That was great!

My son is a storyteller. He's not a good storyteller, though. His stories tend to end with the saying "That was great!" and are usually something like this:

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that one time when we were at the store and the stuff fell off the shelf but nobody had touched it and we all looked at it and I was like 'Wow! Did you see that? That stuff fell off the shelf without anybody even touching it!' and Annie was like 'Yeah I saw it too. It fell right off the shelf and nobody was anywhere near it' and then you just looked at us and said 'Pick it up.'?"

"Yeah."

"That was great!"

Strange and Wonderful

I think one of the greatest things about my family is how we are impulsive and do the unexpected, and that's Ok. Just today, Jim offered to get me a new grill for Mother's Day. Not flowers, not a trip for dinner, not any of the traditional gifts. I loved it. I laughed and said, "That's what I was getting you for Father's Day!"

One of the places we are definitely strange is in our choice of pets. When we were younger, we had a cat who would play fetch. He was named Thud (he wasn't very graceful). Ever since then, we've always carefully selected and named our pets so that they would live up to his bizarre standard.

First came a female Rottweiler from the local shelter. Her name is Bill Smith. (It's a family name.)

Second came an English Bulldog. A little female dog who acts like a cat. She looks like a wrinkly old man and therefore bears the name Daisy.

Finally comes our newest addition. A cat with the name of a dog. Meet Rufus.
Once he's feeling a bit more comfortable and comes out of his cat box, I'll take a better picture of him for you.

Insult to injury

As if it's not bad enough that I have become host to a parasitic little heart monitor, that I have pimples, that I have an AWFUL cold and fever, that I haven't eaten a real meal since Saturday's lunch, that I am already behind in my grading, that my school has an evaluation team coming in this week to interview us all about the wonders of our jobs.....

You'd think that would be enough things to cram into 4 days time!

BUT

I

am

out

of

Q-tips!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! My ears are all wet and squishy and itchy now! Fooey.



PS My fever broke, so that's good! Right! Bright spot? Anyone?

PPS There really can't BE a bright spot when you're out of Q-tips. Am I right? Of COURSE I am.

Why I'm not posting right now.

Hi, everybody.

I've missed writing and reading your blogs lately, but I've been having some health problems again, and it's interfering with my online activities. This is, I must admit, fairly low on the importance scale behind boring things like work and family and cooking and sleeping and going for walks.... dull stuff, you know? Nothing fun there!

Haha. Just kidding about the fun-ness, of course!

So the long and the short of things is that I've been having some troubles with heart palpitations. As a result I'm very tired, and have been visiting the doctor and the ER and fun places like that. I also have a lot of grading to do. I was just starting to catch up, too! :(

No worries: many of the big scary things have been ruled out. No heart damage or attacks, no lung damage, no thyroid problems, no pleurisy...

But for the meantime, if you don't see me around, you know why. I'll be sure to pop in now and then ('cause it's hard to stay away, right?) but if I'm not showing up in your comments or at our weekly check-in's at least now you know why!

See you on the flip side!

And please, feel free to cheer yourself up with some Weird Al Polka. It works for me. Every time.

It's the end of the world as we know it!

(and I DON'T feel fine, btw)

I feel shocked, stunned, angry, and a little bit sad. Do you know what building this is? That's right, it's the Willis Tower.

What? What's that? No, no it's the Sears Tower, you say? WRONG.

It's the Willis Tower. Or, it soon will be, anyway.

(This very well could be the 4th horseman of the apocolypse's summer penthouse.)

-sigh-

Why do they have to change stuff?

I mean really.

Who wants to go and visit the Willis Tower? All you're gonna hear is random people sayin', "Whatchu talkin' 'bout?!"

Who cares if Sears isn't there anymore? They didn't rename the Chrysler building "the Abu Dhabi Investment Council building" after Chrysler left.

We'll miss you, Sears Tower, so much that we probably will refuse to admit that your name ever changed and will continue to call you the Sears Tower, and when international tourists come visit and ask to be taken to the tallest skyscraper in our land, we'll say, "Oh, yes, the Sears Tower !" and we'll smile nostalgically and point them in the right direction, and they won't care because they'll still be calling you the Sears Tower, too, and somewhere, way up high in the sky, so important that they've disappeared from the reality of life down below, there will be an administrator shouting, "IT'S THE WILLIS TOWER!" but all we'll hear is the whistling of the Chicago breeze around your twin spires.

And then we'll go eat pizza.

No I'm not.

Yes, I am.


I am in denial. I am approaching my 1-year-with-celiac-disease mark. I am craving a peanut butter sandwich. I am sad. I am tired of not eating muffins. I am tired of cupcakes that taste like cornbread even though there's no corn in the recipe. I am happy to feel (mostly) better. I am tired of "Oh, wait, you can't. Sorry." I am refusing to believe that something is wrong with me today. I am refusing to write my traditional post about having celiac disease.

THEREFORE, I shall play picture tag with my Uncle Chuck.

1. On my next birthday, I will be

one of the numbers in that picture.

2. I would like to travel to

Cavin, Ireland.

3. My favorite food is

ribeye steak.

4. My favorite place is

snug in a hug.

5. My nickname is

apparently the name of a line of pet care products.

6. My favorite color is

puce.

7. My college major was

secondary education.

8. The name of my love is

Jim.

9. My hobby is

the written word.

10. My bad habit is

probably pretty obvious.

Oriental chicken and broccoli cheese casserole-thingy

Look, don't EVER put me in charge of naming stuff in a cookbook, okay? Okay.

Having said, that, here's a yummy recipe. If you haven't discovered it yet, I cook like a grandma, so expect no measurements!

Here we go.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Oriental Chicken:

1. Mix Sesame oil, oriental curry, and ginger together. Brush on chicken while it bakes, basting occasionally. TIP: for more intense flavors, marinate chicken with the mixture in a ziploc for a while (30 minutes to a day). I use a ziploc because then you can use less marinade.

2. Put chicken in oven to cook and start broccoli dish.

Broccoli Cheese Casserole-Thingy:

1. You need fresh broccoli, cream sauce mix, and cheese.

2. Make cream sauce. (See previous recipe for instructions if you don't have your own. The sauce instructions are at the end of the post.)
3. While sauce cooks, chop broccoli. I used I head from the produce section: stems and pieces. Put in a small baking dish.

4. Add cheese over top of broccoli.
5. Finally, pour sauce over broccoli and cheese. Toss in oven with chicken to cook. They should finish up about the same time.

6. Top with more cheese once casserole is cooked, if you wish. (I did.) This small dish served average-sized side portions for 2 adults and 2 children.

Yummy.