My husband has a new mistress. 

I guess I should be happy I got my cuddle time with him in before she showed up.

Cheeky bitch, coming right up to our door.  Having her minion knock right on it!

He’s been playing with her ever since we got home tonight.

Then again, she is pretty damn hot. 

Maybe I’ll spend tomorrow getting a little action from her myself. 

Apparently, size does matter after all!

Wow. I just looked in a mirror, and DUDE…my eyebrows? They have taken on a life of their own. On the bright side, there ARE two of them, so at least I’ve not taken on cavewoman looks.

We got up and took the hubs to the aiport this morning for a short business trip. Since we were downtown, I took the kids to the old spaghetti works. They were unimpressed. (Come on, I think we all are anymore).

Then we headed over to the Durham for the Amazon Voyage exhibit - only to find that the museum is closed on Mondays. DOH! We took a quick vote, and ended up heading out to the Lee G. Simmons Conservation and Wildlife Safari park. It’s not anything amazing, but we did have a good time, and a good hike up around the bear and wolf enclosures. In the sun. And the heat. Ugh.

On the way back, we stopped at the Holy Family Shrine, which we have drive past on the interstate hundred times. But - when you have nowhere to be, there’s no reason not to stop, so we went and did a quick tour of that. Now - I will say, it’s BEAUTIFUL - the way they have the entrance built, and the shrine itself - it’s GORGEOUS. But it’s all a facade. I walked out of there, and the immediate feeling I had was “your god is stuck in there, my god is out here - everywhere”. It’s more beautiful outside than in. So - it’s pretty. It was a nice stop. But it didn’t move me. Just my opinion.

We headed back home, and the kids are currently out playing in the sprinkler. I fully expect that in the next hour they will pass out for a nap, so I’m sure dinner will be a little late tonight. They were going full on all day. But, it’s good for them.

Now, I’m going to go figure out where my husband hid the pickles. (Which, by the way, are AWESOME. Pretty good for his first try!)

(Also? Baking bread later. Yum!)

The hubs just got done making pickles!!!

We went to the farmer’s market today, and one of the stands had these gorgeous little pickling cucumbers.  SO - the hubs and I bought some dill and garlic and some gorgeous green onions, and we set out to make pickles.  I’ll admit, this one has been more him than me, but I was here for moral suport ;-).

He’s also currently working on champagne blueberry jelly, and I’m going to do another small batch of strawberry jam with my remaining berries and some we bought at whole foods. 

Hubs is also making some sort of carrot-tomato ragout (??), which I am slightly suspicious of. 

Oh - and to top that off?  I have, within about 2 feet of me, all the makings for the hubster’s infamous SALSA!  Oh yeah - and we have chips.  AND TEQUILA.

Not that, you know, I’m enticing ANYONE to come over or anything.

*ahem.*

I am SO happy I’m home.  The amount of stormy weather we’ve had - that my children would be dealing with ALONE if I wasn’t home - I just can’t even convey.  I am SO happy I’m here. Not that me being here stops anything, but at least *I* am the one making sure they’re in safe shelter when needed.  (not that hubs or the kids’ other parent aren’t capable of keeping them safe - I mean I’m glad it’s me rather than somebody who is paid to watch them, and may or may not make the right decisions, you know?)

Yeah.  It’s SOOOOOOOOOO not what you thought. 

I had my yearly OB/GYN visit today.  Nothing of importance, other than that I have a “beautiful” cervix!  :-)  One that appears as though it’s never given birth!  Woohoo.  (Hey, my Dr said so, and she sees A LOT of hoohas, so I’m going to assume she is qualified to say.)

Come on, I can celebrate being pretty on the inside!

Baby-making attempts are off the table until my thyroid is figured out, however, we have been advised to practice A LOT :-)  (Oh Darn!) And, you know, the standard losing weight wouldn’t hurt advice.  SO…yay. 

I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy to have that “checked off” for another year.  I’ve been a good girl, and I’ve gone every year since I was…um…15 or 16.  I started early because of my headaches - but dude…I SOOOOOOO hate it!  This year was a special slice of hell, since the hubs was along and sparked up some discussion points I’d cheerfully never discuss with anybody BUT him. 

The new doc was nice though.  I suppose I recommend her.

Instead of breakfast for dinner, we went out to Carabba’s.  Given that we had Olive Garden last night with the in-laws, I’ve had my italian food quota filled for about 3 months.  It’s not that I don’t LIKE italian food.  It’s just…ok - I know this is going to sound weird…but I don’t like RESTAURANT italian food.  I like homemade italian food much better.  Even when I’m making something that I first had in a restaurant, I like the homemade version better.  My favorite example of this is Macaroni Rosa, which you can’t even get around here anymore, because it’s a dish from Buca di Beppo, which went out of business.  When I make it at home, I control the pasta/sauce/meat/veggie ratios, which I just like much better.  Plus, the hubs can have more sauce, and I can have less, whatever we prefer. 

Anyway - the one saving grace at Carabba’s was the dessert.  They serve Blue Bell ice cream which is the hubs’ favorite.  The thing is, they servie it with caramel sauce and these cinnamon candied pecans that are to die for.  I’m not normally a pecan fan…but these?  These are awesome.

In fact, I think I will learn how to make them. 

I was going to make hot dogs for dinner tonight.  ( I know, gourmet, right?  But the hubs LOVES hot dogs, and the kids don’t mind them, and they’re super easy, so why not.)  BUT THEN…I was sitting here thinking of a way to eat more of the yummy strawberry jam (which is totally going to be gone in a heartbeat) and I was thinking…what if I made sweet potato pancakes, with sausage, and jam (and perhaps some eggs) for supper?  That sounds kinda yummy.  We hardly ever do breakfast for dinner, so…I think that may be a winner. 

YUM.

My mother called earlier.  The conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Hello?
Her: Hi. What are you doing?
Me: Not much.
Her: Why not?  Aren’t all those kids driving you nuts yet?
Me: No, they’re fine.  I’m just trying to lay low and get over this chest cold.
Her: Chest cold?  It’s been over a week.  It’s probably congestive heart failure. 
Me: Uh, no - I think that would have shown up on the echos they’ve done.  It’s just a cold, Mom.
Her: Well, you should call your dr.

Now - who makes the jump from having a cough, to congestive heart failure, I ask you??? Who does that?  Plus, HELLO - I’ve been seeing a pulmonologist and cardiologist for almost a year.  I think they might have noticed that.  The kicker here though - in a week I’ll remind her she said this, and she will TOTALLY deny it.  I SWEAR she is developing alzheimer’s.  Not that that would be funny, mind you - but still.  WTH?  Congestive Heart Failure. 

I’ll vote for congestive brain failure, on her part.  *Sigh*

The regular jam is awesome. The no sugar added jam? It’s runny. So - no more attempts at fancy things - I’ll just make the straight up sugar loaded stuff from now on.

It tastes AWESOME on top of KFC biscuits!

We actually finished making the last of the jam at about 2:25 this morning.  Had I been doing it ALL myself, it probably would have taken until 3, but the hubs stayed up and helped me finish. 

I made a double batch of strawberry jam, and a single batch of “no sugar added” strawberry jam, sweetened with Splenda.  They tasted good in the pot, so I’m assuming they’ll be ok.  I’m excited.  This is my first ever canning experience, and let me tell you - I have a new found respect for my grandmothers and my mom.

One of my memories from when I was a kid was going down into my paternal grandma’s “cellar”, and the shelves and shelves of canned goods.  She made everything - from canning corn and peas and whatever veggies they grew, to making her own applesauce - it was all down there.  Tons of it. 

My mom and her mom also canned a lot when I was a kid.  My grandpa had a garden bigger than my yard, filled with tomatoes and cucumbers and who knows what else.  I remember many an afternoon as a kid, sitting around while my mom and grandma processed all those tomatoes.  They would make tomato sauce and tomato juice and spaghetti sauce - and can it all.  Now that I think back about it, those were really special things that I totally took for granted when I was growing up.

Having cut up 25-ish pounds of itty bitty strawberries last night, I now know how much work all of that was.  They always blanched the tomatoes and took the skins off, and then did whatever with them.  I will say - they never added much spice, but it was still always good.

SO - jam experiment #1 completed - mostly successfully.  The kids and the hubster would like us to go picking again in a couple of weeks, when they have blackberries and cherries, so we’ll see.  We did have a lot of fun today, so I can see that happening.  Just as long as I don’t have to sit and prep things for HOURS afterwards!!