cool beans

“Mommy, what are you doing?”

“Cleaning up your sister’s puke. Go eat your waffle.”

I’m not kidding when I say, “I love sock puppets!”

Have a crescent fresh weekend, peeps.

In between naps and mixing up chocolate muck, I’ve been doing some stuff. This week I’ve…

• submitted my volunteer application to a women’s shelter. I haven’t been officially approved or trained yet, but I did get to go fetch groceries for them. The woman who was showing me how it all works is very high-energy. I mostly just chased her around the store panting and dropping canned goods because I was nervous. About grocery shopping.

• started taking inventory in my kitchen. So far, I’ve done two shelves of cans and boxes. Roaring start! We have a lot of canned corn and tomatoes.

• searched for new and exciting ways to prepare rice*. I made Spanish rice. I’m going to make beans and rice. I want to make sushi rolls from this cookbook, but can I do that with regular rice? Also, if we don’t like them, can I return opened jars of wasabi powder and sesame oil and why is nori SO EXPENSIVE? Is a jar of sliced ginger the same as “pickled ginger”? If I give you rice, will you make sushi rolls for me, please? THIS IS TOO HARD. Thank you.

• spent approximately 16 hours looking at websites of colleges and universities. Because I’m pretty sure I know what I want to be when I grow up.

*We have a lot of rice left after making our son’s rice box Easter gift. Like, four pounds of rice.

In line at the grocery store “mega-sale” this morning:

But that money is for my wieners and lettuce.

Fifteen seconds later:

But that money is for my wieners and lettuce.

Not getting the reaction he’d hoped:

I gotta get my wieners and lettuce. You know I like my wieners. And lettuce.

Also, people go CRAZY for discounted toilet paper.
(I scored some root beer.)

“Mom, I got butter on the couch.”

“That’s okay. Just rub it in with this towel.”

I’ve never baked a cake from scratch before. I was bored today and thought I’d give it a try. Here are some things you should know about baking cakes:

• The instructions are spiteful bitches that want to see you fail so they don’t tell you that Martha Stewart is right about the parchment paper. “Grease and flour,” they say. Then they laugh at you behind your back. The instructions are the Mean Girls.

• If you don’t have wire racks to cool the cakes on after baking, an ungreased, inverted pizza pan is a poor substitute. Though, if the cake will ooze through the pizza pan holes, I’m not sure how a rack would have been better.

• Good news: If the cake doesn’t come out of the pan, you can indeed scrape the guts out and mush them back into the cake.

• More good news: If you make scratch cakes the way I make scratch cakes, making frosting is unnecessary. Unless you’re seriously crazy.

• You’d have to be seriously crazy to try frosting this mess.

• Take pictures at the beginning of the cake baking process so you have proof that you did at least half of it well. “Look! Gorgeous cakes. Couldn’t you just eat them right out of the pan?!”

• I recommend eating the cakes right out of the pan. Simpler. Less embarrassing. Also, eating out of the same dish with other people says, “I love you enough to share your germs.” Or, “I love chocolate cake so much, I can overlook the fact you’re going to stick your slobbered-on spoon back into this pan. And then I’m going to do it, too.” It’s a bonding thing.

• If you’re really bent on presenting your family with a cake you can slice and put on individual plates for them, try a dusting of powdered sugar.

• If you don’t have a sifting thingie for sifting powdered sugar, a thin cotton towel isn’t a good stand-in. There’s something degrading and hopeless about patting a dusty sack over hot chocolate messes.

• A tea ball works, though!

Making the best of a bad situation:

This little bit about my day is going to start off with a really boring sentence. You might get up and stretch and snort some coke before proceeding. Ready? Here we go.

This morning I had my teeth cleaned. This is notable for a couple reasons.

1. My mouth really hurts. I feel like she pulled out my teeth, grated my gums and shoved the teeth back in willy-nilly. Flossing is important, people. We also talked about the possibility of getting a bridge so I can greatly disappoint the cat who digs toothlessness.
2. Upon hearing my son is four and that I’m staying home with him now, two people remarked, “So he’ll go to preschool next year, then?” Each time I said, “I think we’re going to do that at home.” And then I had an anxiety attack. Twice.

Aside from flossing faithfully once my mouth stops throbbing, I can’t do much about my teeth. I decided I could do something about the preschool question and accompanying panic. I brought this home from library today: Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design A Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School by Rebecca Rupp Now I have to practice saying “homeschool for preschool” so I can convince myself it’s not a bad idea. Then I have to convince my little guy the ABC song is fun!

Which wouldn’t be difficult if we weren’t talking about the kid who is particular about the music he listens to. Scanning the dial for something to listen to in the car, we skipped past “Panama“. He pitched a FIT until I turned it back. Today he heard “You Could Be Mine” and said, “Is that KISS?” I said, “No. It’s Guns N Roses. Do you like it?” “YES. You can stick that ABC bullshit up your nose.”

Not funny:

There’s a dead rabbit in my front yard.

Funny:

I need to get my drink on.