Category Archives: Five Question Friday

It’s Friday and once again I am sooooo glad! Especially since all day yesterday I felt like it was Friday, which was rather a bummer. Just like everyone else in the world, I’ve discovered Downton Abbey and I am smitten (see also: I am a lemming, but far be it from me to avoid something just because everyone else likes it).

Also, my kids are going to drive me insane with the multiple getting-out-of-beds they attempt in an evening. They have been sharing a room now for 1.5 weeks and nothing seems to work aside from being drop-dead tired to keep them from getting up until they’ve worn themselves out and exhausted every excuse. And I can’t get them to drop-dead tired level EVERY night, so I need a new tactic. I’ve tried threats, pacifier removal, denying them the Wii and YouTube the next day, yelling, speaking calmly, ignoring (which doesn’t work when they are standing right next to you) and now I’m just plain complaining and asking for help. What to do? Clearly I do not have the upper hand, but I am not sure how to get it since all techniques have come up lacking.

1. What do you do when you are really upset to calm yourself down?
Give myself a timeout. Pray. Drink a Diet Coke.

2. Do you go all out for V-day or is it just another day?
We definitely do not go all out with Jack and Simon’s birthday the week before we have a little gift exchange, but nothing big. I’d rather save the money and go out for a nice dinner with the hubs without all the crowds.

3. Are you more or less productive when Hubs is away?
It depends. My husband is gone every weekday evening but at that point in the day, I’m also worn out so I often do the bare minimum and then veg out on the couch until bedtime. And it’s about 50/50 on Saturday mornings when we are all home. He usually watches soccer so I either a) feel free to sit and read blogs or b) take the opportunity to work out or do chores since he can be responsible for the boys. I guess it all depends on the day. But I do know we don’t work well together, I’m too bossy and he H-A-T-E-S to be told what to do.

4. What is your favorite time of day and why?
Any time but morning. Why – because it is not morning. I would love to be one of those people who just wakes up and pops out of bed but I am decidedly not one of those people. The ideal time would between 10 pm and 1 am *if* I do not have to be woken up the next day.

5. What is your go to karaoke song?
I have sung karaoke exactly one time, in someone’s living room during a small group get together when I lived in Chicago. I can’t say that I actually like karaoke because I prefer to hear good singers and karaoke can be hit or miss. And I am just too self-conscious to sing in front of people, or perform as is more the way with karaoke. Too inhibited.

Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

It feels like ages since I’ve participated in Five Question Friday – I know you’ve missed them, right?

1. Do you swim in the winter?
In Michigan, not so much. But in Australia, yes, but of course, if we are being technical, it’s summer in Australia. This boggled Liam’s little mind. He could not let go of it being January and hot. He asked multiples times in multiple ways how it was possible that it was warm in Australia, and did that mean it was warm in the United States or why wasn’t it August in Australia? This gave me a chance to explain the equator and hemispheres – learning opportunity! Ding! Still not ever going to home school (I’ll leave that to you, Jonna).

2. Do you love or hate winter? 
I’m okay with winter, if I were to pick a season to love, it would be autumn. And if I were allowed to be picky and specific, I could also love a non-humid, mild summer. But winter is just fine to me, though as I get older, I like driving in the snow less and less. I cannot imagine ever being okay with my teenagers driving in the snow, I better start doing some breathing exercises now.

3. Do you put makeup/actual clothes on when you know you’re going to be home all day with just family? 
Ummm… do I even put on makeup when I leave the house for work? Not usually. I do always put on actual clothes to go to work – this detail is much appreciated by everyone I encounter on the way to and at work, I’m quite certain. But if I’m just staying home all day, quite often I stay in my pajamas all day (I sleep in sweatshirts or t-shirts and yoga pants) though I do shower and change after I work out (I have standards). Confession: My kids stayed in their pajamas all day today, which were actually the tops they wore yesterday with comfy pants they changed into before bed last night; this was more because of Simon, who never changed them this morning or left the house but I left them as they were and put them in bed for the night (Thursday night). My mother is properly disgusted now… but if I can’t be honest on my blog then where can I be honest? Also, I might have made a similar confession in the past.

4. How old were you when you had your first alcoholic beverage?
Sometime in my mid-teens. It was a margarita prepared by my big brother while my parents and I were visiting his house in Houston one spring break. It was delicious and is still my favorite alcoholic beverage. Though as I type this, I think that might be a lie, the first alcohol I ever tasted was either a drink of my parent’s wine cooler at a pool party hosted by one of my dad’s co-workers OR a sip of one of my parent’s preferred out-to-dinner drinks: a bloody mary or a seven & seven – this is ironic because my parents really never drank but on rare occasions we’d go out for dinner and they’d order one of those drinks. For the record, I like wine coolers, but I DO NOT like bloody marys or seven & sevens – yucko. Has anyone else ever ordered their parents’ signature drinks at a bar in an attempt to be an adult?

5. How many ill calls in a 12 month period do you think are acceptable?
Let’s go with 1 every other month, so six a year. At my work we also get a half day off every other month to use however we want – we call it a mental health half day. I rarely take a day off because I feel like, mostly because I feel guilty and a little because going to work is more restful than staying home because most days the kids are here all day. Being a sick mom is hard people, so very hard. Thankfully (and knock on a million pieces of wood) my boys are pretty hearty and haven’t really gotten sick – we’ll give credit to daycare at an early age for building up the immunity and how we encourage them to lick the floor and the bottoms of their shoes (just kidding, mom). Liam had one ear infection as a child and we had no idea he even had it, the doctor noticed it at his routine checkup. So I can hang my parenting success on having healthy children; they may not behave perfectly in public and may also be super picky eaters who scream and yell randomly and sometimes shout curse words, but darn it, they are healthy. Winning = me!

Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

For those who are dying to know, we have just three days until the big office move and I’m about 90% ready. The bulk of my Christmas parties are done, along with my Christmas baking so I’m feeling pretty good. Now to address and mail Christmas cards… I can do it! My poor friends who came over last night just got Christmas cards not even in envelopes… saved myself the 2 seconds it would have taken to put those in envelopes. Phew.

I keep hearing great and exciting new from people both personally and professionally so my heart is in a happy place which is nice because a friend had some very bad news recently and that had made my heart rather heavy. But none of these things are my stories to tell but I’m sure all involved would appreciate your prayers of thanksgiving and for peace.

This time last year, Jack was almost a month into his recovery from his hand/foot surgery. It’s hard to believe that a year ago he was so much smaller and quite frankly dirtier because in order to give him a bath, we had to make sure the cast was wrapped up nice and tight, it was quite a process, so we didn’t bathe him too regularly while the cast was one (as opposed to the frequent schedule we have him on now – right, Keri?).

1. What’s the best Christmas present you’ve ever received?
I pretty much have loved all the Christmas presents I’ve received (cheeseball) but the one I remember being the most excited about came when I was younger – late elementary school age I think. I loved to check out the presents under the tree to see which were for me and one year I had peaked under the wrapping paper on one end of one of the gifts and saw that it was a ceiling fan box and I was SO disappointed. So on Christmas Eve I left that present for last, not wanting to open it, knowing it was going to be that stupid ceiling fan. But lo and behold, my parents fooled me and it ended up being a very large stuffed animal and I was beyond thrilled! I haven’t peaked at a Christmas present since.

2. Worst/Funniest White Elephant gift ever received?
I’m quite partial to two presents currently circulating in my family, one is an autobiography of Michael Jackson written in the 80s (so it’s super up-to-date and an accurate portrayal of his life) and the second is a real [dead] stuffed frog that is sitting at a small wooden piano. I believe that both of them are currently in my brother, Mike’s possession, hopefully he didn’t draw my name for Christmas Eve. 🙂

3. Is your Christmas tree plain and simple (white lights and matching ornaments) or is it wild and crazy (colored lights with lots of ornaments collected over the years)?
I’ll take the third option, non-existent. We have Christmas decorations up – white lights around the living room, multi-colored Christmas ball wreath propped up, Willow Tree nativity on the mantle and ornaments on the windowsill. I think that next year we’ll have a tree again but while we have a child who cannot be trusted to be left alone with anything, we’ve opted to not put up a tree (we go to my parent’s house for Christmas and they do have a tree – no worries).

4. “How” do you iron your clothes? The old-fashioned iron/ironing board way, the shower, back in the dryer, etc.
For a few select items I pull out the iron, but mostly I try to crease things when they are still warm from the dryer – my preferred method.

5. How much baking do you do for Christmas and what are your “must make” items? (I’m looking for recipes here, peeps…)
I do quite a bit of baking, or rather, treat making:
– peppermint patties
– oreo truffles
– chex mix (6 batches)
– get thee behind me satan snack mix
– pretzels with peppermint kisses and mint m&ms
– peanut butter and pretzels “sandwiches” dipped in dark chocolate

Other year’s I’ve made:
– peppermint meringues with dark chocolate bottoms
– snack cracker toffee bark
– baklava
– peanut butter and Ritz sandwiches dipped in chocolate
– muddy buddy snack mix

Some recipes:
Peppermint Patties
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 stick butter
1/8 tsp. peppermint oil (NOT extract)
2 Tb. hot water
1 bag semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 slab of Gulf Wax (find this in the canning section of a store)
Melt butter. Add sugar and blend together well – you have you use your hands near the end of this. Add peppermint oil and water. Add water 1/2 TB at a time – you want the filling to be pretty thick and not wet feeling, just dampish (the word here should be moist but that word is awful), so you might not need the whole lot of it and if you feel like you added too much, you can always add more powdered sugar. Roll into balls and flatten and place on cookie sheet covered with wax paper and cooking spray. Put in freezer for at least 30 minutes.
Using double boiler (I just use a metal mixing bowl over a regular pot of boiling water) melt broken up wax and add chocolate chips when wax is mostly melted (the wax takes longer to melt, so it works if you put it in the bowl first until almost completely melted). Dip patties in the chocolate (I use forks for this). And then use a fork to drizzle lines over the tops of the finished patties (this makes them look professional).
Patties are best kept in the fridge but store for a while in the freezer.

Oreo Truffles
1 package of Oreos (I use double-stuffed)
1 package cream cheese, softened
Semisweet Chocolate for dipping (ghirardelli 60% cocoa baking chips are my favorite for these)
Run Oreos through the food processor until all crumbled. Add cream cheese and mix until combined. Roll into balls, freeze. Dip in melted chocolate. Keep in fridge.

“Get Thee Behind Me, Satan” Snack Mix
3/4 cup butter (don’t know if it HAS to be butter, but never used anything else)
3/4 cup lite corn syrup
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
Melt all in sauce pan, boil X 2 min.
In large bowl mix together 14oz box of chex cereal (corn or rice), about 1 c peanuts (I omit these), 2 + cups mini pretzels.  Pour syrup over all and mix well.  Put into large greased roasting pan.  Bake @ 250 for about 1 hour, stirring every 15 min. Dump out on wax paper or foil to cool then add M&M’s (also optional, plenty good without them)

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Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

Apparently the dryer got jealous that I was talking about another major appliance yesterday because it decided to freak out and take up smoking last night when I ran it. It is kaput. So sad, especially since the washer was the one we thought was going to die first since it has been leaking a mystery fluid for the past year (but still running so we just gave it a makeshift diaper and called it good). So we bought a new washer and dryer set last night that will be delivered tomorrow – not exactly the plan, but what can you do, with two boys and a husband who wears three outfits a day (at home, at work and working out), a working washer and dryer are kind of necessary and since I bought them together, I saved $200 and another 5% for using my Sears card so it was almost like I was getting them free, if free = a chunk of change.

[Aside: Liam is playing the Wii at the moment (Star Wars Lego game), all by himself, and on of the characters shot at him and he yelled, “Dude, just stop it and chill out!” Makes me chuckle, he does.]

1. What is your favorite Christmas cookie?
My favorite Christmas treat is homemade peppermint patties. Simon’s favorite is the baklava I make once a year. I guess neither one of us is into cookies, per se. And we both love Chex mix equally, though he has to have his special mix with just Chex cereals and nothing else.

2. What’s your favorite holiday movie & why?
Holiday Inn. I just love the music and the dancing and any movie with both Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

3. Is there a gift that you bought for your kids that you wish you hadn’t after they opened it?
Anything that makes an obnoxious amount of noise, but since Liam’s first Christmas I’ve learned to avoid those so usually I’m happy with the gifts we’ve given them. If we’re going to talk about regret, I wish I’d never given them a chicken nugget, but then, what would Jack ever eat?

4. What is the messiest room in your house right at this moment?
The whole house. It would be more accurate to say what the cleanest room in my house is, and even that I’d have difficulty pinpointing… but after some thought I’d go with the downstairs bathroom.

5. What is the furthest you have driven for the holidays?
Just after college my parents and went to Texas for Christmas – the one and only time we haven’t had Christmas Eve at their house so that’s the furthest I’ve driven. I’m not too adventurous when it comes to Christmas travel. And though you didn’t ask about flying… the furthest I’ve ever traveled for Christmas was when we went to Australia.

Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!