patience & potatoes

I don't know if all pictures are worth a thousand words, but I do have one that tells a story.

I had seen a million people pinning the heck out of this "Better than fries!" pin.

So simple, slice a potato, stick some butter in some of the slices, drizzle olive oil and slap that sucker in the oven.  Bam, delicious and easy, right?

Is it ever that simple?

No.  No it is not.

So I decide I am going to do this.  The pin I had (which I cannot find because apparently I did not repin it!) says to "stick a bamboo skewer through the potato so that you don't accidentally slice all the way through.

Yeah, I tried that.  They forgot to mention in the ingredient list that you need the Hulk because I dunno how the doddle you could shove a bamboo skewer through a RAW potato if you are all Bruce Bannering it up.

So after fighting a bamboo skewer a third of the way in I pulled it out and just cut carefully.  I deserve points for not messing this part up at all.

Then we get to the "place some butter in between every couple of slices."  Simple, right.

Well here is where my lack of patience comes into play and the picture that tells a story does the work for me.

*Ahem*  In other words ...

I was willing to TRY with potato number one.  Potato number two I was like "okay this is a bit tedious" and by three I was thinking this idea sucked.  The fourth potato was just where I gave up and I only did it because I had taken the time to slice the biotch.

Frankly, it was messy, tedious, and not even that tasty when I was done.  Between this and the whole vinegar "no 'poo" lies Pintercrack has been telling me lately I am feeling a bit disenchanted with the whole credibility of my pins.

the Moron + the Overachiever

My dog is a moron.

Cute, very loyal and great with kids, but for the purposes of this post I want to really focus on what a moron he is.

My husband is an overachiever.

He is an overachiever who likes "survival stuff" and transferred all his hemp knot knowledge from high school into paracord knots for all kinds of supposed practical stuff.  I have yet to see any of these things function in their secondary way (i.e. a bracelet that can come apart and be used as rope to repel down a mountain or something) but I am sure they would be usable in a pinch.

Just a few examples.
Seriously, we have hundreds of these.

Combine the overachieving husband and the moron dog and what do you get?  Me, praying over dog poop.

Paul Bunyan has made more paracord bracelets, key chains, zipper pulls, and knife handle cover things than I can count.  We have all sorts of colors including the natural camo looking ones and neon ones too.  *eye roll*

This one is mine.  I won't complain about this one ;)

Well a few weeks ago he made one, with like 40 feet of freaking cord in it.  Black and yellow.  It looks like a normal bracelet and everything, but if you unravel it you have some crazy long colorful rope.  Well he left it on his nightstand, which was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Cue the moron, but cute dog.  This one.

He got bored, and by the time we got home all that was left were two black clips with teeth marks in them.

So somewhere IN my dog is like 40 feet of paracord.  It is possible for it to, um, pass on its own.  So now here we are two days later and suddenly Furry McMoron is wanting to poo a lot.  But he doesn't actually poo a lot.

Here is hoping it is still small enough to pass and hasn't unraveled ... I shudder to think of 40 feet worth of cord unraveled.  He is acting fine and has another 24 hours before I resentfully drag his booty into the vet and fork over a small country's worth in vet bills for them to say "he is a moron" and take care of it.

what kind of moron?

What kind of moron spends like two weeks forgetting to finish packing up the final stuff that is getting mailed out of state until just under a week before Christmas?

This kind of moron.  right here.  *waves*

Bunyan and I really ramped up the stupid this year, money is tight and we not only waited too long to be able to pony express it on the slowest route possible to keep cost down, but we also were sending things to largely awkward to go in a reasonable sized box.  So while it weighed only $40 worth of rush because you are stupid, it took up $67 of rush because you are stupid space on the plane.  In essence, we were stupid.

Adding to the financial impact of this stupidity came the excitement of the post office.  The post office 6 days before Christmas.

If you look up the word stupid in the dictionary there just might be a picture of us.

Adding to my immense good fortune and incredible forward thinking, the morning I planned to go I couldn't find the Bean's sweatshirt.  He has several, all were missing.  No idea where most where, but we were lucky to find the Spider-Man one, which is his favorite after about 15 minutes of desperate searching.  So I got to the post office seven minutes after it opened.

In seven minutes approximately 474 people managed to get in line in front of us.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waaaaaited.

Only to get to the end of the wait to have a $67 stupid tax pied on top of my long wait.  But the bright side here is that Spidey-Beans made the lady behind us laugh several times and was actually well behaved for most of the wait.

What is the most wonderful time of year again?

bladder capacity & toy baths

I may not be a real scientist, but I play one on the internet.  Hello, I am a "rocket surgeon" y'all!  So being all scientific-ey the other day I realized I can visually represent the Beans' bladder capacity for you visually.

Before we get to that, have you seen this?

Or hows abouts this?

So true.  So very, very true.  In my case, the Beans did not actually escape his prison, he just decided to punish me for putting him in it.  I should have been alerted by the sudden silence.  I should have, but I wasn't observant enough.

Now to the scientific bladder capacity part -- just how much pee can a two and a half year old's bladder hold?

Enough to contaminate all of this when he puts his mind to it.

To be fair and maintain scientific transparency, there was smearing action before I realized what was happening.

Of course, my giving his toys a bath was so cool, so he naturally added more to it.  Dumped a whole bucket of Duplos before I could stop the little monstrosity.

This is totally the crap that should be in parentage books, but is strangely absent ...

the importance of parchment paper

It is funny how the little things can derail you.

Take for example, parchment paper.  Something so simple, yet apparently it is quite important to listen to a recipe when it says that you should use it and not, for example, tin foil.

Allow me to teach you why and how.

I found these on Pintercrack.  Marvel in their beauty for a moment if you will, Raw Banana Bread Bars from The Sweet Life Online.  

Now we all know there is a snowball's chance I can make anything even half that pretty and the odds of it being as tasty as those probably are is equally slim, if not less.  But if I gave up there I'd have nothing to blog about.

I bought bananas because they are cheap.  I found dates (which I have admittedly never bought before) and had the oatmeal ... it seemed sooo simple.  But the website very clearly says you need parchment paper.

Now I did not intentionally disregard this, I just overlooked it.  Until I was all ready to go.  Keep in mind I am allergic to bananas and Paul Bunyan gets frustrated when I try to handle them, so speed was of the essence here.  So I made a snap decision to proceed because, really, how important can parchment paper be?  

Um, apparently very.  

So I slice for about 45 years and put them on tin foil coated in a non-stick spray ... 

I presume that this is where I went wrong because where the bananas were supposed to get a bit dry and bendy I instead had kind of smoked bananas at the end.  And they were just as wet as they started, but definitely stickier.

So yes, I messed this one up on like the very first step.  I did continue on in the hope that it would end up being edible in some form ... but ... well, see for yourself ...

In the processor, but already doomed.

Um, that looks appetizing, right?

Trying to flatten it per the instructions, but it is a bit liquidy.

Uh, yeah, once they are in the right shape they are clearly much better looking.  Right?  Yeah, I didn't think so either.  

As you can tell the end result wasn't particularly appetizing in appearance.  What the picture doesn't appropriately convey is the texture and consistency.  It was wet, soupy, gooey, and just plain gross. 

Ultimately, I tried sticking it in the fridge over night in the hope that the cold would firm it up.  Still a big nope. 

So in the trash it went, and I know now that while clear plastic wrap may be my arch nemesis parchment paper is clearly a very underrated product.  

Oh, and the extra burned gooey bananas?

Threw them out too.  Ew.

*stuff* parents say

Parenthood changes you.

One moment you have dignity and some semblance of self worth, the next you are feeling like hot stuff because you shaved your legs this month, a stolen chicken nugget is a meal, and you feel a huge sense of accomplishment when you teach your children to use a bottle opener for you.

I know in my pre-kid days I was a Judgey McJudgeison who often turned my nose up at parents who's children weren't eating their broccoli with smiles at every meal, saying please and thank you in their sleep, and knowing how to locate an effing salad fork.  Seriously, I don't even  know which one is the salad fork so I am not sure where these delusions came from.  At any rate, I was thinking the other day that there are some real gems that my kid-free friends would be equally horrified and amused-in-a-non-understanding-condescending-way at hearing me utter.

Here are my top fifteen.

Shit I Never Said Before I Became a Mom

1. I used the baby's Nose Freda ... on myself.  I feel better.

2. Thank gawd, it is only pee.

3. Bye bye penis!  Bye bye now! *said in a really animated voice that makes pulling one's pants on acceptable even when one really doesn't want his pants on*

4. I can't tell for sure, let me just sniff his butt.

5. Ha ha ha, they say it is unbreakable!

6. So do you want to wear pants today? Please?

7. Is that a booger or a scab?

8. OMG, seriously, I can go to the grocery store and shop By. My. Self?! (okay I have never said this, but I fantasize about getting to, and that is a new thing)

9. Well at least he didn't swallow it, we are no where near our deductible yet.

10. What, you don't have the number for poison control memorized?

11. Holy flip flops Wolverine, trim those toenails!

12. When did I get that black eye?

13. Oh it is only a little poop/pee/vomit/snot.

14. Did you actually use soap/toothpaste this time, or just water?

15. Dora is a hooker, DJ Lance is on acid, but Caillou is a whiny bitch.

What about you?  What are some zingers you never thought you'd say prior to parenthood?

lies Pintercrack tells

Obviously, I have a love/hate relationship with Pintercrack.  This isn't part of the IK4T series, this is just a separate rant.  I call it LIES Pintercrack tells me.

You know how you see those "zomg this is so brilliant" pins and you think to yourself

Self, the person who pinned this isn't a total dumbass.  

That must actually be a good idea!

No? Only me? Okay, well anyway, lets pretend you do get it.

Sometimes I discover totally earth shattering stuff on Pintercrack ... like this little ditty about Tic Tacs.

Why the hell isn't that like on the label or something?

Then there is this faboosh little life altering product.

How awesome is that?  I mean there could be nothing worse, nothing more embarrassing than getting your hair in your noodles when you are eating ... right?

Then there is always these amazing gift ideas you find ...

Sorry, that one just makes me laugh.  Back to the point.  This is what the remainder of my mindless rant will be about.  

But when I saw this the first time I actually had a mini heart attack.  This was before the great Allergy House Purge of October 2012, and pancakes and waffles were a huge dietary mainstay in the Dr. DomesticRocket household.  Meatball would proudly proclaim that I had the best, the best, recipe for waffles ever and would eat them for all three meals a day had I let him.  By the way, if you would like my "best ever" waffle recipe it is the one on the back of the Bisquick box.

Being that I made batter-ey things pretty frequently I saw that picture there and was pretty amazed.  This could do for my pancake baking what koozies did for tailgating.

So I tried it.  In fact, it was like record pin-to-reality time because we happened to have a very close to empty ketchup bottle in the fridge that made the boys laugh hysterically whenever you tried to use it.  (hehehe, mom, the bottle farts!)

So within days I was making up my batter and cleaning out a ketchup bottle excited and optimistic that I could not possible screw this up.

Famous last words.

Problem Numero Uno: Who the hell wants to clean out a ketchup bottle.  It is a surprisingly difficult task.

Problem Numero B: The neck of a ketchup bottle is the size of a muther fracking pin hole.  Yes, let us pour BATTER into that.  How could this possibly go wrong?!

Problem Numero Third: Well ... the pictures speak for themselves.

make your batter ...

now I need something to pour the batter into the bottle with 

okay maybe it is user error,
maybe I went to fast,
lemme try that again ...

No. No, it still doesn't work.

Making sure I understand this, I could have had ONE mixing bowl
to clean and now I have three things?  This is easier how?

Just getting the damn thing loaded was annoying.  But then using it? Maybe that was where the easy part came into play, or so said the glitter eating hopeful unicorn that resides inside my head.

Perhaps it was because I had the "no drip" lying SOB bottle (damn thing didn't "drip," per-say  but it would squirt ketchup water with the force of a thousand fire hoses before any actual ketchup came out) but the thing clogged up like every ten seconds.  It was only good for like 5 waffles then needed refilled; I had more on my hands, counter and all the electronic parts of the freaking waffle maker than I would have had I used a blender without the lid on; AND it took me WAY longer to do this "simple" trick than I ever would have with the "old" and "complicated" way.

"no drip" cap

"modified no drip" cap
AKA: I took a steak knife to the damn thing 

Real Simple's website (where this idea apparently originated) is full of shit, and I am back to using a measuring cup and pouring stuff.  Screw the ketchup bottles, man.

This is just one of the lies Pintercrack tells, there are more ... so many more ...

yeah, I'd kill for that

Obviously as the name of the series suggests, this is about the most basic emotion and driving force in human nature.  Jealousy.  On Pintercrack, in magazines, catalogs, on TV and in movies we are constantly shown these utterly awesome places. But in reality we have normal ones. Talk about let downs. Sometimes these awesome spaces serve to inspire us, motivating us to do something utterly bad ass with our otherwise normalcy.  However, no amount of aqua chevron stripes can alter square footage or make an incredible bay window appear out of no where.  So to open this series I am rockin' the honesty factor to the highest degree with laundry rooms.

For the sake of literary impact lets start with the things I am tortured with on Pintercrack and in other forms of visual media.  This really started when I saw a pin about an amazing blog full of ideas for your home.  I started poking around and agreed, it is a great blog with lots of great ideas.  I follow it, and continue to explore.  Then I click on a section about "befores and afters" because I loooooove me some before and after posts!  But I am puzzled when I see a beautiful image of a washer and drier and a sink ...

Puzzled because the sink and counters and cabinets look like a kitchen, yet there is a washer and drier in there.  So I look back at the title, thinking perhaps I read something wrong and this lady lives in Europe where I know you will often find the washer in the kitchen ... no, she just has a gorgeous laundry room.

And that is when I become a bad person full of hate and envy.

But really, can you blame me?  I mean, these are the images I come across when I look for organization ideas for a laundry area ...

Ah yes ... note the windows letting in light so you don't feel trapped and enslaved ...

Tile floors, curtains, crown molding, how lovely.

So white and crisp!  Heavenly, am I right?

Ooooooo and here we have an island in a laundry room ... look forward to an upcoming IK4T post about kitchen islands ...

And here we have a huge amount of storage, square footage, with a nice dash of I-hate-you.

Now this image is nifty.  Have one of those closety type laundry spaces?  You still have more than I do.

And this?  Well, this is what I have.  Ladies and Gents, I give you the Domestic Rocket Surgeon's operating room as it pertains to clothing:

To be upfront, I live in a part if the country where basements are seen as an adorable nostalgic and completely unnecessary accessory and expense. Unfortunately, the builders of my home back in 1985 thought a designated laundry room space was equally worthless apparently. Yes, my washer and drier are in my garage.

My garage.

I know (at least here) that this is not hugely abnormal.  But please, understand, our garage is a multipurpose room.  It holds my car, our beer fridge, lots of storage, and is my husband's "workshop" too.  My laundry is often covered in sawdust.  I have to clean my laundry area often.  But it is never clean.

Where do you hang your clean clothes that cannot get dried in a drier?  Pintercrack says you could hang them here ...

... or here ...

or even here, with a bit of upcycling ...

But me?  Oh, my husband rigged me a clothes line that hangs right between my car and my storage section of the garage.  Here, bask in its beauty.

Mmhmm.  The angle of the photo suggests that my clothesline might be suspended from my handing tube lights that flicker all the murther fawking time, but that is not the case.  There is a hook the size of my head gouged into the popcorn ceiling on either end.

Oh and yes, if you run out of toilet paper you have to come out to the garage to get more.  On that note, lets take a look at some of the "laundry room storage" ideas Pintercrack has to offer us.

Hide all that unsightly stuff with a curtain! Poof, gone!

Have individual baskets for each member of your family so that they come and get their basket full of clean, folded goodies and put them away themselves (sorry, I nearly wet myself laughing at the idea of my boys actually putting their clothes away, like all the way away).  I categorically refuse to acknowledge the farmhouse style sink in that picture, the one I desperately wanted in my kitchen.

These laundry baskets roll.  And look at the pretty cupboards and counters.  Want to see mine?  Okay, here ya go ...

Why I keep all those vases I do not know.  

Why yes, that is James Dean playing pool, my Tide bottle, and a really expensive-heavy-as-a-baby-flashlight.

Well lets look at the pre- and post- laundry stuff.  What about soaking and cleaning, all the pre-treating you are supposed to do.  We have seen some enviable sinks but here is another one:

Vintage!  Oh, the character.  

My sink?  

Oh that's right, *smacks forehead* I don't HAVE one.  But I do have a soaking bucket, right between my washer and drier.

Try to contain your envy.

My "utility sink" or "laundry room sink" is my kitchen sink.  My folding area?  Um, the top of my giant dog kennel just inside my garage door.

*le sigh*

Ironing is something I do about, oh maybe, three times a year.  It depends, quite frankly, on the number of weddings and funerals we attend.  So a designated ironing space would be probably wasted on me, but since I am in such a goooooood mood, lets look at one comparison.

Oh handy that!  Put an ironing board on a little glidey slidey thingy and you can store it soooo easy.  Me?

Well my ironing board gets set up in my kitchen so I only have room to stand on one side of it because the other is smashed against the counter.  Oh and my iron, it seems to have bladder control issues.  I can't complain though.  The fear of electrocution makes ironing much more thrilling.


In fact, for as hideous as those picture may be, I spent a good ten minutes making it not look so atrocious that I could post it on the internet without being utterly humiliated.  I can live with mild humiliation, complete humiliation is different.  Yes, yes, those images you just giggled at or stared at with blank horror are the better, less embarrassing versions of my reality.

So on the list of things I want in my dream home one of the top ten items is surely a laundry room that is in the actual house!  And on the list of things I would kill for ... any of the laundry spaces pictured that aren't mine.