Anybody there?

Hey. Just in case you don't know, I want to have one more baby. We can't stop at an uneven number.

Whatever . . .

I need a Zoloft and a grilled cheese sandwich.

So much to say and nothing to say.



1. Kitchen remodel at a standstill. All of the cabinets are in my dining room. They've been there over a month. Maybe I should just start using them.



2. Birthday Boy. Alex's birthday is Thursday. I was trying to plan a party for him when all of the swine flu business broke out, and I didn't know if anyone would come to a party. Looks like his party will be in June.



3. Some guy rear-ended my minivan. His insurance is supposed to pay for it, but right now they "can't" release the settlement amount to me for 2 days.



4. Last but definitely not least, Keith's beloved Grandmother ("Nana") passed away last week. Her funeral was Saturday. We knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it much easier. She was a very big part of Keith's life and will be missed. RIP.



So yes, we aren't living it up having a big fun time right now, but with the exception of Nana, these things aren't that bad, just annoying.



Things to look forward to:



1. Christian's t-ball with Daddy as the coach.



2. We will eventually have a birthday celebration for Alex.



3. School is letting out soon. No more homework! I hate 3rd grade.



4. Eventually my kitchen won't be in boxes and in the living room. All of my range top burners will work. We will have a refrigerator that will fit all of our food.



5. Lauren growing and changing and talking everyday.



Gotta put everything in perspective or you'll go crazy!!



'Til next time. . .

The Miracle of Television

I see and hear a lot of people say that tv is a bad thing. I tend to disagree. Mostly because the tv was my surrogate parent from age 8, and I did not become a juvenile delinquent or an adult delinquent for that matter. I learned a lot from tv and still do, especially with all of the educational channels out there. Of course at the moment my husband is watching "My cousin Vinny," a movie I can't stand, but I digress.

A tv show is potty training my 19 month old daughter. She has become obsessed with "Bear in the Big Blue House," and the only episode we own is where Bear teaches Tutter about going potty. So now she takes off her diaper and then asks me to take her to the potty, where she sits while I hold her up. She hasn't actually done anything while on the potty, but she is giving some effort. I think she realizes her diaper is wet and wants it changed, so she goes "potty." I'm not going to complain. Bear can teach her how to use the potty.

What I really need is "Bear washes the dishes" and "Bear does his own laundry."

The New Kitchen/Ax Men

We've taken the plunge. . .the kitchen cabinets have been ordered and paid for and the wait begins. It takes about a month for the company to make my cabinets and a day or two to put them in. The hard part will be the 1-4 weeks of waiting for the countertop to be made to fit the new cabinets. I decided to go for the project since there will never be a GOOD time to be without a kitchen, and my kitchen sucks. We have been searching for another house, but we can't find one we like, so we're fixing up this one.



I have to compliment Lowe's. So far Stacy the cabinet lady has been very helpful, and their system of installing the cabinets is very efficient.



I will have to post before and after pictures.



Also, any ideas for freeze ahead and heat in the microwave or oven meals would be appreciated.

On a different note. . .I read that some loggers on the show "Ax Men" got in trouble for removing trees from a stream. I haven't watched this new season of "Ax Men," but when I first saw the headline that some loggers on the show got in trouble with a regulatory agency, I thought it would be OSHA. Believe it or not, I was a Logging Coordinator for a forest products company for 8 years. If any of my loggers worked on my jobs with no safety equipment (like the guys on "Ax Men") I would have had to shut their job down. Using a chainsaw with no eye protection or saw chaps was unforgivable, not to mention extremely dangerous. I didn't work in the Pacific NW, so the terrain and conditions were different, but logging is never safe wherever you do it. I never had a contractor lose anyone while they worked with me, but one contractor I worked with lost 3 guys in a 5 year span. Most other contractors had a fatality at least once in their careers.

I do have to admit that I like to watch "Ax Men" when I can catch it. ( I would DVR it, but I'm having trouble getting to watch my DVR shows now that Lauren only takes one nap a day.) Watching the logging and activity in the woods brings back a lot of memories. I enjoyed my job immensely, and it was hard to give up. It is difficult to believe I used to tromp through the woods everyday with steel-toed boots and a hard hat in the Texas heat (with the snakes, wild hogs, and strange people who hung out in the woods).

I am probably one of the few people that would DVR both "Ax Men" and "The Real Housewives of . . ." Go figure.

Refrigerator Blues

Sometime in the next few months my kitchen will be overhauled. I'm not sure how far it will go, but I have made one decision that I have been on the fence about . . . the refrigerator. I really don't want to get a new one, of course Keith wants to get a new one (he always wants a new anything), but with my recent grocery trips it has become apparent that the old one is not going to work for us. For one thing it just doesn't hold much, and with 3 different kinds of milk or milk-like products we require, there's not a lot of room left. The freezer is ridiculously small,but we have a big freezer in the garage to hold most things. The freezer hasn't been restocked since Hurricane Ike, but eventually I'll put more stuff in it.

I am probably going to get one of those two door refrigerators with the ice and water in the door and the freezer on the bottom. I've only seen them in stainless steel, which I don't particularly care for. I guess I need to spend some quality time in Lowe's (again).

Ooops!

I just realized today that my January goal to hang up my buffalo picture in the game room did not happen. I need a yardstick.