I Got a Comment

That title there was the catch phrase for a radio show that used to be on in the car in the mornings when I was being driven to I think preschool in Georgia. I have no memory of any more of the show, just that--I can hear the intonation precisely--"I got a comment."

Another thing I remember clearly from my childhood is Oreos. We almost always had them in our cookie jar, and I definitely have a comment about those. 

I do not think the Oreos now have as much of the creme filling in them. At all. In fact, I have children who prefer the "Double Stuf"* Oreos, and so I buy those fairly frequently. This has given me the opportunity to note that what are considered double now would have been a regular Oreo in my childhood.

I mean, take a look at this, an actual "Double Stuf" Oreo.

There's barely anything in the middle of this! 

I never liked the double ones because they had so much of the creme filling that it grossed me out. But now I prefer them, because the regular Oreos have hardly any.

I don't have a good memory for a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this one.

Anyone else want to weigh in? Have you noticed this?

* Wow, do I hate that single F.

How Far Is Too Far?

Last time A. went camping with the kids, he bought a sleeve of those big red Solo cups for the gallons of milk and lemonade he kept in the cooler. When he got home, I collected all of those and washed them to use again.

I used one of them on the Fourth of July to give the son home with me a very patriotic-looking watermelon slushie. After he finished his slushie, he started to throw the Solo cup away. I stopped him and told him I would wash it to use again. He was incredulous.

"Mom. Seriously? I have never heard of anyone re-using a Solo cup."

Really? I mean, is that really that strange? They're thick plastic! They're easy to wash! Why wouldn't you re-use it?

He was also shocked that I wash out Ziploc bags. And empty sour cream containers. The tray with top that A. brought home from a McDonald's breakfast. Pretty much any glass jars. And I sometimes save sheets of aluminum foil if they haven't gotten dirty, although I don't go so far as to wash those.

I even wash and re-use birthday candles.

These have been used I think twice and have at least one more use in them.

It never occurred to me that any of this was really that strange, but maybe it is. What do you* think? 

* Although I suspect that if you read here with any regularity, you are most likely also a re-user.

To Each Her Own

I was at the grocery store with the oldest son last week and I told him he could choose an ice cream flavor. He surveyed the options for a minute before deciding on black cherry.

That was pretty much the last flavor available that I would have chosen. 

These were the small cartons of ice cream, so I also got butter pecan for the rest of the family. All of them like that one, although again, I don't care about it at all. It doesn't actively repel me like black cherry, but I still won't bother eating it.

I did choose one for myself, though: chocolate moose tracks. Chocolate, peanut butter, and more chocolate? That's more like it.

A tale of two ice creams.

A. has always preferred fruit-flavored candies, ice creams, and desserts. I have always preferred chocolate. Preferably with peanut butter. He does not understand this. I likewise do not understand why anyone would eat black cherry ice cream when they could have chocolate moose tracks.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and I guess that means our lives are plenty spicy.

So tell me: What kind of ice cream do you pick, given the choice?

A Dangerous Discovery

When my children got home from their trip to Arizona to visit family, they presented me with a bag of kettle corn my mom had sent home for me.

I love kettle corn. Like, a lot. It checks all the salt/fat/sweet boxes that make something taste good to me.

I did send a jar of it with each of the younger two children to be their school snacks a couple of days, but then I ate the rest of the bag all by myself. Which is what I do when given access to kettle corn.

Popcorn, however, is a pretty healthy snack all in all, and I thought maybe I could make something like kettle corn that would satisfy my desire to eat something sweet without going overboard on the sugar.

I make popcorn on the stove in a big saucepan. Typically, I pop the popcorn in the pan, dump it into a bowl, and then put the butter right in the very hot pan to melt before drizzling that over the popcorn and then salting it. 

To make something like kettle corn, I figured I could just add my very dark maple syrup to the pan before the butter, and the maple syrup would quickly release most of its water content on contact with the hot pan. Then I could add the butter, etc.

That is what I did, and it did indeed work quite well.

But then, of course, I had kettle corn. A lightly buttered and sweetened kettle corn, to be sure, but still the salt/fat/sweet popcorn that is so hard for me to stop eating.

I fear I did not. I managed to put a few cups in a jar for one child's snack. But I, um, ate the rest of the batch. It was like five cups of kettle corn. 

The only survivors.

So I will not be making it again unless all of my children are home to eat it before I do, but now you know: Homemade kettle corn is easy. And addictive.

The Plague of Scent

The other day, I bought trash bags. I am always careful to check that the bags I'm getting are unscented. I find scented trash bags to be disgusting. If trash is going to smell, it will smell, and the scent of lavender or whatever in the trash bags is not going to help that. 

All is well.

I also needed big garbage bags for the dump. I get the biggest ones of these I can find, and the strongest. I detest small bags or big bags that rip whenever I try to pull them out of the big trash can in the shop. Walmart sells big contractor bags, and that is what I got.

I brought them home, took one out to put it in the can and . . . what is that smell? Are these contractor bags SCENTED?

"May contain a light scent" indeed.

I cannot imagine why my "extra-TOUGH" contractor bags "made for professional cleanup jobs" are scented. It's not a nice scent, either. They smell like a porta potty. Maybe that's what contractors expect in their trash bags?

I don't know, but it's gross and I am displeased. 

Thankfully, these bags are only ever outside, so I'm not confronted with their stench in my house, but still. I think that was unnecessary.

Never Have I Ever

We used to play a game sometimes when I was younger called "Never Have I Ever." The idea was to come up with things that were common, but that you had never done. I think of this game sometimes when I'm reading about other people's lives online and realize how odd my own life is in comparison.

For instance, never have I ever . . .

Ordered groceries online. I suppose it would be possible for me to do this at the Walmart I go to. I see the shoppers racing around in there with their giant racks, and I think they'll even load them into the car for you. I just have never done it. Given the amount of complaining I see online about grocery substitutions or subpar produce choices, it is not something I will ever choose to do as long as I am able to shop for myself.

Even if I did order groceries online, I would still have to sort everything and load the coolers to transport it 100 miles home.

Used an Uber. The first time I ever heard of Uber was about ten years ago when my brother mentioned it. He was somewhat incredulous that I had no idea what an Uber was. We were sitting on the porch at Blackrock at the time, so I just waved my hand around and said something like, "You think that would exist out here?" I have still never lived anywhere where it might be an option.

Ubers don't drive these roads.

Paid for anything with my cell phone. Almost everyone at the state fair paid for things by waving their phone in front of those little boxes they hand out of the window. I don't have any apps for payment on my phone. 

Read a book on an electronic device. I read things on my laptop, but only short things. I have no interest in reading a full-length book on a screen. As you can tell by the numerous bookcases in my home.

One of many.

Bought a frozen pizza. I guess I have nothing against frozen pizzas in particular, except buying the number I would need for my family would take up a lot of space in the coolers I have to transport everything home in. Also, I never really think about buying frozen food at the grocery store. Except frozen strawberries and peas.

Frozen pizza would mean less space for cream, milk, and ice cream.

How about you? What have you never done that most people take for granted?

Kristin Homemaker

School started for everyone yesterday. The whole family got all loaded up on the school bus to begin their new year, A. driving and everyone else slumped in the seats, resigned to their fates. (My children do not like school.)

Except for me. I did not get on the school bus. I will not be getting on the school bus, because I quit my job there. 

Last week I had to fill out some forms that asked for my occupation. I wrote "homemaker."*

Of course, the maker of our home is what I have always been, it's just that I did that in addition to working at the school two days a week as an educational assistant (teacher's aide). 

But now, all I am doing is at home. So what am I doing now? Let me show you what I've done so far this morning!

Still doing tub laundry. Our washing machine is still in for repairs, waiting on a "control board," which sounds intense. Thank goodness it's still under warranty. The repair guy said maybe another week. I'm taking that as another two weeks.

Watering the garden and picking tomatoes, yay!

Softening butter in preparation for making oatmeal cookies for the younger children's snacks.

Later I have to go to the village for a bank visit. Maybe I'll finally get around to vacuuming my filthy floors.

But if I don't get around to it today, I have tomorrow. And the day after. 

I don't anticipate having a problem filling my time, and it's such a relief to have the time. Some might see this as a demotion, but I see it as a great increase in my quality of life, as well as my family's quality of life.

* I prefer this term to housewife. Housewife can just be a wife who sits around the house. Homemaker describes much better what I actually do. I really have made and continue to make our home, which requires skill and a lot of work.

An Annoying Truth

Remember that little throwaway line I had a couple of weeks or so ago when I mentioned my hands and feet were slightly swollen and painful, so that's why I wasn't running? This caused some concern among the parents--as in, mine and A.'s--because that can be a symptom of some more-serious problems.

What was actually happening was that mostly my hands were tingly and going numb overnight, which was annoying because then I would wake up and have to massage one or the other of my hands back to life. They sort of hurt, too, as did my feet a bit. 

I otherwise felt okay, though, so I did what I typically do with random symptoms like that: I monitored myself--paying attention to my heart rate, energy level, mobility, etc.--and waited to see what would happen, meanwhile mulling over possible causes and ways I could make it better.

One of the things I did was ask A. to massage my hands and feet. You should know that this was a great act of bravery on my part, because A. has incredibly strong hands, and his sort of massage is more like deep-tissue massage than a gentle rub. It is undeniably effective, however, so I gritted my teeth and presented myself for treatment.

Although he did massage my hands and feet, he also moved on from there to my arms, calves, etc. And that is when he found something very interesting: I had bands of muscle reaching from my pectoral muscles--in my chest--to my fingers, and also from my lower back to my toes, that were so tight, he could barely touch them without extreme pain on my part. 

The diagnosis from A. was that stress was causing me to constantly hunch in on myself, curving my shoulders down and shortening the muscles so much that those muscles were pulling painfully all the way to my hands. 

Bad posture also had a bad effect on my lower back, which was tightening the muscles all the way down to my feet, but I think that tightness was more caused by the fact that I hadn't been running. And when I am not running, I am sitting more, which is very bad for my hips, legs, etc.

It had been at least a month since I had been running--or even walking--regularly, thanks to a cold that then turned into a persistent cough. After about two weeks of that, I was definitely out of the habit of running. And once I get out of the habit, it's very easy to make excuses to not go. 

I am not someone who exercises because I love it. But I am, clearly, someone who exercises because I need to do it to be mobile and functional.

And so, knowing that it would be Not Fun to get back into the running groove, I put on my purple shoes and started again last week.

Although they look less purple and more gray here.

That first run was . . . slow. I think the best word to use for it would be "ponderous." The second run wasn't much better. But my body? It is much, much better. About a week of A.'s authoritative massage, consciously straightening myself up and stretching out, and starting to move again has completely fixed the tingly hands and feet.

Running can be painful, yes, but not as painful as not running. So annoying. But true.

About that Church

I post a lot of photos of our church. Partially that's because I'm there a lot in my role as mayordoma. But mostly, it's because I love it.

The very old pump organ that is no longer played.

We go to church in a village about ten miles from our house, in the same village where the children go to school. That's why we go there: Because it is our community church. The Mass is the Mass no matter what building it is in, which is one of the great things about the Catholic church. But I realized when Poppy asked me last week what my favorite church I've ever been in is, that it is, in fact, this tiny church in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico.

New Mexico has no shortage of historic churches. We've been to many of them. And while I can appreciate their history and the faith that built them, I am not really enamored of their aesthetics. They tend to be quite heavily decorated in bright colors, with folk-art statues and paintings. I guess I prefer a more French style, which is also not that uncommon in New Mexico, thanks to the French missionaries that are a part of New Mexico's Catholic history.

The blue ceiling is a classic of the French-style churches.

I also appreciate the cruciform layout of our church, which means the footprint forms a cross. So at the front door of the church, you're standing at the foot of the cross.

From the front looking up the aisle.

This style lends itself to symmetry, which I have always preferred.

I particularly appreciate this because, although the church is fairly old--built I think in the 1920s--it was at some point renovated with truly hideous brown paneling all behind the altar, ugly carpet on the floor, and weird doorways on the altar leading to the sacristy. It was a victim of the 1970s, and it looked it. I've seen pictures, and it was appalling. It was renovated again to its current state in the 1990s, and I am forever grateful to the congregation and priest at that time for making it the way it is now.

The colors in our church are quite muted, which means that when the altar colors are changed, it has more of an impact.

Purple for Lent. (The Lenten altar does not typically include flowers, but there was a funeral this day, hence the flower arrangement on the altar.)

Last year's Easter altar.

Also, something you can't see in the photos is that is completely silent in this church. We have no sound system, no plumbing, nothing except the heater in winter makes any noise. I have grown so accustomed to this that I find it very distracting to be in a church with microphones or water fountains humming and switching on and off.

For that reason especially, this is my favorite church to pray in. I will stop when I'm in the village for something else just to go sit in there. Perfect silence is so rare in our modern world, and so appreciated.

This is a church I am happy to take care of, even if I sometimes find my role as mayordoma to be a lot on top of everything else going on in my life. I will remind myself of this as I clean the church, change the altar linens, buy and arrange flowers, and otherwise prepare the church itself for Easter Sunday.

Waiting on its transformation.

Caring for this building so it can offer to others the same peace I have found there is one of the most important things I do. I am so thankful to have been brought here to this unlikely place so I can do just that.

A Creature of Habit

I am, for sure, a creature of habit. To a rather ridiculous degree, actually. I remember in college talking with a friend about how I always dried myself off after a shower in the same order--face first, then on down, ending with my feet before I stepped out of the shower--and she totally did not get this. Which left me feeling all confused. Like, do people NOT do this? Do people just dry themselves off all willy nilly?

Does not compute.

Another example of this is breakfast. I eat the same thing every morning: two fried eggs with salsa. On days I run, I add a piece of toast with butter. 

One of the running days, obviously.

I suppose this is the food equivalent of a capsule wardrobe. It removes one more decision that I do not want to have to make on already-busy mornings. Plus, I like it. Why wouldn't I want to eat what I like every morning?

Do you do this? Or are you like my college friend, all wild and free and eating something different every morning?

The Mystery Kitchen

I have a habit of re-using things, especially in my kitchen. I hate to only use a jar or container one time and then throw it away. I keep the plastic jars A.'s instant coffee comes in, the empty containers of cottage cheese and sour cream, any glass jars, ziploc bags if I can easily wash them (so not if they've had anything really greasy or raw meat in them), and of course, canning jars and lids get used over and over again. 

Most of these things end up in my freezer at some point, and I always label things I put in my freezer, on the lid with a permanent marker. Most of my food containers have been labeled more than once. Sometimes so many times I run out of space on the lids or on the bags.

It's kind of funny to track what's been in the containers with that particular lid.

One lid is new and still has the original label. The other one? First it had chicken stock, then ham stock, then pinto beans, and now the jambalaya base I froze last month.

This lid first had pressure-canned pinto beans in 2023, then rooster stock in 2023, then sauerruben in 2024.

What this means is that you can never trust the lid that's on a container to actually tell you what's in that container. That canning jar lid, for instance, is currently on a jar containing pickled radishes and onions. It's not sauerruben.

Likewise, sour cream or cottage cheese containers are just as likely to have leftover baked beans or tomato sauce in them as the dairy products suggested by their labels.

This is why when my sister visits, she always holds up whatever she's taken out of the refrigerator and asks what's really in it. Because it really could be anything, and only I can tell for sure.

So tell me: Do you do this? Or do all your containers tell the truth about their contents?

Twists and Turns

Last weekend, I went down the hill to pick up one son at his friend's house after he stayed there overnight. This friend is the son of one of my friends. Also the brother of Poppy's best friend. So I've been to their house several times.

They live on a giant ranch that employs many cowboys, all of whom live at and are in charge of what are called "camps." Each man--they are all men--manages his own camp on this huge operation, and they all gather and help each other in turn for big events like branding or shipping. 

Because of the size of this ranch, many of the camps are quite remote. A couple of families there that send their children to our school live almost twenty miles from the nearest paved road. Every time they come to school, they first drive forty minutes on a really rough dirt road, and then at least another half hour on the paved road. Getting to town is more like two hours for them.

This house I went to last weekend is comparatively convenient. It's only about half a mile of dirt road, and they're only about a 20-minute drive to the school. It still feels very remote to go to their house, though, because there isn't anything else around it.

I took this photo on the dirt road to their house.

And this is their house compound as I approached it. That building on the right is a barn.

I am often confronted here with the fact that nothing about my life now is at all how I thought it might be when I was younger. I mean, I grew up mostly in suburbs, graduated from a competitive college-prep high school, had a political internship right out of college that turned into a job in state government that I probably could have done indefinitely if I had wanted to (which I emphatically did not).

The path that led from that to this was surprising and circuitous. And I don't regret any of it. This unlikely place feels the most like home to me of anywhere I have lived, which is a lot of places.

I don't think it's that unusual to end up far from where your younger self might have imagined your life to be. It's just interesting to reflect on.

Which leads me to ask: What about your current life would be the most surprising to a younger you?

Bleh

We woke up in a frozen cloud again this morning, and everyone's mood reflected it.

I could be projecting, but even the bulls looked grumpy to me.

I got everyone up, fed, and wrestled (literally, in one case) onto the school bus, and now I have a profound disinterest in doing anything further.

It has occurred to me, though, that I can actually just . . . give myself a day off. I don't have to go to work today. I mean, I have plenty of work to do at home, but do I HAVE to do it all?

Nope. I am my own boss when I'm at home.

So, I think in the interests of morale--my own--I'm going to do just the necessary things and then watch a stupid movie or something. Any recommendations?

Insane Lasagna, Denied

We don't celebrate birthdays in a really big way in our house. The birthday person gets to choose all their food for the day--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert--and then we have a little family party after dinner with presents. 

The food is obviously a big part of that, and I have always made anything my children have requested.

Until this year.

This year's new 15-year-old* requested this lasagna for his birthday. 

Ugh.

I never wanted to make that again. It was just too much. But it's a birthday! And I always said I would make anything for their birthdays!

So I resigned myself to two days in the kitchen, plus some sore arms. As the birthday grew closer, though, and I realized how much I was dreading it, I just . . . said no. I told him I would make him lasagna, but it wasn't going to be that particular one.

Whereupon he changed his mind and said he'd rather have pork ribs and mashed potatoes. Which are about a thousand times easier.

I do feel some guilt about this, but not enough to make the lasagna. And I did make cinnamon rolls for his birthday breakfast, so that kind of makes up for the lasagna, right?

I made them on Sunday and just par-baked them because his birthday is today and I was working yesterday. (The pan in the back right has bar cookies for Sunday dessert.)

I guess even I have my limits in the kitchen. And that lasagna is it.

*I am now in the stage of figuring out how to get teenagers a driver's licenses, which is wild. Also wild: I will not be out of this stage for another decade.

On Having Prey Instincts

When we moved to our house on the Canadian border in the far north of New York State, we were essentially living in the middle of a forest. It was quite possible to walk across the road from our house into the woods and not come to another road, habitation, or any other sign of civilization for many miles. 

It took me awhile after we moved there to figure out why I always went to the right when I went for a run: If I went to the left, I was hemmed in by forest on both sides of the road for miles. I felt like anything could come out of those woods--human or animal--and I really did not like that feeling. I couldn't see what might be there. 

So I always ran the other way, which meant I was going past our neighbor's dairy farm. Much more open. I could see.

I think it was A. who said I was reacting as a prey animal might. They always want to be somewhere where they can see danger approaching. It was funny to think of it like that, but I think he was right.

That's why I feel so comfortable here, I suppose. I can see for literally miles. Everything is open. There are very few trees. The land is mostly flat; the air is clear; the sun is almost always shining. Maximum visibility.

If there was a bear within five miles, I would see it.

I probably shouldn't analyze this too much, but ever since I realized that I react to my environment as a prey animal might, things make much more sense to me.

Do you like the wide-open spaces, or do you prefer to have trees around you?

A Peek Into My Crazy

It has been well established here that I spend a great part of my life thinking about, growing, and preparing food. The hundreds of posts on that subject here prove that beyond a doubt.

This is why it is not even 5 a.m., and I'm about to peel a few dozen potatoes.

Lemme 'splain.

About a month ago, our priest mentioned that he was hosting all the other priests from the area* and that typically, some of the ladies from the parish would help with the lunch that they have after their meeting.

He was sitting at our table, eating dinner with us when he said this, and it was about the most blatant hint imaginable. There aren't very many "ladies" in our parish to start with, and very few that he would ask something like this of.

So of course, I asked him if he would like me to make lunch for them, thinking it would be for at least a dozen people.

Nope. He said there would be about six of them. Oh, so basically cooking for my family? Yes, I can handle that without any problem.

Fast-forward to this week, which is the last week of school, with all the insanity that this entails. Of course the priests' gathering has to be this week. Today, actually. So is the FFA end-of-year ice cream social, for which I was volunteered by my FFA child to provide cookie crumbles for the ice cream toppings.

The count of priests I'm feeding was revised to eight. And of course, I still need to feed my own family of six.

That means that for today, I'm on tap for lunch for eight, dinner for six, and cookies.

I have spent all week thinking about how I can most easily cook lunch without being there to serve it (since they eat after their meeting, I'm not walking into that meeting to deal with food, and the time is uncertain anyway). Also considering that I work on Mondays and therefore wouldn't be making much ahead.

Plus, cookies.

The cookies were easy, at least. I made the requested peanut butter cookies on Saturday and froze a container for the FFA.

When I got home from work yesterday, I made crispy rice treats. After I spilled several cups of cereal on the floor while I was opening the giant bag of Malt o' Meal Crispy Rice, that is.

Good day for the chickens.

I have to drop off all the food for the priest party (as my children have been calling it) this morning before their meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. I decided to make shepherd's pie. 

The appropriateness and humor of making shepherd's pie did not occur to me until just recently, but it is pretty amusing. (Priests are our shepherds, get it? Yeah, my sons didn't think it was as funny as I did, either.) 

Anyway.

I'm making three pans of shepherd's pie--two for them, one for us--which will require about five pounds of meat and around ten pounds of potatoes. Also broccoli slaw--because it's the only other vegetable I have--and brownies, along with the crispy rice treats.

Overkill? Probably. But that's how I operate with food.

Anyway, it's a lot. And that's why I'm going to peel potatoes at 5 a.m.

Catch you on the flip side.

Update: 6 a.m.

Potatoes for mashing are boiling on the stove, and another pan for us is waiting elsewhere. Getting up at 4:15 a.m. has its benefits.

* The "area" in this case being the entire northeastern part of the state, which is large and relatively unpopulated.

 

Mid-week Validation

This is a long week. I normally only work two days a week at the school. This week, I have to be there four days*. 

But at least my stove is clean.

The reason my stove is clean is because I got sick of the blackened rings around my burners and spent 45 minutes on Saturday night scrubbing the hell out of them with baking soda and vinegar.

Because Saturday night's not just alright for fighting. It's also alright for scrubbing. Or something.

It hurt my hands. But I got the stove almost all the way white again!

I didn't get a "before" photo, but this is an "in progress" picture. One side is done, obviously. The other is . . . not. Gross.

I have no idea how a stove that I just bought new six months ago got so nasty. I mean, I wipe the thing down every single night when I do dishes. 

But I don't actually scrub it hard. And I do use it quite a lot. 

By "quite a lot," I mean that I have cooked dinner on that stove every single night for the entire time I have had it. Plus all the breakfasts, lunches, desserts, canning, yogurt-making . . .

Well, it's a lot. And it obviously takes a toll. So yes, I guess I DO know how it got so gross.

I finally decided the time had come to address that situation. So my trusty nylon scrubby kept for filthy jobs and I dove in.

It was hard. And I didn't get every last little speck of black stuff, but I got almost all of it.

Perfect? Definitely not. Better? Definitely YES.

So tell me! What unpleasant and unappreciated task have you done lately? Allow me to bear witness to and acknowledge your efficiency and general awesomeness.

* I know. Four whole days in a week? Cry me a river, right? What can I say. I'm spoiled.  

Another Domestic Pat on the Back

I've done it again. I've cleaned something so neglected and disgusting in my kitchen that I feel the need to announce it to the Internet at large.

Lucky Internet.

Last time I did this, it was the high edges of my kitchen cabinets that I had spent a lot of time cleaning*.  Then I shared my subsequent pride in this (admittedly minor) accomplishment with all of you. And then you all told me the unappreciated but satisfying tasks you had accomplished yourselves so that we could all indulge in some mutual appreciation.

It was nice. Let's do that again.

So! This time it was the top of my refrigerator. I, um, do not remember the last time I really cleaned this. I store some things up there--the extra-large bags of store-brand cereal we buy, the large economy box of oatmeal, the extra-long roll of aluminum foil that doesn't fit in a drawer--so cleaning it requires first clearing it off.

Also, I'm five feet, five inches tall, so I don't actually see the top of my refrigerator unless I climb up on a chair to retrieve something.

A., however, who is over six feet, can see it. And did see it when he was looking for something up there. Even A., who is possibly the least fussy man on the planet when it comes to house cleaning, said he was a little shocked.

Yeah. It was gross. It was that special combination of grease and dust that builds up in kitchens--or at least, in my kitchen--with the added complication of the textured surface of this refrigerator that traps all this stuff and requires serious scrubbing to get clean.

Nothing for it but to get scrubbing, however. So I got some very soapy water in the sink, my old nylon scrubby thing that I keep for just such disgusting jobs, and got to it.

Ew.

It was probably only about 15 minutes of actual scrubbing, but it was HARD scrubbing. My hands were cramping by the time I was done. 

But it's done now! And I took a picture for you:

Back to its original white. A great improvement over sticky gray. Yuck.

I did not take a "before" picture, because this is supposed to be self-congratulations, not self-castigation about its original filthy state.

So tell me! What have you done lately that I can applaud you for?

* Okay, so it was only 45 minutes, but that's about 40 minutes longer than I want to be climbing up and down and scrubbing grease and dirt.

Look! A Pie! FINALLY

 I'm just gonna come right out and say it: I don't like pumpkin pie. And I don't really like baking. So why did I spend almost an ENTIRE DAY baking a pumpkin pie?

Because I love my son. That is the only reason.

Cubby wanted to make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. He's into pie, as I've mentioned before, and he knows pumpkin pie is the traditional pie for Thanksgiving. So he asked to make one.

We have so much squash on hand, it's ridiculous, so I said okay. I thought, since neither of us is an expert pie baker, it would be best to make this pie the day before so I wasn't dealing with a kid in the kitchen and an unfamiliar dish while simultaneously cooking the rest of the holiday meal.

This turned out to be the only smart thing I did in the entire process.

Although I have plenty of squash already cooked and in the freezer, I figured I might as well just cook one of the squash that's still sitting in A.'s office. So I stuck one in the oven at 8 a.m. 

When the squash was done, Cubby scooped it out into the food processor and we pureed it. Then he started making the crust, using this recipe. He wanted to do it all himself, so I just read the recipe to him while he did it.

While he was doing that, I started removing the squash from the food processor. It was nice and smooth and thick. I tasted a bit as I was putting it in a Pyrex to measure it. Good thing, because the entire thing tasted like mold. 

Awesome. This is what I get for not using a can of pumpkin, like a normal person.

So all eight cups of that nicely pureed squash went to the chickens, and I took two bags of frozen squash out of the freezer after all.

Cubby meanwhile had finished his pie dough and put one half of it in the refrigerator to chill. The other half went into the freezer for some future use.

I had to thaw the frozen lumps of squash, so those went into a pot on the stove to simmer until it was all thawed. I had to use a pot anyway for the pumpkin pie filling--according to this recipe--so I figured I might as well thaw the squash in the pot.

Then I transfered the squash to the food processor, again, and pureed it. Again. And then I tasted it, again. No mold. Hooray!

Moving on.

I measured out the approximately four cups of squash we would need back into the pot and then called Cubby back into the kitchen to add the spices. Again, he wanted to do it himself as I read the recipe to him. I sat at the table to read the recipe from my computer while he was at the stove measuring spices. Then he turned the stove on and the squash started blurping all over my stove. And the wall behind it.

Cubby thought this was awesome and called Charlie in to see. I told him to STIR IT so I wouldn't be washing half the squash off the wall.

I was so over all of this already. 

Now it was time to get the pie dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out. I told Cubby I would stir the squash while he did that. 

While I was stirring, I tasted a bit. Remember how well that went last time I tasted squash. Yeah, this wasn't any better.

No mold this time, but waaaay too many spices in that pot. This was explained when I asked Cubby what he used to measure the spices and he showed me the teaspoon measure. He was supposed to use a half teaspoon measure. So there was twice as much spices as there was supposed to be. 

It tasted gross, all acrid and way too gingery. Even though Cubby definitely added more than the recipe called for, I think this recipe as written called for a LOT more ginger than necessary. I had to add all the rest of the pureed squash to the pan, and it still was too spicy. So I ended up adding a can of pumpkin I actually had in the pantry, thanks to our neighbors and the commodities drop-off, to further dilute the spices.

Yes, you can all chortle over the fact that after all that crap with the squash, I STILL ended up using a can of pumpkin. I just couldn't face thawing and pureeing yet more squash.

Anyway, we ended up with twice as much filling in the pot, which did not help the spattering situation.

Who's having fun now! NOT ME.

I froze the extra pie filling, to be used at some future date with the other pie dough in the freezer. How fortuitous.

There were no notable disasters with the rolling of the pie dough, although Cubby did have to be instructed more than once to roll it out more. I don't have a pie plate, so we were using a cake pan, which is a little higher, I think.

Looks pretty good so far.

We used pinto beans as our weights for the blind baking. I dumped a full quart jar of dry pinto beans into the lined pie crust and found when I poured them back into the jar that the hot pinto beans had apparently swelled a bit in the oven. I found this out when many beans went cascading all over my counter and onto the floor.

Sigh.

The blind baking proceeded without incident, and then we put the custard filling into the pie shell. I did not push the filling through a strainer as instructed by the recipe, because I was not about to get involved in anything like that after everything that had already happened.

After the complete pie was in the oven, I set Cubby to washing some of the millions of dishes that had been used during this fiasco. The pie was supposed to bake at 400 degrees for ten minutes, at which point I turned it down to 300 degrees, per the recipe.

About ten minutes after that, I realized that the oven had been accidentally turned down to less than 200 degrees while Cubby was putting dishes on the stove to dry.

At least I noticed it relatively quickly, I guess, although it was just the icing on this incredibly annoying cake. Or rather, pie.

The pie came out of the oven at 1:35 p.m. That's five and a half hours after we embarked on this ridiculous project. 

Obviously, we haven't eaten it yet, but I think I can state with some certainty that it was definitely NOT WORTH IT. I don't care if it's the best pumpkin pie in the history of pies. And I know it isn't, because of the overabundance of ginger.

But it's done, and we will have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner. 

So there.

We are also having turkey, which I also don't like and have never made but promised Cubby, again, that I would do it this year because EVERYONE has turkey for Thanksgiving, MOM.

I can only hope the turkey isn't as annoying as the pie. 

Behold, My Nemesis

 

I am the first to admit that I am not a scrupulous housekeeper. I don't scrub my baseboards with any regularity, and my kitchen floor definitely goes longer than it should in between dates with a mop. Dirt doesn't bother me that much, but clutter?

Clutter does.

This is unfortunate, given that I live in a house with five other people. I don't care how much of a minimalist you are, even minimal possessions times six adds up to a lot of stuff. And the one place where that stuff seems to just explode is the front entryway of our house.

Every child has a pair of shoes, a pair of sandals, and a pair of rubber boots*. Every child has a light jacket and a winter coat. Three of the children have backpacks. There are sunhats, winter hats, and winter gloves. Then there are A.'s giant boots and coats and gloves and on and on and on and on.

And that's why, when you walk into our house, this might be the first thing you see.

Ugh.

That's actually a little worse than it usually is, but there are ALWAYS someone's shoes in the middle of the floor, or the bin of gloves and hats has been overturned so they can all dress up as Meatish Monsters (I don't know, either), or whatever. Chaos and confusion reigns. 

It's actually a pretty big area, and there are some places in the corners where I could probably put up shelves or something to contain things a little better, I just . . . haven't. It's not like we have a Container Store nearby.

And so I just continue nagging children about shoes and constantly toss things back in bins. 

So what's the most irritating spot in your house? And do you have any suggestions for what I could do with mine? (Other than move out and live in a tiny house all by myself, which is sadly not an option.)

* At least. Some of them also have cowboy boots, or more than one pair of shoes, or moccasins, and then there are the winter boots . . . SO MUCH FOOTWEAR.