A lot can happen in a week…..

 

Especially when most of that week you are too sick to do anything anyway. Which is where I have been for a week. A nasty wind blew in and took me out with it. I was actually not aware that the human body was capable of holding and then expelling so much snot. I also sounded like I had smoked my whole life, and could hardly breath when the head cold decided that the real party was in my chest.

I probably would have gotten better sooner but on the second night of the head cold part a raccoon attacked my chicken coop and took out a good portion of my flock. So in cold night air I ran out with my husband to try and save them. Well I have two left of the original five that I started with. Thankfully they weren’t all killed as one of my girls, Nymeria, did not go into the night quietly by any means. If I am not mistaken I do believe some neighbors were out talking about the sound and trying to figure it out. Sadly I can tell you now that a chicken can scream. I never thought I would like a bird so much but chickens have something that others seem to lack. Or at least mine did, I loved feeding them in the morning and listening to the little clucks and squawks I would get in turn. I had tamed these girls to the point that they would let us handle them without too much of a fuss. So needless to say I was a little sad to lose so many.

I did go and buy a live trap the next day, we saw the raccoon and decided that we were setting a live trap in case he were to come back. He hasn’t yet but if he does we are ready this time around. I also am adding onto and fixing my coop so it is even harder for such a creature to get in there again.

The good news? When I was buying the trap, I got to tell the story of what happened as we live in a very small town and we still like to chat before we buy anything. Sometimes those conversations are probably the highlight of the particular workers day. So he tells me that on Monday they would be getting some chicks in and I should come by. Of course I have to, because I just lost a good chunk of my egg layers and after eating eggs from chickens that free roam my backyard I can tell you now that store bought eggs just won’t do.

Long story short? I have new chickens! So along with crafts this blog will be getting updates of my new baby chicks. It’s exciting around here!

 

Wind Be Gone

 

So living in a valley with mountains all around us has some advantages and some disadvantages. One of the constant things we have to deal with is the wind, it can get down right insane at times. I’m talking it is beautiful outside but if you tried to walk you would be knocked over because you dared to stand on one foot. It doesn’t happen like that often, but enough that it is really annoying and when you have things you wanted to do outside pretty much always know that is the day the heavens will split and wind will ruin everything you wanted to do.

Today was one of those windy days, my husband is outside working or at least attempting to work on this little greenhouse that we had bought and it isn’t going well. This is in some ways why I let him do these things I have a shorter fuse than he does when it comes to building things. I hide in the kitchen cooking food and he gets to figure out the hard stuff in the backyard.

So I had to go and pick up some items for dinner and yell out to him that I was going to the store, in case he needed me to pick something up for him. I’m awesome like that and always make sure to ask when I go somewhere. Sure I might roll my eyes about it, but at least I asked! So he glares at me, the full frustration from working in the wind in full effect, and asks for some wind be gone.

Cue me driving in the car madly trying to figure out what would be funny to alter into Wind Be Gone. My first thought was to buy a 6 pack of Bud and alter it to say Wind Be Gone because really if you are drunk you wouldn’t care about the wind. But he had already bought a 6 pack and I’m trying NOT to encourage alcoholism in my house.

I’m at a lose really, and it’s annoying. Then it hits me, what is another way to say fart? BREAKING WIND!

In case you didn’t know already I have 3 sons, and a husband who at times is no better than my sons. So four boys and just me, the only woman, there is a lot of farting in my house.

I have to give credit to Beano, that little tagline “and there will BE NO gas” really sticks with you as that is what I slipped into my basket along with the cooking oil and steak sauce for my little joke. I thought it was downright clever.  I enjoy being clever you see.

Boys are on the couch and I hop over to Jarred with a huge grin and pass him the Beano and proclaim, “There is your Wind Be Gone.”

You could have heard crickets chirp, I don’t even get a grin. “You wasted money on this?”

WHY YES I DID! It’s not like gas doesn’t happen in this house so someone can take it and we could see if this stuff really works or not. I mean where is the gratitude? My joke made me laugh and after a few drinks he could see the humor as well, that greenhouse really got him angry.

I do have to say, if Beano works, I’m totally slipping it in the Kool-aid from now on.

Epic Pokémon cross stitch of epicness

 

So this is the start of the Gen. III Pokémon cross stitch that can be found on spritestitch.com by the ever so talented user Servotron. The only one that I know of that has been completed would be the Gen. I version. However I do want to do that one as well as my love of Pokémon is great but sadly my room and ability to collect them is low. So crafting something this epic that can be framed and put up for all to enjoy satisfies my needs greatly in the nerdy thing of the week category.

I will try to take photos daily, or when I work on it as I cannot claim that I will work on it every single day. I do have to tell you that while I know how to cross stitch I have never really done anything past a simple sampler here or there. This is epic, this is crazy, and this might be a little big of madness mixed in. I am having fun with it though, and it is nice to sit and do something like this in my down time instead of watching my kids fight about who is breathing loudest. So wish me luck! I think I might need it this time.

While we are on the subject of how nerdy I am I should let you know that my checkbook is more awesome than yours. My husband, and sometimes me, are taking up leatherwork. I say sometimes me because I don’t do it really as often as he does, and my work speaks volumes about that. This is something he made for me, and I love it to bits. It’s Book from Hocus Pocus in case you couldn’t figure it out. I hope you’ve seen the movie and if you haven’t you really need to!

I’m just going to leave this as a craft update, and get you up to date with the family in my next post. Maybe I’ll do crafting Sundays…..maybe I won’t. We will see.

Why I should never bake.

So last night I wanted a cake, like really wanted a cake. It was one of those desires that you could taste as I thought about having some cake. Problem was I had no cake mix and really didn't want to go to the store for just cake mix. I go to the store for just cake mix and end up coming home with bags of things and no cake mix.

I've got flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and arms. Let's do this!

So I looked up some recipes for cake online. Let me tell you there is a lot of cake recipes out there! White, yellow, chocolate, strawberry and I'm sure millions more but that was about when my brain was spinning and I knew I had made a yellow cake mix before (from the box) so I could totally do this!

So now I knew the color/flavor, time to read and mix. The first line is "Cream sugar and shortening". Seriously who comes up with baking terms? Mash, mix, put together these things I understand. I'm not sure really how one creams anything, unless it a violent type of creaming. Kinda like "Hey buddy I'm going to cream you after school today!"

So cream, mix together until it looks mixed I figured what was the difference so that is what I did. The rest was pretty simple, mix eggs first then add flour and the rest. Put in oven and get cake! That is what I am talking about.

It's at about this time that things started to go wrong, now I'm probably going to die of salmonella at some point I'm sure because I am a batter taster. Tasting is an objective term that I am so using objectively because if the truth were to be known if someone wouldn't stop me I might just make batter and eat it without cooking it one day. Chocolate chip cookies and brownie batter being the worst offenders in the batter categories. 

So it passed the batter test, not as sweet as I am used to but still pretty good. But something was happening while I was cooking. The center of the cake was getting smaller and the outer layer looked like normal cake. Maybe it is just a slow riser? I mean I know I don't like to be all up and perky in the morning so I am just sure this cake and I were destined to be friends, or at least until I ate it. But it wouldn't rise.

So I take out the cake, so it will be thin I think. I can handle eating thin cake, just means I get to eat more right? So it was frosting time, my frosting comes out of a can so no need to put any energy into that right? Only maybe next time I might flip it over and look for an expiration date. You see it expired a year ago, I didn't see this until after we had eaten some though and as this all happened almost 24hrs ago I think we are safe. 

Frosting? Check! Cake? Check! Sprinkles? Oh why the hell not you only live once am I right!

I was excited and nervous for my first taste, this being the first non mix cake I had ever cooked I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then it did, it had a cake texture of that I can be sure but as far as flavor went there was none. No cake sweetness, just freaking cake bread. The frosting and sprinkles weren't helping either because it was at this time I found that it was passed its Best By date and it wasn't helping matters on the making my cake amazing front.

And this is why I shouldn't be allowed to bake, EVER!

Mom interrupted

So this is me, well my face actually what is below my face I like to keep to myself thank you very much. But it and various other things are going to be a part of this blog or as I want to see it my journey. I want very much for people to join me along the way, but if it is just me at first I am okay with that to. After all this is a journey that I am pretty much doing in reverse. I'm going to turn the big 30 this year, I know not really a big deal to most people but at this time most are starting a family or at least trying to. I have three kids already the oldest one being 8 going on 16. So instead of trying to find my true self I've been a mother. Would I change the way things were/are? Never. I have become a better person because of my kids, and it is because of them that I have started on my journey.

A big part coming up is going to be weight loss. I'm carrying around about 50 extra or so pounds that I would very much like to drop. I need to be able to be in shape, not rail thing skinny, just in shape and feeling better about myself. This will help me be a better mother.

My house is a clutter disaster, it needs to be said that I hail from 2 generations of hoarders that I am aware of and I can so easily follow in that path. I really don't want to, so I need to get rid of the junk that does nothing to improve my mind or my focus. This will help me be a better mother.

I also have Panic Disorder with agoraphobia on top because the panic disorder clearly wasn't enough right? I am taking medications more regularly and going to see someone about coping strategies. This will help me be a better mother.

Do you see a theme developing here? This blog will at times be funny, sad, or really anything that happens in my journey. You will see why I have the Otaku title, and it doesn't just apply to anime either? When I fan over something I fan over it hard, it's just how I roll. So yes, hello to you if you are reading lets start this journey together!

I pitty the fool that doesn't dream about the A-team

Now I have weird dreams from time to time, however most of them I forget before I wake up in the morning and I just have the feeling that they were weird. Sometimes I hate that, but after having total recall of my last dream it might actually be a good thing that I only get to have knowledge of bits and pieces of what is going on in my head. So let me tell you my dream.

So it started out with myself and a bunch of strangers in a classroom setting, in fact it kinda reminded me of my Jr. High school in some ways. But for some reason we were under attack by 6 year old Asian kids with machine guns dressed in military garb. It needs to be said I have nothing against Asian people or kids for that matter, but these guys had freaking guns! So I did the only logical thing that I could think to do and hid under a desk while the rest of the people I was in school with were taken out and shot in the hallway. Now it needs to be said that not everyone was shot just most of us. The rest I could see being lined up, I'm sure we were hostages of some sort. But then my dream gets all kinds of awesome!

You see I find myself being saved by Mr. T and the A-team! However we aren't talking about the old school A-team aside from Mr. T himself. The guys from the newest movie filled the rest of the team. I knew I was safe as the gold chained master himself came in there and pulled the blanket I was hiding under away. It was time to rescue everyone else and I got to be part of the team at this point. But for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to sneak out the back window and rush the front of the building. 

 But I couldn't do it, I was drawn to this mausoleum in the back of the school that was covered in moss and has a glowing stone in the center. Now the chief yelled at me not to touch it, but I'm sure we can all agree that this stone just had to be touched! Of course anytime there is something that we shouldn't touch as soon as we do stuff gets real. Suddenly we are surrounded by skeletons that have raised out of the ground and a huge skeletal overlord is coming at me. Then a rooster starts crowing. 

We all stop. The rooster keeps crowing and things start to fade as we are scanning the area for what I am sure is a giant rooster monster and then I wake up. My husband had his alarm set and it's a rooster crow. I'll never know if the A-team and I made it, and that kinda makes me sad.

I can only wish that all my dream were this weird and awesome.  

Overdramatic Kids

My kids had to get some shots this week so they could continue to go to school, now I knew this would be an ordeal but I figured that if I kept telling them they couldn’t go to school it would help. My boys still love school so for now that works. As we got closer to the big day however convincing them was growing harder.

Didn’t help much that on the day that we were supposed to do it the waiting period was going to be an hour long. I don’t really mind waiting that much but an hour is a bit much when I have dinner I need to get onto the table and kids that are already working themselves up as if it were the end of the world. So I gracefully bowed out of that one, and the kids acted as if they had won some kind of victory in a competition that I didn’t even know we were having. In their minds it was Mom – 0 Kids – 1.

However the next day it was going to happen no matter how long I had to wait, I needed to even the score after all! The drive there was uneventful I have a little suspicion that they were hoping that another repeat of the previous day was in store. But upon walking into an empty waiting room I could see both of their hopes sinking.

James was a trooper and told me he wouldn’t be scared, as long as I covered his eyes for him that is. William on the other hand was in complete meltdown mode, shots have this effect on him. I hadn’t even signed into the office and I could see the tears swimming in his eyes. This is heartbreaking, but I know that they will actually be okay in the end.

“I wish I was 18, because if I was I would steal your car and drive away!” This is Will as he is waiting for his name to be called. James and Eddie on the other hand are playing with toys and acting as if nothing is going on. I am then treated to a monologue of epic proportions about how miserable his life is, how he is going to feel this shot for 200 days after getting it and of course this is all my fault! He would rather never set foot in school again, just because of one shot.

Names are called and we all head towards the room, some of us dragging our feet more than others. The wait while they get the shots ready was amazing. It went a little something like this:

“My life is the most miserable life ever!”
“I wish shots were never invented”

It only got better when they came back with the shots, James was a brave solider, volunteered to go first, and while he did say Ouch a few times while getting the shot he didn’t make such a big deal about it. I had to hold William down, literally putting almost all of my weight on him so he would jerk his arm away. As he was getting the shot he was yelling “It feels like you are stabbing me with a sword!” I had no idea my child had ever been stabbed by a sword, aside from in video games that is.

The best part however was on the ride home. William made sure his opinion on shots was well known.

“I feel like I’ve been shot with a shotgun.”

I also had no idea that a shot was comparable to a shot gun wound, or that my son has any idea of what a shot gun blast felt like. I feel so educated about these things now!