Stupid decisions make for good stories...

Okay, so I was cleaning up the kitchen right before we were going to go to Costco today and I like to clean Aidan's sippy cup lids by hand because they don't get clean enough in the dishwasher. The spouts in particular get schmutz in them that can be kind of hard to get out.

After soaking the lids in some hot soapy water they usually clean up pretty easily with the dish brush, but one of the sippy cups must have been lying on its side with a trace of Aidan's favorite drink, chocky milk, in it. There was some particularly stubborn residue in the very tip of the drinking spout. I couldn't quite reach it with the dish brush so I broke out the bottle brush and couldn't get it with that either. I glanced up at the knife holder (magnetic) on the side of the cupboard and there was the perfect instrument to get out the last little bit of schmutz: a paring knife.

I took the paring knife and used the tip to scrape out the schmutz. I got it except for a tiny little speck of it right at the very corner of the spout so I decided to push harder with the knife to gouge out that stuck schmutz when WHOOSH! The blade of the knife (which I had no idea was that sharp) sliced RIGHT through the sippy cup lid and also through the tender flesh between my thumb and forefinger.

It's the kind of cut that opens every time you move your hand. Oh, and bleeds every time you move your hand, too. I hollered for Gary, twice, to come down to the kitchen and when he saw my hand he got sort of a cross between a "concerned for his wife" look and an "oh boy, now I can use my spiffy first aid kit" look as he trotted out to his car for his "3 by 3's." I thought to myself, "3 by 3's? I know what a 2 by 4 is, a hunk of wood. What is a 3 by 3?" Okay, I found out it is a piece of gauze. If he had said he wanted a piece of gauze I would have told him to get it from under the bathroom sink but then he wouldn't have had the joy of opening up his spiffy first aid kit.

Anyway, Michael took a look at it and tried applying some steri strips but due to the location of the cut he figured I would need a stitch or two because the cut kept opening up and doing that annoying bleeding thing, so off I went to the emergency room. But first I had to go upstairs and dry my hair because I had just washed it a short time ago and I was NOT going to the ER looking like white trash. Of course once I had blown it dry I needed to curl it. I managed to do my bangs but there again I found out that dang it, each time I used my hand it did that annoying bleeding thing again so I asked Carolyn to curl the rest of it so I didn't look like a witch doctor. I didn't take the time to put on makeup, though, Gary was having too much fun making fun of me for doing my hair before I left.

It took three hours for the poor overworked, understaffed ER folks to get me stitched up. I ended up with four stitches which have to stay in for 10-12 days (again, due to the location and how long it'll take to heal there.) Oh, and I was specifically told not to do dishes. To be honest, I was pretty peeved at the thought of not being able to keep my kitchen clean, and Bridget reminded me that she has the week off because of Spring break. She is such a sweetie.

Not exactly the way I wanted to spend my Saturday. And the very moment I felt that knife slice through my hand I realized cleaning the sippy cup lid with the paring knife was not one of my better ideas...

A weird experience...

Yesterday I had a weird experience.

About a month ago, when Samara turned 18, she had a birthday party and a bunch of her friends played "bigger or better." She described it in her blog, and if you remember the winning team came home with a mini fridge. (traded up from a fax machine, which was amazing. All started from a freakin' clothes pin!) Anyway, what a harmless game for a bunch of teen agers to play!

So she had another chance to play with a whole bunch of her friends last night. She told me about it a few weeks ago, no big deal, right? Well, yesterday the Wizard asks me out on a date and I thought Woo Hoo, I will even change my shirt and put on makeup because he is worth it. Anyway, we went to Outback, and promised Samara the leftovers. As we are waiting for our table, I had a strange feeling of foreboding come over me regarding this activity. Not the activity itself, I know it's harmless and there is nothing wrong with it. But I had a bad feeling about the night itself and that Samara should not go. I texted her to tell her that I felt funny about it, and she called me. Since she called me, I stepped out of the restaurant (too noisy to talk) and told her how I felt, and because she is who she is, she said that she would stay home.

I don't even know how to express how grateful I am for her attitude. She can't have been very happy about that. I mean, for all she knew it was just me being a worry wart, but I know it wasn't that. I tried dismissing the feeling I had as just a whim, but I couldn't. Dad stepped out of the restaurant a few moments after I did, and as soon as I hung up the phone I started to cry tears of relief. As soon as I explained to Dad what had happened his entire countenance changed. It's as if he knew just from my telling him what I had experienced, that I had done the right thing.

I have no idea what would have happened if Bridget had gone to her "bigger or better" activity with her friends. That's the thing about promptings. If you obey, you will probably never know what would have happened. But I would rather live with the curiosity than be plagued with regrets if I had NOT listened.

And thank you, Bridget, for loving me enough to allow me the peace I needed last night. I love you.

A few random things...

1. Those of you living in the Denver area need to go to Cafe Rio (located at 610 S. Colorado Blvd) to do your civic duty and make sure that place not only survives but THRIVES so that they will open up many more Cafe Rios in the area, and hopefully one further north so we don't have to drive so darn far to eat there. Seriously, the food is that good. They make their own tortillas there, and once you eat one you will never be satisfied with anyone else's tortillas again. Yummy.

2. If you have never heard anything by Jim Gaffigan (comic) you should listen to him. I watched a video with Sharon M. called "King Baby" and it was hilarious. The man can talk for fifteen minutes about bacon, and it's a scream. I thought of Michael and Jason the entire time. (You two are also hilarious.) Anyway, find something by him and watch him.

3. I actually slept last night WITHOUT a decongestant. And I breathed through my nose. I am so happy.

4. I am always amazed that the weather seems to know when February is over and all of a sudden we have days where the temperature gets up to 50 degrees. It seems to happen every year. We're supposed to get several more days like this for the rest of the week.

My dream

Okay, so I know you are all tired of hearing me say this, but I have the most wonderful husband in the world. For years now I have told him that when he retires I want to have a condo in Orlando and a condo in Salt Lake City so that we can live half the year in Florida (cold weather makes my feet and hands really hurt, due to the neuropathy) and the other half of the year in SLC so Dad can be happy doing all that genealogy. Then I realized that if we live in SLC we'd have to fly to Denver whenever we wanted to travel because SLC's airport is fairly small and is not a hub for United. Since United is MY airline, it makes sense to live in a city that is a hub, so I amended my dream so that we'd live half the year in Florida (the winter half, summers there are unbearable) and the other half of the year here in Denver, and then Dad can just fly to SLC whenever he was in the mood to do family history stuff.

Well, since the real estate market in Orlando is so depressed right now, Dad's thinking that it's a good time to be looking and perhaps getting some property there. It's not a good time to be selling, so we'll be keeping our home here for the time being (probably another ten years or so) but buying a place in Florida makes good sense since the prices are so low.

Dad's looked online and there are 3 bedroom/2 bathroom condos for as low as $12,000 (although there's probably a good reason they're that low) and it's not unreasonable to expect to get something decent for $25,000 or so. How cool is that?

Anyway, the fact that Dad is taking my dream seriously enough to actually pursue it means the world to me. Not every spouse would do the same. When I asked him something about that, why he would try to make my dream come true, he said, "Making you happy makes me happy." Who wouldn't fall head over heals in love with a man who says stuff like that? Makes me love him even more than I did before.

Anyway, I suppose that's enough corny stuff for now.

Woo Hoo!

One of my all-time favorite restaurants is Carrabba's. And one of my favorite things to eat there is the Sausage Lentil soup. I have searched all over the internet and found about 6 recipes for it, none are identical so I took bits and pieces of all six of them and created my OWN recipe out of the lot of them. And it tastes JUST like that soup, so now I don't have to wait till we go out for dinner, I can make it whenever I am craving it. Of course, it makes a pan big enough to feed an army so we'll be eating it all week, but since it seems like everyone in the whole family likes it that shouldn't be too difficult. In case anyone is interested, I'll post it here. You may want to cut it in half to make a more reasonable sized pan full.

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbs. Olive oil
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 ½ cup grated carrot
• 4 stalks chopped celery
• 2 garlic clove, minced
• 2 lbs bulk Italian sausage, spicy hot
• 1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 3 quarts chicken stock
• 1 quart water
• 2 lbs lentils, rinsed and picked over
• 2 tbs. vinegar
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp fennel seeds

Heat olive oil in large soup pot. Add onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and sausage to the pot. Saute, stirring often, until sausage is cooked through. Break up sausage into small bits as it cooks. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 1 hour. Remove bay leaves. Puree slightly with stick blender. If no stick blender is available, remove 1/3 of soup and puree in blender and return to pot.

Top with freshly grated parmesan cheese and serve with a thick slice of crusty bread.

"Retirement"

Okay, first of all let me say that I am WAY too young to be retired. And it wasn't my choice, either. But other than that, there's a lot to be said for staying home.

First of all, I am re-discovering the joy of having a clean kitchen. And by clean kitchen I mean that we don't run out of clean silverware. And most of the time I don't let more than ONE sink get full of dishes. If both sinks have dishes in them, I am going nuts and I HAVE to get them done. I have NO qualms about running the dishwasher even if it's not all the way full. I simply don't care if I am using a soap biscuit and a little hot water without the dishwasher being completely packed. I want a clean kitchen. One day after I got home from a trip I was in the kitchen with Michael. I mentioned that the kitchen was trashed and I needed to get it cleaned up. He kind of rolled his eyes and threw his arms around me for a big hug. I said, "What was that for?" (Not that I was complaining, mind you.) He said something like, "While you were gone we would have killed to have the kitchen look this GOOD." It's NICE to be that appreciated.

Second, I am enjoying making meals for my family again. Not just dinners, though that's nice. I have compromised and have decided to cook 4 dinners a week. That way we can have leftovers a few times and folks can forage for themselves now and again (cheese and crackers, that sort of thing.) Plus a trip to Taco Bell on occasion never hurt anyone. But it's nice to have a good, home-cooked meal on occasion, and knowing that I made it myself means I'll like the way it tastes. And knowing that Gary will be sniffing the air appreciatively when he walks in the door after a long day makes me happy too. I have also enjoyed making the occasional breakfast for those who are around to eat it. Blueberry pancakes are a favorite and I know I'm bragging, but I make awesome blueberry pancakes.

Third, I have a "to do" list but I am in no hurry to complete it. I have a bunch of stuff on there that I've wanted to get done for years, and since it's taken years to pile up there's no rush to get it done. But there's a lot of satisfaction in getting the stuff crossed off the list. Some of it is tough to do, and some isn't. Some days I cross off one thing, some days I cross off two. Some days I add another item, and some days (most, actually) the list doesn't change at all but just stays on the fridge where I can look at it and decide if I'm going to work on it at all that day.

Fourth, I don't have to panic if I am visiting family out of town and I get sick and can't travel back to work. Last month I was visiting David and Sarah and then Carolyn and Erik and ended up with the flu. I had to stay for a lot longer than I had intended but I didn't have to worry about using up sick time or missing any work deadlines at all. It was so much easier.

Fifth, when it's cold, snowy, and nasty outside, I can look out the window and decide that there's nothing I need to do so badly that I need to venture out there to do.

Sixth, when a friend of mine wants to go to lunch, I can stop what I'm doing and go with her. Or if I want to go and kidnap Gary and go to lunch with him, I can do that too.

Seventh, there is NEVER more than a load of laundry or two to do at any given time. Usually it's a stretch to even do that much at once. It's been years since I've been able to say that.

Eighth, I think I am caught up on sleep. (Will a lighting bolt strike me down for thinking this?)

Ninth, and this is a biggie: I get to see Aidan and Asher SO much more.

Tenth, I get to do things with my family (taking a certain birthday girl to the Grizzly Rose) that I just wouldn't have had the energy to do if I were doing the 2 1/2 jobs I was doing before.

I guess to sum it up, I still don't like what happened to me. I don't like how the circumstances forced me to make the choices I did. I don't know if I will ever get to the point where I will consider some of those people "friends" again. But I am at least at a point where I am content. I still miss the paycheck, it was very tangible proof of my worth and I often need some sort of proof that I am worth something. Maybe at some point in the future I can find a happy medium.

Something new...

You may have noticed something new here, my blog is now "private." That's so I can post whatever I want and now maybe I'll actually update instead of waiting until I only have something to post that can be seen by anyone in the world. :)