Out with the Old, In with the New...Ideally

I'm so happy it's Friday.  This has been a super long week. Though not without high points, it has just been crazy busy.  Work has both ups and downs (am on a very exciting project that I have a lot to contribute to, but have to deal with a difficult co-worker), and home life is non-stop as usual.  We went furniture shopping yet again, but with different results this time.  Woohoo!  We found a living room set that we could agree on that also fits in our budget! I was beginning to think it would never happen and we would be sitting on the floor after the old sofa finally gave up the ghost...which was very close to happening.  It started to feel like buying a car.  On the final visit Wednesday night, we had it narrowed down to two almost identical sets.  Then came the sitting on one, moving to the other.  Rinse and repeat.  This went on for an hour easily, as my husband wanted to be sure about which one he liked better.  Factor in 3 trips to the potty for our 22 month old.  Oh, and of course the sets we were looking at were at the farthest part of the store away from the restroom.  Other than the trips to the restroom, she did great, happily sitting on the furniture in the showroom, playing with a balloon, and eating the non-staining snacks I brought along.  Then the signing and initialing 6 copies of paper work.  We finally got out of there at 9:15.  So that was a long, though victorious, evening.

Happily, they scheduled the delivery very quickly.  Sadly, that meant scrambling to get the old sofa out and the love seat temporarily parked in the living room to another temporary holding spot upstairs.  I was the only one around to help my husband with this.  Hmm.  We do not have a good history with moving furniture together.  Every time we attempt it, I remember that I never ever want to move again.  I do fine with other friends, but he and I do not do well in this particular arena.  I think the fact that I am 5'1" and he is 6'2" has a lot to do with it.  Our daughter got very upset when we started to move the sofa, which surprised me.  She sat in the dining room pointing to where the sofa had been and saying, "No, sofa back!"  Other than that, we did okay, got everything moved without any muttering about divorce and no trip to the ER.  Always a plus.  

I figured today would be easy, my husband will take delivery of the furniture, I'll call for bulk pickup of the old sofa and carpet.  Easy peasy.  Ha.  I should have known better.    

I called the town to schedule a bulk pickup and the lady who answers the phone tells me that I have to wait until January because they discontinue bulk pickup to do leaf pickup.  Okay.  For 3 MONTHS!?!  I'm thinking that my neighbors probably do not want to look at the 10 year old blue velvet sofa out in front of my house for that long.  The more she insists that I can either bring the stuff to the dump myself or have to wait til January, the more frustrated I become.  Putting aside the fact that almost no leaves have actually fallen from the trees yet, our town has very high taxes and it is becoming clearer by the day that residents get almost NO services for them.  We have to pay for weekly trash pickup, for sewer service, trying to get get permits to get work done is a challenge (and don't get me started on the time a township inspector lectured me that the town is involved in my addition to protect me, but missed the fact that there was no structural support designed for our new second floor), and I could go on and on.  And now I can add to the list that the first time in the 11 years that we've lived here and needed bulk pickup, they aren't doing them.  I asked the woman on the phone what services I get for the $xx,xxx tax dollars I pay every year.  She told me I was being nasty to her.  I really wasn't.  I didn't threaten her, get aggressive or curse at her.  I just asked her questions she couldn't answer.  She, however, was snide to me from the minute I said the words, "bulk pickup".  When I said I was going to just put it out at the curb and leave it there, she demanded my address.  I wasn't sure whether that was because she was scheduling me for a pickup after all or if it was so she could send code enforcement to give me a ticket.  Thankfully, she deigned to schedule a special pickup for me.  Whew.  I am relieved that I don't have to look at that thing for 3 more months.  

The fun continues.  Our house has three doors.  The sofa won't fit through two of them.  (I again curse the architect who designed our addition.)  The third one has a 90 degree turn immediately and this thing can't possibly make the turn.  So they have to bring it in through the kitchen window, over the island, through the dining room and finally make it into the living room.  Am I the only one who is happy to not be present for things like this?  I get so stressed by stuff like this.  It's just better if I'm not even there.  I'm not sure why I get so worked up.  Not being home is better.  I do something else to take my mind off of it and I get a call after it's all over.

And I just got that call.  Hooray!  Bring on the weekend, I am ready to collapse onto the new sofa! 

I Don't Know How She Does It, Either

Mainly because I don't have time to go to the movies.  Since the birth of my daughter almost 2 years ago, I have been to the movies less than 5 times.  Dinner and a movie with the girls used to be a weekend staple, we'd go at least once or twice a month.  When A was a newborn, she was a demanding nursling and flat out refused to take a bottle, so she and I pretty much went everywhere together.  I've seen people bring tiny little ones into the movies and the baby somehow sleeps through the entire movie.  My daughter has always been way too interested in everything around her for that to ever happen.  I have finally managed to start reading books again,  thanks to my kindle and audio books from audible.com. I know it's cheating, but I don't care.  I missed books!

In recent months it has gotten easier from the perspective of being apart for several hours at a time.  But to be honest, after a busy week, I'm a little afraid that I'll fall asleep in that nice dark, kid free theater.  Also, if I try to pack too much into the weekend, I lose my prep time for the coming week.  I need to make at least two week night dinners (or do most of the prep work) so as not to resort to pasta and sauce for multiple nights in a row.  My toddler sticks her nose up if a menu selection appears on the table too often.  My little foodie in the making.  For the record, the response she receives is, "That's what's for dinner.  I'm not a short order cook."  There are definitely times that I hear things my parents said to me as a kid coming out of my mouth.  But that's a post for another time.

What was my point?  Oh, right, movies.  There have been a few this year that I wanted to see really badly, which made it worth the ten bucks and the 2 hours to see.  Fortunately, they lived up to my expectations.  In case you were wondering, the top two were:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2; and The Help.  I really enjoyed both.  Both were not as good as the books they were adapted from, but very well done as movies.  The Help was a great outing too, because I went with a great multi-generational group of women.  It was like a nice big girls night (okay, afternoon) out.

I have plans to see I Don't Know How She Does It, with another great friend.  Maybe I can get some tips.  The previews I've seen make me confident that I'll at least get confirmation that I'm not the only one in this boat!

Bouncing Pumpkins

Today we drove about half an hour to a farmstand to buy pumpkins.  Unfortunately, the pumplin crop this year has been severely impacted by Hurricane Irene, so they only had about half as many pumpkins out as they usually do.  I'm actually hoping that it is also because it's still a little early and they'll be picking more in October.  The place that we go to every year is a nice little place, with mums and other trees and shrubs for sale.  It's a beautiful rural area, a good place to let a toddler run around. She loved it!  She's in that stage where she really thinks that she can carry things that are the same size she is.  "I do it!"  is the quote of the moment.  She had a blast picking out little tiny pumpkins, after we established that the proper way to return the non-chosen ones to the pile is not chucking them back on top.  They also had a little bounce house.  She had never been in one before, but is learning to jump and loves to show this new skill off.  She has progressed to the point where both feet actually leave the ground, but not by much.  Fortunately, the bounce house was empty and she and I could go in alone.  She's a daredevil, but something like this would have overwhelmed and upset her had it been full of big kids.  Her delighted giggles attracted the attention of several passers by, and we got many smiles and kind words from strangers today.  I'm really glad she liked jumping around, because a great friend just gave us a home version bounce around that we will definitely put to good use.  I am a big fan of things that are great exercise, outside and lead to easier nap/bed times due to sheer exhaustion. 

After the pumpkin selecting and bouncing, we went to a Stewart's roadside stand and had rootbeer floats and chili cheese fries.  Being outside works up an appetite.  Yum!

All around, we had a great fall day!!

Making Meal Planning Work for Me

I've always hated being asked, "So, what's for dinner?"  My response tends to be of the smart Alec variety, "Whatever you are making."  Why is it that I have to come up with what is for dinner most nights?  There is nothing in my resume or pedigree that makes me remarkably qualified to be the family chef.  I do enjoy cooking, but not the stressed out desperate attempt to throw together a balanced meal at 6 pm that tends to be the norm in our house.  To be fair, my husband can cook and enjoys cooking certain things, but meal planning is not his forte either.  He will occasionally surprise me by making dinner, usually after a trip to our closest Wegmans. (It's 20 minutes away but worth the trip!)

My husband does most of our grocery shopping, and I've quelled my inner control freak.  For the most part, anyway.  I just make very specific lists, including brands.  The quelled part is where I don't get mad or roll my eyes when he brings home the "wrong" item.  I need to get over it and not let my perfectionism force me to do the grocery shopping.

Tangent over.  Back to my point.  Most days, it's like pulling teeth to find out what my husband wants for dinner.  This made meal planning a challenge, until I realized that he really and truly does not care.  As long as it is not too far outside the known universe of what he will eat, if I put it on the table, he will eat it.  He just likes that there is food and it is cooked and on the table before 10 pm.  (Yes, we have eaten dinner at 10 pm.  Not recently, and not since we had a kid, but yes, we have.)  I read it many places before finally accepting that it is true...meal planning is the only way to go.  On my own, I stink at meal planning.  We would eat the same three things ad infinitum.  And I hated leftovers, which was a problem when we were eating the same thing over and over again.  I was skeptical when I found the Six O'Clock Scramble, but I had to try something new. I discovered the Scramble right around the time that my daughter was really starting to eat big people food.  That's what we call solid foods in our house.  Anyway, around that time I realized that I needed to actually feed her well balanced and nutritious meals and that it would probably be easier to do so from day one rather than trying to fix a bad food situation down the road.

I love the Six O'Clock Scramble.  It really is a great solution, giving you a set 5 day meal plan each week. I should point out, though, that this site requires a subscription after the free trial membership. The beauty of it is the flexibility it offers.  So I can look at the offered menu for the week and switch out recipes based on what my family likes or doesn't like and/or what is in my pantry.  Each recipe on the site has tags like make ahead, freezable, express, vegetarian, and too many others to list here.  I like to mix up the meals I choose to include 1 or 2 that I can make ahead on Sunday and an express for whichever night of the week is going to be crazy.  I also built up my recipe box and stored comments on each recipe that we've tried as to who liked what and what variations I made.  Love it!!  Having a recipe box of stored recipes that we like makes meal planning so much easier.  I do wish that it had more crock pot recipes, because I love my crock pot and use it at least once a week.  But I pick 3 or 4 meals from the Scramble and then fill in 1 or 2 additional from Stephanie O'Dea's Year of Slow Cooking blog.  Voila.  Meal planning done!

This post reminds me, I need to call my husband and have him throw our vegetarian enchiladas (made ahead!) into the oven so they are ready when my munchkin and I get home!  Yum!

Little friends

I love picking my daughter up from daycare.  When I pick her up, I like to sneak in and watch her for a minute until she sees me standing there.  Her little face lights up with a big smile and she runs right over to me.  Of course, she is all business then, so she grabs my hand and drags me over to get her paper (daily report) and then out the door.  Good-byes are not her strong suit.  Then again, neither are hellos.  She has a pretty good vocabulary and she knows hello and bye bye, but she very rarely uses either one.  When I drop her off in the morning, she either snuggles up to me and plays shy - which is totally an act! - or she just dives right in and starts playing with her friends.  Her circle of friends is growing, but the original buddies are still her favorites.  Watching them greet each other is so cute, they are such a sweet little group.  When I drop off or pick up, I get high fives, books brought to me for reading, games of catch initiated, and big smiles and hugs.  I love that!  And I know my daughter does the same with the other moms she has known for a long time.  I sometimes wish that I could spend all day at the daycare with my daughter.  I would love that!