Still sick

Yuck.
Allergies are not making a good impression on this house.
The boys don't stand a chance at immunity with my genes.

Then comes Tuesday

So after my horrendous day yesterday, I spent most of last night changing a ridiculous number of passwords and checking EVERYTHING to see if all was well in my virtual world. Come to find out, the email that "I" sent out was not a virus, but SPAM; annoying none-the-less. And since Stuart had to reinstall Mozilla, I lost all my new blogs and now am trying to find them again. I guess that's better than loosing $1,000. (We didn't. We spent LOTS of time on USAA last night making sure nothing happened. USAA is a very secure sight, but still it makes my stomach turn to think about that) In the process of going thru my millions of sights, I came upon ebay. I haven't used ebay in months, but I thought I would log in and change my password anyway. I've had the same one for 6 years so it was time. After 10 attempts at logging in, I knew something was wrong. Come-to-find out, my ebay account had been hacked on March 11 (or before maybe) and someone tried to sell 2 items from my account. Are you kidding me?? Luckily ebay stopped the listings (I have NO clue how they knew it wasn't me but am soooo thankful that whatever measures they have in place for this sort of thing worked) and I was able to reactivate my account. The ebay scam and email spam are two unrelated events. Blessed day, what a mess!

Today is Tuesday. Yes.
Shout outs:
NOT allergies-you are making my child(ren)'s life miserable and in the process mine too.
NOT Spam-bite me.
NOT the fill in Pediatrician-you did nothing for me and my son is worse today. Thanks.
NOT dirty diapers-I just threw you in for good measure.

Viruses Suck

I got a virus. This morning I check hotmail (on my phone, which I must say is one of the coolest things ever to use your phone that way. Having the Internet at all times whenever and wherever I want is amazing) and there was an email from a friend "congratulating" then condoling me for my virus. This SUCKS! I then proceeded to check the 12 error demon emails that were undeliverable from my virus. Might I say again, THIS SUCKS. I called Stuart at work in a panic. He very politely informed me that there was nothing he could do at this very present time, but when he came home for lunch he would take a look. Grr.
Did the dr, flu shot thing (Tyson has been having a really hard time with his allergies for the past couple of days but of course his regular Pediatrician was out sick today and he had to see someone new and she wasn't a very nice lady) and all the while I couldn't stop thinking about all the people that are in my contact list that are reading my viral email, rolling their eyes, hopefully not downloading or opening anything from said monster and then quickly deleting me from their contact list so as not to further any complications if I were to trash their virtual lives again. Man. Mondays.
I got home and immediately got on my computer to see the extent of the damage. I was locked out of any website that required my logging in. AHHH. This.can.not.be.happening.
I shut down my computer and sat waiting, rocking and wallowing in my demise for Stuart to get home. I also did some laundry and dishes to pass the time.
Finally he gets home and does some things, clicks here and there, looks at this and that and removes the infiltration, deletes all my cookies, clears my caches, re installs Mozilla and does some other things. He is fairly certain that all is better. Smile. I have a wonderful, handy, fix-it husband. (he seems to think that I got the virus from opening some website that had encrypted info and then the next time I opened hotmail it reset my signature with the offending message (which was not offensive, it was just talking about some electronic website) and then was sent out to my contacts. So obnoxious. Don't hackers/virus writers have anything better to do? This is ridiculous and makes me want to do some violent things to mean people.)
I think I am going to start using my Gmail account for my personal email instead of hotmail. I'm kinda perturbed at hotmail at the moment. So...if you wanna email me, clarissadoss02[at]gmail[dot]com
And for your viewing pleasure, here are the boys being, themselves. Enjoy. Have a drink on me too.

Mommy's Barbershop

It's Friday

thank goodness.

This week has dragged on and on and on. I'm not sure why. It promised to be a fantastic week. Stuart had TAPS this week (it's a program/class that you take before you leave the armed forces to ease you into the civilian world and get you up to speed on all that is the "VA") which meant he got to go to work at 8 instead of 7:30 and he got to wear civilian clothes (a major, MAJOR deal for him). Unfortunately the TAPS moderator felt strong convictions in guiding the course and only allowed small segments for lunch and kept the class until 4:30 or 5 (usually 5) everyday. {Sigh} At least Stu would come home happy and full or random knowledge about disability/school/interview tips/loans/and the all important your-life-is-about-to-change-and-people-don't-get-it. Whatever. Ahem, I mean, it's great information and we wouldn't be able to handle to transition without it. (Random-why does Mozilla not recognize contractions? It claims that "wouldn't" is spelled incorrectly. It's not "would". Come one Mozilla, get with the times.)
We have been planning and hoping for this day for several years now but now that the future is around the corner, my anxiety has kicked into high gear. When Stu officially says "adios" (and maybe a few other choice words) to Uncle Sam, we will be unemployed. The boys and I will have no insurance. We will not have access to the commissary (which is really not that bad of a thing, the commissary is NOT all it's cracked up to be, but it is cheaper than anything else and I shudder at that thought of what our grocery bill is going to be once we have to go to the Gucci grocery store or Wally).
We will have tons of extra space in the closet since 1/3 of Stuart's wardrobe will be eliminated (yay!). We will have a daddy that comes home happy(er) at the end of the day. We won't have to worry about getting orders to some town worse than WF. We won't have to worry about deployment and/or worse. Phew.
Here's our plan: (and yes, I have fretted, tossed and turned, and replayed this in my head a millions times. It doesn't help but it's what I do. It's why I take medicine. )
Stuart's going to become a full-time student. He's been taking classes at MSU for the last year so he'll continuing going there with the agenda of graduating with a BA in Finance in Aug 2010. I am going to take to the working world like a fish out of water-jumping, flailing, flopping, and overall agitated, but I'll do it so that the boys and I can have insurance (which is mildly important) and my other lover, Tivo. I know, you're thinking "you're going to work so that you can have something as shallow and meaningless as Tivo?" My response would be, "Don't talk about him that way! He loves me and is always there for me, ready with happiness and goodness and everything that matters in the digital world. And yes, I will work for the right to keep my Tivo." Plus we might like to eat something other than Ramon and bread so adding some backing to the monetary supply would be greatly appreciated.
And when is this miraculous endeavor going to take place? VERY soon. Stuart is going to sign his "drop the paperwork" paperwork sometime next week (I think, that was the verdict last night at 11 pm but it had changed 3 times since 6 pm. Yet another reason for my anxiety-a man who changes decisions even when we have worked them out.), then two weeks after that he will start his terminal leave and 45 days later-Presto! no more job! {wringing hands}
On a completely separate note, I still haven't found the cord for my camera but figured out a way to download my pictures and then upload them...it's complicated.

Tucker in the "thinking chair." Yes, we're fans of Blue's Clues. And yes, it's brown from Scout sleeping on it every night. And yes, it does get washed. And yes, it's ok with me that it looks this way right now. And yes, I'm now having issues with posting this picture. Thanks.

Eating Peeps. Not fans.

Scout was ready to swallow her pride and eat the peeps.

Tyson got his first pair of slip flops. So cute. He wears them constantly.

We had ice cream cones for pre-dinner on St. Patty's Day. Tucker likes ice cream. Note the green shirt. Tyson had a matching one on. I'm not sure if I did though. Hmm.

Jump!

Deep Dish Chicken Pot Pie

1 Pastry Topper (see recipe below)
1 C chopped onion
1 C sliced fresh mushrooms
3/4 C sliced celery
1/2 C chopped red sweet pepper
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 C flour
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 C chicken broth
1 C half-and-half
2 1/2 C chopped, cooked chicken (I used a rotisserie chicken)
1 C frozen peas and carrots blend
1 egg, beaten

1. Prepare Pastry Topper:
In a medium bowl stir together 1 1/4 C flour and 1/4 tsp salt. Using pastry blender (I used my mixer w/dough hook), cut in 1/3 C shortening until dough pieces are pea size. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp cold water over mixture; gently toss with fork. Sprinkle additional 3-4 Tbsp cold water over mixture, one Tbsp at a time and toss with fork until all dough is moistened. Form into ball. On floured surface, roll out dough into a 13x9 rectangle. Set aside. (I pretty much just dumped everything in and kept the mixer going on low till the ball formed. It was amazing!)

2. In a large saucepan cook onion, mushrooms, celery, and pepper in hot butter over medium heat until vegetables are tender. Stir in flour, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. Add broth and half-and-half all at once. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Stir in chicken, peas, and carrots. Pour into a 2-quart rectangular baking dish. (I used a 3-quart 13x9 dish).

3. Place pastry over chicken mixture. Turn edges of pastry under; flute the edges. Brush pastry with egg.

4. Bake, uncovered, in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Let stand for 20 minutes.

So this was a HIT with my family. It was a bit labor intensive to make, but well worth it. I actually made it the night before I served it which made dinner time much less stressful.
My menu for this week includes upside down pizza, linguine with clam sauce, cheese stuffed chicken, oven fried pork chops and some other things I picked out. My kitchen hasn't had this much use, well, ever.

Saturday night we went out to eat (thank goodness, I really wanted the break) and Tyson dressed himself to go out. Ha! He wore his "work" pants (aka green camo fleece), red fire engine shirt, safety goggles, and "work" shoes (aka the shoes that he wears when he works in the garage with daddy). Sorry the pics are a bit blurry but the boys wouldn't stop moving and my phone is way too sensitive.

Something New

Stuart and I are thinking about getting some of these....

Ugh

Nothing good comes from having a rainy morning.
Yesterday was no exception. We didn't really have much to do, just go to the optometrist for my follow-up on my trial contacts. For some reason Stuart thought it would work best for me to pick him up at work (he had a separation physical) and then we would all drive to Wal Mart (location of the optometrist) and he would stay in the car with the boys while I ran in. It began according to plan.
After waiting for 10 minutes and being seen for 2 minutes, I darted out of the office and ran into the mega store to buy some milk (for the millionth time this month). BTW, anyone else creeped out by how close the optometrist has to get to your face? I mean, I know he has to do his job but there's a bubble that I like to keep around me and when that bubble breaks it usually ensures screaming, flailing of arms and legs and complete chaos. When I headed out the door and was blasted with the cold air, I noted that our vehicle with my family was nowhere. Come on, it's freezing! I dug my phone out of the purse and called.....no answer. Where are y'all? Redial. "Honey, I'm done and outside. Where are you?"
"Oh, we're in the store. We'll be right out."
Geez. So, I return inside to the nice toastiness of the overhead heaters and hear the screaming. It was Tyson. I knew it. Stuart rounds the corner with boys boys and Tyson can barely walk he is so upset.
"What's wrong?"
"I told him I would buy him some candy. The one he picked out, I didn't want to buy so he got mad and I said 'no candy then.'"
Are you kidding me? Why did you leave the van? And candy? Before nap time?
We proceed to load up our now screaming, traumatized, glare-from-other-people-inducing, yes-that's-my-child-screaming-and-I'm-not-doing-anything-about-it-now child(ren) into their seats and head back to the base to return my almost-done-with-the-AF (like a matter of weeks till he gets out) husband. After we pull thru the gate, Stu turns to Tyson (who is no hyperventilating from crying so hard) and says,
"Do you want to go into the store with daddy and pick out some different candy?"
You have got to be on something man!
"Yes! Daddy!"
I can no longer contain my utter disdain.
"What??"
"I promised him candy. I put him in a really bad situation in the other store. Too many choices. It's a wonder he didn't throw himself on the ground and shriek."
The men return moments later with candy bars. BARS. I have no words.
We get home still in tact.
I open the bedroom door to let the dogs out and am hit by poly-fill. Everywhere.


Apparently Scout + new Ikea chair (with no cover because my lovely husband took it off to wash it but didn't so it was just left naked) + alone in the bedroom = anxiety attack. And yes, I know we should have put her in a kennel. Trust me, I know. (I do have pictures but I have no clue where my cord is to connect my camera to the computer. Maybe she ate that too. Hmm.) This day seriously sucks.
Luckily nap time was not as horrendous as I previously supposed. Thank goodness.
But this crappy weather has left us stranded inside. How is it fair that we had a week of 70's and shorts and now it's raining, dark and a high, yes high of 38? Not cool weather man.
To add to the demise of my house, Scout woke up this morning and had quite a treat eating thru some electrical cords. How this dog did not get electrocuted, I don't know. How's she's going to live thru the day, I don't know either (I'm not going to hurt my dog...). Plus the boys had a fantastic time disassembling their train table. Hope you had fun boys! Bye, bye table!
I think it's time for some aspirin.

Steak = Yum

Last night I went to my last 361 TRS Spouses meeting. Sigh... It's ok. Really. 361 is the squadron Stu's in and once a month the spouses get together for a meeting (aka food and fun). We went to Texas Roadhouse where I met my love once again; sirloin smothered in onions, mushrooms and jack cheese. Heaven. Pure meat. I'm getting chills just writing about it. But alas, the time went too fast and before I knew it all the was left was an empty plate and an extended abdomen. Perefection none-the-less.

Musings

In an attempt to domesticate myself (and cut down on our eating out budget), I have cooked the last several nights. Now, we aren't talking spaghetti. I mean, real-deal, homemade, bust out my blender, use the cutting board for cutting, buy fresh vegetables kind of cooking. I have to say, I am quite pleased with myself. {pat on the back} We bought a cookbook and sat down to pick out some recipes to try. Thursday night I made deep dish chicken pot pie. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g involved (including making my own dough. I used my dough hook on my mixer for the 1st time!). Friday night I made burgers for Stu to put on the grill. Side note-I adore the grill! I could eat food from the grill 6 nights a week. Saturday I made spinach stuffed manicotti. I am giddy with excitement for myself. Last night I made 7 layer dip and tacos. Yahoo. I feel like Susie-homemaker!

The time change did not affect the boys like "fall backward", thank goodness. I'm hoping that they are starting to get better at adjusting. I for one love this time change. Darker in the mornings and sunny later at night. Makes for late afternoon play much more enjoyable.

I woke up this morning all congested. Yuck. I think it's just allergies but it could be whatever the boys had.

And that's about it. Pretty boring but I felt the need to campaign my cooking, :)

Shout outs:
Kitchen Aide mixer-wow.
Chicken stock in a box-so convenient.
Brownies-you make Sunday nights much, much better.

Wisdom

"Boys have a pee-pee and girls have a mommy."--from my brilliant 3 year old

Death by Marker

It's no surprise that Tucker is my son. He opitimizes all the evil that is within me, x 20. He looks like me, probably will talk like me and most definitely acts out like I did/do. What's a mom to do?

So this morning while I was in the little girl's room, Tyson runs in to tell me, "Tucker's getting into your stuff mommy!" "Thank you Tyson." I walk out of the bathroom and am greeted with death by marker. I find it very interesting that it has taken Tucker this long to accomplish this feat. I have seen the millions of pictures of crazed kids and their bouts with their permanent coloring devices. But as of yet Tucker has failed to discovered this, until today.

He found my scrapbooking markers (which he has done before but somehow had never opened them) and proceeded with great care to "scrapbook" his arms, hands and face. Unbelievably he DIDN'T "scrapbook" the floor, bed, furniture and the dogs, who were watching with great joy.

In my haste to clean him up and disciple him (which is a joke because the kid couldn't care less what you do to him) I forgot to take pictures of the charade. Bummer.

I thought as a consolation prize I would delight you into a glimpse at what Tucker does on a DAILY if not HOURLY basis. Drum roll please...

Tucker:
-Gets my purse off the hook, retrieves my wallet and dumps the contents down the air vent. Then carefully rearranges all my credit cards and IDs. Lovely.
-Gets the keys down and proceeds to alert the neighborhood of our car alarm. No one has called the cops yet.
-Opens the hall closet and re-files all the beautifully alphabetized and date-organized files. This does not sit well with my OCD.
-Removes all the "squirt" bottles from under the sink and disinfect/clean/deodorize the house. And no, I refuse to put the child latches back on because they are annoying and he should know by now.
-Opens the freezer and places any and all objects near him into the Arctic. His moose is constantly in a state of "defrost."
-Helps me with laundry and pulls EVERY item of clothing off the bottom rack of the closet. And then sits on top of his bounty. You're not a pirate child.
-Again, helps me with laundry and puts all items in the washing machine and dryer and starts OR stops the current cycle. I loathe laundry.
-Evoking his feminine side, he gently pulls out items from my jewelry box and displays them on himself/floor/chair/trash. If he only knew...
-While outside, he prefers to stick to his masculineness and throws dirt at his brother, places dirt in the dog's water bowl to make mud and helps me find poo.


He's truly a delight. And I wouldn't change a thing about him. :)

Book

Ok, I promise I am not going to turn my blog into a posting for pushing this or that, but I HAVE to tell you about this book. It.is.a-ma-zing. One of the best books I have read in a while. It's an easy read (I read it in a day) but it's wonderful. It has a great message and tugs at the heart strings. What doesn't these days?



Speaking of books, DON'T read this. H-o-r-r-i-b-l-e.

March?

Is it really March? Seriously? Where did February go? We're already into the 3rd month of the year but I'm still writing 2008 on everything. {sigh}

So we had an ok weekend. Friday night was fantastic! Stuart found out last week that he was being moved back to day shift and all of a sudden my world was monumentally better! He had Wednesday to "recoup" and get his days/nights back together and Thursday and Friday were regular 'ole 7:30-4:30 days. Ahhh. Needless-to-say, Wednesday night I slept better than I have in months. So Friday night we celebrated with an ice cream cake. Yum. It totally fit the bill.

This is what happens when the suns comes out and the boys go outside to play. Mix in new gardening shovels and throwing dirt.

Then Saturday morning rolled around and the boys both woke up with runny noses. I had watched a friend's girls on Wednesday (which ended with the mom getting into a really nasty wreck on the way to get the girls, her husband hanging up on her and me driving to rescue her because he car had to be towed...) and both arrived sick. Green snot, sneezing sick. Do parents not understand that these germs are contagious?? And they pass very nicely from kid to kid to kid until your whole house is sick and your husband wants you to cater to his every whim but you can't get an ounce of catering for yourself? I digress.

We did make it out to run some errands on Saturday since it was freezing outside and the boys just needed to get out of the house. We went to the "Gucci" grocery store here in town. Normally we make the trek to the base to go to the commissary for our big shopping trip but we only needed two things and I was on the hunt for boudin. And did you know that at the "Gucci" grocery store they have little shopping carts for the kids? It was the sweetest and scariest thing! Tyson thought he was so big. I thought he should worry about not chopping off the other driver's shins. All-in-all everyone came out unscathed.

Tyson sized cart

Side note-boudin is Cajun sausage stuff. It's not really sausage but rice, pork and other spices in a casing. It's fabulous and I have been craving it every since my bro and sis-in-law came in December and brought us some. Being that we are NOT in LA or the south of TX close to LA I didn't really think I would find it in peanut shell Wichita Falls. But I wasn't giving up. The "Gucci" grocery store was my last and only hope. After searching the shelves for what seemed like and hour but was more like 30 seconds, I FOUND IT! I got 8 packages. We have eaten it two nights in a row. I can not tell you how happy this makes me. :)

There's an International Harvester tractor in front of the "Gucci" grocery store.

Sunday the boys woke up with fevers. Ugh. Runny, snot noses and rosy cheeks. Perfect. That sums up the day.

Today Stuart wakes up and complains of an itchy throat. No, no, no! By the time he got home from work his nose was a faucet and he officially declared his "sickness."

God speed illness!

Shout outs:
Kaboom Toilet Cleaner-ok, so many of you have claimed your love of Kaboom in the past I have been hesitant to take the plunge, but I am now a different woman!
Boudin-you have changed my spicy-free life.
Steak-I really am a carnivore. :)
Ice cream cake-mmmmmmm.