Things About Being Real

The other day, my sister and I were having a conversation about "being real" as opposed to being pretentious or fake or trying to convince anybody on the outside that we are something we really are not. I feel like I have pretty well mastered the art of letting everybody who knows me, plus a few thousand who don't, how "real" I am. To a fault. I am pretty darn good at highlighting my failures, my trials and errors and mess-ups and mistakes and oopses, wannabes and nice-tries. In fact, I am so real, that I think certain people have wisely calculated a wide berth of avoidance to reduce the risk of my train-wreck life, with it's messy divorces, dog hair, toilet floods and worms, getting in their perfectly crafted martini. And that's ok, because I'll take dog hair over perfectly crafted martinis any day. I guess. That's not really true. But I will settle for a warm beer.

The funny thing about "being real" or living in "reality", is that a lot of times it's straight up unrealistic.

Like for instance, me raising four daughters to various stages of older childhood/adulthood and killing none of them. It's very really happening, but it's very nearly impossible.

I feel like 90% of my life - of all of our lives - is doing unreal things. Some times we do them really well, sometimes we do them really bad. I tend to err toward the side of awful, but I still get some pretty unreal things done.

Like passing the work capacity test for the forest service. Realistically, I could Just Say No. I Can't. The disc between my L5/S1 vertebrae has degenerated completely, similar to the moral standards of my late 20s. I am old. I have a torn shoulder, a sprained ankle and All Of The Things hurt. But I will do it, because it's worth it to me. And it's not pretty. I don't look like Mary Lou Retton dismounting the balance beam with rosy cheeks in a patriotic leotard. I look like a dying vagrant with COPD that someone just tried to beat to death after falling off of a train. But I will still do it. And that is both real and unrealistic.

In many ways, we're all pretending a little bit to be something we're not. I am pretending to be a young, athletically viable firefighter. My friend is pretending to be Just Fine as she sits in the hospital with a very sick husband and other family members in crisis. My other friend is pretending to be a softball coach. My cousin is pretending to know how to be the Best Stepmom Ever to some hurt kids... and she's killing it. One of my friends is pretending to enjoy police academy, surrounded by guys half his age, guys that don't have decimated hips and too many decades of abuse on their bodies like he does, and he is KICKING ASS. Because maybe it's unrealistic, but it's really happening. And they'll get it done. Those girls will get the crap coached out of them, and that husband will be Just Fined all the way home to his La-Z-Boy where he belongs. Those kids will be whole and happy. And that guy will be the best cop that ever copped. I pretend to be a teacher, and I am about to pretend to be a full time teacher for a full semester... it's ridiculously unrealistic, something that regular and accountable for me, but you watch, I'll really do it. For reals.

We go through life being Really Unrealistic. Doing things that we can't possibly. Like childbirth. Or homeschooling (NOT ME!). Or paying the bills. Pretenders are heroes, sometimes, and I think that all the time, heroes are pretenders. Pretending to be brave, pretending to know Exactly What To Do, pretending to like it. Sometimes, being who we really aren't is the thing that saves the day. Like coaching a softball team, or being the "strong one" in the family, or maybe even just being nice to someone when nice is certainly NOT what you really feel, but very certainly what somebody else needed you to be.

So the next time you get overwhelmed with the The Thing You Cannot Do, with all of the dog hair that won't stay vacuumed, or the kids that won't get potty trained, or the really, really REALLY hard mile and a half on that one day when a mile and a half is just too much - just know that I am here being unrealistic with you. We are doing this unrealistic life together - really doing it. Covered in dog hair and swilling our warm beer, but we're doing it. We're covering the miles and growing the kids and loving the people. Even when loving seems like the most unrealistic of all, we do it. We make the choices and take the steps to get life done, with all of the unreality included.

I am ok with being a messy. With being imperfect and slightly embarrassing to my people. It's ok, because I know that I have kicked reality right where it counts. I don't need to be real, and I don't need to be fake, I just need to be. Right Here, doing the Right Thing, Right Now that needs to be done, even if I can't.

My next plan for unreality is to get Eric Church to marry me, or something along those lines. For practice at accomplishing the impossible though, Ima salvage some freezer burned hamburger in homemade chili from scratch that I am trying unrealistically to remember from watching my best friend make it a few months ago. So far, so good. There I go, making miracles all over the place.

Things About Doing the Right Things

Every day we are faced with choices. We have the opportunity to do the Right Thing. Or the Wrong Thing. Either way, there will be consequences. The severity of those consequences and the determination of whether they are good or bad consequences rests squarely on the choices we make.

For example, today I was faced with several ethical dilemmas that required me to discern between good and evil.

It started with getting out of bed. History and Mothers tell us that getting out of bed early is prudent. Even Benjamin Franklin, AKA Poor Richard, exhorted: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Despite it's singsongy excellence, this rhetoric has yet to take hold of my soul with the conviction that it should. Because in spite of every morning when I have been up before the sun, I am neither healthier, wealthier, or wiser. And some of the most profound learning I have done has happened in the wee hours, just ask anybody who has had to route the drunks from the bar at 3:30 AM. So I made the choice to stay in bed. The consequence of this action, directly, was an entirely cold house. I can easily cast blame upon the other four humans that reside here, since all of them had gotten out of bed and already left for school and my favorite child, NOONE had taken it upon herself to reload the pellet stove. My bad choice was overcome by my cold hands, which can't seem to get warm no matter how far under the covers I keep them. The only remedy was a hot cup of coffee.

The second ethical quandary that I faced today happened around breakfast time, which also doubled as lunch since I successfully avoided eating until after I had done MANY loads of laundry, made a slew of phone calls I had been putting off and finally got dressed. Just like most days in my closet, my refrigerator stared back at me with a BIG FAT nothing to eat. So I decided to just go without. Until the shakes set in, and then I ate a half pound of sharp cheddar cheese and some M&Ms, because this day, bad choices are the theme.

I went to work in the afternoon, and survived a lesson in evaluating the angles and types of triangles with a 9th grader, which very nearly made my head explode. Somehow we both survived and I came  home and did more laundry.

Now it's almost dinner time. There are two important issues weighing on me. I have some green peppers that I really need to use up and planned on making chicken fajitas for dinner. Normally this sounds awesome. But today, being a cheese-and-chocolate themed day, I can't fight the craving for something hot and baked and gooey and cheesy and totally terrible for me. Once again, my hedonism championed over my frugal sensibility and the green peppers will probably meet their fateful demise in the compost. The trouble with green peppers is that I really don't like them in anything but fajitas. I can't stand them in soup or pizza, or even in the gooey cheesy green chile and chicken and rice bake that I am making instead of fajitas. I should just man up and put them in there, but the flavor... ugh. Does my dislike of green pepper outweigh the guilt of wasting them???? The second issue, which could directly correspond to the first, or at least make it easier to decide, is the fact that I have an EMT meeting tonight and I really can't start drinking wine until afterward. Or SHOULDN'T start drinking wine until afterward. If I put the green peppers in the chicken bake, can I have wine early? Like buying an indulgence...

Not that it really helps to not have wine before the meeting. Chances are I will fight to stay awake either way. We're going over musculoskeletal injuries, and I feel as though I have had enough of those for the week, thankyouverymuch.

All of the decisions we make are based out of our own personal value systems. For me, I value sleep, cheese and wine over prudence, weightloss and propriety. Like I said before, I am a hedonist. With all of the values that correspond. In addition to food and laziness, things that are important to me are family and friends. And I would even endure a wine-less Thanksgiving to be with the people I love. Sometimes those are the choices we have to make, and they teach us what it is that is truly important to us. On the mornings that I have work to go to, to pay the bills and take care of my family, I get out of bed. If I was married to a green pepper lover, I would put green peppers in stuff. And if being with my family meant no booze for the holidays, I guess I would choose that too. Or get really sneaky. (JUST KIDDING MOM! GEEZE.)

I know the things that are important to me. And most days I think I do pretty well at making choices. Obviously, we all make the Wrong Ones sometimes. I have yet to meet someone who never makes poor choices. And if you have, I would caution you to back away slowly, then run. Because bad choices make all the good ones sweeter. Little triumphs in life, that remind us that we are strong and we are sure and we CAN do the right thing. After 5 more minutes of sleep.

Things That Are Small

You know how they say "don't sweat the small stuff"? I was thinking about that today, and how it's true. And it's easy to get all wound up about things, that in the scheme of Real Life, are not really big issues. Like if the kids have head lice. Or whether the dogs have fleas. Or if the rug in the hallway is drenched because the toilet flooded again while I was gone and NOONE (this is my newest adopted child) wants to tell me. And it would be REALLY easy to FREAK the HECK out about any of these. Or all of them at once, since that's how they generally come, but really, no amount of freaking out has ever gotten rid of lice. Or anything at all. Other than annoying people. Freaking out at them enough usually does the trick. Not that I have tried. *innocent stare

But if we IGNORE the small stuff, it can get REALLY BIG. Like, you know, lice in the Whole Entire School. Or stuff like that. And also, if we aren't paying attention to the small stuff, we miss some of the best parts of life. Not head lice, or fleas, or toilet floods. But we miss things like how the bathroom air freshener at the Northside Costco smells EXACTLY like a brand new Strawberry Shortcake doll from 1984. Which smells EXACTLY like my birthday.

Or we might not notice that when we walk in to the house and Fun. is blaring on the stereo at 7,000 decibels that it probably means that an 11 year old is doing her Best Job Ever on the dishes. Like 15 minutes scrubbing and drying each Hydroflask lid. The small stuff. Nevermind the pile of crockpots full of applesauce we made with Lofty Intentions for canning last week and forgot about. And the stuck on mashed potato pot. Those lids are SPARKLING. The small things. And Fun. is loud. And it's good. Especially since Aspen probably has no idea what "getting higher than the empire state" in the bathroom really is.

If you weren't paying attention to the small stuff, you might forget that you finally got a flipping HEATED MATTRESS PAD at like 70% off, and that means that even if NOONE brought in pellets for the stove, once again, and your rotator cuff/laboral tear and bulging disk absolutely dictate to you that you sure as HECK ain't doing it, you will still sleep warm tonight. And you might forget that your sheets are tossing all warm and clean in a Brand New Dryer sitting by a Brand New Washer.

Or you might not have read that piece of junk mail that offered you DirectTV for $29.99 a month, and you might not have called and talked to Jared at CenturyLink, who would not only refund all of the overcharges/late charges that were NOT YOUR FAULT, but he'd hook you up with some sweet NFL Sunday Ticket action for $25 a month AND a $50 cash card AND could quite possibly be the love of your life. If only he wasn't married.

If the small stuff didn't matter, then you wouldn't care when a very tiny wiener dog confided in you that Nobody Can Replace You, and also: You Are The Best Mom in the Whole World.

It's because I was foolishly ignoring the small stuff that I left my Fitbit 1 (one) home this morning and now I don't know if I should really be drinking this one glass of wine. Or why in the heck my hip hurts so bad. Not that they need to be sweated, but at least remembered. So you can get credit, and have ice cream and stuff. And ignoring the small stuff led to me not paying attention when Kiz told me that her boyfriend had a high fever and sore throat for three days, and not COMMANDING her to not visit him, to prevent the spread of the plague into our house.

Even though there is some BIG STUFF this week that maybe needs to be sweated, like divorce papers, which are the printed equivalent of a big fat kick in the gut, and double shifts at work, followedimmediately (<---- see how I did that?) by all-nighter at a BOY'S house his birthday for all the older girls, which I will obviously be chaperoning, and figuring out how to deal with teenagers that probably think they got away with "borrowing" the car and driving it sans licenses... all that stuff can, and will be sweated about. Probably through my tear ducts and into my pillow, but there's still the small stuff. There's really loud Fun. when you would have probably played some terrible sad song over and over to go with the continuous rain. The small stuff that doesn't have to be sweated, when you realize that mayonnaise as a lice remedy is also a kick-a** hair conditioner, and all this pestilence equates a Really Clean House (someday), and life is actually really, really good. Because of the small stuff. Heated mattress pads. Wiener dogs. Fun.

(please note: the one minor reference to alcohol in the preceding blog is compensated for in this drink riddled but very happy video. Here's to the small things... Carry On!)

Things About This Day

I got two of my new vintage aprons today. They're cool. They are a little bit too long, but have pockets. And they were made by a woman named Marge. That makes them extra cool. Now I can get busy for sure in the kitchen.

yes, I am wearing something under it. seriously, you guys.

It is September 11th. I went to a commemorative assembly at the school this morning where I was scolded for not wearing my fire department shirt by some people, scolded for not sitting with the responders by others, and scolded by my daughter for being there at all. Apparently within the last 24 hours I have earned the rank of Worst Mother In The World, after I let Josh go up and help the four younger cousins & sister clean up her room, which had been the battlefield for a frenzied Lego war. He touched something wrong, I guess, and isn't supposed to be in her room at all, which is interesting, considering he PAYS FOR IT. She gave each of us a severe tongue lashing, and apparently I was grounded from being seen in public because I was severely reprimanded for showing up for the 9-11 assembly. That's why I didn't wear a uniform of any sort. I was there as a mother. To shame my daughter, as she delivered a 45 second speech about the responders that died in the twin towers. I was there to remind her that I am a mother first, and a responder, and maybe someday, a hero. Whether Josh moves her dirty clothes or not. I must have been forgiven and ungrounded by noon because I stopped by for lunch at the special ed room, where all of my favorite people hang out (why is that so weird?) and she came to see me there.

September 11th changed us as a nation, but there are moments that I wonder if all of the changes have been good. Or if we have adopted an even more arrogant philosophy that American's aren't allowed to suffer. That it's a crime against humanity to wound the American Pride, and we should be dealing with more important things than terrorist attacks, like stepdads invading bedrooms. MacKenzie was 4 when the towers fell. We lived in a tiny straw house, with dirt floors and some sort of improvised running water. MacKenzie was happy to have new shoes and hot dogs for dinner. When did life get so much more ridiculous? I take full responsibility for forgetting to teach my kids that good things must be earned. That nothing comes without hard work. That no earthly possession is worth as much as a relationship, a family. I know that they are teenagers, and one day this knowledge will come to them. I have faith in that. But I feel like I have not done a good job imparting it to them. And Josh agrees heartily. How do you teach your child gratitude and humility? To prefer other human beings above themselves, even sisters (ew)? I don't think it totally occurred to me until I had my heart chewed up and spit out and then I turned and did it to someone else, that nothing could be as important as loving others more than yourself. I love this country. And it shakes me to my core when our vulnerability to random acts of terror is showcased as it was on this day 12 years ago. I am ashamed that part of our response to this exposure was to puff up arrogantly, shake our collective fist,  and spend thousands of lives to put those crazies in their place. I absolutely think we needed to respond, but I think we also should have done some cultural resetting, realizing that the superficial icons of our country didn't hold any weight compared to our family, our liberties, our beliefs. But it's easier to focus on the bad guys than to look inside and get into an argument about where we have gone wrong. We're so busy running the rest of the world that our own household is out of order. Story of my life.

this is totally what I will look like in these, right?

But now I have aprons. Which means my household WILL BE in order. Which means I will make pints and pints of glorious salsa today. In addition to vintage aprons, I ordered a pair of Zaggora HotPants to wear when I exercise. Or mostly when I don't, which is often what I do. I ordered them because the model looked really good in them, which means they MUST WORK, right? I am a sucker for that kind of thing. And I want them to work. I want to burn extra calories when I am not-exercising, even if they make a weird swishy noise when I walk. I am going to wear them for a few weeks. Maybe every day. All Day. Without washing them (ok fine, I will wash them). And then I am going to let you know how Skinny I Have Become. Of course, letting you know how Skinny I Have Become is contingent upon me measuring myself to find out how Skinny I Am Not right now, and I am really adverse to doing that. I had to measure myself to figure out which size to order, and then I had to go throw up real quick. After I threw up I was able to go down a size, which was encouraging, but still. I hate measuring. And weighing. The battery on our scale has been dying for some time now. When you turn it on it just reads LO. I thought for a few days it was congratulating me on weight loss, and then I realized it was talking about the battery, and once I reset it it would actually weigh me. The results have been so offensive that I feel compelled to attribute it to the waning battery. Clearly the thing is WAY OFF. So I had Josh pick up a new battery today. Installing a new battery means I will not set foot on the darn thing until I have worn my new HotPants for a few weeks, for fear the appalling numbers were not really the fault of a dying battery. My ever-rational line of reason tells me that I am carrying so much water weight that the HotPants will just sweat the pounds right off of me while I am not-exercising. I can only hope. I have started juicing again, but my juice was so gross today that I actually cheated and threw away the last few tablespoons. I always forget that limes must be used sparingly in juice. Especially when I have a whole Costco bag of limes to use up. I will put some in my salsa today, instead of my juice. In addition to juicing I have been sampling that Spark drink from advocare, which has lots of vitamins and I think I might like. I will let you know. I have also finally decided to eat reasonable food, like lots of vegetables and fresh stuff. Over the weekend I was on something of a comfort food kick. Another good reason to avoid the cruel bathroom scale. But what do you think - HotPants and Apron? Yep, that's what I thought.

Things About Adulthood

It has occurred to me, as I have moved back into neighborliness proximity of my younger sister, and we are now somewhat more "grown up" than we were when I lived here four or five years ago, that everyone defines adulthood by a different set of parameters. As I examine the standard by which my sister and I measure "being grown up", I begin to realize that these icons of age for us really have nothing to do with that, at all. I started to notice it in earnest when Em and I were canning peaches the other day. She donned one of her many adorable vintage aprons, very similar to the dozens that my mom owned when I was growing up, and offered me one as well. I have one apron in my house. My mom made it for me from a vintage pattern, and it's apparently Christmas themed, which I somehow didn't pick up on until my baby sister Susanna pointed it out once. When one has only one apron, one cannot be picky about seasonal indications. As I put on Em's extra-cute apron, I felt an immediate sense of arrival. Arrival into adulthood, like my mom. I used the crap out of that apron, wiping my hands and pretty much everything else that might have needed wiping on it. I couldn't help noticing, during the 6 hour canning ordeal that resulted in 20 some quarts of peaches, how enslaved (in a good way) Em and I both are by the traditions instilled in us growing up. I have canned with several other ladies over the years, and adopted, or at least put up with, other methods of food processing that they have introduced to me. But as I canned with my sister, there was an unquestionable method-flow of procedure that was rooted in a linoleum floored farm house kitchen outside of Colville, more than 20 years ago. Em commented on how nice it was that she didn't have to tell me what to do next. Or vise-verse. This is how it's done. I know that so-and-so doesn't boil the lids, and somebody else heats the jars in the oven first, and lots of people cut their peaches in quarters instead of 12ths, but Stecker girls do it THIS way. Because we are grown ups. With aprons.

After we got done with that, I went home and got on eBay to find myself some vintage aprons - clearly the missing element in my lonely canning experiences in my own kitchen. Em stopped by and asked me if I had felt convicted when I was wearing her apron. Convicted about how good it felt, and like maybe I had put it off a little too long. I said yes. Just yes. And I ordered some aprons. We went and visited Sister's Second Hand, which is the only one in Northport, and a garbage dump turned treasure trove that we like to loot and pillage periodically. I only find good stuff when I am there with Em, because we are racing to find the best vintage junk before the other sister does. Someday maybe we'll own our own Sister's Second Hand, and spend our time scouring the universe for cool stuff to sell other competitive find-hunter sisters. Sometimes we find something at the same time and have to try to be adult about who's house it will go better in. Or we just make up something ridiculous about seeing it first and don't care. Probably if I did that I would feel guilty and give it to Em for her birthday or something. But not if I found it first fair and square.

Being a grown up means cooking from scratch, and washing the dishes more than once a day. And vacuuming regularly. It means bargain shopping, coupon clipping and Extreme Thriftiness. And maybe even stockpiling. Josh has always accused me of stockpiling, which is absurd, since I don't have lentils OR millet, both crucial elements of stockpiling, and since I ran out of toilet paper completely today and had to ride my bike to the neighbors to borrow a roll. I can only imagine how cool I looked with a fluffy white roll of Kirkland Select TP in my bicycle basket, coming home. If I was a true stockpiler, THAT never would have happened. And I would have a legitimate use for several plastic Five Gallon Buckets of Things. Now that we live in the boondocks, I can buy GINORMOUS bags of sugar and flour and thousands of Ziploc bags at a time and tell Josh that he just doesn't get Country Living yet. Or adulthood. I feel like if I was more of an adult, I wouldn't feel so giddy when I finish a batch of jam. I probably wouldn't need to leave it sitting on the counter for a week, jars shining in the sunlight as if they are waiting for blue ribbons at the fair. I wouldn't expect everyone that walks in my front door to ooh and ahh over the pretty oranges and yellows and reds. If I was more of a grown up. I wore my Christmas Apron when I made peach jam yesterday. I was hoping nobody would stop by to catch me in my off-season attire, which they didn't, while hoping they would stop by to see the lovely jars, which they also didn't, but I am certain the apron is the whole reason that this batch of jam turned out thicker and better than the other ones. I also switched pectin, but that seems like a silly reason. Maybe I am not such an adult after all.

Things That AREN'T New

It started off as a good day. I had won almost limitless Good Mom points for the surprise 13th birthday party I threw yesterday for Natalee that was a raging success, and even the mountain of Bad Mom strikes I got for the guilt trips about never throwing an Awesome Party for my other kids couldn't cancel out the radness of a cross town, retail scavenger hunt, complete with mochas and holiday socks and mini shopping spree at Claire's. Today, even as I tripped over sleeping bags and unidentifiable teenage bodies, and I rushed through apparently twice as much french toast as a herd of 13 year old girls would eat (did I miss an eating disorder memo here?), and didn't get to wash my hair before work because Halle had to get dropped off for ski practice, I was still humming merrily though my nearly debilitating pain about What a Good Job we had done surprising her and how maybe I could win my parenting merit badge someday after all.

It seems like whenever I leave for work, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly there is an influx of woeful texts about crabby children and minor household catastrophes and how Aspen won't get off Pottermoore so Halle can do her homework, which apparently consists of three hours of Facebook and an intense round of some role playing game I have never heard of. I would like to interject here, that on the day in question, which is today, incidentally, that the girls were not parentless. Josh was home pretty much all day, doing countless loads of laundry that involved racing the girls to the washing machine between loads, and cooking pinto beans according to my recipe WITHOUT burning them. He's pretty much a stud.

I think the Bad Things that were happening at home today were magnified by many things, such as two weeks spent at DAD's house, which is nothing more than a sugar fueled, sleepless duration of as much awkward and random socialization as can be forced on 4 kids in a Christmas Break. Send four girls to spend time with a) disconnected and troubled biological father, b) super-enabling and guilt driven grandmother and c) a mini cultish place full of weirdos and a few innocent bystanders, and you get four confused, exhausted and basically snotty kids with misdirected sympathies and misplaced moral standards.

The aura of peace and tranquil positivity was also dampened by a series of flu bugs that would put Kevin Bacon to shame with their interconnectivity. Who needs seven degrees when I can trace this (the second) virus (without insinuating origin) from Bend, to Marble, to Olympia, to Spokane, and by now to Nashville, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. It's one thing to share friendly holiday germs with family. You kind of come to expect that when somebody ALWAYS has a snot nosed kid or husband running around. But the holiday cheer of passing the flu onto random passerbyers and realizing that YOU helped start the epidemic that is ravaging Maryland is somehow deeply satisfying. I have made an impact CONTINENTALLY! I have boosted the economy in sales of Kleenex and NyQuil, and connected millions of strangers to each other WAY more efficiently and intimately, biologically even, than Kevin bacon ever did!

Another exacerbating factor to consider for the entropy we were facing at home is the fact that it is January. With the exception of January 1st, the entire month of January is bleak, cold and desolate. We are broke from Holiday Overdoing-it, the bills are three times their normal amount because "Halle" left the space heater on the whole time we were gone, and work is slim. After the glorious rush of New Years optimism and joyfulness, we are faced with the hard truth that another year has begun and we have to do it all.over.again. Like right now. Turns out, you still have to take the garbage out on Thursdays in 2013 or you'll have overflowing cans for another week. Turns out that the puppy poop on the back porch and the mountain of laundry didn't suddenly vanish at midnight 12/31/12. Oh yeah, and the car is still running rough, and somebody STILL needs to go to the dentist, and you guessed it, I am still in pain. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I just wanted to come home from my grueling (4 hour) work day and curl up in sweatpants. All of the elements were right. Josh made amazing fajitas. I found a (mostly) clean pair of sweatpants. I almost made it to the couch. But WHAM!!! chore time hit with a fury unlike anything that a scorned woman has ever seen. I am not even sure what happened, but by the time the dust settled, Kizzie was doing Halle's chore, Halle was doing Aspen's chore, and Aspen was innocently MIA with her unfinished plate of onions. Josh started helping do Aspen's chore then disappeared downstairs to pout over a basket of laundry, and Nattie somehow squeaked by, messing around on the computer the entire time, until Halle finished cleaning the kitchen halfway and tried to remove her physically from Facebook, which, as we all know, is a scientific impossibility. All of this transpired with quite a bit of yelling, huffing and puffing, whining, stomping, a few tears and ultimately, me losing all my glorious good mom points when I unplugged the girls computer from everything and carried off the hard drive. Josh got mad at me for getting mad at him for getting mad at the kids for getting mad at him and after I got mad at him for getting mad at me for all of that I got mad at the kids, just for the heck of it and he started acting much nicer because I was REALLY mad. He even offered me wine. But I am not drinking. For a minute.

Now I am in my sweatpants on the couch, waiting for some wine, Kizzie is playing nicely with the dogs, which should give you some indication of how serious the situation was, since Kizzie won't play with dogs unless her life depends on it. Josh is wearing his itchy Pendleton shirt just to make me happy and Halle went to bed with a headache. Aspen and Natalee are still trying to figure out how to make the computer work without a hard drive.

I am going to watch a movie. I am on the fence between a gangster flick with fedoras and a lot of shooting or a mushy tear jerker. Hmmm. PMS much?

Things That Trouble Me

So here's the thing. I got my self in trouble with that last little gem I wrote, and have decided henceforth and forevermore that I will only write about myself. Ok, myself and my boy. And maybe my kids. Especially my kids, since they will always be mad at me no matter what, and my boy, since if he is mad at me the only person that really cares is not even a person, but the puppy Dagny, who will be distressed that she can not reach both of us at night when he is sleeping on the couch. Any way, I need to limit myself to poking fun only at people within my immediate circle since theirs are the only responses I can reverse manipulate and control.

So about myself. This is actually an excellent time to say something about myself, and that is this: I am in a TREMENDOUS amount of pain these days. Like, take the pain I was at last year around this time, twist it, bend it in half and stomp on it and you'd almost be there. Sometimes I think I must be faking how much pain I am in to myself, since I still manage to muddle through work, but then I realize that I haven't made my family a decent meal in Many Days and I know it must be for real. I try not to whine, but this usually results in me glaring angrily at people who have no idea what they did to piss me off. I have discovered, in this last 14 months of almost constant pain, that being crabby and snappy doesn't solicit me much sympathy, but people are much more likely to do nice things for me, like heat up my rice pack, or get me an ice water or a shot of whiskey, if I am very sweet in spite of my pain. Especially Josh seems to respond ever so much more gently when I whisper sweetly that I love him but I am hurting like a son of a chukar. Another indicator that my pain is not pretend is the impulse I have had in the last several days to actually post a prayer request on Facebook. I mean, who does that, other than... oh wait, only talking about me. Luckily I have enough pride and dignity to not admit my need for intercession and so I just go on suffering. Mostly I was concerned about religiously discriminating against my wildly varied list of friends, since I don't have any idea how to ask a Buddhist to intercede, or a Hindu to Hind or A Zenist to Zen, and I was concerned that the responses on any such status would cause the next religious crusade and it would be all my fault. I have enough guilt to deal with, like for never cooking decent food for my family anymore. I just don't need that additional burden.

Another thing that would, at any other time in my life be kind of a big deal, but since I am in pretty much a steady 8/10 on the pain scale is somewhat muted in importance, is the fact that I married the Grinch. This is huge cause for concern when one realizes that the entire point of living for 365 days a year is that 20some of these days in December are jam-packed with warm fuzzies and ginger bread and wrapping paper and all kinds of wonderful, superficial things that remind me that I AM LOVED. I understand the crisis of commercialism in our culture, and the perversion of the true meaning of Christmas, which was actually some fertility ritual... but for me, every bit of the Christmas that we celebrate here in the good old, spoiled rotten USofA, represents the people that I love and that Love me. Family, Friends, Present, Past, even Future. I cannot get enough of the feeling that every silly Christmas carol and Jingle Bell connects us all to a common theme of WANTING happiness for each other. I do go a little overboard on presents, because I FINALLY have an excuse to give Everyone In the Whole World something that I just know that they will love. And I know that every time they see it, even if it is to put it in a yard sale box, they will think of me (hopefully with some guilt in the yard sale scenario). Josh is insistent that none of this is the true meaning of Christmas and that we should be ashamed of our superficiality. Technically, he is correct, as usual. But I can't help but thinking I am somehow failing in communicating the depth of my desire to just love on every body this time of year. In a nasty turn of events, it happens that my love language is gift giving, and somebody gave me an excuse. This is quite unfortunate for my honorary Jew of a husband (he has been legitimately dubbed this by our close Jewish friend) who prefers to make layaway payments on our monthly groceries so we don't have to spend over $50 at one time, regardless of what we have in the bank. I appreciate his budgety sense of propriety, and the balance he brings to me, most of the year, but come Christmas, I have run into the ironic coincidence that he has more or less run out of work, and every present I buy becomes the incarnation of a power bill or a tank of gas. It's a perpetual conflict for me as I look longingly at my online shopping carts and frantically search retailmenot.com for coupons for my favorite websites to somehow justify the piles of boxes on our porch. We tend to find ourselves at odds every so often these days, and if he could only be human for a moment and figure out how much fun The Holidays are, presents and all, we would get along ever so much better. :) It doesn't help that both of our older kids are on an ungratefulness campaign to become Snottiest Offspring of the Year, and he is desperately tired of being argued with and chastised by two know-it-alls in Converse and Bobby Pins. I get that. I really do. They really deserve coal and switches these days, but I am fairly certain that at 15 and 16, I didn't deserve much more, and it was about that time that I was surprised with a green leather coat that was the answer to all of my childish prayers. Obviously since my Wonderful Husband was the picture of a perfect youth, he not only was never mouthy and insolent, but he also never got a Christmas Present after he was 10, which resulted in his pragmatic approach to a giftless holiday. Maybe I will get him counseling sessions disguised as golf lessons for Christmas. That might be the greatest idea I've ever had. Other than rolling the gingersnaps in sugar AND cinnamon before baking (this turned out to be delicious).

So, back to myself, my earnest goal is to have a real dinner in the crockpot before I leave for a long day of work, and to spend all 8 hours brainstorming a way to pay for more and more Christmas presents that will have no ramifications on our heating bill. Obviously I need a raise. Or to take up knitting. I had great intentions to make most of my holiday gifts this year, but all of my creative fantasies were dashed with the onset of a nearly full time job and the allure of a couch that has been sitting lonely without me all day long. Oh yeah, and finally finishing Battlestar Gallactica. Fantasizing myself as Starbuck is a nice switch up from Angelina Jolie, and also makes me feel less guilty for drinking and acting insanely.

I would like to add, lest I frighten off even more friends than my last spew did, that in spite of my pain, I am still quite happy, and intend to stay that way, in spite of my status as Mrs. Grinch and the stress of hiding online purchases. I love this time of year, and not even snotty teenagers or fiscally responsible husbands can steal away the giddiness of waking up to a glowing christmas tree, the smell of pine needles in the vacuum, and a puppy chewing on ornaments that date back to the late 1970s. I love my family, my friends, my puppies, my job, my whole life. If I have to hurt a little to pay the bill for having this good then I guess that's ok. This is heaven. All we're missing is snow. And some home cooked food. And more presents.

Things That Are Warm

Ok, so, some days I am overwhelmed with this fantastical desire to be a grassroots domestic goddess, cooking everything from scratch and blowing my family's collective mind with my awesomeness. I have discovered that such mind blowing is usually better achieved with a Papa Murphy's Pizza and Root Beer. In spite of this well earned knowledge, sometimes I still endeavor to appease my down-home urges, and in the instance of this frosty morning, once I found out I was out of canned beans all together, I decided to make this awesome soup recipe with dry beans, which are cheaper, but ultimately, maybe just as unhealthy since they are not organic, blah blah blah. Anyway, I didn't soak the beans over night, and since I am still recovering from the two failed pots of pinto beans, I decided to try something new and actually read the directions on the package. Weird. Apparently there is a quick soak method that involves boiling the beans for a few minutes and letting them stand for an hour, after which I will crock pot the heck out of all of them until dinner time. I will let you know how it goes, and even if it tastes crappy, I will probably dress a bowl up and tell you how awesome it was because I have already experienced more than my share of humility this week. 

I am sharing this recipe with you, cut and paste from a Facebook Chat with my cousin (the one who likes low quality Thai Food), because it's much quicker than transcribing, and y'all know how I like to cut corners. I have made the recipe (as it follows) before and it is darn good. Especially with corn bread (because obviously, I am cool) on a frosty night when the leaves smell sweet and are crunchy under your feet. I am pretty excited about eating it tonight because I remembered that I bought a bag of Fritos in a weak moment the other day, which will be fabulous all crunched up in it. If the dry beans work out good, I will be pretty happy. If not, well, there's always Papa Murphy's. 

Taco Soup

This is totally Aunt Anna's recipe.

In a crock pot, combine:

1 lb ground beef, browned

1 sm onion, diced

2 cans Mexican Style stewed tomatoes

2 cans kidney beans

1 can black beans

1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce

1 can corn

1 can olives

1 packet taco seasoning

Simmer all day on low. Or, just cook in a pot if your crock-less.

Serve with corn chips, sour cream, and grated cheese. And corn bread, if you're cool.

My Very Industrious Morning, which consisted of pouring unmeasured amounts of various beans into a pot and adding water, is fueled by a very large, very awesome cup (newly acquired from my workplace) of coffee that I was forced to embellish with Irish Cream since I forgot to buy regular cream last night. There is something almost naughty about drinking this early in the morning, but since it was forced upon me, I guess I won't wallow in the guilt for too long. Besides, it was supposed to be my day off, but I talked my boss into working me in for a few hours so I can afford the Super Adorable snow globe we're selling at the store. At this point Josh keeps asking how many hours he needs to put in to pay for my job, which is kind of silly, since he really only has to work like a half a day to keep me in business there. I mean really, it's a small price to pay for all the cool stuff I am getting.

Tomorrow I am closing at work again, and since I came home to such rousing appreciation (read: no leftovers for mom) for the delicious enchiladas I made them last night for dinner, I will probably make something equally as sumptuous tomorrow. Or I might make my sister's Tortilla Soup, which is a recipe that everyone should have. I have had it several times, and lost it repeatedly, so this morning when I asked her for it again, she just texted me photos of the recipe card. She's getting smart. But now I have to look harder at the little pictures. Maybe I will do her soup next week. Is one soup night a week enough? Maybe tomorrow is a roast night. Or maybe it's a kids-eat-chicken-nuggets and I maneuver my way into another $9.95 prime rib dinner at Timbers, which, second to their happy hour finger steaks, might be the best deal in town. The last time I engineered that set up, Josh got creative and fed the kids one of the frozen "manicotti" that he bought at Costco, which they will only eat if we call it lasagna, since it in no way resembles "real" manicotti, which is a long held Stecker family tradition and I am sure I will share with you at some point. In the mean time, I need to go finish this Irish Cream and check my pot of beans. 

Things That I Pull Off

My cousin called me brave. I'd like to think I am  - except it was so easy. Of course so is falling out of an airplane, which is definitely brave. So I guess I will accept her accolade. A few weeks ago she (my cousin again) fed me her leftover Pineapple Curry, which was so good, I needed to have more. I think it was extra good because I happened to be working on the Wenatchee Complex Fire when she fed it to me and I was really over the camp food. Anyway, I found a place here in Bend that makes it pretty dang close to the original, which isn't really probably the original but since it was my first exposure to Pineapple Curry, we'll just call it the original. For expediency. (if you're curious, try it at Angel Thai in Bend)

So last night, feeling all homebound after lolling around sickly on my couch for two days, I decided to get a little creative with dinner. Let me tell you, I did this with some fear and trepidation, since my cooking efforts lately have not been coming off in Rachel Ray fashion like they usually do for me. It all started with the carmel that I made last weekend. Every year I swear I will boil it longer. I'll wait for that candy thermometer to bump over the soft ball mark. I will be patient. But every year, and especially this year, for some reason, I get impatient and start dipping my apples Too Soon. So I wound up with a 9x13 pan of caramel sauce instead of caramel candies. It's delicious, for sure, and my buddy and I have found a plethera of uses for it. For example: candy corn dipped in caramel is amazing, as are chips ahoy/caramel sandwiches. It also dissolves nicely in hot apple juice - which we use instead of cider because I am either too lazy or too cheap to seek out the Real Thing. I even smothered my last apple crisp (under the crisp part) with caramel sauce and it was amazing. Even though Josh never even noticed. Sometimes I think that his taste buds are all wired wrong and the only thing that tastes good to him is ketchup and chemicals. The man literally lives on Crystal Lite and Ketchup. Gross. Anyway, After the caramel fiasco, which was still redeemable, I got in this great I'm-cooking-from-scratch-for-fall kick, and successfully destroyed two entire pots of beans. How one can actually destroy beans, and more than one batch in a row, is pretty interesting, but lets just say it had something to do with first not cooking long enough, and then reheating too soon, and then overcooking altogether when I got bored paying attention to them. Good thing beans are cheap. And pots. Um.... But really, after spending three days and about $40 in scentsy trying to eradicate the smell of burnt beans (which is something akin to burnt hair) from the kitchen, I am definitely cooking gun-shy. That's what I get for trying to be healthy. And cheap.

Back to last night: I googled myself up a curry recipe or two and decided to make my own Pineapple Curry. I didn't have any chicken on hand but I had this shrimp in the freezer that I had been saving for some unknown occasion when freezerburn would be appropriate. So I made Pineapple Shrimp Curry. And It was good. I threw a little hot chili paste in so it was about 2 stars spicy (I am clarifying what the stars indicate to avoid the confusion I had when my cousin said her Pineapple curry was only two stars and I assumed it was poor quality), but even Aspen liked it. Mostly because she thinks she's awesome when she eats shrimp. I don't know why. Something about they have poop in them and she doesn't care? True to form, I didn't follow any of the recipes I found, but kinda jerry rigged one up myself. And it worked! Eat your heart out, Rachel Ray.

Pineapple Shrimp Curry

2 TBSP coconut oil

1 can pineapple chunks

1 lb shrimp (or however much you think you want?)

2 green peppers, chopped

garlic

fresh ginger

1 can coconut milk

fish sauce (a TBSP or so)

1.5 TBSP green curry paste (or red - but I had green)

soy sauce

I stir fried the shrimp, garlic, ginger, peppers and pineapple in the coconut oil with a splash of soy sauce, then whisked all the sauce ingredients together and poured over the stir fry in the wok and let it all simmer a little while. You can thicken the sauce with corn starch if you want but I just served it over rice. You can also add a little of the pineapple juice for more flavor. I added about a 1/4 cup.