Whoduhthunkit!?

So I lay there on my pillow top Queen size last night, feeling MUCH kinder towards man kind because I have a four year old crammed into my chest cavity.

ThingThree was feeling sensitive around bedtime and looked up at me with lower lip trembling, eyes awash, tears slowly streaming across freckles…

"Can I sleep in your bed Mama?"

*sigh*

"Sure thing buddy go ahead and climb in, I’ll be in later."

A watery smile, big hug, a kiss, and a "You da BEST Mama." later and I knew I’d be sharing the bed and losing the covers all night.

And that I was still needed.

*sigh*

As you could probably tell yesterday was a stress-fest for me. I just hate stupidity and self inflicted asinine situations really get me going after awhile. A great haircut, dinner at a family friendly restaurant that has pretty damn good food, and a snuggle from ThingThree makes all well again though so I am back to an even keel until something else makes me want to scream.

One odd thought occured to me however and I have no idea why but it did…

As in Pompeii, where many families were found ages later frozen in their last moments in life, would people really know me if they found me, frozen in that state? What would they think if they found the lost forms of a woman and a very young male child? The head of the child - tucked under the chin of the female, as she lays on her side curled around his smaller form. He lays on his back with his legs propped up on her knees and her arm shields him as his arm shields what appears to be a blanket.

Will they know that in giving him comfort against the night, she also received the comfort of knowing that even though her "babies" were growing up so fast they still turned to her as the source of comfort and warmth they needed to make thier worlds right? How will they tell that she felt, right then at that last moment, that the world really did rock.

Do I care?

Nah?

But for those who have never made a child feel better by cuddling them to sleep - you have no idea how much better it makes your world too.

It is so tempting to blog this entire entry in capital letters, it truly is. Have you ever dealt with an adult who was such a fucktard that you wanted to yank out your hair in fistfuls and scream until it went away? How about dealing with one who is a client? I mean the kind of special grade stupid that is mind numbing…this woman makes me want to knock her out with a blunt object and give her a hysterectomy with a rusty hanger so she won’t pollute the human gene pool any further with her obviously defective mental abilities. Let me just share this experience with you - my patient, silent, attentive blog, because if I don’t vent this somewhere, I’m going to have the top of my fucking cranium split open and then light up like a fucking road flare…

Red Neck Woman hires my services as a quality daycare provider/homeschool specialist to educate and love her offspring while she works at her WHITE COLLAR job in an Accountant’s Office. Get that…WHITE-COLLAR-this-here-job-took-me-some-book-larnin’ JOB. Her children are:

1) Shit-head: 8 year old boy who alternately beats the fucking CRAP out of his younger (5 year old) brother, tells off his mother like she’s his BITCH, and lies like a fucking RUG.

2) DUMB-SHIT: 5 year old who alternately beats the SHIT out of his 8 year old brother SHIT-HEAD, teaches his YOUNGER sibling (sister) to hit and scream "NOOO!", and screeches like he’s being raped by a man with a barbed wire DICK if he (a) falls/crashes/bumps/or gets a papercut (b) Is told he can’t have the front seat in the car, (c) Isn’t dealt with NICELY by his brother SHIT-HEAD whom he is beating the shit out of.

3) UBER-BRAT: A somewhat loveable baby girl who is spoiled RUINOUSLY and refuses to USE WORDS for things and prefers to screech for what she wants until she fucking damn well gets it.

Red Neck Woman has told these kids (namely SHIT-HEAD and DUMB-SHIT) not to climb all over the OUTSIDE of her car, not to BLAST the stereo in her car, not to run out in the road, to gather their own posessions upon leaving, to leave certain of MY posessions alone because they have broken nearly everything they touch…etc ad NAUSEUM. Do they listen??? FUCK.NO! They do everything they WANT and when they get hurt it’s on with the screaming like someone is peeling us with a spoon and then kicking, hitting, punching MAMA because it’s all HER FUCKING FAULT! She looks at me with a "What the FUCK?" look and it’s all I can do to say "YEAH WHAT THE FUCK! BEAT THE LITTLE SHITS!"

"They just don’t respect me."

YA THINK!?

Let’s back it up a bit you fucking MORON…your ex husband cheated on you with a crack whore…ok you got a grievance..so what do YOU do??? YOU sleep with his BEST FRIEND, get pregnant, and decide to LIVE WITH BUT NOT HAVE A RELATIONSIP WITH the baby’s father "cause you need the money." I agree with the need the money thing but FUCK…CHILD SUPPORT BITCH!

"The fathers will just refuse to WORK if I get the county after them."

Well FUCK…YOU FUCKED THEM and had their FUCKING KIDS! Maybe you should have left those skanky cocks alone and tried for a REAL FUCKING LIFE.

So you live with but aren’t having any sort of relationship with Baby Daddy and he HATES your first two kids and they hate HIM to the point where he shooes them AWAY from their baby sister who is HIS child, tells YOU right in front of them that they are out of control FREAKS…and you do NOTHING ABOUT IT!

"They just don’t respect me…"

FUCKING.WAH.BITCH!

Here’s a buck fifty buy a brain upgrade and take CONTROL - cause obviously this letting the EIGHT YEAR OLD RUN THE FUCKING SHOW IS WORKING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WELL!!!!

I’m out…I can’t stop FUCKING CURSING ‘cause I can’t take this level of stupidity without wanting to blow my own fucking head off to make it stop…

and I don’t mean one of those 1-4 pm brain drains either I mean actual soap.

If you happened on this blog and you read with any interest whatsoever about my kids and I trying our hands at making our own homemade soap, I have an update.

The soap hardened into a smooth and creamy large cake which we cut into 8 bars that smell absolutely amazing. I look forward to trying some of this in 4 weeks. The lavender blooms did indeed turn brown as the manual said they would but I think it’s attractive in the creamy colored soap.

So here’s a peek at the cake and bars untilthe four weeks have passed. For those who are bored stiff sorry…click the x…frankly my kids and I found this process fascinating and if my kids are fascinated enough to LEARN then I am all about it.

As ya’ll know sometimes I go all artsy tree hugger and make something touchy feely back to nature kinda olde school. It was lavender and glycerin soaps not too long ago…yesterday it was a huge pot of homemade turkey soup (and given the date you expect a "but of COURSE you did." from my husband who knows I loathe waste). Today I tackled real live olde fashioned lye soap. You know - the kind our pilgrim foremothers made whilst sweating their beet farmer a$$es off over a caldron. Lye from wood ash, rainwater, lard, blahg blahg blahg - soap. Sometimes I just like to go as far back as I can with a process and see where it started. Don’t ask why even I don’t know.

So I actually went and started with lye and fats and made some soap and I thought I’d share the experience.

First - working with lye is both dangerous and intimidating. Knowing that you can cause a volcanic and violent eruption if you combine the ingredients in the wrong way AND knowing that the SPEW it generates could burn your eyes out and skin OFF…well let’s say I handled this step with every attention to detail, utter focus, and a great deal of respect:

Lye water - result of mixing 100% lye crystals with rainwater (or distilled water). I did it right and hot DAMN they weren’t kidding about the chemical reaction - this $hit rocketed to over 200 degrees fahrenheit as a result of being mixed together. It got an honorable seat in the garage - middle of the floor - far away from anything I cared about.

While the lava juice cooled down to a mere 100 degrees fahrenheit I gathered the main ingredients - namely lard and oils, as well as my equipment - scale, thermometers, spoons, measuring cups…etc. I also changed my drawers…

I know - hip kitchen. Note the official looking chart of ingredients. This is a chart, of ingredients measured to the 100ths of a gram or ounce. This required an electronic/digital scale. Still waiting for the lye water to reach tolerable levels I measured out all the fats and oils and began the process of melting down the solids and combining that with the liquid oils:

Yummy! Once this all melted, I combined the liquid oils (I used safflower, sweet almond, extra virgin olive, and peanut as my liquid oils - coconut and lard as my solids.) I was driving for rich silky lather rather than bubbly. Believe it or not someone took the time to figure out what kind of lather you get out of each different type. And I though I was anal retentive. I just went with what they said and designed my recipe based on how I wanted it to act. Then, since the lye was still roughly 150 degrees F I went ahead and measure out all the additives - essential oils for scent (who the hell wants soap that smells like the fry vat at the golden arches?) and herbal frou frou (lavender buds).

OK now the solids are melted, I added the liquid oils and that whole can o’goods was up near 125 degrees F so I had to let that cool down as well (both items - lye and oils, need to be roughly 100 degrees for this to work. Remember we are trying to mix oil and water here basically). So while I wait I multitask yet again - line the mold that you will poor your glop into (which will let your glop sit and harden into, you guessed it, SOAP.) I want rectangle bars so here’s my rectangle mold lined with black plastic:

Ah the lye and the oils are ready so it’s back into the kitchen, this time with the Kettle o’Doom and I slowly pour the lye into the vat of fats and oils…then proceed to mix thoroughly with an electric hand mixer (A must have unless you feel like doing the broomstick in the caldron routine for hours).

You have to mix and mix and mix until the chemical reaction of lye on the water and oil together causes them to suddenly BLEND and begin to be soap. No bubbles yet because it’s not SOAP yet but the molecules are binding and the process has begun. It’s called tracing at this point, meaning that if you dribble a bit back into the pot it leaves a trace behind to show where it’s been:

Once that occurs you are free to add the scent and frou frou, blend some more and voy-oh-lay - it’s ready to cure and become SOAP:

Into the mold:

And it’s four weeks while it settles, and then saponfies (which I have used my decoder ring on and it says that to saponify means to turn into soap basically - so you get bubbles instead of a greasy mess when you hit the showers with it).

So in four weeks we’ll see how it went. Now it may be a bit wierd for you but it was kind of enlightening for me to see how not easy yet not too hard it was either. The lye is the freaky part but other than that…I have to wonder who decided to try this the first time and how they figured out it should work.

Sometimes mankind floors me.

Hope ya’ll had a great Thanksgiving! Me…I’m beat! Shoutatchalater..

Sorry but I fully intend to embark upon a full on turkey coma this Thanksgiving. It’s been nearly a full year of dieting and I am tossing caution (and caring) to the winds. There will be potatoes whipped creamy using whole milk and gobs of drippy butter. There will be stuffing - oh divinely herbed wet bread mixed with broth and other goodies. Red cabbage (pickled) shall stain my teeth while hot veggies like brussel sprouts, broccoli, and corn will swim in a lovely butter sauce before doing a half gainer down my throat. Hot bread freshly baked will ooze melted butter down my chin, jellied cranberries will dance merrily before being victimized by my fork (and teeth). Gravy will erupt from the center of Potatoe Moutain and Mt. St. Stuffing while I savagely shred (using only my teeth) the succulent thigh flesh from the bone of our Thanksgiving "guest" roasted crisp and brown and laying all sacrificial in the center of our table.

I shall eat…oh yes…I shall eat.

And the Baileys - she shall flow like the river of plenty.

Yet I feel with all these plans it is only proper that I pause and give thanks for those things which have blessed my life, this year, (my plate) etc. I’m just sayin’ y’know, so ya’ll don’t think that for me it is merely about the food (LIELIELIE - I am sick of salad) I plan to do so today because I also plan to be far far away from a coherent thought tomorrow.

Thus:

1) I am thankful for my husband - I could have everything else I am thankful for and my world would be less than half of what it is for me without him. He’s my best friend, my lover, my companion and partner in crime. He makes me laugh, cry (sometimes good tears), and think. He’s both smart AND sexy (which is a good thing ‘cause when your’e 80 sexy goes away and it’s a damn good thing smart is forever). I know I could survive without him but it’s jsut so much more fun to get into trouble the whole way through life at his side.

2) My children - all of them - birth and otherwise. I have a daughter that to this day makes me think "How did that happen???" because she is so much like me- she looks like me, dresses like me, reads the same books…and there’s no blood between us at all. For her alone I am actually grateful for my husband’s ex wife. Go figure. I have three sons who are all blessedly attractive, talented, funny, and loveable (as well as loving). Somewhere in the crazy wild child moments in my youth I must have done something right…

3) My mother - I want to take the moment to point out - whether or not my biological father ever sees this - She left YOU you pompous, self righteous, lying, controlling, violent prick - not me. Thanks bunches for the years of trying to convince me that she left me behind because she was selfish. Having gotten to know you as an adult (and subsequently signing you off for good), I learned that she left to preserve her life and sanity and it had nothing to do with me. I got stuck with you because she was broke and in a hospital and you had the lawyer, job, and the money. In the end - you still lost. I love and admire my mother (as frustrating as she can be sometimes - Dr. Mom LOL). I can only hope to have half the guts she has when I am her age.

4) My sisters - birth and otherwise. My blood sister - like I said in that birthday letter - you have brought meaning to my world throughout your entire life. It fells like a blessing to not only be "Mike’s Wife" and "Thing’s Mom" but also "Rachel’s Sister". Marcia - Where would I be without you. You are the light to my dark and the Reverant Christian to my Earth Child Woods Witch. You are a delicate beauty within and without - I am the breeding Amazon Queen and together we are SOOOO bad LOL. I never knew what I was missing until we found eachother. Adopting you was what made my family really a family. Again Whoduhtunkit?

5) My in laws (well some of them). I have, bar none, the most amazing mother in law. She’s my friend, a partner in crime, an understanding ear, a mother when I need one, and a self check when I need that too. I have laughed more with her than anyone else in my lifetime and I have only known her a little less than 11 years (this Xmas will be 11 years "HI MOM!") I have a sister in law (my husband’s sister) that is easily the most beautiful and hysterical person I have been privileged to be related to. Through her I have both a new brother in law (who RULES) and a brand new baby NEFFIE who is absolutely the most amazing baby aside from my own and possibly even more amazing as an infant than mine were *takes deep breath* He. Rocks. I also have a couple of pretty awesome brothers in law, each special and neat in their own way - Apparently my mother in law and father in law never figured out the birth control thing… My husband has a great family (aside from a couple of bad apples).

6) My life. All in all I have been afforded opportunities and given chances etc that have made for a very full and rewarding existence. Friends, home, health, you name it. I think I am one blessed person. Sure there are hardships but there are people out there with much worse and I still find nearly daily joy in my existence. I may get mad (or even), I may get sad, I may even get scared…but I also love being here where I am with whom I am with. Who else can say that?

Besides - look at this:

Who wouldn’t be thankful?

Have a safe, warm, wonderful, and FILLING Thanksgiving. See ya on the other side LOL.

Wonder if I can find 13 and truly annoy the piss outta ya?

So I submitted my blog  just ‘cause…and I find these folks fuckin’ funny. CUTTING but funny and I am willing to deal with whatever it is they have to say ‘cause they are that fucking funny. You haven’t been torn apart until you’ve been torn apart by someone with wit so dry and sarcastic they could dessicate a martini. So if ya’ll stop by, welcome, have at it LOL.

Anyway, the reason I mention these folks is because they posted a fun link on their own blog and I went over to have some fun:

So here it is. result #1:

A What The Fuck!? Let’s analyze the temperment…

                                             You Have a Choleric Temperament
                                             

You are a person of great enthusiasm - easily excited by many things.
Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life.
You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation.

You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon.
Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall.
You’re an instantly passionate person - and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others.

At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults.
Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion.
A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.