Making repairs.

Hugh, looking all shiny and happy from his bath.  

God, I love this car more than I should be allowed to. 

When Hugh came into my life in the fall of 2011, R and I had BIG plans for him.  He was already 80-90% restored, but since we both love working with our hands and we are both reasonably bright, intelligent, capable people, we were going to do all the work left to be done ourselves.

Our intentions were good.

We did a couple little cosmetic things, then replaced the radio.  We ordered copies of all the service and repair manuals, then... Well, then... Nothing.

Life kept happening and Hugh got pushed to the back burner for a while.  Quite a long while, actually.

I would occasionally drive him out of the garage and maybe around the neighborhood a few times, but that was really all.

Late last fall, I drove him out of the garage and he immediately began spewing bright red liquid all on the ground.

"OH MY GOD HUGH'S BEEN SHOT!  HE'S BLEEDING!  QUICK!  CALL 911!" I screamed, before realizing it was futile.  No one was close enough to hear me.  I was going to have to perform a lifesaving thoracotomy myself.  I've seen every episode of ER.  I could totally do it.

Oh wait.  Hugh is a car.

Well then, what the hell is this red stuff?

A little research combined with a couple texts to R led me to believe I had blown out the power steering pump.

So there he sat, parked.

And then it was Thanksgiving.

And then it was Christmas.

And then it was still winter, and I don't drive him in the winter anyway, so it was fine.

But then it was spring, and I started itching to take him out for a run.

So I began incessantly nagging and pestering asking R about it.  "So this thing that's wrong with Hugh.  Can we fix it ourselves, do you think?"  And he would agree that we probably could, and finally we set out to do just that.  However, neither of us has ANY experience in working on cars and what that might entail.

Oops?

R gamely crawled under Hugh to see what the exact situation was, and determined that there was a hose that was busted.

A hose!  Just a hose!  We could TOTALLY replace a HOSE!  They're just all round and hose-y and totally easy to replace, right? RIGHT?

So R ordered a replacement hose and left work early one day for the specific purpose of working on Hugh.

The first thing we needed to do was to get him up on ramps.  Since he wasn't really DRIVABLE, we decided to push, where push equals R was steering and I was pushing.

*cue circus music*

No bloggers, bloggers' spouses, or classic 1966 Mustang Convertibles were harmed during this incident.  Not permanently, anyway. 

Finally we decided that maybe we could drive him just long enough to get him up on the ramps, which, by the way? Totally not as easy as it sounds.

The next step involved removing the old hose and replacing it with the new one.  After three rounds of rock, paper, scissors in which I'm SURE he cheated some negotiations, it was determined that R would get under the car and I would be in charge of handing him the appropriate tools.

"Ok," he said, after he had situated himself under the car.  "I need a wrench."

"What size?" I asked.

"Uh, like this."  He handed me the end of the new hose, and I attempted to find a suitable wrench out of our pile of wrenches.  For people who don't really work on our own cars, we have a shit-ton of wrenches.

Half an hour later, I yelled "I FOUND IT!" which woke R up and made him hit his head on the underside of the car.

At this point, one might think that the changeout would proceed smoothly, but, alas, it was not to be.

The old hose, which had probably been on the car since the Nixon era, would not budge.

So it became a parade of tools passing through my hands into R's in an attempt to remove it.

"BRING ME A PIPE WRENCH!" he would yell from under the car, and I would furtively Google "pipe wrench images" on my phone and attempt to match them up with what we have in our tool arsenal.

"You ok?" he would yell when it had been more than 15 minutes or so between tool pass-offs, and I would mumble something vague about "the metric stuff is all in my way" in an attempt to sound reasonably versed in Tools You Need To Pry Off A Rusty Hose 101, then I would hand him a screwdriver, or a mallet, or something else in an attempt to distract him from what he was really waiting for me to find.

Finally, a combination of the mallet (TOTAL WIN FOR ME) and some other wrenchy-pinchy thing did the deed, and the rest was easy, relatively speaking.

So now Hugh is road-worthy once again, and he and I have been out for more than a couple quick trips around the block, but I'm dreaming of a long ride down the road, top down, Willie blaring on the radio, sunglasses on and scarf flapping in the wind, just me and my man.

Oh, and R, too, of course.  If he wants to come along.

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

So I'm linking up once again to Mama Kat, and this week's prompt is right up my alley.

What are you eating? Share a yummy summery recipe.

I'm not a food blogger.

To be honest, I just don't have the patience, with food or with pretty much anything else.  I don't do "test runs" of recipes, and my food photography consists of whichever plate I can snap a picture of with my iPhone in the minutes before my hungry family starts to devour it. 

But over the four-ish years I've been blogging here, I've shared dozens and dozens and dozens of recipes.  Why?  Because I love to cook, and I love to eat, and sharing recipes is a time-honored tradition that goes back through generations and generations of women, and I like the feeling that I belong to that.

Also, quite interestingly, the recipes I've posted are the single thing that seems to bring traffic to my blog.  From my Chocolate Covered Brandy Cherries to my Almond Flour Berry Muffins to my Kahlua Almond Ripple Fudge Ice Cream to my Fried Green Tomatoes, people come to this blog to see the recipes I've posted.   

That makes me happy.  Really, really happy.

So here's another recipe to add to the archives.  I made this for the first time this week, and it was a hit.  I served it alone, without any side dishes, and it was plenty - and perfect -for a light summery dinner.

[PRINTABLE RECIPE]

WHAT YOU NEED:

Olive oil

1 lb. ground chicken

1 8 oz can water chestnuts

1 cup bean sprouts

1/2 cup carrots

1 cup rice noodles, soaked in water for 30 minutes

1 4 oz. can mushrooms, or equivalent fresh

1 bunch green onions

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons sesame oil

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3 cloves of garlic

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

Sriracha, to your taste

Lettuce leaves of your choice, washed and patted dry

WHAT YOU DO:

In a food processor or blender, dice the water chestnuts, bean sprouts, carrots, rice noodles, mushrooms and green onions.  Remove from food processor and set aside.  

Now put the soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, garlic, ginger and Sriracha (I used about a tablespoon, because we like spicy) into the food processor (YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO WASH IT FIRST! HOW COOL IS THAT?) and blend until all the garlic and ginger is incorporated.

In a large skillet, add a little olive oil, then begin to brown and break up the ground chicken.  After no pink remains, add in the vegetable mixture and cook over  medium heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are softened.  Now add in the soy sauce mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce is absorbed.

Serve with lettuce leaves for wrapping.

Ok, all together now - YUM!

On current hair disasters and skunks.

I'm so conflicted about my hair.

I'm not really a high maintenance gal.  READ: Make-up is too much trouble and I wear my IronMan t-shirt every day. But, and this is a huge but - as opposed to a huge BUTT, which is a post for another day, I guess - I've always at least tried to maintain my hair in a reasonable, I-can-be-seen-in-public kind of way.

Seriously, though?  It really is a lot of trouble.

I like my hair best when it's in the red/chestnut family of hues, but I have found that those do fade very quickly.  I've been considering letting it go gray for a while now, and I'm considering it even more and more often lately.  Like, I think about it all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.

But something keeps holding me back, and that's kind of pissing me off.  So I keep coloring it.  And I keep having gray roots all the flippin' time.  All. The. Time.

See, a few weeks ago, my roots were getting in a BAD way, so I picked a box of something called "root touch up" at the grocery.  Don't judge me for making my hair care decisions in the middle of Kroger.  A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  Anyway, I got this box of stuff, a bargain at $5, no less, and came home to try it out.

"COVER YOUR ROOTS IN AS LITTLE AS 10 MINUTES!" the box promised.  "MATCHES ALL SHADES OF REDDISH BROWN HAIR DYE!" It proclaimed.

Lies, I tell you.  All lies.  LIES.

What I ended up with was a stripe of dark brown right at my part, which made me look for all the world like a backward skunk. See?

Which, I guess, was somewhat better than the non-backward skunk I looked like before I did it.  I guess.

So anyway, my hair is getting on my nerves.

And this post, which is totally narcissistic and pointless, is also getting on my nerves.

I think I'll go find something more productive to do than worry about my hair.

Ta-ta!

Grandparents.

I grew up without grandparents in my life.

I was a late in life baby (also known as "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN I'M PREGNANT?!?!?!?!?") for my parents, and all four of my grandparents were dead long before I was born.

I knew other people had grandparents who were awesome, and one of my closest friends even lived with her grandma and grandpa and mom all together in a sweet little house that always smelled like yummy spaghetti sauce.  I spent a lot of time there growing up, so I knew that grandparents COULD be important.  Sometimes I would see other kids' grandparents at some school function or another, but it never really registered to me then that it was an entire layer of relationships that I was missing out on.  I was a kid, I had people who loved me, that was enough.

But now that I have kids of my own, I can see just what an important relationship it is.

I see a little girl who lives in our neighborhood light completely up when it is occasionally her grandma who picks her up at the busstop.

I see a grandma and grandpa of a kid in Zachary's class who have gone to every field trip and school function and special lunch and made-up awards ceremony that the school has had.

I see a grandpa who shows up at Zachary's tae kwon do class at least twice a week, straight from work and still in his postal service uniform, so he can watch his grandson in class.

I see Facebook photos and Instagram pics of grandparents taking their grandkids on vacations, to the park, or just hanging out with them for an afternoon or a weekend or a week.

And I hate it that my kids don't have that... That extra layer of love in their lives.

My parents are both dead, and R's parents, for lack of a better word, are just not interested.  Although we see them occasionally, it's definitely more of a quick drop in and/or holiday-only relationship than any sort of caregiving/daily interaction.  That's how they want it, and that's ok, but I still can't help but think my boys are missing out on something really important.

Unfortunately, it's one of those things that's totally out of my control.

Occasionally I scout out old people, looking for a potential surrogate grandparent or two, but that's a pretty awkward conversation to have with a near-stranger.  "Hey, I've seen you shopping at this Kroger every Wednesday for the last month.  You seem nice enough.  Are you perhaps in the market for a couple extra grandkids to play with occasionally?  We will even invite you to the Grandparents' Lunch at school - my treat!"

As someone who has never had a grandparent, it's hard for me to describe what I think they're missing, but I suspect it's a relationship that has all the love of a parent/child bond with none of the day to day tedium, discipline and WORK that is part of being a parent.  It's baking cookies without making them pick up their laundry.  It's giggles and snuggles and laughs without discipline, teaching moments and chore charts.  It's reading stories and eating special dinners without a green vegetable in sight.

It sounds pretty amazing, to be honest.

And I hate that my kids are missing it.

The last 20 minutes.

I like to watch tv.

There.  I said it.

I know it's not politically correct and/or cool to actually ADMIT to that, but I do.  Currently, R and I have, between us, around a dozen or so shows that one, the other, or both of us like to watch.   Is that too much tv?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Before we had kids we used to go to the movies ALL THE TIME, but paying $40 for the sitter on top of the price of movie tickets and popcorn has curtailed that for the foreseeable future.

So for now, tv it is.

We enjoy watching tv after the kids are in bed at night, and we do even occasionally interact with each other about it.  "Hey did you see that?!?!?!" I might yell ask R, even though of course he did.

But I have a problem.

Due to my early-bird nature, I'm usually pretty tired by the time we start watching tv, so inevitably I fall asleep before the show is over.

Every time.

So I never, never, never get to see the last 20 minutes of anything.

Since we DVR everything and watch it later, this isn't a huge deal.  Except... the next night, since R DID finish the show, we start something new.

And I fall asleep before it's over.

And the next night - same thing.

And the next night - same thing.

I don't watch tv during the day when I'm home with the kids, so the last 20 minutes of shows that I have yet to see just sit there, unwatched.  At the moment, I have AT LEAST 10 shows that I need to finish, including the season finales of Arrow, CSI, Criminal Minds and Grimm.  I also have THREE episodes of Hannibal and at least a couple of Vegas, which I heard has been cancelled and I am SO SO sad about.

Is it wrong of me to want to send the kids to the sitter for a day just so I can catch up on my tv shows?

Yeah, probably so.

But I might do it anyway.