The "Aminals" Fireside Chat

Life as I know it would end. The planet would implode. And my time here on earth would be comparable to any level of hell in Dante's Inferno. That is, of course, without the presence of some very, very essential members of my extended family unit. These special individuals, these inanimate, cotton stuffed, faux-fur wearing saviors are the toy animals that my kids cherish with a bond that was established in their earliest days on the earth. Additionally, each of my children possess a blanket(s) that they love probably more than me. I willfully encouraged my children's dependence and attachment to their stuffed animals and blankets so they would sleep better. After all, I was a blanket toting toddler too and one must have something with which to brave the night alone.

However, now I pay the price.

The stuffed animals and the kids plush Koala brand blankets are night time comfort surrogates. As all parents know, the love and degree of affection for these creatures extends beyond bedtime.

I can be heard saying repeatedly through out the day, "Bun-Bun can NOT go out side!" or roaring, "PUT YOUR BLANKET'S AWAY!!!" You see, the kids sneak their "special things" when I am not paying attention.

There are code words for the blankets too. My children refer to them as my "B" when speaking in the singular, or my "B-B's" when whining in the plural form. For Wyatt, my needy son, has two blankets while his sister has just one.

When used in a sentence Wyatt says, "I want my B-B's," which I heard at least one million times a day when he was younger. Currently, Ella resorts to chanting like she's in a cult induced trance, "Bee-Bee, Bunny, Bee-Bee, Bunny, Bee-Bee, Bunny..." until I relent and give her the blanket and her bunny, or alternately, I go running out of the house screaming like a crazed circus freak.

Here is Ella and her "Bun-Bun." She clutches her bunny like a woman in a subway with a bag of diamonds in her purse and a machine gun under her trench coat. She means business. If any attempt to remove Bun-Bun occurs before an adequate "wake up" state is achieved, the screeching that ensues is enough to make my ears hemorrhage for a week. After Ella overcomes sleep inertia, I can negotiate the release of the hostage and put Bun-Bun back into her crib.


Wyatt Linus from Charlie Brown often drags his blanket across the floor while meandering around the house after a nap. He actually manages to pull his blanket over the filthiest place in the entire house, the front door entry mat, at least once a day. My son's name really should have been pig pen. I am certain that he does this on purpose to torment me. He is perfecting how to make the women in his life crazy in the BAD way at an early age.

The children's addiction to snuggling their animals or blankets is kept under control only through my strict enforcement of the no "B" zone during certain times of the day. After overcoming their sleep inertia and drinking their milk, I round up the critters and blankets and put them in the kids beds. If the cuddly things come out again, then "they" go into the tall, tall cabinet in the hallway. This generally results in much shrieking, hysteria, or tears by the child perpetrator, but it is a necessary regulatory action to maintain some degree of control in my household. On such occasions that her beloved Bun-Bun is taken away, Ella will stomp around yelling, "MAD, MAD, MAD," then mumble incoherently to herself about the injustice of it all. Poor baby. NOT!

Sometimes dramatic break out schemes are devised by Wyatt who will be found scaffolding the shelves in the cabinet to rescue his B's. Actually, there have been occasions that he has become stuck like a cat in a tree and can't manage to back down. As he clutches his blanket and screams for help I ignore him until the tear begin. Since I am a Mommy sadist, I like to let him dangle since all is fair in the war of the blankets.

Cousin Trevor, who lives next door, also has his favorite "Doggie" who has many stitches showing the signs of wear on his deteriorating body. He has been loved so much, his fabric skin is dangerously thin and one of these days I think Doggie will just disintegrate. Complete pandemonium breaks out when Doggie goes missing and everything short of calling the National Guard occurs until he is recovered. I bet this has happened in everyones house at one time or another.

Wyatt's best loved stuffed animals are a platypus and California condor. There is a small pig that gets into the rotation, but "Clarence" is really only used when the other two go missing. The condor was a gift from a family friend and the platypus was abducted from his cousin. I am guessing his strange penchant to an American endangered species and a rare Australian marsupial is to be expected with me as his mom. His prenatal exposure to environmental consulting and native rare plant and animal surveys influenced him toward those specific animals.

I often imagine that the "aminals," as Wyatt still says, commiserate with each other when they are off duty. They heartily enjoy a little time in front of the fire, and get a chance to chat unmolested. I can tell by looking at their shiny beady eyes that the following conversation is on a repeating loop between "Perry" the platypus and the condor.


Here is my son Wyatt in action with his condor. As Wyatt was stuffing the condor's ass in his face he told me, "Mom, condors have stinky butts." Such an astute observation and basic logic from a four year old is not often found.


"Ya think?" was my typical sarcastic response to him, which actually left him smiling.

Then I imagine that Wyatt's pig and Trevor's doggie have a few Zen like words between each other such as:


Doggie is down to a canvas like material. He's resembling a Chinese Crested more and more, although slightly smellier and uglier. And in this photo with Trevor lovin' on Doggie (below) note the "bad" end of the stuffed animal is in the kid's nose. Trevor likes to rub the tag back and forth across his mouth and lower nostrils. I can only shake my head in bewilderment. Since both cousins have a hankering for the back end of their stuffed animals and I must blame it on genetics since they are related after all...


Finally, here is my blanket that my Grandmother made me when I was a toddler. Apparently I used to eat my blanket when I was a baby and my Mom had trouble in my diaper. There are those things I don't need to know, thanks MOM, but that I am willing to share anyway...


Finally, I want to give a shout out to all the blanket babies, dolly loving kids and binkey toting toddlers since without them and their favorite things what would we do??

Christmas Afterward and The Apron Goddesses

I am able to report that no incredible revelation or fabulously exciting story occurred that I can "blog" about for Christmas except the excessive dessert eating and gorging ones self until ready to explode. We were blessed with pumpkin pie, cheesecake, home made ice cream, and persimmon pudding so I ate about 5,000 calories destroying every ounce of exercise I have done in the entire month of December.

My son, Wyatt's, favorite gift was his sisters beads which he wanted play with immediately and make his own necklace. Ella's favorite gift was her beads which she staunchly defended with all of her 30 lb body. "No, my necklace," was heard for about an hour, which was basically until we had constructed four different beaded necklaces. At that point, Ella was generous and wanted everyone else to wear her jewelery designs. Then, like the little woman that she is, Ella repossessed all the necklaces and put them on herself. She walked around resembling a Technicolor Mr. T, minus the mohawk of course...

On second thought, one amazing phenomena did occur this Christmas. After the kids opened their first present we did not get to the next round of presents until a full hour later. We were so occupied with playing with the first gifts that we did not notice the time. It was a beautiful moment in our morning.

Sharpie my horse pictured to the right is modeling the new waterproof blanket that he received for Christmas. I found Sharpie standing in the pasture two weeks ago violently shaking and shivering since his old blanket was no longer repelling water. BIG, GIGANTIC, oops on my part since he was out in the rain with no choice other than be cold and soaking wet for about six hours. When I removed the blanket it weighed about 15 lbs and was saturated by freezing cold water so Santa brought him a new state of the art of horse blanket. I felt no little guilt about the indecent. I don't think he has forgiven me yet. Obviously, he just wants to bite my hand off for reparation of his pain and suffering.

FINALLY, I opened my long anticipated gift from my Secret Santa. This gift was an APRON inspired from Thanksgiving chaos. There is a PICTURE of me wearing this apron on my new blog site called The Apron Goddesses. If you want to see what I look like without mud boots and a farmer's jacket hop over and take a look.

The first GIVE AWAY for a new designer apron will be posted on the 29th of December, so come for a visit and sign up. The rules and details for the drawing are at The Apron Goddesses so please go and check it out! There will be apron giveaways as often as I get sponsors!! I have a handful of gracious sponsors lined up and hope to have more to come.

Wordless Wednesday

How Much is Lasagna REALY Worth?

I ask you gentle reader, "How much would you pay for a lasagna?" because I have been faced with this daunting brain teaser over this holiday season. I will take you back a few weeks ago to where this all started.

We, the entire King compound composed of two whole families, attend a rather large holiday party every winter at our friends barn where the attendance is usually over 100 people. Our hosts hold a buffet style event where all those who come bring a dish: a simple casserole, a salad, dessert, etc. You get the picture. So when the topic of "the party" was brought up by my husband I was in for a shock. HE unbelievably wanted to be in charge of bringing food for our family. Like most married women would be, I was completely amazed. Tell me more my dear and loving spouse. Then...

"What is wrong with this picture?" I asked myself immediately. There must be a catch. My husband doesn't cook and rarely cleans. If he pulls clothes out of his drawers and doesn't wear them he puts them in the hamper because folding them back up and placing them in the drawer is just to much effort... Several pairs of socks will accumulate in the special "sock place" before they make it to the laundry or until I get so disgusted I pick them up, but not with out a spiteful reminder that he is a total slob. And my resourceful husband's culinary specialty consists of toasted English muffins with peanut butter and honey. Enough background.

So I asked, "What do you propose, dearest Michael?" for I always call him formally, by his long name, when I am dubious to his motives.

"I want to buy a lasagna from a restaurant me and my Dad went to," Mike tells me somewhat gleefully.

"Sounds kind of expensive. Why don't I just by some frozen lasagna from Costco," I rationally counter back.

"Oh no, I want to bring something special. OK?" Mike says.

"How much is that going to cost?" was my next question. Money being tight, I had been agonizing over buying a new mattress for Ella since she is sleeping in a "pit of despair" in her crib. The visible body indentation in her bed has been ever increasing since she is the fourth baby to use this mattress. The issue here was that I wanted to buy a nice organic replacement that costs, well... I hate to admit it, three times as much as a standard one. The price tag was $359.00 to be exact. Such is the cost for a chemical free mattress. At least the shipping is free. So tightening our purse strings elsewhere is always on my mind.

At my profound silence in the conversation, Mike says, "Really, I want to bring this lasagna." This was said as if it was a fleeping national treasure, and something rarely beheld by the average citizen.

At this point I relent. "Fine," I sigh. He's making things easier for me right. I don't have to buy anything and I don't have to cook. Sounds too good be true.

But despite my verbal acceptance I bought lasagna at Costco anyway and put it in the freezer. Maybe Mike would change his mind and I needed to be prepared. I am the pragmatist in the family. So we fast forward to a few days before "the party." Mike volunteers information as easily as a duck sheds water and he tells me over the phone that he ordered the lasagna with a touch of excitement in his voice.

"Wife of many years," he begins with, "I ordered the food for 'the party'."

"Hey, I bought some frozen lasagna at Costco just in case. Are you sure you don't want to bring it instead?" This I offer up since I thought maybe he was just kidding.

"Really?" Mike asks me in his usual inquisitive manner. "How much did you spend on it?"

"I think $12.95," I replied simply.

"Oh..." Then there was silence on the line for a moment or two. Then Mike hesitated for a few more seconds, and I could tell immediately that he did not want to divulge just how much he spent. It was his turn to speak yet he said nothing. I gave in.

"How much did you spend?" I asked reluctantly. How bad could it really be? After all this is only lasagna we were talking about. It's just a bunch of noodles, meat, tomato sauce and cheese, right?

"Ummmm... $185.00. But it feeds 25 people." Like the number of servings could even mitigate the cost.

I have for the most part cured myself of swearing since I don't want my kids to walk around like little potty mouthed sailors. However, profanity escapes me on certain occasions just like this.

"WHAT THE F***! You spent $185.00 on F***ing lasagna? What are you f***ing thinking??? I can not f***ing believe it." I guess I could have over reacted just a little here, but I was justifiably stunned.

"Well, I wanted to get something special for 'the party' and this is really good lasagna." Mike counters back with an unaffected demeanor. I am thinking in my mind this better be gold f***ing plated lasagna with someone there to feed it to me at this point.

Then he continues in his teasing way, "I don't want to bring ordinary Costco lasagna. That stuff is garbage anyway. Just throw it away. We can't bring that sh**." My husband is known to tell tall tales and stretch the truth on many occasions for dramatic effect. In fact, one of his favorite sports is to see how far he can take some fiction of his and sell it to me or my sister-in-law Suzi. So my crap detector was starting to go off.

"Did you really buy $185.00 lasagna?" I ask again.

"Yes."

"Seriously?" I question him for the final time.

"Dead serious." And at this point I knew he really was not kidding.

"You know," I told him, "I have been fretting and stressing and putting off buying a mattress for Ella since I have been worried about spending too much money," I was informing him some what snappily. "I guess we can't afford it after all. Or maybe she can sleep on the f***ing lasagna." You see, I was in shock still. Who would not be. The pre-cooked noodles and red sauce definitely cost more than I had imagined possible.


So on the day of "the party" Mike went and picked up his $185.00 lasagna $200.00 lasagna. This revised number was the total cost including tax as I found out when I looked at the bank statement. He proudly brought his bounty into the party like a big game hunter carrying a trophy. I got the lovely task of cutting the half table size tray into pieces, 28 pieces to be exact, so if you are not doing the math it worked out to $7.14 per serving. And at the end of the night when Mike saw the platter totally empty he felt justified in his expenditure.

He still tells me two weeks later emphatically, "That lasagna was the BOMB! You know it was better than that Costco crap. It was the only dish at the entire party that was cleaned down to the bottom of the tray. The people were licking their plates. They scraped the tray clean..." I let him go on in revelation about his lasagna glory while I just nod.

Truth be told "the party" lasagna is not going to put us in the poor house and we still can buy Ella's mattress, but I still can not tell the difference between Costco's $12.95 lasagna and Emperor Norton's $200.00 lasagna. To my discriminating husband the other lasagna had some magical taste undiscernable to the common pedestrian pallette.

The spirit of Christmas being what it is I have to smile and know Mike was proud to bring his lasagna to a party; and he is already thinking about next year. Thus, I must be content that this strange and irrational expenditure made my husband happy. I guess in the end it is these strange eccentricities that makes him so endearing.

The Shortest Day of The Year

Merry Christmas!!! Happy Holidays from Our Simple Life. I can't believe I just hit the 1,000 mark on my site meter. One very small step for woman kind, but a big step for me. However, my real thoughts today are about the shortest day of the year which occurs on the 21st of December this year.

The winter solstice is an important benchmark in my yearly calendar. It represents the true end of the year for me since each day following gets just a little bit longer in my part of the world. Because biology is the driving force in my life, the swing in daylight's pendulum from dark to light is a joyful, hopeful and significant event. Historically and in other cultures the winter solstice brought with it festivals and pagan celebrations which have been abandoned by the modern world. I must be from ancient stock since I can't help but feel the change with a certain privative eagerness.

The darking window that winter draws down upon the northern hemisphere, cloaks us from the sun's rays, and after the solstice, the blinds get pulled back just a little wider; and each successive day brings with it a few more moments of daylight. So the biological rhythm reverses itself, it can not be stopped; and I crawl slowly from the trenches of the long winter nights into the new year with the knowledge that spring is just around the corner. I almost feel like a Dorthy in Oz with a golden road opening up in front of me since longer days mean more outside time and necessitate planning for the year ahead.

Even though the cold weather remains dominant, the increasing daylight triggers miniature signals throughout my little universe. I have my own little party to observe the changes. Just the slight incremental increase in day length means that the plants will start to grow differently. The little buds nestled in the axils of our orchard trees shine with burgundy red pigments which allow them to process winter sun light. The buds are ticking inside, they are miniature time bombs waiting to explode with new life. They think of new growth, long reaching branches, and the production of hundreds of flowers. All across our property, the two inch tall grass seedlings are sprouted this time of year; and they are poised and ready to bolt upward to the sky. The annual grasses must hurry up and propagate in just one season, but they always find a way to finish their life cycle.

The animals have been affected by the shorter days too. The chickens have been slowly decreasing their egg production for the past three months and we have gone from about 10 or 11 eggs a day to a meager 3 or 4. We finally broke down and put a light in their coop to stimulate their bodies and trick their biological clocks into making more eggs. Now that we have put them under the lamp and the sun will be out longer we should start seeing a few more presents from the hens in another month, I hope...

My horses internal sensors will tell their bodies in a another six weeks to shed their winter coats and eject their long dulling hairs for short, shiny, and sleek replacements. I start to think about the show season for the following year and actually look at the schedule to see if I can fit in a few competitions. My goal for 2009 is to earn my bronze medal in dressage through the United States Dressage Federation (USDF). In short, a rider must achieve qualifying scores up through 3rd level and I have scores from Training Level, 1st, 2nd and 3rd levels and only need one more score to earn my "medal." This will really represent about eight years of riding for me since after having my kids, my show schedule was dramatically altered...but to complete this goal is important none the less.

Reflecting on the last year I realize that I have seen a little girl go from barely saying 10 words to speaking in sentences. The new year will bring her birthday and I will be saying "Ella is 2 now." Then a boisterous boy has gone from recognizing the alphabet to reading dozens of words. It won't be long until he will be reading EVERYTHING. The quickness in which Wyatt has picked up reading makes me think that sometimes you are really not ready for those things that you wish. And another year has passed struggling through the tough economy, who's direction could go either way in the year to come.

As the gate to longer days opens and the sun moves to a higher place in the sky each and every day, my goals are to stay positive, pay it forward, be kind to those people around me, and take care of myself. The longest day of the year will be in about six months and I will be reevaluating at that time too. It's biological, I can't stop it...

And A Tree Was Found

I swore to Santa Claus and his 581 elves that I would not do a pictorial essay of our capturing a tree, but somehow it happened anyway. I am sure I will have an empty stocking this year or one filled with coal, but I probably deserve it anyway. Maybe for punishment the reindeer will stamp on me with their little cloven hooves. But anyway...

Since there are several tree farms literally within FIVE minutes of our house we gleefully packed up the kids in the truck and drove down our main road to get our tree!

Here I am putting on my happy face for the hunt. OK, so I am faking it a little.

Next, husband Mike, armed with a hand saw, a camera, and his blackberry was in charge of the gadgets. As soon as we entered the truck, he found an immediate need to take his self portrait. With arms extended awkwardly he captured this beautiful moment in time.

He's AWESOME with the camera.

Poor baby Ella in the back seat is thinking, "Dada, what are you doing with the camera all funny like that?? You're supposed to be taking pictures of me. Maybe I need to hit you with this here stick."


This is sooo much better here, a huge improvement honey. I think we can count every one of your beard hairs now.

As we arrived at the location where we thought we could execute a tree by lethal sawing there was a strange and unexpected sign on the entry gate. What could this possibly be???

Total bummer. This did not bode well for the hunt. But after a quick reevaluation of their tree stock as pictured below...

Maybe they needed to be closed for a good reason. We would have brought home the Xmas shrub or a turbo tree... It would have been a tough decision to pick the ugliest tree from the mangy assortment presented on their lot, but we were assured to have the worst looking tree in the neighborhood regardless of our choice.



We drove down the road to the next promising spot only to greeted by another welcoming sign... At this point I am thinking we are totally doomed this year. We're going to have go to Home Dump, oops, I mean Home Depot. But...

As we were taking these lovely documentary photographs the lady teaching a riding lesson in the arena started yelling at us. "Why are you taking pictures???" in a not so friendly voice. Uh-oh! We're in trouble now.

We yell back at her our situation with the previous tree farm being closed and that we were good photodocumentarians and the like. THEN she says, "We'll sell you a tree. Come in." Easy as that! What luck. And I though we were in for a real ass chewing with some nasty language. The Christmas spirit was following us.


So we parked on the side of the road and started our trek into their lot of pretty trees. They had lots of nice trees to choose from so I was wondering why they were closed so early.

Up and down the hill we went looking for just the right one.

Then, after hunting through the thicket for about 10 minutes we found the most ideal and perfect tree to assassinate and bring home as a trophy. We settled on this one which the kids helped pick out. (Translation: I picked it out)

After the quick hop home, we gave the camera to our son Wyatt so that he could hone his photography skills at an early age. It seems he is about as good as taking pictures as the old man... First we get a nice shot of Mike's ass.


Then because Wyatt can't help himself he got a picture of Ella peeing...potty humor rules at my house.


But finally, we brought the little beauty in side to decorate.


Wyatt helped me with hanging ornaments. It was his novel idea to spear a smoked almond with a ornament hanger and place it delicately on the beaded garland. "A can a week, that's all we ask." Blue Diamond Almonds is loving us right now.

Then the almond, finding life as an ornament a total waste, fell into Wyatt's mouth by itself.

And finally the finished product. A decked out tree squeezed in between the table and the couch. Note the zone of "no ornamentation" up to three feet, a Christmas essential with toddlers who want to suck on strange shiny objects...


And my favorite new ornament "The gingerbread pony."

One more Christmas ritual is complete and the count down is really underway now. I can almost hear Santa rounding up the reindeer for their party on the 25th!

Christmas Spirit Award

I was rather side swiped and bamboozled with this bloggy award that was bestowed upon me by a prestigious fellow Blogger.

The miniature text at the bottom says: The recipient of this award has displayed the true Christmas spirit. This award came to me from Janah at So Not Mom-a-Licious. Thank you for giving me my first Blog award. I know she must have given me this award since I was whining during the SITS Christmas card festival that everybody had an award but ME. My complaining was so NOT in-the-spirit-of-Christmas, but I hope the Christmas spirit award was not totally based on pity though. Part of accepting the award is the following.

Rules: You must love Christmas and so must the person you give it to. List 5 things you love about Christmas. Link back to the person who gave it to you and then pass it along to as many as you like!

My 5 Things I Love About Christmas, in no particular order are:

1. The twinkling of itsy-bitsy dainty white lights on the Christmas tree with the house lights off.
2. The refreshing and alive smell of a newly cut Christmas tree.
3. The 100 lb. box of See's chocolate that we get from someone out there...I think it is only two lbs. but it's the double layer one and there's lots to go around.
4. Looking forward to the eager face of my almost 2 year old and 4 year old as they go tearing into their gifts.
5. FINALLY: The good thing that happens during the holidays that I was not expecting.

I would like to give this award to:

Red Pine Mountain where dreamy snowy horses run around and dig in the white drifts. What could be closer to Christmas for me than snow and horses! But she gets the Christmas Spirit award especially due to her Christmas Heros stories which are lovely reminders of what the holidays are really supposed to represent.

AND

Grand Pooba since she has stayed faithful to a festive holiday theme on her posts and shown us that spelling is not a requirement to have the Christmas Spirit. The level of detailed effort to construct the "Christman Count Down" is unprecidented in my little world. And knowing she works for a company that gives kids what they want most, toy trucks colored yellow and black, i.e. Caterpillar yellow, gets her bonus points.