Thursday, November 15, 2007

Odds and Ends

I have seen the light! I cleaned my oven with that self-cleaning mechanism thingie, and it worked! I wish I had tried that years ago. Actually, I think I did try it years ago, and something caught fire. But this time I managed not to burn the house down, and I didn't have to die a thousand deaths of embarrassment when the Pampered Chef consultant (salesperson, Larry insists on correcting me - he likes to call a spade a spade) opened my oven door to put in the pineapple upside-down cake.

Yesterday evening I held a Pampered Chef fundraiser at my house for a family with a sick baby. (See? Sometimes I do think about someone other than my own sorry self.) My friends and I all sat around my floorless kitchen and looked at fun new cooking gadgets (Suds Pump! Handy Chopper! Nesting Mixing Bowls!), while my husband sat in the living room clutching my credit card and wouldn't let it go. Thanks, honey. I would like to point out here that I've been using a butcher knife for the past year which has a broken handle. Larry claims he can find me a really inexpensive one after Christmas. I proved myself to be extremely forbearing and mature by not bringing up his recent Home Depot purchase.

This morning all the kids had a dentist appointment. At 8:30. And we made it. Thank you, I am amazing. As I've mentioned before, somewhere, we have the most efficient pediatric dentist in the world. Dental cleanings for 5 kids, x-rays for 2, sealants for one, check-ups for all, and we were still out of there in under an hour. All that, and balloons, too. I never get a balloon from my dentist.

Motherwise, a very nice person whose blog posts reassure me that I may just live to like my teenage daughter again, has invited me to tell everyone 8 interesting things about myself.

1. I am very short. As in, people will say to me, "Wow - you're short." Perfect strangers.

2. I didn't like children at all before I had my own. I regarded them as an expensive hobby taken up by people who had nothing better to do with their time than to talk about poop and to wipe gross runny noses.

3. Bugs disgust me. Our house is overrun by centipedes and the sight of one makes me want to puke. Some of them are so large that they could be mistaken for a small mouse, if seen out of the corner of one's eye. And when you step on them, their legs keep wiggling. Excuse me, I have to go throw up.

4. Okay, I'm back. I used to be intelligent. Now I am the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Just ask my teenage daughter.

5. I have no ambition. I have no idea how I ever would have earned a living if I hadn't married and had kids. Career goal: kept woman.

6. I wish I had started having kids earlier in my life than age 28, so that I could have a dozen. You have 4, or 5, or 6 kids, and perfect strangers are still making those stupid jokes: "Don'cha have a TV?" "They know what causes that now!" "You're a real pioneer woman!" But go ahead and have 12 kids, and people are stunned into silence. Which would be just fine with me.

7. My 2-year-old got poop on my coat sleeve today (don't ask). This incident further convinced Anna (my 14-year-old) that she never, ever wants to be like me.

8. I like to stick my head in the sand. I have 5 adults and 12 kids coming over in about an hour, and I'm sitting here blogging, rather than attending to the mess which is my house. Bad idea.

Day 15, and I'm still in it! Go, NaBloPoMo!

19 comments:

  1. I don't like working for other people. I needed to be a kept woman too, I guess, or else an entrepreneur, and honestly, I don't have time to be entrepreneurish with these kids hanging around.

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  2. I thought I was the stupidest person on the planet. My 17-year-old has been saying that for years. Thank goodness you came along.

    Darn, I was gonna meme-tag you but Mary got there first. Feel free to come have a look at my strange facts at www.angelawd.wordpress.com.

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  3. Wow, that was some good writing about the bugs. I wanted to throw up, too! You DO rock!

    Barb

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  4. I'm afraid of the self-cleaning oven feature too! Last week I scrubbed the glass window with a SOS pad. Something about cranking that puppy up to like 850 degrees is just scary.

    I want your dentist!!! Mine won't even do three kids appointments at the same time.

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  5. I like to stick my head in the sand too. Denial is my drug of choice.

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  6. amy - I'm too lazy to be an entrepreneur. Guess I'll just go have another baby....

    angela wd - Wow! I feel as if I've finally been invited to the party, with people tagging me for memes and all.

    laundrylessons - Yes, I picture spontaneous combustion, myself. And your dentist is a wienie. Tell him I said so.

    julianne - Meet you at the beach!

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  7. After being "kept" for over 16 years I can say with authority - Working for other people SUCKS.

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  8. Six kids!! How do you do it...isn't it great though how this blogging thing takes hold and absolutely nothing else gets done and time disappears? Enjoying reading about your life. Lulu x

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  9. LOL! Sounds like you're doing just fine and dandy...

    Poop on the sleeve would be much more appreciated by my husband, who, one time (thanks to a wiggly, grabby, 15 month old baby), had to deal with poop on the wall, the changing table, himself, AND the baby's face/hands.

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  10. I hang out on a large family bulletin board (where one mom has 17!!! kids) and the famliy sizes range from 1 (wishing for a large family) up to 17, and from what I understand, they never stop saying things.
    I dont know if you have ever seen this list, but here is a list of great comebacks when it comes to the large family comments.
    http://www.plomp.com/largefam/comebacks.htm
    I have decided I want 3-5 more, and I mentioned 5 more to my husband yesterday when I talked to him and he started to laugh and said no way. I didn't say anything about 3. I figure I will wait until I get to Honduras and just spring it on him and bat my eyelashes so he can't say no, LMAO. (or work out a deal for just one more baby - I have to have an even number of kids no matter what, so one more child is a given - and pray for triplets, hehe ;)
    ~Jennifer

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  11. Oh, Pampered Chef. I've had a pampered chef can opener for three years and I still haven't figured out how to use it. Now and then when I lose my real can opener I'll try to use it, and can never figure it out and end up banging the cans against rocks or whatever is around to get it open. I am the stupidest person on earth, no matter what your daughter says.

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  12. Kudos on the NaBloPoMo! I don't think my oven would ever get cleaned if it didn't clean itself.
    I LOVE pampered chef. My kitchen is full of that stuff. My favorite is the cheese grater! Oh, and I love their stones too!

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  13. Whew... my 2 teenage boys have given me the "you have got to be the dumbest person on earth" stare for several years now. I can now tell them that NO, I am not...but I know (through the blog world) who is though!

    As always, your posts make me laugh, really all out laugh.

    http://momoftheyear-not.blogspot.com/

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  14. What do you want a kitchen floor for, when you've got some snazzy new kitchen gadgets? You are a brave woman to let all those people visit your floorless kitchen and to have a strange person use your oven.

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  15. My own odds and ends:

    I've had my stove for three and a half years and have self cleaned it twice - both in the last six months. Basically, when the smoke detectors go off, I know it's time. We (meaning Andy) were also afraid of fire.

    How short? Give me a number.

    I've got a used Pampered Chef potato squisher which is basically an expensive calk gun. Want it??

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  16. fannie mae - I'll take your word for it.

    family affairs - I manage six the same way you manage three - by the seat of my pants.

    manic mommy - 4'10 1/2" - do you have me beat?

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  17. I have seen your comments on Dawn's blog - mom2my6pack - for months, and came and checked you out. I'll definitely be back.
    You are right - "they" never stop with the comments about the kids (I have 4). A neighbor actually came to my back door and tapped her foot at me when she found out I was having my 4th.
    Thanks for sharing - KR

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  18. my stove in this house as a self clean latch/thingy-ma-jig, but I dont know what to do with it, LOL. Do I just empty out the stove of all my pots and pans, then turn on the self cleaning thing? Then what, how do I know its all done? I hate to clean my oven, but when it starts to smoke anytime you turn it on, its time to clean it. And if it cleans itself, well then its time it went to work. Any advice?
    ~Jennifer

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  19. Sometimes denial is the healthiest way to deal with something that has no solution but to live through it. I feel for you with the Home Depot. My husband is there so often that in case of an emergency it is our meeting up place. I'm obviously as short as you. Pint size people rule!

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