At Work, Forgetting To Bring Things Home

This is the first time I'm doing one of these.

There are a lot of tips running around my brain right now but I think I'll use this tip I learned from my forgetful mother:

When you are at work and you put something in the office refrigerator to bring home ( it could be unfinished lunch or some perishable grocery food you picked up during your lunch hour) and you are afraid that you will forget to bring it home - just put your keys on top 0f the items and shut the door. It will be impossible to forget!

For more Works-For-Me Wednesday tips, go over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Thanks for Giving Me ‘The Clap’

{That’s the title of this post and I’m sticking with it. }

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind.

My house is finally in contract to sell, YES, but it’s been stressful getting all the proper documents together since STUPID me threw them out a few months back when I was cleaning out my closet. I don’t know what made me do it but I kind of remember doing it and stupidly thinking that I won’t be using any of these old real estate files anymore. STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.

I’ll just blame that one on old age and move on.

Then there’s the fact that I’m in contract to purchase a house in Connecticut. CT has very different procedures for purchasing and selling real estate. And I’m constantly trying to not be confused -which I do everyday of my life.... but now I get to do it in another STATE!!!!

Today I have to write a letter to the sellers asking them questions about certain repairs that were done on the house, weird, right?

But, the house is my dream house! And it is in move-in condition. And it’s on almost 2 beautiful acres.... with a brook in the backyard. And the kitchen is, well, I get all teary when I even think about how absolutely awesome it is.

Oh and the two tier deck has a place for a hot tub. Hot tubs rule. Especially when you are chatting with God as the sun is rising....I miss that.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, the title of this post..... I almost forgot.

My son, Dave came out this weekend and stayed in his room all day finishing up a play he’s been working on for months. He came downstairs to grab something to eat and started telling me about the play. It has something to do with people wanting to be brilliant, so this company advertises for a drug that can make you brilliant, blah, blah, blah. Then these people become brilliant and gifted, blah, blah, blah. They are compared to Mozart and others, blah, blah, blah. Then they die. And it’s discovered that they die from an STD that is contracted directly from the drugs that make them brilliant.

"Oh, I see", I say, "You give them ‘The Clap’.

Just then my son’s jaw actually drops, his eye’s widen and he starts doing the ‘The Happy Dance’ right there in the kitchen. The dog joins in and all of the sudden it’s all:

FESTIVE IN THE HOUSE


Ahem.

He tells me that he was wracking his brain to come up with a catchy acronym for the drug and I just saved him hours and hours of work. He now looks like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders.

So when he packed up and went to kiss me goodbye he grabbed my shoulders with his outstretched arms, tenderly looked into my eyes and said, "Thanks for giving me ‘The Clap’, Mom, I love you".

I just stepped back and laughed because - where ever are you ever, in your whole entire life, ever going to hear THAT sentence?

*to be read in a whisper*

Shhhh! It’s 4:00 am and everybody is still sleeping.

By everybody, I mean PookieBear (right next to me); Capt and Boy (downstairs).

They drove down to see me yesterday while I was at work. When I got home dinner was ready for us. Capt had made melt in your mouth Chicken Cordon Blue with scalloped potatoes, mixed vegetables and rice. To say that it was delicious would be an understatement. It was the best meal. And so thoughtful too.

During dinner (oh this is so cute) Boy tasted the chicken and announced that he didn’t like it. Which usually means that he won’t eat it. Then I suggested that he use his imagination and pretend that the mother of the girl [name withheld] that he is madly in love with (he’s only 9 and is in love with a girl in his school) made this dinner for him. He smiled and ate the chicken and said, "Theresa’s raising me right". What kid says that? Isn’t he adorable?

PookieBear and I went to bed at 7:30 and watched Akeelah and the Bee until American Idol. Then we watched that until I became comatose. As soon as she wakes up (hopefully soon) we will finish watching the movie, because it is killing me that I don’t know how it ends yet. Killing me!

Then we are going to Curves at 6:30 to work off all that glorious butter Capt used last night.

I took a vacation day today, (which between selling my house and buying a new one is so very much needed) so the rest of the day is free!

All of you have a wonderful day today.

Wordless Wednesday

This was taken in South Carolina. I wish I was standing there right now.

Sunrise, Sunset......

This is what I woke up to find in my foyer this morning.

I must admit at first I was a little startled.



(You can't see in the picture, but they are Harley boots.)


Then I realized that my 26 year old son, who lives 60 miles away, probably came home while I was sleeping last night and that these must be his.


But it seems like only yesterday when he wore those tiny, white leather Stride-rite shoes....Sunrise, Sunset........waaaaaa.


=====================================


My wonderful QFIL over at Turning 70 is going to be traveling to Brazil on a voluntary missionary trip. He is leaving to start the journey today.


Please keep him in your prayers.

Thankful Thursday

It’s been awhile since I did a Thankful Thursday, so here goes:

I’m thankful that my house is in contract to sell. Yes.it.is. It’s been a lot of work getting it ready, keeping it in show room condition, pouring more and more money into improvements only to realize that I did not get the money back. But the deal is done. The couple that are buying it are really sweet. She’s a doctor and he’s an engineer. They are getting married in July. The neighbors are going to love them.

There was another offer on the house first, but the family that wanted to buy it were planning to subdivide the house and rent it out to a few different people. And they were very pushy. And I really didn’t like them; I didn’t have a nice feeling about them. And the neighbors would have killed me. And I was thisclose to saying yes when the young couple offered the same amount and I jumped on it and said a resounding, YES!!!!

I know it’s just a house, but it was a home for me and my children since 1992. I think that it’s going to be difficult to leave. Maybe. Maybe not.

Tomorrow, Capt and my ‘Quasi’ Father-In-Law (QFIL) are going to look at more available houses to buy in Connecticut (Capt and I saw a few last weekend). I figure that since I sold my house at a low amount, I should buy a house at a low rate and take advantage of the market. I’m planning on living in CT on the weekends and staying on Long Island during the week until the next big change happens.

Big Change!

So, I am thankful that changes are happening in my life. I’m a little nervous, but thankful.

Happy Valentine’s Day

This is my favorite holiday because ‘loving one another’ is the most important thing...it’s why we were created.

I didn’t feel loved while I was growing up and I feel a bit sorry for my parents about that because after raising three children myself, I can’t even put into words how amazing it is to love your children and have them love you back.

There is one principle I have learned about love over the years:

You can only be loved to the extent you allow another to truly know you. (Or, in other words ‘Intimacy’).

And yet, being vulnerable is a very tough thing for me. But, without being vulnerable I won’t get the love I deserve.

Shedding light into the dark areas of my life, things that I am embarrassed about, things that I am ashamed of, removes the darkness and replaces it with the brightness of love.

And doing so bonds us closer.

It’s as simple as that; it’s as difficult as that. And I’m a work in progress, always.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone in my life that I love, especially Capt, who is forever showing me how much he truly loves me.

Do You Feel the LOVE ?

I found a new love when I went to the mall last night.

Isn't it beautiful?

I was supposed to find a Valentine's Day gift for my boyfriend, but he's difficult to get anything for....so I got myself something.

Make's sense.

Right?

20/20 Vision

I usually don’t talk about my three children here often, unless they are doing something funny. There’s a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is because they are adults and it’s been difficult for me to think of them like as such. It seems like 99% of my fellow bloggers have young children even though we are approximately the same age.

This has been the story of my life.

I had my twins when I was 21 years old. Then I had my youngest son 20 months later and had my tubes tied due to medical complications. All my children were miracles.

As I raised my children I noticed something, I did not fit in with other mothers of my children’s age. Virtually all of the mothers were 10 or more years older than me. At 22 years old, I had no clue how to be an adult, how to relate to these mothers, or even how to be a wife. I really could have used my 20's to mature more, but I wouldn't have changed the way my 20's went for anything.

One of the things I desperately wanted to teach my children was how to be successful adults. By doing this, I wanted them to have a loving, nurturing childhood and to experience their 20's. They didn’t have a father in their lives and I had to try to be both Mom and Dad for them. I could have been a better mother; I was horrible as a father, but I did my best.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell everyone, but my 26 year old daughter moved out last month.

It’s been a difficult time for me because I miss her. And on the other hand, I want her to struggle a little out in the big world....to see how it feels to stick to a budget (which is something she has always been great at)....to have to make dinner after a hard day’s work....to have to juggle doing your laundry and food shopping...to have to pay rent, on time, with a fear that you will be evicted, if necessary. These are struggles that make one or break one. And I know that she will succeed. I know it.

She is an artist and works on ad campaigns and such in an advertising agency. She also runs her own graphic arts company called BriteDesign where she creates web pages, logos, book covers, CD covers and sells her artwork online. And yes, I am very proud of her.

Jen and I shared clothes all these years, that I miss too because she always had better taste in clothes than I. Now that she’s gone, I look like a schlep.

Jen called me last night on her way home from work and I invited her to stop by for dinner, just me and her.

It was just wonderful. It felt right, like we were both in the right place in our lives. That’s the only way I could describe it. I fell in love with her again in a different way...in a grown-up-child-of-mine way.

After dinner, while I was baking her some chocolate chip cookies (of which I ate most of) she re-did my blog set-up for me.

And when she left I thought of all the mistakes I made along the way and how despite them, she turned out to be a wonderful, levelheaded, mature, responsible and successful woman. And she’s really beautiful too.

It is such a bittersweet feeling, I can’t describe it well, but it feels like "job well done/there goes my little girl"both at the same time.

Big Breaking News

We interupt your regular scheduled blogging for this news breaking development:

THIS JUST IN:

I HAVE A BUYER FOR MY HOUSE!!!!!!


Now back to your regular scheduled programs.

Keeping Score

The past couple of weekends when I have traveled to Capt's house to visit, I have noticed that he has been out of paper towels.

On Sunday (at my suggestion) he left me his debit card, gave me his password and gave me a shopping list so I could do his food shopping while he was at work.

Oh the fun I could have had.

One of the items I picked up was a 12 pack of paper towels. I got them on sale at Shaw's.

So, when he came home later that day I was all excited to show him the 12 rolls of Scott's paper towels that I got him for $7.99 when I realized that I inadvertantly left them in the shopping cart when I was loading up the car.

"I've got great news Capt, I got you a great deal on paper towels. The only problem is that I'm not used to having checkers bag the food AND put the bags in my cart, so since I never put anything under the cart, I didn't realize they were there and I left without them. Sorry." (On Long Island, you have to do it all yourself.)

[laughing] "That's. just. great. Babe. You saved me money.... it only cost me $7.99 AND I still don't have any paper towels."

[Thinking about how to turn this around] "Um, don't forget that time when I bought a container of joint compound at Home Depot last summer and YOU left it under the cart....so therefore, I consider THIS incident a total wash."

-Oh Yes, it's been awhile but I still have the sacred, female, 'keeping the score' skill intact!

Not that it is a good thing, but do any of you 'keep score' in your relationships?

Sauerbraten Story

Here's how it all went down:


First the wake up 4:00am; Perrier water, flavored with lemon.


Then take the meat out of the refrigerator, which has been marinating for 4 days. That gets browned and then goes in the pot.




Then something really bad happens. I'll show you later.

I start making the potato dumplings. Hope there are leftovers because if you ever wanted to gain substantial weight, you slice cold potato dumplings and fry them in bacon for breakfast. Hmmm, maybe I hope that there aren't any left after all.

After cooking all day in the pot, it's time to eat.


I made red cabbage during my lunch break. And South Beach salad.
My sister and friend, Matt did the dishes.



Thanks guys!
This was dessert. Big shout out to Capt's dad for the great idea, these cream puffs were a big hit!




And here's why I couldn't do the dishes:

Ouchieeeee. I burned my hand when I was browning the meat.

Hope you enjoyed sharing this experience with me.

Must push publish and sleep now. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz