The child attended church TWICE on Palm Sunday weekend but hey, she got all of 19 eggs during the Easter egg hunt. Pics of Kaitlyn in her smashing Easter outfit and stunning curls.
Also, Guest Writer Michelle celebrates many years of wedded bliss.
Finally, a quick once over on the newest version of the reality series "The Bachelor". He's a doctor, he's single, he's handsome and he worried more about the ladies he must reject.
Heh. Or so he says.
Pic of the Day
Quote of the DayWhen the Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not if you won or lost...but how you played the game. |
| Web Site Worth the Visit Video Chicken Really Laying an Egg Yep, somebody got it on Youtube. Click in and watch a chicken actually lay an egg in front of your amazed eyeballs. CLICK HERE |
| TIDBITS Oil Changing Instructions: Women: 1. Pull up to Jiffy Lube when the mileage reaches 3000 since the last oil change. 2. Drink a cup of coffee. 3. 15 minutes later, write a check and leave with a properlymaintained vehicle. Men: 1. Go to O'Reilly auto parts and write a check for 50 dollars for oil, filter, oil lift (AKA kitty litter), hand cleaner and scented tree. 2. Discover that the used oil container is full. Instead of taking back to O'Reilly to recycle, dump in hole in back yard. 3. Open a beer and drink it. 4. Jack car up. Spend 30 minutes looking for jack stands. 5. Find jack stands under kid's pedal car. 6. In frustration, open another beer and drink it. 7. Place drain pan under engine. 8. Look for 9/16 box end wrench. 9. Give up and use crescent wrench. 10. Unscrew drain plug. 11. Drop drain plug in pan of hot oil; get hot oil on you inprocess. 12. Clean up. 13. Have another beer while oil is draining. 14. Look for oil filter wrench. 15. Give up; poke oil filter with Phillips screwdriver and twist it off. 16. Beer. 17. Buddy shows up; finish case with him. Finish oil change tomorrow. 18. Next day, drag pan full of old oil out from underneath car. 19. Throw oil lift (AKA kitty litter) on oil spilled during step 18. 20. Beer. No, drank it all yesterday. 21. Walk to 7-11; buy beer. 22. Install new oil filter making sure to apply thin coat of clean oil to gasket first. 23. Dump first quart of fresh oil into engine. 24. Remember drain plug from step 11. 25. Hurry to find drain plug in drain pan. 26. Hurry to replace drain plug before the whole quart of fresh oil drains onto floor. 27. Slip with wrench and bang knuckles on frame. 28. Bang head on floorboard in reaction. 29. Begin cussing fit. 30. Throw wrench. 31. Cuss for additional 10 minutes because wrench hit Miss December (1992) in the left boob. 32. Clean up; apply Band-Aid to knuckle. 33. Beer. 34. Beer. 35. Dump in additional 4 quarts of oil. 36. Beer. 37. Lower car from jack stands 38. Accidentally crush one of the jack stands 39. Move car back to apply more oil lift (AKA kitty litter)to fresh oil spilled during step 23. 40. Drive car |
Kaitlyn Discovers Noodles
Actually Kaitlyn's eating habits have been a source of contention since the child's been born, at least with me, her beloved grandmother. Kaitlyn's mother has the most horrible eating habits and I suppose this is my fault though I don't know what I did wrong.
For my daughter, Kaitlyn's mother for those not so informed, eats three things....cheeseburgers, ham sandwiches and steamed crabs. She has no food imagination and her childhood was peppered with fights over her refusal to eat certain foods even though I prepared them myself and with great love.
To no one's surprise, young Kaitlyn Mae has a somewhat limited list of preferred foods so that even her mother, heh, complains about the difficulty in feeding the child.
Myself, on the other hand, enjoys food of any kind and my most favorite meal would be a compilation of about six different food items, including nuts and a sweet dessert.
So when Kaitlyn came to visit Mom-Mom on Palm Sunday weekend, besides the fun of the Easter Egg hunt, the several masses Kaitlyn and I attended because I had to sing in the choir, the laughter of blowing bubbles in the backyard and all the other happy things Kaitlyn and I did during that visit, it was our late night "picnics" together that brought us the most happiness. That is when Kaitlyn discovered the joy of noodles and for this I am grateful.
I always have a problem feeding Kaitlyn during her visit because all she seems to like are chicken nuggets and hot dogs. I don't want to give the child hot dogs at every meal and she didn't like MY chicken nuggets, which were just frozen things I baked in the oven just for her. Turns out Kaitlyn likes MCDONALD'S chicken nuggets and then only when they're part of a "Happy Meal". Heh.
Every evening I gather a tray of snack type foods and retire to the bedroom to sit and watch evening TV in my personal boudoir whilst surfing the net. My collection of snack foods might include spicy peanuts, a few chunks of cheese, some pepperoni, perhaps a sweet. I only eat one major meal a day and this snack treat is my second "meal" although it's more about noshing than anything else.
Until Palm Sunday weekend, Kaitlyn had showed no interest in Mom-Mom's evening snack tray. On this weekend, Kaitlyn sat with Mom-Mom and together, well goodness me, Kaitlyn discovered more foods were on the planet than those fried up at McDonald's!
The corn dog was the first big success. Technically the corn dog is a hot dog but Kaitlyn did take right away to the notion of a hot dog dipped in corn meal and fried on a stick. Now I know this is not a healthy meal in the scheme of things but I'd argue that anything can be eaten so long as it's consumed in some sort of moderation. So Kaitlyn and I shared a corn dog and we laughed and giggled like children as we each took a bite and of course we had to give some to the big galoot dog sitting by waiting for scraps.
Next, sliced apples dipped in peanut butter. Better, I had a container of "Nutella" and apples dipped in this stuff is great.
Throughout the weekend Kaitlyn came to look forward to our evening "picnics" and she tried all sorts of food; some with success whilst others she spit out right on the spot. She didn't much like black olives and has an open mind about cheese chunks but this will take time. Kaitlyn at first scrunched up her face at the first bite of fresh pineapple but after the initial somewhat tart taste, she loved this new fruit.
It was the noodles that pleased me most. For Kaitlyn, for reasons that totally baffled me, never seemed to like macaroni and cheese. By me, mac and cheese is the food of the gods and life would be stark indeed. In fact, until the night of the "Oodles of Noodles", Kaitlyn never like any sort of pasta and I thought this distressing. Then again, pasta is not a food her mother especially liked either and I imagine pasta meals aren't served all that often in Kaitlyn's home.
Myself loves a cup of "Oodles of Noodles" and hey, the things only cost a quarter a cup at Wal-Mart! I poured the boiling water over my noodles and figured Kaitlyn wouldn't want any.
Only as I wound a big wad of noodles around my fork later, Kaitlyn's eyes grew wide and she indicated she'd like to try some. Well dang, I quickly wrapped a pile of curly noodles around a fork and told Kaitlyn to open wide.
We spent the next twenty minutes or so devouring that cup of noodles. We worked on the many ways to eat the noodles, from piling the noodles on a big spoon to the aforementioned fork wrap up to and including placing a pile of noodles on a paper plate and eating them by hand. We learned how to slurp the noodles and we learned how to not do this in public. I can't recall when I've ever had such fun eating noodles in my life.
But now Kaitlyn is a convert and someday her mother will thank me for this. Because noodles are the cheapest meal one can make and can be adapted to so many recipes.
Kaitlyn went back home after her Palm Sunday weekend with Mom-Mom with a whole new repetoire of foods. The day after her return back to her Mom, my daughter called me for a list of all the different foods Kaitlyn now demands with her meals at home.
Heh. It's called "Nutella" and it's kind of a chocolate, peanut butter gooey kind of thing.
Departure
I sighed as I loaded the suitcase in the truck. Another item checked itself off my mental list. Book, check. Pillow, check. Clothes, check. Birdcage, check. I walked back into the house and looked around. Nothing left on the couch to pack. I was ready.
As I locked the door I sighed again. Who'd have thought I'd be leaving behind everything I cared about on this, my twenty-fourth wedding anniversary?
I locked the door, hearing the "chunk" of the deadbolt with the finality of a jail cell door. I got in the truck and drove away without looking back.
A glorious trip beckoned, a long drive with good companionship, but even that couldn't compare with what I knew to be behind me. Tonight,as I bed down in my friend's new home, I know my husband will be spending his night in our house, alone. Even the animals won't be there.
I wonder if he will, like I did, wander through the echoing rooms, fingers lingering over a shirt, the bedcovers, a coffee cup? Knowing there are a zillion things to be done, yet doing none of them? Wondering where I am, what I'm doing right this second?
It doesn't feel like twenty-four years. Jokingly, I tell people we've only actually been together for twelve or so, since my husband's so often out. "My part-time husband," I say. Like all couples, we've had bad times, good times, hard times, and those moments we coast. We've fought and made up, struggled to make ends meet, and rejoiced in our good fortune. We've had dogs and cats and birds and mice and snakes and fish and even a few wild animals in the house, underfoot, or in the backyard. We've owned no less than eight vehicles.
We've gone through the stages of the Kid Question. When we first got married, the "thing" to do was settle in and have children. We didn't. So people would ask us, during the first couple of years, "Oh, when are you having children?" When we said we weren't, they would either shut completely up or look upon us with sympathy - obviously if we weren't having children, one of us couldn't . . . perform, right? Then for the next few years, the question was "How many children do you have?" When we said, "None," that sympathy look would reappear. How sad that we'd been married for one to five years and didn't have
children, right? Then the questions no longer came for a bit. I can only guess that everyone figured it was a sore subject for us. Finally, these days, when we answer "None," the return comment is almost always, "You were so smart!"
Were we? I don't know, but it is the lifestyle we chose and I wouldn't change it. If our biological clocks ever ring the alarm bells, we can always adopt. There are plenty of kids out there who need good homes, and I feel like my home is one of the best.
I feel blessed every day when I come home to alaHouse. I have many of the good things so many people don't: a husband who loves me, a house that's been partially renovated to our specifications, my health, my job, my pets, and my life. Of them all, I value most the man who shares my world, even though we'll be spending tonight apart.
As they sang in Cabaret, "Somebody wonderful married me." Twenty-four years ago today.
Michelle
The Desk Drawer writer's exercise list
~~~~~~~~~~
More Guest Writer HERE
ABC's "The BACHELOR"-an Officer and a Gentleman
The ABC web site for this series is HERE.
It was from this site that I was able to gather a list of the 15 eligible bachelorettes, with the correct spelling of their names. On the pic below, I was working from sounds going into my ears and I didn't do half bad at that. Note the listing below is the full and correct first names of the top 15 bachelorettes:
Alexis
Amanda
Amber
Bevin
Danielle
Erin
Kate
Nicole
Peyton
Stephanie
Stephanie
Susan
Tessa
Tiffany
Tina
Let's put aside these lusty ladies and discuss this bachelor fellow, this "officer and a gentleman". His name is Andy Baldwin, he is in the military, a doctor, was valedictorian of his class and he's looking for, I am not making this up, a WIFE.
Of course, ostensibly, the eligible bachelor in all of these shows is looking for a wife or a long term committment of some sort. Andy Baldwin says right up front that he's looking for a wife and proudly displays an engagement ring he intends to give his choice from the top fifteen pictured and listed above.
I've said often enough, when Blogging this series, that I'll never understand why these women choose to find themselves a man in this manner although I've always supposed it was as much of a hoot as anything. I figure I wouldn't want a man I "caught" in this manner for this guy would likely have a head as big as the Grand Canyon and he'd be insufferable to live with. The first time I complained about his clothes laying all over the floor I envision the handsome dude who picked me out of dozens would raise his pretty head and tell me to shut my female mouth, that he had a hundred other women who wanted him and would likely not complain about his sloppiness.
Then again, this Bachelor gets very close to the females contending to be his choice and at some point he must make an agonizing choice between two or more lovely ladies. Way I figure again in my evil little mind, let one day be a bad one, let my hair fly everywhere or perhaps I would gain a few pounds. What's to stop this bachelor prize of mine to go looking for the one he left behind? The one he maybe should have chosen?
By me it's entirely too hairy a way to get a man even if he did pick me over twenty other gals.
All that being said, this year's Bachelor series features a fellow who means business. For Andy Baldwin is looking for a wife.
Okay....come on. Could there really be an Andy Baldwin, a doctor, navy Lieutenant, former high school valedictorian, handsome and fit, out looking for a wife on a TV reality dating show? SOMETHING'S gotta be wrong with this guy. My first inclination is a hoot but come on, is this guy even a heterosexual? But of course a woman's first reaction once coming upon the "perfect" man is to question if he's got a "Bruce" hidden away somewhere.
If Andy Baldwin IS a heterosexual, why on earth does he need to go on TV to find a wife? One would think they'd be flocking to his side.
Whatever the case, this year's Bachelor reality show calls my inner woman to the surface. They need me to monitor this show for no one, absolutely no one, knows hetero men more than The Wise I. Due to the fact that I was born an actual female, well this leaves me knowing all about women as well. It's win-win I tell you.
Been married to four men and had a few others along the way. Men are just like a bus, is how I say it. You miss one, another one comes right along.
These ladies subjecting themselves to loss of pride and dignity, well hey, THEY NEED ME. And I shall be here for them.
More TV Reviews HERE
===============
Add POST to Technorati Favorites
=======================
No comments:
Post a Comment