"You can bring the Doritos."

See, the thing is, I sort of fancy myself to be a rednecky Martha Stewart.

Ya know, minus all the tax evasion and jail time.

I make crafts that look like this:

I cook - FROM SCRATCH - meals that look like this:

Recipe coming soon.  I promise.

I decorate for holidays like this:

Just in case you missed it last time.

I make - and can - my own applesauce, jams, jellies, and other cool things.  

I also do a lot of other cool domestic-y things like sew and coupon and quilt and whatever.  I just don't have any photos of those things handy.

Anyway, when Z started school this year, my creative craziness kicked into high gear.  I would be the Queen of the Kindergarten Room Mothers!  I would WIN at holiday parties!  I would be AWESOME!!!

I may be just a TOUCH on the competitive side.

Once, long ago, RJ signed us up to bring corn to his holiday party at work. 

I was distraught.  "BUT YOU CAN'T WIN WITH CORN!" I wailed.

"Win what?" RJ asked me, clearly not understanding my passionate response to the corn situation.

"LIFE!" I screamed.  "YOU CAN'T WIN AT LIFE WITH CORN!!!"

Ahem.

Anyway, I waited and waited until it was time for the first party of the year - the Halloween party. I pinned a ton of cute stuff to Pinterest in preparation, then I waited.  And waited some more.  Impatient?  Who, me?

FINALLY, I got a note from the teacher asking for volunteers for the "Fall Party."  Call it whatever you want, it's Halloween.  In the note, she mentioned that in years past, there had been an abundance of sweets like cupcakes, candy and cookies, and she asked for some other options.  Ok, I can work with that.  I quickly checked my board for non-sweet options, and decided that I would go with either this:

 which I found on this cool blog

or this:

from the PBS site.

The note I sent back was wonderful in it's simplicity.  

"Dear Teacher, I would be happy to bring something for the party.  I could bring fruit or pretzels or whatever you need.  If I don't hear back from you I'll bring one of those things."

Oh, wouldn't everyone be surprised at how wonderful my simple little "fruit or pretzels" turned out?  Clearly,  I WOULD win at Kindergarten Halloween Party.  

The next day, I got another note from the teacher.  It read, in it's entirety:

"Someone is bringing pretzels.  Can you bring the Doritos? Circle yes or no."

Doritos?  DORITOS!?!?!?!?

If you can't win with corn, it's abundantly clear that you can't even place or show with Doritos.

So now what?

I ran to my computer, intent on Googling things like "homemade Doritos" and "Doritos Halloween crafts" but before I got there, I turned around, swallowed my pride, circled "yes" on the note, and died a little inside.

Then I went out and bought two giant family-sized bags of Doritos.

The party is tomorrow, and I'm sure zj and all the other kids will have a great time.  I'll take my Doritos, and the kids will eat them and not care one bit that they are not carved into the shape of bats or coffins or whatever.

But I swear, by all that is holy, if there is even ONE undecorated or unadorned cupcake or cookie in that room, the Doritos will hit the fan.

 

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. 'Tis the season and all that.

So I spent the entire morning carving pumpkins with the boys, where "with the boys" mostly equaled me yelling at them to "Stop that! That's sharp!" and "Stop that! That's sharp!"

Before we started there was much debate about what our pumpkins would look like.  Since I am a notorious control freak, I gently suggested we find some Batman & Robin templates, since that would match the boys' costumes.  Batman was easy, but Robin proved more difficult.  As we were looking at a blue million templates online, we ran across one for Mickey Mouse.

Cj: "Mouse."
"MOUSE!"
"MY MOUSE!  MOUSE FOR BABY BOOPER!"
"MOUSEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Ok, Batman and Mickey Mouse has a nice ring, too.

They turned out super cute, too, despite all the good help I had.

When it was all over, I had a bowl of pumpkin guts that looked like this:

Now at this point in your pumpkin carving process, you might take a look at this nasty business and decide it's just not worth the effort and dump the whole mess in the trash.

STEP AWAY FROM THE TRASH CAN.  

It's not as hard as it looks, and it's totally worth it.

First, set yourself up a colander to put the seeds in.

Second, fill the bowl that has all the pumpkin guts in it up with warm water, and VOILA! most of the pumpkin seeds will float to the top. 

Skim them off and put them into the colander.  

There will still be some seeds mired in the guts that have sunk to the bottom.  You can either pick them out, one by painstaking one like an anal retentive fool like me would do or you can toss it all in the trash.  It's ok.  I give you permission now.

Next, rinse the seeds in your colander very well.  There very well may still be little bits of pumpkin guts here and there... Pick them out, don't pick them out, whatever floats your boat.  

Now you will want to let your pumpkin seeds dry out completely.  It is very important that you do NOT put them on paper towels to dry.  Trust me here when I tell you that these little buggers are stickier than... well, than something that is really sticky.  You do NOT want to spend the next three hours picking them off the paper towels.

If you are the patient sort, you can let them dry naturally, just by letting them set out in a shallow baking sheet for several hours.

If you are as impatient as I am, you can a) dry them with a hairdryer or b) dry them out in the oven - kinda like a pre-cooking thing.  

Last year I went the hairdryer route, and it was all fine and good till I decided that it would go much faster if I turned the speed up to high.  Uh, bad call.  

This year I turned the oven on to 200 degrees and let them dry out in there.  It took about 45 minutes, and I stirred them several times in the process.

After your pumpkin seeds are completely dried out, it's time to season them and cook them for real.

You will needs some sort of oil and some sort of seasoning.  Coat the seeds with the oil and seasoning - roughly 1 teaspoon oil and 1/2 teaspoon seasoning per cup of seeds will do the trick.   Bake them for about an hour at 300 degrees, stirring at least every 15 minutes.

Here are some suggestions for seasonings.

• Butter and coarse salt
• canola oil and spicy taco seasoning (MY FAVORITE!!!)
• Olive oil and Italian seasoning blend.  Toss a little parmesan in the last 15 minutes as well
• Butter and cinnamon sugar
• Olive oil and garlic salt
• Whatever you want.  After all, you're going to be the one eating them.

Let them cool and enjoy.  

You will be glad you didn't toss them in the trash.

Really.

You probably would run screaming after 15 minutes.

Last week I saw a bunch of really cool posts linking to A Week in My Life by Adventuroo and I thought about doing it.

For about a minute.

Then, based on the fact that I didn't want to scare either of my readers off, I decided against it.

Truth be told, I'm not sure I want you guys to know what I do all day.  Um... Pinterest, anyone?  Also, since it has a tendency to be a little crazy around here pretty much every flippin' second of evert flippin' day from time to time, I wasn't sure I wanted to broadcast it.  But it kept calling to me.

Do me! Do me!


Oh my god, that was not meant to be as dirty as it sounds.  Really.

Finally I decided that I wouldn't try to do a whole day, just a short little span.

I do this all day long.  Surely you can handle 15 minutes, right?

So here's my Wednesday, from 3:30 pm - 3:45 pm.  Approximately, anyway.

3:30 pm:   Zj is just getting off the bus, and cj (in his stroller) and I are standing at the bus stop to meet him.

3:31 pm:  Still walking home from the bus stop.  Cj is yelling "More sucker me! Peassssee???" and zj is talking a mile a minute.  "And today we had YOGURT BOX for lunch! But I didn't like it.  So I ate some bread that was shaped like a fish.  It's ok, my friend gave it to me.  And guess what, Mama?  Today was HEALTH day!  And we learned about germs and..."

3:32 pm: We arrive home, I get the boys inside, everybody sheds shoes, jackets, backpacks, etc. and zj asks for a snack.  Cj: "NACK! NACK!"

3:33 pm: I procure some chips and salsa, and give it to the boys in the living room.

3:34 pm: The boys seem intent on eating their snack, so I wander off into the library (which is also known as Mama's Naughty Room, because it's where Mama goes when she needs a time out) to screw around on the internet, which I announce to the boys as "Mama is going to the library to do some VERY IMPORTANT WORK."

3:35 pm: Zj yells "Mama!  Cj is DRINKING the SALSA!"  Cj: "MOE SAUCE!  MOE SAUCE!"

3:36 pm: I determined that cj was indeed drinking the salsa.

3:37 pm: Clean up the salsa.  

3:38 pm: Clean up more salsa, which is inexplicably on the underneath side of the ceiling fan.

3:39 pm: I lose sight of zj for a second, then hear him yell from the bathroom "MAMA! Come look at how big this poop is!"

3:40 pm:  I go check on zj.  It is indeed a very large poop.  Lucky for you, I did NOT photograph it, even though zj was heartbroken that I would not.

3:41 pm: Spray some air freshener, then check to see what cj had gotten into. 

3:42 pm: Determine that cj had pulled all the toys off the shelves in his room.  Whew.  I got lucky there.  That, sadly, was the best case scenario.

3:43 pm: Pick up some of the toys, pausing long enough to yell "Zj, stop torturing your brother!" and "Cj, stop licking your brother!  You are not a puppy!"

3:44 pm: I determine that it's nearly 4 o'clock, which is damn close to 5 o'clock, and begin my own cry:

"MOE SAUCE!  MOE SAUCE!"

I’m sharing my awesome with Momma Made It Look Easy and you can too.

Things that broke this week.

1.  My car.

2.  My MacBook.

3.  My iPhone.  No picture available because, ya know, I use it to take pictures.

4.  My kid's eye.

5.  My spirit.

How I spent my day off.

When I quit my job last year to become a full time stay at home Mama, I was certain that I would love it.

I was right.

I love playing pretend and going to the park and coloring and swinging and just being here for my boys.

They seem to love it, too.  Oh, we've had a few bumps along the way, but mostly, I think, the whole family is better off for it.

The one thing I never even considered, though, is that I don't really get days off.

No personal days, no vacation, no sick days.

When I've tried to call in, oddly enough, nobody answers.

What's up with that?

Anyway, I've learned to work around it (i.e. lay on the couch with a temp of 103 while two wild children circle me like I'm prey.  I'm convinced they can sense weakness.)  and to occasionally, just occasionally, send them to the sitter for the day.

I had such a day this week.

I coordinated it, I planned it, I budgeted it, and I made it happen.

I also spent that day in my mind a million times before it came around.  I was like one of those people who spends all his time fantasizing about what he would spend his imaginary millions on - a Porsche! a yacht! A home in the Hamptons! - if only, just only, he could ever remember to buy a lottery ticket so he could win.

I had a list of things a mile long.  I divided them into Want to Do, Should Do, and Definitely Must Do.

On the want list were things like watch the season premieres of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, go pee without someone banging on the bathroom door the entire time, get a haircut, go for a run, do some much needed landscaping in the yard, and call up a friend so we could meet for lunch.

On the should list were things that needed to be done, and that I could do with the kids, but that would be ever so much easier without them, like run some errands, do the grocery shopping, and clean the house.

And on the definitely must do list was one thing: paint the new shed.

I got up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that morning, packed the kids off to the sitter, and got started right away with my Must Do.  It started out looking like this:

I have been saving up for this shed for years - literally - because every time I walk into my garage my eye starts to twitch and my left shoulder shrugs up a la Quasimodo because of all the junk in it.  So of course, no ordinary brown shed would do.  I wanted to paint it to match my house, with all the bright colors I love.  Never mind that the only person in the entire world who cared was me.  It needed to match the house, dammit.  

As I poured the first paint out into the painter's tray, I was mentally calculating how long it would take. An hour?  Maybe two, tops?  Then I could go do all those other things on my list.  Oh, how wonderful to have a whole day to do whatever I wanted!

Two hours into painting, I started mentally marking things off my list.  I didn't really NEED a haircut, right?  I mean, it's only been 11 months since my last one...  And it's not like the shows I had Tivo'd were going to EXPIRE or anything.  I could do that any time.

Four hours into painting the shed, I was cursing and marking more things off my list.  I could take the boys with me tomorrow to the grocery and to run errands.  And I could get up early and run tomorrow, too...

Six hours in, I wasn't even sure I would get the damn shed painted in one day, and was cursing my BRILLIANT idea of using THREE colors.  Good grief.  It's like shed overkill here.  I mean, really, who cares if the trim is bright glossy white?  Really, mj?  Can't you do anything the EASY way once in a while?

Eight hours in, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I thought that maybe, just maybe I could get done in time to get in a quick shower before I had to pick my kids up at the sitter.

So at the end of my day off, I had accomplished exactly one thing:

And I'm already planning my next day off, probably sometime in 2012.