relaxing day before thanksgiving

Today was fun, started off by cleaning my kitchen and eating area to prepare for tomorrow, and started making cookies. I found this cute little cookie recipe in a cookbook, i used cardboard to trace my sons hand, as a cookie cutter type shape. with his hands i would trace into the dough and make handshaped cookies, and color the fingers different colors and the body brown and make it a turkey looking thing. the start of the recipe required mixing things then cooling it in the fridge for 2 hours..stephen sat at the kitchen table with a bunch of thanksgiving printouts i printed out for him, coloring and cutting them out to "decorate" our house for thanksgiving, he was so cute and so helpful. when i started rolling and cutting the cookies out he had to have his own little batch of dough and cut his own cookies out. he was too cute. after i was done my neighbor who has a 2 year old boy came over for a little while, he and stephen played for a long time while the neighbor and I chatted. I had a lot of fun with my adult conversation. she is a little bit younger than me, and i found out way too much about the personal life of her family, but I enjoyed it. It was refreshing. she had to leave, her son is still in the nap phase..so i finished cooking and decorating my cookies, which came out okay..i havent tasted them yet, hopefully they are decent tasting. they look kinda cute, of course when i covered it with foil i screwed up some of the decorations, but i got pictures before I did that.

just as i started cleaning up she came back over, and i changed out of my flour covered clothes, and we went down to the park, talked for a while then made it over to the basketball court and shot hoops. I used to love playing basketball, so did she..it's been years since i've played, but i had a lot of fun, and man im worn out.

jesse made it to work late today and forgot his grocery list that i gave him, so while we were on our way home, jesse drove by..then we went and braved the grocery store, the day before thanksgiving. it was insane. got what i needed and we went home. i cooked dinner, the neighbor came back over to borrow our shower (her water pump busted it's being fixed right now though) and chatted some more, then left. Shes gunna swing by tomorrow with her son to spend a few minutes of thanksgiving with us.

it was really fun to play basketball, of course im sore now. no exercise. hehe, but i think we might try getting together in the mornings after stephen is off to school and start walking..both of us want to get some exercise, and with the two of us it's a little more safer in this neighborhood.

right now im online printing out recipes for tomorrow and stressing about it, what to cook and when, but i'm kinda excited to cook my first every thanksgiving dinner, hopefully it will turn out alright.

Thanksgiving

It's that time of year, the time where you are supposed to sit down and engorge yourself on food that someone else makes, that you don't have to worry about cooking and cleaning, and reflect on all the things you are thankful for. That's how it's supposed to be. darnit. how did I get wrapped up in one big stressful ball about how to cook a turkey and all the side trimmings by myself? All these years of eating other peoples food has left me spoiled. This year, even though I was invited to my stepsisters house by my dad..we had already bought the turkey and planned on a small dinner here with my husband and son. And the bottom line too? we have no money. one account is negative like 200 dollars and the other has like 2 dollars. Even though it may upset my dad, and maybe my extended stepfamily, but I fully support our decision to stay home because we just don't have the gas. And jesse has to drive 45 minutes to and from work for the next few days. He's off on thursday but has to work friday and saturday. So with our limited amount of money I spent all night tossing and turning trying to figure out what kind of traditional thanksgiving meal I can prepare, and how exactly to prepare it. After printing out a bunch of coupons, and scouring the internet for recipes for my moms marshmallow sweet potatoe thingie that jesse loved last year, I have sent my husband on the errand of Publix grocery store after work, and I anxiously await his arrival home tonight and hope that he followed me instructions to the T so that we can have everything we need on our 14 dollar budget I prepared for him with our remaining cash that we had on hand..otherwise I'm going to stress more, and get a hernia. In the midst of the stress about the thanksgiving im preparing for the first time ever, and thinking about the upcoming holiday that arrives way too soon in December and how unprepared we are for it, I'm having a hard time remembering the things that I am thankful for. So here is a short but sweet list of things that I can think of at the top of my head. some of my friends on facebook have been going on a daily "thankful" tangent, every day they list something they are thankful for in their status, I haven't been able to do this because of my lack of a computer..so I will take the time now to list, or try to list, 25 things I am thankful for.

1) my family- my son, husband, my mom, my dad, my grandma, and everyone else.
2) my friends- i've lost touch with so many of them, and so many of them I get the sense that I might have lost them all together. But I am thankful for them, Christina, who recently helped me out in a big way in my time of need a few weeks ago (was it a few weeks ago?) time is flying and getting out of hand. my misfit mom friends, who may provide a light in my dismal christmas coming up, by arranging a angel tree for our misfit moms group, and Stephens name is on it. He may just get a few things on christmas morning.
3) Publix- for their lovely sales and their wonderful .49/lb turkey sale they had a few weeks ago, allowing me to prepare a dinner for my family.
4) Dr. Pepper- for getting me through the last few days
5) My dreams- dreaming about the roomba that I want, and the day that someone invents some kinda ionic scanner thing that you push a button and it automatically sucks dust out of a room so that you don't have to constantly clean dust up.
6) coupons- Dear Coupons, I couldn't have made it through the year without you, my family and their bellies thank you.
7) CVS- see #6 exempting the belly part, and submitting "my family and their underarms and hairy legs and everything else thank you"
8) my dog- because my dog has this internal radar that alerts her to when I'm about to have one big fat slobbery cryfest, and she knows just when to lick or hug me (yes, my dog loves to give hugs)
9) the internet- for which without it, I would never talk to anyone, I am absolutely HORRIBLE about picking up the phone. and the internet is what keeps me in touch with my mom.
10) my turkey roaster- i have no idea how I acquired it, but I love it. It's the bright light of my tomorrow.
11) my mom- I already posted her, but after thinking about it, I wanted to post her on her own separate number. I am thankful for her giving me life, I'm thankful for all that she's done and sacrificed for me, I'm thankful that she's still breathing, I'm thankful for who she is, and that she did her best to raise me right. I'm not thankful for the distance she has between us right now, but I am thankful that she's still there if I need to pick up the phone and call
12) my ipod- even though it's in danger of being pawned so that I can afford that criss cross crash track that stephen wants oh so badly for christmas, I couldn't have made it the past few weeks without it. it was my lifeline, my notquite cellphone, my way of communicating with the outside world.
13) my sons teacher- because she has been so awesome in keeping me up to date in my sons school work, and doesn't mind my many notes and questions I keep putting in his folder
14) unemployment- I debated on this one for a while, because it's what has gotten us through the past few months, but now that it's exhausted it's limitations until lawmakers can extend it, im mad at it.
15) my mother in law- I cant believe it took me so long to think to put her on here..she should be under family, but like my mom, I'd like to put her in a separate category. I'm thankful that she was down visiting and I got to meet her, and we decided to get married, so she was here. I'm thankful for who she is, she is struggling too, but has constantly found a way to help us out when we need it the most. She's always there to help me out when things seem particularly bleak, and is just a phone call away to save jesse when im ready to strangle him. she's what calms me down before I attempt murder. She's one of the strongest people I've had the fortune to meet, and I hope that everyone around her knows what a jewel she is.
16) my chicken- even though I hate birds, since we got her earlier this year, my chicken has totally wormed her way into my heart. She has the personality that makes you laugh when you are down. her coos when you pet her are just as relaxing as a cat's purr.
17.) my husband- it seems so strange to call him that still. It's hard to believe that we got married in may of this year. with all that we've been through it feels like a lifetime. we still have a lot of problems, and after recent problems i've still got my guard up and it doesn't feel the same as it did before, but I know that I've got to be thankful of some of the experiences we shared this year, I'm thankful that when im in full blown PMS mood and I absolutely need a chocolate cake with white icing or a white cake with chocolate icing at 9pm at night, if I smoozle enough, he will go make it. I'm thankful for how he can be around my son. I'm thankful for the good times and how he makes me feel during them
18) chocolate- Dear chocolate- you are the first love of my life, my only weakness, and the reason I probably can't loose these pounds. but I am thankful for the comfort that you give me during those times of the month when chocolate is the only relief.
19) my garage- how did I live life without a garage? How did I live life in an apartment, with no garage? where did all my stuff get put?
20) the library- for all the free books, and free movies you have let me enjoy the past few months. and more recently for the internet that you so lovingly provided to me when I needed it the most. I love you library.
21) cereal- for those times when you have no motivation to cook lunch or anything, a bowl of cereal is just the thing, and so easy to clean up.
22) other peoples drama- i know, drama is bad. b-a-d..but its awesome when its other peoples drama. it takes your mind off your own sorry state of affairs, and makes you realize how wonderful you just might have it, since you aren't nearly as stupid as that other person who did thisandthat or said soandsosaidthis. or whatever.
23) music- the thing that gets me motivated to pick up a broom or dust rag
24)dollar general- for cheap prices of things that you would get for major money somewhere else and for being in walking distance to my house and probably for being the number one place i will do any sort of christmas shopping. too bad the toys are weak and easily breakable and cheap.
25) the number one thing I am thankful for? Stephen of course- no matter what he will become in life, no matter what he does, he will always, ALWAYS be in my heart. if he turns out to be president of the world, I will be there behind him clapping my heart out, if he turns out to be a serial killer, I will visit him in prison. for every smile he gives me, every hug, every kiss, he makes my world shine. all our "mommy and me" moments, all of our reading times at night, or our rockabyebabies. for every tantrum he throws, or tear he sheds, I am thankful for. I am thankful that he's healthy, that he's alive and breathing, I am thankful for every strand of hair on his head. I am thankful he's MINE.

It's been a while

my computer is still dead, but I managed to get it set up to go back online. It takes forever to do things, and I can only do one thing at a time, but at least it's better than nothing. I've been using my ipod the past few weeks squinting at the screen trying to read things on the internet. so much has happened the past few weeks but really not that much. it's been a rough few weeks. 2010 is close to being over, and I'm really really hoping that 2011 will be way better. I don't feel much like going into it all, I just wanted to write something short and sweet since hopefully, I am back.

Involuntary hiatus

Taking a involuntary hiatus my computer has officially died I'm on my iPod touch right now I wanted to let people know I won't be on the computer for a while we haven't got the money to get a new one but feel free to donate if you are inclined to the Kim needs a computer fund.

A bittersweet day

Today was one of the longest days in history for me. Last night my dad took Stephen for me, overnight. I woke up at 4am and had to take hubby to his job, in daytona, I needed the car so that I could go to a fall festival in Sanford at a church that my family are huge members of. I had a ton of errands to do between 4am and 10am, when I left. After all my errands were done I headed over to Sanford to meet up with my dad and stephen and enjoy some fall funtivities. I got there early, and could spend some time with grandma, I'll tell you about that later.

Stephen and dad got there, they had bouncing things outside, and some activities. They had a huge meal, homemade yummy stuff. We ate till our bellies were full, and Stephen had a BLAST on the jumpy thingy.

My two aunts were there, my grandma, my uncle, cousin, dad and stepmom, so it was nice to spend time with my family. They live closer than my dad, but I don't get to see them as much.

I really don't feel like typing much, so I will just get to it. As fun as today was, it was shadowed by darkness. Lemme tell you about my grandma. She is absolutely wonderful. I love her. Some of my favorite memories growing up were spending some time at her house with her, listening to Elvis and reading to the wee hours of the night. I get my reading from her. I remember we used to lay in the twin beds in her room, our heads where our feet should go, reading till daylight. I can't even really explain in words how I feel about her, I loved my visits with her, they were always so fun, she is my grandma, I will never have another like her. So let's fast-forward to today.

The conversation that I had with my grandma had rocked me to the core. We had some time alone before all the crazy fun started, to talk. She told me that she's not doing so well. That she was having a hard time breathing, and her doctor thinks that she has a clogged valve in her heart. She's gone through countless numbers of surgeries for similar things, and has had a lot of health problems. She's done all that and bounced back. When she started telling me this, I fully expected her to tell me she'll have surgery again and be back to her normal wonderful self. Instead she told me that she's tired, she's 83, has gone through a lot of surgeries and doesn't feel she can do another one. I know she's had a very long hard life, and it was fulfilling. She's been able to meet and spend time with a bunch of grandchildren, and a great-grandson, and another great-grandchild on the way. She just explained that she cannot go through another surgery. She has a procedure scheduled for Tuesday that will tell more about what is going on with her, and maybe give a prognosis. It took every ounce of effort to sit there and not burst out sobbing. It took every effort not to get on my knees and beg for her to do the surgery, because she's my grandma, my only living grandparent I have left, and I selfishly am NOT ready to give her up. I understand that she's tired, and I respect her wishes, and that she has decided this, and decided to tell everyone so that we can prepare. I always knew I wouldn't get to keep her forever, but how do you prepare for this? I can't prepare for her death, the thought of going to her funeral and seeing her lying in a coffin scares the pants off me. I wanted to call my husband and tell him I was moving to Sanford for the time being, I want to spend every waking moment I can with her. I know that I can't, I have responsibilities and a family of my own. I'm hurting, for her, for my family, and for myself, for Stephen for only knowing her a short time, and for my possible future children who might not get to know their great-grandmother. I hope that with medication and everything, she will be able to live longer, a few more years at least, but as much as I cannot say it out loud, and it hurts to even type it, I don't think I'll get to have my grandma much longer.

I'll end this now, with a picture we got today, four generations, my grandma, my dad, me and Stephen. And then I'll go to bed, and wake up tomorrow, and I'll be okay, it will be okay, and tomorrow is Halloween and I'm sure it will be a big busy day for me.

The first big holiday is in full bloom!

We don't have seasons here in Florida, but we make do with festivities. Halloween is here, it's coming up Sunday, and I woke up this week and the first thought in my head 24/7 was omg holy eff..what the heck..sunday! and went into full time panic mode. And a lot of it was geared toward the fact that omg..SUNDAY! and we have NO pumpkin, no baking smells in the air, and with no car..NO way to get that stuff until Saturday..and trying to find a pumpkin the day before Halloween is like trying to get the #1 selling toy for Christmas on Christmas Eve.

I have a friend I met at the bus stop for our kids, her name is Michelle, she and her family are going through rough patches, but I think she's cool as heck. Yesterday she came through for me in a big way. She became my chauffeur. She took me to Amscot to get a cash advance cause bills just screwed me over for my festivities. She took me to Publix to get a pumpkin and baking goods. (we have no pumpkin patches here, just church lawns and ridiculously overpriced pumpkins) I walked out of publix with a $5.99 pumpkin that's HUGE and beautiful. And a cart full of things like bittersweet chocolate and cheese.

Soon as I got home from shopping, I set to work. Cleaned up the kitchen, put the pumpkin on the table at the ready for carving, and started baking. I picked out two recipes that come from one of my favorite magazines All You (GREAT source for coupons BTW if you are a fanatic like me) that changed to three recipes when I decided dinner would be festive as well. Baked one cake, which requires a day of being in the fridge, then started on another, when OMG I don't have a 9 inch cake pan! and I can't substitute because it HAS to be round. So Michelle came through again..and brought me a pan to borrow. I took a break because it was 5pm, and I had to worry about dinner, rather than dessert. I made the cutest quesadillas. Jack O'Lanteren style. I altered the recipe a lot because it calls for cheese that my kid would barf at. The spicy one.. Pepper-jack cheese. that's all the recipe consisted of, so I omitted that one, and substituted with Monterrey Jack and Cheddar. For the adults I added Steak/Chicken. The results were yummy.

You can't really see it that well, the camera lighting situation sucked.

After dinner, I commenced with the baking. And the Carving commenced as well at the table. When I had my hands on the seeds, I baked the seeds. And finished up the night with a HUGE mess, but a baked cake, and baked seeds, and full bellies of Jack O'Lanterns. Plus a cake in the fridge ready for me to finish today.

These are called Candy Corn Wedges. They are supposed to resemble Candy Corn. They came out great, the icing was HARD to put on, it was very messy, so it didn't look good as the picture, but my hubby was VERY impressed, wants me to make more like that.

Here's some pictures of our carving.

The Chicken and Candy helping out.

Collecting all the seeds for mommy.

He wanted a pirate, but they were WAY too complex to do with kitchen tools and a printer. So we settled on a skull head.

Here's the results of my handiwork in the kitchen.

My messy work. These pictures were BEFORE I did the icing on the Candy Corn Wedges too..so it was even worse by the time I finished. I didn't want to take pictures of that:) My pumpkin seeds were in the middle picture.

(pictures of my cake in the fridge to come in about 5 hours).

I plan to do some sugar cookies (the Pillsbury kind, i'm tired of cleaning!) and when Stephen gets home from school, let him decorate them with the leftover orange/yellow/white icing that I have.

It was a satisfying day. I'm ready to bake some more.

A moment away from "Happiness"

A friend of mine on facebook has this in her photo album, and I felt compelled to use it. Recently its come to my attention that I am a horrible friend because I don't go visit, or call or email.. it was kind of a slap in the face because unlike this clipping, the friend also has a child. I've also been told by a family member in the past that I could pick up the phone and call more often.

I have so many things I'm feeling about this, because I find it highly unfair to judge me based on my lack of communication. One thing, I don't have my phone ringing off the hook, the phone works both ways. and I have a kid that loves talking on the phone, so if I attempt to make a personal call, or even a call to a bill collector, here comes my wonderful 5 year old trying to grab the phone out of my hand to talk to whoever, even if he doesn't know the person..you should see him when he DOES know the person. So most of the time if I want to have a uninterrupted phone call to someone to "chat" it usually has to be after his bedtime, and by that time, all I want to do is take a shower and wind down..So by the time I take care of that, it's late..and who wants a phone call at 9-10pm at night? My working friends and family are usually in bed by then, and my friends and family with kids usually have kids in bed by then. I would end up taking backlash at calling so late. I don't own a cell phone because we have no money to splurge on it, so I can't randomly call someone while I'm out walking my dog, or mopping the floor, which I can't anyways, because I just am not coordinated enough to talk on the phone and mop at the same time, I'll end up dropping the phone in the mop water. I can't even go to the bathroom in piece by myself, let alone sneak in there with a phone. And if you know me, even a little bit, you know that I just am NOT a phone talker. I hate the phone with a passion.

I do spend some time each day on facebook, but if I sat down and emailed or commented on every single friend and family member's facebook, it would take me all day. The house isn't going to get cleaned by itself, and dinner doesn't make itself, and errands and chores don't get done by magically wiggling my nose. And because I am at home, and my husband is working hard every day, I at least attempt each day to get something productive done, even if its just cleaning one room in the house, or doing every single piece of laundry, including folding and putting away. and I only have from 7:30am-2:00pm each day to do this, before my five year old comes home and demands every second of my time, unless I can find something to occupy him with, and him being a single child, with no children his age around here, except the 2 year old boy across the street, he doesn't have a playmate to play with, so mommy is it.

As for visiting..I live in the middle of nowhere, we are a one car family, with bills up the wahoo and one income coming in. Am I supposed to drop my life and my child to figure out how to take the votran on what usually would be a 45 minute drive in my car, instead turning out to be a 4 hour votran ride, just for a lunch? I've lived in this house for one whole year now, and have yet to have a single visitor. I'm home all day, cooped up with no way to drive anywhere, even if I desperately need to go to a grocery store, why can't those mudslingers come visit me?

I was a single mother for a long time, and now I'm not, but my husband is away more than he's home, and when he's home, my time is spent running this household and trying to remember where he or my son put every single doodad and whatsit, preparing them for the next day, or just plain spending time with him. We are newly married still, we were only married in May, we haven't quite settled down into that boring routine where I might not want to spend every waking moment with him, and I hope we never do "settle down" like that, because I would hope that we can keep some sort of excitement in our lives. So while it's just a little bit easier for me to drop stuff and come running because I have a live in babysitter.. it's really not that much easier, it's harder. I have a family now, and as much as I enjoy spending time with friends and family, I can't just up and disappear whenever I'm called, it's unfair to my son, and it's unfair to my husband who works all day, gets up at 4am, get's home at 6pm and doesn't quite have the energy to deal with the nightly hassle of bathtime, story time and household stuff by himself. plus he works 45 minutes away, and we spend a million bucks a week on gas..I don't have the money for another 45 minute trip away and back.

All I'm saying is, family and friends are supposed to be there for you through thick and thin, I would hope that a little understanding, and patience would be expected. And realizing that sometimes there's just NOT enough time in the day to do everything plus stay on top of relationships. Life tends to get away from me. But surely is that enough reason to dismantle a friendship or cause a family feud?