Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Would You Like a Spoon With That?

My house is full of smoke.

"oh, is it dinnertime already?"

Yes, thank you for asking. I don't think I'm alone in this, but I may have just ruined our dinner. However, I may be alone in the fact that I ruined 2 dinners at once. That sounds bad. Letme rephrase: I killed two pre-dead animals with one stone. That's a little more cheerful, yes?

I've been doing this program called e-mealz. I signed up for it a few months ago because it took all the meal planning out of my day (or just gave me a meal plan since I can't remember the last time I scratched out a map for my weekly meals). I sign up for the service, they send me a weeks worth of meals, slap it onto a shopping list for me and "Viola!" done. In my case over-done. Hold that thought.

Today I felt like trying my domestic hat on. I do this every once in a while before remembering , "oh yeah. . . nope." I thought before cooking dinner I would quickly cook up some calzones for a weeks worth of lunches. I've made them for dinner several times. Easy shmeasy.

I heated up the oven, which already smelled of smoke since I guess there was some spilled food burning on the bottom of the oven. It was already heated, nothing I can do about it now, so I popped the calzones in, then started dinner. Because I was already smelling smoke, I didn't notice when my calzones switched from golden-delicious to coal-foot until the beeper went off.

Frustrated, I'm opening windows to let all the new smoke out.
I come back to making my meatloaf. I have never in my life made meatloaf because, generally, I'm of the opinion that meat should never be formed into a loaf, but I had my domestic hat on, it was on the list, and was feeling rebellious. It's "Mexican Meatloaf" so I added the salsa. All the salsa. One half too much salsa. The last half was supposed to be added at the end. My meat is not in a loaf. It's in a swamp.

Pete told me before we got married that he was an awesome cook. I thought we were set. Turns out he thought he was a chef because he could make a mean omelet. I don't like omelets.

I'm pretty sure my childrens dinner woes are his fault. Because, clearly, that's false advertising. At least when he married me he knew my main course was toasted o's with a serving of milk, spoon on the side.

Which is what dinner is tonight. I hope he's happy with himself.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The GR8 8 Sickaversary

It's a good thing we've been married for eight years. On your first few anniversaries there is an expectation to do something extravagant like expensive dinners, carriage rides, or big concerts. When you've been married for eight years, stretching out on separate couches while spending the evening comparing sickisms because one of you has the flu and the other has an ear/sinus infection is perfectly acceptable.
Yep that's right eight years. And such a bummer that we were sick so I didn't even notice that our anniversary was extra special this year because it was 8-9-10 so I didn't have time to convince Pete that he should get me an extra present. I know. He'll just have to make it up to me.
I feel like now that we've made it to 8 we are a "seasoned" couple. Not like those newlyweds. Although the butterflies are still there, after 8 years, you have passed the 7-year-itch and now it's just smooth sailing from here on out. (Right?)
I think it's fun to watch newlyweds though. They are still not quite sure how this marriage thing works, and the giddyness is tangible when you're in the same room. A few days ago my newly-married Bro-in-law was saying how he is such a sucker for his cute wife's puppy dog eyes and is willing to get up to get her a bowl of cereal even if she is the one standing in the kitchen and he is stretched out on the couch. He thought it was a little unfair that he didn't always have that same power over her. Me and Pete just looked at each other and laughed our seasoned marriage smile.
Ah, But they are young yet. Pretty soon, Jared will realize that it's a privilege to be able to wait on your wife hand and foot. Just give him time.

Like maybe 7 more years. Then it should stick.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Happy Campers!

My Mother may disown me after this post.

We spent Monday and Tuesday "camping" at Cherry Hill. It's probably the tamest variation on the word "camping" but the kids are in love and there are clean showers and bathrooms, so who's complaining here?
We were completely and thoroughly worn out by the end of day 1 since my kids have absolutely zero need to lay down and recharge their batteries, although we tried to trick them into it several times. After a full day of swimming they finally passed out at 10 p.m. and were little angelic creatures in happy camping heaven. But they are young. They will learn that there isn't really such thing.

Andrew and I climbed in the tent and lay down for a long summers slumber on our comfy cushy air mattress. We knew it was perfectly proportioned with air since the air cradled our limbs up high, but the trunk of our bodies sunk cozily into the rock earth. Perfect. We had only gone through two inconsolable toddler night terrors when the rain started.
That could have been soothing if we didn't feel it inside our tent just as if we were outside. Now we have all three kids awake and crying. Andrew jumps up off the air mattress which of course flops me flat on the ground and he flies out of the tent. In just his underwear of course. I'm whisper-shouting at the kids to take cover under their sleeping bags while their Dad is pantless outside yelling to his brother to help get the tarp on the tent.
His helpful older brother walks by and just pulls down Pete's drawers then continues walking. Let's hope there were no witnesses to that. So then I hear Andrew (re-drawered) flailing outside with the tarp shouting a few random "help!'s" out there for anyone else in the family. You might be wondering why I wasn't outside helping. Clearly I would have been, but the baby needed to be covered with a blanket so as not to get wet.
His bro Adam comes to the rescue and they get it secured within a few minutes. Andrew makes it back inside and falls back on the mattress teeter-tottering me slightly airborne. I laugh at my knight-in-shining-underarmor and tell him thanks. As we settle back into our sleeping bags we look up and notice the tarp is covering everything except for directly over our foreheads.
We spent the next few minutes silently enduring the slow drips above our eyebrows. Then we had a breakthrough:
"Andrew"
"Yep"
"I think I hate camping"
"You know what?"
"what?"
"I think I've always hated camping"

Then the mattress squeaked loudly while he tried to adjust to rolling over, sending me to a rock hard landing.

The relief is tangible. The thought of no more air mattresses and even less tents makes my heart happy. Just glad we found this out about ourselves now. Although there is a big stigma about non-campers. That they're wimpy. This is why it's been so hard for me to come to this conclusion for so long.

It's time to embrace my inner wimp. My name is Jodi, and I hate camping!

The End