Fold My Laundry Please

While reading blogs yesterday, I came across what appeared to be a delicious recipe, bacon wrapped mini meatloaf.  It looked beautiful.  It was easy to make.  I had all of the ingredients in the cupboard already.  It involved bacon.  Wednesday nights are the one night a week that we just stay home, so it was the perfect opportunity to try out a new meal.  Goodness knows our menu could use some fresh blood. 

I want to start out by saying I’m not knocking this recipe.  I’m simply revisiting my own personal experience with it. 

Okay? 

Okay.

Everything started well.  I mixed up the ingredients, wrapped it all in bacon, and set it in the recommended type of pan.  While that cooked, I got to work on the side dishes.  I had decided on buttered noodles and steamed broccoli.  The timer dinged and I took the meatloaf out of the oven.  One poke with the fork told me it was still severely undercooked.  No problem.  I just put it back in the oven, this time using a meat thermometer instead of the kitchen timer.  Meanwhile, our side dishes had finished and were already cooling. 

Finally, the thermometer beeped and it was time to eat.  We were greeted with little balls of meat swimming in tons of grease.  Yum.  I took them out of the pan and set them on paper towels to drain.  They looked…unappetizing at best.  Oh well, maybe they tasted fine.  I served up the plates of food and the kids immediately went to work tearing off the bacon and gobbling it up.  My husband and I stared at our plates.  More grease was oozing out of the meat and soaking into our cold noodles and broccoli.  Again, yum.  I took a bite.  It wasn’t bad, tasty in fact, just greasy. 

Now I’m not one to say cooking with grease is bad.  I love to deep fry french fries and my infamous corned beef hash is cooked entirely in the stuff, but the amount of grease coming out of our food was not a good thing.  I had even used super lean ground beef to minimize this highly possible outcome.  I went back and read the comments to the post with the recipe and the greasy possibilities were brought up by several commenters, but the author assured everyone that it really wasn’t a problem.  And she’s pretty skinny (unless she’s hiring a model to pose with her family for pictures), so I’m sure she doesn’t normally serve bacon grease as a side dish.

Oh well.  You never know if you’ll like it if you don’t try it.

I’m sure I must’ve done something wrong.  It’s not like I’m known for my culinary prowess.  If her family eats this on a regular basis, they must get vastly different results than I did.  It’s a good thing I had planned to make chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  I may not be able to successfully make most main dishes, but cookies, that’s where my talent lies!

Update:  I just found this one this afternoon.  It’s not as good a quality, but it may be my favorite one!

Gideon is sick. 

The symptoms?  Headaches and fevers. 

The best part?  The attitude.

"Why won’t you just leave me ALONE!"

"I DO NOT NEED THAT MUCH MEDICINE!"

"Find me food now before I DIE!"

"I said I wanted pizza!"

"That medicine makes my mouth feel HORRIBLE!"

I feel like a candy striper in a nursing home.

…that make your heart go pitter-pat…

TAX REFUND…BOO-YA!

Okay. I’m sorry.  I know I’ve been neglecting you.  But I swear I have a good reason.  You see, all my good blog ideas come to me during the day when I’m typically out of the house.  Once I get home, I’m usually a useless blob who couldn’t put two words together into a coherent sentence if I tried blur of meal preparation, house cleaning, and bedtime goodness.  Then suddenly it’s late at night and I’d rather be spending my time talking with my husband than writing about my day.  No offense.

But you guys are important to me, too.  So here’s my plan.  I’m going to have a chip installed in my brain that will keep me connected to my blog site at all times.  Then I’ll create a pair of glasses that will show me a see through version of my blog so that I can write while still being able to do things like drive.  It’s not like I pay a whole lot of attention on the road anyway.  Then, using the chip in my brain, I will think out my posts and I will be able to see the words appear on the screen on my glasses.  Of course, I will only save my posts and wait to edit them at home before publishing them.  I wouldn’t want to walk around appearing totally distracted or anything.  At home is one thing, but in public…

This of course will leave everyone I come into contact with wondering whether or not I’m blogging about them.  A little dose of paranoia from time to time can be healthy.  You can thank me later.

This idea is loads better than my other attempt to take advantage of the blog fodder that fills my brain while driving.  For a while, I had the awesome idea to keep a note pad with me at all times.  What?  Oh.  That’s one of those things you see people writing on with a pen or pencil.  You know, it has all those pieces of paper conveniently held together for you?  A note pad?  No?  Okay then.  I decided to keep an ancient recording device with me so that I could write down my ideas as I had them.  The trouble with this is that my handwriting while driving is pretty terrible.  This as opposed to the flawless script I produce when sitting at a desk.  By the time I would sit down to post, I could no longer decipher the idea and the actual thought that prompted the note was no longer accessible within my cluttered mind.

This Brain Chip/Glasses Combo thingy is a much better idea.  In fact, it’s brilliant!  And everyone knows that a brilliant idea is WAY better than an awesome one.  So if I’m wearing glasses the next time you see me, you can spend the rest of the afternoon wondering if you’ll be prominently featured on the world wide of webs that evening or not.  To paraphrase Kurt Cobain, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not blogging about you.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

  I can’t seem to get my brain in working order today.  It’s as though I’m running on auto-pilot.  Perfect example:  I took the kids with me to the grocery store.  Whenever I go anywhere with all four kids, I get hit with a barrage of comments.  I get a lot of non-plussed, Four Kids, Wow’s, a few ecstatic You Are So Blessed’s, and a smattering of angrily muttered Overpopulating the Planet’s every time.  Today was no different, except for my reaction.  My normal response is either a brief smile, a cheerful thank you, or a return glare, depending on the comment.  Today’s response? 

"I have a lot of kids." 

Picture me saying that to 10 or 15 people in a voice reflecting about as much emotion as Spock could muster.

I ended up leaving the store mentally smacking myself on the forehead and trying to figure out just what is the matter with me!

Sunday mornings can be rough at our house.  Yesterday, I slept through my alarm going off for about 20-30 minutes, so I didn’t wake Andrew up on time.  He missed his meeting at church and got ready instead to just go with us.  Feeding and dressing everyone went well and I thought that for once, we might actually get there before church started.  A novel concept, I know.  Everyone got into the car and buckled up.  I put the key in the ignition, turned it, and…nothing.  Not even the radio turned on.  Someone had turned on one of the cabin lights and it sat on since Friday afternoon.

We got the tribe back out of the car and the children all promptly broke down in tears.  Except Gideon who stripped off shoes, socks, and pants in 4 seconds flat.  That boy has a true talent.  I just hope he uses it for good, not evil.  It was time for Superdad to spring into action!  Andrew found the jumper cables and managed to get the van going again without electrocuting himself.  I can’t say it would have gone so well had it been me!  So we got Gideon dressed and stuck everyone back in the car.  We all gave three cheers for Daddy before heading off down the road!  Surprisingly, we were only ten minutes late, if that.  It turned out it was Ward Conference today, so it was good that we went. 

But it was sooooooo tempting to just put our jammies back on and crawl back into bed!  Why didn’t we do that again?  Oh yeah.  Because we are truly a righteous and peculiar people!

1. Watch patiently while mom lays out your shirt pants and socks, asks you to get dressed, and then leaves the room.
2. Take off pajama shirt and proceed to whip your little sister with it.
3. Cry pitifully and act put upon when mom spanks you and then repeats her request to get yourself dressed.
4. Take off pajama pants and put on one sock.
5. Remove underpants, put them on head and run around house (still wearing one sock) singing songs at the top of your lungs.
6. Sit down and play with a toy you found on the floor for 10 minutes.
7. Cry again when mom finds you and demands that you remove the underwear from your head and put them back on and to please be getting dressed now!  Thank you!
8. Put underwear on properly.
9. Remove sock.
10. Fill it with little toys.
11. Chase your brother around trying to smack him with the sock full of toys.
12. Hurry and try to get shirt on when mom catches you and then cry when she spanks you for hitting your brother.
13. Morosely put on pants and socks.
14. Pick up shoes and show mom how you’re almost done getting dressed.
15. Wait for mom to stop checking on you since she thinks you’re dressed now.
16. Remove your pants and put on your shoes.
17. Hide pants somewhere in your playroom.
18. While in the playroom, find a toy and go downstairs to play with it.
19. Play for 30 minutes while mom gets herself and your brother and sisters ready to go.
20. Cry when mom realizes that you no longer have pants, everyone is now late, and she begins yelling.
21. Wait five more minutes while mom buckles everyone else in the car and then tries to find your pants.
22. Cry when mom makes you stand up so that she can put your pants on for you.
23. Protest that you know how to put on your own pants.
24. Protest again that you know how to put your own shoes on.
25. Refuse to buckle your seatbelt unless mom lets you take off your shoes and put them back on by yourself.
26. Cry when mom forces you into your seat and buckles you in herself.
27. Glare at mom throughout the rest of the car ride.

Phew!  Being four is rough!

Whatever you do, do NOT break the law in the Philippines!  If you do, you will be placed in an unattractive jumpsuit and forced to…to…to dance!

It gets worse!

Thriller, indeed!  I just feel bad for that poor "girl"!

Once upon a time there was a girl named Melissa.  That girl was me.

In eighth grade, I did not yet qualify for coolness.

Then I went to high school where I majored in cool.  I even had many cool friends!

That’s me in the back with the black t-shirt on.  (Sidenote:  As I went through my pictures, I seemed to be wearing that same shirt in about 75% of them.  Either I wore it a lot or I spent one very long day traveling around town having my picture taken in it.)

I also majored in hotness, with an emphasis in skinny.

It was a double major.

In high school, I had a bestest friend named Lisa.  We were nearly inseparable.

So much so that we went to Northern Arizona University together and became roommates.

Please note that my coolness factor has been growing exponentially.

Lisa danced to the beat of a different drummer.

Okay, let’s face it, she could be downright strange

But she was also a ton of fun!

Which made us a great match for each other!  By the way, she also majored in hotness with an emphasis in skinny, but she found a way to turn her degree into a career.

One day, I decided to embark on an adventure.  Lisa did what any best friend would do.  She manned the camera.

This is me, pre-adventure.  (See, there’s that t-shirt again!)  I’m practically radiating excitement!

This adventure involved hair.

Specifically, my hair.

And these two guys.

A good time was had by all!

Here I am, nearing the end of my adventure.

I’m still smiling, so it must have been going well.

And…viola!

Look at me!  I’m just oozing coolness!  We never could get it all out of that couch after that day.  According to the photo evidence, when I wasn’t wearing that Jane’s Addiction t-shirt, I was wearing flannel.  It’s not my fault.  The grunge movement was going strong (and was also aptly named).

And here I am with a slightly hideous shade of red hair.

Because when you’re cool, you change your hair color more often than your bedsheets!