needless and much needed

Levi took me to Transformers 2 on Saturday. I was a little hesitant due to Transformer 1's unpleasant and unnecessary use of sexual not-even-innuendo, but for a date with Levi (who LOVES Transformers) I'd put up with a lot. And put up with a lot, I surely did! The first half of the show was just a vulgar waste of time! Take the first movie's level of inappropriateness and times it by twenty and you get the picture. It disappoints me that this movie, that has males of all ages as its main audience, is so pointlessly crude and that the majority of the crudeness comes from the mother. You would have never seen such vulgarity on the original Transformers - it has nothing to do with the plot. Argh! It's just another of Hollywood's efforts to attract a bigger audience at the cost of further demoralizing the public. If it wasn't for the very pleasant opportunity to hold Levi's hand for 2.5 hours, I'd say it was a major waste of time and resources.

On the flipside, I am so grateful for a sweet friend who volunteered to watch the little ones while I scrubbed my walls and cupboards today! What a delight! The children were well-cared for and enjoyed their time playing. I, with Levi's help, accomplished a large chunk of a much needed project that I've wanted to tackle for a long (I'll not mention just how long!) time. We all returned happily uplifted and rejuvinated to enjoy time together in a cleaner home. *contented sigh*

success!

You know you've had a successful day parenting when the children fall asleep as soon as their heads land on the pillow from the sheer exhaustion of a day spent at play. No fighting, no stress - just a story, scriptures, prayer, and GOODNIGHT. :o)

I feel so content, I'm not even going to dissect my initial run-on sentence. Here's hoping you have a goodnight too. Oh those su-ummer nights!

non-addictive(?) sleep aid

So my little Hazel of the eight months is a go-go-goer. She HATES holding still, thus the car seat and high chair are her sworn enemies. Even nursing has become an event as she insists on squirming and wiggling while she eats. She also LOATHES the idea that she might be missing something, making the need to sleep a vile curse. Yet sleep she must, but she thwarts the curse by taking incredibly brief naps and fighting to stay awake as long as infantly possible. But I have found a way to undermine her most unrelenting attempts at sleep avoidance! It is (drum roll, please) BLOGGING!

Yes, come 9 o'clock, the baby is swiftly swept away to dreamland by a couple clicks of the mouse. She thinks she's participating in a very important daily rite and before you can say "edit html" she's held still long enough to snooze. Yet another excellent reason to blog! Thank you blogosphere!

my ageing brain

I was reading this article on Yahoo and found the following line to be funny in its obviousness: "The human brain starts declining after the age of 30 especially in women with each successive pregnancy." Welcome to my world! As if the slowing metabolism and expanding waistline wasn't bad enough! I suppose it's a good thing I got my BA before I had children. Tee hee. All you women who earn your degrees later in life have my sincerest admiration!

Seriously, I have got to do some brain exercises - time to bust out the crocheting and poetry memorization! Sudoku, anyone?

making cookies

This morning's cookie making adventure stands out in my mind as an interesting commentary on the differences between Levi's world and mine. You know, the worlds that coexist but look very dissimilar.

Levi making cookies:
He thinks that he wants cookies so he mixes up a batch from scratch with the Tomie's help. I eat a bunch of cookie dough while it's soft and fluffy. Levi bakes the cookies, most with Reese's Piece (he doesn't eat chocolate) and a few with chocolate chips. Half an hour from start to finish, we all eat cookies.

Saddie making cookies (the abbreviated version):
Tomie spends and hour begging for "hudry pood cookie, hundry pood cookie, hundry pood cookie" while I try to finish organizing the food storage. Then I grab a bag of cookie mix, change a diaper blow out, ask Tomas to show me where the eggs are, and place a stick of butter in the microwave. Next I wipe up the egg that has drooled down the counter, remove the shell from the mix, undress my now slimy boy and head to get him new clothes. With a re-clothed child in tow, we return to the kitchen and mix up the cookies. I spoon the cookies onto the tray, most with chocolate chips and two with the chocolate picked out, while Tomas and Levi eat the dough. Before the cookies can bake, I find it necessary to calm the baby who woke up crying and while they bake I calm the recently pacified baby who just got pushed over. I try to blog about it while the baby cries and the two-year-old jumps on the couch in front of me to get my attention. Two hours from start to finish, we all eat cookies.

So, I like Levi's cookies better. Because they're made from scratch? Maybe. Because I didn't make them? Probably.

Oh, just so you know, there was a lot of hand washing involved too. I didn't go directly from messy diaper to cookies, etc. I could tell some of you were worried.

liberation!

It's amazing to me how liberating an hour away from the children can be - a chance to think one's own thoughts and go at one's own pace without the care and concerns of others constantly vying for attention. When that hour is spent moving one's body, there is an added measure of exhilaration. It's also amazing to me how beatific it is to return to my little joys after such a brief respite.

So, thank you Honey, for taking turns watching the children/exercising. It's immeasurably sane-ifying to have a break to look forward to. Another thank you to my moms etc. who also take the children once in awhile so my brain can breathe. It makes being a good mom SO much easier and much more enjoyable for all concerned.

the sweetest thing

Is there anything to compare with the soft features of a little one asleep?

Perhaps such visions of peace and beauty are the rewards for surviving the day's trial and strife, mischief and mayhem.

Whatever the cause, I am richly blessed and eternally grateful.

Lookin' Good!

Are you tired of bad hair days? Do you feel like changing your look? Well look no further than your neighborhood thrift store for the finest in faux hair finery.

This look is no longer reserved for the fashionable mom of the 80s - this part mullet, part fro will have you standing out in any crowd!

And speaking of the 80s, I know you all secretly envied those big hair band boys and their amazing tresses. Now they can be yours at rock bottom prices!

No matter the look, no matter the style - our selection will make you smile! So come on down today!

a lucky gal

So... my honey and I are far from photogenic, especially together, but once in a lucky while I get a picture of Levi that makes my toes tingle and my heart melt!


Wow! I think I'm in love! Yes, this guy suits me very well indeed.

modern miracles?

Today I was surfin' the web in search of a method to remove the ballpoint pen creation my son left me on my blue, faux suede, couch cover and found myself watching this video about natural cleaners/disinfectants. Trust the commercial land of our beautiful, capitalist America to create all manner of expensive and harmful products to clean and sanitize what cheap and natural household items can clean and sanitize better. And as a beautiful, capitalist American, one can trust that I have a wide variety of these commercial products gathering dust on my shelf (a high shelf to protect the children, of course) each purchased in hopes of an effort free, sparkling clean abode (and commode). Oh silly me! How well I know that a couple-a bucks will never replace good, old-fashioned work. And yet I repeatedly find myself buying into the American dream (um... delusion) that little scrubbing bubbles really do live in a plastic bottle waiting excitedly to burst forth in a 30 second flurry of gleeful bathroom scrubbing conveniently leaving nothing but a radiant shine.

Yes, work has been the blessing and curse of man since The Fall. It makes me wonder if Mother Eve was plagued with similar promises of ease. Did Satan construct little lies to rob her of the blessing of work at the expense of her earned resources? I'm sure that while her society differed from ours, Satan's manipulations have only changed in appearance, not in essentials. How shall my granddaughter's be exploited in the coming centuries? Barring the Second Coming, I believe it shall be as it ever was- such is the nature of man.

welcome to saddie's psyche

If you could read my mind love, what a tale my thoughts would tell.
-Gordon Lightfoot

You Are What You Eat

If this is true, then my family is REALLY GOOD! Or at least we should be after eating homemade pizza approximately twice a week for the last two months - yeah, it's THAT good.

I found this recipe while blog surfing one night and since my life's goal has been to find the perfect pizza dough recipe, I decided to try it. It is everything the blogger promised - simple, easy, fast, delicious, freezable, and fun to experiment with! I can die happy.

Homemade Pizza in Under 30 Minutes!

1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1tsp sugar
1tsp salt
2 Tbsp oil
2 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water.
Add other ingredients and mix.
Knead until smooth.
Press into a greased pan. (We use corn meal instead to make it pizza parlor perfect!)
Add toppings.
Bake @ 450 for 12-15 min. until the crust is lightly browned.

We (meaning Levi) tend to lack imagination in the field of toppings (meat and cheese - what else?) but we enjoy messing with thickness and size. We've done everything from rolling it out thin; to inch thick, pan style in our round cake pans; to 4 inch diameter snack pizzas. This is how it appeared when Mom and Dad dropped by last Saturday and stayed for dinner. It was my new stone's maiden voyage, and while it did take longer to cook than the sheet pan, it performed beautifully.


Here's a single batch of dough. It covers our 15" pizza stone perfectly and is the perfect amount for four adults. To feed just our small family, we like to make a double batch and divide it into thirds, freezing 2/3 for later.


Canadian bacon and pepperoni for the guys, add pineapple for the girls. Sprinkle generously with Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese.

Yum yum! Good to the last ... um... morsel? So, what are you having for dinner? Odds are, we're having pizza.


PS I know I overused the word perfect, but it was the perfect word to use.

PPS A single batch is quite easily made by hand (trust me, this recipe supplied me my first time ever considering mixing bread by hand and I was pleasantly surprised by the ease and success of my venture) while a 3X (possibly 4x, I have yet to try it) batch easily fits in my machine.

PPPS I was going to credit the blogger who posted this little bit of magic, but the link I saved is now a dead end - so I send my thanks into the cosmos for the lady who made my life easier, tastier, and cheaper (less expensive, that is) too.