

Our cart was so heavy!

Another fun halloween/autumn thing we do, is booing the neighborhood. We leave a little bag of goodies on neighbors' porches and then 'ding dong ditch'. The kids have a blast....didn't have to bribe them to do this one.

Jack's been guarding our porch. I wanted to dress him up in a Bronco's shirt with a sign that said 'will sit here until the Broncos when the Super Bowl' but Jason was afraid our house would be egged.

Linked up here:

Go visit her, she has some great pictures of San Francisco.

Yay Isaac

2011-10-22T22:41:00.003-06:00

Isaac had a karate tournament today and he got second place in sparring and first on his Kata....go Isaac!

Here's Jake, not wanting his picture taken, probably because his outfit is so strange. Seriously, dress socks, athletic shorts, down vest and camo knit hat? I just had to keep chanting, "pick my battles, pick my battles...."

Isaac and another boy sparring

2nd Place

Look, Jason got an award for texting (I crack myself up)

Introducing himself to the judges

Keeyay!

1st Place! who hoo (so the group is 9-12 year olds, Isaac's one of the youngest--he's going to be so tall!)

yeah baby

Isaac and Sensei Emily

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

MEME (via cool guitar playing guy in England)

2011-09-30T06:12:00.002-06:00

Stole this off of Rock Chef who stole it off of someone, who stole it off of someone. How do these things start? His answers were cooler then mine, but he's a guitar-playing-English-dude so what can I say.

Here are my answers to some random questions:

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you. I can’t think of anyone famous, but a friend from nursing school, Denise, has the same birthday. When we could remember we’d try to have lunch together to celebrate.

2. What has been your favorite age so far? I’m liking my 40’s. I’ll like them a lot more when I’m done with my Master's program.

3. Where did you meet your husband? I was working in a dry cleaners when I was in high school. Jason came in to be his friend’s wing-man, the friend was trying to pick up my friend who was also working there. They never got together, but Jason and I hit it off.

4. How many children do you have? 2 boys -- they are my life

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? No, but I did read one of my poems in front of a café crowd during a poetry reading. It was one of the worst experiences ever. I am not, nor will I ever be a public speaker.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex? Eyes, color doesn’t matter they have to look kind. After that, looks don’t matter at all they just have to be smart and funny (I’m lucky to have the entire package, beautiful eyes, great smile, super funny –he makes me laugh all the time – and he’s smarter then I am)

7. What really turns you off? People being mean.

8. What do you order at Starbucks? Grande non-fat Hazelnut Latte.

9. What is your biggest mistake? Ooooh, so many. The biggest right now is not taking care of myself, eating too much and not exercising.

10. As a child, what did you want to grow up to be? So many things, even now I’m not sure there are just so many things to do. I always thought it would be fun to major in ‘level 100s’ and know a little about everything.

11. Say something totally random about yourself. I have to have my feet covered when I sleep. It’s a throw back to being afraid of the monsters under my bed…apparently my child brain thought I was protected by the sheet.

12. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows? Only when I have to.

13. Did you have braces? No.

14. Favorite Social Network? Right now I’m really hooked on Pinterest.com It’s a great place to ‘pin’ things you find on the web that you find interesting and you can retrieve the info later. It’s social because you can ‘follow’ other people’s boards and see what they find interesting. Not as much interaction as FB stalking or blog friendships, but it’s a great way to procrastinate.

15. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? So many…I swear those nights when I’m dead tired and Jason does the dishes. It seems like such a small thing but my ‘love language’ is acts of service and for Jason to do that little thing it makes me feel loved and cared for.

16. When do you know it’s love? When you draw a stick line in Pictionary and the other already knows what you’re about to draw (Jason and I can’t play as partners anymore because people think we cheat)

17. Do you speak any other languages? Not anymore, Spanish was my first language (well bilingualish) but my parents stopped speaking it and I didn’t remember any of it.

18. Have you ever been to a tanning salon? Before my wedding, I wanted to get a good base going so I wouldn’t burn when we went to Mexico.

19. What magazines do you read? Decorating and Cooking magazines. Someday I’ll have time to do those things again.

20. What is playing on your iPod right now? Rolling in the deep by Adele. I don’t know what happened but somehow my Ipod and Jake’s (my 12 year old son’s) I-pod music was combined. He’s not too happy about it because really what 12 year old boy wants ABBA on his play list.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo? Yes, went to Mexico a company retreat and a group of us went into town in a limo, it was cheaper then using a bunch of taxis. It wasn’t as glam as I thought it would be.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? My dad. I was nineteen. I still miss him.

23. Do you watch MTV? No.

24. What’s something that really annoys you? Mostly myself. I need to learn how to shut up sometimes.

25. Which television show were you sad to say goodbye to? Big Love – my fascination with polygamy borders on obsessive.

26. Can you dance? Nope I have the girl version of white-man-overbite-syndrome (I take more after the WASPy side of the family rather then the Cuban side in this respect)

27. What’s your favorite place in the world? This is not a fair question.

28. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No – thank goodness.

29. If you could meet anyone (dead or alive) who would it be? Also, not a fair question. Maybe Jesus, I would like some clarifications and frankly would like to make some suggestions.

30. If you could change one thing in the world for your child, what would it be? I hope they have a world…..

Jason and I in 1986

Should you find these interesting questions and also want to answer them for random strangers I would love to see your responses, so let me know in my comment section so I can come by.

Boreas Pass -- Fall Foliage

2011-09-26T17:26:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we took a trip to the mountains to see the fall foliage. Colorado doesn't get that really pretty variety of color you'd see on the East Coast but we do get mountain sides of gorgeous golden Aspen and it's worth a day trip.

Found some friendly horses in Como off of Hwy 285.

Going up the pass, eastern part of the Divide.

This pass is a dirt road and closed November to June. Might I add a warning ladies, if you decide to do this, wear a sports bra....just sayin'.

Jason pretending he's falling off the side of the mountain. He thinks he's so funny.

At the top of Boreas pass, Continental Divide. This is a section of the old railroad that originally went over this Pass. We're at timberline. It was a good 25 degrees colder then Denver.

I will most likely never get these two to smile at the same time.

Most of my pictures are like this!

If only.....

My hubby is so cute....

Before the railroad this was a wagon trail for settlers and Gold Rush guys....I'm so glad I'm not a pioneer...and now I know why my ancestors stayed in Denver...one look at that mountain range and I'd be saying, 'no thanks, that's fine, I'll stay right here thankyouverymuch!'.

I think he's smiling because his brother is not in the picture with him. Maybe Christmas pictures this year will be two separate pictures of the boys.

West side of the Divide. On the way to Breckenridge.

And we ended the day at our favorite Breckenridge eatery, The Motherload.

Even though it's not quite in the 'city' it was Sunday, I linked up here:

My baby is NINE

2011-09-20T18:48:00.001-06:00

9/20/02

Isaac and his proud big brother, Jake

First Birthday and chocolate is still his favorite!

Second birthday

At Jose and Gina's wedding

At my RN pinning ceremony

Vail, 2010

I can't believe how big he's gotten. We're so proud of the little man that he's become and are looking forward to seeing who will be in the future.

Master Bathroom Remodel

2011-09-18T11:50:00.005-06:00

The Before

I have no idea why the previous owners picked these colors and why oh why have carpet in a bathroom -- and blue carpet. It feels so unclean to me. This was one of those, must look beyond and see the potential. Okay this whole house was like that. The master bath and the master bedroom were that on steroids. The master bedroom had the same color, blue carpet and --I kid you not -- red moth eaten velvet drapes.

The After

It took about two years of living with the above and then about a year of working on it. It was a combo of us doing things ourselves (okay, who am I kidding, Jason did all the work) and hiring out some of the other stuff. Me? I picked the stuff out, it's really hard work, honest.

We took the shower out and built a closet for the washer and dryer. We made our bathtub a tub shower combo. For us it was a much better use of space and it brought the washer and dryer from the kitchen to the second floor. Yes, you read that right, the kitchen....did I mention this place was a major fixer-upper?

This was my ten dollar buy at Lowe's. Love it, with two boys and a hubby I so rarely get to splurge (and ten dollars, not really a splurge) on girlie things. The big burly guys who moved in the washer and dryer loved it, one took a picture of it with his phone. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

This skylight was already in. The thing about sky lights in the bathroom is the steam collects way at the top and bubbles up the paint. There's also metal holding the glass and it gets little rust dots. Jason treated it and then put in some moulding, it finished it out pretty nicely and we don't worry about the paint chipping and bubbling any more. I love my brilliant husband.

I can't find my before picture here. But it was two sinks and a vanity and it got so cluttered! So we did two pedestal sinks and a cabinet. I'm not going to show you the inside because that's where the clutter went. We did put in two outlets in the shelves for hair dryers, tooth brusher, razors, etc. That was my idea (see I did work on this project). Jason did the wiring and putting in the cabinet, paneling and sinks. He's handy.

Funny story, Jason got a new toy for this job, a nail gun. He got so nail gun happy with the paneling that he didn't realize he nailed the sliding door into the wall. Oh were choice words flying there for a day or two. He's still handy and brilliant though.

Our washer and dryer closet. We kept the shower floor in which we thought was a good idea until we realized that only one brand would fit into the space. Next time we would rip it out and get one designed for washer and dryers. Live and learn.

Jason built in some shelves for detergent. Handy.

We also put a window in in the bathroom to get some more ventilation and light. We put in a jet tub and subway tile...love that look. The floors are eighteen inch dark gray porcelain tile. We hired out the window, tiling, mudding and taping the closet and texturing the bathroom, everything else Jason did. He's a saint.

So happy with it.

Linking up here:

and here

here too

My funny husband.....again

2011-08-31T05:59:00.001-06:00

So Jason's reading my last blog entry and giggling. It wasn't that funny so I ask him what's up. He says, "Tracey, I have a confession -- all the pictures from the camping trip are off the 'net', the only ones I took were of the boys"

So I say, "You decided to tell me now? Instead of when I was complimenting you on how great those pictures were, how you caught that bee with the flowers at just the right time, how you framed those white flowers with the lake in the background?"

Oh my gosh, I thought he took a turn in the observing beauty department and was trying to capture it.

I was wrong.

He's my computer geek husband who goes out to the internet to find pictures to add on to the ones he took.

And only tells me because I posted them all over blog land and Facebook.

Soooo, I have no idea where he found these pictures and can't give credit, so whoever took the pictures, you did a wonderful job!

oooh, two posts in August, I'm on a roll.

It's been forever

2011-08-30T06:51:00.000-06:00

I have not been blogging lately, but I've been really really busy and have the pictures to prove it.....But what's been keeping me really busy, well besides, children, home, school and work is....extra work. I finally landed my dream job as a school nurse. So excited about that, still get to do nursy stuff, get to hang out with kiddos (OMG they are so cute when you get a group of them together and they try to diagnose each other), build up my assessment skills (getting a health history from a six year old is...well...challenging). Anyhooo, when I went to quit my dialysis gig (which was an awesome gig, loved dialysis, the schedule just sucks for being a mom with two active kiddos), the look on my boss's face was so forlorn. I do believe I started channeling my Catholic grandmother and I offered to work Saturdays and holidays (WTF --uh, okay that would not be my Catholic grandmother). As the words were coming out of my mouth my brain was screaming up a storm, "stop stop you idiot". My friend Martha (who helped me get school nursing gig) was nice enough to claim that I did this a just in case the school thing didn't work out or if I was just subbing dialysis would help supplement. But Martha thinks I'm smarter then I am...it was purely, "ohmygoshpeoplearegoingtobemadatme AND gasp, mightnotlikeme" angst. I'm soooo over that (I think) and when I've finished my agreed upon Saturdays in September (by the way will have worked 9 Saturdays in a freakin' row!) I will gladly say, "I'm really quitting this time.

Our neighbor's daughter (and the kids' babysitter) got married this summer and Jake was asked to be in the wedding Oh my gosh he was so cute in his tux and the wedding was gorgeous. Kate was a beautiful bride.

Dressing up for the rehearsal dinner

James Bond's got nothin' on Jake!

Jake and the father-of-the-bride, Tom

Jake and the two flower girls, he can't even touch them because they're girls!

Jake and the groom, Brian

Oh my gosh they're so stinkin' cute. They're Kate's cousins

a jar full of jelly bellies, cute party favor

I hardly got any pictures of the bride...but here's Isaac dancing with Kate.

Isaac dancing with the mother-of-the-bride

Isaac dancing with a flower girl

Isaac dancing with his dad

Isaac likes to dance

Also in the last month, Isaac got his Orange Belt in Karate. Orange is the second earned belt in the dojo where he attends.

For Jake's 12th birthday he wanted a camping trip with his friends. But it had to be a hike in and camp, not car camping (that's for sissies -- by the way, I'm such a sissy that I only camp in hotel rooms). They went to Mohawk Lake.

Jake and his two buddies starting their hike in.

Upper Mohawk Lake

Continental Falls

So what's in store for us in the Autumn months? Well we got a bunch of retaining wall brick delivered to our house and we're redoing the back yard. Unfortunately all our Saturdays are filled with me working and Jason carting around the kids that this may be more difficult then I originally thought....Jason did then the brick moved to the back yard at least.

Anyone want to volunteer to help?

One post in August.....not bad? Unlike Colleen who is going to make an effort to blog more....I am not making any promises (oh and Colleen, I got that email, but your last post was in July......).

Renaissance Festival

2011-07-10T21:05:00.002-06:00

Today we went to Renaissance Festival. I haven't been since before Jake was born. It was so fun to see the kiddos enjoy themselves like that. They loved it. They did a lot of things like cross bow shooting, archery and watching a joust.

This was a duo, one was juggling fire sticks and the one on the bottom had a fire hula hope.

Little knife swallowing.

Isaac trying his hand at shooting a cross-bow. He got the target once.

Jake was throwing tomatoes at some guy who would insult them. He yelled, "You couldn't even get on a girl's softball team". The next tomato almost hit the guy...

Sir Roderick

Jousting in the rain....but that's Denver in July...sunny days and about an hour of rain in the afternoon. Glad I brought my umbrella.

A quick picture with Captain Jack Sparrow.

The kids had a great time, no video games, no T.V., no movies.

I linked this fun Sunday to Unknown Mami here:

Coach Gifts & Championship Game

2011-07-09T16:52:00.004-06:00

Today was the championship game for Jake's team. Unfortunately they didn't win. Fortunately they got second place for their division in their age group....so yay team! And I'm so thankful to one of the other nurses at work who covered my shift today so I could go. When My boss asked why I hadn't asked for this day off, I told her, "I didn't actually think they'd make it".....They did a big come around this season, they were 8 and 6 during the season, but undefeated during the play-offs, so all in all we're super happy with second place!

Jake and his proud papa

Since we were in Castle Rock for the game we thought we'd try this burger place Jason heard about where you can order anything on the burger you want. One of their special burgers is all this stuff between two donuts for the bun (sounds a bit icky, but I guess the novelty of that is interesting). Crave, is the name of the place. Jake ordered a hamburger with, pulled pork, lamb, fries, chipotle sauce, cheese, ham and bacon (I think I threw up a little in my mouth by just typing that).

Jason told him he'd give him 5 dollars if he could eat it all and another 10 if he didn't throw up.

Here's Isaac with his burger...he was a little more restrained (which is surprising), He just had a bacon cheeseburger. Me? Plain burger with a salad (okay, I snuck some of Isaac's fries).

He tried.....didn't quite make it.

We gave the coaches their gifts today. They are three of the greatest guys around. I'm so happy with this team! The parents are great (one of the parents is actually the coach for the team that Jake played with the last 5 years), and the kids get along and support each other. It was a great season. For the three coaches I took a picture of the whole team, then one of the three coaches and framed them. I also had all the kids sign the matting.

I took regular scrap-booking stickers for the year. I thought since most of them are going forward I could do this for a couple more years and it'll be a really nice memento for them. For the head coach, I also put together an album that I did on Snapfish.

For the cover I just took a picture of one of the boys' hats.

I tried to group pitching on one page, sliding into bases on another two pages, the families on two...etc. Snapfish didn't seem to have a lot of choices for the book, it could be I didn't really play around with it enough though. My friend, Martha, uses shutterfly and says it's user friendly for this kind of project. I'm so happy with the whole digital book that I'll definitely try this again.

We had one dad that was always so encouraging, cheering the boys on and the kids just adored him, so I also made him a mug with a picture of him taking the boys on the field at Coor's Field and on the other side it says, "Most enthusiastic Spartan's Dad" He had a great time getting that gift.

It's so hard finding a good gift for coaches. Actually for guys in general! So I hope they liked these.

Linking the coach gift ideas here:

and here:

here too (Okay, I so don't want to do housework, homework, or work of any kind so I've been searching for blogs to post my stupid project -- I have no idea why, just another way to procrastinate doing my real stuff....)

Where did the last 12 years go?

2011-07-08T08:18:00.001-06:00

Look who's twelve!

It's been quite the crazy couple of weeks. First...my first born baby turned 12 at the beginning of the month. WOW. I'm not sure where the last 12 years went. I swear it was just yesterday he was handed to me in the hospital and I thought to myself in a panic, "OHMYGODWHATDOIDOWITHTHIS?" I'm still trying to figure that out. It feels parenting has gotten harder, not easier. I have to say I've really enjoyed the journey. Maybe I'm just supremely lucky to be blessed with such wonderful children. Jake is funny and sensitive (so not allowed to say that). He's smart and good in sports. And he's adorable. That's not just me, his mom, saying this....just ask any number of the 5th grade (oh, ooops, I guess technically he's now 6th grade) girls what they think of his eyes.

He wanted a low-key birthday this year. Just Chipotle and movies. He wants to take a couple friends camping with dad and Uncle Glenn (and cousin Bridget, who to Jake is one of the guys). On his birthday he napped. I suspect he's going through a growth spurt. The last set of shoes we bought him were a size 10 men's. I think he's growing all the time! Notice the brace on his arm...well he was running and tripped and landed on the cement on his hand, which was in a fist. At first the radiologist said he was fine, no breaks. Then the Sports Medicine doc, who we went to see about Jake's knee (which is fine, turns out a combo of growing pains and being active) took another look at it and thought it might be broken, so we needed to take another set of x-rays in a week. Well those x-rays were done yesterday, and yay, no break! This was particularly troublesome because Jake's team, who only did okay during the regular league games were undefeated during the play-offs and made it to the championship game which is THIS Saturday. And Jake's favorite position to play -- pitcher. So we're all happy -- on so many levels -- that Jake's hand is not broken. Oh, he was on his way to the library, so now he tells me, "see mom, knowledge is dangerous". He's a funny guy -- well he makes me laugh at least.

Not only did my son have a birthday (and my brother, his is the 3rd, happy birthday Jose...hope the Navy finally figures out where they're going to send you so I can send you your present) but our nation was celebrating too. Love our neighborhood, they have a little parade for the kiddos, who dress up and decorate their bikes. Then our pool has a bunch of games to do with the kids. It was a fun afternoon (so glad I got the day off).

Here's Isaac....dressing up "like that Sam guy who wants people" (his words). He makes me laugh too.

text conversations between busy parents

2011-06-28T07:07:00.001-06:00

It was one of those days where both the boys had two different activities and Jason and I had to divide and conquer. We did text each other to keep the other informed how well the kiddos were doing in their respective sport -- Jake was playing baseball, and Isaac was at a swim meet, I was with Isaac.

Here's what our text-conversation looked like:

Jason: Top of the first our team three points
Me: Isaac did well in the butterfly, not quite sure if he placed 2nd or 3rd.
Jason: Bottom of the 1st, Jake is in right field.
Jason: they got 3, we're now 4 to 3
Jason: Jake up to bat, he struck out
Me: ugh
Jason: that was quick we're up again, Jake in R field again.
Me: Isaac just finished a relay they were behind and Isaac got them to second doing free stroke (okay, I might be exaggerating here, he helped get them into second place, but probably not the sole reason they got there)
Jason: up to bat again, Jake got a double and two RBI's (run batter in)
Jason: Tell Isaac good job.
Jason: Our kids are awesome
Me: They are
Jason: We must be great parents
Me: We so are, we should write parenting books and get awards and stuff
Jason: LOL, Jake up to bat again, got a single and two more RBI's.
Me: Oh crap, we need to hold off on that parenting book, I lost Isaac.
Jason: Well find him, you're making me look bad.
Me: Found him, he was practicing. Whew, we're good parents again.
Jason: We're at 20 now they only have 4
Me: Yay, this is one of the better teams on the league, they won both games this season (we're in the playoffs right now)
Jason: cool isn't it.
Me: damn it I lost Isaac again
Me: found him.
Jason: Jake's up to pitch
Me: I hate it when he pitches, I hope he does well
Jason: Not so much
Me: So glad I'm not there, I'd be going nuts pacing.
Jason: oooh, 4th walk, not doing well
Me: Isaac about to do the IM.
Jason: One of the batters hit, they've gotten a couple over home.
Me: Hey, we'll be finished around same time, want to meet at Tokyo Joes?
Jason: Yeah sounds great.
Jason: He struck out the last batter they're done, 27-7 us...whoo hoo
Me: oh, phew I'll forgive him the four walks then.
Me: Isaac didn't do that great on IM but his stamina so much better then last year and HE'S EIGHT.
Jason: All parents should be like us
Me: no kidding, and humble like us too.

update:

Isaac three second place and one first place

Jake, they won the game, went on to when another on Sunday and now are in the championship game in a couple of weeks (he struck out 10 in 5 innings, walked one and hit one of the boys with a ball so he walked too -- but hey he's eleven)

I so hate the night shift!

2011-06-17T09:16:00.002-06:00

I've been working the night shift, 5p.m. to 430 a.m. for the last three weeks. IT'S.BEEN.HELL. But tonight is my last night -- whoo hoo. Anyhow, I don't know if I'm coming or going, the days I am working I don't have a full day to do anything because I have to take a nap and then the next day I come home in the mornings and crash until 10 or so a.m. and then pretty much act like a Zombie for the rest of the day (is Zombie a proper noun?). Jake was in tears the other night because he missed me (don't tell anyone, he is almost 12 after all! And wears Axe so therefore thinks he's a man) and Isaac was excited that I had a stomach ache because he thought I'd get to stay home, when I said that wasn't sick enough to stay home he asked if I could stay home if I had cancer (before you think he sounds horrible, he doesn't actually know what that really means -- he's 8 -- he just wants me home and misses me). This past gig hasn't just been hard on me, but the whole family. So glad it is over after tonight, and if that masochistic maggot that lives in my brain decides to volunteer for the night shift again, I will be calling a hit-man.

Because I have mastered the art of procrastination (uh, yes it is an art!), I've decided to blog instead of working on my paper. Oh yeah, that masochistic maggot ALSO signed me back up for the master's program (damn noisy pushy maggot). Mostly I wanted to fill you in on what happened with my mother-in-law. Remember when I told you about wanting to meet her birth family. She was going back East (isn't it interesting that it's either Back East or Out West -- now that could be a fun history paper or linguistic paper-- ooops, will turn off my inner geek again for the rest of this post) for a reunion and decided to look up her birth family while she was there. This could go so MANY different and potentially horrible ways. It didn't though!

She knocked on her half-brother's door. He answered and knew immediately who she was. She looks just like their mother. There were lots of tears and she met all of her brothers and sisters and a lot of their kids (although her older sister had died the year before). Her brother from her adopted family was supportive about this too. The birth family was so happy to meet her, so sad they knew nothing of her (their father, her mother's husband after Sher was born 'fessed up after he was presented the letter and the family got confirmation that there was another sister that no one knew about). They all assured her that they want her.

Makes me want to cry a bit --- but then I cry at animal rescue commercials (so does Jake, but again, shhh, he's almost 12 and wears Axe).

Can you imagine, living your life wondering why you were not wanted and then find out an entire family wants you -- not based on who you are or what you've done but because you are family -- family.

Family can drive us crazy (have you met my mother?) and some of us, well me...tried to convince my parents and all my siblings that I was adopted or at least switched at birth because in no way was I as crazy as they were. But no one bought it, I look too much like them. Sher was loved by her adopted family, but not sure if she ever felt like she belonged. Just meeting her birth family gave her a bit of that.

It's really quite lovely.

I kinda want to cry again.

Oh, geeze I'm more like my family then I realized.

chicken and dumplings with rotisserie chicken

2011-06-10T21:10:00.002-06:00

So this recipe is pure and simple comfort food so if you're looking for something healthy, this ain't it. This is an adaptation to my brother-in-law's recipe. I'm not a big fan of dumplings, but he assured me this was great and his picky daughter, my niece, liked it, so I was hoping my picky son, Isaac would too as well as the picky me. Isaac loves his Uncle Glenn's cooking, if I'm making something new, all I have to say is, "It's uncle Glenn's recipe" and Isaac will try it.

Chicken and Dumplings:
Gravy:
1 stick of butter, cut into pieces
1 cup of all purpose flour
7 cups of chicken stock
dash of sea salt
dash of black pepper
5 ribs of celery, diced
1/4 sweet yellow onion, diced
couple dashes of dried parsley

Dumplings:
2 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
dash of salt
dash of parsley
3 tbsp cold butter
2/3 c of 1/2 and 1/2

Finishing:
chicken from one rotisserie chicken
can of mixed veggies

In heavy soup pot over medium heat, melt butter and whisk in flour. Cook about three minutes, slowly add broth, whisking while adding. Add salt, pepper, celery, onions, and parsley. Bring mixture to boil over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes

While gravy is cooking place all the ingredients for the dumplings in a food processor and pulse until mixture crumbly. Take small handful of mixture and mold into balls. When gravy has simmered for 20 minutes add dumplings, cover and cook on simmer for 20 minutes. Check if dumplings done by inserting knife, if done knife will be clear.

Add chicken and canned mixed veggies - drained, stir in and simmer until warmed through.
Serve.

I served this with some artichokes, I put them on to boil before starting so that they would be all done at the same time. Kids weren't so happy about the artichokes, but they loved the chicken and dumplings.

This is how the dumpling mixture should look, if it's processed too much the dumplings will be chewy.

the rolled dumplings

This is how it looks in the pot after adding the chicken and veggies. The kitchen smelled so good!

This is one of those meals where you don't actually need bread, the dumplings in the soup were enough to soak up the yummy gravy-broth. It was super filling.

Enjoy.

my funny husband.....again

2011-06-04T14:38:00.001-06:00

Jason's got the doors to the fridge open, peering in, moving stuff around looking for something and asking if I bought some 1/2 &1/2 for the coffee. I asked when I was supposed to have done that since I worked 5pm last night until 4am this morning.

He says, "Fi--iiinnne, I guess I'll just do it myself later"
I say, "can you think of something for dinner and cook it too?"
He says, "No problem, some people can organize their time more efficiently"
I say, "because you're Superman?"
He says, without missing a beat (how does he do that!?) "no, I just look like superman"

oh, he's wearing dorky engineer jeans, leather belt, Merril sandles and a t-shirt.

On the floor laughing
the look on his face pretty much said, I shouldn't have been laughing THAT hard.

2011-05-26T04:27:00.001-06:00

A few weeks back I had a patient who had a seizure. It was a mess, he tried to pull his needles out, we had three firemen/paramedics (side note here, Men in Uniform -- need I say more?) holding him down and one of our very competent techs holding the arm that had his needles in, down. This patient isn't that big either, it was just a bad seizure. Normally you don't want to hold someone who is having a seizure down like that, you just want to make sure their head is protected, but when a good portion of their blood is outside their body being cleaned by a dialysis machine and ripping out needles will cause you to bleed out the remaining blood you have, this could be a bad thing -- so in THIS case we held him down.

I hate stuff like this, I like things to go smoothly. I'm always scared for the patient, scared to make the wrong decision, scared that if I missed something then the patient could be permanently harmed, or worse. But I kept it together, we got his blood rinsed back into him, there was some issue with the needles though, they did come out with all of his thrashing and one of the firemen got sprayed with blood, another person got a needle stick, but then we got it under control and put a pressure dressing on his arm..keep in mind we're doing this to a guy who is thrashing -- it wasn't easy.

Then, in his post-seizure state he started calling out for his mom (he wasn't having a seizure any more, but not alert and oriented either) and that's when I wanted to lose it.

I can be on top of things when I'm the nurse....but someone calling out for their mommy when they are in pain or confused and disoriented....that's when I want to hug someone and cry....

Mom trumps nurse every time.

1 2 3 strikes you're out

2011-05-23T21:44:00.000-06:00

sheesh, trying to get this kid to smile for the camera!

That looks painful

He struck out three batters in the last inning....go Jake!

Garden Pictures

2011-05-20T09:54:00.000-06:00

We've had a week of rain, hail and wind and my garden has suffered.

My hanging basket weathered the storm.

My poor irises....there are a lot of blooms though that are still emerging so hopefully I'll get some pretty shots later.

I totally forgot planting these guys, and have no idea what they are (okay, so I'm not a 'real' gardener -- just someone who picks plants because they're pretty and put them in the ground) but they did great in the recent stormy weather.

The Clematis is starting to bloom. I love Spring.

With all this rain our grass is coming back nicely.

oh my

2011-05-19T05:43:00.000-06:00

A little back ground here -- my mother-in-law, Sher was adopted when she was four years old. She attempted to find her birth family when she was newly married in her twenties. Her birth mother wasn't very receptive (and where as that wouldn't have been my decision, this is a different generation, small east-coast town, Catholic family so I'm empathetic to the mother as well as to Sher). Sher did find out that she had an older sister, who remembered Sher, but the mom told the older sister, that her memories were wrong and Sher had been a relative, not a sister. There were also some younger brothers and another sister. Well it's been a good forty years and Sher is going back east for a reunion and she thought she'd try again with her birth family.

She just wanted to go knock on their door though and say, "Hi, it's me".

I didn't think that was such a good idea. We don't really know what kind of heart conditions these guys might have, or if they own guns.

My sister-in-law made a good point though. Sher's probably afraid of being rejected yet again. And like a tiger with its prey, when you pounce like that, it's not getting away.

Of course, Sher wouldn't admit to being scared, or sad or any type of emotion what-so-ever. Which, I am thinking may be genetic. Although born into a Catholic family, she was raised in a Jewish family. Jason's other Jewish relatives discuss feelings and emotions and are touchy-feely loving people (a lot like the Cuban side of my family). Jason's aunt can ferret out your deepest emotions and get you crying or laughing and make you feel good about sharing. I'm wondering if it's really this ability that anti-semites are most afraid of? Anyhow, even though Sher was raised in this kind of culture, she's pretty repressed -- well emotionally, she has one dirty sense of humor.

Sooooo, I so don't want this family to be cornered, wanted them time to digest and really really want Sher to be able to connect with them.

So I wrote them a letter.

I hope I wrote it to the right people.
I so hope they receive it in the spirit it was written and sent.
I hope Sher gets a chance to meet them.
Mostly, I hope they aren't a family of serial killers with a chain saw collection.

Letter goes out today, think good thoughts.

Here's what I've been reading....what about you?

2011-05-18T08:18:00.000-06:00

I just read Ganelle's Posting about what she's been reading and realized it's been awhile since I've shared what I've been reading. I've actually been on a reading binge lately -- for two reasons. One, LOVING my Nook and two, I'm going back for my master's in nursing shortly (The 24th....ahhhhhhh) and want to do some reading for pleasure before I'm bogged down with reading about nursing theory and writing papers.

Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir is the last book I finished. It's a book club read, chosen by my friend Jacqui. She was worried she picked a bad one because she seems to have a run of bad luck in picking out book club books. But she did good. I had actually read this book a few years ago and didn't remember much of it except her descriptions of life in the Harem. Pretty lush descriptions about Harem life and what life was like of people of privilege during the 50's and 60's in Morocco. It reminded me of the book Under a Marble Sky by Jonathan Shors -- at least the lavish descriptions of the the life of wives and concubines in a harem of a king. This, for me, was the best part of the book, it had the most vivid descriptions and the most colorful. The story about the time she was imprisoned were slower and sad (which makes sense -- it just wasn't enjoyable). Their escape was courageous and I felt terrified for them while reading that section.

A side note, I actually had this book in my basement and during our continued clean up we donated it before this book got chosen for our book club....arggg, sort of reinforces my hoarding tendencies.

Another side note, this is not available on Nook or Kindle -- neither was Under A Marble Sky.

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin is the book on which the movie with the same name is based. I ~~forced Jason to go~~ went with Jason. Turns out he was not the only man in the theatre. The movie was cute and fluffy, it didn't go into as much depth into the women's relationship or the main character's angst about her decision. The subject matter was actually pretty difficult to read and I do believe the author knew that. Reading the side of the adulterous and actually wanting to root for her made me feel a bit shameful. I really felt that although the other characters in the book were happy for her because the 'friend' seemed more of a frenemy, the main character did have wonderful memories of their friendship and there were glimpses that even though the frenemy was selfish, she was also a good friend at times and the main character recognized this. It was hard for her. It was hard for me. The author did a good job with this struggle, I think that maybe this might have been difficult to write from this perspective and so kudos to the author for not making it easy by making one character perfect and the other evil.

Found this next book (Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkenen) on a review done by Jenn Lancaster (who wrote Bitter is the New Black and other funny stories). This is one of the first times I've actually pre-ordered a book (and have I mentioned how much I love my Nook for the ease it provides in doing this). This is more chic-lit, which, if you haven't noticed, is my favorite genre. This one made me cry (whatever, I can't help myself) and I went as far to cyberstalk the author and not only become a 'fan' on her Facebook page but actually comment on how much I liked the book (she even wrote me back -- feeling a little star-struck). The meat of the novel is about falling back in love again with your spouse. Even though the gulf between them was huge and the impetus to working on their relationship was dramatic, many of us who are happily married have those minutes-days-hours-months where we have, if not a gulf, maybe a gully, or gulch between us. It's not insurmountable but there and aggravating. This book was a reminder to reach across and do what you need to bring your relationships closer (not preachy, that's just what I got from the book). Have some tissues ready.

I would not normally choose a book like Raven Black by Anne Cleeves (seriously, how cool is her name, one of Henry's wives' names...that's awesome) but this was another book-club book, chosen by our resident, Brit, Ann. I loved the description of the Shetland Islands (I confess, I actually had to look up where they were) and the people who lived there. The mystery itself dragged a bit and I wanted more back story on the detective as well as the detectives who came over from the mainland to help with investigation. I figured out early on who did one of the murders, but was surprised by the other and frankly wasn't too happy about it (not that I get happy about murder). It was just a surprise without any clues, it seemed a bit unfair to the reader that there would be no way to guess it was that person. But then again, sometimes rage is like that, it makes people do things they normally wouldn't do so there's no way to anticipate it. Glad I read it, but probably won't go on to read more. Unless Ann picks another one in the series for another book club read.

Another book where you may need some tissues, either that or I cry a lot, Jason would say yes to that -- oh well, it's probably good to have someone in the household who understands emotion and doesn't analyze everything in a sterile Spock like manner -- oh, I digress. Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter will hit a chord with those of us who don't feel like we completely belong and try our best to fit in. This character does it on steroids though. What's great about this story is that although she does fall apart she also finds herself, realizes who her friends really are, finds new friends and comes out strong. I kind of wish the ending wasn't so picture perfect, if these people were real, I'd wonder if the lessons they learned would have been lost with the opportunity given them at the end. Part of me liked (the mean part) that the snarky beyotch didn't benefit long but having known a snarky (and not in the fun way) beyotch I know that this never happens, the beyotches always get to keep their friends and they never get what they deserve. But I do appreciate the author trying to make it 'right', that's the wonderful thing about fiction.

The title, Everyone is Beautiful drew me to this story. It's another chic-lit-find-yourself-through-adversity type of novel by Katherine Center. Of course her adversity is another person's adventure. She has to move to another city and in doing so she finds out who she is. I too have moved away from family and friends, thankfully for only a year. But that was the year I discovered Mosaics and found a new passion (one that I desperately am trying to get back to, which is one of the motivators in getting my basement cleaned). For the character in this book, it's photography. There are some funny mommy-embarrassing moments to which I can completely relate. I like that her kids aren't perfect and she becomes "that mom" at the park. I can't imagine (at least I hope not) that I'm the only one who ever feels the same way she does at those moments.

Yeah, yeah, polygamous lifestyle blah blah...can't help myself (which may be why I dug the Harem scenes in Stolen Lives and Under a Marble Sky) In Escape, though, she does not romanticize this lifestyle at all. It's remarkable how she was able to get out with all of her children given her "husband" was a major player on the compound. It's also good to see that she was able to find love again (why yes I am a romantic) and to make her life and the life of her children whole again, or actually whole for the first time. I found it very interesting how the wives had to vie for attention from such a major Ass and how the dynamics worked with favorite wife status and how the kids benefited or suffered depending on who was in favor. It's such a topsy-turvy life and the author did a great job describing it.

I'm reading Jen Lancaster's new novel right now, Wish You Were Here. It reads just like her non-fiction-bloggy-type-other-books so is quite enjoyable and a nice break after reading the heavy depressing Stolen Lives.

I'm curious to hear what the rest of you have been reading or if you've read one of these, what were your opinions?

Go Isaac!

2011-05-17T06:27:00.002-06:00

Isaac had his first karate tournament this weekend. He did great (I'll tell you how great in a minute). First, I'll tell you a little bit about my observations. We live in a great suburb of Denver. Even so, not everyone (say everyone in your head like an East Coast snob) thinks our area is as great as I think it is. I read on a Facebook page about Centennial that the people in West Centennial don't think we should even be a part of the city and we don't count (although, I do believe our taxes help generate quite a bit of the income the city has...but whatever). There's also Highlands Ranch which is south and west of where we are and it is the most lily-white-republican-need-to-be-perfect-better-then-the-joneses-stepford enclave in the Denver area. I mean this area is the polar-opposite of the People's Republic of Boulder. I am a person of color (when I say that, I mean in personality as well as having an olive complexion) in Highlands Ranch. I seriously wonder if they want me to use another drinking fountain whenever I visit an establishment in the area.

The Karate place where Isaac takes his classes has two dojos in Highlands Ranch, one in Greenwood Village (the people that Highlands Ranch people want to be), one here in the slums (not really), Aurora and Denver and some other suburbs that don't really matter to my conversation (but really do matter in life). What's our area like? Well laid back. Most of the people out here are also conservative, but there is nothing in our neighborhood covenants that preclude our more liberal brethren from living here (thankfully because then I'd have to live in Boulder and the commute would be horrible). Some of us wear make up some do not, we wear a lot of sweats and are not always color coordinated. I feel so at home here. Just real people, raising families, enjoying life -- no pressure to impress.

I forget there are areas that aren't quite like ours. Which brings me back to the tournament. We got there early, got our seats and waited for Isaac to preform his karate moves - called a Kata, but really a choreographed dance number with some yelling of "KEE-EYE". Isaac has informed me that I am not allowed to call it a dance number though. I have my hair up in a couple barrettes, barely combed because we were running late. I have my suburban mom uniform on (beside scrubs there's nothing else in my closet), consisting of a white t-shirt, black velvet hoodie, khaki capris and flip-flops. NO MAKEUP. I still have writing all over my arm because I had a patient crash on me the day before and had no paper to write all my information that I needed to chart. I did have a really cute new coffee travel mug with me though.

And then I saw a family prance in. My first thought is, these guys look just like the girls (and I'm so about to get geeky here) from the Harry Potter movie about the wizard championship. The girls that float into the big Hogwarts hall and sigh every couple of feet. The girls at the karate tournament weren't wearing gray form fitting dresses, they were in their nicely ironed Gis (okay, I do feel bad I didn't get it together to iron Isaac's Gi, it was a bad day the day before, remember I mentioned I had a patient crash on me, had to call the paramedics --who by the way, were kind of hot -- men in uniform, doing what they do best -- oh I digress). These girls had matching pink paisley bags for their sparring stuff and sparkly pink flip flops. Their mom had her hair perfect (even with major loads of expensive product I couldn't get my hair to do that in a million years) with the perfect amount of 'bling'. She was wearing what I'm sure was expensive designer stuff, and if I followed that stuff, I'd probably be impressed.

My first thought, these guys took the nerdiest sport in America and made it all cute and glitzy. They so had to be from Highlands Ranch.

Because from our area, the kids looked more like this:

I asked myself, because I'm wise and self-reflective -- no really.
Am I jealous?
Maybe a little, even if my travel coffee mug was way cuter then hers.
Then I thought about our laid-back albeit hectic life, how great my kids are, how wonderful my husband is and realized, wouldn't trade it for the world...even a smokin' hot body in designer clothes and perfect hair.

And then I sat back, relaxed and watched my kid from the wrong-side-of-Centennial smoke those other kids'...um...behinds.

Isaac bowing to the judges.

"KEE-EYE"

First Place Baby!

We did try and get him in the older kid section because we thought it would be more fair, but they were strict about age groups. Here he is with the other 7-8 year olds. He's freakin' HUGE, compared to these guys. We did warn him though not to count on his size...see the littlest guy there, he's the first place winner, Isaac got second (although it was really close).

2nd place trophy

Caity and Isaac....way to represent guys!

Chicken Marsala Sliders

2011-05-15T17:15:00.001-06:00

A while ago I had a yummy rotisserie chicken crepe with a Madeira sauce at the The White Chocolate Grill that was to die for. I'm not a good enough cook to make crepes (well I haven't really tried, they really look like a lot of work). So I decided to make up a recipe that kind of resembled this dish. I have to say, didn't even come close, but did come up with a easy meal that was tasty. I'm just going to have to go back to White Chocolate Grill and order that again.

The Rolls:
2 C self rising flour
1 C butter
1 C sour cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, mix ingredients (will be lumpy) place in greased and floured muffin pans, smooth tops and bake for about 17 minutes. Let cool (this recipe is from Simply Homemade Magazine, can't remember which edition).

These rolls are kind of dry, I was not a big fan of these for just rolls, but the flavor is good with the tangy wine sauce and chicken.

The sauce:
1/4 C Marsala wine
1/4 C chicken stock
1 clove mashed garlic
1/4 stick of butter, cut into slices
1/8 c olive oil
corn starch
1 package of sliced fresh mushrooms

Melt butter and oil in pan over low heat, add stock and wine, heat up and reduce, about 10 or so minutes. Mix the starch in cold water (rather then just adding directly to the wine, this helps avoid lumps) then whisk into wine sauce until sauce thickens. Add mushrooms and cover and cook for about 10-15 minutes, occasionally stirring the mushrooms.

Take the rolls, split in half, place the chicken from the rotisserie chicken, then pour the Masala-mushroom sauce on top of the chicken, then close the sandwiches.

We served these with some fresh fruit and salad.

Enjoy.

snow?

2011-05-11T06:38:00.000-06:00

It barely snows all Winter and today...after Mother's day when the flowers are supposed to be safe, we get this:

why I should park in the garage

2011-05-03T20:35:00.001-06:00

A couple weeks ago I posted about getting a new sticker family for my car from this place. My friends teased (really I think they were envious, because I am so cool and in no way a geek like my Star Trek loving husband -- but whatever) A couple days ago my so-called-friends and the man who claimed to love me for eternity did THIS to my car:

I totally didn't notice it right away (yeah, I'm THAT observant) and as Dodi pointed out I apparently don't look through my rear view mirror often enough. In my defense, I was only going to the local market, only blocks away. I did my shopping and came back to my car and had a...'what the heck' kind of moment. Yup, Honda. Yup, in the spot or at least close to where I'm pretty sure I parked. Yup the first four guys are the ones I put on there.

My sticker family multiplied! I burst out laughing in the middle of the parking lot, giggled while I put my groceries in the trunk and laughed all the way home.

Yeah, my friends, who thought I was a bit nutso and for going the sticker family route also know about my not so secret fascination with the whole polygamous culture (half way between admiration, loving the free babysitting and best friend gal time, and horror....no way in h.e.double toothpicks am I sharing my husband). I devoured all the Big Love episodes, Sister Wives is on my DVR queue and I've read a book or two about women who've escaped the compounds.

I call my hubby, totally giggling and he alludes to knowing who did it. Before I can even cajole, threaten, bribe it out of him HE.HUNG.UP.ON.ME.

So I called my friend, Colleen who I think might be a part of it along with Dodi (because she was the most vocal about her opinions), Martha (you should have seen the lawn full of pink plastic flamingos in Dodi's yard, this would be so her) and maybe Jacqui (I have yet to have a confirmation as to her culpability) and after I mentioned Jason hung up on me, SHE.HUNG.UP.ON.ME.TOO!

Jason finally outed Dodi (because he doesn't know her as well as the others and therefor less fearful) and then Colleen outed herself and Martha -- according to Colleen, Martha was the master plotter (all those who know her can not be surprised) and Colleen and Dodi, with Jason's blessing -- I wondered why he didn't pull my car into the garage -- did the deed. I'm just glad they didn't go for the TPing that Colleen suggested in her brief time of channeling an adolescent.

I love my friends. I was actually having a bad day (half regretting signing back up for the MSN program and feeling very sorry for myself). So this could not have come at a better time to give me a good laugh. If I were ever in a polygamous relationship, these really are the women I'd want to be my sister wives -- well with out the sharing of my one and only, even if he did hang up on me.

I just have one question....what's with the lobster?

six years later, one room completely finished

2011-05-02T05:30:00.005-06:00

We bought this fixer-upper about 6 years ago and have been remodeling ever since. We've done a lot of the heavy lifting (scraping off cottage cheese ceilings, brand new kitchen, removing sliding glass doors and walling it in and putting a door to the outside elsewhere and a huge list of other stuff) But not one of the rooms do I consider complete. Kitchen still needs curtains, master bedroom needs baseboards...small stuff.

In our quest to clean out the basement we brought up some artsy stuff. I've been looking for a few months for something for the wall in the dining room. What I should have been doing is "shopping" my basement.

I am so married to an engineer. If the pencil marks showed up well on camera I would have taken a picture of what he drew on the wall to ensure proper placement.

Bought these cool old chippy painted porch posts. Jason cut them down to fit in between the living and dining room. and then anchored them in. We're doing our best to step out of the cookie-cutter suburban house floor plan and add some architectural elements. We had these hickory hard wood floors put in in the entire first floor and absolutely love them.

These pictures were wedding gifts from Jason's dad.

It's a bit too small for the space, but so ornate I didn't want to add anything else. I'm not sure this will end up staying (shhh, don't tell Jason). But it's good enough for now.

This is actually my favorite corner of the room. Love this little antique (vintage) hutch. Found it in a boutique in old Littleton that was changing their business and they were getting rid of all their display pieces. I convinced..bullied...begged my friend Colleen to come pick it up with me. What a sight we were trying to shove that thing in the back of her mini-van (you're a trooper Colleen!)

I need to erase and start over on my chalkboard menu -- hate my handwriting. It's not as easy as it looks to write with chalk.

I was actually thinking of going for a black and white toile but then found this material and fell in love. I was so sad that someone else had it on hold.....then it turns out that the hold had expired a couple days before so the sales lady said could have it. Yay...and only a tinge of guilt..well there's more guilt really about the price of the material...but yay.

Pretty much everything but the material for the curtains were on sale, used, discontinued or a gift, so splurging on some material -- I'm okay with. It really wasn't all that expensive a room.

A Baking Kind of Day

2011-05-01T14:23:00.002-06:00

It feels more like Autumn then Spring right now, so I baked. I have to say there are some awesome recipes out there in blogland. This morning I made Nutella Banana Muffins (add 1/8 C of flour for high altitude and cook a bit longer). You see from the picture below I only had one left of the dozen the recipe makes. They were yu-UM-meee. Also made a couple dozen cookies gotten from: Food and Whine and she got the recipe from: this great cooking blog. (didn't adjust for altitude on these, and they turned out fine, just had to bake a bit longer). I rounded off my baking binge with some Banana Bread made from a Martha Stewart recipe that was tweaked by my friend Colleen, then tweaked some more by me -- recipe below picture.

oh, Before I get to the banana bread recipe. I have to include that I couldn't get any pumpkin puree at the store. If you go to her blog, she mentions that there was a problem with the crop and pumpkin is scarce. I didn't give it much mind, because I had a couple cans in the pantry. I decided to make more, ran to the store and there was NONE...not fair to have a new favorite recipe and not have the ingredients at hand. So I pureed some sweet potatoes and used that in lieu of the pumpkin, not a bad substitution.

Banana Bread

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Grease one bread loaf pan and sprinkle with raw sugar

Cream together:
1 stick of butter - room temp
1 C of sugar
2 eggs

Sift, Mix then add to above:
1 C of flour (plus 1/8 C for high altitude)
1/2 C of whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Blend with above:
2 ripe bananas
1/2 C sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla
1 C sliced almonds (this was what Colleen added to the recipe and YUM).
Sometimes I feel the need to sneak some veggies in the kids' food and so when I'm up for it, I add 1/4 a cup of pureed carrots and 1/4 a cup of pureed zucchini. You can't taste either.

Pour into pan and top with a sprinkle of raw sugar.

Bake 50 -60 minutes (could end up needing to go a bit longer in the higher altitudes, I tried raising the temp but didn't work as well for me as just baking a bit longer).

sometimes you just don't have paper when you need it.

2011-04-29T06:07:00.000-06:00

As the doc was leaving the building, she was giving me a verbal order. Because I forget what I'm doing from the door to the desk, I had to write it somewhere. Then another patient's blood pressure was out of control (it's the 252/112) so had to write that down so I could call the doc with that information. Someone's blood glucose levels are on there too. Like how I'm not violating HIPPA, I covered the name of one of the patients with my shirt before taking the picture.

I think yesterday was forget your blood pressure medication day (more patients then usual with crazy BPs) I think nurses should get paid double for those days.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that.....

2011-04-25T17:35:00.008-06:00

I know that Spring is officially here, but in Colorado it doesn't really feel like Spring until about the middle of May. I love these early bloomers which, at least, give me a glimpse at the future possibility of it.Because this is how I've been dressing for Jake's games.
Both the boys were sick today....not the earth-shattering plague that they both insisted it was, but more of a type of stomach ache that comes from eating too much Easter candy. I let them stay home anyway. It was fun, because every time they wanted to do something, I got to say, "oh, honey, that's not a good idea in your condition" and they would immediately clutch their stomachs and agree with me. They eventually caught on to what I was doing and it didn't work as well and my amusement for the day was shot. So I decided to organize. I've been getting inspiration from this fun blog.

The "Before" (like I had to inform you of that...it's pretty obvious this is a before).
and.....After (okay, I typed the Before, I'm too compulsive to not now type, After).
I keep wanting to go back every few minutes and look at it. I love it when things are organized! Speaking of....our basement project is coming along. Every couple days I've been bringing up a couple of boxes and going through them and getting rid of stuff. Today I found the match books we had printed up for our wedding. No one does that anymore and that color pink? I'm a little embarrassed (but it went so well with teal!). I can't believe Jason and I have been married almost 19 years!
So that was the "this", now for the "that".

I was thinking about our recent trip to the museum. I had a wonderful time, even if the eldest was doing his possible best to show me how torturous his life is. My younger son, who still has the sweetest voice, chubby cheeks and an easy smile, would periodically come up to me during our visit, slip his hand into mine and ask me to read to him the descriptions of each of the items in the exhibit.

I felt so blessed. It warmed my heart to see his interest, to see him unembarrassed to be with his mother and to genuinely want to be in my company.

You other moms have to know what I'm trying to explain, but am not eloquent enough to do so. It's that feeling where you want to pick up your "baby" right then and there and never let go of that moment. You can almost catch a whiff of that baby smell that in reality has disappeared and replaced by little boy smell, but the memory of the smell comes back to you in moments like these -- at least for me.

But can I just be happy with that? No....

Because....

I'm freaking INSANE.

I started wondering, did he do this, NOT because he was enjoying himself, but because I'm some freaky mother dearest and he was trying to please me so I don't go into a rage and beat him with a wire hanger? Not that I've done either...I admit, gasp, I may have had a temper tantrum or two or three, I might glare when they misbehave and speak ahem, scream loudly. I may expect a lot out of them and I do use guilt to my advantage -- rages and wire hangers, not so much. So I don't think that was his motivation....but now...now...ugh

Being a mom has it's ups and it's downs...for me the downs are usually of my own making in my own freaky head, those creepy thoughts that make me question every thing I do or say to the kids -- the doubts about my parenting that makes me wonder if I should start that therapy-fund, I joke about when I do something that is obviously wrong. Sigh, I need to stop over-analyzing or I will drive everyone crazy.

But thank goodness my 'baking' cabinet is organized.

Last day off of Track-Off.

2011-04-21T08:02:00.003-06:00

Monday was the boys' last day off of a three-week track-off (kind of an extended spring break for year-round schools). It's their last; next year the elementary school is going to a traditional schedule and Jake will be going to middle school which is also traditional. I happened to have that day off from work so I treated them to a home-made breakfast of french toast. Isaac helped me make the bacon.
Then we joined another family to go see Pirates at the Natural History museum (those who did not grow up in Denver may know it as the Denver Museum of Nature and Science -- I'm not sure why they changed the name?)
At least the eleven year old is smiling...
My eight year old is so strange.....but he does make me laugh.
We couldn't take pictures of the actual exhibit because of copy-right laws. It was really worth it though, Jake grudgingly accepted the fact we went but can't bring himself to admit it was interesting. Isaac thought it was very interesting. It's the history of pirate captain, Bellamy. He left his New England town in pursuit of fortune so that he could marry his true love. Her parents didn't want her to marry a penniless no-one. On his last and return voyage his ship was sunk just off of Cape Cod. The exhibit also showed the process of how they painstakingly removed years of sand, shells and other stuff that surrounded the items in concrete-like stones.

One of the fun attractions were the period-dressed people who came around and talked to us about their jobs and lives of the day. And made fun of our capris (pantaloons that were eaten by goats) in Renaissance-festival fashion.
We ended the day eating at Chili's. The boys' choice. And talked about where we would take our family vacation this summer. The vote was the Grand Canyon.

Maybe if Jake sees himself looking like this he'll be better about not making faces when I'm trying to chronicle his life! He will thank me one day, right?

Recipe for Tres Leche Cake --yum

2011-04-18T06:32:00.007-06:00

Tres Leche cake, is served in a ton of Cuban restaurants in Miami, but I believe it originates from one of the South American countries. Anyhow, it's my Cuban step dad's favorite, it's what my Irish brother-in-law requests and my Jewish husband and sister-in-law are always happy when I serve it (as are our melting pot children) -- it's really an international favorite.
The Cake Recipe:

1 Vanilla cake mix

3/4 C softened butter

6 eggs

1/2 cup of water

grated lime peel from one lime

Tres Leche sauce (tres leche means three milks)

can garnish with fresh fruit and whipped cream if you like.

Preheat oven to 350, combine ingredients (you know how, wet stuff and dry stuff and blend together). Bake in 2 greased and floured 8" cake pans for 45-50 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes in pan then cool completely on a wire rack.

While cake is baking make the Tres Leche Sauce:

2 cans of evaporated milk

2 cans of condensed milk

1 pint of heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp Vanilla

(I'm pretty sure this is not on ANY diet plan out there)

Combine in sauce pan, heat to the point it's about to boil and then remove from stove top. Put in a glass container and let it cool.

Once cake has cooled, prepare a baking dish, pot whatever you have that's bigger around then the cake, with plastic wrap. Place one cake and poke holes in it, pour some of the sauce on, place the other cake on top, poke holes and pour more sauce (be sure you keep some of the sauce for serving the cake) Wrap the cake up and put in the fridge.

You really should do all the steps above the night before you want to serve the cake...but Jason and I ended up childless that night so watched a really bad movie instead - had to wake up early and get this started.....But while it was getting all yummy in the fridge, I was able to go see my oldest hit two home-runs and a triple (in all fairness, he actually only hit one home run...I mean it was way beyond the out field -- the other two were from over throws and a dropped ball -- but it's little league we'll take what we can get!)

There he is, running for home! GO JAKE

Okay, back to the Tres Leche Cake...

If you put your cake in something like this, be careful with the sauce....sheesh, I was cleaning Tres Leche sauce off my counter every two minutes. I need to get something with more of a 'lip'.
Happy birthday Uncle Glenn!
Jake and cousin Bridget....they're liking it too.

POTD --The Basement Project

2011-04-17T07:08:00.004-06:00

We've slowly (excruciatingly slowly) been digging ourselves out of our basement. Yesterday I found a box of Jason's old (and I mean OLD) college notes and papers. I asked him if we could toss them.

That didn't go over well.

I reminded him that we were BOTH committed to getting the basement cleaned out and I've been tossing a ton of stuff (I didn't add because I was so much more 'together' then he was, but it was implied).

He replied that what he meant about cleaning out the basement was me getting rid of my stuff and keeping his stuff, because his stuff is worth keeping....

Really? -- 19 year old college papers? I was okay with the Star Trek TV guides (I'm a push-over and I love him and his geeky obsessions)...but 19 year old college papers and notes?

He finally decided to go through them and only keep some projects and papers that he wrote and is getting rid of all of his class notes.

Looking through the notes he's realized forgotten so much since he doesn't use a lot of what he learned in College (although, I'm sure it all provided a wonderful foundation on which to build and that's why he is where he is now).

Part of his senior project...BEFORE PowerPoint..he had to transfer his flow charts and whatever else onto transparencies and present them to his class.

How many of you remember transparencies?

He eliminated about 3/4ths of this box....

Progress. At this rate, will have the basement cleared out in five years.

POTD -- yeah I drank the kool-aid

2011-04-15T14:48:00.004-06:00

I finally joined the suburban masses who have the family decals on their cars. But these were really cute!

And look, I so need to wash my windows...it's on the list but first....I must blog this picture.

"Blink" at the Denver Art Museum

2011-04-10T08:36:00.006-06:00

The kids are on their three week Spring break. This will all change next year when Jake goes to middle school and Isaac's school goes to the traditional schedule. Anyhow, I want to do one excursion a week so that I know that they aren't watching TV and playing video games the WHOLE TIME. Last week we met Jason downtown, had lunch and saw Blink at the Denver Art Museum

Lunch at Cap City Grill, across the street from the museum. We started outside, but it was just on this side of too chilly so we moved inside. The wait staff, who happened to be related to the owners, were very nice about it. The waitress had a brood of children herself, thus, most likely, the patience she exhibited when dealing with us.
Yeah, he's thrilled to be spending the day with his family at the art museum. I find myself thinking, yet again, "He'll thank me later".
The library, it's one of my favorite buildings downtown.

Before you get to the actual exhibit there's are activities for the kids. You can do flip books and a couple of other things that have technical terms that I can't remember. Pre-technology methods of showing movement.
One of the first exhibits and one of my favorites, it was a room of lit numbers and words moving around the room. I liked that you could see your 'shadow' against the wall and the lit images just went around you. Then you'd look at each other and see the images on your face...but not the actual image, just the pixels (at least I think that's the correct word).
not a great picture, but I think you can get the idea.

This was fun, it's on the ceiling and you can hear the tapping and see the tap dance from this angle.

All in all, I enjoyed the day with the family and the exhibit. Jake even cracked a smile and seemed interested at times.

Tortilla (Spanish-frittata-omelet-thing)

2011-04-06T18:41:00.007-06:00

Being from the Western part of the U.S. I am surrounded by people who think tortillas are flat wheat bread products. However, in Spain and Cuba and probably other Spanish speaking countries, a tortilla is a combo omelet-frittata. A really yummy one at that. During our trip to Spain in 2006, we lived on these. I still haven't been able to completely recreate it, maybe it's the cheese, maybe it's just that someone else was cooking, maybe it was the fact we were in Spain? I don't know, but this is pretty close.

one dozen eggs

half a sweet yellow onion -thinly sliced

1 red pepper -thinly sliced

three red potatoes -thinly sliced

1 handful of grated provolone or mozzarella

2 handfuls of grated sharp cheddar

1 handful of grated asiago or parmesan

1-2 tbs or so of milk

sea salt to taste

pepper to taste

a lot of olive oil

pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a skillet pour in the olive oil and over high heat saute potatoes for about 5 minutes, lower heat to medium low and add peppers, onion, salt and pepper, saute another 10-15 minutes until potatoes are soft and peppers are limp.

Meanwhile, beat together eggs and milk, add cheese, when potato mixture finished add egg and cheese mixture to it.

Place in oven for 25-30 minutes, until eggs are cooked all the way through.

While tortilla is in oven, slice some tomatoes, red onion and cucumber and toss with red-wine vinegar and olive oil.

After 30 minutes pull out of oven and with spatula loosen edges.
Invert onto plate and let sit five or so minutes.
Slice into wedges and serve. We usually serve it with some French bread (because you can't get Cuban bread in Denver....but seriously that's the best!) and cucumber tomato salad.

It's one of our favorite vegetarian meals (we try for one or two a week).

Enjoy!

Art -- a family thing

2011-04-02T07:02:00.007-06:00

During Spring break, Isaac (the youngest) got to do a special program where he could take some classes. He chose math-wizards (because he's his father's child) and he took another class called five artists in five days because, in his words, he draws remarkable trees and since Aunt Laura Jane is an artist and cousin Bridget is really good, he's good too. He then added that Jake must take after me because we're not that good (he will someday regret those words...right?)

The end of this class coincided with Jason's aunt's art show opening. She had a show that started with this month's NOBO art walk (North Boulder) and will run a few more weeks. She does high-relief sculpture, and if I do say so myself, she's amazingly talented.

The artist -- Laura-Jane. Isaac took the picture, I'm not sure LJ will like it, but I love it. I think it shows how fun she is and how great she is that she'll be silly with her great-nephew during her very own art show.
Jason chatting up his aunt.
Isaac made his great-aunt a name tag, "my art rocks" -- the 'r' looks a bit like an 'n' so maybe it's "my ant rocks" -- although, I think he knows how to spell aunt.
Jake, Isaac and YaYa (Jason's mom) found a puppy...is it that laid back Boulder thing that makes it okay to have a dog come to an art opening? I love that!
This is one of my favorites from her show last night. Love how the toe is pointed down, and the girl's little cheeks.

LJ and her dear friend. She's one of my favorites too! She has a gift of making you feel like everything you say or do is brilliant and amazing -- so the kind of person you need around. I can see why she and LJ are friends.
One of her Bronze pieces. I thinks she does such a wonderful job on the draping of the material. I can imagine that would be difficult to do with clay

I overheard two ladies who were looking at this group of sculptures say that they were drawn to these. And why not? They're great!
This is the piece that LJ made for us. I have it hanging in our kitchen. When I designed our kitchen, I made sure there was a space for it right by this window, so that I could enjoy this piece where I seem to be most of the time....at the kitchen sink. You can see more of her amazing art work here on her website.

Now back to my own budding eight year old artist. Here's one of the pieces he did in his program. It's a boy doing a karate stance (not sure which one). It's not balanced and can't stand on its own --- but still, it's brilliant...don't you think? (whatever -- I'm his MOM- I think everything he does is brilliant)

POTD -- and it's not even April yet

2011-03-30T18:14:00.003-06:00

seriously?

volcanic eruptions

2011-03-28T06:23:00.003-06:00

I found a book called 365 Experiments the other day and picked it up because I thought it would be fun to do with the kids. It felt like I was pulling teeth for them to do just one of the experiments in there (and I let Jake pick). He's doing his best to look like I abuse him here in this picture.

The first experiment the boys did was a volcano. The book called for:

play-dough (I used modeling clay)

film canisters -- you know how hard those are to find these days? I just used up two glass spice jars so I washed and used those.

1 tbs baking soda

1 tbs vinegar

(we used a lot more, because we wanted to see some real action)

We pretty much just stopped measuring and poured the vinegar right in. You can see Jake here with a hint of a smile.
I forgot to mention nails...they weren't part of the original list, but the kids wanted something to represent all the people that get fried with hot lava....how did I raise such blood-thirsty beings?

I also made them look up what actually causes volcanos to erupt and why vinegar and baking soda have such a reaction and made them write it in their own words, because I'm a mean horrible mommy (at least that's the impression I got with all the eye rolling -- they'll thank me later -- right?).

Next week it's how to make limestone....Isaac's choice. It calls for shoeboxes and I have none, I do believe that's a reason to go shoe shopping. I love science.

our dirty BIG secret

2011-03-27T11:00:00.005-06:00

I have a couple secrets to share with you. It's all probably TMI and I will probably alienate a lot of you out there....but there could be someone out there in blogland who will find comfort that they are not alone....

We'll start with my problem with procrastination. Dodi, on January 23rd mentions in her blog that she finally put away Christmas. I read it, I laughed, I commented....but shamefully I had my stack of various nativities on the side table waiting for me to pack up.

Well come March they were still there. Last week, I FINALLY packed them up. If you look closely you can see the clovers on the newspaper ads....that would be ads for St. Patrick's day. How sad is that? Wrapping Christmas up with St. Patrick's day advertisements......

All wrapped and ready to go into...what is our next dirty secret.....our basement. Have you ever seen the show Hoarders? I love that show. I'm horrified by that show. I AM that show. At least my basement is. Let's start with over 20 years ago when my dad died. I packed away some of his books. We both shared a love of reading and a love of collecting books. The problem was, I never opened those boxes again. Part of it was that it was too painful, partly who knows why. We've been carting these books with us over seven moves (Jason, in this case is a freakin' saint!). We moved into this house about six years ago and have have since remodeled the first two floors. The problem is that I've just been throwing stuff in the basement to-deal-with-later as each room got completed that combined with the boxes and boxes of books have given us THIS:

My project for the next couple of months is to go through EVERYTHING and throw out at least....gasp - half, okay maybe a third, mostly a fourth of the junk down there and find a home for whatever we keep. I started today, I cleaned out six boxes and have three boxes in a pile to donate to Good Will and the library.

And, I found these gems....
Jason threatened to slap me when I began to disparage his trekkiness.

We also found some of my high school report cards...which Jason decided to scan and save on his computer --why? I wanted to toss them....seriously a D in Algebra, like I want my kids to see that? I definitely don't want them to see the 30 absences from the same class (a correlation?)

We also found my high school literary publication where I had a poem published....Jason read it and laughed and laughed...His comment was, 'geeze, trace, was part two how you slit your wrists, can you get more depressing? Maybe we should send this to the Zoloft company and they can use it in an ad" I won't include the poem here...thankfully I've grown out of that teen-girl-life-is-horrible-angst.

This project may be funner then I thought it would be. Tomorrow, more boxes. I wonder what I'll find.

POTD -- Easter project

2011-03-22T12:35:00.004-06:00

Saw this very cute Easter idea on another blog and decided to totally steal -- uh, I mean try it for myself.

Can't wait until the tulips come up in my garden, until then....I bought some at the store....Spring is here...it makes me happy.

Sunday a day of rest? Not so much.

2011-03-21T05:43:00.015-06:00

Yesterday I woke up with the best of intentions. My list for the day was 1. make Banana Bread. It's been on my list for about four days -- the bananas are about to bake themselves into bread.

2. Go to Home Depot and get some compost for the front Garden. 3. Put compost and mulch down. 4. go to Michaels and get wooden eggs, paint and letters to do this cool craft. Also to buy

some modeling clay so the boys can make an exploding volcano. I picked up a science experiment book that looks like fun.

Oh yeah, I had the to-do list EVEN.THOUGH.I.WAS.ON-CALL.

At 6 yesterday morning I felt refreshed. I had fallen asleep at 9 the night before and blessedly the dreaded beeper stayed quiet -- even with the full moon. At about 3 am I jerked awake, double checked that the pager was indeed on and feel back asleep. At 6, refreshed, I came downstairs to have a cup of coffee and check my E-mail -- two hours and five hundred blogs later, I came across this recipe for curried chicken which fulfilled my fabulous home cooked meal on my list.

I debated going to the store in my pajamas (this was actually my Facebook status for awhile and although all the people who replied, said"yes", I still got dressed). I decided that this recipe would be a good one to quadruple and then I would have three extra meals to throw in the freezer for later or for those neighbors or friends in need. (Note to self, if you are going to quadruple recipe that takes that much curry, make sure you have enough spice before going to store.

Come home, make the first batch and throw into crock-pot (oh yeah, I tweaked recipe a bit -- added red pepper, diced and some carrots, and replaced the water with chicken broth). I wish Blogger had scratch and sniff because it smelled heavenly.

Had to go back to the store and buy more spices, and got distracted and bought an organizing magazine.

Because reading about organizing is so much better the actually being organized AND there were pictures.

Between the first batch of curry and my second trip to the store, the dreaded beeper goes off. There's a patient at the local county hospital that needs emergency dialysis. I'm second on call so first call RN goes in. There's still a chance I might not go in --and now am more on edge.

While preparing the curry chicken meals I whipped up some boxed blueberry muffins (added some fresh blueberries) for breakfast.

Had to stop Isaac at two. I had to stop me at two also.

Even with the two trips the ingredients for the four meals totaled about 60 dollars, so 15$ for a meal for four -- not bad.

Meanwhile, Jason is finally putting in the pillars between our living room and dining room. I had purchased these porch posts with awesome chippy paint at a flea market TWO YEARS AGO. To protect the chippiness of the paint we varnished them (and by we, I mean Jason).

The other RN calls me. There's another patient in the E.R. needing emergency dialysis, it's another short run and she's willing to stay and do it. I'm so okay with that (see list above) What are the chances a third person is going to come in on a Sunday.

Meanwhile, Isaac is playing with friends (Jake was at a sleepover). I think he's at that stage where he wants to be with anyone else but us. I'm not liking this stage.

I finish 'packaging' my freezer meals and print up directions.
Veggies in one bag, chicken, seasoned with salt and pepper in a bag, curry sauce in a bag and rice in a bag, then I put all the bags together.

And then I get a text from the other RN, there's a THIRD patient in the ER who needs emergent dialysis. I guess not only can you NOT say 'quiet' as a nurse, you can't even THINK it.
I do the dishes, brush my teeth and throw on scrubs. Stop by Starbucks, because if I'm going to get called in on a Sunday I'm going to treat myself to a scone and iced green tea. I realize once I get to the hospital I've had no protein that day, two muffins and a scone do not make for good blood sugar control (I have no business educating diabetic-dialysis patients on healthy eating habits).

Get stopped for speeding, get out of ticket (wearing scrubs with a Hospital ID and a mention of getting called in for an emergency does have at least this benefit).

Park near the stairs in the garage because I am so going to walk the stairs back up after my shift.

Get report, pull my machines from dialysis room five floors down to ICU, check in with other dialysis nurse, her patient's wife is yelling her husband which is bringing his blood pressure back up to normal range (something about, "if you don't wake up now and talk to me, I will grab your balls and squeeze")...better then any medicine out there! Hook my patient up. Whine via text to brother. Brother texts back that nurses should make so much more money. I agree whole heartedly. Feel better that I'm appreciated, even if it is just my brother and not my patient.

Finish for the day, gossip with other RN for a couple of minutes and am out of there. Get to the parking garage and decide to forget about the stairs (although in my head 'forget' was a different word, also starting with 'F') and took the elevator. There are 6,000 open parking spaces and someone parks so close to the driver's side of my car that I have to crawl into my seat from the passenger side. NOT FUN.

Speed home (because I do not learn lessons very quickly). Did not get stopped. Think to myself that I may still have time to make that banana bread.

Got home to see that Jason finished the pillar-post project. YAY Jason.

Eat dinner at ten. In front of the season finale of Big Love. Wow, did not see that ending coming, even with all the obvious foreshadowing.

Kissed everyone good night and crawled into bed about midnight, with a hope and a prayer that I would not get called in again (I did not even think of the word 'quiet' while hoping and praying).

Banana bread, still not baked...well, Monday is another day -- no call, no work, no excuses (well as of yet).

POTD -- quick dinner...really quick.

2011-03-19T17:28:00.003-06:00

This is one of our favorite oh-my-gosh-I've-worked-10-to-11-hours-met-Jason-at-baseball-where-I-stay-and-finish-watching-Jake-practice-baseball-and-Jason-takes-Isaac-to-Karate-Jake-and-I-go-home-get-dinner-ready-in-time-for-Isaac-and-Jason-to-get-home dinners.

Fish Tacos, super duper easy

or Lazy Fish Tacos

A couple boxes of your fave frozen fish, I use either the garlic herb or lemon herb

A package of corn tortillas

Coleslaw salad mix (without dressing)

Jalapeno Ranch Dressing

Like I said, I'm super lazy, but my friend who is a much better cook, housekeeper, crafter, mom, human being then I am, takes regular ranch and mixes some green tabasco sauce...I think it might be jalapeno juice -- I'm not quite sure, it's green and in a tabasco bottle. I also think she makes her own fish too....wouldn't be surprised if she made her own tortillas, I'd hate her if she weren't my best friend...

Et voila....(Jason likes it with two corn tortillas per taco, me not so much)
The family gives it two thumbs up....and Hannah hopes someone will drop something....

POTD --Busted

2011-03-18T09:00:00.004-06:00

How could such a little cutie like this do anything wrong?

Ah-ha, so busted. She was up on the couch but got her tags snagged on the blanket when she jumped off (most likely when she heard me walking towards the living room). Oh well, at least this time it wasn't eating a whole jar of peanut butter that some child...Isaac...left on the counter, or ripping through a box of kleenix in the back yard, leaving a ton of white wet soggy cold messes to clean up.

Good thing she's cute and lovable.

potd -- time for Botox?

2011-03-17T08:42:00.003-06:00

I don't actually spend a lot of time looking at myself, don't normally wear make up, and when I do, my glasses are usually off when I'm applying and I just see a pleasant haze. Well the other day I caught a look at myself in the rear view mirror and saw how angry I looked, so I tried to relax my expression and all the creases STAYED....AHHHHHH, not only that, little tiny brown specks all over my cheeks, freckles? Do olive-skinned people even get freckles? Is it better to say freckles then say age spots?

So what should it be, micro-derm abrasion, botox, bangs, or whatever else is out there?

And there it is ......... I'm turning into my mother.

potd -- first signs....yay!

2011-03-15T17:37:00.003-06:00

POTD --- Waiting for Spring

2011-03-07T16:12:00.004-07:00

So this is the little garden between my house and our neighbors that I love to plant with an overabundance of flowers. Notice the snow......This is the magazine I just bought for the purpose stated above.
Now, I just need Spring to get here.

Big sigh.

I should write a parenting book.....

2011-03-06T22:15:00.003-07:00

The kids, Jason and I were at Red Robin the other night and Isaac asked Jake for a bite of his dinner. Jake said, "No." Not because he wanted to eat it all, but because he was being mean in that big brother sort of way (which I totally understand because I was mean in that big sister kind of way).

Isaac started to whine (he does it so well, I'm hoping there's a doctoral program for that).

I say, "Isaac, this is your brother's dinner, if he doesn't want to share, he doesn't have to........but...."

Jake's hands clamp down on his ears and he starts singing.

(WTH)

I ask him what he's doing.

"Mom, please, please don't make me feel guilty"

Meanwhile, Isaac gleefully chants, "make Jake feel guilty, make Jake feel guilty"

The four of us cracked up.

Jake gave his brother a bite.....without me screaming, guilting, or threatening

And this is when I realized parenting with sarcasm and guilt does work.

POTD -- I wasn't kidding

2011-03-02T17:03:00.004-07:00

Last week I mentioned that I was getting my tax stuff all together and when I did I would organize it and tab it all out for the accountant, because I'm OCD like that...well I wasn't kidding.

But, yay, tax stuff ready to go! I hope I don't owe (I rhymed, I'm so proud)

POTD -- donations for future orthodontia needs appreciated

2011-02-27T18:30:00.004-07:00

Isaac lost another tooth the other day. He said he was opening one of those bottles that you're supposed to open with your mouth and his tooth flew out.

He didn't believe me that there are no such bottles. Nor did he believe me that you aren't supposed to use your mouth in lieu of any type of tool.

He also mentioned to us that a friend of his told him that you get $15 dollars for your last tooth from the Tooth Fairy. Since this is not going to happen in our house, we tried to convince him that the Tooth Fairy pays kids for their teeth based on the parents' income and maybe her parents were really really wealthy but since we aren't a tooth is only worth a couple dollars at our house (more if it's pulled by a dentist, -- and given the way his teeth are coming in, he may be coming into a bit of money shortly thanks to the dentist -- but still not 15$ a tooth).

And I began to wonder, one: how is this fair (and thankfully, his somewhat A.D.D. -- in the way of most eight year olds -- mind wandered off in another direction and two: how do we get into such discussions?

But what I find amazing is that even though kids compare what they received for Christmas, what they got in their Easter baskets and what the Tooth Fairy leaves them under the pillow, and they must realize there are some serious discrepancies, they still believe. I love that.

POTD -- one of those days

2011-02-26T18:46:00.003-07:00

Had a patient with a blood pressure of 258/127 -- seriously, how he was even speaking to me, I don't know. His only complaint was that he had a slight headache and could I get him some Tylenol. The good news, he was still alive when he left.

Ending my day with a glass of wine...I love these new glasses, one glass is like half a bottle :D It's the same way I drink my coffee...

POTD -- finally cleaned out my closet

2011-02-21T15:30:00.006-07:00

I started this project weeks ago. It's not like it was that difficult. But I think because it was never going to look like one of those awesome California Closets where everything was just so and STAY THAT WAY, I was discouraged before I even started. Today...well today I'm more in a realistic, this is just how it is - mood and I got it done...whoo hoo. I need to stop being perfectionistic about certain things...because it's never EVER going to be perfect and it will most certainly never stay that way!

POTD -- death and taxes

2011-02-16T18:08:00.003-07:00

So people complain about paying taxes...me, well I whine about the paperwork....especially because for some reason I always, always lose some key portion of the paperwork. This year it's my W2s and the giving statement from our contributions to Children's Hospital that I've lost.

And in case you don't already think I'm a freak...when I do finally get it all together, I separate all the sections and tab them out with colorful labeled tabs before I hand them to our accountant.

I know, I know, I need therapy.

POTD -- Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T16:13:00.002-07:00

I have the cutest hubby out there!

POTD -- Isaac's a yellow belt!

2011-02-13T07:19:00.003-07:00

Yay Isaac!

POTD - No one knows how to draw a dog!

2011-02-12T08:09:00.006-07:00

Some of the words we got last night...."interview" - Good Lord, how do you draw "interview"?? (I tried a guy behind a desk...it didn't work). One of the pictures above was Jason drawing the word "contagious", Jay got it just fine (or was it Lindsey, I forgot who was partners with whom at that time), my "contagious" drawing wasn't as descriptive, I think because I drew lines rather then drops.

All of our dogs looked alike and all the dogs looked the same as all of our horses and strangely a lot like Jay's rendition of the United States (he claimed that the "dip" he drew in California was the Baja peninsula, he was just being very accurate)

All in all, it was a wonderful evening of laughter, good food, and wonderful company.

POTD--Hate my pager

2011-02-11T07:18:00.004-07:00

The dreaded pager, I hate this thing. I cringe when I hear beeping sounds, even the beeping sound in my car, indicating my seat belt is not on. When other people's beepers go off I want to hurl something at them (yes, I did get called out last night)

I can't watch Gray's Anatomy any more because their beepers go off ALL.THE.TIME. I swear I have beeper PTSD.

Even when my beeper isn't going off, it weighs heavily on me. I don't want to start a project because I might be called in. I sort of wander around the house in limbo land wondering if my beeper is going off and I have to rush to work.

I love my job. I love helping people. The beeper, is well, a pain!

Thankfully, I have only two more call days in the next two months as I transition into the chronic unit and then I will gladly tie a colorful bow on this thing and return it to my boss.

blog a picture a day challenge

2011-02-10T11:51:00.003-07:00

My friend, Martha, emailed me about a picture a day challenge and it sounds like fun. We'll see if I actually stick with it, especially because it's taken me a month and a half to even start it (to be fair, part of that time was spent prepping for vacation, being on vacation and recovering from vacation....yes, I know you feel sorry for me). So today will be day one of this fun challenge. It's a great way, Martha emailed, and I agree to see what happens in our daily lives.

I call this: WE HAVE A FREAKIN' CLOSET PEOPLE!

my husband cracks me up

2011-02-02T18:39:00.004-07:00

a couple of weeks ago, I had this conversation:

patient: I think there are people staring at me through the window.
me: We're on the umpteenth floor, no one is out there or able to look into the window.
patient: Isn't there a ledge?
me: No, and it's 100 degrees below zero, so even if it were possible, no one would want to because it's so cold.
patient: (doesn't believe me), I'm just going to try and be happy.
me: I think that's a great idea
patient: (starts singing the Don't Worry, Be Happy song and mumbling something about the peas being burned in the oven -- which is crazy talk, because really who bakes peas?).
me: (calls the primary nurse and begs her to bring his psych drugs PRONTO).

I tell Jason this story, he says:

You so should have told him that no one was watching him through the window, because you watch him through the T.V.

Jason makes me laugh ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!

disclaimer: I would never ever never ever in a million years ever say this to a patient....and Jason isn't a nurse so we don't have to worry about him.

Iao Needle, Botanic Gardens, Lanai and our last day

2011-01-29T05:11:00.007-07:00

One of our days in Maui we visited Iao State Park and a private botanic garden on the road to the state park. It was gorgeous, as is everything in Hawaii. First, I am going to bore you with a bunch of pictures of flowers and fruit....but coming from a semi-arid, land-locked, full-on-in-winter state, I just can't help myself.

The pointy mountain (hill, if you're from Colorado) is Iao needle. Such bloody battles fought in such a lush, peaceful area - maybe they didn't get what a mellow relaxing place they were living. I certainly never felt like fighting while we were there.

We had lunch at some indi-pizza place and ordered half our pizza "Hawaiian". Why yes, we did think we were clever.

Lanai

We did a snorkeling excursion to Lanai, although the water was too rough to snorkel there, we ended up back in Maui for that. We were able to spend some time at the tidal pools though and saw an octopus and other neat looking sea creatures.

If you look really closely you can make out one of the octopuses tentacles.

Our last day

We just hung out at the hotel on our last day, Isaac and I at the pool and Jake and Jason Kayaking in the ocean. We barbecued shish-kabobs at the poolside grill that night and watched our last Hawaiian sunset. It really was such a fantastic vacation that had the added blessing of watching Jason's cousin getting married and visiting with his aunt and uncle.

Mahalo