Daily life.....

Not a whole lot going on, right now. Just a bunch of little things that add up to one's daily life. Work every day. Spelling words at night. Hockey practices, favorite tv shows, and cold weather. Annoyances with my little Sis & niece. Annoyances with dogs, with daughter, with coworkers. Anniversary "celebrated".

The soup didn't turn out very well..... Not horrid, but it certainly didn't look like anything worth taking a picture of. After the stock was done, the meat seperated and poured back into the stock, I added things like tomatoes (a can of chopped), canned corn (didn't have any frozen), a bit of frozen green beans, chopped onion & celery, the leftover mashed potatoes & last bit of gravy, and seasonings. Like Mrs. Dash, and extra chicken buillion, and bay leaves. Then I tossed in some wild rice & some brown rice. Evidently I let it boil too long with the wild rice & brown rice in there because they kinda super-hydrated & exploded & looked rather like maggots. Eeewww! And then I poured in the extra-wide egg noodles. The first night (Saturday), the soup was ok. A little on the bland side, according to DH & DD (they each added a good strong dash of Tabasco sauce), but ok. Popped the covered vat of leftover soup out on the back step to freeze (no room in my fridge). A couple of days later when brought back inside & reheated (Tuesday night), the egg noodles started getting toooo overcooked & somewhat mushy. DD refused to eat it, and had a turkey sandwich instead. After DH & I each had a bowl-ful & agreed that it was very uninspiring, the entire vat got recovered & set back out on the back step to re-freeze. It's not getting warmer than 10 above zero, it's cold enough to keep it from going bad, out there. I should have taken a page from a friend's book & seperated the stock & meat into a couple of seperate freezable containers, so I could make a smaller batch of soup now (Saturday), and save other stock/meat for other soups later in the winter. I didn't. We usually like the soup more than we did this year. Usually I have spinach to add, and it's got more flavor. Not sure what I did wrong this time. Now I've got a huge vat of the stuff sitting out back that I REALLY don't want to eat, much less by myself. *sigh* Talk about wasteful. And I feel horrid about it. Why didn't I plan better? What was it that I didn't put in, that I usually do? Is there any way I can salvage it??? I wish I knew.

So, no photos of the non-inspiring, boring soup. Sorry. Just couldn't bring myself to take one.

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DH & I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary yesterday. As DD & I were sitting in the kitchen yesterday morning, getting her breakfast & lunch eatten and made (respectively), I mentioned to her that 9 years ago DH & I got married, and she was there. She was at our wedding with us. 2 months old, in a white christening gown, held by her adoring grandma. She asked if she could share that in class yesterday. I told her, sure.... Why not?!?!

I had to chuckle at my mom, though. (Sorry Mom!) She called to wish us a happy anniversary & commented about "what if DD tells everybody that SHE was at your wedding?!?!?" I kinda had to ask, so what if she did? DH & I have now been married 9 years, which is a lot longer than a lot of people seem to make it these days. Who in her class can really criticize because we got things a little backwards (baby first, then marriage)???? What are they going to do, nine years after the fact.... String us up by our toes???? LOL Mom agreed that I had a point.

DH sent me a bouquet of 9 long-stemmed red roses at work. All the ladies loved it, and Oooooh did they smell fabulous!!!! Got them home in one piece & now I've got this huge bouquet on my kitchen table. LOL Ahhh, but they're lovely. We didn't do anything else, special, though. DH doesn't get paid till Monday, and half of my paycheck has to go to the daycare today, the other half to bills. So, no fancy dinners out for us this year. *sigh* I've been craving Escargot & Creme Brulee. Guess I'll have to hope for my birthday, instead. *wry smile*

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In little more than 2 weeks, DD has managed to lose a brand new pair of gloves (lost them on the first day she wore them to school, we strongly suspect somebody saw them on the bus seat & noticed how nice & new they were, & took them), a hat, a scarf I knitted (a spare I'd made, learning to use my knifty knitter), and now her snow pants. Now, bear in mind that DH gets off work at 5 pm, picks her up from day-care, and gets home before I do, as I get off work at 6 pm. So, this morning at 8:27, she comes out from her room & asks me "Mommy, did I wear my snowpants home from school?" Dh said he didn't see them in his truck this morning, which means they didn't get left there. I, of course, would have no way of knowing if she wore them home from school. Which means she either left them at school, or at day-care. Either way, she left the house this morning wearing ripped out jeans (because she didn't want to put on non-holey slacks), with another spare hat, scarf & gloves, sans snowpants. These snow-pants are soooooo badly worn & ripped out that if somebody stole them, I'd be greatly suprised. No sign, at all, of the scarf or hat, either. We've ransacked the house, looked in the school lost & found, and asked at the daycare (they don't have a lost & found). No sign of them. I'm about ready to strangle DD. She hasn't been this absent minded with her outdoor gear since first grade, when she lost 8 pairs (yes, EIGHT) of gloves in one winter. I'm about ready to stitch her gloves the ends of the coat sleeves, and staple her hat to her head. (Literally about the gloves, joking about the hat.) I don't know how to get through her head that we cannot afford to be purshasing new outdoor gear constantly. A decent pair of gloves (more than those thin little stretchy gloves that are 2.99 a pair) costs about 20 dollars. A hat, the same. Snow-pants, if you can find them, run between 40 and 60 dollars..... The scarf may have been home-made, but that doesn't mean I've got the time to whip them out every few days, either. *sigh*

On top of that, when she loses something she doesn't look very hard for it, but instead gets into a bit of a snit & starts making comments like "well, FINE, I won't WEAR gloves then..... I'll let my fingers FREEZE!" Ye Gods!!!!!! If she wasn't the one LOSING them, she'd HAVE them to wear. I don't know HOW she honestly thought that I'd be able to materialize a new pair of snow-pants for her this morning in the 5 minutes before her bus came. That or she thought I'd run right out, start my car & take her immediately to town for a new pair in the 25 minutes before school started. *rolling eyes* Her attitude is OFF THE CHARTS when something like this goes wrong, and she doesn't seem to get that IT'S HER FAULT!!!! Instead she starts griping at DH & I like we're responsible & should be able to fix the matter. *sigh* Really, don't know if she'll survive her teen years, at this rate. I mean, she's 9, she should know better than to lose all her gear, and she shouldn't be this darn teen-angsty, yet. Oh well....

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I've decided that from now on, my baby sis & my niece will only be recieving GC's from me. I'm sick & tired of putting effort into their gifts, only to be called cheap & have the gifts thrown (almost literally this time) back in my face.

Took me a couple of days to register the actual condecension behind my sis's attitude on Thanksgiving, considering how tired I was that day.

Within 10 minutes of her coming into my house, an hour early, she was standing behind me as I was working on making TG dinner.

Sis: Kati, I brought you your bag back.

Me: *back turned* What are you talking about?

Sis: I brought you your bag back.

Me: What bag? *turning*

Sis: This bag! *holding 15$ library tote bag I got niece, along with a brand new hard-back copy of a book that reminded me -nicely- of niece, for her b-day*

Me: *still not understanding* That's not my bag, that's part of K's birthday gift.

Sis: *snidely* Well, you use this kind of bag all the time. I thought you were giving K. that book in one of YOUR bags, and that you'd want it back.

Me: *incredulous* Nooo.... That's part of K's birthday gift!

Sis: *rudely* Well, I thought you were just using one of your bags, and that you'd want it back! (At which point she turned & stuffed her stuff into it.)

So, evidently I'm now cheap & selfish because I purchased a new, canvas tote & hardback book for my niece's b-day present. It's not "Disney Princesses", so it MUST be cheap, right??? I mean, come on, just because it was a good 30 bucks out of pocket altogether..... It wasn't plastic & purchased at W-M, so it really MUST be cheap!!!! And, since I didn't purchase a (expensive as hell) paper gift tote to put it in..... Well, again.... I'm cheap, what can I say?!?! Here I thought a real canvas library tote (local library's cute snow-man logo silkscreened on the front) & hardback book (personally chosen for niece) were a GOOD gift for a 4 year old little girl. I mean, most little girls like bags to carry things in, right??? My daughter does, I do, most women/girls I know have a thing about never having enough bags/purses/totes.

Nope, evidently I'm cheap & selfish. Unfortunately I've already picked out a christmas gift for Sis that she should like. I'm not counting on it, though. If I hadn't already shown the gift to Dad, I'd be keeping that gift myself (it's more Sis's style, but not something _I'd_ turn my nose up at) & get her a GC to W-M. And that's all I'm getting niece. If they think I was being cheap at Niece's b-day, I'll give them cheap. From here on out it'll only be $15 pieces of plastic for the local junk-store. And the 8 place settings of plastic Disney Princesses table-ware as a wedding gift sounds more & more a possibility. Or, maybe I'll be generous & send Sis & her hubby a 25 dollar GC to W-M. *sigh* I'm soooooo sick & tired of her. I hope the fiancee marries her spoiled butt & hauls her to Michigan before I really burn bridges with Dad & publicly tell Sis where she can shove her holier-than-thou attitude, or offer to shove it "there" for her.

Anyway....... Can I crawl back into bed now????? The last couple of weeks have been frustrating, and exausting, and I just want a vacation. (To answer my own question: No. I can't just crawl back in bed. I've gotta be at work in an hour & a half.) Oh, and sorry I never did take pictures.

Have a Blessed Day.