Projects

Guess what's happening in my house right now? Repairs/remodeling, that's what! Yesterday they installed new lighting in the kitchen. So instead of the stupid ugly square flourescent, we now have 6 lovely recessed lights that make it so a person can actually SEE things in there! It's pretty amahzing. Today they're finishing up that ceiling, mudding and painting, and fixing the one in the master bedroom, as well. It's taking longer than I expected it would (and longer than they estimated). So I'm kind-of stuck here. With the kids, of course. I have today off and scheduled the work this week because the kids have the day off. But because the 2 rooms with TVs in them are the ones being worked on, we've been very confined to other spaces. Well, and outside. They're playing with the neighbors outside now, who got home from school an hour ago. (One of the weirdnesses of attending private school is that you might have different schedules and breaks than the neighbors. Which we do! Our Spring Break is next week and theirs is the week after.) Anyway, I'm starting to get bored and I'm quite tired of KT being whiny.

But otherwise, I'm excited about the whole project. It means that maybe we'll move ahead to the "consider putting it on the market" phase. Maybe. Someday. Probably not this spring. Maybe late summer. Or next spring. Who knows. We still have at least 2 rooms that must be painted and, let me see... 2 more that could stand to be painted. And a good majority of the baseboards and trim. And possibly that bannister I talked about at first. So that's a lot of additional work.

Right at the moment I'm glad I have the day off and I am sure I should try to get some work of my own done. I could work on the taxes (and in fact that is what I will do after finishing this blog post), or I guess I could start taping off at least one hallway, for trim-painting. We bought the paint and it already smells like paint fumes so it'd be a good time to do that.

But I'm just not feeling like DOING anything, honestly. I'm trying to let myself be OK with that. Regular days, we do so much. All of us, I mean. Humans. Parents in the year 2013. We never just have a day where we can eat lunch outside, lay down on the grass for a while, sit on the couch, take a little nap, watch Karate Kid on Netflix on the laptop.... and I've done all those things today. I washed and folded some towels, too (though not the shoes my DH asked me to throw in with those towels - I forgot), so I feel like I've accomplished plenty, for my day off. Take a Day Off, I say. Just revel in the kindness of doing nothing.

7 Quick Takes: A little less ranty, a little more yummy

Sorry about below. Got a little fired up.

But Lent is nearly over and it's time to start celebrating! Yes, the joy of the risen Lord, but also, the fact that meatless Fridays are almost over! I'm a wimp, what can I say? Actually, that's not true -- I love meatless meals, but my family gets grumbly about them. So I'll be glad when I can just spring the meatless meals on them, on my OWN schedule.

Here are seven meatless meals we've had this Lent:

1. Breakfast for dinner. Our old standby. It's always fun to have Belgian waffles, even if you can't have bacon to go with them. And scrambled-egg burritos? Mine and DH's favorite. Mmmm.

2. IHOP. More of the same! My parents came up to visit during the first weekend of Lent, and we always like to go out to eat when they're here (although I will say that more often than we used to, we've cooked for them at home with great success). So we hit up IHOP on a Friday night and guess what... there was NO WAIT. We might have been the only customers. Again, too bad about the bacon, but we were counting Weight Watchers points, anyway. ;) Spinach omelet, anyone?

3. Frozen fried seafood. Sorry, food purists, but we like our fish sticks and our popcorn shrimp (new this year! KT lurrrvhs it) and our Kraft mac-n-cheese on the side.

4. Tuna Casserole. Egg noodles. Cream of Chicken. Can of tuna. Cheddar. Ritz. BOOM.

5. While not a Lenten dinner-menu item, I made these last week and WOW, were they good! Even the DH liked them! Black-bean and sweet potato burritos. I had never heard of such a combination but they are creamy, without being messy at all, and don't even need any additional salsa! WHAT? I know. Try them.

6. Good old Cheese Pizza from Papa John's. That might be what we're having tonight, in fact.

7. Our expensive pasta dinner. (Although you could, of course, do a muuuuuuch less expensive version at home. My version would be shrimp, noodles, garlic, parmsean. Even better with some sun-dried tomatoes.)

Only one more meatless Friday after today! Hooray!Visit conversiondiary.com for all the quick takes posts... as you already know.

PLEASE PRAY FOR AN END TO GUN VIOLENCE

I'm sorry to even share this, and I don't usually get on a soapbox, but  it makes me so ANGRY, and so FEARFUL and SAD for our country and for the whole world if these are the kind of people in it.

The story says that the suspects are believed to be between 10 and 15 years old.

I can't take this kind of story any more. What is WRONG with people??? Why does a [expletive] TEN YEAR OLD have access to a gun? When did it become a thought process for a ten-year-old to put a gun in a woman's face because he wants some money, and then just up and kill the baby in her stroller?? How does a kid know how to pull the damn trigger and not consider what's about to happen?? I don't know who to blame, I don't know what to do, I want to throttle whoever is in charge of the care of this 10-year old and this 15-year old, I am certain that the Devil is on the prowl and laughing about another innocent child dead, and I am so sad. So sad for that mom and dad whose stroller -- STROLLER -- is stained with blood.

We need a SERIOUS, SERIOUS prayer chain about this. We need to say the St. Michael the Archangel prayer ALL THE TIME.

KIDS SHOULD NOT HAVE GUNS.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

A Friday night in Lent

On Friday nights, I never feel like cooking. Or, I might feel like cooking but I'll have used up all the available entree choices by that late in the week. DH has come to accept this and probably sets his watch by my text or phone call at 5:30 pm, saying, "So.... I don't have much in the fridge tonight... do you want to go somewhere?"

Sometimes we let the kids dictate suggest a restaurant, which usually ends up with someone wailing that they don't LIIIIIIIKE that place. But this past Friday I decided what I wanted and didn't give anyone a chance to disagree. We could have gone to the church, where they were doing their fish-fry, but I chose the Italian place near our house, Vincent's, instead.  

I had the most delicious sacrificial garlic pasta, man. With shrimp. Austerity! (The joke in my family is "sacrificial (seafood) gumbo." Because it's so TERRIBLE to have to eat seafood gumbo! Wink. Catholicism is fun.)

First I must tell you that I had had a harrowing day at my office, where "harrowing" just means that I was in a blood-pressure-raising meeting from 10:30 to 12:30, and it took my heart another 2 hours to settle down after that. I don't often have physical reactions to work in that way, but because my computer was also acting up, and I had a huge to-do list that, therefore, I couldn't DO.... my whole day was jacked.

Man, I'm feeling my panic rise just remembering last Friday. Ugh. ...Deep breaths....

Anyway, I had poured the last of our red wine into a glass and kind-of downed it before we left for Vincent's. Didn't want it to go to waste, you know, and I needed it! Then I deserved another glass once we got there, of course, to enjoy with my husband. The kids were quite agreeable, and they ordered actual food -- i.e., not chicken nuggets, because they couldn't, but they were okay with that! -- and ate it, and didn't make me take them to the restroom the minute my food arrived (KT has a knack), and we toasted the new Pope, and even (get this):

Got a compliment from the diners sitting next to us, that our kids were so lovely and well behaved. !!!!

It was a pleasant time, is what I'm saying. The wine and the compliment rendered me almost giddy. It's pretty sweet when kids get old enough to go to a nice Italian place during Lent! Or anytime! Even though the meal and the shrimp ($1 each!) and the wine and a generous tip ended up costing us nearly $100. 

Of course, I had to face the consequences later: Pasta plus lots of wine (where 2 glasses = "lots") made it rather difficult to stay awake while KT read me her new Pete the Cat book on my bed. Luckily, she doesn't need my help as much as she used to. :) She finished the story and I'm pretty sure she had to wake me so I could put her into her bed.