Have you ever looked up the list of awareness ribbon colors?  Holy moly.  There’s a BUTTER CREAM ribbon.  It is, I kid you not, for lactose intolerant individuals.  

The brown ribbon stands for colorectal cancer awareness, or 8th place.

I chose brown for my campaign because my favorite alcohols are brown.  I really like dark, dark beers and whiskey.  And this is a campaign to SAVE THE ALCOHOLS.

Here’s the deal: we live in a tiny apartment, but that’s not really the problem.  The problem is a lack of storage, which means our food and alcohol are stored on ugly shelves because there are no more cabinets.

See?? IT’S LIKE THIS.  

The other problem is that everything people tell you about having kids IS TRUE.  They are funny and horrible and eventually they learn to walk.  And then they dismantle your home, if you have not buttoned up all of your things.  But… we can’t.  Because of the no storage.  So today I decided I was going to throw it all away.

Even the alcohol.

Because she will not put down my Grand Marnier.

But I was rescued from the brink, and so far I have just thrown away food and cleared some new space for the alcohol to move to higher ground.

What are you talking about, it looks TOTALLY DIFFERENT…

Alcohol: safe.  Priorities!  Although, right now I’m sitting here drinking what was left of one bottle of booze, so maybe I’ll “get rid of” that stuff after all…

Throwing everything away is fun.  Which bottle next??

[Photo: photobucket khunPaulsak]

I know a girl who has a cleaning lady.

A CLEANING LADY.

Think about that.

Now, here’s the part where I say I don’t actually want a cleaning lady.  I mean, they only clean.  They don’t organize or straighten or sort or any of those other things.  I don’t sit on the couch, staring at some shelf that needs dusting.  I sit on the couch and stare at the enormous pile of laundry that needs to be put away or the mountain of dishes that need to be done.

I do not keep my baby in the sink. [Photo: craigboyce.com]

If cleaning ladies did that, I’d think about it.  But come on, once I’ve tackled the big stuff, I’m pretty sure I could wipe down the newly-cleared surfaces.  I say I’m “pretty sure” because I’ve never, like, DONE it.  I just think I probably could.

But it turns out… I kind of have a Cleaning Lady.  Cleaning Husband.  Husband Lady?

Man Among Men!  [Photo: trianglerebath.com]

I was away for a few weeks, and was only minimally threatening about what should be the state of affairs when I returned.  You see, last time I went away, he left the countertops for ME to clean.  “Because you like wiping down countertops!”  There was a brief discussion after that one.

This time?  It was all done.  And. it. was. sparkling.  Be jealous.

I saw on the news today (the Today show is totally news, particularly when compared to my other information sources, TMZ and Facebook) that a new poll says 70% of people surveyed hate their job.  Good grief, really??  I have a theory that these people haven’t really thought about whether they hate their job, but it’s more that when they started working, they heard other people complaining, and so they learned to complain, and this is a vicious cycle, and wouldn’t we all feel better if we just SHUT UP AND DID THE WORK OMG.  Just a theory, though.  Based not at all on observations in the workplace.

It seems I’m not the only one with this theory…

The poll I would like to see is about how BAD people are at their jobs.  I am unemployed.  And after many years of 6-7 day and 60 hour work weeks, this unemployment is kinda sweet.  But it would be sweeter if I had any relevant skills.

Let’s examine what is going on this week, shall we?  We’re on the precipice of a vacation, so I have to do all the things that are involved in leaving.  These are: buying groceries (but not too many), cleaning, seeing all the friends before we leave, cleaning, laundry, getting the carpets ready for shampooing on Friday (what??), cleaning, and not letting the baby hang herself.

How am I doing?  Well, the dishes are dirty (again – they were clean yesterday, what is going on around here??), the recycling sculpture is in need of a proper name, and the carpets have stuff all over them.  I took several bags of clothes and upended them into a storage bin, rather than going through them, folding the keepers, and donating the rest.  Later!  I will do that LATER!  Right.

Because!

NEW PLAN:  Eat all the food in the house so it doesn’t go bad (YES!); get the junk off the carpet and shove it to another room; wash at least the dirty diapers so that they don’t sit in our hot apartment for a week – I can pack a suitcase full of dirty clothes if I have to, my parents have a washing machine.  Oh, and still keep baby from hanging herself.  I swear that wasn’t an afterthought.

As long as I’m not going to be late for something, I kind of like getting lost.  You get to see new things, and you get to figure your way out of whatever you’ve gotten into.  It’s fun!  Try it sometime!

I have a general disregard for “directions” and “instructions” and “other people’s ideas.”  Okay, not really the last one.  This has a lot to do with the way I cook.  I HAVE cookbooks, but I really don’t look at them.  I’m starting to, lately, but only because in some ways, I have way more time on my hands than ever before.

Pro tip: If you don’t like following directions, stick with cooking.  Baking is not for you.

Cut to me ignoring my husband’s warnings that we were low on bagels for our breakfast sandwiches.

Cut to me deciding that I was going to bake bread!  In the morning!  On a particularly time-restricted day!

It actually turned out fine, but I made two batches of dough – the second one after I realized I really hadn’t read the directions on the first one, only the quantities – so I guess we’ll be eating lots of homemade bread.  Not my best pre-vacation plan…  But it turns out it doesn’t make much difference how you put it all together, which is a good quality in a recipe.

So…. wife points: acquired!

We have a mouse.

IN OUR @!#^ING HOUSE.

To be fair (to me and to my borderline housekeeping skillz), the mouse is a result of a basement renovation.  Not a result of tasty treats all over the kitchen floor.

I was visiting my mom when the mouse was discovered, which led to all kinds of imagining of what was happening behind our dishwasher.

This was not happening, but between the beginnings of clearing out my childhood home (my parents are moving across the country and away from my hometown WHO DOES THAT), helping a friend declutter her entryway a little, and the fact that I cannot get that FlyLady out of my head, I started fantasizing about cleaning.  I mean really cleaning.

So when I got home from the airport today, I poured myself a cup of coffee, opened my suitcase, and took a nap.

Off to the races!

But seriously.  Between the mouse grossness and the fact that this kid is now mobile (it looks like she only goes backwards, but actually she’s innovating homosapien movement), it’s time to get serious.  We are in town for 8 days.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

As I mentioned, I managed to do all our weekly budgeted grocery shopping at fancy pants places last weekend.  One of the things I bought was a chicken.  A whole one.  I’ve never cooked one before.  It seems like a good thing to cook for supper, you know, for your family.  Warm.  Wholesome.  Made with love (bacon).
This is not my handiwork, only my dreams…

It’s about the easiest thing I’ve ever done, once I found a recipe that didn’t call for any wine.  Because there was no way we were opening a bottle of wine, pouring some of it into the pot, and NOT drinking the rest.  No way.

I eventually found a recipe that called for bacon and no wine.  So I stuffed my chicken with carrots and onions, surrounded it with brussels sprouts, and draped that bacon over it.  It was a thing of beauty.  I sliced and diced and seasoned and stuffed and finally, it went in the oven… about 45 minutes before I had to leave for wineyoga.

So I hollered some instructions (“Remove the bacon!” and “Stick the thermometer in there!  No, not there, THERE!” and so on…) at my husband while I changed and dug a granola bar out of the box.  “Can you handle this?”  “Yes…” he said, patiently.  [Note: he sometimes acts very patronized by me, esp. in the kitchen, but then suddenly doesn’t know what to do with something.  Vicious cycle.  I’m not the bad guy.]

He prefers to make sandwiches.  On entire loaves of bread.  With pickles and mayo and ranch.  No, he isn’t pregnant.

I ran out the door, got in the car, and it dawned on me that I’d started my evening with a roasting pan, some comfort food, and love… and finished it by racing out the door to get my free glass of wine.

What was that one road paved with?

I got caught up in the whole Mad Men thing right along with everyone else.  I haven’t caught up with the last few seasons, but I’m totally going to one of these days.  It’s one of my inspirations for the way I do this whole stuck-at-home thing.  You know, the way things “used to be,” maybe with less smoking and drinking (it’s still Lent), but I like the cooking and the reusing and the looking pulled together so that nobody knows the mess that lies beneath the surface.  Or behind the closet door, in my case.

The other inspiration is a book that I read recently (okay, I didn’t finish it… but I’m totally going to one of these days…) called 97 Orchard.

It is the story of 5 families that lived, at different times, in a tenement in New York.  Their living conditions were cramped and not-awesome, and they made the foods of their countries of origin.  They preserved their foods with salt and smoke and by fermentation.  They didn’t have any money, so they would do things like buy broken eggs.  Broken!  EGGS!!!  Take THAT, Honest Toddler!

I’m not about to go dumpster diving for chicken bones to make my stock, but it does put things in perspective.  Despite our new, improved, skinny grocery budget, I plan to buy and make GOOD FOOD.  I’m committed to shopping the farmers market more this year.  I love me some Target, but I managed to do all of my grocery shopping this week at the market and the co-op and Whole Foods AND under budget!  I made 32 ounces of kefir from some hippie dippie co-op milk, and I feel pretty good about what we are eating.

I’m slowly reverting our kitchen (and our diaper drawer, but that’s a story for another day) to be a modern version of the way things were BEFORE all that Mad Men convenience.  But with the cool Mad Men stuff in it.

Have you guys heard of FlyLady?  I call her StupidLady.  It’s this cleaning/organizing… support group?  I don’t know what else you would call it.  Anyway, Step One to the FlyLady way of life is, I kid you  not, shine your sink.  “It all begins with a shiny sink!”  She probably greets her family in the morning by throwing open the curtains, tossing her head back, and singing “RISE AND SHINE!!!”  I hate her.  Also, it all begins with COFFEE.  Everybody knows that, StupidLady.

What is happening here?  I don’t like it.  (credit: affinia.com)

But here’s the REAL reason I hate her…

It’s because she has a point.

I wrote about some New Year’s Resolutions a while back.  Like, around the new year.  I don’t remember what I said anymore, but I DO remember what I did!  After a few days of trying to keep up with whatever I was trying to keep up with, I decided that my actual resolution was to just do something.  Anything.  Every day.  I know that sounds dumb, but sometimes the day just goes by and I really didn’t do anything!  I started the year writing down what I did in a journal that I got from running the coldest 5K anyone has ever run.  Ever.  Didn’t matter what it was.  Examples: “Ran 2.3 miles.”  “Cooked food for the next 4 days.”  “Donated socks.”  Then I went out of town for a couple weeks, stopped writing down the things, and subsequently stopped DOING the things.  Where is that dumb journal, anyway?

It’s like they tell you when you want to lose weight or save money – write it down.  All of it.  What you see will shock you.  But writing down the littlest things I did made me do more things.

So, back on the wagon.  Today, I picked up some persistent messes around the house.  You know the ones.  And oh, I also shined (shone? cleaned.) my sink.  Total coincidence.  It’s so much better though!  I still maintain that it starts with coffee.

Mmm…

The TSA can’t stop me.  I’ve got my bag on the conveyor belt, my shoes in the bin, my liquids out, my ID and boarding pass handy-but-not-in-the-way, I know not to wear belts or sweatshirts, all that.  I say something nice/clever/supercharming to the dude as I go through the scanner, and then shoesbackon and I’m on my way.

***insert sound of record scratching***

I’m going on a trip tomorrow.  “Alone.”  I’ve made a packing SPREADSHEET.  I think I have it narrowed down to one suitcase.  And one car seat and one stroller and one diaper bag.  And my laptop?

Here’s what I think will happen:
1.  Duffel bag gets checked.  Car seat (already in wheeled bag), folded stroller, and carry-on bags go through the X-ray along with my favorite boots that make me look instantly pulled together.

This is not me.

2.  I carry my smiling baby through the scanner and all of TSA stops what they’re doing to admire her.  Maybe I hold her up like Simba.

3.  My laptop and diaper bag fall weightlessly over my shoulder, do not get tangled in my hair or each other, the baby goes in her stroller, and my third hand pulls the carseat behind us.  It never tips over.  Oh, and I don’t forget to put my boots back on…

4.  We get to the gate and practically float down the jetway, I get the stroller folded up and bagged without dropping the baby or my latte – that third hand really comes in… handy… – and board the plane.

5.  She and I continue to charm the flight attendants and everyone around us, and for that we get extra pretzels and maybe a freebie bloody mary.

Maybe next week I’ll tell you what REALLY happened… In the meantime, if you want to read an actually competent account of how to travel with a baby, read this lady’s post.  She is ORGANIZED.  I’m not worthy.

This 5K thing may not hold a permanent spot in my life.  I haven’t yet learned to listen to pain until it completely stops me, so I’ve been limping around for the last couple of days (no, I have not completely dropped the baby) swearing up and down that I WILL DO THIS 5K THIS WEEKEND.  And I will, but it’ll be the most expensive walk I’ve ever taken.

So… that leaves the other issue to address.  What I’m Eating.

In the last 3 days, I’ve really enjoyed a few of the things I’ve eaten…  Chocolate cookies.  Flourless chocolate cake.  Figgy pudding (that’s a real thing!).  Apple galette from Bonnie’s with vanilla ice cream.  Tiramisu.  Yep, in 3 days.  And I’ve never had a sweet tooth!

Aside from the fact that there’s still some of this apple thing left, and still some pumpkin ice cream in my freezer, I’m going to turn over a new leaf.  Or at least look at the underside of it.

“What happened to the rest of that apple thing?” “Huh? We finished it the other day…”

But really, I’ve made some decent choices.  A few days ago I cooked and ate an entire bag of kale with a dressing of greek yogurt, olive oil, pomegranate vinegar, and garlic.

And maybe I also ate some pasta out of the pot.

I made this for a double date we hosted…

I took my own picture but hers was so pretty I wanted to show you.  It was an invention for her wedding, which makes me think I should share my wedding cocktail recipe with you someday.  Anyway, this was my fruit intake this weekend.

I also made this…

Do I know how to woo the couples or what?

It’s a recipe ripoff from an Italian deli near my house.  Last time I was there, I had a “side” of mostaccioli and I guess I didn’t really know what it was.  I’m sure I missed a few ingredients in my guessing, but it’s basically pasta tossed with ricotta and topped with red sauce.

So I added some spinach – to make it health food – and he said I had to add sausage because food without meat is not an option when my husband is home, and this is how it’s done…

Boil some water with a good pinch of salt and add whatever pasta you like.  I like rigatoni, he prefers penne.  You can see in the picture that I used penne…
Add a half pound of hot Italian sausage to some garlic and olive oil in a saute pan.  Once that is no longer pink, add a box of frozen spinach.  If you’re like me, you didn’t think ahead, so the spinach will take a while to thaw.  Open the wine.
Once the spinach has thawed, add a 15-ounce (the smaller size) container of ricotta and mix it all around.  Pour yourself a glass of the wine.
Scoop out about a half cup of the pasta water right before you drain it and add this to the spinach/ricotta.  Drink.  The wine, not the pasta water.
Drain the pasta, add it to the spinach and ricotta and mix it all up.  Put it into bowls and top with your favorite red sauce.

Eat.  Thank me when you’re done chewing.  I’ll be over here with my pumpkin ice cream.