A bomb went off. I think.

What is this??

And this??

Well, I thought a bomb went off in my son's room. This was after hubby and I told him that we had given up on asking him to keep it clean. Big mistake. BIG.

Dinner... what can I do with hamburger?

Dinner is all me. I mean, it's all mine tonight. No, wait, that still didn't come out right. What I meant to say was that I'm in charge of making dinner tonight. There's a 2-pound blob of ground beef sitting in the fridge with my name on it. I'm sick of the usual things that I make with ground beef. My youngest always wants hamburgers, but last night when I asked out loud (to anyone in hearing distance) what to make with ground beef, he said, "Hamburger Pie," to which my husband flat out said, "NO."

I have a large assortment of cookbooks that I'll peruse in a little while, but if anyone is reading this, would you kindly give suggestions? I like new recipes!

A little sugar = craziness

I may have mentioned this before, on my other blog that I've since neglected, but somewhere along the line I (or me and my hubby) came to the realization that sugary snacks in the evening create sleepless nights for everyone in the house but the one causing the problem.

My youngest son, age 9, has had night terrors for quite some time, and about a year ago I noticed a pattern as to what set it off. Excessive screen time (t.v., adrenalin-rush movies [which, for him, would be Harry Potter], video games) and/or sugary snacks (which could be anything from Kettle Korn to cupcakes to ice cream to candy) are the culprits. We limit his screen time and he really doesn't watch t.v. much, except on weekends, and we limit his video games to two hours on weekends only.

Last night, the kids had activities at church. Hubby retrieved them and brought them home, and they proceeded to get ready for bed. After they had gone to bed, all was right with the world. Until the screaming began. K (I'm using initials, yes) started screaming and hubby went to calm him down. Eventually, K went back to sleep. This morning, I asked K what went on at church last night, and he said, "We had cupcakes." WHAMMO. That's what set him off. If only I could convince the church to have healthy snacks instead of sugary snacks.

What I really want to figure out is what can we change or what can we, as parents, do to help our child? How long will this screaming-at-night thing last? Is it a psychological thing? Does he need help? He's already on meds for ADD, so I really don't want him to take anything else. And really, I almost believe that sugar is the cause of his ADD because most foods contain some amount of sugar and studies have shown that if children ate no sugar, their ADD/ADHD symptoms subsided. And no, I don't feed him Pop Tarts and candy and cookies. We try hard to have nutritious meals and snacks at home. I don't have much control over what he eats when he's not at home.

Anyway, I'm hoping that tonight there is no craziness and that we all get a good night's sleep.

I met The Pioneer Woman

Yes, The Pioneer Woman was in town and I stood in line with my hubby and child for a while, but Ree Drummond did sign my books! In person, she is just the same as she is on t.v. and I enjoyed every minute of her presentation. Here is proof of our meeting:

Been to the dentist lately?

When was the last time you went to the dentist? Do you remember? Has it been at least four years? If so, I urge you to go right away. Find a dentist you can trust, one who is caring and sympathetic, one who won't torture you in the chair.

I have had a root canal and a crown which was done by a dentist at a certain clinic which I will not name here, and the crown has fallen out twice. Now, mind you, it's been a while since I've had a cleaning, but after the crown came out a second time I refused to go back to the dentist that put it in. I called my insurance provider for my dental coverage and they suggested I look at their website for providers. I found a dentist, went to have them do complete x-rays, and today I went in for a cleaning. Well, I was there 1.5 hours and the hygienist worked on my lower teeth only because they were so neglected (however, I didn't feel bad because she told me that it's very common for the lowers to get all the plaque).

Now, the only reason I'm telling you this is because you (and your teeth) will feel so much better when it's all over. My mouth might start to hurt a little bit later in the day and my gums might be a tad swollen, but that's nothing a little warm swish with saltwater won't cure.

I did it!

Sometimes I amaze myself. I think that by talking about the fire issue here, I managed to figure out the problem with my poorly-built fire. I also think it was due to poorly-placed fire starter. After all my attempts and after all my posts here, I used the torch to start the fire again, but I had it on higher so that it had more gusto and more flame was hitting the wood. So now, I am proud to show you my creation. The door wasn't closed so that air could get in:



Sorry, you'll have to turn your head because even though I caught it straight on, it has decided to go horizontal on me.

Efforts of building a fire

In the woodstove, that is. It is chilly in the house, which I do believe I mentioned in an earlier post today. My husband is at work and the house is cold. I put some wood in the woodstove, along with a chunk of fire starter. I laid out the wood in a grid pattern so that hopefully once the fire gets going, it will latch on to all the pieces. I'm still cold. The only thing burning is the chunk of fire starter. I thought it would be marvelous if my husband came home to a warm house, but I think I've failed at fire starting once again.

Maybe I should join the Boy Scouts. Maybe I should look for a YouTube video. I did just add two more pieces of wood to hopefully catch the flames that the fire starter is making. There is enough wood in that box now to keep the upstairs warm... if it would only start. If I succeed, I'll let you know.

Brr? What happened to the sun?

The past few days have been incredibly lovely with low-70s temps and a lot of sunshine. This morning, however, is a completely different story.

I woke up to see clouds outside my window along with sprinkles coming out of the sky. When it was time for my nine-year-old son to get out the door for the school bus, I noticed he was wearing the same exact thing he had on yesterday - t-shirt and shorts. Um... I told him, "You wore that yesterday and it is NOT warm out today." He said, "I like this outfit." Well, he's a kid and doesn't realize that once you get to be an adult, if you wear the same thing twice in a row, people will look at you funny.

Anyway, so it's cold outside and that means that it has cooled down indoors as well. And here is where the novice fire-builder comes into play. I always leave the building-of-the-fire to my husband as he is downright the best at it. He knows how to stack the wood in order to get the flames to go. He knows exactly where to place the little piece of firestarter so that it catches onto nearby wood so that the fire will get going really good. Whenever I try to do it, it takes a long time for the fire to actually start, and to keep it going is another story entirely.

So I shall sit here and ponder about it for a bit. Or turn on the furnace. Which I really don't want to do because it's electric heat and we all know how expensive that is to run.

The Pioneer Woman is in town!

I am beside myself. This day has been on the calendar for a long time. Well, of course the actual DAY has, but the event... I am so excited! Tonight is the book signing where I will get to see Ree Drummond live, in person! I watch her show on the Food Network and I read her blog and she seems so normal and fun. I have two of her cookbooks which I would like to have her sign. Every recipe I have tried has turned out amazing! Hubby mentioned I should bring my camera so as to hopefully get a picture. Now, if only I could figure out how to get the pictures off my camera. I have a new camera and haven't figured that out yet.

Bathtub drain

I took the kids with me to church yesterday. When we got home, hubby announced he had fixed the bathtub drain. Yay! The problem we had with it was that the lever to hold the water in with hadn't been working at all. It wouldn't move. This is the only tub in the house, so when I learned that I couldn't take baths, I was not too happy. Anyway, when we had all gotten into the house, hubby said, "Everybody come into the bathroom so I can show you how this works." All four of us stood in there, looking at the new drain. It's one of those pull-up-and-twist types, and he said that it drains real fast (our old one took FOREVER to drain, sometimes hours). He said that if anyone wanted to take a bath ever, they'd have to make sure the water level NEVER gets within two inches of the round silver thing (he didn't call it that, but I don't know what it's called - it's the thing under the faucet) because, and get this, if the water touches and/or goes over the round silver thing, THE DOWNSTAIRS WILL FLOOD. Omg.