We ate ghosts for dinner earlier this week:

We tried on wigs:

…and liederhosen:

The best part is that Engineer has been talking for the past couple of days about the wedding slideshow he will have at his wedding.  (My sister just got married and had a slide show of her and her husband as kids.) He said in passing earlier this week, "I’m going to have a slide show when I get married.  It’s going to have pictures of me when I was a kid.  And it’s going to have pictures of Audrey R when she was a kid too…"  When we snapped the shot of the liederhosen, he said, "this one’s going to be in my wedding slide show."

 I planted straight 8 cucumbers but got these monstrosities instead…

Let’s Review.

I planted seeds from this package:

And this is what I got at harvest time:

I’ve heard that cross pollination between cucs and zucs is a myth, but what the heck?  They taste like a cross between a zucchini and a squash.  I mean, I will take some blame in that maybe I did something wrong, but seriously?  Did I harvest them too soon?  Pretty sure these fat boys aren’t going to thin out and become long thin cucumbers….

Do you ever make assumptions about people before you’ve met them?

Charming asked me the other day if we could have his friend (we’ll call him Bus Friend for our purposes) and his fiancee over for dinner.  I said fine, nonchalantly picked a date, rescheduled later due to flooding and we ended up holding the dinner last night.

In my mind, I was a little hesitant to play hostess for a couple of reasons, the first being that the only people that ever come to our house are under four feet tall and don’t really care if my house is covered in toys, or dirt or chocolate chips.   I was slightly worried that this kidless engaged couple would see my house and be kind of judgmental about the mess.  I was mostly nervous about meeting Bus Friend’s Fiancee though because not only does she not eat meat…

She is vegan.

Which is cool.  I totally respect people who have the strength to stick to their principles.  And I was told not to worry because Bus Friend’s fiancee was bringing her own dishes so we wouldn’ have to stress.  So no worries, right? But worry I did.  Was she going to watch me eat my meat and animal products and cringe?  Would she walk past the first two uniquely clean rooms in my house and feel the need to go home and wash? Would this?  Would that? What if?  Should I?  Shouldn’t I?

And so it went until Saturday when I cleaned as much of my house as I had time for.  I made a "vegan as possible" salad and served french dips.  (Meaty I know).  I was pretty sure it would be fine, but I didn’t know what to expect.

And so Bus Friend and his fiancee came to dinner.  We had a good time.  No, we had a great time.  I learned a little bit about Bus Friend’s Fiancee’s decision to be vegan and she was very cool about us not being vegan.  Bus Friend’s fiancee brought some really tasty vegan food, she helped in the kitchen and brought some really fun games to play (including my new favorite game ever).

And she saw my dirty house and didn’t cringe.  In fact, as I apologized to her about the state of my living space, she said something that was so totally awesome I almost cried– she said my house was "full of life."

Bus Friend’s fiancee, I now dub you "Cool Girl" and you are my new BFF.

Best night of the week ever.  I love making new friends.   

I sort of like being proven wrong sometimes. 

is so totally simple– you could do it too!

First thing you need to do, (and for some it is too late for this Holiday, but Christmas is coming….) is visit a crowded mall about a week before the holiday.  Touch as many surfaces and small children as possible and do NOT wash your hands.

This will help you contract some kind of infectious virus.  IE Flu, cold, something else unpleasant.

The next step is to be sick.  So sick that nothing stays in.  (Try for the flu, I don’t a cold would work as well.)

And finally by Turkey day (or whenever) you will either be so sick you can’t touch hardly a ham, or you will have lost so much weight in the past few days that you could gorge yourself and still be ahead of the game!  Although, in all likelihood, you probably won’t be up to gorging yourself…. so…

All the skinnier!

Who’s with me?  Oh, yeah, that’d be me.  Lame. 

So say the people.  We were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies tonight, and when it came time to blend, both Sugar and Engineer suggested getting a stool so they could watch and also laugh.  And sure enough as soon as I started the mixer, they both spontaneously erupted with canned laughter. 

I never realized that making cookies was so funny.

I guess it’s been a long time since I was 5. 

…when you don’t put your apples away fast enough.

I would imagine it happened this way, a small child (take your pick, we got plenty around here) decides he wants an apple.  He wanders off takes a bite, and sets the apple down.  Minutes later he thinks, "crud, where’d my apple go?"  and instead of looking for it, returns to the origin of the first apple and takes another.  The process is then repeated.  By multiple children.

Thus you have the lovely picture seen above.  This was all the apples that I found in various places all about the house.

After taking the photo, I found one more.

And for you guessers– BABY ELEPHANT!  Hurrah! 

Engineer loves egg nog.  Pronounced, "egg NUG," he asks for the beverage all year long, and is so gleeful when it arrives in the stores again in the fall.  He drinks it throughout the season, and his little 5th percentile body delights in its rich, fatty goodness.  He just can’t get enough.

Needless to say, he was very disappointed (read: hysterical) when in January we could no longer purchase egg nog from the store. 

The "good mommy" in me went on a quest to discover how to make it from scratch.

My internet search for "homemade egg nog recipe" found me little results.  The few recipes I did find, used raw eggs, and I just wasn’t super comfortable with that.  So I enlisted a few of my own dormant brain cells.

What is it about the "nug" that Engineer likes so much?  The texture?  The spices?

The spices were the easy part, and I knew I would start with milk as the base ingredient.  But what could both thicken and sweeten the milk at the same time?

And then I knew.

And so I present you with my recipe for homemade egg nog!  (My first self-created recipe!  I am so excited!)

The NUG

1 glass milk (8-10 ounces)

1 tsp (approximately) french vanilla instant pudding mix

1 dash each, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves 

Stir until thickened, or chill briefly.  Serve immediately (so it doesn’t get too thick)

 I know this recipe is a succes, because I asked Engineer to take a sip.  And he just kept on sipping.  I asked him what it was, and he looked at me with a big grin and said, "Egg NUG."

I am a friggin’ genius. 

Okay, well Erin and Beth both know me from real life.  And they guessed that I am….  27!  Cheaters!  Oh, well, they will still get their prize, which is… Mary Kay eyeshadow!

BUT!

The good news is, any of you can get a free eyeshadow too!  All you have to do is…

…go to my personal Mary Kay website and place an order of some kind today or tomorrow and you will get a free eyeshadow!

(I know, totally shameless, but hey, I’ve got a HUGE sales goal this week and it was my birthday yesterday…)

Besides, these would make really great holiday gifts:

…just so you know.

I was reading some other blogs tonight, and I was thinking, "wow, they are so… deep."  And, "wow, look at the dramatic life experiences they have had," and "wow, good writer."  And I was thinking, I don’t really blog like that.

I am a much better editor than I am a writer, and since I don’t always read my posts before I click the publish button, my blog is not my best work.  I can be deep, but I am not always on my blog.  And my life?  Not that dramatic.

Truth be told, I live kind of a charmed life.  It’s true that I drive a ten year old minivan that we bought with a dent in the side and never fixed it.  It’s true that I shop with coupons.  It’s true that I buy generic toilet paper.  My shoes are from Payless and I do my own manicures, and yet I am incredibly blessed.  I have health, beautiful children, a supportive husband, great friends and loving extended family.  I have it all.

And the most dramatic thing going on in my life right now, is that my finances are falling apart.  I am rapidly going into debt because I own a beautiful house in Utah that no one wants but me.  And I own a someday-beautiful house in the Rainy Place with a mortgage the size of the Titanic.

I miss my house.

It’s not that we haven’t gotten offers on it.  Oh no.  It’s just that people keep trying to swindle me out of my first home.  They offer like, 50,000 less than market value so that they can get a deal.  Or make an investment.

That house is not an investment to me in the financial sense.  The only thing I invested in that house was my heart and these people keep making disgusting offers and it hurts.  There is a real person on the other end of this transaction, why can’t they see that? There is a real person who not only has feelings, but also needs the equity from that house in order to survive this more ummm… expensive town.  I mean, that was my first house.  We picked out the cabinet colors and the tile and the carpet.  We picked the upgrades.  We painted it pink.  I spent waaaaayyy too much money on cute border wallpaper in the kids’ room.  Two of my children were babies in that house.  And even though I cried when we bought it because it meant we were going to be in Utah for awhile, I loved that house.

Moving back to Utah was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  Moving to the place where we bought that wonderful house was a humbling and difficult experience, that turned out to be one of the greatest blessings of my life.  I found greater happiness there than I had found in a long time.  I made some of the dearest friends.  I had my best birth experience.  I started three businesses.  I had a wonderful time there. Hard to believe that moving there was one of the hardest things.

Moving back to the Rainy Place, beloved home of my childhood, was harder. Is harder.  But I love it.  I love seeing my sister twice a week.  I love the weather.  I love the scenery.  I love the Teriyaki.

But I don’t love the fact that we are bringing in a six figure income, and I don’t have money to buy groceries.  Thank goodness for credit cards. The debt I have worked so hard to be free from, is definitely gonna suck. We’re making more money than we ever have and are poorer financially than we have ever been.  Every time I open a bill and it is eight times more than I thought it was going to be, I bawl my eyes out.  I’ve been good.  I’ve been.. prudent.  I have avoided debt at all costs.

We felt like moving up here was the thing the Lord wanted us to do.  

And now, I am not so sure.

I know things will work out, like they always do.

But I am not so sure.  Not so sure at all. 

He has been a part of our family for a little over a week now.  He  has stolen my heart with his masculinity and his non-burning of my baked goods.  Behold!  Behold him in all his glory!  Our new oven:

Please ignore the other junk in the kitchen.

Oh!  The love I have for this new oven is immense.  The first day he was here I kept walking by and getting such a good feeling inside.  Infatuation.  Joy.  Elation.  Desire.

Charming is always asking me if he becomes all buff, if I will like him more.  I think I should tell him to become more stainless steel oven-like and see if that works.  Because I am lovin’ my new oven.  So sleek and silver and shiny.  So powerful, yet so gentle on my baked umm… goods. 

Yay!  Oven!  And another picture which is not flattering of me, because everytime I try to look "sexy" in photos I look like a total dork…  But nonetheless, you are all entitled to every bit of ove eye candy that you can get:

I just can’t keep my hands off my oven.