Early Thanksgiving....ish

Ever since I remember Thanksgiving has always been at my grandma's. This year, however, she isn't in the best of health and so we are getting our dinner brought in from somewhere. Chris was kind of sad that we aren't getting a home cooked meal. So I, in my infinite knowledge, decided to make a mini Thanksgiving dinner with my friend, Charlotte, tonight because we cook dinner and desert every week. (Ok, so it really has only been one week in the past 2 months. But, we pretend like its a weekly thing).

We were going to make a little chicken, red potatoes, salad, and a pumpkin cheesecake. Well, due to a blizzard warning she didn't want to come over in her tiny sports car. So we decided we would do it later. While I was at schoo,l Chris text me saying he wanted a big dinner because someone stole his lunch at work. So I decided to go do it anyways. Minus the pumpkin cheesecake because I figured we will make something like that next week on our weekly dinners, and substitute funeral potatoes for red potatoes. Chris loves those. Class got out early so I ran to the store before I picked up the Z Dawg. As I was roaming the store I decided it would be fun to surprise him with a set table and candles and the whole sha-bang.

I got home, looked at the recipe. I didn't realize I needed string for this chicken. I called my mom to see if it was really necessary. She said it would probably fall apart without it.

So I bundled Zoey up and off we went. I roamed the store for a while and finally asked the butcher where it would be. I figured this close to Thanksgiving it would be easy to find. Turns out, they didn't sell any. But, he was nice and said he could go give me some. I think he had pity for the girl hauling around a screaming baby, who must be her younger sister because there is no way that a 14 year old would be the mom. I felt bad for just leaving without buying anything since this wasn't the store I originally bought all my groceries at. So we went down the baby section and bought Zo a plate. We are starting to work on using spoons....but that process is a whole different post.

I got home around 4:30 and put Zoey down for a nap since her first one got cut super short. I decided to start on the chicken even though it said it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes to make. I generally take a bit longer, so I wanted to be ready to surprise Christopher at 6:30 when he got home. It turns out you have to remove the giblets...I still don't really know what those are. So I called my mom again.  

I got to cleaning and pat drying this baby and realize the close says 5:10. How did I just spend the last 40 minutes just taking junk out of the chicken and drying it? Anywho, so I put the rub on it. Wrap it up...I didn't really know what I was doing, so I just kind of mummyfied it... and put it on the pan thing. (Can you tell I'm not much of a cook?) I reread the directions and it says to put it breast side up. Ummm..... Which side is the breast side. I thought I had it the right way, but called my mom just in case. Call number 3. This was starting to remind me of when I first moved away, I had to call her hundreds of times for the simplest of things. I had it the right way. YAY! But she told me it stays more tender and moist if I do it the other way. So I flipped it over. By now it was 5:40. So much for having this a surprise since it takes an hour to cook...

So I clean up the kitchen a bit and set the table with our nice place mats and everything. By the time I get it clean enough to make the funeral potatoes, he was home. I hurry and whip them up and put them in the conventional oven so they would be done the same time as the Chicken, then all I'd need to do is pop in the rolls for 7 minutes. Our conventional oven started to crisp the top a lot sooner than wanted, so I turned up the oven and put them in with the chicken. I checked the temperature of the chicken and it was 160 and needed to be 180. I figured I would be done soonish anyways, so I didn't see a problem with putting both in there. This is around 6:30...so 2 hours after I started this epic meal. Next thing I know its 7 and Glee is on. I check the chicken again and now it was reading 150! Not at all what I was expecting. At 7:15 the potatoes had been done for a while, and I figured the thermometer just wasn't working so I decided it was done. I put in the rolls in our convention oven and sat down to watch some more Glee. On the commercial I check on them and they were black and hockey pucks. I'm not sure how it happened. But it did. So Luckily, being the smart woman I am, I buy the tubes of croissant rolls whenever they are on sale. I check the meat again and it still hasn't made it back to 160. So we make the new rolls and take everything out. We spoon up the potatoes and cut the chicken. Turns out, it STILL wasn't done. So I put it back in and we just ate the potatoes and rolls.

Finally, at 8:30 it finally read 180. But by that time we were already full from snackin on the potatoes. So we ate a few bites and put it in the fridge. I called my mom one last time to tell her that I'm never cooking one of these again!

I kind of want to make this cranberry salad and take to dinner Thursday, but I'm a bit scared after tonight.

I'm linking up with Small Treasure Tuesdays because cooking is a treasure...and one day I will find it. Somewhere. Hidden in a shoe box or something.

I'm in a funk. Nothing is coming to my head to blog about. I've started 3 different posts today. And they go nowhere. I've just danced in 5 performances and my body and mind is just drained. (That's why I haven't posted anything in about a week). So, I'll just write short snip-its of what they were.

I've been been at school during the day til around 2 then back at 5 until 10ish all week. Then all day Saturday except for 2 hours and 11-5 today. By Thursday Zoey realized I was leaving for a long time and would just cry and cry and cry when I left. She also woke up a lot to get some mommy time. It made me feel so bad to leave her. So I've been letting her get away with more things than normal. I know it is going to kick me in the booty this week. But someone once told me there's no greater guilt than mommy guilt. Well, this week has showed me how true this statement is.

Its crazy to think how much I have changed since high school. My life experiences has changed me. I am more confident. More open minded, and not afraid to stand up for myself or my family. What would it be like to go back to high school right now being the person I am today. Would I have the same experiences? Would I have the same outcomes? Have you ever thought about what would happen if the you you are today could go back to the you you were a few years ago?

I watched a tv show on the food network about candied bacon. I don't know what I think about it. But I am slightly intrigued. But not enough to actually try it.

Day 13 Music

Day 13 is about music that has helped you get through some tough times.

I can't really say that there was a moment in my life that I turned on the radio and the perfect song came on with the perfect lyrics that changed my life. Sure, there have been times when I related to what the song was talking about, but I can't  really remember a big "AH HA" moment.

There is a band, however, that I will always go to to get me in a good mood. This would be Cute Is What We Aim For. (the main website is under construction, so thats just the facebook page). I'm not entirely sure where they came in the picture, but they became the band my best friend and I have clamed as ours. We've seen them 4 or 5 times. One concert we even drove 7 hours to go to.

It was a long drive. And I was bored.

Charlotte and I were on the ballroom team in college and my nick name became cucu tete because a sweatshirt of I always wore that we bought at one of their shows.

It is now my lucky sweater. It used to be black, but it is really more gray now because I literally wore it every day for about 2 years. I made sure I put it on when I went to the doctors when they thought I might have had a miscarriage. Yes. It is THAT lucky.

 We have even gone backstage and had a CD signed by the band. (Now, everyone but the main singer is gone. But thats ok. I still love them/him). For years in the "who I'd like to meet" section on myspace they were the answer. I was so excited to change that and say I did. Woot Woot.

Perhaps they aren't the "best" band ever with moving lyrics and never done before drum solos. But to me, they are pretty darn awesome. They remind me of the crazy teenage days. And as soon as I hear their songs I get a big smile on my face from all the crazy memories.

Here is their first main song that came out. We were obsessed with his little smerk. ahhh. His hair is kinda crazy, but gotta love his smerk. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQcNo9yWbM

And now the other half on the cucu tete obsession.

She is wearing stunna shades to protect her identity.



I'm linking up with Tuesday's treasures because having a best friend who actually understands the beauty of the smerk is a treasure.

Peak a Boo!

What baby doesn't love peak-a-boo? Zoey has loved for us to play it with her since she was about a month and a half old. Lately, she finds it funny to hide behind the shower curtain when we give her baths. She'll wrap it around her then peak out at us and laugh boisterously. (this wasn't the word I originally wrote, but its what came up with spell check and I liked it better anyways. Sometimes its a good thing I'm a horrible speller.)

She has never actually tried to do the real peak-a-boo. And so today at dinner, Chris tried to teach her.

He would do it. Then he would grab her hands and put them over her eyes. Then he let her do it on her own. And this is what we got. Every. Time.



No matter how much we tried to get her to do it the "right way" she would do it the Zoey way. But she still thought she was pretty darn funny. And, well we thought she was the cutest little thing ever, so we just let her do it her way after a while.

So now, she puts her hands on her ears all the time and laughs. and laughs. and laughs.

Silly girl.

Baby Hungry

Yesterday we found out that 2 of my husband's friend's wives are expecting a baby. They are 3 weeks apart from each other. I am really happy for them. They deserve to have the blessing of a baby. Especially with the unique challenges they both have faced in the last couple years.

As soon as Z Dawg turned 1 I kinda got bit by the baby bug and can't wait for another. One might even say I'm baby hungry. But, I really don't like that phrase. It reminds me of this...

And since I don't want that guy running around, I'll just congratulate the lucky girls who defeated this monster, wish them luck in this amazing journey, and hopefully wait until I'm done with school in 5000 years to see him again.

What I learned today...

If your child spills baby food on the floor at breakfast, clean it up right away. Even if you plan on mopping within the next 20 minutes. Because something will get in your way and you won't get to mopping for another 7 hours. At that time it is now stuck to the floor and is relentless to get destroyed. And so you must get on your hands and knees and manually get it off. However, the only way you can keep your child happy is to put her in her high chair with food. Which, is directly above where you are scraping away. And so you are left with a clean floor, but who knows what in your hair from the sweet thing dropping everything she has on you...after it has already got mushy in her mouth.

Today, I got in a fight with a spider.

We gave Zoey a bath last night and I didn't put her bath toys up. So this morning when I went to take a shower I turned on the water, and out crawled a big ol spider from amongst the toys. I squealed. I'm pretty happy that no one (AKA as my husband) was home to make fun of me.

Anyways, as the spider was frantically trying to climb out of the tub I slowly picked up all the toys to make sure there were no more hidden spiders in there. Thankfully I only had to fight one today. I then turned on the shower part and tried to drown it. It worked. He was all crumpled up and not moving. Score! So I turned off the water and let it drain.

Then before my eyes, he unraveled himself and came back alive. I screamed again. Now, I had not only a huge spider in my tub, but an eternally living MAD spider in my tub. Great.

Now what was I going to do, he obviously won't drown in the water like I hoped. I could easily smoosh him, but then had to figure out how to get spider off the side of a wet tub. A paper towel would get soggy and break, leaving me to pick him off with my bare hands. No Sir-y.  So maybe if I let the tub fill with water.... I try that and he just goes into the little" pretend I'm dead" ball then try to frantically climb out once he floated to the wall. So I finally figured out what to do! Burn him. I feel really bad, but I turned on the water as hot as it could go (which is pretty hot because Chris turned up our tiny water heater so we could actually have enough hot water to take a shower). All of a sudden I saw his little legs twitch. With that I tried to find a shoe close by to put him out of his misery. I'm not a heartless spider killer. But, I was scared to let him out of my sight in fear of him mutating to an even madder spider. So I grabbed my shampoo bottle and had it over my head to get him. But then he changed from a "pretend I'm dead" ball to a "really truly dead" ball. So I turned off the water, and watched him swoosh down the drain.

I took my long needed shower, watching the drain entire time to make sure he didn't come alive once again.

tender moments

We put Zo down to bed at her general time and I went off to school to study for a bit. I got home around 10 and went straight upstairs to study some more.She woke up around 10:10. I thought Chris was sleeping, so I let her cry for a little bit to see if she would go back down on her own. But Chris ended up getting her and brought her to our room. I decided to go downstairs and take her since he gets up at 4:30. We ended up staying in bed for a little while and had some good family time. I may regret it tomorrow night when she decides its fun to hang out in the big bed instead of sleep again but this is why it was worth it:

She cuddled next to Chris and started to play with his beard for 5 minutes.

She decided it was pretty funny to head butt him for another few minutes.

She was all cuddles. (besides the head butting).

My favorite part of the night...She was busy doing who knows what when this commercial came on.



She then stopped what she was doing, turned to the TV, started dancing and had the biggest smile on.

I love this commercial anyways, she just made it that much better.

Times like this make the crazyness of life worth it, and so much more.

Day 11 Something People Complement you on

I'm skipping a few days. I feel like they are a little to personal to be sharing with the entire universe. I've learned something about blogging after "accepting the challenge:" Always read the challenge in its entirety before committing to it. I realize now, that some of them are kind of out there. And they swear. You really don't need to know who has made my life bad or who I have drifted away from. Its not like you know them, and even if you do I don't want you to think differently or anything about someone because you read some lowly little blog known as The Journey of a WAHM Wannabe. That's not cool.

So on to day 11. (besides I was pretty behind, so skipping these days puts me pretty close to where I should be in the first place.)

I get complements on being so tiny after having a baby. And I know 99.9% of you mothers are going to shake your head at me for saying this, but....I really don't feel like it is a fair complement. I only gained 17 pounds. I had diabetes and a few other various health issues that made me gain very little. So after giving birth I only had 4 pounds to loose before getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Breastfeeding made that pretty simple. So I feel guilty when people look at me and say things about me being so tiny yet having a 1 year old. (Oh, gosh. I still can't believe i have a 1 year old, I think its going to take a year to get used to this idea). I didn't work to get this, and I know mothers who work their butts off to get back to where they were before having their baby with little success. They are the ones that deserve the complement. Not me.

But for all you who find themselves with gestational diabetes, remember its not a death sentence even though it may feel like it. You potentially will gain less than 20 pounds and loose it all  within the first week of being a mommy. :) There is an upside to that battle.