I'm SUPPOSED to be stitching...

I really am.  I keep telling myself I'm going to spend all day stitching while Steve is at work so I can actually make some visible progress on each of the projects I've been plodding away at.

I did have four going.  Then I completed one and got down to three.  Then I found an awesome image that just screamed "Gift me to this person! It was meant to be!".  The image got charted into a pattern and the WIP count went right back up to four.  I showed off my discovery to a friend who mentioned another cartoon character her husband is just nuts over and within two days I had another chart waiting to be stitched.

WIP count: five. 

Of course, I can't do one for the hubby and ignore the wifle-type person, so her gift got tacked onto the back of the list as well.

WIP count: six.

Steve calmly listened to me ramble on and on to myself about the materials that I'm gonna need to round up from their various hiding places in my craft storage corner.  He managed to stifle a snicker when my monologue to myself stumbled into the recollection that another close friend just announced her engagement and will need a sampler before the wedding date they've already set.  He settled in a little too comfortably and watched quietly while I ran myself in tight little circles trying to figure out how in the world I'm ever going to manage to get any of this stuff done before I stress myself into a local asylum.

Eventually I ran out of steam and glanced suspiciously in his direction.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Bullpuckey.  What?"

"Oh I was just wondering when you thought you were going to get around to doing that wedding sampler for us.  Or that haunted house chart you just got.  Or that "really cute" baby sampler you were going on and on about for a newborn that's about to turn four.  Or the Christmas pattern you wanted to design and stitch up. Or that new collection of seasonal roses.  Or the calendar snowmen that were gonna go on an afghan.  Or the-"

"When do you have to be back at work again?"

"Remember, as far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family."

That was printed on a little wall hanging gift a couple at our church gave us a few months ago and it almost applies to our family.

I say 'almost' because it takes less than 15 mins for us to completely shatter any illusions of normalcy. Even our cats seem determined to guarantee we make prime candidates for a Jerry Springer show.  But they're no competition for my offspring.

Let's see. Sarah's in 7th grade now. She's acutely aware of boys and of the fact that they look at her. This, of course, means that the natural course of teen evolution known as 'puberty' had to choose this point in her life to attack in all its oily, patchy skin tone glory. She, predictably, thinks the world has officially ended because her complexion is no longer clear and it's up to me to snap my fingers and fix things.

Sorry kid. If I was able to survive my freshman year of high school looking like Mother Nature had slapped me across the face with a terminal case of chicken pox and a side of the facial measles, you'll manage to get through one grade of middle school with a minor constellation tucked safely under your bangs.

My advice to her has always been "scrub your face twice a day with these facial cleansers and let your skin breathe for awhile." Apparently, when this is entered into the Parent to Teen translator, it comes out as "Slather three inches of makeup over every pore in your face and suffocate the breakouts to death."

"Mom! It's not working! I just found four more zits! OMG!! Kill me now!"

*twitch*



The other day my two little ones started arguing over what to watch that evening. Sarah suggested "Bambi 2" and was met with "Yeah! Let's watch that!" Okay, normal enough right?

A few minutes later, Heather and Sarah were parked on the couch snuffling back tears as the movie rehashed why Bambi suddenly finds himself raised by his father instead of his mother. Hunter was rather agitated as well.

Hunter: "I don't want to watch THIS. I wanna watch 'Bambi'!"
Me: "This is 'Bambi', it's just the second movie."
Hunter: "No! Not cartoon! 'BAMBI'!! Daaaaaaaaad!!!"

Not a cartoon? There's a live action 'Bambi' movie? When did this happen?

Steve came into the room to investigate the ruckus and listened for a minute before this devious little grin snuck across his face and he reached for Hunter's hand.

Steve: "You want to watch 'Bambi', huh? Alright, Buddy. Let's go watch 'Bambi'."

Then they headed toward our bedroom. Ermm... We don't have a DVD player in our room. Confused, I followed along behind them and watched as they settled comfortably on the bed and turned on the TV.

The DVR fired up.
Steve flipped through a myriad of shows that had been recorded while I was lost in my homework these past few weeks.

TV: "Welcome to the latest adventure of Whitetail Hunters of America! Join us as we go in search of our biggest trophy since we started filming our hunting trips!"
Hunter: "Yay! BAMBI!!!"

*faint*

Bappy Hirfday, Studly!

Yep!  It's Steve's birthday today!  He's thrilled.  I think his big plans involve coming home and collapsing with the remote and a pack of hunting shows that were DVRed all week.

At least until I drag him out to softball practice.

He only had one birthday request.  He wants a Tres Leche birthday cake.  Awesome!!

...

What's a tres leche cake?

Look, by now it's no secret that I'm about as domestic as a bulldozer.  So anything that requires more work than upending a premade mix into a bowl and tossing an egg or two in is waaaaay out of my realm of expertise.

No problem.  I can figure this out!

*cough*

I headed off to Wallyworld yesterday to round up ingredients.  The first sign that I'm probably in trouble?  My 4 yr old was holding the computer printout of the recipe and "reading" things off the list.

Would you believe that tres leche cakes apparently have M&Ms, Oreos, and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in them?  Heather was absolutely insistant that they were all included in the recipe.

"See, Mom?  It says right there!  'M and Ms'!" 
"Hmmm... are you sure that doesn't say 'milk'?"
"Of course not!  I read it!  Look right here.  'M' and there's another 'M' over here.  M&Ms!"

And once that was announced Hunter was all over it.  "The M&Ms are over here, Mom!  Let's go get them!"

*twitch*

Eventually I found myself standing in front of the dairy section with the recipe in front of my nose and a thoroughly confused expression plastered all over my face.  The recipe calls for "whipping cream" in one part and "heavy cream" in another part.  Could I find "whipping cream" or "heavy cream"?  Not a chance.  All I saw was 4 or 5 different brands of "Heavy Whipping Cream".  No problem.  I'll call my friends who have all successfully raised full households without any food poisoning incidents. 

Hey, I've only had a couple... and my family still lets me cook.  Once in awhile.  When they're desperate.

*cough*

Would you believe that not a single one of the people I tried to call was available right that second?  I mean, really.  Just because they have jobs and it was right smack in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday... that was no reason to not be waiting with bated breath for me to suddenly have a completely unimportant crisis to drop in their laps.  Honestly.  Some people.

Errr...

So, I guessed and grabbed some stuff and we'll just wait and see what happens when Steve tries a piece of his cake this evening.

Of course a few hours later, when the work day ended, all those friends I'd pestered were finally able to get a breather and call back.  All at the same time.

My sister on one line, a friend on the other line, someone else called in and got routed directly to voicemail, Steve sent a text, and every one of them suddenly got hung up on when I had a typical Kiri moment and hit the wrong button which made my phone vomit and curl up in the fetal position.

Yeah.

Now it's time to get started on the cake experiment.  I'm assured it will all turn out just fine.

Although I'm still a little confused about how the ice cream and M&Ms are gonna handle being baked for 40 mins.

Is the sky leaking?!?

Yeah, it's been that long since we've gotten rained on.  There were even times when they promised we were gonna get rain and we saw the storm clouds coming but then, for some odd reason, the clouds just kinda went around us.  I think we've gotten dribbled on three or maybe four times since June.

So the other night while I was trying to finish up the last of my homework before midnight and Steve was watching his shows featuring the mass slaughter of anything with antlers, there was a bright flash outside followed a few seconds later by this strange noise rumbling around and throughout the house.

Steve:  Did you hear that?
Me:  Uh huh.
Steve:  Could it be?
Me:  More than likely.  Hunter did skip lunch and refuse to eat dinner tonight.  He's probably starving.



Well last night found us in our usual places on the bed:

Me on my side with tax books and charts spread all over the place and a few forms across my lap as I filled them out.
Steve on his side eyeing the clock and wondering if he should take sedatives to help him sleep with the lights on.

He ended up playing games with his phone and at some random point got a weather alert saying we were under a flash flood watch.  Riiight.  At this point, any water dropping onto the ground vanishes instantly as every root system in the county senses moisture two time zones away and attacks. 

I bet if you stood in my yard with a drink and the glass sweated, you'd hear a slurping sound start before the condensation even hit the ground.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you looked down and saw little root ends staring pitifully up at you out of the soil in their best imitation of baby birds expecting a worm.

Anyway...

I got rolled out of bed this morning in the usual fashion,  stumbled upstairs in the dark to chase the two littles off the computers and downstairs for breakfast, and squawked in a most unladylike manner when I spotted three HUGE rats sitting in a line outside my patio door staring inside at my two cats who were sitting on this side of the door staring right back at them.

I brought my pulse back down to a rate somewhere in the triple digits and started toward the bedroom to roust Steve out of bed so he could shoot the economy sized rodents when it slowly dawned on me that I could hear pounding rain outside.

Oh no.  The poor things.

Upon returning to the patio door to take a closer look it became painfully clear that the "rats" were actually three of my ferals sitting in the downpour waiting for me to feed them.

With a perfectly dry shelter lined with warm towels and blankets sitting unoccupied next to them.

Survival instinct my fuzzy patookus.