My Favorite Things

Today I thought I would blog about some of my favorite things.  I love to hear about products or things that other people use and love.   In fact, a long time ago, my friends and I played this little game called "My 5 favorite Things".   We all lived sparatically across the country so I assembled a list of everyone and then the first person on the list would send the next person their 5 favorit things, it could be anything.   It was really fun!    Anyway, here are my 5 favorite things:

1) Any Book By CHELSEA HANDLER.   She currently has 3 of them out: Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, My Horizontal Life and Are You There Vodka?  It's Me Chelsea.   Another one will be released next month entitled "The Lies That Chelsea Handler Told".    No matter how depressed or how bad of a mood I am in, all I have to do is pick up any of her books and read them and pretty soon I am laughing so hard that tears are often streaming down my face.   I highly recommend them to anyone, they are so funny!   However, if you are easily offended, stay away because she is blunt, to the point and can be very offensive.  That's why I adore her. 

2) Bath and Body Works Aromatherapy Eucalyptus Spearmint Stress Relief Pillow Mist.  Wow, that was a mouthful!   This stuff is awesome.   It has a relaxing scent to it that does overpower you.   Every night before I go to bed, I spray down my pillow and sheets with this stuff.  

3) Clean and Clear Dual Action Moisturizer.  This is the only moisturizer that I will/can use.  I have used it for so long that I can't change it or I break out.   I love it, it's light and works well.   I hate using lotions that are thick and you can feel them, this one is so light that you barely feel it after you put it on. 

4) Callus Remover.   I discovered this wonderful item while in the pharmacy at Wal-mart one day, it was $2.97.  I don't know about you, but I get so embarrassed when my feet look bad but I don't have the time to pay a ton of attention to them.   I was so humiliated when I got my last pedicure because it took them forever to shave off the dead skin (sorry TMI).   Anyway, this product is great for doing that.   I use it after I get out of the shower and it shaves it all off.   Plus, included are 2 replacement blades - all for under $3.   I have recommended it to many people and have them come back and tell me how much they love it. 

5)  L'OREAL Double Extend Mascara.  I love mascara.   It is my must have/never leave the house without item.   The more and the blacker the better.  I feel naked without it.   While home for my sister's wedding we were told by her MIL to try this mascara and I am now hooked.   It is amazing!  It is a two step application.  The first is white thickening stuff and then the second step is the application of the mascara.   It really works and doesn't feel thick or clumpy at all.   

I would love for everyone to share some of their favorite products with me.   

My Famous Brownies

Back when I first moved to the tiny town in northern Minnesota (that I soon discovered should have been named "Hell" but that's a whole other story), I was taken in by this group of women (who I soon discovered belonged in "Hell" but again a whole other story).   Anyway, we used to do all of these pot luck things where you all brought something to share.   The first time I was invited to one of these, I had a high maintance baby (I laugh now that I thought Olivia was high maintance, little did I know....) at home and didn't have time to make anything.    So, I ran out to the local grocery store and picked out some yummy chocolate frosted brownies to pass off as my own.   Well, my closest friend at the time was hosting the event and when I showed up with the store bought brownies she started to panic.  She made it seem like I was going to be a huge outcast if I didn't make something and she said I should take them out of the containers and use one of her serving platters so nobody knew I bought them.    I couldn't believe it because they obviously looked store bought and I thought there was no way in hell (hee hee) that I was ever going to pass these off as home made.    Well, I was wrong.   People loved "my" brownies and raved about them.  I never lied and said I made them but I certainly didn't correct anyone when they assumed I did.  

From that point on, I was always asked to bring my "famous brownies" to every potluck I was invited to.   It amazed me that people thought I actually made them but hey it got me attention and people thought I was this great baker.   If they only knew the truth and that even I wouldn't eat something that I made.    Then, when I was asked to bring my brownies to another event I went to the grocery store to buy them and they didn't have any.   OMG I was screwed, what was I going to do?   I was so afraid that I would have to own up to the humiliation of not having made them and about leading others to believe I made them that I skipped the event.    I  faked sick or pretended Olivia wasn't feeling well or something.   

Anyway, you think I would have learned my lesson right?  I swear I am not some pathological liar or anything either, I am just not good at baking or cooking or anything that involves and oven.   But no, I didn't learn my lesson.  We are having company over tomorrow night after dinner so my husband asked me to have dessert for them.   What did I do?  Poured over my cook books looking for an awesome dessert recipe I could blow everyone away with.   I wrote one down and made a list of ingrediants and went to the store.   While at the store a beautiful and delicious looking chocolate fudge torte caught my eye.  Plus, it was under $10.   By the time I gathered all the ingrediants to buy what I wanted to make, it was double that.  So, I put everything back and bought the torte.    And yes, I fully intend on taking it out of the plastic dome and putting it on my glass serving tray and "pretend" I made it.   

House Hunting Sucks

Since we've moved down to the Minneapolis area, we have been looking at houses.   We are currently renting a house that we could buy if we wanted to and might.   If the offer is right, we will buy the place we are in but I highly doubt it will be.   We are currently living in a four bedroom, 1 bathroom tri-level house on 5 acres.   It has a heated, commercial shop on the property and beautiful landscaping.    This is my husband's dream house because the property is perfect.  However, the house is just not what I want.   It's a little too small and not the layout that I would prefer, has only 1 bathroom and needs a lot of updating.    The guy we are renting from plans on re-entering it into the market if we don't buy it and move out but first he's going to let us have first chance at it.    He is eager to sell it because he currently lives in Texas and with the house being in Minnesota, it's hard to upkeep it.   The last offer we rec'd was he'd get it appraised, take $15k off the appraisal, give us $10k cash to do what we want with and he'd throw in everything that he left in the shop including some children's toys, a trampoline with enclosure, a garden tiller and a Polaris ATV.   Nice, if it was what we (meaning I wanted).    We'll see what happens but since it's on 5 acres and knowing what it was listed for in the past, I think it's going to be way more than we want to spend. 

Anyway, we have now looked at over 40 houses.   Yep, 40.  This is crazy to me since the very first house we bought in Lapeer, Michigan was the first house we looked at.   The second house we bought in Badger, Minnesota, we pretty much bought over the internet.    I thought with the foreclosure crisis going on right now it would be so easy to find a house we want in our price range but I am sadly mistaken.    Trevor wants land and I want to be in a neighborhood or subdivision.   We have finally figured out exactly what we are looking for after looking at all of these houses so that's a good thing, it's just finally finding it before we get ditched by our realitor.   Face it, he has to be losing money on us if we don't find something shortly.  

We have learned that we are looking for a 4 bedroom (or 3 big bedrooms with potential for a 4th), 2 bathroom home on at least 1 acre in a neighborhood.   We also need to have a room for toys and we absolutely do not want a split level house.   It can be multi leveled but not the bi-level split which Minnesota builders seem to be so fond of building.   I  don't get it, what is so appealing about that style house?  No offense if that's what you have, I just don't understand it.   In most of them you walk into the front door and you go up or you go down.   Plus, there is no room for more than two people to be in that front entry space and then you can't find one big enough to have all of the bedrooms or at least three of them on the same level. 

While looking at houses, I have found it amazing how some realitors will downright lie to get you into the house.   There was one that was an older custom built home that had potential from the outside and it listed that it had "the most gorgeous kitchen ever" so I was excited.  I walked into the front door and that's all I needed - yeah it had the most gorgeous kitchen ever, back in 1977 maybe.    OMG it was awful.  The rest of the house was worse, you wonder what people are thinking when they design the layout of their house and how some layouts could possibly work for a family.  

I don't think we are being unreasonable here, this is the house that we plan on being in for a long time (god I hope, I am so tired of moving and so are the kids) so we want to get what we want for a decent price. 

Worst Product Ever

On Saturday my husband and kids decided to hang out and do things outside.  I hate the outdoors, I am not an outdoors kind of girl so I was going to take the Beast and do some shopping at the outlet mall.   I don't know why I was being nice and taking him when it should have been a me day but that's beside the point.   Anyway, Olivia begged and begged for me to let her take the Beast outside and play with them while I finished getting ready.  Against my better judgement I let her.    As I was getting ready to walk out the door to collect my Beast and go shopping, the front door opens and I hear Olivia saying "I'm so sorry Mom".  Words that are NEVER good to hear.   

So, what happened was the kids were playing bubbles outside and the Beast was chasing the bubbles.   Jackson, my 4 year old was playing with his very dark green Crayola Washable Colored Bubbles that he got for his birthday.   They advertise them as not only "washable" but "spill proof".   Jackson put the bubbles down and the Beast went right over to them, grabbed them and tried to drink them.   It was a disaster.   One of the worst nightmare messes that I have seen.     I grabbed him away from Olivia who was covered in green and told her to go and wash her hands and threw the Beast on the floor to strip him of his brand new (just ripped the tags off that morning) shirt which had a wonderful stain of dark green.   His mouth was covered green and then I was covered in green because I was trying to get him cleaned up.    Isn't it beautiful?

So I have read some more things about these said "washable" bubbles and I think someone at Crayola was smoking a little too much crack while inventing these things.  Obviously they are not "spill proof" because my 1  year old spilled them all over himself.   It takes six sentances of instructions on how to "wash" these bubbles off of things - IMMEDIATELY with hot water and NO stain treatments because they just make them worse....etc.   Really Crayola?   It also says "Keep away from brick, vinyl, finished and unfinished wood, wallpaper, painted walls, carpeting, draperies, and other materials that cannot be laundered."   Obviously some idiot without children created this product.  

Anyway - this is just a warning to all parents because these look like such a fun, cute product.  I was very wrong.   

Being a Stay At Home Mom

Let's face it, being a mom is tough.   Being a Stay At Home Mom is really tough.  Being a Working Mom is tough.  No matter which you have to do or pick to do, I think there will always be feelings of guilt or slight jealousy.   Neither one is the right answer, it's what you want to do and what is best for your family.   I am not the stay at home mom type, I never have been.   I love my children dearly but I am a much better mom when I am working.  

Since we've moved to the Minneapolis area from "up north", I have become a stay at home mom.  I will admit, it's nice being home all day and feeling like your not rushed getting everyone up and ready in the morning and out the door trying so desperately hard to make it into work on time.  It is nice being here to see all of the Beast's milestones, I don't think I've missed a single one yet.  It's nice to have dinner ready and not be eating at 7pm or later.   I like being here when Olivia gets off of the bus to hear about her day.  But that is about the extent of it.  The truth is, I miss working, not just a little, I miss it a lot.

I'm going to admit something here, I don't like to admit this, but because I stay at home, my self esteem has really taken a beating.   I used to feel so good about myself because when I worked at my last job, I was a foreclosure counselor, I felt important to someone.  Yes, probably selfish of me, I certainly didn't think I was a superhero but I saved people from losing their  homes to foreclosure, it was so rewarding and I loved the job, my co-workers, I loved being at the office and interacting with adults and having conversations that didn't revolve around poop, spongebob, etc.  Right now,  I feel like all I am good for is wiping butts, changine diapers, getting snacks and changing the channel on the tv.   Most days I feel worthless and it sucks.   I know I am so lucky to hear how I get to stay at home ( and frankly I am tired of hearing it because to me, those people are so lucky to have a job and I don't need to hear it right now ) but I feel trapped.   I am not the type of person to spend my whole day baking cupcakes and cookies and be on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush.   I spend most of my days doing nothing and it kills me.   I also have to avoid going out and doing things all of the time because then I'm spending money and we are down one income so that makes a huge difference.    (I'm not saying we are struggling or anything, I just don't need to go crazy, if that makes any sense)

I have been looking for a job since we moved here.  I have sent out a ton of resumes along with a packet to the local non profit agency with my resume, cover letter, letter of reference and certification hoping they would want another foreclosure counselor who has  been through all the training and is ready to go but I haven't heard a thing from anyone.  I had one phone interview at Polaris and didn't get past that (I don't know if it'd be a good idea to work in the same building as my husband anyway) and then I got an email about a job two days ago but it didn't pay enough to cover the cost of daycare for the boys, let alone afterschool care for Olivia.  It's frustrating because I'm realizing that I am going to be a stay at home mom for the long run.    husband tells me that I should look into doing daycare but I can only laugh at him, somedays I barely like my own children, let alone other people's kids....that would not work.   I admire daycare providers because I could never in a million years do what they do and be good at it.  

I guess my point of this is that being a mom is hard no matter what.   We all suffer with feelings of guilt so let's support each other the best way we can.  

Dating in the First Grade?

This morning I layed out Olivia's outfit for her.  A brand new shirt from Old Navy, jeans and socks.  Normally, she doesn't care what I pick out for her in the morning but today was different.    She came downstairs and asked me if she could wear a dress.   I told her that I wasn't sure what the weather was going to be like (we live in Minnesota so one minute it could be 71 and the next it could be -10) so she could wear her purple cheetah print dress only if she wore her pleather pants underneath.   Not my favorite outfit in the world, pleather pants, really?  but it was a dress and made her happy.    I asked her why she wanted to wear a dress and she says to me "I want to look cute for Andrew.".   Seriously?  She is 6, what does she know about wanting to look cute for a boy?    I just shrugged it off and let it go.   

While she was waiting for the bus she tells me that she heard some students talking and there is going to be a dance at school.   I told her if she wanted to go to a dance that was fine with me, just find out when it is.   She then handed asked me how to spell the word "Please".  I spelled it out for her and asked her why, she was writing on a black piece of construction paper with a white crayon.   She handed me the paper and spelled out perfectly was "Andrew, will you please go to the dance with me?".    Oh My Goodness, again REALLY??   I told her that she was not allowed to give him that because she isn't allowed to date.   Olivia doesn't like to be told what to do and doesn't like to be treated like a child and this was certainly no different.   She looks at me, puts her hands on her hips, rolls her eyes and proceeds to tell me "I can date whoever I want, I am in the first grade".

Sigh, I am SO not ready for this stuff....

Chicken Ranch Enchiladas

I wanted to share a recipe with everyone - I tried it tonight and it was so good and so easy to make - two of my favorite things since I am a dummy in the kitchen.    Prep time took 15 minutes and cook time was 35-40 minutes.

1/4 cup butter

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup

1 (16 ounce) container sour cream

1 (4.5 ounce) can chopped green chilies

1 (1 ounce) package ranch dressing mix

10 (8 inch) flour tortillas

2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the chicken and cook until no longer pink in the center, about 7 minutes. Whisk together the condensed cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chiles, and ranch dressing in a bowl; spread a thin layer of the mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of sauce into each tortilla; divide the chicken among the tortillas and sprinkle with 3/4 of the cheese. Roll the tortillas into cylinders and place seam-side-down into the baking dish. Pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas and cover the dish with aluminum foil.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until hot, about 35 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Return to the oven and cook a few more minutes until the cheese melts.

And since I like to see what I'm making, here they are after I served up!