List 11/16/2012

• My 9 year old stepson apparently has a girlfriend. I don't even know what to say about that. I have to get more details from his dad, first. 
• I got to go hang out at the yarn shop for a bit tonight. I hadn't been there in a few MONTHS, which is some sort of a sick record for me, especially when I point out that I consider the owner an actual FRIEND of mine. 
• Also at the yarn shop tonight? The chick that ran for the school board that I told you I voted for, and made Rob vote for, and she's a cop, and she apparently lives down the road from me, and she's SO COOL and we're gonna be facebook friends. 
• I hit McDonald's on the way home. I only wanted some fries and a tea, but then I saw that they are doing that "seasonal cool glass for free if you buy a large value meal" so I caved. I LOVE those glasses. Last year they were coke glasses, this year they are "vintage McDonald slogans" or something. Also, bacon double cheeseburger! 
• But then when I got home, the kid was all "Can we make the pizzas now? I waited for you". So then I felt bad. And I lied, and said I'd only gotten a tea.
• The kid found a new show on netflix that he LOVES. It's an anime called "Sgt Frog". As far as I can tell, Sgt Frog channels Stewie a lot. I think it's a little old for him, but hey, he has a girlfriend, so yea, apparently he gets the bewb jokes. 
• I have to clean this house tonight. I have no idea how it got to be Friday but I'm having company this weekend and I'd rather Ashley not see Robs underpants in the bathroom. 
• We have a colony of semi-friendly feral cats living under our trailer. 
• We also have an infestation of CAMEL CRICKETS living in our bathroom, apparently. Do not google them, they are UGLY. I call them "alien bugs". They are harmless though. Except when you die of fright when you walk into the bathroom and turn on the light and OMG WHAT THE EFF IS THAT?
• Rob is STILL working 12 hour shifts, and he has no days off in sight. Rumor at work is that they will be working over Thanksgiving holiday too. Hello triple time, and a 12 hour shift. 
• I miss him. I knew about this when we got together, so I cannot complain. I also told him several times that he didn't have to worry about me, because his ex-wife cheated on him when he was working shifts like this, and ended up leaving him and marrying the guy. I'm NOT that girl. I like time on my own, so this is fine. I just miss him. And I feel bad because he's the only one working, and I'm pulling no weight on the bills right now. 
• Also he's not used to being taken care of, so he is weirded out by my constant refrain of "what can I do to help?" and "here, let me do that for you", or "what can I do to make it easier?" I lived with my father for what, five years? The entire time I was fetching and cooking and carrying and running errands for him. And yes, maybe that shouldn't have been my life, but it's what I'm used to. I get here and I feel useless, and bored. JUST FUCKING LET ME HELP. 
• Last year I started some cactus from seed. LAST YEAR. They are now like, half the size of a dime. No kidding. Could you GROW any slower? They just got these little baby spines, and this last time I watered them, it looks like they are getting some little buds going, for the next segment. I have no idea what KIND of seeds they are, they were part of a "cactus garden" variety packet, and the other two type of seeds didn't even germinate. I have like, eight of them, in a planter, next to the window. 
• Would it be wrong to move the entire living room furniture lay out just so my plants can have a southern expose (more sunlight) this winter?
• Imma go knit now. 

Beer Bread

It's pretty rare for me to have beer just sitting around. Rare because I usually go straight for the Vodka aisle, and rare because when I drink all my vodka, I go straight for the beer in my fridge.

But lately I've seen a few of those "beer bread mix" holiday gift boxes at the local Voldemart, and wondered if this was a "thing" I've been missing.

Oh man. Was I missing it.

I saw a recipe online the other day, and saved it. And since I'm a comfort eater, and a comfort baker, and I had a rather bad day yesterday, and I slept like crud, and it was cold and not very nice out today.....Beer Bread. Really, though, I don't feel anyone should actually need a REASON for beer bread.

Check out the sweet tupperware cannisters! Vintage?
They are as old as I am, I stole them from my pops when he moved. 

Seriously, those are all the ingredients. One twist was that the recipe called for "self rising flour". Uh, I have AP flour, and I have Bread flour. So I looked up self rising flour and found this handy dandy, nifty web site where you plug in how much self rising flour the recipe calls for, and they give you the formula. It's simply AP flour, some baking powder, and salt.

There is no rise time. There is no kneading. There was no bread machine. There was only one mixing bowl, and melting some butter in the microwave.

Mmmmmm, butter!

The butter is not mixed into the dough, it's poured half into the bottom of the pan, and half on top. As you can see, I used my BEST breadpan (sarcasm).

The dough was a VERY wet and sticky bread dough, but thicker than a batter. It wasn't exactly what I expected. And with the honey added, and on top of that I used Honey Weiss beer, I was really expecting a sweet bread. Normally I'm not all that into sweet breads, but hey, I'll try anything once. Maybe twice. I don't care what rumors you've heard. I really AM that kind of girl.

About 30 seconds after this picture was taken, I could hold back no longer. 

I take really shitty photos with my shitty phone cam. But really, it was a thing of beauty. Trust me. And thank god that I took that pic before I tried to take it out of the pan, cuz once again, it stuck. I think it's me, especially in light of the fact that I dumped melted butter into the bottom of the pan before the dough.

Didn't matter, I ate all the bits that broke off. OMG. So good. And then I cut two hunks off while it was still warm, even though I told myself I'd leave it alone til it cooled more. The only place you taste the honey is on the crunchy outside, and the whole outside is crunchy. Thanks, butter. The only place you get a hint of beer is the moist lovely inside. I was worried that the beer would overwhelm everything, but it doesn't. If you really really hate beer, though, you probably wouldn't like this. If you are just not overly fond of beer, you'd probably cave and eat a whole lot of it. Also, if you are Paula Dean you'd like it, cuz.....butter.

Anyway, thought I'd share. If anyone else has made beer bread, or has recipes for beer bread, or recipes you'd like to see me try, or just wanna tell me to go fuck myself or something, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT. Cuz I know ya'll are out there.

.....

When I say I'm leaving in ten minutes, I mean that I'm leaving in ten minutes.

And I'm not going to have a 9 year old tell me to "relax" when I'm upset, not in that tone. Just...no. 

So go ahead and swear as much as you want. I didn't swear once. I was ignored, disregarded, and then sworn at. AND told to "relax". 

Not cool. 

No. 

I almost threw them away....

Rob works a VERY physical job. He works in an aluminum die-cast plant, making huge parts for the automotive industry. In the summer it's very hot. In the winter it's very hot. He burns himself a lot. He has yummy arms from lifting heavy parts and molds and such. He talks about things like mold screens and crucibles, and I just smile and nod. I have some experience in manufacturing, but I was a weld and laser cut quality inspector, we didn't do die-cast, so sometimes he's speaking Greek.

In addition he doesn't eat very well. I'm having a hard time a) finding things he will eat with no substitutions because he doesn't like an ingredient and b) finding the TIME for him to eat. He basically gets up an hour before he goes to work at 10:30 PM, and he doesn't want to eat as he's waking up. So I'm pretty sure he doesn't get the good stuff he needs to make his body run at 100%.

So he cramps up a lot. Sometimes at work. Sometimes when hes dead asleep. I'll hear him pounding his leg on the ground, he'll come staggering out of the bedroom blinking in the sunlight, go straight for the fridge, grab a gaterade, and stumble back to the bedroom. I've long ago learned NOT to say anything to him, because he's basically still half asleep and if you talk to him he wakes up fully and he really gets grumpy about that.

So instead I make sure that I buy things like bananas, gaterade, and his vitamins. I make sure that there is always a gaterade in the fridge, and try to feed him actual meals, instead of just "grab and go" food. I'm still working on it, there's definitely a learning curve to this. He's also pretty stubborn, and doesn't like change. Apparently my way is "change".

He's working a lot of 12's right now, so I don't see him much. Apparently the bananas don't see him much either, because for the first time ever, there were bananas on the counter that went bad! Rob loves bananas. I like them, but I probably don't "love" them. I LOVE red bananas, but those aren't exactly mainstream OR cheap, both of which is pretty much how Rob shops.

So I was about to throw them away, when a thought popped into my brain.

Banana Bread.

Of course I've heard that you COULD make banana bread from scratch, but I grew up in a very "from a box" house. I've come to this game late. And I just realized that basically EVERYTHING is on the internet. I know, duh, right? But really. EVERYTHING. IS. ON. THE. INTERNET.

So I typed in "easy banana bread". And about a thousand different recipes came up. Pancakes, muffins, fritters, frozen pops, foster, cookies, smores, ice cream, milkshakes. Seriously, people apparently love bananas, and they also forget about their bananas and they go all mushy. I AM NOT ALONE.

So I threw this shit together. Seriously. I love that I have all the stuff I need to bake something on the fly. Except I need cream of tartar for some cookies I wanna make, note to self. Anyway. I mashed up some 'nanas. Here's the recipe I used. I only needed one egg, so that was the winning recipe.

It came out seriously ugly, unlike any other bread I've ever seen before. There was no graceful bread "top". I'm sure it's something I did, like use spray to lube the pan. Also it stuck a little in the bottom, but when I sat it on a plate, one would never know. So it was probably the lube.

But OH MY GAWD was it good. And then Rob was all "eh" about Banana Bread. Yea, my dream man! More for MAMA!

Yes, I called it lube.

Dirty Little Secret?

Partly inspired by my visit to my brother's house, and partly by just sheer disgustedness in myself, I've spent the last few hours doing something called "unfucking my habitat". No, this is not just another reason to show off my potty mouth, I didn't make this up. You can find it here: UFYH. It's basic premise is that real people can sometimes get messy, and here is a good way to fix it that won't be overwhelming.

I have used some of their techniques a lot, namely the 20/10 (20 minutes of unfucking, 10 minutes of break). It works SWELL. Lately it's been 20 minutes of cleaning the kitchen, and then using the 10 minutes of break to look up stuff on the internet like "how to get the burnt ring off my glass top range" on google. I don't always stick to the hard and fast 20 minutes and 10 minutes. Sometimes it's just loading the dishwasher and getting it running, then I can watch the next segment of Lark Rise to Candleford (usually about 12 minutes) on youtube, THEN get my ass up and take out the garbage and sweep the kitchen. Lather Rinse Repeat.

In fact, I am writing this blog over the course of a few of my 10 minute breaks. I'm rather proud of myself about that.

It's funny though, this whole "work hard then have a few minutes to chill" thing...we do that with the kid and his spelling lessons here at home. He's getting a B+ in his personal "hardest" subject. His dad breaks up the 20 words into 5 word mini lists, and the kid takes a "test", then he writes all the words he got wrong five times, and then he gets 5 - 10 minutes to chill and watch his cartoon. Then it's pause the cartoon and back to the next list. So apparently there's something to this.

All I know is that I just moved the microwave to the place I've wanted it since we moved in here. Then I moved the counter top ice maker to the place the microwave was, which is conveniently located next to the keurig (a.k.a the iced tea maker), which frees up the peninsula counter nicely. Once I get the all the dishes run through the dishwasher it will look pretty damn good in there. A few more 20/10s and I'm going to post a note in there:

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I WANT MY KITCHEN. 

DO NOT MOVE ANYTHING WHERE IT DOES NOT GO. 

CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF. 

DIRTY DISHES GO IN THE DISHWASHER FOR NOW AND FOREVER. 

PUNISHABLE BY FLOGGING. 

I just got home...

....from taking the kiddo home to his Mom. We spent basically the entire weekend together. I love him very much; much more than I thought I ever would. And mostly with just me, he's getting better. He's learning what I expect of a kid I'm in charge of, and I'm learning how to wrangle him a bit better. 

My dad has really taken a liking to him, so it's always easy to take him to my dad's house for a while. Dad lives with my brother, and I'm pretty sure I could leave the kid with those two boys and he'd be just fine. Today was "yard work". It was SO nice out, quite warm for the time of year. My brother just bought his house, and also bought himself a fancy new yard tractor, and then added the leaf-sucker-upper thing (technical term). He also has a dedicated brick ringed fire pit in a corner of the backyard. Yadda yadda yadda, I now REEK of smoke. So did the kid. So at 4:30 I realized that he was wearing his mom's jeans (i.e. the ones i have to return him in) and that the kid ALSO reeks, so I jetted the 30 minutes home, THREW him in the shower, put his jeans on the "quick wash" and then put them in the dryer by themselves. We had just enough time to consume a frozen pizza and work on spelling words for 20 minutes or so. I got him home THREE MINUTES late. 

Another reason for hanging at my dads? Everything is so easy there. My brother is very no nonsense and low drama with his home furnishings. Simple. I made the kid some hotdogs, and when I was done, you couldn't tell. I made a sandwich, and everything went into the "dirty" dishwasher. The counters never have clutter. You can always find the milk in the fridge. The kid ate at the table and I didn't have to move a bunch of shit so he had room. Like I sometimes have to here. I guess when you START from "spotless", it's easy to get back there. I don't think my house has EVER been spotless. There's clutter and it's definitely not simple. 

Sometimes when I freak out and have an anxiety attack, my brother's house is the FIRST thought in my head. GO TO BROTHER'S. EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY THERE. If Rob and I get testy with each other? FUCK OFF, I'M GOING TO MY BROTHERS, I DON'T NEED THIS. Sometimes the ONLY reason I can think of to not go hide there is OMG, I DON'T WANT TO MOVE ALL MY STUFF AGAIN!!!

Also, of course, I love Rob very much. And the kid. And times like last night, when Rob's alarm went off, but I could tell he was not really waking up, so I sent the kid in there to "cuddle", and then I went in a few minutes later and we all laid on the bed together and snuggled and I was part of the family, finally. 

 

Bitch and Moan

I worked on those slippers for more than a few hours yesterday. I think it's going well, but it's not done. I will have plenty of time to continue working on them because....

Rob just got home from his overnight shift, and told me that the ONLY day next week that he does not work a 12 is Tuesday, when he works an 8 hour shift. He has no days off. At all. Until Thanksgiving. And he doesn't even know for sure that he has that day off. Have I mentioned that his father is coming into down for the Holiday? And that Thursday morning we are going to my dad's for the big meal for lunch, and then trying to get to his sisters for dessert after their big meal dinner? Fun fact, my father lives half an hour EAST of us, and his sister lives 20 minutes WEST of us, and in between that, we have to drop the kiddo off at his moms which is 30 minutes NORTH of us so that he can eat a big meal with her, and then pick him up on the way home from Rob's sister. And then his extended family is going to come to town on Saturday - a ton of aunts and uncles and cousins and such? So yea, he really sorta needs that weekend off.

The silver lining of all this working...well, the TWO silver linings are: a) I'm doing a bang up job of being a stepmom. b) this is gonna be amazing for giftmas money. On the other hand, we have no idea what the kiddo WANTS for giftmas. Last year was easy, he got a Wii. He got a 3DS for his birthday this summer. So what's left, as far as "the big present"?

Okay, so my very awesome blog post for the day was me bitching. Trust me, I held back. It could have been much worse. Sorry.