Incubation Nation

It was just about a year ago when my bosses flew in from California for a week full of meetings. One such meeting was the one where they gave me the opportunity to work from home, something I had been angling for over the course of 6 or so months. At the time, my concern was commute, and just generally saving time. I never knew how much our family was going to need this, with the quick illness progression and then death of (our live in babysitter) my father- in-law, and with Hub’s business turning in new directions. I was excited for working in yoga pants and being home to see the kids when they got off the bus. I don’t think I ever fully grasped just how much life would change though. And also, how much work it is.

Here was a typical day for me before:

5:00 am: Wake up, and ready myself for the gym, leave for gym
6:00 am: come home, quick breakfast and coffee, shower
6:30 am: make lunches, more coffee
7:00 am: wake kids up, have them get dressed. Wake Liv up and dress her.
7:15 am: Leave the kids to deal with breakfast, the bus etc. with Grandpa or Daddy, take the baby and drop her at daycare (or my mom’s depending on the day)
8:30 am: (or thereabouts) Arrive to work, work the day away.
12:00 pm: go out or order in lunch
1:00 pm: continue working until 5
5:00 pm: commute home, pick up Liv
6:00 pm: start dinner, worry about homework etc.

A typical day for me now looks something like this. For the sake of this timeline, we will assume that I go to the gym as much as I plan to. On non-gym days, I just press snooze for an hour. Don’t worry, Hub never hears the alarm, even when it’s for him.

5:30 am: Wake up, put on my gym clothes, brush my teeth and leave by 5:45. Work out 30-45 minutes.
6:30 am: Home. Put coffee on to brew. Usually catch up on blogs/Facebook/Twitter on my phone while the coffee brews
6:45 am: Pour a cup of coffee and start making lunches.
6:50 am: go downstairs for juice boxes and lunch snacks, turn on work computer and catch up on emails, review my calendar for the day etc
7:30 am: back up stairs, finish packing lunches, double check homework, and pack up the back packs.
7:45 am: start waking the big kids. (We try really hard to always let Liv wake up on her own)
7:50 am: get Bud his breakfast, for he needs to eat the second he gets out of bed. Beg Lucy to please just eat something. Pour Hub his coffee and make his breakfast. Lay out clothes for the day, and start my usual chant of “let’s go guys! Let’s go let’s go!!”
8:10 am: If she hasn’t gotten up on her own, get Liv out of bed. Coddle her for a few minutes. Get her dressed.
8:20 am: Make sure everyone is getting dressed. Speak an endless chorus of “Shoes! Socks! Teeth! Let’s go!!” Usually clapping my hands briskly Is also involved.
8:30 am: Final check of hair, teeth and bags. Does everyone have their lunch? Usually, the answer is “uh…no…”
8:40 am: Ship the big kids outside to wait for the bus, clean Liv up, and get her shoes and socks on so she can wave to the bus driver.
8:50 am: Bus comes, and bye bye big kids. Hub loads Liv in to the car and takes her to daycare
8:55 am: More coffee, breakfast
9:00 am: downstairs to work, and work straight through the day with stops to nibble on lunch here or there, small breaks for blogs. Take 30 minutes to throw dinner together at some point.
4:00 pm: get kids off the bus, give snacks, get homework started etc.
4:05 pm: back downstairs to finish work
5:30 pm: end work for the day

I honestly do not know how we ever got through the day before, how my kids managed to make it to school with everything they need, how dinner ever got on the table, or how we survived with me being away so much of the day. I always said that I didn’t have it in me to be a stay at home mom, and maybe I still don’t. (Having the kids home with me all summer was tough, but it was also my first summer home, AND our first summer without a 3rd pair of hands here.) I think though, that I sort of have the best of both worlds. I’m here to do for my kids the things that I had to rely on others for in the past. I have flexibility within my schedule to volunteer at school, make dinner, and do extra projects around the house. I don’t know how I ended up being so lucky, but here we are. And hopefully, here we will stay.

Happy Sunday! I’ve had a great week; have you?

Here are some things that made this past week a great one for me:

• A huge order with free shipping from Wag. The only cat food that doesn’t make a single one of our 3 cats throw up is only available in 3lb bags for $4.99 here. Wag has the food in 15lb bags for $14.95, and had free shipping plus 15% off for it being my first time there. And, bonus! My order arrived less than 24 hours from the time I placed it.
• The Hush Puppies shoes I ordered for myself. I haven’t worn Hush Puppies since I was a little girl, but these shoes just spoke to me. They also arrived in 1 business day, and were a free ship. They are so comfortable and supportive, and I am completely in love. Just look at them!
• The fact that Bath and Body is carrying Juniper Breeze again, if only online. I’d forgotten how much I loved it.
• All of the Crappy Day excitement happening over at Doing My Best. I am positively giddy with the possibilities.
• Our girls started sleeping in their bunk beds!
• We’ve started planning out our Christmas shopping.

What made this week great for you?

A while ago, someone asked me for some recipes. I no longer remember who, or in what context, but I have had such good luck with your recipes in the past, (ahem, Mommy Daisy, Swistle, and most recently, Erica) I thought that I would share a few things that really work in our family. And as luck would have it, I just shared them with Laura , so they are already written out, and I can now share them here.

These are 3 kinds of recipes—1 slow cooker, one super cheap pre-payday meal, and one that is more of a weekend meal for us. If you make them, let me know how they turn out!

Recipe the first-an all day cooker

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

1 boneless pork roast (I always get the kind that is tied together with twine because I know it will shred. I don’t know if it’s a shoulder or a butt or what)
1 McCormick pulled pork seasoning packet
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
Rolls, to serve sandwiches on
Anything else you want to throw in for flavor–I sometimes add nutmeg, garlic or some barbeque sauce etc. (It would probably be good with onions, but Hub does not eat onions, so…)

Directions:
1. Place the roast in the slow cooker
2. Combine all the other ingredients in a small bowl and pour them over the top.
3. Cook on low 8 hours
4. remove pork and shred with 2 forks, return to juice and stir
5. serve on toasted rolls.

It’s really good, and you can serve it with fries or whatever. We usually have it with steamed broccoli though, because that is my go-to side dish. If I am home when I am cooking it, I cook the pork alone for an hour or 2 and then drain off some of the grease. Then I add the sauce stuff and cook for the remainder. It’s good either way; the pork isn’t all that greasy but hub has a sensitive stomach when fat and barbeque sauce collide, so I try to drain it.)

Recipe numero 2- On the CHEAP

Casseroni

Ingredients:
1 box of beef rice a roni
1lb ground beef
1 beef bouillon cube

Directions:
1. brown beef, drain, and set aside.
2. begin to prepare the rice a roni as directed, browning the rice in the butter.
3. when it is time to add the water and the seasoning, also add the ground beef and the bouillon cube.
4. sir together, and finish cooking as directed on the rice a roni directions

Now, I always double this recipe for my family of 5. Hub likes to put gravy on it, but I don’t really think it is necessary. My mom always made this right before my dad got paid and would serve it with either white bread and butter, or if we had them, Pillsbury biscuits. It’s delicious! I’ve also used the chicken flavor with cut up chicken, and it’s not bad.

Recipe #3—The Finale

Sweent & Sour Chicken

Ingredients:
2lbs of chicken
3 cups of Bisquick (for dredging the chicken)
1 TBSP paprika
Oil for cooking
1 Green pepper
1 large onion
1 can of pineapple chunks, in juice
1 TBSP soy sauce
1 bottle of your favorite sweet and sour sauce

Directions:
1. mix Bisquick with paprika in a shallow dish
2. cube chicken, and dredge though Bisquick mixture, and set aside.
3. Preheat a large skillet with a few tablespoons of oil
4. cut onion and green pepper in to large pieces, and place it in the preheated pan, cooking until it’s tender, but still somewhat crisp.
5. remove the peppers and onions, drain the oil off, and place in a bowl.
6. Add more oil if necessary, and cook the chicken in batches til it’s done, and remove to paper towel or a rack to drain
7. On the stove, either in the same pan or a fresh one, combine the peppers, onions, pineapple with juice, sweet and sour sauce and soy sauce. Heat until warmed through.
8. Add the chicken, and cook until the chicken is warmed back up.
9. Serve over rice

If I am feeling ambitious, I will set up a flour, then egg wash, then Bisquick assembly line, and this gets the chicken extra crispy and delicious. If I’m going through the trouble of doing it this way, I usually double the chicken, with the second half being all chicken strips, and then we have dinner for another night. I also always leave a few onions in the oil while I am cooking the chicken, because I think it gives the breading good flavor. This recipe was adapted from one I saw in the coupon section of our newspaper a couple of years ago. That recipe called for only half the pineapple juice, but I always add it all to make the sauce a little bit thinner.

We had a great Halloween. It was warmer than we thought it would be (around 50 degrees) and the kids were very excited. Their ultimate goal was to make it up one side of the street (we are the 1st house) and all the way back down. I am pleased to say that we made it, even Liv. Although, the pillowcase Bud brought along to contain ALL OF HIS CANDY ended up being the catch-all for all 3 kids’ candy and guess who got to carry that sucker. Yep, me. Bud’s friend who came with us was all up in arms over the fact that there was one bag housing the candy of 3 kids. I blew his mind further to tell him that they all share the candy, and that we hardly let them keep any of it. It’s true; it goes in the freezer and it lasts all year long. We are mean, mean parents, I suppose. Anyway, here they are, Liv the Lion, Snow White, and Darth Vader. Get a load of Liv’s tail!!

Remember when I was all bent out of shape about the owl bedding from Target? And I resigned myself to never having it? Well, a few weeks after that while walking through Target, I decided to take one last look, and there it was in front of me, one lonely full sized 7 piece set. I hemmed and hawed on Twitter as to whether I should really pay full price for it, and then I did. Liv is the baby, and doesn’t get much of anything that is new. So, I paid full price, and she had her bedding.

A few days later, even though she was still in her toddler sized bed, I opened the package for her as a reward for some good behavior (it is SO rare). She got to use her new pillow cases and we even put the comforter on the bed, draped over the side. This was the point where Lucy declared that she would like the owl bedding after all! Well, of course she would. Target of course was out of it. Target online no longer carries the 7 piece set, just a 3 piece and that is $90 (a resounding hellllz no!), so I began perusing ebay. Someone would have to list a full eventually. And finally it happened. And I stalked it like the good ebay stalker I am, and I won it for a little less than what I paid for Liv’s, thanks to my ebay bucks.

So I was thrilled. We put the girls bunk beds together this past weekend, and Hub brought the mattresses home on Monday. We bought some cheap sheets to have on hand, because none of the other beds in this house are full, and put one of those on Lu’s. I didn’t even tell her about it, because I wanted to surprise her.

Then last night I got an email. The seller’s daughter opened the package, took the sheets out and destroyed them. (This is what she says. Now, I have struggled with opening this very same package. Those wire things are a real bitch, and then, the sheets are in their own individual hard to open package inside. I’m not sure how your 5-year-old opened it, but I am going to go with it.) So she offered to order replacement sheets to send to me, but they are on backorder. Or, she said she would go to the store and pick up the flannel version of the sheets. I emailed her back to find out if everything else was still ok—I don’t want to pay “new” price for something that is not technically new, and I considered just cancelling the whole thing and having her refund me. So we emailed back and forth last night, and I’m going to make her buy me the flannel sheets. I was feeling bad for making her lose profit on this, but in the end she practically begged me to allow her to make it right because she “felt so bad”. So there will be flannel sheets, which I think Lu will actually love, because she loves anything that is comfy and soft.

It’s a bit more of a pain in the ass than I had hoped for it to be, but in the end I think it will work out ok. And hopefully, put an end to my owl bedding quest once and for all.

There is something about my husband that drives me crazy. Not crazy in the way of “pshaw, that funny man!” with an eye roll and a smile. No, I am talking completely up the wall crazy. Up the wall in the way of making me see red; making me want to just scream and be glad that I don’t have a baseball bat in my hands. It’s true. Now this craze inspiring trait is something that my husband cannot control, and I’ve always felt a little bit bad being so angry about it, but it seems like something he should be able to control, and yet chooses not to. This is irrational on my part. I know. If he could control it, he would. At least I think, or hope he would. Anyway.

Hub cannot keep his eyes open when he is driving. He is ok for short distances, you know, like driving around town running errands. If you get him on the thruway though, or even driving out on open country road, he’s out. His head bobs, his eyelids get heavy, and eventually his eyes just roll in the back of his head. Thankfully, in all the miles that he has traveled for work, he’s never had an accident. He laughingly credits the rumble strips on the thruway for waking him up hundreds of times. He’s not really going out of town for work anymore either, so it is less of a worry.

So what is my problem, right?

Well, I hate to drive. Especially to new and unfamiliar places (like vacations etc. I have panic attacks in heavy traffic and driving in downtown city situations. And not knowing where to park gives me anxiety as well). And his falling asleep puts a big cramp in my “I would like to be driven” plan.

I know. Selfish.

I can actually list a number of reasons why this drives me crazy:
1. I spend my time as a passenger hawk-eyed on my husband to make sure he is awake.
2. I can never relax or nap in the car, even on long trips.
3. I have to drive more often than I want to and to places I don’t want to.
4. Nobody keeps ME company when I am driving. (I feel like I need a Reading (and Chickens) illustration for this one.) It is me and the radio with Hub asleep in the front and 3 children who are either headphoned to their DSi’s or are sleeping themselves.
5. It’s not faaaaiiiiiirrrrr!

So anyway, every single time it happened, I was just full of The Rage. It was ruining every trip. Why should Hub get to have a nice relaxing car nap? Why should I have a non-relaxing drive because I’m worried about him falling asleep and our minivan careening all over the road and eventually off of a cliff? It shouldn’t be this way.

Finally after years of this, I just decided to give up. It still seems to me that there is a problem if the second a car moves it tells your body to fall asleep regardless of being completely non-tired. It still gives me The Rage. But I’m at a point of accepting that I can either be an alert passenger, or I can just drive while he sleeps the trip away. The stress isn’t worth it. Fighting about it isn’t worth it because it won’t change. And so, I drive the long trips and he drives the short ones and I keep my mouth and my rolling eyes in check.

And I swallow my rage, and resist telling him that my next husband will always drive.

I shared our annual photos the other day, but I really want to share some of the other photos that we took as well. (By we, I mean Lucy and me. Lu has become quite the little photographer). I like them, and I want them here. Plus, I never get Bud to smile for me anymore, or to pose for photos, and he did. (He also kissed me goodbye at school today. In front of people. What’s up with that??!!)

The problem is that I already have another entry ready to go. So. What I’m going to do is post these first, and then I will post the entry separately in a little bit.

I had really wanted to wait to go out to Letchworth until Sunday when it was going to be a bit warmer, but this ended up working out ok. Plus the cold weather, and the fact that Bud won the game ball in his flag football game for being the MVP (for sharing his flags with another kid who forgot his–it’s not all about winning) gave us an excuse to get out of the car and throw the football around to warm up. Superfun Family Time. I wanted to stop at a family diner on the way home, but was outvoted and we went to Friendly’s instead. It really was a fabulous day–although I am still not over Friendly’s being out of pumpkin ice cream. I wanted that pumpkin pie sundae.

First Scenery:

Now Kids:
(Any photo I am in was taken by Lucy. Also the photo of the single tree)

Lucy’s Self Portraits (here, I see where people say she looks like me):


And Finally, what happens when kids are just DONE having photos taken:

Good morning! I am grumpy that the weather forecast calls for snow this week, and cold cold temperatures on Halloween. At least though, I am able to give some stuff away! And I am expecting good mail (Birthday gifts!! That I ordered with a gift card!!) today or tomorrow. I hope anyway. So there’s something to look forward to.

The following gals who commented have won!

Carrie!! (With express instructions that I receive a card or announcement.)

Amanda!!

Mommy Daisy!

I will email you all your code for 25 free photo cards. Congratulations!!

In the Fall of 2005, Hub, Bud, Lucy and I took an impromptu trip to Letchworth State Par. Hub and I had been going for years, usually around my birthday, and we just needed to get out of the house that day. Hub happened to take Bud’s photo on some stairs. The next year we happened upon the same stairs (not an easy feat…this park is GIGANTIC), and took a photo of Bud and Lucy together. And just like that, a tradition was born. We’ve taken the kids’ photos every year in October since 2005. It has been 40 degrees, and it has been 80 degrees. In 2008, Bud and Lucy dropped poor baby Liv on her head (stellar parenting having a 3 and 4 year old hold a 3-month-old on a set of stone stairs). Liv refused to cooperate in 2009—I think to get back at us. I love how each year, things change but they also stay the same.

Some of you have seen these all before (minus 2011, of course). I know; but I can’t help myself. Here are the photos:

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011