text: It's just one of those days that everyone should hunker down and wait it out. I'm refusing to go anywhere today.
  It may seem kind of wimpy, but going out in this weather seems wrong for man or beast. My husband did venture out this morning to work, but I wish he was here to hunker down with us.
  And this is just the beginning of fall/winter weather. I'll get used to it. I mean, tomorrow it's only 80% chance of rain instead of 100%. We'll settle into it in a day or so.
  I just wish the weather reports online would quit saying it's "light" rain. So far there is nothing light about it.
  It's also the time of year I start thinking bears have the right idea. We should just stop our life and hibernate for the winter and wake up in the spring when Mother Nature has straightened out her attitude.
  It would be better if when the bad weather hit it would be our longest daylight days of the year. But no, bad weather means darker days.
  There is no other solution but to hunker down and wait it out.
  I was working on my book yesterday and writing about how moms tend not to feel they have value, especially if they stay home.
  Being a stay-at-home mom can be a real confidence killer, even though we know we are the nucleus of a household.
  Then I was having an email conversation with a writer friend who works two jobs, is a wife and mother, has published two books and has a hard time finding the time to write because she feels like writing is something she does for herself. So she feels more valuable when she cleans the house than when she spends time on herself by writing.
  What is it that makes moms feel this way? I know my best days are when I've maybe cleaned something in the house (let's not go overboard here), gotten a crockpot on for dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and wrote something besides my blog.
  It took me a long time to even call myself a writer because I felt if I wasn't making money doing it, I wasn't a writer. It wasn't until I started this blog that I felt comfortable calling myself a writer. Even though my intention is to help others not feel so alone amongst the chaos of parenting it is mainly for my own self-worth.
  I also spend a lot of time checking my website pageviews and Facebook fan page to see how the traffic is for each day's blog. I remember the first time I got hundreds of pageviews and I thought, "Today is the day I'm being discovered!" Only to figure out my website was being infested by spam bots and no one was really that interested.
  None the less, if I need a confidence boost pageviews, new FB fans and lots of FB likes will help.
  We moms really do need to find what give us life and work on it. It's for the sake of our families. Like my writer friend's husband told her, "writing makes [you] happy, and if [you're] happy, the family is better, so [you] need to write to keep [us] happy." My husband said a similar thing about my blog when I was feeling blue about it one day, "It's good for you, don't quit."
  So moms and dads too, do something that makes you happy and gives you life. It will build your confidence and your family will love you for it.
  Kitchen genius and the bathtub too
  I was especially proud of myself last night. I put a frozen roast in the crockpot, 2 cups of water, a bunch of baby gold potatoes, whole garlic cloves and salt. I set it on high for about five hours.
  When it was done, I took the roast out and let it rest, then I fished the potatoes and garlic out, made mashed potatoes and used the juices to make gravy. I had enough juice to make four cups of gravy because the roast was frozen and added to the amount of juice, plus just the natural juice from the roast itself.
  I put a lot of salt on it because Michael Symon on The Chew (ABC at noon; I don't see it very often because I don't watch TV during the day, but I'm in love with the whole cast) said salt tenderizes beef. I didn't have to add extra salt to the mashed potatoes or gravy as I made them. We had hot roast beef sandwiches and mashed potatoes and yes, the meat was very tender and delicious (I also turned it upside down so the fat layer was on the top instead of the bottom).
  What made me so excited was my genius idea of cooking the potatoes along with the roast and then mashing them. I usually cooked the potatoes along with the roast, but then we just ate potatoes. The gravy was.. well, gravy. HA!
  This "kitchen genius" exhilaration hit me a couple weeks ago and I meant to share it, but it was my daughter's birthday and it didn't seem appropriate to talk about my cooking brilliance instead of or alongside her birthday activities (her actual birthday, not the anime convention party). Then I kind of forgot about it until now.
  Anyway, a few weeks ago, I was moving some lasagne noodles from one pantry to the other and thought, "I should make lasagne for dinner." Then I realized I didn't have any cottage cheese or Italian Sausage. I was kind of bummed because it sounded really good, but I really didn't want to run to the store either.
  It seems like it defeats the purpose of cooking if I have to run to the store. I know, it's still cheaper to get a couple ingredients than take the whole family out to dinner, but for me and cooking, it's the principle of the thing. I only go grocery shopping every two weeks if I can help it; I could run to the store every day to pick something up if I let myself.
  Then I thought, "Why couldn't I just make a casserole with ground turkey and all the ingredients except the cottage cheese?" So I did and I call it, wait for it...
  1 1 lb can tomato sauce
  Add next 5 ingredients and mix together
  Bake in oven 30 min. at 350 degrees
  This one was an additional thrill for me because my family got tired of the Ground Turkey Noodle Casserole with Peas I posted on 9/13/13 "Just like Mom used to make." It has been a staple for a few years and I was greatly disappointed when they got tired of it. I was delighted to have a replacement.
  Casseroles like the Lasagne Casserole and Ground Turkey Noodle Casserole are easy, last minute dinners to make. They do take a lot of pots and pans, though: pot to boil noodles, pan to brown meat and mix ingredient together, casserole dish to put it all in and bake it. I guess my pots and pans are oven safe and I could just use those. That would save me the casserole dish.
  Another genius kitchen idea! Well, it's not my genius idea, I only just remembered it, but still... And not only that, but I finally unclogged my daughters' bathtub. It took me three days, but I did it. And I found a device to put in the drain to catch all the hair. Only $3.99. I'll have to report back on how well it works since I don't use that bathroom.
  All my kitchen genius and the bathtub too! How better can life as a stay-at-home mom get? I think I'll have a third cup of coffee to celebrate!
  Random thoughts no one cares about
  It's another one of those days when I have way too many random thoughts going through my mind. None of them are concerning or life threatening or will change the course of my life, but I just keep thinking about them. So I'll share them with you and let them go.. for now:
  It's the first late start day of the school year. For some reason it seems so much easier with just one child than with two. But I still have to take her to the bus. Hey, that means there must be a day off on the horizon! Yes, October 11th.
  I decided to find the yearly school calendar so I can put these things on my calendar. I couldn't find it on the school website, so I Googled it and found it. Really?
  I feel sorry for my friends who still have elementary school children. Last year they initiated late start instead of early release for elementary school. They get to school at 11:00am and get out at 3:00. It seems rather ridiculous considering they have lunch as soon as they get there. Of course, the middle school and high schools have 20 minutes classes the rest of the day.
  As I was eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee this morning, having just woken up my daughter, I realized my kids have rarely gotten themselves out of bed. It's either their alarm or me who wakes them. Sure, I have to use an alarm on weekday mornings when school is in session, but on the weekends and during the summer, I wake up on my own. I guess that's because I naturally wake up in the mornings, not afternoon.
  Teens are really vampires in disguise.
  Tomorrow is the high school open house. The Big Bang Theory season premiere is during that time, why would they do that? Why wouldn't they pick Tuesday night when there is nothing worth watching (in my opinion) on?
  My daughter is on the brink of driving, but not ready to take the test. We'll have to renew her permit. It reminds me when she was potty training and I gave her a potty chart with stickers. She informed me she wasn't ready yet, then two weeks later she told me she was ready. Potty trained ever since. We'll probably renew her permit and she'll be ready to take her test in a couple weeks. Can't rush the strong minded.
  She still needs to read the driver's manual. She hasn't taken the written test yet. School and her new art stuff has taken precedence.
  Last weekend my husband took himself to the emergency room because he had pressure in his chest. He Googled the symptoms and decided he should go. I was away, so he didn't tell me. He informed my kids. When I got home I said, "Where's your dad?" "Oh, he went to the emergency room last night, he's on his way home." Long story short, they were testing him all night, his heart is healthy, it's some sort of problem with reflux or his esophagus, he didn't tell me because he didn't want to worry me. Go away for a weekend and things happen!
  The new kitty is doing well after surgery. She's had one doorway encounter with our other cat and it didn't go well. One was on one side of a see-through sliding glass door. The other on the other side. Give them time, give them time.
  I think she's getting bored now, so my daughter went and bought her some toys. It's fun watching a young cat race up and down the hall.
  I vowed I would not forget my little routine to get my daughter out the door on time to catch the bus. I always get to doing other things on late arrival days and totally forget. Grab her lunch out of the fridge, fill her water bottle. Put in a piece of toast for her to eat on the way to school.
  Summer has not only ended on the calendar, but in my household too. It's the 2nd week in a row I've had to hang my laundry indoors.
  It's not the rain I mind, I love the rain. It's the entrance of shorter days. Yes, I know there are still 24 hours in a day, but it's less hours of daylight I'm referring too. I'm only partial to that bright orb in the sky for the light it brings to our days. Whether it rains or not is the business of mother nature.
  So it's time to think about hunkering down for the winter. But still, I wish it would hang around a little longer. I'm surprised at how quickly the daylight dissipates, but then I'm surprised at how quickly it comes back.
  There are advantages to getting older, the days seem to go a lot faster. But that means all aspects of life go faster. I think it was just yesterday my little baby girl was trying to walk, now she's trying to drive.
  And it was just yesterday my oldest daughter was drawing chalk lines on everything, the fence, buildings, around the whole yard, now she's in college art classes.
  Time flies. It's official: summer has gone, Autumn has come, the days are getting shorter, the laundry is hanging inside, and the kids are growing up whether we want them too or not. Sigh.
  For the first time I went on the annual Cousins' Weekend. These are mostly cousins from my paternal great-grandmother's side of the family.
  I always have trepidation when meeting new people, probably because I spend a lot of time alone, and these were a lot of new people. But they welcomed me with open arms and it felt as if I had been a part of this close-knit side of the family for a long time.
  However, when I was a child and my father's two nieces, three nephews and my sister and I got together, I thought it was a raucous time, but I can only imagine what it was like as children in these families.
  I think, don't quote me on this because I can't be sure, there were seven in one family and eight or nine in another family and another whole family I didn't even figure out (I counted three familial names). Add to those their children and some of their grandchildren and the weekend was a constant roar.
  My direct cousin, whom I rode up with (one of the nieces I referred to above) and I were immediately plunked into the middle of an outing the moment we hit the door. I was sitting in one of the cars watching people mill around in the parking lot waiting for who knows who and I almost bolted.
  The outing was fine, although I took one look in the thrift shop we went to and thought, "Oh, hell no!" It was literally a huge pile of stuff thrown in the middle of the room with stacks around the outer edge, leaving enough room for a path around the whole mess.
  Instead I wandered over to a cafe and had the best bowl of clam chowder I'd ever had (whole clams), and observed the rest of my cousins take turns tag-teaming each other as they rotated in and out of the cafe and thrift shop - "Cover me, I'm going in!"
  When we got back to the condos, my travel cousin and I were so relieved to see our room was ready. We had to take a break and hole up for and hour or so, just to pull ourselves together. We discussed how we thought our childhood's with our families was always chaotic when we were all seven together. We discovered we were staid compared to this group - and they were grown up now.
  It was a fun time, though, and with great interest I explored this unknown side of the family and tried to figure out how we fit together on the family tree. I lost track and gave up after awhile as new people kept showing up.
  My great-grandfather's side of the family was well represented with six of us. These people I knew, so I could play a sort of tag-team myself when I got too tangled up in the branches of the tree; I stepped away to catch up with someone I knew. I really copped out Saturday morning and hung out with my sister, not up for another thrift store adventure.
  At lunch time we plunged back in. It was a frenzied good time, with some awesome ladies. I'll look forward to another year with cousins, cousins and more cousins and next time, I will know them too.
  Here's my column for this week if you're not following me on Facebook all about cousins, of course: http://www.maplevalleyreporter.com/lifestyle/224784322.html.
  I had one of the strangest weeks I can remember. I haven't been home at all and I actually had to look at the calendar to see where I've been.
  I had a college friend I haven't seen in six years visit Monday, which lasted until my family got home. I took my youngest daughter and her friends to the fair on Tuesday and did laundry all day before we picked them up from school. Wednesday I ended up going to see my mother-in-law on Whidbey Island, then came home and rescued the kitty. Thursday my oldest daughter had a welcome day at her college; I was going to stay for it, but quickly realized I wasn't needed, so I went grocery shopping, then went and picked up our Lucy from the vet that afternoon.
  Spent a lot of time last night fretting over her and how we will integrate her with the other animals. She's a little badass kitty from her life on the streets. She scared the crud out of our terrier and it was just from under my daughter's door.
  Now I am headed out to enjoy a cousins weekend with my direct cousins and extended cousins. It will be another new experience to add to my strange week.
  I feel a little trepidation about going because I haven't been home all week, but I can't say I'm not glad I won't be around to handle the new kitty. It will be interesting to see how they all fare while I am gone. There are just some things that amuse me immensely and this situation is one of them.
  It's just been a strange week.
  Wow! Did anyone catch the moonset this morning? It was amazing. I say moonset, because the moon was setting. It was a full moon in a half clear/half hazy sky. It sat above the horizon straight in front of my daughter and I as we drove down the road to the bus. It looked like something out of a sci fi movie.
  But I'm not here to talk about the weather or the moon's rotation, I'm here to talk about being railroaded. Not me, I think my husband was, maybe me too; it just depends on your perspective. He was railroaded by my kids and me, indirectly by my mom. I'm not really sure how it all happened so I'll start from the beginning.
  There is a little kitty in my mom's trailer park. It is the friendliest, cutest, most petite, pretty little thing you ever saw. It would come up to me when I was working in her yard and bump me on the leg to get some loves. It was always outside in all kinds of weather.
  I always asked who it belonged to. My mom thought it belonged to a family a couple trailers down from hers. Then they moved away and the kitty was still there. It had a batch of kittens this summer and I figured it belonged to the people whose shed she had the kittens in.
  When the kittens were old enough, they took them to a store front and gave them away to anyone who was sucker enough to fall in love with them.
  A couple days ago, it occurred to my mom that the mama cat never seemed to be indoors. So she started asking the neighborhood kids. They told her they had "adopted" it as a trailer park cat, it belonged to no one, but a couple families fed it scraps. But no one let this sweet little cat in and no one thought to take her to the store front with her kittens to be adopted.
  My mom got concerned because winter is coming, she told my oldest daughter what she had found out about the cat, who then became concerned, my daughter told me (you see where this is going, don't you?), I "warned" my husband, my husband told my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter called me and my oldest daughter as we were driving back from Whidbey Island to see if we were going to get the cat.
  When we got home, we went to the trailer park and started talking to kids and one of the adults who was feeding the cat. She's had at least two litters, she's two years old, and the teenage daughter of one of the people is crazy for the cat, but her father doesn't like it and won't formally adopt it. The mom agreed the cat needed a home and let us take it; I'm sure the scene wasn't a good one when her teen daughter got home.
  You really knew as soon as I mentioned cat, I was going to end up with another cat, didn't you? So, yes, I rescued the trailer trash, street walkin' cat from her horrible life on the streets. I took her to Sawyer Lake Veterinary Hospital because they rescue wildlife and have great connections with adoption agencies and would have the facilities to "admit" her immediately. If there was something wrong with her, I didn't want her to infect our other animals.
  The Cat, whose name is Lucy (her trailer park name which she'll probably retain), will probably not think I "rescued" her after today. She'll get spayed, bathed, all her shots, tests (for kitty STDs), nails clipped and come home to us with the cone of shame on her head; we'll turn her into a regular Eliza Doolittle ("The rain in Spain goes directly to the plain"), get her off the streets and out of the trailer park.
  I know, I know. I was adamant about not having another cat, but I didn't consider that little Lucy would need to be rescued; although, whenever I saw her at the trailer park, I always wanted to take her home with me.
  My hope is, she'll be so happy about being indoors finally, she won't want to go out. I will do my best to keep her in, because it cost a pretty penny to rescue this "free" cat.
  It will be interesting to see what my other cat thinks. She's kind of motherly so she might take to her easily. On the other hand, she can be pretty grumpy too. My kids are committed to letting her sleep with them until she acclimates, learns the rules with the rats and the bird and the house, and she and our other cat become friends.
  So I'm not really sure how it happened; it all went down pretty fast. But as you can see, it's not all my fault this time. I think my mother started it, but I (we) certainly ended it for this little Eliza Doolittle.
  It will always be The Puyallup to me
  We did the Puyallup last night... excuse me, the Washington State Fair.
  It has always been the Washington State Fair, but the slogan has always been "Do the Puyallup." Apparently someone decided Puyallup was getting too much press and they needed to dial it up and highlight the whole state.
  Now it's boring. The fair isn't boring, it's the same fair. But the commercials are boring, the fair paraphernalia is boring (t-shirts), the whole idea of it is ho hum. Instead of "Do the Puyallup" singing and dancing on the commercials, there are only a few highlighted events and "at the Washington State Fair." I miss the song and it still runs through my head (You can do it at a walk, you can do it at a gallop, you can do it at a run so your heart won't palpitate, do the Puyallup). Or something like that; those of you who are familiar now have this tune running through your head; you're welcome.
  But we had a lot of fun. I've decided the 2nd Tuesday after school is a great time to go. It's just crowded enough to know the WASHINGTON STATE FAIR is not on the skids, but not crowded enough to have to wait in long lines. Heck, we even walked right up and got a scone. Last year, when we went on the weekend, we couldn't get near the scones.
  My husband and I took my youngest daughter, her ride-durable friend, another non-ride-durable friend and another non-ride-durable friend met us there. On Tuesdays they can get dizzy ride bracelets for only $27.50 and ride the rides as many times as they want. So much cheaper!
  It's also great that we went into the fair and the kids are old enough to go one way while we go the other. Yes!
  My husband and I had a scone for an appetizer, a big rib plate dinner from BBQ Pete's and followed that up with a dipped ice cream bar. We wandered around, looked in the hobby hall, the vendor halls, and at some cows. Before we left we got a shake from the dairy barn.
  It was a good night. It will always be "The Puyallup" to me.
  It's bad enough when I forget stuff my family needs, it's worse when I forget stuff non-family needs. I was supposed to go last night and take pictures at my church of the new pastoral council.
  I reminded myself all day. I set a reminder on my phone to go off two hours before. But once my family started getting home and the chaos hit, I forgot all about it and I wasn't with my phone when it went off.
  It was a convoluted day. I met a college friend for breakfast at 8:00am. We sat and talked until 10:00. Then we moved the party to my house. At noon, my friend got up to go and one of us brought another subject up and before we knew it we were sitting down again.
  At 2:00, my friend stood up and definitely decided to leave and we stood at the door for another 15 minutes talking about movies. The time around 2:00pm on weekdays during school is my witching hour. The phone started ringing, it was my mom, it was my husband, it was my daughter texting to get the exact street her bus drops her off at "just in case" her new bus driver wasn't sure. Then I had to walk out the door behind my friend to pick up my daughter.
  We hadn't eaten again after our breakfast and I was suddenly starving. So I did what every really good mom does, I picked my daughter up from the bus stop and we drove to Jack-in-the-Box and got chicken sandwich combo meals for all of us. They are only $3.99, so although not very healthy with their crispy chicken cutlets, getting them for all of us doesn't break the bank.
  Not only did I not plan dinner, but I didn't get laundry done. After we ate (in front of respective TVs, just to make it lamer), I plopped down in my chair exhausted from the flurry.
  I admit, I felt like I was missing something. I didn't think to get up and look at my calendar, because I never go out in the evenings. I just figured it was from my twisty day. It was too late to start laundry, so I decided I'd just put my pajamas on and try and come down from the twists and turns of the afternoon and start over the next day.
  For some reason, at 8:40pm, I looked at my email. I don't know why, but I did. There was a message from the pastoral assistant giving me a "little reminder" about taking pictures. My stomach sank.
  I jumped up and flew out to the church. Maybe they had a meeting? Meetings always last a couple hours. Maybe I could catch the end of the meeting? When I got to the church hope sprang into my heart. There were cars there. I flew through the building... wrong group. No one from the pastoral council. I had failed.
  I came home and wrote an apology to the pastoral assistant. I wondered why no one thought to try and call me? I wondered if perhaps they got creative and took pictures of each other? It's not like I have fancy photo equipment and these days with phones and other such devices, maybe they did. I won't know until later this week.
  Now I have to deal with the fact that I failed someone, but also remind myself that it's not like this committee is moving to a foreign land and they'll never meet at the church again. It's not like a person couldn't find them individually at mass and snap pictures of them. It's not like there will never be another opportunity to get a picture of these people. Still, no one beats me up like I do.
  It's not the first time I failed, it won't be the last. But it will stick with me for awhile because that is how I process things. Next time I'll set an alarm that won't go off until I attend to it.
  I'm writing about it now because if you didn't know before, confessing my shortcomings is cathartic for me and my main objective in sharing my life is to help other parents not feel alone in their lives. We aren't the only ones! What mom doesn't have so much going on in her head that things slip through the cracks?