I Have The Maturity Of A 12 Year Old Boy

OK, every time I see a commercial for this new medication I giggle like a fool. It's a medication for acid reflux.

It's called AcipHex. This is pronounced ass-eh-fex. Or in my puerile brain ass effects.

I'm laughing just writing this. No wonder my boys claim that I'm "different than the other moms."

Book Review

Normally I put my book reviews under the "Books" tab at the top, but this book was so good I wanted all of you to read about it.

The Geography of Love is a memoir by Glenda Burgess. It's a love story about her relationship with her husband and eventually his cancer. I read a lot of memoirs, biographies & autobiographies, but this one really moved me.

The emotion in her writing & storytelling caught me in a place that few books do. I cried. I felt her story. But unlike some writings about cancer, even through the agony & ugliness there is always beauty in her tale.

I would recommend this book to everyone, it will really move you.

Scrambled Eggs & Sunshine

Last night JD asked me how to make scrambled eggs. It was 10:30 at night & I wasn't feeling well. My first thought was negative, but it only took a second for the lightbulb to go on. My grunt-for-an-answer, I don't need your help, almost 17 year old son was asking for my help!

A chance for real interaction with my boy. The angels were singing here in Mimi-ville.

I hopped up & got out the little pan, while I told him to crack the eggs on the counter, not the edge of the cup. Cracking them on the counter creates less chances for bits of shell to get into...

The eggs were cracked on the edge of the mug. My son explained to me that he had taken "lifeskills" and in that required class they told him how to crack eggs. On the rim of the receptacle. In Lifeskills class they learned how to crack eggs to make brownies. They also learned how to make root beer floats. If the class is called Lifeskills wouldn't scrambled eggs actually be a more useful life skill than ice cream floats?

Anywho, guess who had shells inside of his eggs? Of course I had to pick them out becasue my Sunshine will not do any activity that required his fingers to get icky. Ever. In preschool the teacher thought he had been badly injured when she put his little hands in finger paint. I was at the school & they called me into the room because they couldn't figure out why he was howling. He was crying too hard to tell them that he didn't want his hands glopped up with paint.

Once we got the stray shells out, (I did make him try), I put some margarine in the warm pan & told him that we needed to wait for it to bubble. I had to laugh watching this 6 ft. tall, 16 year old holding his mug of eggs, waiting, waiting, waiting for the butter to get hot enough. Patience is not the strong suit of my Sunshine!

I've never worked harder to make something so simple come out perfect. I wanted him to know how much these few moments meant to me. I showed him how to cook the eggs slowly & move them around to get flully curds of egg.

He said "Thank you" and proceeded to put ketchup on my perfect plate of eggs, but it didn't matter. Those eggs were a type of love letter, a thank you for the small moments that I have learned to appreciate above almost all other. The times I miss the most as he grows into his own man and away from being my Sunshine.

Our Sunday Pork-O-Rama

My younger son Jack LOVES bacon. All of us are pretty fond of pork breakfast products.

A while ago I found a recipe of sorts online for a bacon cheese log. Jack has been begging me to make one ever since. Since I couldn't leave well enough alone, and because I didn't know if the bacon cheese log would be tasty or disgusting, I also made sausage balls. I got the sausage ball recipe from my friend Alicia at Confessions of a Snowflake.

The first step in the bacon cheese log is the weaving of the bacon.



Jack sending his bacon-y goodness into the oven. (Those are his pj's, not a bad fashion statement)



This is how it looked after we cooked it in the oven.



Add the layer of cheesy goodness,



A boy and his bacon. Our bacon was too crispy so if folded instead of rolling.



Ahh, at last we can sit down & enjoy our porky feast!

Musical Monday

Diane from Good Mourning, Glory & Jori from Jeff & Me + 3, are hosing Musical Monday.

Now I can happily go from a John Denver song to a Suicidal Tendancies song on one I-Pod play list (my husband accuses me of giving him musical whiplash) so this always seems like a huge choice to me, what to pick?

My theme for today is happiness, so I pick a Tim McGraw song that makes me happy every single time I hear it. (I totally did not get distracted looking at images of Tim McGraw while I was looking for this video {sorry honey})

Just To See You Smile. I couldn't find a good video, this one is mostly just words on the screen, but enjoy!

Not Me Monday

It was not me who fell asleep while eating Milk Duds on our fold out couch. It is also not me who was "found out" when her family noticed carmel stuck to the rear of her sweatpants & on the quilt I was laying on. Anyone know how to get carmel out of material. Not that I need to know!

It was not me who whined all Friday about having to start college classes Saturday morning, only to have a great time on Saturday & then decide maybe I should pursue a further degree. It has not been me who has taken 5 years to get a 2 year degree.

It was not me who let my sons off the hook when it came to cleaning their rooms, because I just didn't have it in me to care anymore.

There is no way I got up & drove to the bank & library this morning only to find them closed for MLK day. I would know it's a national holiday since my kids are home from school today!

I did not start crying when I was typing a forum message about my dream for 2009 being to feel happy on a regular basis. Depression robs people of their happiness, I am not gonna be that person anymore! (for reals)

Dang it, I also didn't burn the last 3 pieces of bacon that I was using to make my sons lunch. There's no way I would burn them because I was typing this blog post!

For more Not Me Monday fun, check out MckMama

Camera Critters

This is Amani the baby aardvark. He was born 12/23 at the Detroit Zoo.

This is his press release photo, not one I took, but I figured how many times do you get to see a pic of a baby aardvark?

For more info on Amani click here.

For more Camera Critter fun click here.