Hyperbole and a Half: Productivity Chart

I was introduced to Hyperbole and a Half today.

I thought this chart was stellar.

Our Stove Exploded

So I said I'd give an update this week, but wow.  We're getting ready to go to Nebraska/Colorado next week (we are flying) and we'll be gone for two weeks and I feel like there are a million things to get done.  None of them the house stuff that should also get done.

So what have I done this week?  What--is it really Thursday?  Okay, so even though this might sound stupid, spent the better part of Monday price-checking glasses and exam options.  My brain was frazzled and I met Matt for dinner that night with the kids.  Tuesday I dropped Matt off at work, went to a play date, got some hamburger split up, made dinner, and whatever, called and got my newspapers delayed, etc.  Wednesday was appointment day.  An Ella checkup.  The eye doctor.  (My eyes have improved for the last 3 years = having kids improves your eyesight.)  Shopped for a bathing suit.  :S

Today.  Trying to get stuff for the MOPS group I AM STARTING--AHHH! taken care of before we leave.  I feel like I'm missing a big chunk of time and when I get back there will need to be speakers in place and a Steering Team to support me, another etc.  And I got mail held, etc., (oh, and did a little splashing in the kiddie pool out back) and... called about THIS:

Yeah.  That happened while I was gone last night.  Matt says he didn't set the skillet down overly hard at all.  It was slightly at an angle and yeah.  So.  Don't you love those things?

Okay, so this was written really fast.  And I CANNOT guarantee I will post again until well into July.  Ight.

Blog Purpose

I guess I've avoided the actual purpose of the blog since creating it.  The idea is that this outlet can become a sort of accountability to my role as housewife/stay-at-home mom.  And yet, I don't want to be judged.  I don't want to fail.  (Or at least not publicly.)  So I've sort of put it off.

It hasn't been entirely intentional.  I want to figure out a good way to do this.  Post a goal for each day?  For the week?  And then follow up?  But then I've had a lot of days that I felt were bust days where I went to a play date or something has taken the morning and then I feel drained and feel like that was my exertion for the day.  Or days when I do the dishes!  But I don't want to sign on just to be like, "Monday--I did the dishes!" or  "Tuesday--I did the dishes!" to the chagrin of each and every reader that is like, "Really?  Your husband is working hard for your family and you did one load of dishes with your day?"  But guess what?  On Thursday I did two loads of dishes!  (Really.)  But, yeah, I feel embarrassed to publicly announce I am happy about that. 

So maybe I need a starting point here.  First of all, I really enjoyed my blog on Xanga back when I was a single gal.  And I was all pining and clever and it was all intrigue and drama and future husbands and driving my Pontiac fast.  Really exciting stuff.  And I went to school for my teaching certificate and worked at the Olive Garden.  That's right, power to the danger zone.

So then my little girl prayers for my husband came true.  And my five years of prayer about Matt were miraculously granted.  And God, for whatever reason, chose to bless me so abundantly.

But I still have the same strengths and weaknesses I had as a single person.  And I have never been one for chores.  And I do not enjoy watching little kids.  I've had friends work at day cares and I would hate that job.  I mean, the kids would be happy and fed and alive and I would be staring at the clock on the wall.  So I have my own children.  Who I love.  And I do not want someone else to raise them.  But I don't really know what to do with them all day either.  --By the way, if anyone has some lesson plans for toddlers they could send my way, that would be awesome.--

As for my housewifeyness, I hate to admit it, but, one chore a day does make me proud.  (Not counting laundry--I get the laundry done.  Well, but only the kids' clothes get put away.  We still need to get the giant pile of clothes our kids dumped in our bedroom when we moved put away--oh, yeah, that's right we moved in December and it's still there calling to us each night as it waits for us to go bed.)  And I've even doubled up on things a few days this week.  But on other days, I maybe accomplish nothing.  So I want to be really honest here.  And I want to keep track of any progress I'm making.  And some of my recent momentum could be because, I don't feel pregnant right now!  (I dance around the house sometimes because I have no giant belly and I feel unpregnant.)   But even not-pregnant Shilo is not WonderWife Shilo, so here it goes.  I've got to be posting about housework here.  Because the World Wide Web is totally like, "Hey, man, no judgement here."  Hah!  And, yeah, the Internet totally just sounded like Paul Walker in my mind right there.

So, planning on some chore-oriented posts in the weeks ahead.

P.S.  I LOVE the whole, "But you have 3 kids" or "You're doing good for having 3 kids" or "Yeah, but you're so busy with 3 kids" comments I get, but seriously, if I wasn't me, I'd be getting more done.  Regardless of my three babies.

Carnivore

Digging in our fridge, I found a half rack of ribs wrapped in foil.  A half rack of ribs that I thought Matt had taken to work and eaten weeks ago.  And I couldn't just throw away ribs!  They looked okay.  They didn't smell bad.  And they had been rubbed in salt, just like prairie meat of old.

So I just ate them.  I was going to compromise by not eating the outer rib on each side.  Assuming if there was bacteria, it would have had more surface area on the ends.  But when I got done with the middle ribs, I couldn't resist the outer pair.

Now it's in my head that I'm sick.  And I'll have to drink some Coke to kill any other bacteria that could be in my stomach.  ;)

T-Rex--ROAR!  I'm a tyrannosaurus.
I'm the biggest carnivore in the Cretaceous forest.

Yeah, that's right.  Dinosaur Train.  Represent.

Diaper Bouquet

I found three Size 1 diapers, so I thought I'd try to make diaper flowers for Lauren's shower.  But when I decided to purchase a package of diapers, I decided to stick to the flower idea.

I "repurposed" this old pot that had long since served its purpose.  It was in the kids' sandbox and probably would have been thrown away if we ever moved.  So I cleaned it out--tried to get all of the sand out and ended up chipping it in two places.  (Sorry, Lauren.)  :S  Then I painted it blue, lined it with a sheet of cellophane, tucked in the extra, and proceeded to fill with diapers.  There are approximately 50 diapers in this pot.  I didn't secure them at all.  As I built the bottom layer, I occasionally re-rolled a loose diaper and in the end, the tight packing of the bottom layer held them in place.  There are about 3 layers of diapers in this pot--the tightest being the base layer.

And then Lauren's shower was today and it was great fun.

And Lauren got to stop and smell the diapers.  Like she won't be doing enough of that soon.  ;)

Walkie Talkies

I tried to talk my husband into these.  They're $12.71 with free shipping if you use coupon code "MA1GP".  Our trip back to Nebraska is in a few weeks and I pictured how awesome we would be wearing these the whole time.  Even more awesome is the antenna that you have to extend to receive the signal.  I pictured the photos, the "overs", the awesome awesomeness that would be our quick walkie talkie communication.  But alas, no go.

Adoption Thursday

I'm subscribed to the RainbowKids email list and look forward to seeing their newsletter in my inbox each week.  I look at waiting children and pray for them.  And I love to read adoption stories.  This one, written by a girl adopted from Korea, made me cry.  I also stumbled upon See Jamie blog. and loved reading about the adoption of their daughter, Lindsey.

I don't know if we'll ever adopt someday.  But I think about it.  And I pray about it.  Which is maybe a little odd since we have three kids under three and now is not the time to throw a fourth into the mix.  But maybe someday.

And I just had a thought today that I'm going to go ahead and share, though it's a little embarrassing.  This last week, things with Kali have been more and more difficult.  I really need to do some research on the best way to squelch her fits now.  Matt tries to assure me that things were difficult with Titus around this time and that Titus used to throw lots of fits, but here is the difference:  Okay, maybe Titus threw lots of fits (I don't really remember), but he could get over them.  Kali will throw one fit and NOT get over it.

I'm surprised by how difficult the last few days have been.  Yesterday was good--throughout the day I complimented her for not throwing fits, tried to remind her that she was going to be good and not have fits as she started to throw one, and at one point reminded her to use words and say "Mommy" when she needed me instead of making one of her growly-screechy noises.  And it seemed to work.  But today we're back to these long, hysterical fits that I don't think will end.

And as I read a few adoption stories, I realized something that frightened me.  If Kali was adopted, I would think she had all kinds of issues.  I would think that this behavioral acting-out was a result of her being adopted.  So it was really a wake-up call that if we ever do adopt, I need to remember this, and first look to the mere fact that the child is a child before jumping all over difficult-adoption explanations.

Half-Muggle Meatloaf

I don't really like cooking.  It would be awesome if I did, but I don't.  I am most motivated to cook, though, when trying a new recipe.  Maybe it's because as it is, I don't know that many recipes and the ones I do know get old fast.

So be proud of me, for today, I made dinner.  I love cooking in crockpots--I know, I know, that sounds contradictive.  So anyhow, I was going to make a recipe from this FREE cookbook I got from Amazon for my Kindle app, but I realized we were out of milk.  (The girls who were with me last night when I asked my husband if I could wait a day to buy milk can laugh at me now.)  So I searched through another free cookbook from Amazon (sorry, it's not free anymore), called "Circle of Friends Cookbook:  Meatloaf Recipes" and found a recipe that jumped out at me because it called for redskin potatoes.  I usually have red potatoes, because I like them a lot and heard once that they have more nutrients than the brown ones.  Don't even know if it's true.  So I threw some hamburger into the microwave to defrost and began to make "Slow-Cooker Magic Meatloaf."  Here is what I actually made:

Half-Muggle Meatloaf

2 lbs. ground beef
1 egg, beaten
1 c. water
yellow mustard
Worcestershire sauce

2 pieces of toast scraped for breadcrumbs
.87 oz. packet of gravy mix

a few broccoli florets
6 to 8 redskin potatoes

1.  Mix all ingredients except potatoes in a large bowl.  

As I began to throw my ingredients together, I first realized that this "magic" recipe also called for milk.  I don't know how I missed it before.  I was already defrosting hamburger and decided that milk probably wasn't as important for this recipe as it was for the last one.  I reinforced this idea by checking the gravy packet and verifying that it calls for water.  So first, milk was replaced with water.

To make magic meatloaf, you also needed to chop a half cup of each green pepper and an onion.  I do not typically have either of these things and figured we would survive without the green pepper.  I did have one ridiculously old onion, though--I think from whenever Matt's dad visited last and fajitas did not get made.  The bell peppers had long been thrown away, but whenever I opened the crisper drawer to peak at the onion, he happily smiled back at me, as normal as an onion should be.  So I thought, "Sweet, onions last forever in the fridge just like apples."  Umm, but I cut it.  And it was laced with a cool color, so it would seem, onions do not, in fact, last forever.

I turned back to the fridge in search of alternate produce and glimpsed a bag containing what I suddenly thought was a green bell pepper, never truly thrown away from the unmade fajitas, and miraculously still alive.  But it was broccoli.  And so, I grabbed a few broccoli florets, chopped them finely, and threw them into the bowl.

As for the gravy, I had some free packets from couponing and opted for the 30% less sodium packet.  I like using the fat-free, less-sodium, sadly-doesn't-taste-as-good ingredients for cooking, because then it's healthier and you don't notice.  

At this point, I really feel like I'm skimping on the meatloaf, so I throw a bit of Worcestershire and mustard in for good measure.  Also, magic meatloaf needs 1 1/2 tsp. of salt, but I figured my condiments covered that.  And because I didn't have any saltine crackers, I toasted 2 slices of bread, scraped them for bread crumbs and crumbled the last few pieces into the mix.

2.  Mix well and form into a loaf;  place in a lightly greased slow cooker.

3.  Arrange potatoes around meatloaf.

4.  Cover and cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours, or on high setting for 3 to 5 hours.

And I get paranoid about drying things out, so I added about a 1/4 cup of water over the potatoes.

I was surprised by how good it was!  I don't even really like meatloaf.  And maybe that was the key, by using gravy, this was unlike any meatloaf I've had before.  I assumed the potatoes would get some yummy meat flavor, but was pleasantly surprised by the flavors the potatoes added to the meat.

And here is the kid stamp of approval.  On the meat, not the potatoes, though.  They're not really potato eaters.  But... they're not really broccoli eaters, either, and secretly they got a little tonight!