Best Laid Plans and All That

So, I planned my weekly menu yesterday counting on being fed tonight but, being the ravenous smart girl that I am, I planned for some sort of cheese heavy meal and ate dinner prior to going. Well, I ate a bowl of cereal, actually, just in case there was some delicious dessert that would be offered and I could snarf it down guilt-free. (FYI- I've been using rice milk in my cereal and I must admit I really really like it. It may be a challenge for me to go back to skim milk once Little Mister outgrows his allergy. Rice- it does a palate good.)

Well. The "food" offered? CHEESE AND CRACKERS! With some cream filled cookies to tempt the gourmands in attendance. Smart girl, indeed.

So, this means that we weren't able to eat dinner and I had to move up my plans for the Thai Basil Beef meal I was planning on cooking tomorrow. This happened to be the best decision EVER! That meal was DA BOMB and I don't usually say DA in real life unless I'm in a wool induced coma and am all, "DAAAAAAAA," with drool dripping down my chin.

We got home later than our usual dinner time and I was really afraid that Little Mister was not going to handle it well. He has his cranky time around 6:30/7pm if we don't nail his nighttime feeding just right and he had already fallen asleep in the car after sucking his poor little fists at the "party" until they were little bitty nubs. My poor poor hungry little nubby-handed boy.

FYI: I am totally blessed with my Little Mister. He is actually a really REALLY good baby. He only gets fussy when he's hungry, but if he's tired and hungry, he transforms into El Diablo. Takes after his mom in that respect. Because of that, I get VERY anxious if we are out anywhere during The Cranky Hour because he's such a happy little chap if I feed him right away and he will actually fall asleep by himself in his crib without fussing IF I time it just right. Well, at least that's been happening for the last few days. With his track record, that may very well change tomorrow. The only thing predictable about him is that he's unpredictable. So, as you can imagine, I was getting just a wee bit anxious the longer we stayed out tonight. Thankfully I didn't insult anyone we met (I hope) but I know I interrupted a few people while I tried to get Big Mister's attention as Little Mister's hand started disappearing down his gullet. ("Honey? I think we have to leave pretty soon." "Uh, Mister? it's almost time to go." "HEY! WE NEED TO GO NOW. Thank you. Teehee."

So, we finally get home and Big Mister is hungry so I start making the Thai Basil Beef meal since Little Mister was still asleep in his car seat. I was able to get a pot of water boiling and put the meat in the pan when the frightened, panicked cries of my sweet Little Diablo let me know that we would have to wait a little longer for dinner.

Well! Big Mister was way too hungry to wait for me to finish feeding our little guy, so I told him what to do- just follow the recipe and make the dinner. (He ran interference for me and changed Little Mister's diaper and put his pajamas on which gave me enough time to get the asparagus washed and trimmed, but not cut, so Big Mister had some prep work ahead of him.)

Now, just so you can understand the magnitude of this: Big Mister does not like cooking. DOES NOT. I would ask him to help me make a lasagna by grating the cheese for me, you know- thinking it would be all romantic and stuff. He ended up buying the cheese that was already sliced just to get out of it. The closest he gets to "helping" me in the kitchen is tasting the food for me for Quality Control. This is why his offer to help me cook our Valentine's Day meal is such a huge, romantic ordeal. It's a real big sacrifice on his part and I love him for it. (That being said, he does do the grilling. Must be a man thing.)

JUST SO YOU KNOW- as a testament to both how hungry My Mister was (although he doesn't transform to a murderous snarling creature from the underworld as I have been known to do), AND how very easy this meal was to prepare, HE COOKED OUR DINNER TONIGHT!!

DUDE!!!!

Granted, he did have to go back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom to ask me questions, but the fact remains that, when given enough motivation, My Mister can cook me dinner!!! DOES HE REALIZE THE POWER HE'S GIVEN ME?!?!

Thai Basil Beef...totally DA BOMB.

Weekly Menu

Alllllrighty then. So my menu planning is a day late, but it ends up being a good thing for me since I would have planned a meal for tomorrow night but found out today that we have a thing we have to attend at which they will be serving food. FREE FOOD. Oh yeah, baby. I’m all up in that bizniz. I don’t have to cook and it’s FREE. However, if it is free and full of cheese, I may very well become very cranky and make a terrible first impression on these people and that would be….not.good.captain.

I can just see it now- I’ll be tired and starving- already a recipe for disaster- and they’ll serve pizza and cheesecake and say nice things like, “So nice to meet you!” And I’ll reply, “Whatever, queer. This party blows and I hope you choke on your delicious pizza and gooey cheesy goodness. Loser.” And then My Mister will be ashamed and shout to the heavens, “WHY?! Why did I have to marry a cheese lover?? WHYYY???” while shaking his fists in despondence.

So, in other words, please pray that they have some dairy free foods for me because seeing My Mister shaking his fists in despondence may make me laugh and that won’t be good for our marriage since you should never laugh at your husband when he is despondent.

ANYwho… I’ll only be cooking twice this week, which is awesome. Although I do enjoy cooking, I also enjoy spending time with both my Misters while relaxing and letting the microwave do its magic, ya know?

Tonight we had leftovers from the Lecso I made on Saturday. We loved it! Definitely going into my regular rotation- thanks Kara! I used both red and green peppers, canned tomatoes, and ended up using brown rice instead of Jasmine since I ran out of Jasmine when I made the paella. For those of you who don’t think you’ll like brown rice, try making it with chicken or beef broth for some amazing flavor. Seriously- every time I make brown rice, My Mister always mentions how good it is. Give it a try! For those vegetarians out there, instead of chicken or beef broth, you should probably suck on some rocks because what good is life if you can’t eat dead animals? I’m already giving up the cow juice but it will be a cold day in hell before I give up the entire cow.

For Wednesday, I am going to try Thai Basil Beef with Rice Noodles from Cooking Light. (OH LOOK! A cow!) Looks promising and I have been in the mood for Asian food lately, so crossing my fingers that this will be a winner.

For Friday, I’m breaking out the slow cooker and making a beef pot roast. (MORE COW!) I’ll trim the fat and then season it with salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and garlic and brown it on all sides before placing it in the slow cooker. I’ll cut up some potatoes and add some baby carrots and sliced onions and then place the beef on top. Throw in a couple bay leaves and about 1/2C beef broth and set it on slow for ~6 hours. I’ll serve a side salad and some bread to sop up the juice. I’ll also make a packet of brown gravy…hopefully I can find them here. No added fat and VERY tasty.

I’m always on the lookout for some good crock pot recipes. Have any to share?? Also, I’m really looking for a good meatloaf recipe. I remember how my mom would make them when I was a kid but, even though she’s an amazing cook, meatloaf wasn’t one of my favorites. I’ve actually never made one since we’ve been married and I’d really like to give it a go. So, if you have a good meat loaf recipe, please let me know!!


Til next time....

Sunday Randomness

So my Weekly Meal Planning is going to be a day late since I didn't have time to get my menus ready. Ok, that's a lie. I had time but I actually spent the evening on DamnYouAutoCorrect and have been dying of laughter. Seriously- if you are having a bad day, just go to that website and I dare you to not feel better.


* Friday Fibre Friends was fun. I learned how to make felt out of wool roving using a wet felting technique. In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure what I would do with a piece of felt, but I'm very proud to say that, being the neurotic competitive quick learner that I am, I totally made my piece of useless felt faster than anyone else. OH YEAH! And, if my new Fibre Friends are now reading this, BOO YAH! If you're going to party with The Gege, you have to BRING IT! *touchdown dance*

Ahem.

I mean, that was fun, girls! We should totally do it again sometime!

* In exploring our new town yesterday, we found this little Fish-n-Chips joint which had some great traditional British Fish-n-Chips run by a Vietnamese family in the middle of Australia. My world has gotten bigger and smaller all at the same time. The best part was being schooled by their cute little 4-year old girl on how to speak Australian properly:

Girl: (eating fried egg with ketchup on it) Do you like egg?
Me: I sure do! You like it with ketchup?
Girl: It's tomato sauce
Me: Oh! Tomato sauce.
Girl: NO! *rolls eyes* To-MAH-to sauce.
Me: *dying of laughter*

(That's how Australians say ketchup- don't say you never learned anything on this blog!)

* I'm working on my Peppermint Hat pattern because it's been requested by one of my long-time readers. I'll hopefully have it ready in the next couple weeks. (Once I'm done, she will be testing the pattern for me- Thanks, Brooke!) I also noticed that an anonymous reader left a comment about my Holy Julie Newmar cat hat pattern and requested a video on how to do it, so that will be coming down the pike, too. Although, I think we shipped our video camera, so videos will have to wait until our stuff comes in. I can't believe how long it takes for things to get here! I mean, come on people!! 2011!!! Shouldn't we have that teleportation device working by now?!?

* I'm loving the daytime television out here. It's like I teleported back to 1992. Murder She Wrote (I LOOOOVE THIS SHOW! It's my all-time favorite. Not even kidding. Talk smack about J.B. Fletcher and I will cut you.), Animaniacs, Diagnosis Murder, Perfect Strangers (DANCE OF JOY, BALKI!) and my personal favorite, MacGyver. YUM. When we were younger, my sister thought I had the worst taste in men when I told her I had a crush on MacGyver. I thought that it was again proof that she was adopted until she pointed to the TV and said, "REALLY?? Him???" and I died laughing because we were watching COLUMBO at the time. Now, I'll admit that Columbo has that sexy lazy eye thing going on, but nothing can beat the MacGyver Mullet!!!  How she got the two mixed up, I'll never know, but I wasn't able to look at Peter Falk the same way again.

* I made the mistake of telling My Mister that I had a crush on MacGyver. Granted, I've told him that numerous times- like when we see MacGruber on SNL, or if we use duct tape, or if Columbo is on- but now he seems to get a wee bit jealous just because I told him I had to get off the phone with him because MacGyver was going to start. He actually turned the channel this weekend when he saw it was on but he turned it back when I threatened to rip his arm off pointed out there was nothing else on. Oh dear silly Mister! You're the only mullet...err I mean man...for me!

* Gotta go to bed now- My Mister Mullet is waiting for me. ;)

Unicorn Farts

In my quest to start looking on the bright side of things (Egads! The Light! It burns!), I must admit that I am happy to be in the southern hemisphere at this time of year. While I love autumn- the crisp cool air, the gorgeous colors as the leaves turn- one thing I really missed this year was summer. I kinda was a huge, angry, depressed pregnant woman for the beginning of summer, and an emotionally unstable, freaked out, new mother for the second half. I didn't get to enjoy the sun and warmth and swimming pools and summer camp with the Middle School Youth Group, which was the first camp in 5 years I missed. (When I realized the first group of Middle Schoolers I had in my cabin are now in college, I felt REALLY REALLY OLD.)

However, now that I'm in the Land Down Under, I GET A DO OVER!!!  It's now spring and getting warmer as summer is quickly approaching. I get to enjoy the sun and warmth AND the really cool aquatic center here in town. I'm actually quite looking forward to taking Little Mister for swimming lessons. Granted, my Baby Huey is slightly on the large side so he'll either sink like a rock or float with all of his cute baby blubber. Either way, I'm hoping he'll be like his mom and dad and be an adept water baby.

Another good thing is that I received a special package today- an important package that will help me get back to a more familiar Normal. Oh yes, my friends. I received my sports bra in the mail today. Woot. (Not WOOT! just quite yet....baby steps, people! Baby steps!) Right before we left, I went to Nordstroms and got measured for a proper fitting nursing bra. Since I'm an odd size, I've not been able to find a proper fitting nursing bra at the regular stores, which may have contributed to my emotionally instability, but for sure contributed to my quadroboobs. After finding my proper size, which made me giggle in astonishment and text furiously to My Mister and my Sister, "YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!" and then I promptly fainted when I found out the price of a properly fitting nursing bra at Nordstroms. I may have mentioned once or twice before I DO NOT LIKE SHOPPING. I am soooo not a shopper and thus, very much NOT the type of person who buys things at Nordstroms on a normal basis....or ever. I think my most expensive piece of undergarments was my sports bra from Walmart which set me back a whopping 10 bucks. Yeah. Not a shopper.

Anywho, once armed with my proper bra size, I really needed to find  a properly fitting sports bra since my Walmart brand specials were no longer able to contain my newly acquired boobage. So, for those of you who are also odd sizes, I really recommend www.herroom.com. I SO much prefer shopping online to an actual store. I spent the same amount on my sports bra as I did with my Nordstroms bra; however, since I bought it online, it was like pretend money since real money can't go through phone lines. Sillies.

ANYwho, now that I have my properly fitting sports bra, I can now start exercising again, and that, my friends, is a very good thing. The unicorn farts are coming.

Just So You Know

I was talking to my sister today which is one of my all-time favorite pastimes. She is quite a talker and is quite possibly the funniest and wittiest girl I’ve ever known. She has the ability to be entertaining without being annoying and she has the best superpower ever- she can totally put a person down hardcore and yet still have people laugh and love her. I don’t know how she does it- I make fun of someone’s hair and people call me mean. She does it and they love her, buy her things, and make her queen. It’s the most awesome ability and I’m quite jealous about it. (For those of you who read my blog and know my sister- am I right or am I right?? Oh forget it- you’re the ones who made her queen- of course you’ll agree she’s awesome.)

One of the hardest parts of this move for me was that I couldn’t stuff her in one of my luggages and bring her with me. I do miss her so! Thank the Lord for Skype since we’re able to text and talk to each other regularly. And now that we finally have our internet service hooked up, we can do video Skype, as well! Yay! Although, it’s usually during the afternoon for her and bright and early for me which means she’s looking all kinds of beautiful and I’m a bed-headed bedraggled mess. There was an episode of The Jetsons where Jane Jetson talks to her friend bright and early in the morning and says, “I need to put on my face,” and she pulls out this mask which conforms perfectly to her face transforming her from a morning mess to Beautiful Jane Jetson. Yeah. I so need one of those.

So my Sister tells me she read my blog yesterday and it made her laugh (especially since she knows my cat) and that apparently folks at our church have been reading it, too. (HELLO ALL! I MISS YOU!) So they ask her how we’re doing out here- if we like it and are adjusting well- and she tells them, “Yeah! They’re doing great and loving it!” But, since they’ve been reading my blog, they give her this look like, “Uhhh…you haven’t been reading your sister’s blog, have you.” Then she apologetically tells them, “Even though she’s been a Debbie Downer lately, they really are doing well. I think.”

Ooof. Debbie Downer. Not good, captain. And to think I've never once mentioned Feline AIDS!

Hey- I’m not going to lie. It’s been tough getting here and adjusting hasn’t been the easiest for me, but I know a big part of that is my fault. Well, a big part of that is the fact that I was 2 months post-partum and still reeling from all the hormonal ups and downs while dealing with a huge international move- JUST SO YOU KNOW- and that wasn’t easy. But, another big part is the fact that I was being a lot like Lot’s Wife (from Genesis in the Bible- she’s the one that got turned into a pillar of salt) and kept wanting to look back at what I was going to miss rather than looking ahead at all the adventures in store.

Being the natural optimist that I am, I know you really can’t live life like that. Yes- I had a fabulous life with a great job, wonderful house, and awesome friends and family (and access to millions of yarn stores….just saying), but, truthfully, I still have those friends and family, I get a new shot at keeping a house organized (HAHAHAHAHAHA!), and I get to live in Australia! I’ve always wanted to live in Australia- ever since I was a little girl and saw The Man from Snowy River and thought, “Dang- if they have men like that out there, SIGN ME UP!” (Btw, Sis- still looking for your Aussie. I told Big Mister I was going to be checking out the men at church last weekend [didn't specify for whom] and he gave me a stink eye, especially when I told him he needed to help me.  Also, for MsEdwards, still looking for your more mature Keith Urban, too.)

As things are settling down for me, I’m starting to look ahead at the possibilities out here. I’ve already gotten connected with the local arts center and have my Friday Fibre Friends group (which I knew would be an anchor for me during this time- never underestimate the power of yarn!) and now that I have a vehicle, I’m able to go out and get to know my new town (and hopefully NOT the local lawmen anymore). Although, honestly, I’m really relishing the days where I don’t have anything to do and can just snuggle with Little Mister. He’s now figured out that if he can break his concentration from all the eating (he is a VERY serious eater), he can look up and SURPRISE! There’s mommy! And he smiles and coos and flirts and oh.my.lanta- I’m actually tearing up just thinking about it. So, I’m getting plenty of cuddling time rather than exploring time and I’m VERY happy about that.

I’m just trying to find my new normal and with so many changes that have occurred all at once, it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world. And, honestly, my neurotic insecurities as a new mother would have been a reality no matter where I lived. However, I do have My Mister (who has been so wonderful through all this! If it wasn’t for his organizational skills and levelheadedness, we’d be living in a van down by the river right now) and we have our family all safe and sound. (Seeing Big Mister love on Little Mister has been the most awesome thing. He's the one who got him to laugh the other day! I have a great husband who is an amazing father, as well.) Besides, like I said-I am a natural optimist. Sooner or later the sun will shine and the unicorns will fart rainbows again. So, all things considered, I’m doing…all right. Things are looking up. Just so you know.