Dear January

Dear January,

I'm breaking up with you. Seriously, I don't know how we ever thought it would work.  It never does work, and yet we persist every year in getting together and trying to make it work for 31 of the longest days of our lives.

I will not lie, having someone sick for three weeks has not been fun. But the frosting on the cake had to be when my husband had to go to the ER.  You tried to kill him!  Why oh why? (note to the reader: all is well, just a new migraine symptom made itself known, we had to make sure it wasn't something more serious).

 

Then there is pointlessness of snow.  Seriously, in December we can sing about Winter Wonderlands, White Christmases and Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow, but the snow that you bring, January, is just soul sucking, white flecks of horror.  Rain is good.  You can sing in the rain.  Raindrops can fall on your head.  Drip-drip-drop little April showers, oh and you don't have to shovel the rain.

 

Things that saved our sanity though, I give all the credit to my inner Arizonan for this, was the oranges that we ordered.  Sweet Baby James says orange is a happy color ... YES!  Yes, it is!

 

We managed to have some fun with play-doe.

And you can never get enough of building trains.

Still January, I am quite ready to be done with you, because this is where we ended up last night.  Dumping salad in the drawer of potholders.   All we could do was laugh, because there was nothing else left.  I won't even go into detail of how Jeffy managed to smear half a tube of Desitin all over himself, the wall, the dresser, his face ... twice.

I'm counting the days till you go, January, just counting down ... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ... buh-bye!

Till next year,
The Atomic Mom.

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten Round-up

So, it's only been a couple of months since I've written in my family blog. Because you know, family.

I'm busy. They're busy, growing stealthy in the night and getting dirty during the day. I'm tired.

This week was Kindergarten Round-up in our town. Or in the plain tongue -- Kindergarten orientation and registration. If you were wondering, yes I was a little verklempt. We live across the street from our elementary school, which I thought was a good thing, until Wednesday. Then it was a bad thing, because it was the longest, short walk I'd ever taken.

We got there and James buried his face into my side, because he was shy. So many kids, so many things to see, so much noise. Then they invited the kids into the other room to play while they talked to the moms and dads. Bla, bla, bla.  I had to drag him crying home.

I'm mixed about sending my kids to public school. It's irony coming from the school teacher, I realize. With Common Core looming on the horizon, I wonder what my child will or will not be learning, and how much time I will have to spend un-learning all of the stupid crap they want to teach him. I am also not sold on the "full day kindergarten" that everyone seems to have been snookered into. I love my child, and I want him to spread his wings, but not too far, right yet. He's only 5 and still my little guy. I still think 5 year olds need to be at home with their mamas most of the day.

I also worry about things. Like will he ever be able to snap his pants after using the restroom? Will he remember to bring his coat home at the end of the day? Will he be able to get the lid off of his lunch box, and so on. There is also the whole issue of his food allergies. Will he stay safe? If he were to have an exposure, would he know how to advocate for himself, would there be time for him to speak up before his airway closed off? Would anyone else notice if he was in anaphylaxis? How will he learn to stand up for himself when kids make fun of his lisp and speech? And for myself, how will I be able to look out my front window and see the kids playing at recess and not want to just run over and watch him play? Or run over and scoop him up to home.

These are the things I think about lately. It's hard. I know we are supposed to do hard things, but this...is one of the hardest by far...because part of me will always think of him as this little guy...

 

2013 Wrap Up!

It's 10:37 on a Monday night, and I am dead-dog tired, and decided to start my end of the year wrap up post, which I should have written 2 weeks ago, when the Christmas cards went out.

Anyway...it's that life eating me up again bit.

2013 ... it was a year of ...

 

 

  

Turning 40. For both of us. Joseph went first and I followed suit.

Jeffy turned ONE

 

 

 

James turned, FIVE.

 

 

 

And we've been married for TEN YEARS.

 

We traveled to Arizona and Utah (because really where else do we go?)

 

James started preschool in August and is doing quite well with his speech and physical therapy. He should be mostly caught up with his peers by the time kindergarten starts this coming August.

 

 

Our ward was also split this year as well. It's been nice having a smaller ward to attend, and we've seen the growth in our own family and our ward family as a result of this change. It's been good for everyone. Joseph even survived his first tithing settlement as the financial clerk. He's pretty much invincible now.  We call him the "Tithing Whisperer".

 

Joyce won the GRAND PRIZE at the County Fair this year. Feel free to make some of your own Grand Prize Rolls, which are really just Grandma's Ah-mazing Butter Crescent Rolls. Except if you are our friend Jim Langford, then I will make you some.

 

Of course we had lots of life with boys: HERE, HERE (and learn how to get dirt out of anything), HERE, and HERE.

 

For me personally it was a good year. I was able to reunite with The Wilhelminas and I survived a cancer scare, for which I am very thankful.

 

We're glad 2013 is over and we look forward to 2014. We're still here in The Atomic City, tell us when you're in town and drop by for some food and a laugh or two.

Knock the dirt off your socks

I am the mother of boys.

Look at these boys getting dirty!

 

Boys are dirty, gross, little creatures, that, after you clean them up they are dirty again 5 seconds later. Dirty, dirty, little things. You may or may not know about me and dirt. I don't like being dirty or messy. In fact, in preschool I asked for a paint brush during finger paint time. That's me.

I let my garden go fallow this year -- heck who are we kidding, the years I have planted a garden are the years we've had hail of Biblical proportions. I think I'm done gardening for a long while. It's been turned into our own version of The Big Dig. James goes out there most days and digs, makes mud, builds things, buries things and has a very good time. All of this, however, makes him a dirty, dirty boy.  Then there is Jeffy, he just likes to eat his dirt strait up ... bon appetite!  And as much as I try, I can never get the laundry clean, or as clean as I like it, at least. I'm not going to complain about my washer, but I have a front loader and I hate it. It just does not get the job done. I've never been much of a "save the earth" type, but I'm really not when it comes to my laundry. I just want it nice, white and smelling April fresh.

With that said, I began to search for a solution on The Pinterest for my problem. And I found it. Now, I recently remarked that when I see homemade this or that on Pinterest it just does not move me. I'm not going to ever make anything out of wood pallets, a mason jar or make my kids' rooms into some sort of Peter Pan adventure. I'm not that MacGyverish. But what I am going to share with you will revolutionize your white load of laundry, especially if you are the mother of boys (ahem, ahem, pay attention Staci and Jenifer, since you are the other all boys families, in the family)

I found this recipe on a blog called One Good Thing by Jillee. She has some good ideas and this, well, this, like I said will rock your socks off, or at least the dirt of said, socks.

And as a disclaimer, this is for the white load only. She actually calls it
Miracle Laundry Whitener.

 

In your washer, or in my case the kitchen sink fill with HOT water, as hot as you can get it. I also added two boiling hot pans of water, but only add water so that you barely cover the clothes you're going to soak. You want things as concentrated as possible. You will need a wooden spoon to stir at this point as well. I also used a cookie sheet as a lid to keep the heat in longer, and it worked well.

To the HOT water add:

1 C laundry soap (any kind)
1 C powdered dishwasher soap (any kind)
1 C bleach. You can use Clorox or color safe. I used color safe powdered bleach.
1/2 C Borax.

Dissolve that in the water and add your clothing. Let things soak for a minimum of 2 hours, but longer if you can.

Drain the sink and then throw it all in the washer, add the regular amount of soap and wash on hot.

When I started this little project James was very concerned that the clothes were in the sink that, this would make the dishes mad. He however thought it was peachy-keen to stir the clothes.

And what was even peachy-keener was that it worked. I should have taken before and after pictures, but I didn't. But, it worked...IT WORKED! And that is going to save my little dirt hating sanity this summer.

Life With Boys

Here we have our boys watching TV in their clothes basket recliners...because how else would you watch TV?
This morning I put Jeffy in bed with a sleeping James. Jeffy crawled over to James and snuzzed his face right down by James' sleeping face and started to pat-pat and coo at James. It was really sweet.

Then James reached up, got Jeffy in a head lock and flipped him over.

Wrestlemania ensued.

Life with boys.

Upcycled Free Dresser

Remember a while back when I asked for suggestions about this dresser?

Well, thank you all. I did finish the project, although I will admit it was a lot more work than I thought it would be. Honestly, Allyson I do not know how you've managed to re-do so many furniture pieces in your house, other than you have a lot more of something that I don't have -- your inner Martha Stewart?

Here it is before, all stinky from 5 feet away, with smoke. It was also pretty cobwebbish and scary in some of the drawers, but it was and still is a sturdy dresser. This is not your Walmart fall apart furniture.


I set out to un-smoke the thing. Of course, I turned to my good friend, The Google, as to how to do that. There were many suggestions, and many suggestions from you all. I never did get brave enough to buy vodka and make a spray of it. I'm sure it would have worked, but I live in a small town and people talk. So what did I buy instead? Coffee! Yep, I percolated that baby after I washed it with vinegar and water a few times. Now, if you think buying your lady supplies might be embarrassing, try being a Mormon girl and buying coffee for the first time ever, in the only grocery store, in the very small (hydrogen-like) Atomic City. Folks, I have no idea about coffee, other than it's across the isle from the Cheerios and down the shelf from the instant oatmeal. What to do? What do to?

Of course I looked all around to make sure I was all alone in the isle. I sauntered up to the Kroger Value Brand Coffee and chucked a few cans in the buggy and made like a bandit. Until I realized I needed the filter thingys to complete the whole unsmoking project. I knew the filters were near the coffee, but where? Not high, not to the side, but down low. Look at me use my brain. I am amazing, I tell you what.

After the wash and coffee treatment, which was just putting the grounds on the filters in the drawers over nite, it still smelled. Not as bad, but smell it still did. At that point I went ahead and bought a product called KILZ primer -- as in kills the smoke and water damage and whatever other problem you might have in painting something. I bought a quart thinking that would cover the whole dresser and naively thought that I'd be done in 45 minutes.

HA! HA! HA!

That was funny.

A quart of primer only covered the inside of the drawer bays and it took about 3 hours and a trip with James to the ER to finish that. (Remember how he ate what we thought was a poisoned mushroom? Ya, that all happened on the same afternoon). I went back to the hardware store the next weekend and bought 3 cans of the spray primer and continued. Still it was not enough and I bought yet 2 more cans of primer and a gallon of paint for the final coat. Having learned all I needed to learn about refinishing furniture in the priming process the actual painting of the top coat was fairly quick. Rollers. That's all I'm going to say, is rollers. And also, Walmart paint is way the heck cheaper.

Sidebar: There is a big push to shop local by the local merchants. Fine, lower your prices, otherwise I'm still going to find it elsewhere. Because the Walmart custom gallon of paint was $20, whereas the same gallon of paint at the local hardware store would have been $35.

Then I had another scathingly brilliant idea. Of course it was not my own, but inspired by Pam at Retro Renovation and her swanky and cleaver use of vintage wallpapers in her office remodel. I dug some of my vintage scrapbook papers out of the craft box, which was a small journey to the center of the earth, and mod-podged them onto the bottoms of the inside of the drawers.

Observe:






How cool is that? Very. Of course the only people that will ever see those things at all, are us, but we like them.

After three Saturdays of buying and spending and painting the final result was this:


James could not wait to get it in the house and fill it with clothes and stuff. By the way it was heavy and will not move from our second floor till we move from this house. So let it be written, so let it be done.

I don't know if I'll ever try and upcycle a piece of furniture ever again, because let's face it, it would have been less expensive in time and effort to just buy a new dresser, but it was fun none the less. My take away though, is that DIY is easier said than done.

Come Fly With Me!

Joseph told me once, that when he moved here to The Atomic City, and found a desert of young ladies to date, he decided to get his pilot's license and learn how to fly airplanes as a consolation. Instead he got married to me. But Joseph still loves airplanes. He has taught his sons to love airplanes.

Because of that we play airplane in our house. Observe James' airplane. The pillows are the 'inaments'.



This day, James was piloting, Joseph was the copilot and Jeffy was the navigator. James was also talking into a "microphone" on the wall ordering drinks. Seriously, we've been to a drive thru a total of ONE time his whole life. He picked up on that quickly.



We know you have a choice when you fly, so thank you for choosing Atomic Baby airlines!

A Free Dresser that Needs an Idea or Two...

Ya see this dresser? Of course you do. It was free and I want to do something to it. My friend Allyson, over at MVP's of Mesa Town used to to this thing called "Trash to Treasure Tuesday" where in she would feature all the great knick-nacks, doo-dads and furniture she'd upcycle. I was always in awe of her craftiness and her down right creativity, and a bit sad that didn't have the same access to thrift stores in the which to buy the junk to upcycle.

But the other day, the opportunity presented itself...and I got this free dresser and I want to do something with it. Here is the deal...it REEKS like smoke. Seriously, I think the Marlborough Man lived in there, and the drawer fronts are laminate wood (can you sand that?). I want to paint it, but I'm not sure how, or with what, or what color. (And I am going to work on the smoke smell ... apparently coffee grounds are supposed to get rid of the smell -- I'm buying coffee today!! haha, freak out ward members I might run into at the grocery store!)

So here is your mission dear readers ... tell me ... what would YOU do with this smokin' dresser? I'll be working on this over the Labor Day weekend, so post your ideas now, not later!

Opportunity Cost

In economics there is a principle called "Opportunity Cost". It basically means if you have a finite set of inputs or resources you can only make so much of a product or a commodity or produce a set amount of a service. They always use the example of guns and butter in school books. I know! Guns and butter, because you know, those things go together like, guns and butter. I'm sure Frank Sinatra sang about it or something.

In life there are opportunity costs as well. My favorite poet Robert Frost referred to it as "the road less traveled by". The point is, we have choices in life. Some of those choices lead on to other ways, and we will never come back to the choice that presented itself in the first place. You have to decide what is your opportunity cost?

On Saturday a good friend called us, and I answered the phone. He wanted to let us know that a house across the street from him had just gone on the market, and that it would be perfect for us. It is. I looked at it online and earlier today, I went over and peeked in the windows. It is a perfect house. Big enough for us and has all of our absolute musts in a house -- garage, more than one bathroom, many bedrooms, nice yard and the right school boundaries and an extra bonus with tons of built in cabinets and shelves with tulip scalloped moulding. I think I love this house, and I have loved a lot of houses in this town.

Sidebar: The Atomic City is the PERFECT city for a Mid-Century enthusiast such as myself. Everything here was built in the MCM period. All that we need is an avocado green explosion, some Brady Bunch music in the background and town would be perfect. I'll answer your question right now, yes, I would totally love a station wagon right now too.

This is the front ... ce pretty, non?

So I told Joseph about this house. It stressed him out a bit. Things are not as rosy at the lab right now -- thank you President Obama, you are so tremendously awesome! Not even kidding, I can't even imagine where we'd be with out you and your awesome ideas...oh wait, yes I would.

Anyway ...

The questions were many ... will Joseph have a job in January? (SEQUESTRATION! Everyone shout it, SEQUESTRATION! -- if you don't know what this is, I will explain it to you now -- the government is going to go into shut down mode because there has not been a budget passed in THREE YEARS! Thank you Harry Reid, I love you too turd. Less money for an a lab that already has no money). Would we be able to sell our house and get enough out of it? Because like every other American we are underwater on our house, and could we get our current house ready to sell in a reasonable amount of time?

So many questions.

Then yesterday, James was in the back yard playing with some little friends and looked around. I looked around my back yard and thought about all the work we'd put into it and our house and I knew i wasn't done living here .... yet. We still have life to live and memories to make in this house.

There is our opportunity cost. Will the perfect house be there when we are ready? I hope, I pray that a perfect house will be there when we need it. This house was, so I'm going to go on that. But the lesson we take away from this is we need to be ready for when that house does come. We need to start working on our house right now so that in a few months or years when the opportunity presents itself we will be ready. It's kind of like life ... we have to be ready to jump on opportunity when it presents itself, and go our way on way on way, and not worry if we will ever come back to the original choice.

So for now, we're staying put and spiffing up. But I do hope that house languishes on the market for months, so I can buy it ... eventually, some day, soon.

I'm alive, I swear

I'm testing out the new blogger interface...I do not love it in the slightest. And thanks for that great tutorial on it as well.

Remember when life was fancy free and easy? Ya, me too. Things have been really busy around here lately, I have a lot on my plate. I find that most days I'm barely keeping my head above the water.

I am alive and once I find that cord to transfer the pictures off the camera, I swear there will be a good blog post coming.

A Mother of Two

I know each kid you have will be different. I knew that, but these last two weeks have really TAUGHT me that. James was a difficult baby, to say the least. I know it was because he broke his clavicle during birth and that just conditioned him in a bad way. Because he was my only child, he became my "normal". I have to be honest the thought of having another baby really scared me because of my notion of normal. He cried A LOT and didn't eat (he still won't eat), and he wanted to be held all the time, and he couldn't hear for the first year of his life, and the second and part of the third year of his life brought chronic ear infections and a healthy fear of the doctor, people in scrubs and needles. Do you see why I was scared? He still doesn't sleep thru the nite...that's been a really fun thing, which deserves its own post...



Not that James' issues are bad, they are what they are, and they are his and ours to deal with. Jeffrey has been very different. He is quite the mellow fellow...in fact, he reminds me of my brother Dil as a baby. Dil would stretch his arms out above his head like a cat in the sun and just nap away. Mom says I would get up early and drag his car seat into the bedroom, get him out of the crib and put him in the car seat and drag it into the family room and watch Sesame Street together. Mom said, I would give Dil a play by play of what was going on in the episode. I also gave him chicken pox...what I nice sister I am? I know! Jeffrey is that same cat in the sun. However, I've moved on in my viewing preferences. It's Downton Abbey at 1:37 in the morning and I don't give play by plays of the episodes anymore because I have no brain at that time of night with which to narrate the intricacies of the British class system.



Jeffrey likes to eat, and with out a fuss -- oh and he burps like a charm. He also will sleep for hours at a time, which has been nice, even if he has to sleep wedged in my arm pit propped up on pillows with the lights on. I just wish these boys of mine would get their midnight waking times synced up instead of tandem. It would be nice just to take care of everyone at once. I'm sure it's some sort of kid conspiracy for one to wake up exactly 6 minutes after I have settled back into bed from taking care of the other one. Weirdos!!



Jeffrey is only two weeks old, but he has already changed and is growing. At his 2 week check up he weighed 8lbs 2oz, (and I need to mention he only lost 2 oz of birth weight -- I think if I'd carried him to the 40th week, he would have broken my back). He was 21 inches long up from 19.5inches at birth and his head grew a full inch in circumference. All of those things put him in the 44% for weight and the 85% for height. We apparently grow tall skinny boys at our house. Everyone tells me both boys can play basketball. I'd just rather them play the piano.

Tomorrow is my first day flying solo as the mother of two...if you hear a banshee like howling from my neck of the woods, just assume we've gone over the Cliffs of Insanity and please send backup and ice cream.

All hands to frustration...

There was a "all hands" meeting at the Lab yesterday. What this means is the Lab Director holds a meeting and everyone has to attend or listen in their offices on the intranet. In the words of Joseph, "these are never good". Oh and it wasn't. Joseph happened to be near the auditorium where the meeting was being held, so he slipped in to attend. He jokingly said last nite as we ate our dinner, "There was about 600 people in the room. They could have locked the doors and handed out the pink slips right then and there." hahahhaaaaaa.....yes, I just said pink slips too.

So here is the straight poop about what is going to happen. Congress and the Dept of Energy (DOE) who runs the Lab and gives us our budget, have decided to cut the Lab budget, such that 10% of the regular work force will need to be laid off. It's called a "reduction in force" or RIF. Here is a new article about it clicky-click

There was a RIF in 2008, right before we had James no less. Most of the people that left during that RIF were people who just took their retirement, so no one was actually fired. This time around, that is not the case. Not enough people have retired in the last 3 years, so they are going to have to start laying off "regular workers". Regular workers are basically any staff scientist who is not a manager, not a post-doc (starving students who like to starve), not in craft services (janitors and the like) and not in a union. Which means Joseph is part of that group.

There are many reasons our budget is being cut. First, Congress has been ineffective at budgeting money for the last 3 years (See also Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer proclaiming they don't need a budget, but anyway). The Congress cannot seem to pass or even submit a budget in the case of the Senate in a timely manner. This means all government agencies, across the board are subject to operating on what is call "continuing resolution". I'd compare this to getting a pay day loan or using a loan shark. Instead of just passing the budget, we keep taking from lines of credit that we really don't have and we limp along.

Second, the DOE is misguided in its mission. They have been turned toward giving monies to green energy companies like Solyndra. I'm not sure if they've done this willingly or if they've been coerced, but at any rate, money is flowing into private green energy firms as if the DOE were some sort of venture capital firm. It's not, but that does not stop our President and his agenda. I'm fine with green energy being explored and developed -- with private money though. For the price of one Solyndra bankruptcy, we could have had a budget this year. As it stands we are almost half way thru the fiscal year and do not have a budget or money with which to work. Joseph has literally had to borrow and beg for post it notes the last six months. He and his colleagues are really good about helping each other and loaning the materials and equipment they have, but they still limp along. There is only so much you can do with spit, baling wire and chewing gum.

Third, our Congressional representation is totally ineffective. Our member of Congress, Ben Ray Lujan, whose daddy bought him his seat with union money and corruption, is a WASTE OF SPACE! He claims to be trying to "diversify" the Lab's mission, but really that is code for, "I sit on my butt and do what Nancy Pelosi tells me to do". He does nothing, he has not sponsored or co-sponsored any legislation that has benefited his district. He won't even hold town halls and his staff will laugh at you if you call them on the phone. Our Senators are also jokes. Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman fall right in line with Harry Reid's shenanigans and do nothing for the state of New Mexico. At least Pete Domenici (our recently retired Senator) fought for our state, fought for funding and understood the mission of the Lab and how it's tied to our national defense.

And that is what it comes down to. The Lab and its mission are part of our national defense. If you like nuclear weapons are not, that is the truth of the matter. We are at a cross roads, and with this announcement, the powers that be, have made a decision on the direction our nation is going. While the rest of the world arms itself, which is BAD, we will slowly starve ourselves and watch our capabilities die on the vine. We will also lose the knowledge base of the brilliant people of LANL. That is something that no amount of money can replace -- it's food for thought. Somehow our President and his administration and those of his party, have the notion that if we are not a nuclear nation, some how that will inspire other nations into being peaceful. Well, it's not going to happen that way. Personally, I agree with Teddy Roosevelt's policy of "speak softly and carry a big stick". I don't want the US to warmonger and bully, but I also want the US to be prepared and strong!

So what does this mean for your favorite Atomic Family? Like I mentioned, we are potentially on the chopping block. Joseph, however, does not feel panicky or worried about this at all. Nor do I -- because I trust my husband and not my hormones. My panic and worry and ANGER, lies with the situation and the people that created this situation. I have faith that we will get thru whatever happens to us. So, what I'm asking you my dear reader, who is most likely a friend or relation, is to say a little prayer and do a little mitzvah for my family and my town and my friends. We need all the help we can get right now.

The other thing I will say, and I will end with this, and I am totally serious as well...Consider your presidential vote wisely this fall. We are at a cross road and every vote counts. Know the facts, know the people running, what they stand for and who they are and what motivates them.

And with that, I hope you have a fantastic day. :)

Was it Really the Hootenanny I'd Hoped For?

I found my January 1, 2011 post (see HERE) the other day. I re-read it with a bit of laughter and a bit of tears.

Let's ask the question again, shall we? In one word, how do you feel about this year?

Remember how I said, HOOTENANNY?

Oh my gracious, has it ever been -- but not in a fun "let's do it again" kind of way.

I'd give 2011 the award for Celestial Living.

It's been a whirl wind to say the least...

Frozen water heater on New Year's Eve
James in the hospital with croup
My feet in revolt for the first half of the year, with trips to phys-therapy and 4 electro shock treatments
Fire evacuation and not knowing if we'd have a home to come home to.
A very much wanted baby on the way, but oh-the-humanity-was-I-sick for-that-first-part.
My child turning into a full on TV addict


And I will stop there.

But there were some good parts...

I got to see WICKED finally.
Many tender mercies shown to us during our times of trials.
Not going to 20 year high school reunions and realizing that you are totally ok with that, and probably always were.
James learning how to talk...and become my best helper.
A new brother on the way.
Cars that work and a house that didn't burn up.
Joseph doing everything that I can no longer do for myself.

And the list could go on...

So here we are on the verge of 2012. I'm not sad to see 2011 go. I have no word for 2012 yet, perhaps I won't need one if the Mayans were right?!

The Great Grammar Debate of 2011

Joseph admits he didn't learn much as a pupil in the Auburn Washington Public Schools back in the day. I know this because he and his mom have told me tales of redoing school most days around the kitchen table. It's truly sad what he "learned" in the public schools there.

One thing that he says he never understood was the difference between adjectives and adverbs. We've been working on that lately, thanks to James' love of School House Rock.

Adjectives describe people, places and things, whereas adverbs are words that modify the verbs; and predicates are two part phrases with a subject and a verb that tells what the subject does.

For your ease and enjoyment the School House Rock songs, which have recently taught us about our parts of speech. I'm so nerdy, these make me giddy. Yes, I loved diagramming sentences in junior high school English, and high school German and MTC Bulgarian.....LOVED IT!

Unpack your ADJECTIVES:


Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here:


The tale of Mr. Morton tells us about subjects of the sentences and what those sentences do, or the predicates:


I just might have a little crush on Mr. Morton...but who's paying attention. Gramaticate on Americans, it's important we don't sound like a bunch of hayseeds.

Operation Dinner

I hit 20 weeks of pregnancy last week. It seems like I've already been pregnant a million years, and although I know March will be here before I know it, it still seems like a million years to go.

I don't know why it suddenly hit me last week, I have no meals frozen at all....but it did. I guess better it hit me now rather than later when I really am huge and can't really move around. I already have to have James pick up everything off the floor for me, and I am no longer allowed to do house work per Joseph's orders.

I was feeling very overwhelmed with the whole though of cooking and not having anything to eat, so I said a prayer and it all became very clear what I needed to do. I sat down yesterday and made a plan. I made a plan to make 40 meals in the next two or so months so that I have meals frozen for whatever might come our way. It's ambitious I know, but as I sat and looked at my list of things to make, it all became clear how to do it all and make it all and freeze it all.

Here is what I plan on making:

Split pea soup (Dear Piggly-Wiggly, you need to have another ham sale soon)
Creamy crock pot chicken (made that last nite)
Baked Parmesan chicken breasts (made that Monday)
Beef & pepper stew
Chicken enchiladas
Lasagna
Spaghetti
Taco meat
Whole chicken and pork roasts for BBQ or green chile
Beef Stroganoff in the crock pot (or the Pat-Pat as James calls it)
Swiss steak in the Pat-Pat
Angel Chicken & pasta -- found on a freezer meal blog
Philly cheese steaks
Red enchilada casserole -- Thank you Neighbor Juila
Spinach bean soup

The plan is this -- I will make the meals by main ingredient. So this week, I'm going to buy a bunch of ground turkey (because I don't like hamburger necessarily) and cook that up. The following week I'm going to do the chicken dishes, and then the beef and pork. I figure if I make a big family sized meal and save half we'll be good. Speaking of, I need to get some more containers for the freezer.

I also plan on doing a major trip to Trader Joes and cleaning out their freezer section of premade meals -- Teriayki BBQ Chicken anyone?! Oh and the Rhodes Rolls. I know at one time I was the only person in America that could and did mess these up, but I've figured it out. We're going to have some of those on hand....frozen bread dough, can't go wrong with that, I hope.

I know, some might say just don't worry and get take out. I just can't do that for several reasons. One, in The Atomic City there are not many dining out options that do not include a drive thru. The Atomic Family does not do drive thrus, ever (well not ever, but very rarely). Second, I've always felt that my ability to cook healthy and hot meals is one of the greatest contribution I can make to our family economy. I want to keep doing that as long as I can. Third, I just can't stand the thought of my boys eating toast and cereal, although Joseph assures me that he and James would be totally keen with that. I know they would as well. Baby James loves a "Tooost!" I however would get real board, real quick with toooost.

Operation frozen dinner commences today at 13:00 hours. Wish us luck.

The Doors

We've officially lived in our little old house for 8 years now. As you recall, we've redone the bathroom and the the windows, the yard and various odds and ends. We have not tackled things like painting large spaces of walls or anything, I'm waiting for Matt Brinton to franchise his painting business to New Mexico...what about it Matt?

Yesterday we got our outside doors replaced. Now the doors match the windows and everything is nice and airtight and not drafty. Bring on that cold weather. Ok, not really, but you know what I mean. I'm just happy I don't have to get out the door snakes this winter.

So here are some before pix:

The front door.

with the "lovely" Mother Goose screen door, which was full of holes and totally worthless.

The kitchen door. Notice someone cut a dog door, and then someone else tried to fix it. It's been a real treat in the winter to stay warm on the other side of this door because of it.

The backdoor. I have always had this fear that Baby James' head would go thru the panes of glass in this door. It's a pretty door but unfunctional. Oh, and did I mention it grew fantastic ice crystals in the winter? Ya, it totally did.

New door, with new screen. The screens are actually called "storm doors". The top glass comes down and pulls a screen with it. So we can have the doors be screen or storm.

The kitchen door. The glass in the top has an adjustable mini-blind inbtween panes of glass. It goes up and down and then the blinds also bevel up and down. Very nice, and never has to be cleaned! Super-extra-bonus!

The backdoor. It's the same door as in the kitchen. Currently, it's open and the screen on the storm door is open as well. Lovely natural light is pouring in, the bugs are staying out.
Super-extra-non-stop-bonus!

Now I did get a small whiff of sadness as I looked at the old doors sitting on the back porch this morning. I just thought of all the times we've walked thru those doors. But the new doors are way better. The only thing is we need to get a new door bell. I only wish they sold the Bulgarian-whirly-bird door bells, those would make it all perfect.

PS, if you're really wondering what I'm thinking about prez-politics right now, I posted as much on Atomic Pop

Catching up on Monday

I promise to get back to our regular snorts, farts and giggles tomorrow. Oh wait, that should not have said fart. Mother always said it was "passing gas". What can you expect from the only kid in America that flunked typing? And that is totally not a lie.

On Sunday nights I sit down and make a schedule of the week on a piece of paper. I then tack it up to the cupboard doors so I can see it. Most of the time I don't get around to Monday's stuff till Thursday and so on...

Today is Wednesday and it's already been a crazy week. I don't think I'm going to get to much this week. I'm tired.

Sunday night James was not feeling well. As in, 102.5 degree fever not well. It was also 102.5 degrees in our house. Or at least it felt like that. Honestly, the coolest place in the house was on his bed. His twin bed with a kid mattress. I ended up in there with him, sleeping all weirdo on the blanket and pillows, and come to find out, EVIL EMPEROR ZURG. No wonder I had a head ache on Monday. The solution? Go buy lip stick from my dealer Mary Kay lady.



I admit, I might have a problem hording lipstick. When they find my dead, half cat eaten body, it will be next to my drawer of lipstick.

The other thing is that it's been very smoky here. I'm very serious about that. Apparently Arizona has caught on fire and we're down wind, or upwind or something. The sun sets have been very "end of days" the last few nights.



The manager at Target was FREAKING out about it yesterday. And if you're wondering, I did tell him, "THE END IS NEAR!" on the way out. The look on his face was priceless.

Oh, but Capitol City....we have to talk...but not today. I have to catch up on Monday right now.