Ax News

Well. I have some news, and now that all of my immediate family know, I can tell all my lovely readers (W00T!! All 7 of you now!).

Come September 2008, we will be joined in the Ax Household by another wee set of Ax footsteps pitter-pattering up and down the halls. Yes folks, that's right:

I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!

{sigh} This has been an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least. Who to tell, when to tell them, how long to wait, etc. I don't remember being like this last time, but that was over 7 years ago, and my memory sucketh.

So...with this news comes lots of changes around here...new budgets will be discussed, home improvement plans lay in waiting, belly shots, name polls, furniture purchases, lions and tigers and bears, OH MY!! And you're going to get the brunt of most of it! You'll get to tag along on our journey, all the while helping me by just letting me get stuff out. It may get ugly folks - don't lead yourselves to believe that this will be all roses and kittens. But it'll be a fun ride!! So stay with me...grab a glass of your favorite merlot or iced green tea or Diet Coke, a plateful of whatever you're craving at the moment (I fully support sympathy cravings, you know), and read along with my daily/semi-daily record of our lives during this time.

A great meal.

You know the one...a meal that you'd make a million times over again, no matter what the season or what you feel like...it's your back-up. I so tried to make a meal that I'd hoped would become one of those. "Tried" being the operative word.

Of course, this recipe originated from my newfound food-love, The Pioneer Woman Cooks!. My mother's group members, I believe, have actually become more orgasmic just because of the food on this woman's website...her recipes are that good. We all post about "trying another Pioneer Woman recipe tonight" and of course, get ooohs and aaahs in response, and questions of the reception (although the answer is already known).

I'm making her lasagna. I've had the ingredients for over a week for this dish, but couldn't make it because some family members decided that eating sliced mozzarella cheese out of the package is way more fun than eating it in lasagna. And of course, I bought only enough sliced mozza for the recipe (I never buy sliced cheese...only shredded).

So...I start the recipe...the meat/tomato/basil/parsley mixture looks just like it does on the website (except that she must have some monster pans, because mine is practically overflowing, whereas hers has plenty of room leftover at the top). It looks incredible. And I'm not a meat lasagna eater...purely a cheesy girl here. Then I boil the noodles (which I also never do), and mix the cottage cheese/parsley/egg/Parm mixture up, and set up my little assembly line, just like she does on the website. I start assembling, using my memory as my guide, even though I have the basic instructions written on a notecard not 5 feet away from me (I have, after all, made lasagna before, and good grief, it's just not that difficult, layering this stuff).

So I layer...and I layer again.

I'm on my second and final meat layer, when it dawns on me:

I've forgotten the cheese. Yes folks, that glorious, melty, my-family-likes-to-eat-it-out-of-the-package cheese.

I'm ALL. ABOUT. CHEESE. How could this have happened??? I feel deflated. I feel desolate and stark. I feel like a complete moron because I didn't just walk over to the nearby notecard where it, quite clearly, says "layer noodles, cottage mix, MOZZARELLA, meat mix, repeat".

I'm feeling somewhat one brick short of a full load.

So, I did what any mother does under these circumstances: I cried. I wailed and moaned and caused Big Boss Man to come running. Then, I improvised. I put the cheese {gasp} on top of everything else. I mean for goodness sake, it all goes to the same place, right? (I've officially become my mother now).

So now I'm waiting for a garlic version of Buttery Thyme Bread to come out of the oven. Of course, I'm sure plain Jane garlic isn't what she had in mind when she posted that recipe, but I'm just not as cultured and high-falutin' as she is (and she's a self-proclaimed former food snob, so I'm totally allowed to say that).

My family will eat well tonight. And with any luck, this recipe will be stuck into my box of "back ups", as all great recipes are.

Good Morning Starshine!

Yes folks, that's what song I'm listening to...Good Morning Starshine. It's a lovely song; one that is played on Walzak; one that makes me smile no matter what kind of mood I'm in. I mean, just look at those lyrics...who the heck wouldn't smile hearing someone sing those?

It's bitterly cold here...around 8º now. Of course, this seems like a joke to some of my readers, since at least one of them comes from the land of the 2º temps right now, according to Weather.com. Even the kids don't want to go outside, and I don't much want them to, in this weather. This stinks even more, because cabin fever has reared its ugly head in the Ax household. How does that happen just over a weekend??? I'm planning on going out into that living room in a few minutes, turning off channel 212 (the NFL Network, which plays constantly in this house as long as Little Linebacker is home), turning on one of those kids' music channels, and letting The Boys run around like maniacs to burn off some energy. That will last just a little while, as the NFC and AFC Championship games are on today. LL wouldn't miss those for the world, and I want to see The Pack kick some butt.

So I'm jamming to tunes for awhile in here, then must do laundry and yet another load of dishes. The Boys' room needs cleaned, and I'll vacuum the living room. I've also just noticed the window to my right...it's one of Dexter's windows, and it definitely shows...cat nose marks all over it. So one more thing to put on my list. Tomorrow is back to work. I figured out that I didn't get paid for the New Year's holiday...this bites, and I've told a manager about it. I got someone to work my shift the night before, and he said "they" (whoever "they" are) probably thought I called in sick, and ya can't do that the shift before or after a holiday. But I did not call in sick, just traded days. So I'll fight tooth and nail, especially since I worked the freakin' holiday!! But The Greens has been good to me thus far, so I don't really suspect that this will be a problem.

I hope everyone's weekend is going swimingly, and we'll see you on the flip side!

Can't. Breathe.

Or swallow. Or stop shivering. I don't know what I've caught, but I've had it since a couple days before dad left for home...it's been that long! If this continues, I'm going to have to go to the doctor, which sucks, since my doc is apparently on vacation. My throat hurts so bad, and my neck is so sore. And I can't think of anything else to whine about right now, so my lovely followers just lucked right out! I really didn't want to take a sick day, being as it's only 15 days into the new year, but at this rate, I may have to.

I think I'm going to take my first ever received copy of Domino Magazine (thanks Upstate! I received my first issue in the mail today!), and hunker down in my nice warm bed. And tomorrow's my late day at work, so once I get The Boys off to school, I can come back home and lay down again.

Once I'm well, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming, I promise!

Purging.

I've been going through our office, affectionately called The Bunker (don't ask), and cleaning out my side of old papers, stuff I just don't need or use anymore, you know: Spring Cleaining a good couple months early. I certainly hope that things are supposed to look a lot worse before they get better, because they look worse. I have so many things I wanted to get done today, and all of them require an enormous amount of time to finish, which I have, but they all require patience too, which, uhm, I don't have. I'm absolutely going to make the cinnamon rolls though, because I bought whole milk special for them, and it will go bad if I don't do it soon. Plus, I figure I could always use the extra 2-3000 calories that eating those will entail. {insert rolley eye thingie here}

I would also really like to finish priming the living room, and also The Boys' room. That way, there's a destinct possibility that I could actually {GASP!} paint tomorrow. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that's right, we've got COLORS picked out. Incredible. We've only lived here for 6 years now.

And a budget must (repeat MUST) be made today. If we can't figure it out alone, I'm calling in the reserves. I don't quite know who those people are yet, so friends and family...if you get a call from the Ax household today or tomorrow, be prepared...be mentally prepared. And be afraid.

And laundry is actually down to almost what I'd call a bare minimum, since Dad did much of it while he was here and I was at work (thanks again Dad!). I also got an ink refill kit for our printer...God help me...I'll try that tonight, as we have things that must be copied and faxes that must be received and pages that must be printed. I can't remember the last time we had ink.

My father-in-law is actually doing very well now. Talk has been mentioned of releasing him to rehab, and apparently he ate some lasagna a couple nights ago and didn't complain one bit! Way to go Ax Man!!!

So...if I'm going to get all this stuff done, I must lift my luscious behind from this chair (I think my cat would like to sit here anyway), and get to work.

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone! And remember, no hiding from me with your caller ID...I'll get through eventually ;)

It's incredible.

Well, seven days have flown by, as they usually do, and I'm beat! I've got updates, news, all kinds of good stuff! So keep reading!

My father-in-law had his surgery (a day later than I'd originally thought), and remains in ICU in one of the best hospitals in his area. This is his second bypass surgery, and apparently in maybe 3 out of every 100 cases, scar tissue from a previous bypass forms and connects an artery to the sternum. Since the sternum is obviously broken during bypass surgery, this caused his artery to be very unhappy, and thank God the surgeons are on their toes in there! They fixed him up right, but he's run into some trouble in other areas. So in ICU he stays until he is back on the up and up. This should not take long, as fiesty and rarin'-to-go as he is.

My dad was in town from blustering, snowy Minnesota. He spoiled The Boys rotten, took them ice skating and may have even gotten them interested in hockey. He also helped rid our home of those rats with bushy tails I've mentioned before, as well as fixing a screen door that's been broken for ages. Thanks Dad!!

I also took the time yesterday to actually prepare and freeze fixings for meals later this week. We got a grocery store gift card from my mother-in-law (thanks Jeannie!!), so I went a-shoppin'! I've got P-Dub's Chicken Spaghetti in the fridge for tomorrow probably, and I prebrowned taco meat for walking taco's. Later this week I'll be making The Best Lasagna. Ever. I also purchsed the makings of the infamous Cinnamon Rolls. I think I may actually be drooling right here and now.

Now I'm off to ready the kids for bed, and hit the hay myself. I'm currently on a book entitled Happy Housewives. Seems a little old fashioned, doesn't it? It's well-written. Shine has a "rather caustic sense of humor", and although some of her ideas are good in theory, she tends to turn people off with insult. We'll see though...I've only read a few chapters of the book thus far.