Tuesday, December 17, 2013

4 Tidbits on a Tuesday


I decided this afternoon to give you some fun tidbits from my life. Just in case you needed to laugh at someone's completely preposterous life, or even give you the chance to say, "Good heavens, at least we aren't in Beth's shoes!!" I wouldn't blame you if you did say that. Sometimes I even catch myself saying that before I realize that, yes, this is MY crazy preposterous life. And not someone else's.

Tidbit #1: Shopping locally and in season is easier said than done. And in the winter, I'm not so sure I can live without my citrus fruits and avocados. In the last two days I have eaten two very large and completely personal bowls of homemade guacamole all by myself. I would be perfectly happy doing that every day for the rest of my life, but let's be real here, I only get to the store every so often these days.

Tidbit #2: Due to the high number of young children in our home and given the fact that we lost our christmas shopping day to a day of family illness and barfing instead, I have had many friends offer to chip in and lend a hand with christmas shopping this year. I am not only deeply thankful for these lovely people, but I am also convinced that THIS IS THE WAY TO DO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! Text or email your list and voila! It's delivered to your door (along with some cans of soup and more crackers and gatorade). Seriously, personal shoppers must make a killing. Also, Amazon and I are inseparable. Thank goodness for Prime.

Tidbit #3: Remember all those cute little ducklings that hatched this summer? They grew up. Aren't they handsome?
And then we ate them. 
Oh my YUM, they were so delicious. Yard-to-table Thanksgiving success. Even Lexi approved. ;-)

Tidbit #4: One of the things that I don't love about winter is all the inside living that we do. If you know me, you know that I am a complete, 100% introvert who doesn't like to go out much, really. The more out and about I am, the more stressed I become. In the summer I spend my days in the yard working in the garden, playing with the kids in grass, or walking around the neighborhood and visiting local parks and libraries. In the winter, we stay home. Yes, this get's old fast, but wouldn't you be stressed by the thought of taking four children three and under anywhere? Just thinking about going to the grocery store with all of them just about gives me a panic attack. So don't judge me just yet. You can do that in a minute, when the story gets really out of control.

Ok, so back to inside living. When everyone is inside all the time, with the heat on and windows shut, what is the logical thing that happens? You start noticing smells. Everything and everybody stinks. The kids stink, the cats stink, the bedrooms stink, the garbage stinks, the whole house stinks, and then, the worst part of all, the refrigerator starts to stink.

I noticed it about two weeks ago. Every time someone would open the fridge to rummage for something, a powerful smell would seep out and literally almost knock you out. If smells had a color, this one wouldn't even be green. It would be brown. It was THAT bad. So out of the goodness of my heart, I planned on searching the fridge for the answer. But then we got the stomach flu. And everyone was throwing up anyway, so cleaning the fridge became less of a priority and cleaning Lyla's crib for the fifth time became more of one.

We got better, everyone stopped puking, and people started to want to eat real food again. Which meant opening the refrigerator to retrieve the food. In retrospect, I think I could have gone on eating crackers and drinking gatorade for a bit longer... I almost died when that door was opened. I really believed something was dead in there. It smelled that bad. And not only did it smell just when you opened the fridge, but the smell would seep out and linger. In fact, someone on the other side of the house would know when the fridge was opened because the smell was so strong. After two weeks of cringing in the house when someone wanted food, I finally worked up the resolve to FIND WHATEVER IT WAS THAT HAD DIED IN THERE.

And find it, I did.

Way back on the top shelf, hidden by bags of whole wheat flour and various salsas, was a plastic jar (with a lid on it) filled with water and (what used to be) little crowns of broccoli. Now it was mostly just a garish green liquid and GAAaaarglebbblththththth did it smell something awful! After all, it had only been hiding there since mid October......[insert disgusted stomach wrenching groans here]. As soon as I removed it from the fridge and put it in its rightful place in the dumpster outside, the smell had completely 100% vanished from the fridge. Gone. Just like that.

The funny thing is, even though the fridge no longer smells, I still find myself cringing every time I or someone else opens it, and then am shocked to not be gagging by the smell that no longer exists. Yep, I think we waited a little too long to take care of that one. Blame it on the kids.

Anyway, the kids still stink, as do their bedrooms and some of the rest of the house (can someone please come over and potty train two cute little girls???), but at least our food portal is clean.

Hope you enjoyed some of our crazy. Happy Tuesday!

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