Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.....

Yay! I found a bread pan that I love today! I've been wanting one for a while now. It was $15, but it was WELL worth it. I made the YUMmiest bread today! I would have a picture, but the camera batteries are dead and I can't find the charger.Here's the link to the recipe from AllRecipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Bread-Machine-Bread/Detail.aspx?prop31=1
I used regular all purpose flour in it, mixed it on the dough cycle in my bread machine, then punched it down and let it rise for about 1-1 1/2 hours and baked at 350 deg. for 20-25 minutes. Yummalicious.

Before I found my bread pan I stopped at a yard sale down the street from us. I got a ton of really neat stuff:

- a big Micro Machines camper that folds out into a "city"
- 2 or 3 bags of "men"; Spiderman, Batman, various soldiers, etc.
- a bunch of trim, ribbon and bias tape
- a bunch of elastic
- a bag of colored leather so I can try out making leather shoes
- paint markers
- Fisher Price binoculars
- a big bag of play food and utensils
- a huge bag of Crayola markers, and a binder type Crayola thing full of more markers
- a miniature police motorcycle (which Anthony LOVES, he said, Mom, I LOVE this motorcycle! I'm going to be so careful with this one, I won't let it get broken ever! I give it 2 days....)

And my grand total was...dunh duh duh duh.....$5! Yup, that's it. Purty sweet! The Micro Machines camper even had a little Micro Machine hidden inside the garage that we discovered later. Anthony was really excited about that.


Other than that, today was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep with Anthony in his bed again. It's so wrong when your 4 year old's bed is comfier than yours! I mean seriously, his bed is like sleeping on air. I love it. So does Adam. He joked about buying 2 of them and putting them side by side in our bedroom. I actually considered it for a minute......

Well, off to bed, it's calling my name. That is , after I update myself on Hurricane Ike...ugh.

Gustav poo-stav

I cannot believe it is already September! Where the heck did summer go??? Anthony is back in preschool, it's starting (well, as much as it can), to get colder here, and I am really wishing we lived up north right now. Fall is my absolute favorite season. It's so pretty up in New York, when all the leaves change, and you can smell apples everywhere, it's just so.....romantic? Maybe? I don't know, but whatever it is, I miss it!

The kids and I got back on Tuesday from our hurricane Gustav journey. We ended up stopping Saturday night in Montgomery, then heading on to Columbus, GA to Fort Benning the next day. It was interesting....the kids drove me CRAZY the whole time. I'm sure it was partly because I was so distracted by watching the weather channel constantly while they wanted me to play with them. And who can blame them? They got to stay in fun hotel rooms for a few days. The room in Gavin Hall on Fort Benning was freakin awesome! It had just been renovated, I believe, and it was so nice. They had a little kitchen area, with a microwave, full size fridge and freezer, sink, an a little 2 burner stove. Then there was a living room area right next to that, and in the other room were 2 queen beds and the bathroom. I thought, "Yay! 2 beds! I'll have one all to myself!" HA! I should have known better. Both kids were curled up next to me by the next morning. I didn't mind, though, cause they're very snuggly when they're sleeping :)

I'll post more tomorrow.

Well, so much for blogging every day! Oh, well. Life has been crazy here lately. We moved into our new house the beginning of this month. It's really been a lifestyle change for all of us. We came from an old house with no neighbors and a more...spread out neighborhood I guess, to a nice BRAND spankin new house with lots of neighbors, which I love. It's nice to know everyone when you move. It's pretty much the same people, George and his family, Chris and his family, Stacey and her family, and all our old neighbors, plus a few extra new ones. We've had to change our "eating in the living room" policy to a "no eating in the living room" one. The kids are doing pretty good with it, they forget sometimes, but for the most part they remember.

This has been a rough month. Moving has always been hard on me, but with kids, it's a nightmare. Just setting up the house, making it safe for them to play, making sure they had food..... for the first week, it was very trying. And we had a few incidents along the way (gentian violet....), but now we're pretty much settled. I realized that since I was 16, I have moved 18 times. A couple times I moved back into the same place (dad's house), but I still moved nonetheless. I guess I should get used to it if we're going to stay in the AF, but it's still hard. You would think after 18 times I'd have the hang of it! For me, though, it's not the physical part of moving, it's the disruption in your life, and your daily schedule. I'm a creature of habit. When I can't take a shower in the morning, watch out. If I can't find my whisk, watch out. Seriously! It's sad.

I decided to make Ayden new bedding for his bed. I bought all the fabric, washed it, now all I have to do is sew. It seems like I can never find more than an hour to do anything big, and I can never get it done in an hour. If that makes any sense......

Well, I'm tired and off to bed. Short and sweet. Well, maybe not so much sweet, but.....whatcha gonna do?

Ways to Piss Off Your Cashier:

Since I've started working at Wal-mart, I've come up with a wonderful list of joyous things that various people do while checking out at Wal-mart that make me want to WRING THEIR NECK. Here they are.

1) Talking on your cell phone while the cashier is ringing up your stuff.This is my number one pet peeve. It is SO RUDE! If I'm here to do you a service by ringing up your stuff, at least have the courtesy to get off your damn phone.

2) Sort of like # 1, bluetooths. I can't STAND bluetooths. Every night, I'll start talking to someone, they'll start talking, and then they'll say, oh, I wasn't talking to you. Plus, WAKE UP! You look like an idiot walking around a store talking to yourself!

3) People who buy soda, cupcakes, candy, chips, pies, etc, and then use their EBT card. Now, at holiday times, ok, maybe, but every day? Come on! This is what's wrong with the system! Why is that ok to buy on the government's money (AKA my money!)? Now don't get me wrong, I have no judgement against people who use EBT cards. I think if you really need some help to feed your kids or feed yourself cause you can't make enough money at your job, or got fired, or whatever, that's fine. I see lots of people come through who buy cereal, yogurt, bread, milk, eggs, lunchmeat, and that's great. They're using the money the right way. Some might say, who are you to say how they use their money? Well, sorry, but if my husband is in the military and we have 2 kids and we don't qualify for EBT, then how can they??

4) Piling stuff up in a box, basket, etc, and then not getting it out when you get to the register. That's always bugged me.

5) And now, the BIGGEST pet peeve (besides the cell phone): handing me wrinkled, wadded up money. Now, I don't expect everyone to have all their money facing the right way, or be totally crease free, but....just look at a register drawer. Does it look like wadded up money will fit in there the right way? Why should I have to unfold your damn money?! Grrr.....

Alright, that's my list for now. I'm sure there will be more as I remember it throughout the day.

blah blah blah

Well, I couldn't think of a creative title. So there you have it. I just got home from work. I decided I want a million dollars last night. Dad called me and left me a voice mail saying he won the $135 million dollar jackpot. When I tried to call him back, his phone was busy, which made me think, "Hmmm....even though it is April Fool's Day, maybe he really did win....". Yeah. No. Oh, well, more money just brings more problems.

So I ended up getting a dehydrator! Yay! I just ordered the instruction booklet in the mail, and it came yesterday. I'm really excited! I can make "fruit leather", it's like fruit rollups, and banana chips, apple rings, all sorts of stuff. I bought a chocolate mint plant at the Herb and Garden Festival in Ocean Springs last weekend, and I can use my dehydrator to dry herbs, so I might try it! That would be neat if it worked.

Whew. I'm looking through the CPSC website at the latest recalls. I just found 2 recalls for the kids' toys today, and it has me a little freaked out! There is some scary stuff in there; paintbrushes recalled for lead, cribs falling apart, and this one, which seems pretty self explanatory - DUH! What did they think was going to happen when they wrapped a candle in TREE BARK? Retards. Ugh. It takes forever to go through that website, but when I find toys for the kids on the curb, that's one of the drawbacks - having to scour for recalls. The odd thing is, I was looking really far back, and although they DID have cameras back then, in the late 90's and earlier, they had no pictures of what was recalled, only like, a pencil drawing. WTF good does that do, I'd like to ask?! Anyway....it's late, I'm tired. Off to dreamland....