How to follow a recipe

I'm sure this will surprise you, but I have trouble following a recipe.  It's not that I can't follow the recipe exactly.  I can.  I can make chocolate chip cookies that are to die for.  Seriously, you will eat one and come back begging for more.  I just made some for work at Christmas time and I was handing them out in the hallway to some people I did not work with directly.  A few minutes later we get a knock on our office door and it was one of the employees begging for another cookie.  And I follow the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips exactly.  But I digress.

Most of the time recipes are a little difficult for me.  One of the problems is there are a lot of ingredients I don't like to eat, such as tomatoes, onions, peppers and the like and so when they are in a recipe I just substitute them with mushrooms.  Because I really, really like mushrooms.  It usually works, but salsa comes out a bit differently...not sure why.

Another problem is I have a hard time believing recipes.  I often think if a little of an ingredient is good, then more must be better.  Or I just skip ingredients I don't have on hand figuring they weren't that important anyhow.  Or the recipe jumps around on the page and I start making the next recipe down.  So I will be making brownies and then start adding in the ingredients for lasagne.

The last problem is I prefer not to use a recipe at all.  I have a theory that if you like everything you put into a dish, then it has to come out tasting yummy.  Which it actually often does, but sometimes it doesn't work so well.


Take today as an example.  It's my husbands birthday today (happy birthday sweetie...hope I am spoiling you enough).  He loves my chocolate chip cookies (see above).  And he loves chocolate ice cream.  And he might have mentioned that homemade ice cream sandwiches would be super yummy for his birthday.  And I agreed.  So I decided that is what I would make today.

No need to look up a recipe...I got the cookie part down, and I know how to buy chocolate ice cream so this was a no-brainer right?  I was so sure of myself I didn't even bother to look at Pinterest first.  I almost always at least look there and then do my own thing, but I was confidant.  So I made the cookies.  Now when I said I make incredibly yummy chocolate chip cookies, what I really meant is I am really good at getting out all the ingredients while my husband actually makes the cookies.  And then I am really good at spooning them on the pan to cook.

I forgot about that part today and they did not look like they always do when they come out of the oven.  In fact they were very small and thick, not large and kinda flat like usual.  Now remember I was using them to make ice cream sandwiches so small and thick was not the preferred type of cookie I was going for.  But I tasted a bunch to make sure they were edible and they still tasted wonderful so I would make it work.

I was running out of time so I let them mostly cool down and got out the ice cream.  I tried spooning some ice cream on the cookie and it wasn't going so well so I decided to melt the ice cream just a bit and stir it all up and then it plopped on the cookies very nicely.  I put on a second cookie, wrapped it in waxed paper and popped them all in the freezer.

I was so proud of myself for pulling this off and could not wait for dinner to be over to surprise my husband.

The time was here and I pulled out my masterpieces.  My son opened his up first and his comment was, "Is the freezer working?  Mine is all melted."  Well that is not what a master chef wants to hear when she unveils her amazing dessert.  I knew the freezer was working so something else had to be the matter.  When everyone had the same dilemma my sweet husband inquired if I had let the cookies cool all the way before I put them together.  Perhaps the ice cream had melted out of the center of the cookies.

Hmmm...well maybe I meant to make frozen chocolate chip cookies soaked in chocolate ice cream.  They were still super yummy, although incredibly messy.

Happy Belated Christmas

Every year for as long as I can remember I have sent out elaborately awesome Christmas cards.  When I only had one kid I lovingly hand stamped each one.

Then I had a couple more kids and started coming up with creatively cute cards that included I spy and crossword puzzles that intertwined tidbits from our year.

More recently as I've been in school I have been sending the typical photo card, but at least I designed them myself in photo shop and still included a Christmas letter.

Then came this year.  I had great intentions.  I was going to do a cute card based on my blog.  I had it all planned out...in my head.  I was going to do it right after Thanksgiving.  But I work now so it would have to happen on the weekend.  No problem, I had plenty of those before Christmas.  So the weekend after Thanksgiving we got to go on a short trip to visit friends in Florida.  Lots of fun, I even got a surprise graduation party, but no Christmas card creating.

The next weekend I got sick...horribly, terribly sick.  The lay on the couch and watch movies all weekend kind of sick.  I didn't even think about Christmas cards.

Next weekend...we had the kids, first time in 3 weeks we had the kids for the weekend and again fun was had instead of Christmas cards.

All of the sudden it was the weekend before Christmas.  When did this happen?  I still had presents to wrap and throughout the month I had been transforming my craft room into a cute future counseling office.  So, for the first time in as many years as I can remember...no Christmas cards were to be sent.  So instead I offer you this:

Happy Belated Christmas from our family to yours.

And as an extra bonus...here is what our Christmas letter might have said:

Dear Friends and Family,

Hope your year has been as fantastic as ours has been.  Because we are the most organized and put together family you have ever laid eyes upon we have accomplished much this year (if by much you mean our children are still alive and well and we haven't burned the house down).

Husband got promoted and now owns Home Depot.  I know it looks like he still works in the stores, but he doesn't like to brag and show off, so he pretends he is a supervisor in love with his job.  He has been working out this year and can pick up a small car and throw it across the street.  The neighbors for some reason haven't loved this, but I think it's handy for that annoying neighbor who loves to park right by the stop sign.

I started running this year and have broken all sorts of records (such as being able to run a mile faster than the fastest snail).  I graduated and now run a psych hospital (again no bragging so it appears I work there part time as a lowly therapist).  I continue to run her taxi service with help from loving husband.

Oldest daughter graduated high school and decided Texas was not big enough for her, she has taken over North Carolina.  She almost passed her drivers test on the first attempt, but decided driving was too mainstream.  Why drive when you can walk somewhere.  She too has picked up running and has broken some records herself (such as running a longer distance in a day than a turtle).

Son has become a pro-bowler this year.  He consistently breaks new records himself (such as getting a higher score than his little sister every.single.time.)  He also played a starring role in the high school musical, Annie.  He was in charge of scurrying up the stairs as they rolled them off the stage in order to lift up the curtains.  The show would not have happened if it had not been for him.

Youngest daughter has become an engineer this year.  She has built amazing towns, pools, amusements parks and the like (in Mine Craft).  She also was prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse due to her hours of training (in Mine Craft). 

The cats continue to puke and pee on the carpet in a talented manner.

We have traveled to many exotic destinations (and by exotic I mean we left our neighborhood).

So for the two of you who are not on Facebook and hadn't already seen pictures of all our amazing accomplishments, we hope you enjoyed reading about how fantastic we all are :P

Merry Belated Christmas!!  And may your new year be more focused than mine will be.

Running Away

Recently I've decided I want to be a runner.  It doesn't matter that I've never been able to run more than one minute straight my entire life.  I've seen all sorts of my friends pictures on Facebook of them running in races and I wanted to do that.  So my mind was made up and I download a couch to 5k program and started.

The first day I had to run one minute stretches about 6 times with walks in between.  I thought I was going to die.  Literally, right there...in the gym...on the treadmill.

But I was determined.  So I kept going and discovered I liked running outside lots better than on a treadmill.  I also found a podcast I loved to listen to and looked forward to my runs because I got to learn all sorts of useless information.  The podcast is called Stuff You Should Know.  If you ever wanted to learn about everything from how the Autobahn works to how acne works give it a listen.  I would come home every day and enthrall my family with new information.

And before I knew it I had finished the couch to 5k program.  I was running for 35 minutes straight. (Go me!)

So I signed up for a race.  Which I ran a couple weeks ago.  My goals were to run the entire race and not come in last.  Both of which I accomplished.  Although the 60+ race walker left me in her dust.

The big race was on a Sunday and Tuesday was the next day I ran again.  (Us runners need to take a rest day after the big race you know...or as in my case I was too busy to run Monday).

I've decided to train for a longer distance so I ran about 4 miles.  I could have kept going but I had to pee something ferocious.  So I ran to the house.  When I got close to the house the need to pee intensified greatly.  For some reason our bodies say, "hey, we are about to get to a toilet...lets see if we can make our human pee her pants instead."  I get to the door and it's locked.  My oldest had left for work and locked me out.

No worries, we often leave the back door unlocked.  Nope...for once we were on top of security and it's locked too.  I glance around at my back yard wondering if I'm desperate enough. 

Nope not yet, I go to my neighbors house.  No answer.  I'm dancing like it's 1999 and must look pretty silly.  They probably didn't answer the door because they saw some crazy dancing chick doing the I have to pee dance on their porch.


Then I realized my friend across the street was home from work today becuase she had two sick kids.  I bolt over there and ring the doorbell not caring that I am probalby waking up her sick children.  No answer, but I know she's home so I start pounding on the door.  She calls out a little freaked out that she will be there in a minute.  I don't have a minute, so I yell to her that it's just me.  She answers looking like I had awaken her from a deep sleep, for which I feel very guilty, but I almost trample her over getting to her restroom.


Finally sweet relief.

Now to tackle the next problem.  I have exactly 45 minutes to get myself presentable for a job interview.  I'm currently a sweaty mess and my daughter is at work, luckily only a half mile away, but I'm not figuring out how I am going to run over there quickly (after just finishing the longest I have ever run in my life) and get back and shower and get ready for this important appointment.  Luckily I have an awesome friend and she offered to let me use her car.  Her exact words were, "I trusted you with my child (I watched him last week for all of 30 minutes), I certainly can trust you to use my car."  I thought that was really sweet.

I run into the big box store that my daughter works at and I'm all sweaty and such and ask everyone where she is.  They eye me suspiciously like I'm a crazy person but they tell me where she is at.  At the far end of the store of course.  More running and I'm able to get the key and get home. 

Luckily this story has a happy ending, I got to the interview on time...got the job and lived happily ever after...The End!!

Game Night

Our family loves to play games.  Let's see if there is anyone else out there that enjoys the same type of games we seem to.

We love to play Stack all the Dishes as High as Possible in the Sink Until they Fall Over game. 

The rules go something like this...
-If dishwasher is full of clean dishes, put dirty dishes in the sink.
-If dishwasher is full of dirty dishes, put dirty dishes in the sink.
-If dishwasher is empty, put dirty dishes in the sink.

Keep piling up the dishes until something breaks.  First one to give in a put them in the dishwasher loses.


Another game we like to play is Drop Everything on the Floor the Moment You Walk in the Door. 

Here is how you play this one...

-Walk in the house...immediately drop everything on the floor. 
-Get a point for normal items dropped including backpack, jacket, and shoes. 
-Get an extra point for unusual items such as baggies full of smashed goldfish crackers, notes from mom to the school that should have been turned in last week and collections of acorns gathered from the playground.
-Bonus points awarded to the person who can make mom trip over their stuff the most times in a day.
-Person with the highest number of points when mom flips out and demands the floor be cleaned up wins.


And our favorite game which is Walk Around the Cat Puke and Pretend You Didn't See it so You Don't Have to Clean it Up. 

The way you play this one is:

-Notice cat puke on floor
-Walk over or around it
-Person who finally gives up and cleans it up loses (I lose this one every.single.time)

So what is your families favorite game?

Time

I have an on again off again relationship with time.  I think it's a combination of my ADD mixed together with my upbringing all stirred together in a complicated time soup.

I know for some people with ADD/ADHD they cannot get to a place on time ever.  My oldest daughter for example really struggles with time.  If you say we need to leave at 4:00, she interprets that as maybe she should start getting ready at 4:00ish.  She doesn't do it to be rude...it's just how her mind works.


For me it's more complicated than that.  I learned early on in my childhood that being on time was life threateningly vital...if I was late to something, humanity as we know it would be lost forever. 

So, as you can imagine, my family was very early to a lot of things.  I have lots of memories of helping to set up events.


Fast forward 30+ years and you can imagine the struggles of a mom who had an animal like instinct to being early and a daughter whose idea of early was not missing the entire event.

Then add a couple more kids to the mix and my general dislike of setting up and the idea of time gets more complicated.  I'm always trying to figure out things like:  What time to I need to leave in order to get there after several other people have arrived so I don't have to set up.  How long will it really take me to drive there (for some reason I always forget I don't have a flying car and traffic could be an issue)?  If I say I want to leave at 4:00 what is the likelihood of everyone coming with me being ready at 4:00 and did I take into account the time I would need to go back in the house several times for items I forgot.

You put this all together and I started being late to events which triggered anxiety deep within me.  All the way to the event I would stress and yell at traffic and generally not be very much fun to be around.  I'd arrive all stressed out and be mad at myself for being late.

So I have learned to adapt over the years.  But one thing I still do is manage to pack my schedule too tight on some days.  I'll have an appointments throughout the day and someone will ask me to do something and I'll say, yes, I have 35.6 minutes free, sure I can do that.  And then it will take 41.2 minutes to accomplish and I'll be a ball of stress because the rest of my day is thrown off.  A perfect example of that would be my wedding day which I will put into it's own post...simply because I think it deserves it :-)

The last ingredient that goes into my time soup is distraction.  I will have a schedule, I'll have planned out the time I need to leave the house, I'll plan out the time that I need to start getting ready in order to leave the house, I'll see I have a few minutes to kill until that time and I'll sit down to the computer.  Next thing I know it's 5 minutes after I was supposed to be leaving and the stress begins.

This happened a lot when I was having to pick up kids from school every day.  Thank goodness for the bus...I no longer have to be that late mom.

Bowling Mom

So I gave myself a new title this weekend...I am now an official bowling mom.  What is that you ask?  Hmmmm....I'm quickly figuring out it means I drive a lot and sit in bowling alleys 100% more than I used to.  (And why is it mandated that bowling alleys must be cheesy?  And is it bowling allies or alleys....Googled it...it's alleys.)

So some quick background information.  I'd like to equate being a bowling mom is a lot like being a soccer mom, but I have never been a soccer mom before.  I've only been a basketball mom, t-ball/baseball mom, swim team mom, gymnastics mom and tennis mom before.

And allow me to clarify, when I say I have been a sports mom, it means I have driven them to every practice, cheered for them at every competition, and bought them all the paraphernalia associated with those sports.  I was not however the awesome mom that organized stuff, sent out emails, watched the kids while sitting on the bench or any other such gung-ho activities that some moms are capable of.  In my head I was that awesome organized mom, but luckily I knew that keeping up with their schedule was all I could handle and I kept my mouth shut when it came to volunteer.

So I've had some time off and a new school year has started and I got a lovely little email that stated that my high school son could join the bowling team if he wanted to.  I asked him about it, expecting him to say no, and to my surprise he said sure, he would like to try bowling.

I thought bowling would involve throwing a ball down the alley at some pins a couple times a week and possibly having to buy some new shoes.  I also secretly envisioned that the fancy schmancy high school my son attends had a couple of bowling lanes hidden deep inside some dark corridor.  (It's a public high school, but new and overwhelmingly large.)

I have been a bowling mom for 3 days now and my head is spinning.  We can practice on this day for free, but on this day we have to pay at one alley.  We should join a league at another alley for extra practice (and extra money).  We need to buy shoes, and a ball, and by the way, only expect the ball to last about 6 months.  (Really, a bowling ball wears out?  What does that look like?  Does it start to get square and stop rolling?)

Also we might need to buy a little bowling toolkit and a bag to put everything in.  The team must have tryouts, but everyone will get on the team (and shockingly the tryouts cost money).  Oh and once he makes the team we have a fee we will need to pay.

Needless to say my head is spinning and the dollars are rapidly flying out of my wallet.  All this because of a casual, "Hey, would you like to bowl?" question I threw out there last week.

Now before anyone thinks I'm complaining, I'm really not.  I love seeing my son involved in something.  My husband and I enjoy a little bowling ourselves and this will end up being fun.  It's just making my brain hurt right now is all.

Time passes quickly

As the title suggests, time has passed me by very quickly lately.  While I've been away from my blog...I wish I could say I was doing this:

But unfortunately it has looked more like this:

When school starts, mom's chauffeuring service starts as well.  Every time I had an idea and sat down to blog this happened:

Unfortunately I have not figured out a way to blog while driving.

Another event going on in my life is my starting up a career.  I have spent lots of hours on the computer making things like forms and editing my new webpage, but none of that involved stick figures and pseudo-funny commentary.  (Although my daughter did put some cool stick figures on my webpage, but I didn't get to draw them so it doesn't count.)


Lastly, I would like to say I blog for myself, that it is okay if no one likes my blog because I do and I'm okay with that.  But....I'm not okay with that.  In my head I'm super funny and tons of people love to read my blog and comment how much they love it.

 My reality is I write a sometimes mildly amusing blog that about five people like to read (most of which are in my immediate family making sure I'm not embarrassing them) and no one has missed it while it's been on hiatus.  So every time I go to blog I think about how no one really likes it and so why bother.

Then something changed.  Yesterday someone I have never met, liked my Facebook page.  That was huge for my self-esteem...that someone who isn't just supposed to support me pushed that little like button on Facebook.  So I'm going to give it another shot.  I'll work on staying focused (and I know you are saying "good luck with that Jen") and post twice a week.  I figure that is a reasonable goal with how busy my life is right now. 


But you have a job too.  If you find me at all amusing, please comment every once in a while.  Give me that extra boost I need to keep focused and keep going.  If you find me boring and not worth your time, I understand completely....but why are you reading this then?

Okay...so off I go...I will start working right away on a post that is supposed to be funny (unlike the boring commentary that this post is) and see how it goes....right after I take a shower and feed the cats.