Today

Today I sat in my bed for four hours, starting at the clock on my phone, trying to will myself to get up. Four hours. The hardest thing I had to do was walk out my door. It's been a very bad week.

Damn You Pinterest - Multiculturalism Fail

One of the reasons we wanted to move up here was to expose our kids to more diversity. Since Hanukkah started on Saturday, I figured we'd have a brisket on Sunday with a bunch of traditionally fried foods finished off with some sufganiyot (Israeli jelly donuts). We'd be bad Jews because we like our latkas with sour cream and there was milk in the sufganiyot. I felt better about trying to incorporate diversity into our kids's lives when Justin, obviously a product of the Utah school system, mentioned that we weren't fasting, at which point I had to remind him that not only was that not Hanukkah, that wasn't even Judaism. There was also a little bit of a fail when I tried to get brisket at the grocery store and 3 out of 4 grocery stores around here were having ham and seafood sales for Christmas. Oops. So I had to settle for chuck roast over rump roast (which isn't kosher). Plus it was on sale.

The real fail started when I tried to actually cook. The latkas wouldn't stick together, under cooked, and then when I put them into the oven to crisp back up, they burned a little. I mismeasured the mushroom batter, overcompensated by trying to double batter them, which meant they were very crunchy on the outside but  the mushrooms didn't cook inside. And then the sufganiyot. Sigh. I don't know if it was a bad recipe, or if my yeast was dead, or my kitchen was too cold, or they were too thick, but it was a big fat FAIL. At least the pot roast turned out okay.

Recipe here.

The Pin: World's fastest latkas made with hash browns

The Verdict: I've made this before, so I have NO idea why they didn't turn out. I tried to squeezed out all the water, but maybe my hash browns weren't thawed all the way and that's why they under cooked? I've found that the recipe calls for waaaay too much salt (a tablespoon) which I've cut down to a teaspoon and a half. But it is pretty quick and when they turned out before, were very tasty.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Panko fried mushrooms

The Verdict: We tried a hamburger joint near our house that had fried mushrooms on their menu that were DIVINE. They seemed really easy, so I figured we'd give them a try in the deep fryer. However, I misread the size of mushroom container I got, doubled the batter recipe, and used half panko and half bread crumbs because I didn't have enough panko. When I realized my mistake, I double battered the mushrooms to try not to waste any, but it then made the coating too thick and the mushrooms didn't cook. They were still good though, but next time I'll follow the recipe exactly.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Sufganiyot, Israeli jelly donuts

The Verdict: These did not turn out well. I looked up another recipe afterwards which used way more flour in ratio to the liquids. My yeast is also probably past it's prime, because when I made the dough, it refused to come together and still acted like a batter. After an hour of rising, nothing. I kneaded in more flour and rolled it out.  I guess I rolled them out too thick because when Justin fried them, they turned out RAW in the middle. Ugh. So the next day, I tried the Pillsbury biscuit donuts, which worked out fine, but they taste exactly like fried Pillsbury biscuits, not donuts.

Recipe here.

The Pin: Spice Rub for chicken, pork or beef.

The Verdict: This is the same spice rub I used last year for Hanukkah. It's got a lot of flavour but it's super easy. I like to cook pot roast with this method. The beef stock makes for a nice juice that can been thickened into a gravy or used as is.

So that was Hanuakkah, as pathetic as it was. I think that we might have a Danish Christmas Eve which will involve risalamande. They also traditionally serve cabbage with goose, duck or pork roast, but I don't really like goose or duck, so pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw might have to suffice.

Why I should totally be allowed to put my Christmas tree up in October

Remember October? That's when I WANTED to put up my Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, stupid social norms and common sense meant that I needed to wait another month, which meant the mania and subsequent energy has since worn off. Sunday we "decorated" the tree (I handed ornaments to the kids who loaded the bottom quarter's outside branches until Justin could redistribute them more evenly). It went as smoothly as can be expected until my OCD took over, we ran out of hooks, and I kicked Justin and the kids downstairs and finished it myself.

Liam has been sleeping a lot lately and having a couple of bad nights. I thought it might be the lack of morning light to wake him up. But when I was trying to get him ready for school, he threw up all the the bathroom floor. Yay.

The past week I:

Survived Justin's absence for the week
Spent 1 1/2 hours in the car on Friday trying to get down to Ikea
Bought curtain rods and rings at Ikea
Spent another hour in traffic getting from the airport parking lot to arrivals to pick up Justin (seriously, Seatac???)
Scrubbed down bathrooms
Laundry
Installed curtain hooks and rings and hung up the curtains. You know what is more complicated than it has any right to be? Curtain hooks and rings. I have to redo 3 out of 4 of the drapery panels, but I'm trying to work up the will to live.
Baked like crazy.

Having found out I have an auto-immune disorder and the possibility that wheat is secretly trying to kill me, means that I am, of course, craving all baked goodies. Until I am told by a rheumatologist I have to give up gluten, I'm going to keep right eating it. SUCK IT BODY. Sunday, I made banana chip muffins; Monday, I made cream scones; and tonight I made blackberry honey-wheat cream scones. If I had bread flour, I would have made pumpkin milk loaf. Yay for evolutionary carb cravings.

Homicide, homicide, we may see murder yet

Today I had a doctor's appointment and since Justin is in Utah, I had to take Liam with me. I dragged myself out of bed this morning and got Alana up and noticed that her diaper had leaked. So I had to give her a quick bath and shove her bedding into the washer before the school bus came. And then when I tried to get Liam up, he refused to move, mostly because his bed was warm, but also the curtains make his room much darker now and he's been confused in the morning because the sun used to wake him up. So I rushed two kids into clothes and through breakfast, left Liam sulking on the stairs while I waited for Alana's bus. The bus was, of course, 10 minutes late, which means I threw Liam into the car and sped into the city. Fortunately with Liam in the car meant that I could take the HOV lanes which turn into the express lanes, unfortunately, this means that I was taking a different route to the doctor's than I had gone before. I was following the GPS which lead me through Capital Hill, an area of Seattle I'm not actually sure I've been to before and I was panicked because driving in Seattle always give me panic attacks. Plus there was construction. Of course there was construction because of some weird habit in Washington in which they don't start road work until rain is due to set it. Grrrrr. The best part was when I had to turn right and I stopped for two idiot girls who walked as slowly as possible and the light turned yellow and red in the time it took them to get off the @##$% crosswalk. And then a guy crossing the road the other direction gave me a really dirty look as he walked around my car. Sorry random idiot, next time I'll TOTALLY run over some pedestrians just so you don't have to walk around my not-moving car. I was also a little freaked out because this was the neighbourhood that my cousin's girlfriend had been hit on her bike by a car the previous week.

I got to the doctor's with plenty of time however and they're actually very good about getting me in as soon as possible. The receptionist even sweetly gave Liam some colouring pages and markers. When I tried to wean off the prednisone a couple of weeks ago, the granuloma that was nearly gone grew back almost to the original size and felt like it might be bringing a friend along as I started to have a pain in a new part of my breast. I called the LPN who had me up my dosage to the previous week's for a couple of weeks to see if there was any change. The new pain stopped, but the original granuloma doesn't seem to have shrunk this time around. I actually missed a dose on Saturday morning and by the time the evening had rolled around, I had that new pain again and it took a couple of days for it to go away. The LPN has now doubled my dose, not quite as much as the original dosage, but more than I've been taking for 3 weeks now, and wants me to try that for two weeks. If the granuloma hasn't shrunk by then, she's weaning me off completely and referring me to a rheumatologist where I will be put on the methotraxate. Yay. She did point out that since the granuloma didn't seem to be causing me that much pain, it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to live with a lump in my breast (true, I guess) and chances are it would go away eventually. Apparently there's an expert in Scotland who studies granuloma mastitis and his patients don't take anything for it. They just let it burn itself out (usually takes a year) which results in pain, lesions, and the puss draining fistulas that I mentioned before. Umm, pass the prednisone, please.

This evening I was cooking dinner when Liam ran upstairs from the playroom telling me that Alana had hurt herself. Panicked, I ran downstairs to find that Alana was fine, but had been standing on a rubbermaid container on top of a table to try to get something off the shelf. But by running in, I tripped over all the toys they'd been spreading for the past week, stepped on yet more toys and wrenched my back. My kids nearly killed me because they had too many toys. I made Liam help me clean up the toys after Alana went to bed, and despite the fact it took an hour, he actually did a pretty good job. I also sorted out quick a few toys to donate and managed to (gasp) throw some away. The playroom is now spotless and I'm sitting here nursing a back spasm.

Today:

Went to the doctor's
Picked up books for the library
Cleaned up all the leaves from the back and side yard
Cleaned the kitchen (twice!)
Successfully did not commit homicide today

Honeydew for Thanksgiving

Last week Justin took the week off at which point I handed him a honey-do list that rivaled some military operations. We spent the week taking care of all the "small" projects that had been bothering me.

Last week Justin:

De-greased and re-greased the garage doors (did you know that you're supposed to grease your doors every year? PSA-go grease your doors!)
Replaced some of the rollers on the door (my door now no longer announces to the neighbourhood when I leave and arrive
Installed new garage door openers (and saved us $700!) which means that my garage door will close all the way instead of having a 2 inch gap at the bottom letting in mice, creepy crawlies and freezing cold air.
Cleaned out the garage bay so he can park in the garage too, yay!
Put up 8 sets of drapery, living room, dining room and the kids's room. Hopefully their rooms will no longer be 15 degrees colder than the rest of the house.
Helped me move the living furniture to put the rug pad down, re-roll out the carpet and move the furniture back. Hopefully, the rug will stay in place now and stop trying to trip people up.

Last week, I:

Roasted a turkey (I love turkey for leftovers)
Made duchesse potatoes, mashed potatoes, dressing, rolls, gravy, pumpkin pie, and a raspberry tart
With the above leftovers made 3 turkey lasagnas, turkey stock and then turkey noodle soup, and shepherd's pie, most of which I froze.
Scrubbed down the kids's bathroom including cobwebs (seriously, the spiders are out of control here)and mold
Took all lights off a prelit tree and restrung it with led lights. It took me over 8 hours and I was feeling less than Christmas cheerful when I was done.

So the story behind the tree is this: The 6 ft Christmas tree that I bought at a clearance sale 6 years ago that I planned on doing Festival of Trees with felt small and pathetic. It wasn't a tree I'd intended to keep anyway. I was also worried that the lights I bought at All-a-Dollar 10 years ago were a fire hazard and probably using a ton of energy, so I'd only leave the tree lit for a couple hours a day. I wanted an led 7.5 ft tree so I started to scour craigslist. After missing out on a couple of the ones I wanted, I finally tracked down a woman in West Seattle who claimed that her tree was a GE led tree. We went out and got it last Friday after our binge at Pike Place Market. When we got home, I realized that it was 1) not a led tree and 2) one of the strands was not working. I later found that the strand wasn't working because 1 bulb was missing, so it was actually okay. And to be fair, it looks like the woman in W. Seattle had just looked on the Home Depot website and tried to find the tree she had bought last year and had mistaken it for an led one (both said they had the "constant-on" feature). Since we hadn't spent that much on the tree, I figured even if we bought the led lights, we'd still come out ahead, spending about half the amount of a new led tree, even on sale.

I found some lights that matched the ones I'd bought last year at Fred Meyer and bought them. I then hung on to them to see if they went on sale for Black Friday. They did for about half the price I'd paid for them, so I sent poor Justin back over to the store to buy them and I returned the previous set later in the day. And then I stripped the lights off the tree and started to string on the led ones. And got about 2/3rds of the way up and ran out of lights. Damn. So back to the store I went to get more lights (should have kept the first batch). Several hours later, I emerged victorious. We now have a 7.5 ft led Christmas tree with over 800 lights for the grand total of less than $150. And since it uses 1/10th of the energy of new lights, and probably even less than that of my previous ghetto lights, I can leave the tree on all evening. Yay. And I also have microcuts over my hand. Ow. The added bonus is now all three of the Christmas trees have the same brand of lights on them. The kids were very excited to decorate their own trees this year and I'm hoping that it keeps them out of the big one.

Today I:

Got up at five to take Justin to the airport so he could go to Utah (and probably get away from my never ending list of chores)
Took the kids to speech therapy.
Grocery store

Alana deciding she was done for the afternoon. She fell asleep in the 1 mile journey to the speech therapist's office where I dumped her in a butterfly chair, thinking she'd wake up. She slept through all of Liam's appointment, then I carried her back to the car, drove home and laid her on the couch where she continued to nap for another hour and a half. 

Christmas decorations and Christmas trees and drapery! The big tree will remain un-decorated until I can get to Ikea and buy more ornaments-more trees plus larger tree means I ran out of ornaments. Ignore my sewing machine and serger.

Playing hooky

On Friday, Justin and I pulled the kids out of school, dumped them on my sister-in-law, and went into the city to play. We drove to Pike Place Market, gave myself a slight panic attack trying to park (I hate driving downtown), and did all the fun stuff we always planned on doing but would be hard with the kids. First we stopped by Beecher Cheese to pick up Christmas presents for family, then visited this weird store called Quintessential Gourmet, which is a place that specializes in flavoured olive oils and balsamic vinegars. We bought some for my sister's-in-law birthday and me. We then walked about a half mile down the road and did the Underground Tour of Seattle which was actually pretty interesting. I learned a lot about the history of Seattle, and it was cool to see a little bit of the old buildings's original store fronts. We were the only locals there that didn't have out of town guests, so I guess we're still acting like tourists.

After we finished the tour, we walked back to Pike Place Market, stopped the gum wall (ewwww, by the way) and got lunch at the Michou Deli on the recommendation of my brother. Unfortunately, the didn't have the sandwiches that Justin and I wanted, so we got the crispy chicken sandwiches which were still pretty good. The deli also had approximately four chairs, so we walked down the block to eat. Then we walked back into the market and stopped by a French bakery that was next to Michou called Le Panier. I think I've discovered heaven. We spent waaaaaay too much money getting pain au chocolat, tartelette, and macarons. We bought 8 macarons, and I ate 7 of them by myself. Oops. We also stopped at this amazing spice shop, World Merchants, where I bought a half lb of madras curry. They mix it up and grind it there for you and don't add any fillers and it ends up being cheaper than the store. Win.

We then drove into West Seattle to pick up a Christmas tree that I found on craigslist that ended up being disappointing, but that's a different story. Back to my brother's to pick up the kids and home where we collapsed. It was fun, we spent way too money, and I want to do it again.

Saturday was my niece's birthday party at the Seattle Children's Museum. It was hard to try to convince Liam to go and I gave myself a slight panic attack trying to park (again). But once we got there and Liam got over his crippling shyness around the other kids, the kids had a ball. Alana literally ran from exhibit to exhibit and Liam spent half his time in the art room. So, success even if Liam didn't talk to another kid.

Over the weekend I got nothing done. So it goes.

He totally gets me

Driving into the city yesterday:

Me: "I hate the orange on the Space Needle."

Justin: "Why?"

Me: "It's ugly. No one knows thinks of the Space Needle being orange. No one had heard of "Galaxy Gold" anyway."

Justin: Exactly. "Ugly, original, no one had heard of it. It's a biggest hipster in Seattle."

Faking it

The first thing Justin said when he looked out the window was "Apparently we've moved to London." It was very foggy and wet this morning, and more than anything I wanted to just crawl back into bed. But I got Alana ready for school and attempted to eat breakfast to go to my dance class this morning. Unfortunately, I ate some cold cereal and my body decided to revolt at because of the milk, and by the time I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up, it was too late to leave for my class. So as a punishment I paid medical bills (I have never been so grateful for insurance after this whole granuloma thing), registered Justin's car, dropped off snacks at the kids's school, and got the car oil changed. Then I wasted the entire day poking around my house, ignoring the laundry and the tutu I'm supposed to be working on, and filling and emptying my shopping cart on amazon. I've bought a lot of things this week: curtains for the living and kids rooms, garage door openers, and paying medical bills. But this is Christmas shopping, and usually I'm done by now. ARGH.

I also remembered that we needed that stuff called food, so I went to the grocery store. Unfortunately, right in the middle of trying to find a turkey, I had a panic attack and had to call Justin to come help me get out of the store. What is it with grocery stores? I have more panic attacks there than nearly any other place. Church is a close second. And then I got home and remembered three more things I forgot at the store so I have to go back. ARGH.

So right now I'm trying to fake being a normal human being right now. I don't think it's working. ARGH.

It's all relative

So yesterday I decided what I needed more than anything was a day that I could stay home. So I did. I ran tons of laundry and ironed my sheets and worked on a baby blanket that I started 6 months ago for a baby that was born two months ago (sorry Brooke!) while watching lots and lots of bad tv.

It was so fun I decided to do the same today. Until I realized that I was almost out of my pills, so when Justin got home, I forced him to go to Costco with us to get string cheese and pills. Yummmm, string cheese and pills.

So my days have been less than productive. I miss the mania. Never thought I would say that.

Self pity

I was totally going to be productive this weekend. I was going to clean the kids's playroom (a room I don't think that I've stepped into for a couple of weeks, instead just closing the door so I didn't have to look at the mess), I was going to get laundry done, I was going to get shopping and cooking done, I was going to go to my dance class, damn it. Instead, I mostly laid in bed if I didn't have to move and napped a lot.

A few months ago, I got cornered at a baby shower by the RS secretary (literally) and started to ask me what crafts I did because I mentioned that I sewed. I started listing off random crafts, babbling nervously, mostly because I couldn't remember this woman's name or even who the heck she was and if I kept talking maybe she wouldn't notice. When I mentioned origami, she brightened and asked me if I'd be willing to do a demonstration/lesson for the RS. Ummmm, why not, random lady I'm not sure that I've ever met before, I'll get right on that. I figured that this was was one of those polite conversation things that would probably be forgotten, and in a desperate attempt to get extricate myself from this lady, I said sure. Fast forward to last month, when lo, and behold, she sends me an email telling me that not only has she not forgotten about it, can I please do it for Super Saturday? If you don't know what Super Saturday is, it's a Saturday morning in which the ladies of the RS come together and learn to do a bunch of insipid Christmas crafts that they can't probably actually use in their real lives.

So yeah, I know I have a bad attitude about this whole thing, but truth be told, I feel like I've been commandeered into this situation. Not only that, I have no idea about the who, what, or when about this whole thing. Okay. So I buy enough paper at Joann for what I estimate the population of the RS (I actually have no idea how many people I'm supposed to be teaching but I guessed maybe about 30?), and start searching the internet for Christmas themed origami. If you don't know anything about origami, it's a SHINTO WEDDING TRADITION. Not really a whole lot of Christmas potential there. I finally decide to just teach them paper cranes because 1) it looks cool, 2) they can be "ornaments", and 3) it's really easy.

Fast forward to Friday night when I'm panicking quite badly because I'm faced with a huge unknown and my printer is out of toner to print the instructions. I also dig through my Christmas stuff trying to find the fabric cranes I made a few years ago (which I never did find), get out a table cloth and see if I can find anything that would make a suitable centerpiece (because you can't ever do a RS thing without a centerpiece-that would be MADNESS.) Justin and I take the kids to Costco to get toner, throw some hot dogs at them, and rush over to Home Depot to see if they have any of those $5 table top trees that I could use. Nope. Seriously, Home Depot? I was there two days before and they had them then. Run over to Dollar Tree. Nope. Run over to the church, throw the table cloth on a table, lay out the paper, display the 8 paper cranes I'd made before hand, decide it looks absolutely pathetic, run back over to Home Depot to buy one of their 3 ft Christmas trees (that fortunately I'd been thinking of buying for the kids anyway), and then home where I spent the next hour manufacturing paper cranes with a raging migraine.

Saturday morning, I go over to the church a little early where mercifully I'd been scheduled to be one of the first classes so I didn't have to participate or be social any more than I had to be. I set up the tree, put some lights on it, and started to shove paper cranes on the light bulbs. Then I noticed a complete lack of table clothes, centerpieces, or really, any decorations on the other tables. Seriously. Ummmm, I felt a little foolish. I got through teaching the class (an hour with really only about 15 minutes of material), took everything down and shoved it into my car, noticed it was too late for me to get to my ballet class, drove to the Korean store and bought some kimchi, and got Justin's tire pressure checked. And then home where I napped for the rest of the day. I even made Justin go to the grocery store so I didn't have to leave the house again.

Part of the reason I've been kind of in a funk lately is that despite the prednisone and all its fun side effects, as soon as I started to wean off it, I'd notice a pain in my left breast again. That won't go away. And the lump from the previous granuloma that had all but disappeared completely seemed to be getting bigger again. So chances are the steroids didn't work and that I'm probably going to have to try the methotraxiate. And because it's not going away, it may to be an autoimmune disorder. So when I said it's not lupus? Totally could be. But not really. I don't think lupus causes granuloma mastitis. But there is a good chance that this is a sign of something much worse that will probably affect the rest of my life. Crap.

The weekly recap of crap I did this week from Wednesday onward:

Got the gym Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Panicked myself into a frenzy about Super Saturday on Friday night resulting in 2 trips to Home Depot and 1 to Costco
Did some laundry
Made some banana muffins because Liam was begging for them
Cleaned my kitchen too many times to count (nor did it make a difference apparently)
Taught about 10 women (yup, that was it) to make paper cranes
Successfully restrained myself from killing anyone this weekend (yes, this is an accomplishment.)

Dragging

So I was going to post a political post today, but I'm not really in the mood. But go Obama!

I've been dragging for the past couple of days, which I think is just leftover from the sleep deprivation. I think I'm getting every side effect from the prednisone, but just one at a time. First I had the nausea, then I tried to eat everything in sight, then the insomnia/crazies set in, and now I have crazy acne. I didn't even have acne as a teenager (humble brag) so this is a little disconcerting when I'm closer to 30 than my teens.

So yesterday I went back to my original doctor to see what my endocrinology panel said. It's been confirmed that I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. Mostly this is not a big deal. She wants to keep me on the metformin to see if it helps regulate my cycle out. It also will help cut my chances of developing diabetes, something that is higher now because of the PCOS and also the high blood sugar I had when pregnant with Liam. Oh and apparently, this might have been a problem for a long time and the reason that it was so hard for me to get pregnant in the first place. Hooray for long term health problems. Fortunately as far as diseases go, this is definitely not a bad one to have. I will have to get yearly hemoglobin A1Cs for the diabetes, and if the metformin doesn't work, then I will have to get an IUD to stave off endometriosis. Yay?

I'm a little bored and unmotivated right now. Maybe I need a project. Or I should get a job. Or go back to school. Or something. Maybe this is why Mormon women have so many kids. At least something keeps you busy when kids hit school age.

Yesterday I:

Went to a doctor (didn't freak out this time)
Cleaned my kitchen

Today I:

Went to the gym (yay!)
Laundry
Napped

Sleep

So on the last couple of days of last week and over the week end, I guess the only 3 hours of sleep I was getting at nights caught up with me and I crashed. Friday I laid in bed when I didn't have to move and just dozed. Oh well, the mania was fun while it lasted and I actually got some stuff done.

However, this was Alana after we got done with Home Depot today (you can hear me sniggering in the background):

And from about a month ago at the grocery store. I couldn't figure out why everyone going the other direction was laughing at us until I saw this:

Over the weekend I:

Started to steam clean my downstairs hallway when the belt on my steamer snapped.
Went to target to pick up nighttime diapers and see if they had a belt for my steamer. They didn't, so I ordered it online. So the 3' x 4' patch of carpet I managed to clean looks good, but the rest will have to wait.
Went to ballet (yay!)
Grocery stores
Home Depot
Weather stripped the door between the garage and house. I feel like an idiot because we didn't do this last year and had HUGE energy bills
Laundry
Cleaned out a bunch of boxes in the garage and discovered we have MICE. Ugh. Fortunately it didn't look they had gotten into any of the boxes, and I quickly packed things into plastic boxes so they should be safe.
Separated out a bunch of baby stuff to donate


Today I:

Kids's speech therapy
Dropped off baby stuff at D.I.
Back to Home Depot for more weathering supplies
Grocery store
Put weather stripping and door sweeps on the front door
Folded the laundry from over the weekend
Put pictures in the frames that came today

I survived Halloween

I'll get a picture of the kids up. It's on the camera and I'm too tired/lazy to get them off right now.

So I was determined that this year the kids would have an easier time trick or treating. Last year, most of the people on our street either didn't have candy (seriously?), were gone, or in one case, a very confused new immigrant who graciously gave the kids some granola bars. I heard that Edmonds, the city north of us and where my parents are actually from originally, hosts some big bash downtown with all the stores. I looked into driving, but we actually hadn't gone up there since we've moved here and I realized it's been 20 years since I've been in that area. I decided that since I didn't know the parking situation, maybe this was a good time to try out the bus system. We packed the kids into the car, drove to Costco where the major bus transfer station is, and walked up the street to the bus station. I started to have a panic attack because 1) I didn't know if the bus was going to be on time, plus it was apparently on a different schedule and route because of this Halloween festival, 2) if we were at the right bus stop or if we were supposed to be at the transfer station, 3) it was POURING, and 4) Liam LICKED the bus stop bench. But the bus arrived on time, and we got off at the stop we were supposed to and realized we should have gotten off at the previous one, walked back and finally found a burger joint to have dinner. This place looked like a dive, but it had the BEST BURGERS (yes, I had a burger; I don't do pescetarian all the time). They were messy and delicious and I'm so going back and trying the salmon sandwich. We then walked back to the downtown area were it was starting to get a little crowded.

I was totally impressed by this Halloween bash though. The police actually set up barriers so there were no cars and all the merchants for about 5 city blocks really got into it. Nearly every single store was handing out candy. Last year apparently there were over 5000 people there, but it wasn't until after about an hour that it started to even really feel like it was getting crowded. It was well lit, people were mostly polite (though there were a couple of teenagers that I wanted to smack because they kept getting in front of the kids, and this was obviously meant for younger children), music was playing and it was very, very easy. My favourite was two guys at a real estate agency with Obama and Romney masks handing out candy together. However when we passed on the way back, only Obama remained, making me feel like it might have been cosmic foreshadowing. We're definitely going back next year but I think I'll forego the bus (which still worked out really well) and just drive since there was plenty of parking if you get there early enough and are willing to walk a little bit.

Today I was decided to get some housekeeping stuff done. Mostly because our landlord finally decided that the flooding the water heater was causing was bad and got around to replacing it. So I kind of alternated between watching Sherlock episodes and poking around my house doing little things. I feel like I actually accomplished some stuff even if it doesn't really look like it. Oh well.

Yesterday I:

Dropped off treats at the kids's classes and then went to the bank
Cleaned the kitchen (becoming a bit obsessive about this)
Tried to donate blood but was rejected because my pulse was too high. I'll try again next week.
Did some mechanical turks because I was bored (mechanical turks though amazon is a great way to earn a couple of extra bucks every month if you need to. I made $250 last summer)
Survived Halloween

Today I:

Paid bills
Grocery store
Cleaned out the kid's extra shoes and vacuumed the inside of the shoe cabinet and cleaned the foyer
Repacked the kid's clothes into a plastic container, getting rid of 4 cardboard boxes and freeing up a lot of space on my garage shelves, rearraigned the shelves and put stuff in the shed. I expect the extra space to last about 2 seconds.
Climbed up on my car to put new light bulbs in the garage door opener
Got out the portraits we had done 18 months ago and ordered picture frames
I've dumped the laundry on my bed so before I can go to sleep I HAVE to fold it, which I am now off to do with a couple of loads of laundry washing.

Damn You Pinterest Halloween edition

Justin has now informed me that I've become "that mother that the other mothers hate." Oops. Anyway, here are the pins that I did for the kids's school treats:

The Pin: "Jell-O flavoured popcorn balls."

The Verdict: This totally worked! I however wrapped my popcorn balls around pretzels instead of tootsie rolls for the stems and decided to forego the leaf, something I regret because you can't really see the pretzel very well (should have used pretzel rods instead of sticks) and it makes it just that much more cute. But it tastes.....overworked. By the time the popcorn has cooled, it's nasty anyway, then you add a liquid and microwave it some more and form it into balls. When you're finished, the popcorn has been through the wringer and tastes exactly like Jell-O flavoured popcorn. But they're very cute.

The Pin: "Cute Idea- Always looking for party ideas that don't involve candy! Draw jack-o-lantern faces on mandarin oranges for a school party."

The Verdict: Okay, so there really wasn't anyway this one wasn't going to work out. It took me a xl QI episode (about 45 minutes) to do two Costco bags of oranges. The only problem that I had was that the oil from the peel kept making my pen not work until I cleaned it off onto paper, so I went through about 2 sharpies. But once they dried, there was no smearing. It did look like I was being stalked by a horde of oranges when I got done: 

The Pin: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookie, a chocolate chip cookie flavoured with pumpkin spice pudding mix. Nicely soft and chewy.

The Verdict: The baking of this went okay. It was a remarkably forgiving cookie. I had to bake it for 12 minutes instead of 8 since I stuck my dough back into the fridge because it was too soft. Even with the extra baking time, they stayed soft and chewy. However, they aren't earth shattering taste wise. There's a little bit of a cinnamon taste but not much more. Maybe doubling the pudding amount? Still pretty good.

So this is what I ended up with:

The orange thing on the left is a juice box wrapped in a napkin. So it's a pumpkin full of pumpkin stuff. Aaaaaaand now you can hate me.

So Justin woke me up AGAIN when he went to bed. It was 2 am this time. Around four I gave up trying to go back to sleep and went into the kitchen to start cleaning. At 6 am, Justin found me on the stairs steam cleaning the carpet. I finally took a nap when Liam went off to school in the afternoon, but I woke up about 2 hours later. I'm running out of things to clean because of my nervous energy. Despite all this mania though, I still haven't folded the damn laundry.

Today:

Made popcorn balls and pumpkin pudding cookies

Drew faces on 20 juice boxes, 20 paper bags, and 12 lbs worth of oranges

Cleaned my kitchen (twice) and steamed the floor

Steam cleaned the carpet stairs

Vacuumed the upstairs

Repaired my purse. I love this bag. It's one of the last thing I bought in Singapore. I want to be buried with this bag.

Cleaned and organized Alana's room

Grocery store

Curry

Lorelai: "What about Paris? Does she ever sleep?"
Rory: "I think she periodically makes a whirring noise and then just shuts down." 

-Gilmore Girls, "The Bracebridge Dinner" 

I think that I'm about ready to make that whirring noise. Last night, Justin woke me up when he went to bed at 2:30 (!!!!) and I didn't go back to sleep until 6:30. But I woke up at the usual time feeling fine. Today I took the kids to Alana's speech therapy, then to the post office, and then got to Costco with the intent of picking up more pills and oranges. But when I got there, I figured I'd look at the phones since we needed to upgrade them. I noticed that they not only had the phones we wanted, but at a cheaper price, no activation fee and they gave you a free bundle of "stuff". As if I didn't love Costco enough before. I called Justin to get his butt over there as fast as possible, did the rest of our shopping, and then we bought some phones (seriously, easiest thing in the world). Then we fed the kids a costco deli lunch, and then Justin went home for a phone call and I took the kids back to the therapist for Liam's appointment. Then I went home and thought about raking leaves, ignored them, moved a shelf from my garage into the back shed, thought about moving stuff from the garage onto the new shelf, ignored it, ignore the boxes of clothes I keep meaning to repack into plastic containers and then went inside to make curry and rotis.

So my productive day ended up being not so productive and I didn't get to the gym or ballet class, which was really my goal today. Oh well. Anyway, here is my recipe for yellow chicken curry and roti (a fried Indian bread):

Taken with my new phone, but still doesn't change the fact I'm a crappy photographer.

Yellow Chicken Curry (adapted from this recipe), makes 6 servings

Ingredients

Yellow curry paste:

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds (crushed with a pestle)

2 tbsp hot madras curry powder (regular curry works too, but hot madras really adds to the flavour. If using regular curry powder, use 3 tbsp)

2 tsp crushed red pepper

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 small onion, peeled and quartered

4 large garlic cloves (or minced equivalent)

Put all  ingredients into a blender. Add 1-2 Tbsp of water to help the ingredients mix better. Process until smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula as necessary. Set aside.

Curry:

2 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1" chunks

1 small onion, chopped

1 recipe yellow curry paste (see above)

1 can of coconut milk (14 oz / 400 mL)

6 golden potatoes (yes it really makes a difference to have yellow potatoes), cut into 1" chunks

2-4 carrots, cut on the 1/2" bias

1 red bell pepper (optional because I hate bell peppers), seeded and chopped into 1/2" chunks

1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions

In a large skillet, heat the oil over high heat until it shimmers. Add the chicken and chopped onion, sprinkle liberally with salt, and saute just until the point no pink remains. Transfer the chicken pieces into a bowl and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium. Scrape in the curry sauce from the blender jar (be careful - it may splatter if the pan is too hot). Stirring constantly, cook until the liquid evaporates and only a fragrant, golden brown paste remains, 3-4 minutes.

Carefully pour in half a can of coconut milk and stir until the curry paste is dissolved.

Add the potatoes and carrots, the rest of the coconut milk, and the sugar. Heat until the coconut milk begins to bubble.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the potatoes and carrots are tender, 10-15 minutes.

Add the chicken, any accumulated juices in the bowl, and the red pepper. Stir to coat with curry sauce, and simmer 5 minutes, or until the chicken is just done.

Serve with jasmine or basmati rice.

Roti (from this recipe), makes 8-10 rotis


Ingredients

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter
1/4-1/2 cup water
vegetable oil

Instructions
1. Mix wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, and sieve them together.
2. Pour melted butter in the flour and add water bit by bit and make a smooth & elastic dough and set aside covered with moist muslin cloth for 1/2 an hour.
3. Cut off small balls of dough, slightly bigger than a golf ball, and roll out thinly into circles of about 10" diameter, dusting with AP flour.
4. Heat an oil in a frying pan or electric skillet until hot. Place the roti carefully over it and cook for about 1 minute. The bottom will puff out a little bit and the edges will start to bubble a little. Flip and cook about 1 minute on the other side. Removed from oil onto a plate.

A variation of this is to beat a couple of eggs with water and dip the rotis into the egg before frying. The egg cooks on the outside of the roti, giving it more flavour.

Mania and why I hate Halloween

So that past couple of days I've woken up (before my alarm went off) feeling like I could take on the world. Is this how normal people feel? For the past year, I've been dragging myself out of bed, obsessed when the next time I could take a nap was, and feeling like everything I did, I did moving through waist deep mud. I'm thinking that I AM going through a manic period that I occasionally get, but it's just a euphoric mania instead of a dysphoric one. Dysphoric mania usually ends up with me fighting with everyone and trying to rip up the furniture with the bread knife.

The rare times I get manias (maybe once a year) usually are marked by me spending a lot of money and starting a bunch of projects, convinced that I can do everything. Sometimes I sign up to be costume director of a play. Or a color guard instructor. Or painting half my kitchen and then forgetting about the rest of it for a year and a half. You know, the usual stuff. I also get really jittery, have a tendency to lose weight really easily because I forget to eat, and get really impatient people because they are too slow. Basically, I turn into Paris Gellar from Gilmore Girls.

I'm going to still list my accomplishments because this has become an interesting exercise in what I actually get done in my day, but you can expect my lists to get very sporratic and probably to stop making sense (why sure, I totally thought that the roof needed to be scrubbed down with a toothbrush).

I also hate Halloween. I think this holiday embodies everything that is wrong with our society. I hate the slutty costumes, the stupid scary movies, the idiot teenagers that show up on my doorstep at 10 at night with no costumes expecting candy. I told off a teenager at the trunk or treat tonight because he tried to get candy from my multiple times and he wasn't even wearing a costume. Seriously?

Yesterday I:

Scrubbed out my fridge
Sewed- 2 skirts, 1 dress, one bow for Minnie Mouse ears, one pillow cover, a tabard, and got halfway through a doublet.

Today:

Went to my ballet class
Finished the doublet
Took the kids to a trunk or treat

Antsy

I need to get back to the gym. I'm getting antsy and restless. I need motivation. I'm getting fat again, I guess that's my motivation. I'm tired.

Today I went on a field trip with Alana's class. The local grocery store re-branded themselves and they're doing tours for the local schools. It was actually really cute because the manager came out and gave us a tour around the different sections of the store where the kids received a small item like a cookie from the bakery or an apple from produce and then "paid" a dollar (the fee for the field trip) at the check out. It was very fun for 12 very small, confused, excitable 3-4 year olds. We walked back and forth from the school since it was only three blocks and I talked to Alana's teacher a little bit. She's amazing. She has a 3 and 5 year at home as well, watches her nephew AND teaches pre-school part time. I get exhausted doing laundry. I need to start doing more.

Today I:

Went on Alana's school trip
Rented a hand snake and unplugged my shower drain that had stopped draining.
Scrubbed the pot that I'd burned rice in two days ago for over and hour and FINALLY got all the burned rice off and saved the pot. Yay for barkeeper's friend.
Couple loads of laundry
Cleaned my kitchen from top to bottom. Expect to last this about 30 seconds.

10/24

Today I:

Washed all the laundry in the house in between watching episodes of Suburgatory and Nevermind the Buzzcocks.

Casualties

So today, I burned the rice. Add this to the pot I burned last week and the one before that, and it's starting to look like I have about a 50% average. So why not buy a rice cooker you ask? HA. Well, one is that those puny rice cookers that you can buy in American stores don't make enough. And I've already killed three of them over the course of our marriage.

I started to think about the appliances I've killed over the past 8 1/2 years. So far it's been:

1 clothing iron
2 crock pots (one melted and the other started on fire. No, seriously.)
4 hand mixers (and one on the way out)
3 rice cookers
1 sewing machine (that was brought back to life)
2 toasters
1 sandwich maker (to be fair, that one was Justin)
2 waffle irons
1 blender (that predated marriage)
1 mini food processor

Whew. That's quite a list. I really am not that hard on small appliances. I think they're just crap most of the time and made to die. The best one was when I plugged in the last crock pot and it sparked and started smoking. How on earth did that happen?!? I am currently without a blender, rice cooker, crock pot, waffle iron or toaster. Anyone have a brand/model they love?

Today I:

Medical appointment
Hobby lobby (which deserves it's own blog post)
Library to return and pick up books
Costco to return a coat

The Ultimate Mommy Confession

So since I'm a stay at home mom, I really don't have a hard life. Plus Justin can work at home, which he does every Monday and usually at least one other day a week, so it's not like I'm really knowing what it's like for my working/single counterparts.

So why do I need a break from the kids?!?!?!? They are driving me CrAzY. Maybe it's the medication, maybe it's because the last time I left them with someone else was June, maybe it's the fact that I haven't ever had an overnight from the kids (seriously, I've never left my kids overnight ever. Liam is 5). The only time I spend away from kids right now is shopping or medical appointments. And getting poked in the chest is only marginally better than hauling around whiny kids.

Looking through blogs, parenting sites, facebook, etc. it's not shameful to admit to wanting to get away from kids. But heaven forbid you should actually take it. Apparently these two little monsters are supposed to be my greatest accomplishment or something. But my schedule is so wrecked right now since I have to be here 4 times a day at scheduled times to get the kids on and off the bus, and the one day a week they don't have school is taken up with speech therapy appointments 4 hours apart. Maybe I should pull them out of school for a day, leave them with someone, and actually have a day I could go into the city.

This is probably the point that I should warn Mindy that when she comes back from Utah, she'll likely be that person. Anyway, this is my post psychotic break, stream of consciousness, after sugar low and then rush blog post.

Today I:

Laundry
Grocery
Scrubbed out my hearth with tri sodium phosphate for 3 hours. It now looks worse than before.

You know those days

That you start thinking and feel depressed and start getting mad about everything and before long you're pissed at pretty much everyone you've ever met and you feel like punching the next person who crosses your path and yet you haven't said a word to anyone? That's a good description of my week. So I'm going to sit here with a pot noodle and old QI episodes to try to cheer myself up instead of verbally combusting on people who well and truly deserve it.

Today I went to:

Grocery store
Korean store
Joanns
Bank
City offices to pay utility bill

Cioppino

So, cioppino. A seafood soup from Fisherman's Wharf, the original San Francisco treat (forget that rice-a-roni stuff). There are two origins of the name, one is a bastardization of the Italian seafood soup "ciuppin". The other is when the fishermen would come back with their catches, and someone would start a soup for dinner and the fishermen would "chip in, no?" (which is how I remember how it's pronounced). Either way, it's tasty and very messy. Frozen seafood is okay, fresh is better (Costco's selection is excellent), clams and shrimp are probably the least expensive, and ultimately, it's whatever you like. The recipe I adapted is from here.

Makes 4 dinner size portions
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup butter
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz)
2 cups clam juice or fish stock (or substitute chicken or veggie broth)
2 cups chicken or veggie broth or water
4 cloves crushed or minced garlic equivalent
1/2 lb baby or 2-3 gold potatoes, cubed into 1" chunks (optional, but nice to stretch it out if you are lacking seafood or want it to be a little more "full")
1 lemon, juiced or 2 tbsps lemon juice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper

3-5 lbs seafood, my breakdown is usually something like this:

     1 Dungeness crab (about 2-lbs), cracked and cleaned (save the shells)

     1 to 1 1/2 lbs pounds a white fish (halibut, cod, etc), skinned and cut into 1" chunks
     1 to 1 1/2 lbs large prawns, peeled and de-veined (I like the kinds with heads and save the shells)
     1-2 lbs mussels and/or clams; soaked, scrubbed and debearded

     Other options are squid, scallops, salmon, snapper, cockles, oysters, canned clams or basically anything you want.

1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped for garnish, but it does add a nice crunch at the end
lemons
sourdough bread

Preparation:

Clean seafood. Combine soft parts of crab shells, and shrimp heads and shells into a saucepan, cover with water and simmer until shrimp shells are spent and soft. Drain out shells and save broth.

Meanwhile in a large pot, melt the butter with the olive oil and saute the celery and onions until soft. Add crushed tomatoes, all broths (fish stock, canned, and chicken), garlic, potatoes, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and all spices. Simmer on low for one hour. Add more chicken stock if it gets thick (should be stew-like)

Add the crab, shrimp, and fish, and simmer another five minutes. Add the shellfish, cover the pot and simmer for 5 minutes more, or until the mussels and/or clams open and fish is tender. Serve hot with parsley and lemons and lots and lots of sourdough bread.

Stabby

I'd normally blog about tonight, but this has been one of those days that something must die. And to make sure it's not you, gentle reader, I will save the blogging for tomorrow. Maybe I'll even post my cioppino recipe.

Seafood diet

So the increased appetite side effect kicked in today. I was in the grocery store when I felt the need to try to buy and eat EVERYTHING. I tried to buy my weight in sushi, seafood, and pot noodles. Most of the fish went into cioppino tonight and the sushi was devoured for lunch along with a grilled cheese. I'm hoping that I won't weigh a thousand pounds before this course of prednisone is over. Fortunately, I talked my doctor into prescribing metformin for me (which is going to be a long term medication) which will off set any appetite issues. I can't start it for another day because she wanted me to be on the prednisone for a week to make sure there weren't any bad side effects. In the mean time, a can of olives is a perfectly valid bedtime snack, right guys?

Today I:

Took both kids to speech therapy
Washed all of Alana's bedding
Grocery store
Made some kick-ass cioppino

Good news/bad news

So the good news is that the prednisone is obviously working since my lump is shrinking quickly. The bad news is that I've had a consistent and sometimes very painful ache in my lower back which makes me immediately freak out about kidney failure brought on by the prednisone. And of course it has to be the weekend so I can't call the nurse.

Today I:

Sewing with Mindy
Lunch with Mindy and my mom
Laundry (three loads so far)
Cleaned my counters, glass top, and floors. Then cooked dinner and realized you can't tell I did anything today.

10/10

Today I:

Sewing with Mindy
Grocery store
Parent's night for the kids's school

Side Effects

Difficulty controlling emotion
Difficulty in maintaining train of thought
Weight gain
Facial swelling
Depression, mania, psychosis, or other psychiatric symptoms
Unusual fatigue or weakness
Mental confusion / indecisiveness
Blurred vision
Abdominal pain
Peptic ulcer
Infections
Painful hips or shoulders
Steroid-induced osteoporosis
Stretch marks
Osteonecrosis
Long-term migraines
Insomnia
Severe joint pain
Cataracts or glaucoma
Anxiety
Stomach pain or bloating
Severe swelling
Mouth sores or dry mouth
Nervousness
Acne
Rash
Increased appetite
Hyperactivity
Frequent urination
Diarrhea
Leg pain/cramps
Sensitive teeth

These are all side effects of prednisone. Guess what I got prescribed today. I went to my appointment with the Martha Clay, the RN that I was referred to after being diagnosed with granuloma mastitis. This time I gave myself plenty of time to get down there, arriving 45 minutes before my check in time which was a half hour before my actually appointment. So I bought myself a sub because I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch, then waited around for a very long time. I got back to the exam room and was asked about my records, which is when I realized I had left them in the my car....which was at home because I had taken Justin's car. ARGH. So she read through the pathology report, felt me up, and then left so I could get dressed. She came back to talk to me about my options. Option 1 was to wait and see if this would go away. Chances were miniscule this was going to happen. More likely, she said was going to happen would be the tissue would start to deteriorate, and I could get fistulas through the skin so the granuloma could drain out in the form of pus (???!!??). This would be painful and icky. Option 2 was to take massive amounts of prednisone, an immunosuppressive steroid that would probably cause the inflammation to go away but had a laundry list of side effects that are very common. Option 3 was to take methotrexate, a drug that is used to treat autoimmune disorders, as well as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and to induce abortions. This would most definitely take care of the granuloma, but she would have to refer me to a rheumatologist to get a prescription and I could have to get regular liver function tests to make sure I wasn't killing my liver.

Since driving to get my blood drawn every day isn't really an option, and I didn't really want to see pus leaking fistulas on my boob, I went with option 2. Which means I get to be on a powerful drug that will make my insomnia worse, my depression and anxiety very apparent, and put stress on my already screwy glucose levels. Woot.

I forgot to mention that somehow I lost the parking time stamp ticket and was frantically ripping my car apart when I was supposed to pay. Fortunately, the very kind parking attendant took me at my word and just charged me for the time I was supposedly parked.

Today I:
Survived downtown to be poked by yet another person who is only interested in me for my body.
Returned books to the library.
Went to Costco to fill a prescription.

Damn you Pinterest!

So it's probably no secret that I (like the rest of the female, and some of the male, population) am addicted to Pinterest. However, I love the websites Pinstrocity, CraftFail, and PinterestFail. Not all pins are winners, obviously. So I'm starting a series called "Damn you Pinterest" which is my personal experiences with my pinterest finds.

The Pin: "How to Whiten Your Teeth Cheaply with Hydrogen Peroxide as a Mouthwash... I like this version better. Rinse first (don't dilute) and then brush teeth."

The Verdict: This actually worked! But not as quickly as sometimes stated.. I've been doing it for probably a couple of months. When I started, I brushed in on my teeth with Q-tips a couple of times a day, but eventually got brave enough to rinse my mouth with it. I don't know if too many years of kim chi stained my teeth too badly to work quickly but it was about 2 weeks before I noticed it was working at all, and now 2 months in, my teeth are now a couple of shades lighter, but still not white. I'm doubtful about the claims of being healthier for your gums and preventing cavities, but 3% peroxide isn't going to hurt you unless you drink it. Don't drink it.

The Pin: "Transport cupcakes in disposable cups"

The Verdict: Cute and definitely transport friendly, but then getting the cupcake out later is a PITA. Not bad if you don't mind frosting on your hands later.

The Pin: "Make your own 50-hour candles for less than 2 dollars a piece."

The Verdict: This tutorial was pretty easy to follow, but making candles isn't exactly rocket science. However, the cost and the time claims were pretty week. I had a hard time find soy wax as cheaply as he was claiming, and the start up costs of getting the jars and the tabs were much steeper. I used larger jars (peach jars from Costco) that I already had, the cost was about $27 for just the wax and wicks (I had leftover wicks and tabs though). Then Justin and I started to burn one, and it burned pretty well, but it seemed like it was going to burn through much faster than the 150 hours my jar size was supposed be able to last.

The Pin: "This naughty Bloomin' Onion Bread has cheese stuffed in every crack and is cut just like the Bloomin' Onion from Outback. My family loved this but really it's enough to feed a small army. It's a fun way to serve bread because everyone can just pull off a piece of cheesy onion bread. This would be a great appetizer or bread for a meal."

The Verdict: This was pretty good, but a pain to make. Cutting the bread was difficult, the sliced cheese wouldn't stay put and then it was A LOT of bread and it wasn't very tasty the next day. My solution would be to use grated cheese and it use dinner rolls, perfect for one person's serving.

The Pin: "Toss with olive oil, and salt. Coat a microwave-safe plate with spray oil, then spread a single layer of potatoes on the plate. Nuke, turn the potatoes over, and nuke again. That’s it. As they come off the hot plate and start to cool, they will crisp up even more. Indeed, they were still crispy the next day, too."

The Verdict: Justin and I tried this twice. Both times it was a big, fat FAIL. They came out soggy or burned and none in between. We tried various potato types, microwavable plates, and times. We found a perfectly flat plate worked the best, the yukon gold potatoes worked a little better, and a longer initial nuking and shorter second one. But none turned out very well.

Anyway, I'll post more of these later, or possibly lose interest like most things I do.

Today I:

Scrubbed out my washing machine

Cleaned my oven (started yesterday) which I'm pretty sure has never been cleaned

Went to the grocery store

When body isn't trying to actively kill me

it keeps busy making sure I don't get too comfortable. Since Justin has the immune system of an ox and Liam has a flu shot, that left Alana and I to get the flu this week. I was an evil mommy and still sent Alana to school (she wasn't that bad until Thursday and there wasn't school today). So when I haven't had things that I really needed to do, I've been crawling into my bed and dozing while Liam plays with Lego bricks in the living room.

Today the kids didn't have school so Justin and I took the kids over to the cheap theater because Brave was playing. Since Liam has forever been traumatized by Queen Victoria, he spent the first half hour saying audibly, "I need to go out." When I refused to take him out, he would fake cry for a few seconds to the delight of the other patrons (hey, it was a matinee on Friday at a second rate theater and there were only about five other people). When that didn't work, he actually would watch mesmerized until something scary happened. I loved the movie, but it was a lot more sinister than I was expecting and Liam did NOT like the bears. Any of them. We had to take him out of the theater twice for the scary bits, but I stood my ground that we had to stay until the end. One, Liam needed to see the mom turn back into a human or he would forever think the mom was stuck as a bear and two, he needed to learn that not all movies were scary (even the short at the beginning freaked him out. Seriously, it was about the moon). So we held out and after the movie, he was all smiles and giggles. ARGH, kid, ARGH.

This week (from Tuesday onwards) I:

Took Alana to speech therapy
Got to the district offices to donate software
Got my blood drawn
Sat with my sister-in-law for two sewing sessions
Went to the library
Carved pumpkins with the kids, or the kids started to help me, lost interest and then stole some capri-sun while I worked, covered in pumpkin guts.
Picked up my medical records from the breast center and made an appointment with the next RN for treatment (seriously, why doesn't anyone pick up a phone at a doctor's office anymore?!?)

It's not cancer

Someone page Doctor House for me. Mostly because I want to meet Hugh Laurie.

So I got a call this afternoon from the very sweet RN at the breast clinic, who much have brow beat the pathologist into rushing my sample because it was done a day earlier than it was supposed to. First thing she did was assure me that it was not cancer. She informed it was something called a granulomatous mastitis, which was just a fancy name for a lump in the breast (ummmm, no kidding, Sherlock). She referred me to yet another clinic downtown where I'd talk to another RN to see about treatment/surgery. They are going to have to do more tests to see if the cause is bacterial or fungal, then put me on a round of steroids to see if it'll shrink the granuloma. If not, then it'll have to be removed. So yay, not cancer, and boo, more testing.

So like the genius that I am, I googled granulomatous mastitis. Wikipedia informed me that it was caused by a variety of things including TUBERCULOSIS. Ummmm, I'm not sure that I ever got my DTAP. I also kind of failed a TB test about seven years (had to get them yearly working in a hospital). Okay, I didn't really fail, but I didn't pass. Closest thing that the doctor could figure out was that I was allergic to the test. Both of them because they tried two different types. But no, I don't have TB. I think.

If it seems like I've had a ton of medical pseudo-crises, um, I sort have. I've had so far: an abnormal pap smear, pre-eclampsia, a couple undetermined TB tests, and now a granuloma. And I'm only 27. Seriously universe?

So now I get to try to contact another clinic that never answers their phone. I also get to contact my original doctor that I saw last Tuesday, who very kindly called this morning to see how I was doing. She told me that my thyroid result was slightly abnormal, but probably not enough to cause problems. So I have to go back for more blood testing, possible an ultrasound of ovaries, and pharmacological sampling. Yay, fun!

Today I:

Took both kids to speech therapy
Too many loads of laundry
Mended some shirts. Just call me Laura Ingalls.

Never start an land war in Asia either

I have learned today, in addition to the rule "never go to Costco on a Saturday", never go to an Asian grocery story the day before the Moon Festival. I was looking for moon cakes, but also needed some bonito flakes. I walked up and down the aisles for about a half hour and I FINALLY found it. I was about ready to give up, chaulking it up to one of two things: either this store was just too big, or the rest Asia still hadn't forgiven the Japanese.

Today I:

Taught ballet at the YMCA
Went to Survived Costco and the Asian market

Remind me not to play Russian Roulette

So today was the ultrasound for the lump on my breast. It had stopped hurting and had gone down to about the quarter of size it was on Tuesday. I was just hoping that it was a cyst and it was going away, or would go away with aspiration. I got to my appointment without any panicking and checked in with a very sweet, very old, very incompetent receptionist. After checking, I was lead into a changing room, told to take off my top clothing and put on a gown that thankfully wrapped around the front and then led into another waiting room.

The ultrasound tech came pretty quickly to collect me and I went into the ultrasound room. She had me take off the gown, lie on a triangular piece of foam so I was lying kind of an angle. The last ultrasound that I had was to see what sex Alana was, but the procedure was exactly the same. It hurt a little as she pushed the transducer around, but for the most part, I wasn't too worried until she frowned and told me she had to get the radiologist. Another woman came in and pushed the transducer in even harder, asking me how long it'd been hurting, when I'd noticed the lump, when I'd had my last period. I answered them and said that the doctor I'd seen on Tuesday thought it was a breast cyst. She looked at me and said, "Well, it's not a cyst." She explained that they could see irregularities in the lump and that they would have to do a mammogram and a biopsy.

I got dressed and went back to the waiting room. The nurse collected me and off I went to the mammography room. It was the most painful thing I've ever done. Then I went back to the waiting room and was collected by the LPN who kindly sat down with me and explained how the biopsy was going to work, what to expect during and afterwards. She also told me the chances of it coming back abnormal was only about 20%. I went back to the waiting room and waited a little bit because they were trying to contact the insurance company to get a prior authorization for the biopsy.

After the insurance was taken care of, the ultrasound tech and radiologist came and we all went back to the ultrasound room. They ultrasound the area, drew an outline around the transducer where it was clearest. They also ultrasound my lymph nodes in my arm pit. The radiologist noted that my lymph nodes were a bit swollen and if the biopsy came back abnormal, they might come back to biopsy a lymph node. The radiologist told me the painful part would be the needle for the local (LIES), which didn't really hurt at all. Unfortunately, they had to go under my nipple with the biopsy needle and the radiologist told me that since I'm still young, the breast tissue was really dense to go through. The anesthetic didn't spread far enough, and the biopsy needle hurt like a MOTHER. She also injected a minuscule piece of metal into the lump so that later mammograms would pay more attention to that area or if they have to remove the lump later, an x-ray will be able to pick it up. Afterwards, the poor ultrasound tech had to push down on my boob for 10 minutes to make sure I'd stopped bleeding. I had to have another mammogram after that to make sure that the metal insert had gone in correctly.

I went home after that, with a little bit of throbbing but nothing too bad. I'm not allowed to lift anything heavy or exert myself too much in case the needle location starts bleeding again. Unfortunately, whatever anesthetic they gave me wore off when I was in the grocery store, so I was kind of hunched over in pain checking out. I'm just on Tylenol because anything with aspirin has blood thinners. The result will come back on Tuesday.

I know that there's only a 1 in 5 chance that it will come back abnormal, but I'm not really liking even those odds. It was quite unusual that I would have a breast lump this young to begin with, and REALLY unusual that it would be anything other than a cyst. With these odds, maybe I should go to Vegas.

Today I:

Got stabbed in my breast. How would you put it?

Some days need a head...

So I can hit it in the face with a chair.

Today was one of those days that just kind of suck. On the plus side, the lump on my breast seems to have shrunk a little bit so it didn't hurt quite as badly today. On the negative side, when I called my doctor to tell her this and ask if I should get an ultrasound on Friday, I was told that the doctor had felt a hard lump in the cyst, which could indicate a tumour. Ugh.

I finally got rid of the extra crib we had. When Liam was about six months old, we bought the crib that I'd been stalking for about a year and a half. Then when Alana was born, I'd discovered that company that made the crib went out of the business. I searched the internet until I found one that looked exactly like it. But Alana decided that she like to sleep in the pack n play and she slept in there for 18 months until she could climb out (and Liam could climb in!). For about 6 months, we had a crib set up for her that she never slept in. However, Liam's crib was then recalled, so I had to lug it back to Babies R Us and buy a new one. I decided to get two matching cribs that we never set up as cribs but as two toddler beds. We took down the second crib and just stored it. We even moved it up here to Seattle. The kids are still sleeping on the second set of cribs that have been converted to double beds.

So I've been trying to decide what to do with this extra crib. I could sell it on craigslist, but the site is full of people trying to sell their cribs. Also, the person would have to come to our house to pick it up, and I'm always nervous of telling random strangers on the internet where we live. So I told the Relief Society secretary that I had a crib that I would like to give to someone who needed one. Unfortunately, good deeds never go unpunished when the secretary sent the news out in a mass email and I got two women emailing me back telling me they wanted it. So I was put in the uncomfortable position of trying to decide who had the greater need and "interviewing" these two women about their, um, financial positions. One woman already had a crib for her toddler, so I decided that the other woman needed it more. Argh, that was so not what I wanted to deal with. Since we had put the crib together and taken it apart, I was trying to find where I'd put the hardware. I was searched through boxes in the garage, office and our bedroom closet frantically, finally calling the woman to tell her that I couldn't find the hardware, but since it was standard sizes, she'd be able to get replacements at home depot. But then her husband and Justin were loading it into the truck, they heard a clink and found the hardware in a packet tied to the mattress support. Oops. Anyway, it's gone and now I can work on trying to clean out of the rest of the garage so we can park Justin's car in there as well.

After it was gone, I pulled out the gorm shelving from Ikea that I'd bought a year ago to put together so we could get the food storage off the floor. But in that year, Shelob had apparently made her home on it and a bunch of spiders came running out at me. I shriek and ran back into the house, yelling to Justin that Aragog and his kids were after me and he would have to put it together. Yeah, I'm a wuss.

So today I:

Cleared out several boxes in my quest for crib hardware
Cleaned out my closet in quest for crib hardware
Got rid of the crib
Started to put together some shelving.

It's not lupus

If you are squeamish or don't particularly want to hear about my breast, I'd skip this post.

About 2 weeks ago, I had a random pain in my left breast. I chalked it up to either wearing my bra to long, or stabbing myself with my underwire. After about a week of the pain not going away and instead getting worse, I started to poke around. That's when I felt the worse thing: a lump. I called a doctor the next day (Friday) in a panic, but the first time that I could get an appointment was on Tuesday the next week. So I got to panic about it all weekend.

However, Tuesday (today) was Alana's first day of school and I had to be at my appointment at about the time she needed to get on the bus. Justin graciously worked from home make sure the kids got on and off the buses at their scheduled time, and I took off this morning for my doctors appointment. Unfortunately, I had to drive through the majority of Seattle during rush hour, find my exit, TURN AROUND because of stupid one way streets and pick out a random building. I actually ended up pulling into a pay parking lot, intending to walk just because I didn't know where the hell I was. I notice that I was still five blocks from where I was supposed to be, so I pulled back out into the road. Unfortunately, I got caught on a hill at the red light and the person behind me pulled right up onto my bumper. I drive a manual, so I floored the accelerator when the light turned green to be sure not to back into them when I felt my flip flop catch on the petal and my shoe broke in half. So now I was lost, late, and down a shoe. I finally got to the building, successfully didn't ram the idiot in front of me who couldn't figure out how to take the ticket out of the dispenser and parked in a very narrow spot where the driver on my left side was right on the line. I actually had to back out and park again just so I could get my door open. I rushed over to the medical tower, hopped into the elevator and staggered out on 15th floor, I'm sure looking a little panicked and less than put together. I stood there for a minute trying to figure out what to do, when the receptionist tersely told me to find a seat because she was busy. Fortunately the other receptionist (who turned out not to be a colossal bitch) hung up the phone and helped me check in.

I finally got all my stuff together enough to check in and get into the doctor's office. The doctor came in and asked me a bunch of questions about my general health, medications, etc. But she got really hung up on the fact that I've only had three periods in the past year and she started talking about endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer and all these scary things. So she ordered a bunch of blood tests and told me to go to the Breast Center for an ultrasound of the lump. I got my blood drawn and was wandering aimlessly around the corridor trying to find my way back to the waiting room, or for someone to give me the referral of the Breast Center. I finally found my way out to the waiting room and stood in front of a window, trying very hard not to cry. I noticed a 10 story apartment building a few streets that had a beautiful roof top garden. I wondered who planted it and lived there, and wished very hard I was over there instead of a waiting room that smelled funny waiting for someone to tell me what to do.

The doctor finally came out and told me that they hadn't been able to get a hold of the center, and handed me a paper with the phone number to call and try to get an appointment myself. I notice that there was another center that was closer to my house, so she said that she would fax over the order to that center and to try to get a hold of the one of my choice. I wandered back down to the parking garage, and drove out. Unfortunately, I was so turned around and lost and didn't know where the freeway entrance was, I drove around the block until I found where north way. I then took the Dirk Gently method of trying to find the freeway, picked a car that looked like it knew where it was going and followed it. Lo, and behold, it worked! I found the freeway, drove to Target to replace the shoe that had broken and sat in the parking garage and called the breast center SIX TIMES to get an appointment. Each time it ended up going to an answering machine. I finally drove home and broke down and cried.

The lump in my breast is mostly likely a cyst as it's painful and changes in size during the day (it's much bigger in the evening and seems to shrink at night). I've also been having hormone problems, many of which could cause no period and cysts in breast. I finally got an appointment, but the earliest they can see me is Friday afternoon, so I get to live with this hanging over my head the rest of the week. This whole ordeal was amplified by people being idiots about a crib I'm trying to donate (seriously?).

Yesterday I:

Had a home visit from both of the kids's preschool teachers
Took Alana to speech therapy and then the grocery store
Took Liam to speech therapy in the afternoon.

Today I:
Didn't crash in downtown Seattle
Went to my doctor's appointment
Went to Target, Joanns, Hobby Lobby and back to Joanns, then DI
Made soy emergency candles (that a story for another day)