Greased up Turkeys and Machetes....A Thanksgiving First

Well, my Thanksgiving adventure is now over and let's just say that I ended up sleeping in even later than usual today.

This was my very first big Thanksgiving experience with the whole family over, and I'm pretty sure everyone thought we were going to end up with half-cooked turkey and burned-to-a-crisp stuffing. I was completely surprised when I didn't get a wake-up call from my mother or grandmother telling me to get my butt out of bed and put the turkey in the oven.

Well, I was up at 5:30 yesterday morning trying to shove a 22 pound turkey smothered in EVOO into a turkey bag. I still don't know how I got that turkey in that bag without it flopping on the floor, but it went in. But believe me, if it would have smashed on the floor I would have picked it right back up and just shoved it in the oven. While I may have a fear of floor fuzz, I figure that any fuzz germs on the turkey will die in the oven.

And let me tell ya, my turkey rocked. An old friend from my days in the South once told me never to put a turkey in the oven without tons of bacon on top of it. The bacon apparently holds in moisture, but I think it's just another way southern people have found to add fat, grease, oil, to pretty much everything they stuff in their mouths. I don't know, but it definitely works. And the stuffing inside the turkey turns out pure grease, a southerner's dream. I never intend for anyone to actually eat the stuffing that comes out of the turkey, so it's pretty much a formality that I end up giving to the dog. My aunt usually contributes her special crock pot turkey to the Thanksgiving meal so there are no worries about the dressing. I should maybe package up the dressing, slap a label on it and ship it to every dinner from Arkansas to Virginia, atleast make some money on it.

And the meal was filled with its usual banter about everything from politics and Barack Obama to my grandpa's aches and pains.

Let me tell ya, he thinks of everything. Half way through the meal my grandpa says, "Katie, I'm going to give you 20 bucks for the turkey."

He thinks of everything. I'm sure the whole way to my house we was thinking, "I wonder how much she spent on that turkey? Everything's so gosh darn expensive. The whole world's going to heck."

And my dad, who always has something to say about everything, says, "Didn't you know she charged us $13.50 at the door?"

Aah, good times.

And then my mom, who probably wakes up at night wondering when I'm going to mow my lawn, actually started weedwacking my yard after dinner. So my Thanksgiving afternoon was spent basically attacking my yard with a machete to get rid of the jungle that was growing back there. When we bought the house in September I don't think the previous owners had mowed or trimmed the yard in three months.

It was about 20 degrees outside, but by the end of the day, everyone but pretty much my little brother and my eighty-some-year-old-grandparents ended up in the yard trying to chop it down. So I guess everyone but them worked off the $13.50 they owe me for my meal-cooking efforts.



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Some Much Needed Blog-Keeping

You know how my house is almost always completely spotless? Well, I'm not so diligent about keeping up with my blogging life. I know, that's a shocker. But I am quite the blogging slacker. I am.

Right now I have to redeem myself and do a little "blogkeeping" as I am now referring to it.

First off, this week has been without Tuesday's regular installment of "Confessions of a Three-Year-Old" pretty much because there is no three-year-old around here this week. (If you didn't know already, see I Have My Self all to My Self, and dude, read this blog more often.) So, this week there are no three-year-old confessions.

Also, I have been meaning to tell you about the great new look at Mommyranks.com for quite some time. The site is not entirely new, but the design is definitely new. It is super user friendly and it looks great. For those of you who don't know about Mommyranks.com, it is a site where you can post some of your best posts, other people can vote for them, and it really helps generate traffic to your site. Now, the site obviously only works if everyone does their part to vote and visit the sites of others, so do your part to spread bloggy love and bloggy karma will most definitely lend you a hand. Lauren, the lady behind Mommyranks.com, is a sweet gal (did I just say that, what am I, my grandmother?) and she is determined to get your best posts noticed.

With that said, I must now move on to tagging. I have been tagged, and I must confess that I have been "it" for quite some time now. I won't tell you exactly just how long because it's embarrassing, but just know that it's been awhile.

Sweet Dore over at DoresDiaries tagged me to list seven random or weird things about myself. Then wonderful Jeannie over at Jeannie's Happy World tagged me as well. So I have been doubly "it."

I never know who to tag, so this is an open tag. Everyone who reads this has to list on their blog seven random or weird things about themselves, that is, if you have a blog. If you don't have a blog, well then I guess you don't need to do anything.

So, here are some random (or weird) facts about me...

1. Despite my obsessive-compulsive cleaning habits, I'd have 10 pets if I could. I'm thinking about getting a pot-bellied pig next.

I don't know, Gertie might try to eat it alive.

2.I love really disturbing movies. It gives my husband the creeps, but I love movies that really leave me feeling disturbed. Like "The Hours," or "Girl Interrupted," or "Cloverfield" is another good one. "Memento" is another disturbing movie, but not one that I recommend because of language. It was one that I watched in college, before I laid the smack down on movies with drug use, language and nudity. Now I won't watch anything that has anything to do with drugs, bad language or nudity.

Another movie that's good, not exactly disturbing, but just super-weird, is "The Royal Tenenbaums." That movie is so weird but it is hilarious. Needless to say, everyone else around here thought it was just weird, not hilarious.

3. I am a control freak. All I can say is, I have issues, and I am working on them.

4. I love musty smells. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but I love musty smells, like in my parents' basement. I could sniff around in the basement all day long.

5. I will one day backpack Europe. And I suppose now that I have the little monkey, I can imagine what'll be in my backpack - a three-year-old.

6. I still have a fear of the dark. Sometimes I sleep with Kaydn Rye's night-light.

7. I must have some kind of weird dsylexia. I often write my bs as ds. I don't know what's up with that, but Kaydn Rye kind of has the same thing. Maybe it's a genetic defect that has passed down through the generations of my Norwegian ancestors.

Now that you know all kinds of weird facts about me, it is time for an award acceptance.

Tara at Feels Like Home, who is super fun by the way, bestowed upon me the wonderful and great Scribbler Award!



I'm almost speechless. Almost. Don't worry, I will still give my Academy Awards-style acceptance speech.

First off, I'd like to thank God for giving me the ability to type. Then I'd like to thank my crazy family for supplying me with so much stuff to write about. And lastly, I'd like to thank all my fans for making this possible.

I must confess though, I hate the whole "bestowing the award" part of award acceptance. I just feel weird. I don't know. The rules are that you're supposed to bestow the award to five people, that you must link to the person who gave it to you and post the rules for the recipients. But I think I'm going to break the rules a bit. For superior scribbling I am lavishing this award on Joanne at One So Blessed because I like her scribbling. Life just seems wonderful when I'm at her blog. And that's it.

You know, I often wonder how the whole blog award concept got started. I suppose one day somebody probably wanted to show off their blog friends with a little badge for their blog, and from there, bam, everybody in the world had a blog award.

And Like Tara, I too have way more blog friends than I have "real" friends! Not that I don't have any real friends in my real life, but From a Desperate Housewife is definitely more popular than the housewife.

So that's it, that was the equivalent of doing the laundry, taking out the trash and swiffing the floors in my blog world.




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I Have My Self all to Myself!

It has been a glorious weekend. Don't know if I told ya or not, but I am husband-less and child-less for the entire week.

How did I manage that you ask?

Well hubby and Kaydn Rye left for Idaho yesterday to visit hubby's family, which Kaydn Rye has never met. Hubby's grandmother isn't doing so well and it's her dying wish to finally see Kaydn Rye. They'll be gone until next Saturday. I can't believe it.

Don't get me wrong, I love my little monkey and I'll miss him, but I haven't had a week to myself in, well, since I can't remember. I guess since before I got married. That would be, oh, about six years ago.

I've had weeks apart from Kaydn Rye, but that was when I was working as a journalist and therefore I was at the newspaper office about 12 hours a day, so that definitely did not count as a week to myself. That was a rough time. When I took the position as a political reporter we had to move from Mississippi, where I finished college, to South Dakota, where the new job was (I guess that was probably obvious). Hubby was still in Mississippi wrapping up the sale of our house, I had no place to live except for the motel I'd be staying in until I found a place to rent, I had no babysitter, and I knew absolutely no one. On top of that, I was warned that I would need to plan on working atleast 10 hour days with my job, so I felt I really had no choice but to bring Kaydn Rye to my parent's house to stay until I settled myself. He ended up staying there for atleast a couple weeks. I can't remember. I would come up on the weekends to visit him, which was a six hour drive, and then I would pretty much come right back to work and to my little motel room.

So anyway, back to this week. Yesterday you would not believe what I did.

I did absolutely nothing.

Nothing.

I can't remember the last time I did that. Maybe college. Early college.

And it felt so good. Gertie and I just pretty much sat on the couch and watched television. I know, television! I rarely watch television. I got Kaydn Rye up at 6:30yesterday morning so he could get dressed and hop in the car. And after that I just laid on the couch making funny faces with the dog. There was a Law and Order marathon and an America's Next Top Model marathon. I rarely get to feed my Law and Order addiction, and I hadn't seen America's Next Top Model in like 10 years, probably since the first or second season. I didn't even know that show was still on. Talk about mindless television.

The whole day I didn't even cook or clean. I had sandwiches for both lunch and dinner, and I didn't do the dishes either. They're still sitting on the counter. Can you believe it? It took every ounce of my being to walk by all the dishes on the counter and not do them, but I managed it. Now if you don't read this blog, that means nothing to you, but if you read this little blog you know that the cleanliness of my house usually borders on obsessive-compulsive. I actually dream about vacuuming.

After a day of nothingness, I then proceeded to make myself useful and clean out my inbox. I cleaned out more than three hundred messages that had piled up. And then, I took a break from my long, hard day's work and put my jammies on, again. Then I fell asleep on the couch.

This morning I went to church, hung out with my peeps for a little while, and came back home where I proceeded to actually do something with my life. Gertie was terribly upset that we were not going to lounge on the couch all day, but I think she'll survive all the hard work she's put in today.

And of course, the question everyone's asking is, "Why didn't you go to Idaho? What's up with that?"

The answer to that question is very multi-faceted. First of all, hubby and I, on a 15 hour drive, alone in a car together, would not be good. We would definitely end up on the news. We do best when we have some space apart from each other. And really, I could not at this point just take a week off from my life. It's not possible right now. I took my one day vacation, and that was good enough for me.

But I will say, I will miss my hubby when it comes time to do all his chores. Like taking out the garbage and building a fire in the fireplace. I have been trying all day to get that stupid fire going. What in the heck is my problem? I mean, come on, it's so easy a caveman can do it....Needless to say, the fire is normally hubby's domain.

And his presence will be missed during the injecting of the turkey on Thursday. He always injects the turkey with his little cajun flavoring on Thanksgiving, but this year I'm on my own. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm having the fam over for Thanksgiving this year, and for the ten people that will be arriving I bought a 22 pound turkey? What in the world was I thinking? That means everyone will have to eat atleast two pounds worth of turkey.

So will I be okay by myself for a whole week? The short answer? Definitely. Don't get me wrong, I need my peep time, but once I get done hangin with the peeps, I need my me-space. I am definitely a space girl. Not like I'm an astronaut, but like, I need my space.

And hopefully Kaydn Rye will do alright for the week. He is quite the traveler. His absolute favorite thing in the world is going places. Every night he asks, "Where are we going when I wake up in the morning?" And when I occasionally have to tell him, "Nowhere," he is definitly upset. So needless to say, he was thrilled about waking up at the crack of dawn to go on an all-day road trip yesterday. He is for sure my little world traveler. But me, I don't like to drive anywhere. I need my own little private jet. The only problem with that is that everytime I'm on an airplane my face is in the barf bag the whole time. So while I love flying, flying does not love me. Actually, when we used to fly from Mississippi to North Dakota for holidays, when Kaydn Rye was really little, he'd be happy as a bug sitting in his seat, Gertie would be happy as another little bug sitting in her doggy bed under the seat and I'd be hunched over in my seat, hoping to die.

And oh, forgot to tell you, but my happy picture is complements of I Can Has Cheezburger.




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So We Amuse Ourselves With The Dog....What's Wrong With That?

Yesterday was our weekly trip into town (if you're not familiar with my weekly trips into town, then you don't read this blog often enough - shame on you - see I am the Pioneering Woman) and it was a long one. I am not a shopper, despite my city-girlness, so shopping trips always exhaust me. On top of that, we had to drop off the Gert at the dog groomers at 10:00 in the morning (again, if you don't know who Gertie is, well, then I guess you don't read this blog often enough, see Our Old Chinese Man...the dog).

Before my little monkey came along I actually took the time to brush her out, but now that I no longer have the luxury of hours and hours of time I can waste doing nothing, the dog only sees the brush during an occasional butt paddling. So when she becomes a big pile o' fuzz, I just send her to the dog groomers, which she hates. She absolutely abhors going to the dog groomers, and she often tries to attack the groomer. And of course, about an hour after I picked her up from the groomers, just when she's smelling all nice and fresh as a flower, she decides to puke all over herself in her doggie bed while I'm in the grocery store.

And when her whole tortuous experience is over, she goes into a state of shock for the next two days. She walks around with her butt on the ground because she doesn't want anyone to see her naked butt I guess. So last night we began our usual bedtime routine of loving on Gertie before bedtime. Our dog psychologist would be appauled at Gertie laying in the bed with us. You know, because only the pack leaders are supposed to sleep in the bed and Gertie's supposed to sleep in the dirt, basically so she doesn't get confused about her lot in life. But anyway, we break the rules every once in a while, and she ends up in the bed. So here are some clips from Gertie's hilariousness last night.





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Confessions of a Three-Year-Old

It is again time for what I call Confessions of a Three-Year-Old, which happens on Tuesdays, courtesy of Mary over at Not Before 7. Stop on by and link up your tiny talk.

So the other day as I went to wake Kaydn Rye up from his nap, I found, in his bed, three trucks, two transformers, a toy horse trailer, an Elmo jack in the box, some stackable rings, and about a million army men. I don't know what in the world was going on during "naptime," but he nevertheless had a good time.

I picked up one of his army men and said, "Did you know that great-grandpa is a real army man? He was really in the army."

Some thoughtful contemplation. Long pause.

"You mean, he plays with army men too."



I said, "No, I mean, he was really in the army. When he was about my age."

"Oh, he was really in the army? How many times did he do that?"

I assumed with this one he meant to ask "When was he in the army?" so I said, "He was in the army a long time ago, before I was even born."

He responded with, "So did he carry his gun up or down?" (With his army men, some carry their guns up over their head, for some reason.)


And then there was the episode at dinner (or supper, as it is referred to here in the Dakotas).

It was last week and I don't even remember what we were eating, but he took a couple bites, made a really bad face, and said, "This is just wrong."

Instead of the usual, "You will sit there and eat it," rhetoric we usually get into when he decides to pick at his meals, we just burst out laughing. And of course, he thought he was quite the comedian.

And then there was the hunt for the cats in the garage at my mom's house. My mother has probably a million and one barn cats who occasionally sneak into the garage and she absolutely hates it. So I guess the other day when he was over there they were on the prowl for a cat who had sneaked into the garage. They eventually realized that it had gone under the hood of their car. And as they attempted at getting it out from under the hood, Kaydn Rye says, "I got a bad feeling about this."

Don't ask me where he got that from.

Oh, and then there was the Nintendo incident last night. If you had read yesterday's post you would know that Kaydn Rye, (and hubby, I might add) is addicted to my old Nintendo. So last night he was in one of the dungeons where they have the teeth that come from the ceiling that gradually work their way down to the floor and try to stab Mario. Well, the teeth started coming down and Kaydn Rye says, "What's happening!?? Are they going to poke me?!!"

Oh, and this has nothing to do with Confessions of a Three-Year-Old, but Kaydn Rye is sitting here watching Sesame Street, and they are spoofing Law and Order SVU, I guess it's supposed to be the Special Letters Unit. What in the world? They have Munch, and Olivia, and Elliot, and even the head detective (the bald guy, I can't remember his name). It's 12:45 at the station, oh, then it's dun dun, and it's 12:55 at the station. And now the letter M has wandered into the station and the case is closed.






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