Happiness is...

Laughter
Snuggles
Unsolicited hugs
A kiss on my head
Sunshine
Windows open on a beautiful day
Surprisingly light traffic at rush hour
Warm weather
A cool breeze
Ice cream
A really good book
Friendship
Good music
Family time
Flowers in bloom


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Getting around to it

I should have a great G post for today. But I don't feel great. I actually feel kinda gross. I'm sick and my back hurts. So I'm not getting as much done as I need.

I haven't done *nothing* however. I've made split pea soup for lunch at work during the week. I've made hummus and tzatziki sauce for fake gyros (I use hummus instead of meat) also for lunch later this week. And some laundry.

But today is not a productive day. In fact, I'm still in my pjs. And that's okay. I'll get around to the rest of it eventually.


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Facebook - What's annoying about it, part 2

Two years ago I wrote this post about ten things on Facebook that annoyed me. It's still one of my most popular posts ever, and is the reason for the "featured on BlogHer" over on the right. Things change, though, and now there are different reasons Facebook annoys me.

1. Begging for help with games. Any game. They are just stupid games, nothing important. I have most game apps blocked on Facebook anyway, but all the posts asking for extra help from others get on my nerves.

2. Allllllll the animal posts. Lost dog locally? I'll share that, no problem. A photo of a terribly abused animal just because? No. "Share if you're against cruelty to animals?" No. Of course I am, and everyone on my friends list should know that without  being subjected to the photos. Please rescue these animals from shelters in other states? No, sorry. If someone has the urge to rescue pets from shelters, there are several locally with animals just as cute, just as loving, just as endangered. I'll put you in touch with them, gladly.

3. Political ranting. "Your endless Facebook ranting and reposting of inflammatory memes totally changed my political views" said no one, ever. And while we're on this subject- do some fact-checking before reposting, please.

4. Endless direct sales. How many online "parties" can one person have at a time? Seriously!

5. "Just ate lunch" "Bathroom break" "Ugh I hate my job" "OMG I hate Mondaysssss" - and that's the adults.

I try to ignore all these, though, because more than anything else, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with long-distance family and friends. For that, I'll put up with almost anything.

Easter

Distraction

(I was shocked to open my blog tonight to see that yesterday's post is missing! I honestly posted yesterday, the title was Choices. It was there, now it's not. I'll repost if I can remember it.)

I'm easily distracted. I joke sometimes that I have the attention span of a four year old. What distracts me?

Everything.

My phone. Games. The internet. Facebook. Pinterest.

When I'm driving? Everything. I need scenery to look at. If there is nothing to see, my mind wanders and I zone out - I don't like doing that while I'm driving. But then I get distracted looking at what's around! Houses, people, businesses, whatever.

Books distract me badly. Television distracts me. Doodling. My thoughts even distract me.

It's bad.

However, I'm rarely bored!

But... But...

We're hearing this a lot lately. But... But... I LIKE chokit. (Still can't have candy for breakfast.)
But... But... I'm still pwaying! (Sorry, kiddo, it's bedtime.)
But... But... I LUFF(love) it! (Sorry, babydoll. You can't have whatever it is right now.)
But... But... I just want to watch my show!

You get the idea. This is life with a three year old.

On another note, I read somewhere recently that an average 3 year old asks a thousand questions a day. I think whoever was counting missed a few hundred.


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All about me

I'm participating in the A to Z blog challenge this month, for the first time. Since I'm new to this challenge, I thought my A post should be about me, kind of an introduction.

Hello!

My name is Christine. I'm thirtysomething, married, with two daughters. I'm really tall, but no I never played basketball because I suck at sports. Seriously.
I love books, coffee, tea, and being outside. I'm a procrastinator. I'm impatient. I'm an only child - read that as you will. I feel 21 and 45 at the same time. I'm a little freaked out by the fact that our oldest daughter is old enough to practice driving (okay, a lot freaked out by that). I'm a little bit of a smartass. I love to write but I don't let myself have enough time to do it seriously. I hate messiness but I also hate cleaning. I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate. I've lived in the south my entire life even though I don't sound like it. I work full time outside the home, although if we could afford it I'd really rather not (I do enjoy my job, though, that's not the problem at all). And that is a completely opposite view than five years ago. Somehow when my oldest started middle school she finally seemed to need me around more, and then two years later her little sister was born and I had two babies wanting their mommy... it really tugs at my heart! I'm not a Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray wanna-be, I don't have the time or energy to do either. I don't sew. I'm slightlly addicted to Pinterest. Oh, I'm also pro-breastfeeding (not anti-formula, there's a difference) and support gay marriage. I do blog about those subjects occasionally, along with other serious topics. I don't have a particular theme for my blog - just myself and what's important to me or what I need to work out in writing.

If I haven't scared you off - welcome! Glad to have you along for the ride!

Just a little randomness

This week has seemed SO long! Today feels so much like Friday; sadly it isn't. Yet.


Our eldest turns 15 in 2 weeks. She asked my husband to take her driving this weekend. I'm so not ready for this.


After work today, I stopped at Earth Fare. Tomorrow is the daycare Easter party, and pretty much any party now practically gives me hives worrying about it. I was super excited to find individual cupcakes in the bakery case. And of course everything there is free of artificial colors. Sophie gets a pink cupcake at the party!


Speaking of Sophie, she LOVES dinosaurs right now. Her bedtime story is The Cat in the Hat telling about dinos. She took her bath with her T. rex. At the big Easter event my parents host, she got a dinosaur egg to hatch. It's in water now, and she is not-so-patiently waiting for it. The directions say 12-24 hours. Oh my.


Waiting is not her strong point right now. To encourage pooping in the toilet, she has a sticker chart. I told her if she fills up her chart with stickers, we'll go to the zoo. She has been talking about the zoo nonstop all week! Every day: "We going to the zoo?" After your chart is full. "Oh, okay!" Pause. "Is Daddy going to the zoo with us? Is Emma going to the zoo with us? I take Bunny? I take my paper?" This is going to be a long month I think.


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Spring is here?

Hello, snow. Fourth time this season. That must be a record.

Since Spring is taking her sweet time, here are some things I'm looking forward to once she does arrive:

Playground visits
Yard work
My oldest daughter's 15th birthday
Warm sunny days
Sleeping with the windows open
Birds singing
Evenings spent outside
Brighter clothes
Sandals

What are you looking forward to this Spring?

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So this happened.

I was innocently driving to work, when I saw a spider on the inside of my windshield. This is what filled my brain next:

OMG OMG OMG there is a spider in my car! Where's that tissue I had... there. Oh no, the spider is gone. Where did it go?? It was crawling toward the crack between the windshield and the car, maybe it's in the dark area. Oh no, stay in this lane. Don't need to have an accident on the interstate. Imagine explaining that? "There was a spider in my car, officer! No, not a huge one, quite small actually. But STILL!" Yeah, don't see that going over well. I still can't find it. OMG. OMG. Ok, you're okay. Deep breaths. Deep breaths and the shudders and goosebumps should go away. Maybe. OMG my leg itches! What if it fell down and crawled up the side of my boot and now is in my pants?! Or in my boot?? OMG it itches!! There's a spider in my boot. What am I going to do? It has to get out! Calm down, it's highly unlikely the spider crawled up your boot and down into it that quickly, and you would have felt it going down your leg, not just a sudden spot. Probably. Ok, traffic light. Time to examine that crack where the window meets the car and find that spider and squish it. Where is it? OMG it's not there. It IS in my boot after all! Oh it itches! It's going to bite me!! Deep breaths, you can do this. Almost to work. Do NOT pull over and run out of the car screaming. Do not. It's not that bad. Deep breaths.

****

Finally I made it to work. I went straight to the restroom and took off my pants, socks, and boots to check for spiders. Nothing.

For the record, I'm not that much of a crazy person! I was bitten by a spider, too quickly to see what kind other than it's small size, and discovered I'm allergic to spiders. And crawling across your windshield right in front of your face is NO picnic, either.

I hope it's gone by the end of the work day.
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To understand me

Today's post is from a writing prompt blog.
"What is something about you people do not seem to understand no matter how many times you try to explain?"

I thought about this one a while, and had nothing. But for some reason, it stuck with me. Then on my way home tonight it hit me.

What most people don't seem to understand is that behind the public "me," behind any confidence or bravado I show the world, is an insecure, shy little girl. A girl who doesn't think anything she does is good enough. A girl who needs reassurance that yes, people really like her. A girl who hates that she needs reassurance. A girl who rarely phones her friends because she convinces herself that they don't want to hear from her or truly like her but are just humoring her and trying to figure out how to get off the line. A girl who second-guesses everything she does or says.

I don't like that little girl much, and try to silence her, but she's always there, waiting just under the surface. She slips out when I'm tired, when I'm in a new situation or around new people. She whispers in my ear, pointing out all my flaws and insecurities. She points and laughs at me, mocking me.

I want to make her go away but I don't know how.

Date night!

After Christmas, my husband and I were given restaurant gift cards to use for a night out, just the two of us. We finally took time for that last night, and went to Longhorn Steakhouse. I'm not a steak fan, but I wasn't in a pasta mood (shocking, right?) so I quickly pulled up the menu on my phone as he was driving and liked the choices.

Interestingly, the picture I found is exactly what I had - Grilled Chicken & Stuffed Portabella. From the menu description: "Tender grilled chicken breast topped with mushroom sauce and a cheese stuffed portabella mushroom." The meal came with a salad and a side, and I chose the mixed greens salad and baked sweet potato.



Photo courtesey Longhorn Steakhouse website



The salad itself was pretty good, but the dressing (raspberry vinaigrette) was not. It was very light on raspberry and heavy on the vinegar! I just couldn't finish the salad.



The food came fairly quickly. The mushroom sauce wasn't exactly what I had expected; it was more like a brown gravy with mushrooms but was okay. The chicken itself was very good, but the sauce could have been left off easily. However, the portabella was perfection. Seriously, I would have happily ate a plate of nothing but stuffed portabellas and been satisfied. (Just a suggestion, if anyone at Longhorn happens to read this - you really should offer a stuffed portabella entree! I'm not kidding - that would be fantastic!) I was also satisfied with the baked sweet potato - it came with both brown sugar and cinnamon along with butter, and was baked to a soft perfection. 

As tempting as the desserts looked, we were just too full.

We had a good time. It's nice to get out just the two of us, even though it doesn't happen as often as we'd like. I'm very thankful, though, that after fifteen years we still enjoy each other's company and still find things to talk about.



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I made cinnamon rolls! (Dye-free)

We like cinnamon rolls on weekends. However, last month it dawned on me to check the labels of the canned ones we usually make, and every single brand has artificial dyes. (Good thing Miss Sophie doesn't eat much.) I suspect it's the icing, but didn't want to take the chance. So, we've been without.

This morning I woke up thinking about cinnamon rolls, and had an idea. I made regular biscuit dough, and made the roll with that. With some melted butter and homemade icing, we had an ooey gooey breakfast.

Recipe:
2 1/2 c Bisquick
2/3 c milk
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/8 c brown sugar
1 tsp (estimated) cinnamon

Make biscuit dough with the Bisquick and milk. Knead and roll out into a rectangle approximately 1 cm thick. Brush with some of the melted butter. Combine brown sugar & cinnamon in a small bowl, and cover the rectangle. Roll the dough into a log, and slice into 1/2 inch thick slices.

Pour most of the remaining melted butter into the bottom of a round pan. Arrange the cinnamon rolls in the pan and brush with any remaining leftover butter. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

For the icing, I poured about 1/4 c half and half into a small bowl and added around 1 tsp vanilla. I stirred in approximately 1 c powdered sugar, 1/4 c at a time, until it was thick enough to glaze the rolls. (I didn't actually measure anything in the icing, I just mixed & added until it looked right.) when the cinnamon rolls were finished baking, I poured the glaze over them. It didn't sit on top like thicker icings, but soaked in the rolls.

They were delicious!

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Self-love

In my inbox today was the latest email from Kind Over Matter. I love that site and her positive message. A post today was about self love. Not *that* kind of self love, but loving who you are and showing it. I've been down lately which leads to beating myself up over everything, so I think I need to try a little loving instead.

And I'm struggling. I left this open for an hour and still nothing. Everything I can think of I then talk myself out of. I'm organized at work (but my house makes me stabby). I mostly cook good food (but am in such a rut lately and totally messed up the pomegranate balsamic marinade earlier in the week). I used to like my hair, but even it's become nondescript. People can't even correctly tell what color it is when standing in front of me! And how can I look like both a blond and a brunette when I have red hair? When E was little I heard "Oh she looks just like you!" and now I get "Where do your girls get their red hair?" Really?

Anyway, it seems like my self-love muscle needs a bit of a workout. Maybe I need some homework.

Stay tuned.

Dye-free birthday party

If you want to read about how we managed a completely artificial dye-free birthday party, check out my other blog, Adventures in Babyfooding!

Pictures included :)