Procrastination Is Healthy

Better than homemade, I swear...

Well! I woke up yesterday, feeling worse than ever, and read all your comments on the last post and thought, "Yup, I definitely should go to the doctor. But not today. Today I have to bake brownies for Susie's Girl Scout thing and go to Target for more hair products and go to the store for dinner ingredients. And then I have to cook dinner. But tomorrow! Tomorrow I will go to the doctor."

Wouldn't you know, by 9 PM last night, I felt perfectly fine? Apparently, just planning to go the doctor has a salubrious effect. Or else it was the brownies...

And now, here we are - it's raining again. May has been confused this year, thinking it's April, and we have been having cold rains all month - not even the summer thunderstorms that we tend to get in May. Just cold dreary rain. Oh, occasionally the sky clears and the sun peeks out and we all run out to our yards to dump standing water (Zika!) and maybe try to plant something in the garden; but then the clouds come back and it rains once more. I'm handling it okay, until someone says, "May showers bring May flowers!" which happens about 3 times a day, and then I feel sort of homicidal.

Apropos of nothing, Rachel's flip phone fell into the toilet the other night (before she used it, so somewhat clean water). After agonizing, she did reach in and pull it out. When I told Larry about it, he said, "Well, at least she didn't put it there on purpose." You know, old trauma dies hard.

That's all today, folks. I have to head to the commissary, because we are all out of toilet paper and half a dozen other items, and anyway, why not? It's not as if we can go outside and enjoy the spring weather right now. Besides, we've got the Harry Potter books on Audible now, so any excuse for a car ride, eh?




[Brownie box image: Duncan Hines]

Sick Of This

My BFF

I rode bicycles with Susie today, and I went to Costco, and I walked to the drugstore for more cough lozenges, because I AM STILL SICK. I keep trying to pretend that I am not (see above re cycling and shopping and walking), but I am. A friend suggested that maybe some real medical advice is in order, but I can't imagine what they would say. This doesn't feel bad enough to be pneumonia (well, most of the time) and I've crossed diphtheria off my list, since I'm still alive. What else is there?

Can you tell I really hate going to the doctor? HATE.

So I'm sitting here, sucking on my Ricolas and pretending I will feel better tomorrow. If you don't hear from me again, you can safely assume I dropped dead of menthol overdose. Is that even a thing? Should I Google it?

Subs Are A Food Group, Right?

In case you're wondering, I am STILL coughing. STILL popping Sudafed and Excedrin. STILL eating my weight in Ricola cough drops. I am trying to be brave, for the children's sakes, but I can only assume that I have undiagnosed tuberculosis.

Hey, it's not potato chips...

The aforementioned children don't seem to mind that Mommy's sick, since that means they get to fend for themselves, nutrition-wise. Naturally, it's been like junk-food heaven around here lately. Still, we're running out of comestibles, junk and otherwise, so I am going to drag myself to Harris Teeter tomorrow and buy some more provisions. Which might mean the foot-long subs, if those are on sale - hey, they got us through the blizzard, right?

Rachel is running her first 5K tomorrow, with a group of Civil Air Patrol friends. To get ready, she has been running almost a mile nearly every morning. And I've been thrilled that this has given her an incentive to get out of bed before 10 AM this past month or so. Really, I've almost given up on rousing teens in the morning. I mean, as soon as they go to college, they sleep until almost noon, anyway. It's so bad, some colleges don't even bother offering the early morning classes anymore.

When I went to school, we walked to 8 AM classes, uphill, both ways. And we were HAPPY.

I tried to get Larry to sign up for the same 5K, but he says it's more important for him to stand on the sidelines and cheer Rachel on. I swear, the man's not even 50, but he's acting like someone's grandfather lately. Case in point: we were all happy for him when he took the plunge last January and got himself an honest-to-goodness smartphone - here he was, acting all 21st-century! And then he negated the whole with-it effect by showing up a few days later with a...thing...attached to his belt.

Coolness factor = zero

"What the heck is that?" I asked.

"It holds my phone," Larry said, proudly.

"Didn't Grandpa have one of those?" asked Brian.

"It's VERY useful," insisted Larry.

"Daddy, that looks weird," said Susie, who had wandered into the room during this conversation. "No one has that."

Larry turned to me. "They're making fun of me," he said, looking for support.

"I'm sorry, hon, but you might as well strap on a fanny pack and be done with it," I told him.

So now Larry is determined to wear the phone case just to bug us. His plan is totally working.

I'm NOT A Hoarder, I Just Look Like One

Remember that Mother's Day promise? How Larry was going to get my 7-year-old minivan detailed inside and out for me? Maybe even have that door gasket fixed, the one that insists on falling on a person's head as he/she climbs into the car?

Still waiting. I even went ahead and cleaned the junk out of the car, to make it easier. That means my car no longer looks as if it is owned by a hoarder with a penchant for collecting empty egg cartons and assorted plastic produce containers. I had been meaning to drop those off at the local farm for months, you know, so they can use them for their CSA, and yesterday was the day that I finally made that happen. Until yesterday, they'd been rattling around my minivan, piled on top of the girls' supplies for their weekly art class, falling out every single time I opened the back hatch.

I'll admit, it was getting a bit embarrassing to carpool.

Shiny! New! Expensive!

So, I AM READY for my minivan makeover here. When I ask him, Larry keeps muttering some excuses about "work" and "putting food on the table," but we know the real reason here, don't we? He's probably annoyed about his turkey pot pie deprivation. Or maybe the fact that I am not very good about sharing the stash of Cadbury chocolate he bought me?

Maybe I should start leaving new car brochures around the house. That might do it.

Redemption

Impulse buy...

Over a year ago, in a fit of good intentions, I bought a 5-lb bag of frozen mixed veggies from Costco. 5 pounds! I was thinking I'd use them in my turkey pot pie recipe that I make from the leftover turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Only, I hadn't made that recipe in ages, because my 2 older kids (who liked it) left home years ago, and 3 of the 4 remaining children are vegetarians. Larry likes it, though, I thought. No reason for him to be consigned to a life of mac-n-cheese and refried beans just because 3 of his offspring refuse to be omnivores, right?

Wrong. That bag has been sitting in my freezer for, I don't know, a year and a half? Every time I opened the freezer, I would see it and feel guilty. Or I did, until this week. THIS week, I received an automated call from Costco that told me this particular purchase is included in the frozen-veggies recall that has been in the news lately. You know, that bag was so old, I hadn't even bothered to check.

So I gleefully brought that white elephant of a food purchase to the store this week and received my money back. I won't lie - it felt wrong, dishonest even. Like I had passed the statute of limitations on recalls, yet no one had figured it out. Or maybe that was just my guilt talking, telling me that I didn't deserve to be rewarded for failing to make turkey pot pie for my spouse. Still, I pocketed my refund and walked away, feeling lighter somehow, absolved of my wasteful housekeeping ways. Best yet, no longer do I have to be reminded of my homemaking inadequacies each time I want to put some ice cubes in my drink.

I'm not even sure what the point of this story is. It pays to never clean out one's freezer? Probably that. Yeah, that.



[Veggies image: Fifi's Fine Foods]