Nature 2. JLK 0.

My loyal readers might remember the last time I tried to take on nature at our new house. It didn't go so well.

And it's only getting worse. In fact, I am looking forward to winter and it's only just Memorial Day. And I used to LOVE summer.

It got pretty hot around these parts pretty quickly. I was happy for the nice weather, but we don't (yet) have air conditioning in our house so the nights have been steaming hot on the 2nd floor. We've been forced to open the windows at night, knowing that the shitty screens were going to let some bugs in. And so for the last week or so, my house has been damn-near infested with every little creepy crawly you can imagine.

Then, on friday, we found ourselves having a pretty serious carpenter ant problem, especially in the living room. But even then I was okay, because I can kill ants, I'm not scared of them, and my husband all but eradicated the problem when he got home from work that same day.

Today we had all new windows installed in the house. We've been counting down the days for a month, so we were pretty excited. Every single window in the house is open right now and I am enjoying the bugless fresh air. Except for two nagging things:

1. One of the window guys felt the need to tell me that on one of the 2nd floor storm windows there was a big ass spider with fangs that jumped off the house before he could kill it, and...

2. The thing about new windows is, in order for them to install them they have to take the old ones out. Which means that for at least a few minutes, there were gaping holes in the house. So for most of the afternoon I have been killing MORE bugs and spiders and only keeping myself from losing my shit by telling myself that this is the end, these are the last bugs that are getting in here.

But the absolute KICKER today was when I headed out through the garage to go see the progress of the install. I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye and noticed a 6 FOOT LONG SNAKE dangling from the side wall of the fucking garage, trying to slither its way on top of the now-open garage door. I freaked the FREAK out.

A got the thing down and out of the garage, probably injured it in the process, and laughed at me for being such a chicken shit when we used to have a pet snake. But a snake in a cage that you raised from the time it was a baby and a wild snake from the woods that you don't know from Adam are two different things.

Either way I thought it was over.

Late this afternoon I noticed the garage door was still open. "Gee honey, I wonder how the snake got IN the garage in the first place????" I decided that since it had been open for so long, I should probably go out and check to make sure the snake hadn't returned. I didn't make it 3 feet in before I noticed a giant-ass snake skin hanging from the crawlspace above the interior entry door. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there last night. I'm also pretty sure it wasn't there this morning. Hubby isn't home to check it out.

I am now at the point where every time I go outside, I feel like Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines - under constant fucking attack from creatures all around me. Bugs fly into my head, mosquitoes bite me, bees screw with me, spiders somehow decide that my yard isn't big enough and they need to come investigate ME. I've gone from telling my husband not to use pesticides in our yard at all, to saying "Spray that shit until it glows in the dark for all I care, just get rid of the fuckers!" Irresponsible and selfish? Yeah, probably. But I'm developing phobias left and right here.

So much for my gardening and landscaping plans. I have an awesome Yankee Doodle lilac to plant but I can't bring myself to go outside long enough to dig a hole.

This summer is going to suck. :(

It's Always Something

I've been away for a bit longer than normal, barely having time to read and comment on your pages. My Grandpa's death was like a 12 day event, with family flying in and staying with us and subsequent visiting with others who stayed elsewhere. I've also been working on planning D's first birthday party in June, which has turned into a minor clusterfuck because apparently everyone either waits until the last minute to rsvp or doesn't rsvp at all, which REALLY pisses me off.

But beyond all that, I'm feeling pretty beaten down in general. The absolute deadline for the bathroom renovation is the baby's party, which is less than a month away. That means that every single day, all day, I am by myself with D while A is at work. And when A gets home, we eat dinner, and then he goes to work on the bathroom until bedtime. So I am by myself with D all evening as well. For the past few weeks he seems to think that whining and temper tantrums over stupid shit are just the Awesomest way to spend time with Mama.

The first person among my friends to have a baby now has 2 of them, and the oldest is 5. A couple of years ago I asked her, "So how's motherhood?" At the time she still only had one.

She said, "It's pretty good. Once you realize and accept the fact that your kid is an asshole, it gets much easier. Because up until that point you constantly ask yourself what you're doing wrong and how can you fix it and it makes you crazy. But kids are assholes, and more often than not it has nothing to do with you."

I thought it was a pretty amusing thing to say and of course, back then, I didn't understand. Now, I do.

"Hi, my name is JLK, and my son is an asshole." *sigh*

I've realized it, but I haven't yet accepted it. Even just typing that sentence makes me cringe and itch to delete it and write something nicer. But that would be sugarcoating and I hate sugarcoating.

Everything right now feels like a struggle. Bedtime is a struggle. Diaper changing is a battle of wills. Changing his goddamn clothes is an exercise in futility. Keeping the child from eating the cat food, dumping their water bowl, or trying to explore the litter box makes me feel like Sisyphus, only instead of pushing a boulder up a mountain, I'm dragging a toddler across a tile floor.

It has only been getting harder.

He took his first steps the day before he turned 11 months, and hasn't shown any interest in walking since. This child is 24lbs and has weighed over 20lbs since he was 5-6 months old. I am so freaking tired of carrying him all the time that I could scream. He doesn't hang onto me to help with the weight - instead he leans over, flops around, and makes it as difficult as humanly possible. My upper body looks like Vin Diesel's right now.

There is so much going on, so many things I need to do, and I am losing my ever-loving mind over here.

Here's The Thing...

When you have kids, your shit just doesn't matter. And that can be a hard thing to take.

For example, if today you find out (through EMAIL!) that your grandfather died last night from a heart attack, your baby does not know or understand that your day has gone to shit.

So you must suck it up, ignore your sadness, bite back your anger about the email part, make the phone calls you were asked to make, nurse your son, soothe him when he cries, deal with his temper tantrums.

And none of it can be made about you. None of it. Because it's not ABOUT you anymore, ever, until your child is grown up and finally sees you as a another adult. And by that time, I'm guessing, most of us have learned to cope with our shit in silence and behind closed doors.

Cheers, Grandpa. I love you and I will miss you. I thank you for teaching me about gardens, orchids, birds, and woodland animals. I thank you for watching my fashion shows and looking at my home designs. I thank you for your patience and loving acceptance. As an American, I thank you for your service and sacrifice in the Navy during WWII. I'm sorry I didn't visit more. I'm sorry I didn't listen more. I'm sorry that I just never seemed to have time. I hope that you forgive me. May you rest in peace.

If Only

There needs to be a place where, on those days, you can just drop your child (or children) off and know that he or she is in very safe, capable hands until whenever you decide to return.

Image taken from Hollands Jewelers Blog

You know what I'm talking about - a place you can put them when you're seriously on the verge of losing your shit. Where you don't have to call first. You just show up with your frazzled self, hand off the little brat, and come back to pick them up whenever you're feeling better.

I started thinking up some names for such a place:

"Mental Health Day"care

The Sanity Asylum

The Sanity Sandbox

Take a Penny, Leave a Suzie

The Kiddie Kennel

Minor Retreat

The Rest Stop

Whine to Wine

Yes, JLK is being kind of an asshole right now. It's been one of those days and I won't lie, I was fantasizing about what it would be like to have the ability to drop D off somewhere and be like "I'll be back in a few days" and head off to the shore or something for some peace and fucking quiet.

An accurate representation of what my day would have looked like. If I had earplugs.

Please don't get me wrong. I love my son dearly. But today was a nonstop whine- and shriek-fest and I thought my head was going to explode when it was barely 2pm. I kept coming back to the same thought: "When your baby has colic, you tell yourself 'He's just a baby, it's not his fault, it's his only way of communicating.' But at what point can you comfortably acknowledge that he's just a brat sometimes? 11 months? 2 years?"

When does it become okay (in your own head or otherwise) to be like "Okay, kid. Now you're just being a douchebag"?

And I was also thinking what a better place this world would be if moms could go to a neighbor (or anyone else they know and trust, for that matter) and say "I'm about to lose my shit. Can you please take this child before I sell him in exchange for a bus ticket to Hoboken?" and feel okay about it. Feel like a better parent for recognizing her limits and taking a break when needed. Feel like it's okay to take a moment (or 10) for yourself every once in awhile.

As I put D down to bed tonight, my final thought was this:

"Fuck, would it be nice to paint my toenails in the middle of the day again."

Ooooh. If only........

Nature 1. JLK 0.

I grew up in a medium-sized city. As an adult, I lived in a large town/suburb where my husband and I had a condo with a very small yard. Back in November, we moved to a town that can only be described as rural. Although it is really only separated by 9 miles and a large river from where we used to live, it is an entirely different setting.

We have an acre of land with woods and a small mountain behind our property. We have deer, owls, all sorts of cool animals living around here. I have seen more species of birds on my bird feeders in the past 2 weeks than I have seen in my entire life. Since spring began, I've been all "Yay! Nature! I'm going to start GARDENING and shit!"The original owners of our house spent a lot of money on landscaping at one point, but it's been neglected for awhile and the yard is kind of a mess.

The bird feeder next to my patio area.

Despite the fact that I have never really been a person who gardens or does any kind of dirty outdoor work, I felt myself getting really into the idea of doing stuff outside. I bought garden tools, decided to start a compost heap.......I was feeling very GREEN.

Yesterday, as I headed out to the side property line to start my compost heap, bag of cantaloupe rind, strawberry tops, and various other refuse in hand, I thought to myself "You know, I haven't really had an issue with any bugs turning me off to being outside yet. Other than the annoying gnats, I'm doing okay!"

FML.

That afternoon, I went to move a small pile of debris from the concrete pad that is going to become my little hideaway/patio area, and I encountered a wolf spider. A big one. I was going to put a picture here, but they freaked me out too much and couldn't do it. Feel free to google an image and see for yourself. I'll wait.

.......
.......
......

Fucking GROSS, right????

I was like "Holy shit! I am so DONE right now. Won't do that again!" And I promptly moved to a different area of the yard and left my pile of shit right where it was.

This morning I noticed that the top of my right ass cheek/hip felt really bruised and painful. "WTF?" I thought. So I pulled aside my pajama pants and saw a variation of this:

No, that's not my ass. That's someone else's pic. I was too busy screaming to take a photo.

I freaked the freak out, called my husband, and made him come home from work and remove it. 20 minutes and much whining later, he had removed the deer tick's body and all the legs. 

But the fucking head is still in there. In my ass cheek. In my FREAKING ASS CHEEK!

I called my doctor and she said to just let it work its way out, but if it was really bothering me I could come in and she would excavate it. I decided to stop being a wuss for now and see how much it's bugging me by Monday. 

Seriously, though. WTF.

The Latest Recipes We've Tried

I know, I know. I've been severely slacking in the blog department period, let alone my posting reviews of the new dishes we've tried. In my defense, spring has sprung around here and most of my free time has been taken up with newbie gardening/landscaping and, oddly enough, birdwatching. But that's another post.

I've decided that instead of posting my entire menu every week, I'm only going to post the recipes that we had never tried before (or at least that I have not already reviewed here). I figure what's the sense in repeating information that can be found in the related posts and archives.

So here are the new recipes and reviews for the past 2 weeks:

Miso-Marinated Salmon w/ Lime-Ginger Glaze. The recipe was for rainbow trout. Which is what I intended to make after I looked at the weekly circular for my grocery store and saw that it was on sale. That was when I looked up this recipe, specifically for rainbow trout, which I had never made before. But I get to the store and the seafood manager tells me that no one actually has it and no one seems to know why it was in the circular. WTF. So I tell her what my recipe is and ask her what I can use instead. She suggests salmon, as no other fish she thinks is going to hold its own in such a strongly-flavored marinade and glaze. Long story short, I went through this whole clusterfuck for a dish that wasn't even that good. If I ever see rainbow trout in a fish market though, I will try it again. But I happen to like my salmon to taste like salmon, and the miso plus the glaze was just too much I think.

Pizza Supreme. From a Cooking Light special section on making take-out healthier and at home. I just used a whole wheat Boboli crust and regular marinara (I think it was Classico) but damn was it GOOD. For so little seasoning it had sooo much flavor. But the best part was that it wasn't greasy at all but definitely tasted like a pizza house pizza. A bit of prep work for the vegetables, but so worth it.

Grilled Steak w/ Fresh Mango Salsa. Flat-iron steak was on sale at the supermarket so I figured it was as good a time as any to try this recipe I had been sitting on for a year or so. Holy shit. Flat-iron is my new favorite cut. The seasoning in this recipe was also fantastic, had great flavor, and not an ounce of meat went to waste. The salsa was also excellent.

Herbed Greek Chicken Salad. This was very good and very light. It had a similar flavor to the chicken souvlaki that I love so much. This will definitely be a staple in our house once the summer is here. I served it with toasted pita wedges seasoned with salt & pepper.

Smoked Mozzarella, Spinach, and Pepper Omelet Sandwiches. My husband actually did the cooking and prep for this one, as he is obsessed with breakfast foods - especially when eaten for dinner. The omelets themselves I felt were kind of "eh" - A loved them though. So much that he invited some friends over for brunch the following Sunday and made them again. When he made them the second time I had him put the mozzarella IN my omelet instead of just on the muffin, which of course means more cheese and more calories, but I felt it was worth it. Served with the recommended fresh fruit salad (honeydew, cantaloupe, strawberries, and blueberries for us) drizzled with French vanilla yogurt - HOLY YUMMY.

Coconut Curried Pork, Snow Pea, & Mango Stir-fry. Not to ruin your appetite, but this is the infamous dish of my first Learned From Experience post. This was my first venture into curried pork as well as my first time making a stir-fry with pork. The pork itself was great, the recipe was just alright and I decided it was not worth keeping in my recipe binder. Using coconut milk is a pain in the ass unless a recipe calls for the entire can, because then you have all this leftover milk and need to find another way to use it. Luckily, I figured that part out. But still. Here's how my plate looked:

Chicken & Couscous Salad. This is one of my all-time favorite CL recipes and one of the first we ever tried. It is so fresh and light-tasting, even if I cheat and use canned chicken from Costco! I've subbed in red peppers instead of the radishes and that is also fantastic. It is also amazing as leftovers the next day (or two) cold or warmed up. I served this one with toasted pita wedges as well.

Baked Pasta w/ Spinach, Lemon & Cheese. After reading the online reviews for this one, I decided to cut the amount of onion in half when I made it. I thought the recipe came out perfectly fine and pretty tasty, but it's not a keeper for me because I already have a mac & cheese recipe that I love more and the nutrition for both is about the same.

Broiled Tenderloin Steaks w/ Ginger-Hoisin Glaze. I was sooooo disappointed with this one, but I think it was more because the cuts of filet mignon I purchased just weren't very high quality, and I couldn't find just regular tenderloin steaks at this particular supermarket. So I think my expectations were set pretty high and they just didn't deliver. I served with Asian-style veggies and rice.

Stir-Fried Chicken Salad. This one was pretty good, much better than I expected. It's the only recipe I have of its kind so far, so I'm going to hang onto it for those summer nights when I feel like eating something Asian-inspired.

Fettuccine w/ Olive Oil, Garlic, & Red Pepper. OMG. So good. I used fresh fettuccine so I had to watch my timing very carefully. I also skipped the drizzling of oil at the end because I thought it would make the pasta too greasy. But it was very good and very indulgent-feeling.

Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas. Another one I had been sitting on for awhile. Pretty damn good, though I omitted the olives from mine because I hate them with a bitter passion. The baby loved his, my husband thought they were pretty good and that's saying something because he doesn't "do" chicken salad. His only suggestion was to chop up the tomatoes into the salad instead of sticking them in the pita, but he doesn't really like tomatoes all that much so his opinion doesn't count for shit.

Spaghetti Bolognese. First, a disclaimer - I have never made a bolognese before. So my view might be a bit challenged. We all LOVED the flavor of this dish. I thought the thing was great A-Z. Hubby, however, has an issue when there isn't enough sauce, and this just isn't a saucy dish. When I reheated the leftovers for us for lunch the next day though, I added a few tablespoons of spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture and served over mini farfalle and he thought it was much better that way. So if your family is picky about having a lot of sauce on their pasta, I recommend adding tomato sauce while cooking.

And holy cow, 45 minutes later I am finally done writing this post. And now you see why I've been slacking!!!

Learned From Experience....

If you start feeding your baby the same meals you serve the adults at your dinner table and he/she enjoys them, you will feel quite a sense of pride and accomplishment that your cooking skills apparently pass muster among the toothless set.

But then just like the warning about feeding your pets table scraps, whenever you sit down to try and enjoy a meal or a snack for yourself, your child will whine and beg like a dog until you give him/her some.

Dammit, Rover!

or:

NO KITTY! This is MY pot pie!!!!!