Why I'm not smart enough to be a housewife

So, when we bought this house, the oven/stove came with it. It's this ginormous monstrosity, with six gas burners, a griddle, and double-oven, with a range hood as big as a Buick attached to the wall above. While I certainly have images of me being all Paula-Deen-ish, and whipping up nine-course gourmet meals for my family .... the truth is .... well, I *do* use it. I actually use it a lot, because I like to cook, but I'm no Paula Deen. Or Rachel Ray. Or whoever else from HGTV floats your boat.

Another difference I noticed on this oven, from my last oven, is that because it is gas, there is no digital display or timer letting me know when the oven has finished pre-heating. Not that it's a big deal, really. I just sort of assume it takes about ten minutes to pre-heat an oven. Or I could use my brother-in-laws rule of thumb, which is to turn on the oven, immediately stick in whatever you're cooking, and just add five minute to the total bake time. No-one in his family had died from food poisoning yet, so it must work. But I was a little surprised that a jumbo-mongo-cooking-machine like we inherited didn't even have a display to tell me when it was ready to go.

We moved into this house last November --- last week I noticed there is a light on the front of the oven next to the word "Heating" ... and apparently, the light is on when the oven is pre-heating, and when the light goes off, that means the oven has reached the temperature you need.

Huh. Well, what do you know?

I started to do a post about how I'm not smart enough to work my oven, but figured really, do I want to brag to the Internet about what a moron I am?? (Well, more than I've bragged already?) So I just let it go.

But this week, with Blaine home sick, that means I've been doing his share of the household chores as well. Again, not a big deal, except for our agreement that I cook, he cleans up. I cannot STAND doing dishes or cleaning the kitchen after dinner each night. I'm happy to plan the meals, buy the food, and cook the meals .... but I despise cleaning up afterwards. Thankfully, Blaine doesn't mind cleaning the kitchen, so that's been our arrangement our entire marriage.

The first night he was sick I loaded the dishwasher and ran it. The next evening, Kendrie unloaded the dishwasher (thank goodness school has started up again and so have our chore charts!) and I noticed as she was putting away the glasses that several of them didn't look clean. Then I noticed the pan I had used to brown hamburger meat was DEFINITELY not clean. I *knew* I had run the dishwasher, and filled the soap dispenser up to the brim. What on earth???

I started hollering at Blaine from the kitchen, "What is wrong with this stupid dishwasher??? None of our dishes are clean!" And Blaine, who was lying on the bathroom floor in his "just shoot me and put me out of my misery" fetal position, wondered what terrible thing he must have done in a former life to wind up with a wife so unsympathetic that not only did she not bring him Sprite, not only was she resentful that he was staying home the next day and ruining her first-day-of-school-peace and quiet, but a wife who manages to rant and rave about having to clean the kitchen because he was too sick to do so himself.

This morning, I got ready to re-load the dishwasher. I noticed the soap dispenser was stuck closed, and once again the a-ha lightbulb went on over my head. "Blaine ...." I yelled, still not appreciating his nauseous position on the sofa, "Hey, I figured out what was wrong with the dishwasher and why none of the dishes were clean. Apparently the soap dispenser jammed or something and it didn't open."

And there was a pause from the living room, and then I heard his weak, sick little voice reply .... "The soap dispenser in that dishwasher isn't supposed to open. You're supposed to leave it open every cycle."

Oh.

Well.

Now it makes sense.

So, do you think before long he will realize that sick or no, he needs to get up off the sofa and help out around here before I bring the house down around our heads with my ineptitude???

DIS. Gusting

So, about a week ago, I started noticing a funky smell in my van. NORMALLY when that happens it means one of two things: either a sippy cup or bottle of milk has been left under a seat, to go sour in the high temperatures, or a wet towel or article of clothing has been left inside, either of which can fester and rot and stink to high heaven in the warm, moist summer air.

{Parents all over know just what I’m talking about, right? Right??? Come on, any parent out there who tells me they have NEVER found a disgusting sippy cup of congealed milk under the sofa or behind the TV is a flat-out liar and I’ll call you that to your face.}

Since my kids no longer drink out of bottles, I searched inside the van for some offending Sonic cup with left-over milkshake in it, or anything that might be the cause of the stench. Came up empty-handed. Although I found pencils and notebooks and empty candy wrappers and toys and trash and straw wrappers and flip flops and juice boxes and dvd’s and all kinds of OTHER crap in the van, I couldn’t find anything that might be the cause of the putrid, rancid smell. I looked under seats, and even in the glove box, thinking surely, somewhere, I would find a wet bathing suit, or even wet socks.

Good heavens, what stunk so bad???

Blaine finally convinced me it was just that the inside of the van had probably gotten wet from our various days at the pool, and since I park in the garage with the windows rolled up, the van simply needed a good airing out. Hmmm, I wasn’t so sure, but since I couldn’t find anything else, I figured he must be right.

Fast forward a few days. Kellen’s teacher from last year is married to a man I went to high school with. They have a daughter in Kendrie’s class who Kendrie really gets along well with. Since we already know one another’s families (man, I love living in a small town) we progressed pretty quickly to sleep-overs at one another’s houses, and this little girl was spending the night with us.

She and Kendrie were out in the garage, riding the rip-sticks and such in the driveway. I was sitting in the office on the computer (imagine that) when I heard shrieking, and hysterical laughter, and then Kendrie came running into the office, yelling about how they had found the source of the smell in my van.

Come to find out, it was the pool bag I keep in the back of the van. The one with goggles and dive sticks and what not in it. I also carry snacks in it, and the box of Goldfish crackers had turned upside down and spilled all in the bag. And then the crackers had gotten wet from the wet things we put in the bag. And then had turned into a slimy, rotten mess inside the bag, and seriously looked like something or someone threw up in my bag.

And then, this was the kicker.

I must have trapped a fly in the van. Who must have laid eggs. Because there were MAGGOTS in the pile of Goldfish in the bag. Let me repeat that, in case the horror of the comment didn’t fully sink in to you:

MAGGOTS.

IN THE POOL BAG IN THE BACK OF MY VAN.

AND A GUEST IN OUR HOME FOUND THEM.

Mortified, I called the little girl’s mother to try and explain what had happened, so that when her daughter retuned home the next day and told her mother that the Escoe’s had MAGGOTS at their house, she would understand and not assume we are the filthiest people on the planet.

Because seriously. MAGGOTS.

Needless to say, the entire pool bag, contents included, went directly into the trash.

Thankfully, the other mom laughed.

Although you know deep down, she was just glad it wasn’t her.

On the bright side, she let the little girl stay at our house. And it doesn’t appear she called Family Services OR an exterminator since no one has shown up at our front door.

And hey, my van does smell a lot better now.

So, do you think now would be a good time for me to announce that I’m starting up a housecleaning business? Because you just KNOW everyone would rush to have me as their housekeeper.

Springtime Freshness

I freely admit that in between our move from Georgia to Oklahoma, and the fact the holidays happened shortly after that move, and then all the work I did on the rental property, well, I’ve been more scatterbrained than normal. I don’t know, some days (weeks, months) lately, I can’t seem to get my act together.

Kellen had his first soccer practice for his new OKC team tonight. I went upstairs to get his shin guards and shoes, and guess what I found in his cleats? That’s right, the socks that he wore to his last soccer game …. in Georgia … from last November.

What does that say about my house-keeping and laundry skills?

Ahhhh, that was some springtime freshness aroma, for sure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put a bandage on my head, from where I got little x’s over my eyes, passed out from the smell, and fell over backwards.

Why He's a Keeper, Cancer and All

Because when a prospective renter for our house here in Georgia called yesterday, at 4:15pm, to ask if he could stop on his way home from work and pick up his wife, then come see the house ... "in about half an hour" .... this is what Blaine started doing.



He didn't try to finish watching any tv shows, or lounge around on the sofa scratching himself, or pretend he was busy in the garage "supervising" the children. He just grabbed the swiffer-thingy and jumped right in. Like he always does. Which is one of the reasons why me and my sparkly clean mini-blinds love him so.

And thank you Lord, that apparently that lovely couple were so blinded by the shine of my clean mini-blinds that they didn't notice the pile of toys shoved in the corner of Brayden's room or the dirty pajamas hidden under the pillows on Kendrie and Kellen's bed, but said they loved the house so much they agreed to rent it right then and there, because despite all my talk and bravado and confidence that things would turn out fine, I was getting a teensy bit worried we would have two mortgage payments to make without any rental iincome and even a diet of beans and rice every night wouldn't have made it possible.

Proof ...

…that I don’t do my fair share of the cleaning around this house:

I dropped a carton of eggs this morning and three of them broke on the kitchen floor (I know, I’m a total klutz.) About that time, Kellen and Kendrie came into the kitchen looking for their Lucky Charms nutritional morning meal of veggie omelets, and I hollered at them to "Watch out, don’t step in the eggs!" This conversation ensued:

Me: "Watch out! Don’t step in the eggs!"

Kendrie: "Ick, what happened?"

Me: "I dropped the eggs. But don’t step in them, they’re slimy and sticky."

Kellen: "Sticky?"

Me: "Well, they won’t be sticky once I get them mopped up, but for now, yes, they’re sticky."

Kellen: "Mopped up? Like, with a mop?"

Me: "Yes, son, with a mop."

Kellen: "Oh. Um ….. do you know how to do that?"

PS-- in the meantime, thank you all SO MUCH for the fantabulous book suggestions! I am making a list and SO going to the bookstore before my vacation! I’m going to respond tomorrow and in the meantime, keep the titles coming! I know lots of us are getting super ideas!

AND I MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT HAVE …..

Despite appearances to the contrary, I am a very organized, neat person. And by “appearances to the contrary”, I mean the fact that my house is always a mess and I’m constantly griping about how I can never find my car keys, I forget people’s birthdays, I am never able to catch up on my e-mails, I have a to-do list a mile long, and I’m the type of person who spends ten minutes looking for sunglasses that are on top of my head. But if you can get past **that** sort of thing, I’m very organized. A place for everything; everything has a place; and all that jazz.

A few years ago, we bought an entertainment center with a very short, very deep cabinet under the tv which we use to store some of our tapes and dvds. We have a bigger cabinet for the rest, but the movies we’ve watched recently are usually under the tv. And of course by "we" I mean the kids, since it seems they are always the ones choosing which movie we're going to watch.

Over time, we wind up with a hodge podge of tapes and dvd’s, all flung willy-nilly into that cabinet space, none of them returned properly to their holders. Basically, it looks like a Blockbuster threw up in the cabinet. Every few months I’ll go through the cabinet and match up movies to cases, re-arrange, stack neatly, and swear that THIS time, the space will stay organized.

And a few weeks ago, I might or might not have thrown a complete temper tantrum when I couldn’t find the dvd case for Nanny McPhee, and while searching, realized what a disaster area this cabinet truly is, once again.

And I might or might not have griped about the mess, while transferring tapes from this cabinet here to the big cabinet there, putting away movies into their proper cases, knowing all the while that while it looks good now, it’s only a matter of time until it’s a mess again.

And I might or might not have made some sweeping pronouncement about how sick I am of this disaster area and how I’m going to take action right now!

And I might or might not have gone online and ordered a special media storage cabinet with doors on the front, convinced that the cabinet will help us stay organized, or at the very least, the doors will conceal the Blockbuster vomit.

And the cabinet might or might not have arrived very quickly. And I might or might not have been very excited.

And I might or might not have told Blaine that I planned to assemble the cabinet the next day while the kids were in school.

And Blaine might or might not have reminded me of the extremely crappy job I did assembling our last bookcase.

In fact, he might or might not have made some incredibly rude comment about how the blind kid with no arms in his seventh grade woodshop class was handier than me and could probably do a better job.

And I might or might not have been extremely insulted by his condescending, superior handy-man attitude and told him congratulations, he had just awarded himself a new can-do project, and that media cabinet would sit, unassembled, until HE put it together.

And the cabinet might or might not have sat in our entryway, in its original box, for over a week.



(In case you don't believe me that it sat here like a lump for an entire week, notice that the kids are using it as a platform for their toy cars.)

And I might or might not have made snide, rude comments under my breath about “Well, I guess Ty Pennington Jr is too busy to put my new cabinet together” every time I walked past it.

And I might or might not have gone away this past weekend with my girlfriends, and feeling a little guilty about the fact Blaine, recovering from radiation, would be alone with the kids for four solid days (did I mention that they were school holiday days, so he had the kids 24/7?) I might or might not have left a list of suggested fun (read: time-consuming!) activities, such as “Go to batting cages” or “Go to matinee” and the like, hoping to help him fill his days with them. Because I'm organized like that.

And apparently, Blaine might or might not have decided to take matters into his own hands, strapped little tool belts onto the kids, and put them to work assembling our new cabinet.

And it might or might not have looked pretty darn good when I got back home this evening.




And I might or might not have looked inside, counted 89 DVDs, 122 VHS tapes, and 44 home movies (more on this later) and wondered why it is we spend the vast majority of our TV time watching Hannah Montana reruns and none of the movies we’ve paid perfectly good money for. We have enough home entertainment to watch a different movie every day for almost three-quarters of a year, yet we spend all our spare time with Zach and Cody. What's *wrong* with this picture????




But it doesn’t even matter, because the anal, neat-freak part of me is happy.

At least until it looks like Blockbuster threw up in there again.

MORE WORK THAN IT’S WORTH

Kendrie -- Day 230 OT

Blaine -- still thinking that although radiation is hopefully the cure, it has certainly kicked his tail in the meantime. And, preparing to have tubes put in his ear….. again …. In an attempt to stop the ringing and the constant plug-up-ed-ness. (is that a word?)

Number of minutes I spent explaining to the kids why the “we’re just going to get it dirty again, so why should we clean it now?” argument doesn’t really work: Too many.

Number of minutes I spent actually showing them exactly what rooms I wanted them to vacuum, and exactly which pieces of furniture I wanted them to dust: Five.

Number of minutes I spent disentangling the vacuum cleaner from the mountain of blankets in the front coat closet because whatever man designed this house was a total moron and didn’t include ONE SINGLE FREAKING LINEN OR STORAGE CLOSET NOT ONE WOULD THAT BE TOO MUCH TO ASK????: Only three minutes, but there was a lot of swearing.

Number of minutes I spent just dusting the furniture myself because Kellen pulled his incompetent routine: Ten.

Number of minutes it took for the kids to pull every pillow and blanket in the house into Brayden’s bedroom to make a pile worth jumping off the bed into: One. Not even one. Half of one.

Number of minutes it took for me to nag Brayden into cleaning it back up when they were done: Five.

Number of minutes Brayden spent complaining about how no-one ever helps her do anything and they were playing too so why does she have to do all the work: Endless.

Number of minutes spent persuading Kendrie that just because she’s going to wear them again tonight, it’s still not OK to leave her pajamas in the middle of the hall floor: Three.

Number of minutes spent cursing after stepping barefooted on one of the millions of stupid rocks shiny jewels the kids insist on digging up and bringing in the house and then leave laying all over the place: Ten.

And when all was said and done, and the house was clean again (albeit briefly) and I finally went into the bathroom and sat down on the potty, what should I spy with my little eye? A random piece of plastic, from some random Crappy Meal toy, lying on the floor, in the shape of a perfect “F”. And I sighed, and thought, “Yes, my little plastic toy friend, I know just how you feel.”

Needless to say, when school starts Friday morning in just forty eight hours count 'em just forty eight not that I'm excited or anything, we *will* be going back to our chore charts.