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May 31, 2008

Cooking up a storm

Ever since New Years and New baby I've been doing my best to cook at home rather than eating out. This is both to ensure healthier eating and also to save dough. I'm not sure how we're doing money-wise since we still have very little but we're eating at home most all the time now and it's pretty ok. Now, mark my words, if I ever win the lottery, I'll never cook another meal,

Last weekend we went to the river. Going there mostly means that we'll eat tons of wonderful food. Saturday we had Lowcountry Boil. Here's the recipe in case you haven't heard of it.

4 pounds small red potatoes
5 quarts water
1 (3-ounce) bag of crab boil seasoning
4 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
2 pounds kielbasa or hot smoked link sausage, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
6 ears of corn, halved
4 pounds large fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined optional
Cocktail sauce

Add potatoes to large pot, then add 5 quarts water and seasonings. Cover pot and heat to a rolling boil; cook 5 minutes. Add sausage and corn, and return to a boil. Cook 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Add shrimp to stockpot; cook 3 to 4 minutes or until shrimp turn pink. Drain. Serve with cocktail sauce. Serves 12.

Sunday we had homemade strawberry ice cream. The recipe ended up being very concocted because we had 3 recipes and not every ingredient for each one. The ice cream was awesome.

This week we also had grilled curried chicken and some curried chick peas. I found basic recipes and then doctored them up to the way I wanted them. The chick peas had a perfumy taste according to Dan but I ate em up. I think that might have been because I didn't have whole cloves so I used ground ones. The chicken was a little slice of heaven, according to Jake.

This morning I'm making a quiche with bacon, asparagus and red peppers in it. I wish I had another type of cheese besides cheddar/mozarella mix but that's what we have so that's what we're having.

I remember when Peggy lived here she said we have lots of food but no ingredients. I know that I've managed to change that and I'm even getting better at deciding what to cook. Now if I could just get my kids to eat this food.

Posted by krystal at 7:55 AM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2008

Stace Lace from Outter Space

On Tuesday my buddy Stacy will be here from Puerto Rico. I'm beyond tickled about seeing her and her babies. Back when she was my neighbor we were huge fans of hanging out and drinking on the porch, listening to kid rock or waylon. Stacy has already said that this is all she wants to do and we believe I can make that happen. Kendall's excited because Alexis will be here. They're staying for at least a month so chances are any of you who see me will get to hang out w/ them as well.

Then on June 10 grammy and grandpa o'brien will be here w/ Dan's seestor Amber and her babies. They'll be here for Max's christening on June 15. I'm so glad that Dan's dad will finally get to meet Max. I think they're going to be fast friends. I'm mostly excited about getting to meet Amber and having our kids play together and fight over the grand parents haha.

On the down side of it all, we're still waiting for my raise, still waiting for our tax incentive check and still very broke. Hopefully we'll make up for our lack of funds by at least being a lot of fun for our guests. Sorry friends and family, we can't do much more than that this month.

Ok Tess is in the tub crying like a fool because there are bubbles in her water. Time for me to go drown her.

Posted by krystal at 6:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2008

sparkly...like a holiday

This weekend was packed with fun from the beginning to the end. I swear, I didn't think I was up for "fun" and was going for "relaxing" but fun happened anyway and lots of it. Friday night Maddy and I took our girls to Libby Lou and got 'em all did-up like uh, street walkers. They had such an awesome time though. They strutted through the mall like they'd just gotten off of their hannahmantana tour bus. It was a reward for them each getting good grades and a great excuse for Mads and I to drink her daddy's homemade wine when we got home. That was some delicious wine, too. We had blueberry and another one whose name I can't recall. Both were good but I believe I liked the blueberry one best.

We had a very late/early night so on Saturday I thought I might have trouble rousing the troops for the weekend at the river house but Dan helped pack stuff into the car and we got on the road by 11...just as planned.
The weather was too chilly for swimming, unless you're a 2 year old and 12 year old. Saturday we sat outside and enjoyed the day and drank and then had a fantastic dinner of Low Country Boil to top it off. We were all in bed early that night.
Sunday we had this mental list of stuff we must do while we were there. The list included getting sunburned, fishing, going out on the boat, moving those huge logs out into the river so they could land on someone elses beach, eating leftover shrimp for lunch, starting to drink before noon, making burgers for dinner, making homemade ice cream, strawberry shortcake and then later during the bon fire, eating s'mores and shooting bottle rockets.

We.did.it.all.

Monday we got up, cleaned up the house and our party zone and then came home so the kids could go swimming and we could go to hippy's house in the afternoon. That was such a nice time. I had like 40 loads of laundry to do but we blew that off and had more fun.

I woke up this morning not at all stressed about the messy house or the laundry. I'll get to it when I do.

Posted by krystal at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

Still delicious at 5 months old.

Ten days ago Max turned 5 months old. He now bounces in his johnny jumper thing and stands in the exersaucer. He'd rather stand than sit but he'd rather eat than stand. Max is such a sweet baby. Like Trevor, he loves to snuggle. I can't wait til this coming weekend when we can introduce him to the river. He's going to love spending his summers there, I just know it.

Now, if I can just keep him from crawling away from me too soon. He's already pushing up on his hind legs and then diving forward with his head plowing the lead like a bulldozer. I have to be careful to not leave him on our bed because one day he's going to scooch his way over the edge.

Posted by krystal at 3:15 PM | Comments (4)

May 19, 2008

craptastic craptacular crap

So why haven't I updated my blog lately? I've sure had plenty to type about. I've had a few minutes here and there. I've even had the inclination to write since last time.

I find that sometimes it's harder to see my woes in writing. I am grateful x 100 that I don't live in China and that my kids didn't get squashed in a school building collapse. I'm glad that I don't live in a van like Trevor's friend, homeless Jerry. Now let's get down to the wallowing.

Thursday I got a call from Jake's counselor at school telling me that my son has thoughts of suicide and has come to him for help. As much as I love my son, I have to tell you that I doubt he'd ever harm himself. Most likely what he meant to say is "My mom is making me do all of the assignments I haven't handed in this 9 weeks because I'm failing 2 classes and have D's in another". Most likely he wanted to tell the guy "I might have to give up my car and job because mom's pissed about my grades". Instead he said "I feel like I am letting my mother down and I want to kill myself". I feel like I reacted the way I should have in this case. I took him to snowden to be evaluated and they told me that I should get him a therapist. I've placed several calls to people so I can find a person who will listen to him and then I can drive him over there so he can let them all know just what a piece of shit mom he has. I feel the same way about this that I did about my republican parents taking my democrat grandmothers to vote. Why would you cancel yourself out? I mean, seriously...if I'm so awful, why not just let the little asshole suffer? But you see, no matter how much I try to let Jake be himself and give him a long long long long LONG leash, he keeps doing things that require action on my part. I'm angry about it. I love him, I even like him sometimes. I want him to get his shit straight and one day be a good man. I have to say though, right this very moment, I have my doubts. As we got into the car leaving snowden to go pick up 2 babies from gayle's house so I could pick up 2 more babies and go to the chorus recital for Trevor and Kendall, Jake said to me "wanna go pick up my tux for prom?" He said it just like we'd just been out for a day at the park. He said it as though he hadn't just given me the worst day of my life; as if he had no clue that I couldn't possibly go on if he ever got serious and wanted to end his own life. He so flippantly toys with the emotions of those who care for him. I took him to get the tux. I took him out to dinner and I took him to the chorus concert so he could see his siblings sing. I have managed to raise the most self absorbed, cocky, arrogant, assholish, young man ever. But I haven't raised one who would kill himself. Of this, I'm quite certain. What a proud mother I am.

On the bright side, he had a very shitty time at the prom.

Posted by krystal at 5:31 PM | Comments (3)

May 13, 2008

Frustrated beyond belief

Posted by krystal at 8:52 AM | Comments (3)

May 12, 2008

Rainy days and mondays blahblahblah

knock knock?

who's there?

smell mop.

***

I just needed to write that joke down before I forgot it.
***

Mothers day recap: it happened. As I've said 100 times before I'm not a huge fan of the day. I got some beautiful flowers from Dan's folks in a really awesome vase. Dan got up w/ the kids and made breakfast and we did not go to church. Later in the day we went to mom's house where we had steaks on the grill in honor of dad's birthday and mother's day. We hadn't seen Ellis, Megan and the girls since Christmas so that was nice. If we'd had this dinner a week before there would have been PMS involved and feelings might have been hurt during the visit, other than mine. Instead I left feeling a bit funky, but everyone else was fine. Before dinner my little niece, Anna, came up to me and in her little jokey-smurf sounding voice said "aunt krys, you're WEIRD. you have FIVE kids". I responded to her by saying "you're weird...you have no teeth!" But of course, I started thinking about how little babies don't just randomly think that a family with lots of kids is "weird". I've said before that my brother is perfect and I guess that's a good thing to be. I'll stick with "weird". It sort of makes me ok with not seeing my family except on holidays. I feel stung, but not shocked.

***

It's a mess out. Stay dry.

Posted by krystal at 7:53 AM | Comments (2)

May 9, 2008

baby boys

I love this picture. Trevor always wants to hold Max. For about 30 seconds. He really just likes to disturb the person who is currently holding Max.

I know it's a hard family dynamic to grasp...three big kids and two babies and two odd parents but sometimes it works really well. Other times it's just loud.

Posted by krystal at 6:46 AM | Comments (4)

May 5, 2008

puff puff pass

I'm done. Since I last wrote I've taken the final 2 MCSA tests and I'm done. I'll now sit back and have faith that my big big boss was serious when he said he'd give me a network analyst 2 position if I got this certification. I've decided that certifications are much like tattoos. I get such a rush from passing them that I feel like I should get more. I either want to get my MCITP (which is the latest version of microsoft crap) or my CCNA which is a Cisco certification (for those of you who don't give a shit). I'm sure that given a few weeks off from studying I'll decide that the certification I have now is just plenty. I pray that I am not blogging about how I didn't get a raise in a few weeks. I have utter faith in my supervisor and I know he'll be true to his word.
Now I'll just breathe.

Jake's going to his prom in a few weeks. He'd decided to go but had not committed to anything regarding a date until this weekend. Luckily for him, we won't have to pay a rush order on the uh, white tux with black pin stripes. Good thing fashion sense eludes me, right? He also informs me that he won't be going with his girlfriend, Marina, the Bulgarian. He'll be taking Brooke, the girl he hated most of last year. Great.

Saturday we went out to Loriella Park with the mean mommies. We got there first and there were 3 teenagers up in the treehouse thing that links to the slide and the bridge. They were blocking the way for the little kids and cussing and um, spitting and throwing bananas. Their primal behavior was amazing to me. Amazingly assholish is what I mean. I told Dan we should probably leave since both of us had our "i'm gonna kill them" faces on even though we were across the park from each other. We stayed though, in hopes that Maddy would show up and give 'em what for. She didn't come but the cops did. I swear I really suck at biting my tongue, even if it means I could get my jaw jacked.

Let's see. Oh, coming up is mothers day. We're broke. Possibly this is caused by the fact that I took 2 tests that cost $125 each in a 1 week period and I had to pay for the training materials too and now a tux and prom tickets and flowers for a girl that my son hated until a month ago. So mothers day might just be cards for moms and my dad's birthday present might just be a cake. My mom promises me that real moms don't get all pissy about mothers day not involving really great gifts because they're used to being martyrs. (wahwah) but as a mom, I know that this is not true. We work our fingers to the bone and one day a year we should get some mf'ing presents. If we don't, well, our kids suck. Oh, and not only the kids, but the men who are not our kids who also benefit from our tireless work...they suck too. So let me just say that next year I promise not to suck at being a daughter. This year though, I have no choice.

Tess is completely obsessed with caterpillars and lady bugs. She talks about them nonstop. Trevor's friend was over with his sister. The sister has 1.5 arms. I figured it wouldn't be long before Tess noticed and today was that day. Here's how it went down. Tess; where's the rest of your arm? Megan: well, I was just born this way. Tess: my nannies house has lady bugs and they're so cute and they are PETS!!! end of conversation.

Well, it's cinco de mayo and since we're irish and not mexican, I'm drinking a corona light and pouting about the fact that we didn't have enough money for me to go out to dinner w/ sarah and terri even though I got my certs. But on the bright side, my mexican maid came back today and she's fabulous. So HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!

Posted by krystal at 6:14 PM | Comments (4)