I will talk to you about books, but don't ask me to join your book club

PLEASE don't make me join a book club.

I recently finished reading The Help.  In the back of the book, there were 10 questions or so that you might want to discuss in your book club.  I found them offensive.  I wish I had the book with me so I could post them, but generally, they insulted my intelligence while being boring at the same time.  These questions reminded me that I don't want to join a book club.

Once upon a time, far far away, I joined a book club.  It was with the ladies at work and we were reading Madame Bovary.  WHAT A MISTAKE.  Problem 1:  Madame Bovary is a terrible book.  It is boring and whiny.  I couldn't finish it.  It is supposed to be about infidelity or something, but I couldn't get that far, the whining was too much.  Problem 2:  When people talk about literature, they want to talk about how it was written and character development and what the writer was trying to say.  BOOOOOOORING.  When I read a book, I want to get caught up in the story.  I want to forget that I am reading and I just want to explore the new world I have joined.  If I even notice the writing style, I can't finish the book.  I only want to notice the pictures in my head.

Most of the books I have read lately, have been turned into movies.  For most of them, I saw the movie after reading the book.  I think this isn't working for me, I might have to switch the order of my movie viewing. 

If I were leading a discussion about the books I have read, I would like to also bring the movies into the discussion.  Here are the questions we would discuss:

1. In the hunger games, am I supposed to be on a team like Twilight?  Team Peeta or team Gale?  My team alliance changed with each book.
2. Don't you think Peeta in the movie should have been bigger?  I am thinking someone that looks more like the oldest kid on Home Improvement.
3. What did the wives from "The Help" do all day?  They didn't work and they had employees to take care of the house and the children.  Wheren't they bored?  No wonder they were catty gossips.
4. In the movie, I thought the actresses playing the two main maids would have been switched.  What do you think?
5. Do not read "The Help" while staying at a hotel.  You will suddenly feel guilty for having housekeeping come in to tidy your room.  Agree or Disagree?
6. Walt Disney did an awesome job of giving a plot to Pollyanna.  Agree or Disagree?

Do you have any other good discussion questions?

I read

When I was younger I was a nerd.  I read a lot.  I found that I missed out on a lot of real life experiences because I was off by myself reading a book.  I decided to stop reading and get a life.  I think it worked out pretty well.

Recently, I received some books as gifts and got a mobile device that allows me to read ebooks.  I decided to start reading again.  So far I have almost finished reading all three Hunger Games books, The Help, and Pollyanna.

I have rediscovered the problems of reading interesting books.  Somehow they get into your head deeper than TV or Movies.  If I had just seen the movies of all of these, they would have been interesting, but I wouldn't have thought about them that much after I saw them.  With the books, the stories started infiltrating every thought and took over my dreams.  I found myself making sure that I had a book to read during the 10 minutes it takes to give the baby her bottle.  I now understand why the hubby takes forever in the bathroom (He reads there.  I am not trying to suggest that reading gives me intestinal problems.).  I was neglecting my children and boring my husband by talking about the stories non stop.  The hubby reads all the time, and he is constantly telling me the details of his books, so I don't feel bad about paying him back.  I do feel guilty about neglecting the children.

I have even started listening to audio books.  I know, this is not technically the same as reading, but it does get the story stuck in your head for a while.

So the only question is, who has a suggestion for my next addiction?  Warning:  I don't want to read 50 shades of gray or any horror books.

Slurpee fiasco

I am from Grand Blanc.  In Grand Blanc, everyone lives within walking distance of a 7-11.  During the peak years, we lived within walking distance of two.  This was an important factor in buying my own home as an adult.  Luckily, we found a home close to a 7-11.  However, we did not consider that the road that leads to the 7-11 is Michigan Ave.  This stretch of Michigan Ave has no sidewalks, so we had to drive to 7-11 like suckers.

Then came the new subdivision.  With the new subdivision came a new road that cut through to the next main road.  The new subdivision had sidewalks and so does the other main road.  This was wonderful.  When the new subdivision went in, my sister came over, we put baby Charles in the bike trailer and we headed to the 7-11.  The new route was great as far as sidewalks go, but it was definitely the long way to get there.  I swear it was up hill both ways.  We rode our bikes to the 7-11 once and then realized that there were alternatives.  The new route to 7-11 led us paste a movie theater and a Meijer gas station.  Both have frozen cokes.

I would like to be a snob, but the truth is, I can't tell the difference between a frozen coke and a slurpee.  Our remaining bike rides have gone past the movie theater (no one wants to pay 4 bucks for a frozen coke), and onward to the Meijer gas station. 

Odessa is still a little young for the bike trailer.  Today I thought it would be a good idea to walk with a 4 year old and a baby in a stroller to the Meijer gas station.  I am stupid.  In Grand Blanc this would have been easy.  It was not easy from our house.  It turns out it is way farther than I imagined.  Half way to the gas station I had to send Nathan back to get the car.  I figured we might be able to make it there, but no way were we making it back.  That left me alone to cross the major roads with the children.  We did pretty well, but I almost considered stopping to get the 4 dollar frozen coke at the movie theater.  Amazingly, Nathan saved the day and pulled into the movie theater to pick us up.  He took us right to the Meijer gas station.

To top off the fiasco, I didn't even get a frozen coke.  I am trying to give up pop.

Wrestling is very much like Glee

One of the great things about the type of work I do is that I get to work with wonderful people.  One of the downsides of the kind of work I do is that we get moved around a lot so the wonderful people I get to know don't work with me forever.

One of the wonderful people I have worked with is named Tom.  Tom and I worked together for years with a great team of people.  The situation was horrendous, but the team was amazing.  It has been a while since I have worked with Tom.  Luckily, with my new job being in Downtown Detroit, Tom and I can meet for lunch occasionally.

Tom is a wrestling Ref and recently he couldn't meet me for lunch because he would be at Regionals.  I had to ask if it was the same as Regionals on Glee.  Tom is hilarious and this is his response.

"Yes, those wrestling boys like to think of it as being very much like Glee. Except their uniforms aren’t so much like costumes. They do have regionals too.


At one meet that I reffed, this kid who wasn’t very good at wrestling, and everyone knew it, except his mom who thought he was good (but she wasn’t very knowledgeable about anything anyway) tried to wrestle the champ. When I blew the whistle to start the match, the kid started running around the wrestling mat snapping his fingers and singing that song from West Side Story, you know the one:


"When you’re a Jet, you’re the top cat in town, you’re the gold-medal kid, with the heavyweight crown!...”


The champ looked at him like he was a weirdo (which he was in fact) and the kid’s Mom was yelling, “…take him down, Snowboy, take him down…”, which also didn’t make sense to those watching since the kid was clearly dancing like a Puerto Rican and not really a Jet. Suddenly, his teammates too started dancing, as did everyone in the gym.

The champ, yelling and cursing, chased the dancer/wrestler into the hallway wanting to beat this kid’s ass, but stopped short because now there were like 200 people in the hallway doing the same Puerto Rican-like dance. The look on the champ’s face was priceless—he didn’t know what the hell was going on, he was scared. He just stared with a panicked look on his face. Out of nowhere, the weirdo wrestler who was also a bad dancer but could sing pretty good, walked up to the champ and, in a falsetto voice, sang, “Don’t be angry, I am your brother.” The champ immediately puked, and while everyone started laughing at him, Howie Mandel walked from out of the crowd and said, “Champ, this isn’t a real wrestling meet, or even an episode of Glee. You’ve been mobbed. The champ started crying while everyone clapped and cheered. The weirdo tried to kiss his brother but was quickly punched unconscious.

That’s why I like reffing, but I digress. In wrestling, it starts with eight Districts. If you make it out of Districts, you advance to one of four Regionals.

Here is where the pressure builds. Everyone wants to make it out of their respective regional (one of four regions) to the State meet, or “State” for short.

Now, there is much disagreement and discord about whether a wrestler advances to “State” or “States”. I am in the “State” camp. To me, a number of districts make up a number of regionals make up only one state meet. So I say “State”. Others disagree with me. Of course many of them say Fords, Chryslers, K Marts, Wal Marts, Meijers, etc. Not me though."

Semi-successful pinning

I am into mustaches lately. I don't want to grow one myself, or have my husband grow one, but I find them fascinating. Because of this, my friend Cheryl sent me this link. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=304275.0. I pinned it.

The pattern is for knitting, but I wouldn't let that stop me. It seemed so simple. It was so simple I was going to make a ton of them. I was going to hand them out like chicklets. I made one. It was way hard. First of all, you can't just take a knitting pattern and do the same thing with crochet. I don't know why, but it turns out to be completely different. So, I crocheted something that looked terrible and then just filled in the gaps with embroidery. Somehow it turned out way bigger than the one in the pattern. oops.

Adventures in Crochet

Well, I have learned to crochet, but so far the one thing I have not mastered is a hat. I have a lot of hat books with fabulous hat creatures and creations, but they are all sized for little kids. I try to alter the pattern so they will fit me, but so far, no good.

To torture me further, THE gift this Christmas was the creature hat. I so wanted to make these myself.

Here is the hat I tried to crochet.

You are thinking, my goodness, What a great orange Hershey's kiss hat you have crocheted. Why thank you, except it is supposed to be ERNIE. So I ripped this one out and tried another approach. I confess that I knitted the hat part and crocheted the rest. I barely know how to knit and I cannot pearl. Everything I know about knitting is what my hands remember from when I was 6 years old and my Great Grandma taught me how to knit. However, as luck would have it, I own one of those hat knitting looms they make for children. It is amazing. It allows me to make a hat. They all turn out the same size, the perfect size for my family of big heads. Once I knitted the hat, I crocheted Ernie's ears and the ear flaps. I found some big chunky black yarn and it became the magic hair. Originally I bought black fur, that was a big mistake. when you buy fur, it gets everywhere.

Anyway, here is the finished product. I was going to make the rest of the face, but I decided I like it better as a high concept Ernie. It would be condescending to the public to put a face on Ernie, assuming they couldn't figure out that it is Ernie as it is.


Maybe I will finish the Bert hat for Nathan by next winter.

Feel free to pin this.

Dear Hipster, be my friend

Hipster to me: "Ooh, I like your shoes. Saddle shoes are so hard to find."

Me to hipster: "Thank you."



This conversation took place while I was waiting to go up the elevator a few days after I started my new job. I will never be able to make new friends with a lame-o response like "Thank you." However, I didn't know what else to say. Everything else I could think of sounded lame.

• "Thank you, I got them at JCPenney. You can get them there too," Would have been a nice response, but JCPenney is such a middle aged mom store (appropriate for me). It is totally not a hipster store. My cousin Jeff told me that I should have told her that I got them at a resale shop or in an alley. He says hipsters love that stuff. Of course, the perfect response is ready when it is already too late.


• "Thank you, I like your lightly punked out school girl outfit," might have sounded sarcastic, even though I did like her outfit.


• "Thank you, wanna be friends and do lunch?" would have sounded needy and a little too kindergarten.

The other day I saw her on the elevator. She works on the floor below mine. She was wearing green tights. I wanted to compliment her on her green tights, but with an elevator full of women my age, I was afraid it would come off as sarcastic. But I did come up with an idea. I think I need to tape a sign on the door for her floor. This is what it will say:

"Dear hipster with the green tights,

I love your tights and your cool hair. We should be friends and do lunch. Let me know if you are interested.

Sincerely yours,

Middle aged woman with the saddle shoes"

Then I would have to wear the saddle shoes until the next time I see her.

Any other thoughts? Recommendations?

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey

Lately I have been reading a few mommy blogs. I don't really know what defines a mommy blog, but I know one when I see one. I don't think this is one. Maybe I just can't see it on my own blog.


Anyway, these mom's give hints and tips for things you can do with your kids, things you can do with your house, and things you can make for dinner. I would not be any good at this because We always do the same things, eat the same things, and our house is a disaster. Obviously I am not the type of mommy or wife that anyone should model their behavior after. However, every now and then I really kick butt for a short time in a certain department. If I did have a mommy blog, this would be one of the postings. Another posting would be where I recommend that moms of young children always have leftover pizza in the fridge.


This week I kicked butt at Turkey.
no mommy blog would be complete without full recipes, I will include them at the end.


We recently discovered that you can buy little boneless skinless turnkey breasts. They are much smaller than the turkeys you have at thanksgiving, but they aren't teeny tiny. They are about the size of a small chicken. We love them. They come frozen and we can cook it in the crock pot all day and then have a wonderful dinner. I do love the crock pot, but all the things I cook in there have to be things that can cook for 11 hours or longer. I need to be able to plug it in when I leave for work and we are not going to eat it until after I pick up the kids, get them home, and make mashed potatoes (chazzy chazz loves mashed potatoes). Usually, we would buy a little turkey, they cost $8-$12, we would eat it for dinner and we would put away the leftovers believing that we would eat them in sandwhiches. A week or more later I would find the turkey and throw it in the trash. Not this time. This time I cut up the turkey into teeny tiny pieces and put it into two containers and stuck them in the fridge. The next day we had turkey quesadillas. Surprisingly, I think I like them better than chicken quesadillas. It is very similar, but there is just a little extra flavor. Even Chazzy Chazz liked them better. He ate a whole one all by himself. I used the second container to make "Eggs Catherine". These eggs are a lot like scrambled eggs, but so much better. I made six servings so I split them into smaller glass bowls I got at the dollar store, put them into baggies, and then put them into the freezer so I can take one out at a time to take to work for breakfast. Today I brought the first one from this batch. Delicious and I was not starving by lunch time. I rarely am this organized. In fact, this might be the only time I ever used the whole turkey. I feel so unwasteful. Does anyone else have any good recipes for leftover turkey? I am not going to try impossibly easy turkey quesadilla pie. That didn't go well for the chicken.

Recipes:

Turkey in the Crock pot:

1. Open the frozen skinless boneless turkey breast and run under water just long enough to get the gravy pack to come off.


2. Throw away gravy pack. (unless you like turkey gravy)


3. Put the turkey in the crock pot.


4. Pour 1/3 cup of water over the turkey.


5. Pour 1/3 cupe of apple juice over the turkey.


6. Turn the crock pot onto medium and cook for 6-12 hours.

Turkey Quesadillas:

1. Put about a cup of chopped up cooked turkey in a sauce pan.


2. Add 1 Tbs of butter.


3. Add 1/3 cup water.


4. Add a healthy shake of taco seasoning. We use the taco seasoning from gordons. It comes in a huge container that may last you years.


5. Heat at medium heat and mix until most of the water is gone.


6. Put the chicken in a bowl.


7. Decide how many quesadillas you want to make and butter one side of twice as many tortillas. Both flour and corn tortillas work. flour tortillas taste better in leftovers.


8. Put shredded mozerella cheese in one bowl and shredded cheddar in another bowl.


9. Assemble/cook each quesadilla in a frying pan on medium heat in this order: Tortilla, butter side down - Mozerella cheese - turkey - cheddar cheese - tortilla butter side up.


10. Flip it after one side is brown.

Eggs Catherine

1. Mix eggs and milk in a bowl like you would for scrambled eggs.


2. Add a LOT of cheddar cheese.


3. Add about a cup of chopped up turkey (deli ham and deli turkey work also. I think hotdogs would also work.).


4. Add some salt.


5. Pour into a hot frying pan on medium heat.


6. Stir it around like you would scrambled eggs until nothing is liquidy anymore.


7. Put in little containers and freeze.


8. Cook in the microwave for 1 minute when you take them out.

If you ever spend the night at my house, ask me to make these for you. They are SO good.

Why hello pancake face!

Hopefully I am not alone in this. Maybe I am just super full of myself. When I look at a picture of a group of people and I am in that group, I look at myself first. I scrutinize how I look, and decide if I look nice or not. I briefly look at everyone else in the picture and decide that they look lovely. Usually, I come up with a reason that I don't look lovely.

Recently my cousin Sarah sent me some pictures of us over the holidays. In general the pictures are very nice. One is of me and her and the other is of me, my sister, my uncle and her.

Here are the pictures.

In general, these pictures are fabulous of my cousin and my sister and just ok of me. I was looking at them trying to decide why. Reason 1, My sister and my cousin are hot hot hot. Of course that helps them take a great picture. Reason 2, I think the picture is just ok of me because my face looks like a pancake face. It looks flat, not dynamic, and nothing pops. I have seen this in pictures of me before. I think I have decided on a solution that is make up. Currently, I rarely wear make up. I didn't realize how rare it was until I remembered that both of these pictures were taken on a special occasion. Special occasions are the definition of when you wear make up if you wear it rarely. I don't think I can become a full face make up person. That would lead to me being a different kind of pancake face. I would be the kind of pancake face that has thick powder caked all over and it wouldn't match my neck. I am starting with eye liner, mascara, and lipstick. Today is day one and so far so good.

I think the problem will be day two. See, whenever I wear eye make up, I look terrible the next day. I am not good at getting it off my face and it ends up with black smears all around my eyes the next day. Any suggestions? Should I just plan to look nice every other day? On the off days I can wear dark glasses or wear my hair over my eyes. All suggestions are welcome.

Stopping my butt from getting bigger

This is not a New Years Resolution or a diet. It just seems that maybe my butt (and the rest of me) got a little bigger over the holidays. I blame the bucket of cookies on the kitchen table, the FABULOUS fondue we made for New Years and all the wonderful food that was prepared for us as we went to visit people.

The fact that there is more of me to love is especially obvious to me because my new pants are a little tight and my new shirt is a little tight, and I think that they are trying to stay far away from eachother either because they hate eachother, or they think it is hilarious for my muffin top to show at work.

Here are my attempts from today to make my butt stop growing:

• Stairs - At my old job, I would walk with my walking group every day at 10am and 2pm. This was wonderful for so many reasons. It got me away from my desk. I got to chat with my friends. It helped my butt to not get bigger. We worked in a pretty wide building, so a full lap of the building was about half a mile. That distance was not going to turn me into a super model, but at least it kept my butt from being 3 feet wide. At my new job, the building is not wide at all. I don't have walking buddies. There is a fabulous river walk right outside, but it is so COLD in the D this time of year. So, I have decided to try the steps. I am not crazy. I can't take the steps instead of the elevator. I work on the 32nd floor and I don't know how to get into the stairwell from the bottom floor. However, I think if I am free at 10 and 2 I will think of my friends as I climb a few flights. So far, I have done 5 flights at 10 and 5 flights at 2. I can feel the burn, but my shirt still isn't good friends with my pants.


• McDonalds - There is a McDonalds in my building. I love McDonalds. Today I succeeded in not getting it for lunch. I am not saying I can do this every day. But maybe I can manage to order a small fry when I do get it. We will see.


• Tacos - Instead of McDonalds for lunch, I went to Salsaritas and only got ONE taco and nachos on the side. This is a big deal for me. I didn't even eat all the chips.


• Cherry Coke - I don't drink a lot of pop, but when I do, I want it to be cherry and I want to drink it when I eat Mexican food. I got a pop with lunch today, but, I put in a ton of ice.

Sure, these are several tiny steps but maybe they will lead to bigger steps and a smaller butt. What was your favorite thing to eat over the holidays?