Leave Me Alone

Hola, my friends! Hope everyone had a WONDERFUL start to their week! Mine was pretty good :) I was actually glad to be getting back into a routine again.

I woke up at 4:15am to Captain America getting ready for work. I headed to the bathroom, and he informed me that the downstairs bathroom (the one the little kids use) was flooding, and that the dining room was flooded as well. Great. Perfect (hehe).

So I threw on my glasses, and went to take a look. Yup, standing water in the bathroom, out the door, in the linen closet (where we keep extra blankets and games, which were getting wet), by the bookshelves, and around the corner. Splendid!

I grabbed a few dirty towels from the laundry room, and mopped up some of the water from the dining room. And I took off my socks and waded into the bathroom. Luckily is was clean-ish water. No floaters - ROFL!

I grabbed the snake, and tried to unclog it. Yeah, not happening. I don't know what was in it, but not even the snake was getting it. I turned off the water from behind the toilet, shut the door, and called it good. I figured that since El Paso is a VERY dry environment, most of it would dry while I went back to sleep - ROFL!

I kissed Captain America bye for the day, and went back to bed. I woke up at 6:35, 6:45, and 6:55 am, read my scriptures, and set the alarm for 7:15am. I got up, and the kids were all dressed, shoes, socks, coats, backpacks. And sitting on the couch, reading books. Whaaaat? Who's kids were these? hehe. I guess THEY were excited for school, too! I gave them lunch money, and breakfast money (we were out of milk...), and sent them to the bus after family prayer.

And yeah, since Jake and Jim were still asleep, I TOTALLY went back to bed. hehe. Jimmy came in at 8:00am asking to watch a movie, which I said he could. And I got up for the day around 9:30m. So much for a Savers trip - ha!

I checked my email, and got another comment on my blog that troubled me. I've been getting a few of them lately, but have been deleting them. I think I know who's leaving them, and I figure that if I "ignore" it long enough, the problem will go away. Hopefully mentioning it on here today isn't gonna "fuel the fire". Sometimes people just don't know when to stop, I think....

At around 10am, I got Jimmy all ready for the bus, and I headed to the commissary. We needed milk and a few other essentials. AND, I'd tried to call in a work order for the toilet with housing, and a work order for the guys to come and spray for bugs, AND to have someone come and re-caulk the bathtub, but I could not get through.

It was trying to tell me that the area code had changed. Whaaaat? I know that's not true... Something was amiss.... So I decided to swing by on the way to the commissary. I put in a work order by hand, and they said that they'd be out tomorrow between noon and 5. Works for me :) I'll bake some more :)

So I get to the commissary, and I found THESE!


Big bags of zucchinis! For $0.79 each! I call it their "Clearance Fruits/Vegetables" section. Every once in a while, the commissary puts almost old produce on sale. Like the bananas that I regularly get. Well, it was zucchinis today! So I got 4 big bags. hehe. Can you say zucchini bread? ha!

I got the milk ,and a few other things, and headed home. Jake got Jimmy to the bus, and I swung by Terra's house to get a bag of clothes for Emeline. Her daughter, 12, had gone through some of her clothes and gotten rid of a BIG bag of SUPER nice things :) Eme was gonna be SO excited! I chatted for a few minutes, then headed home.

I only missed Jim's bus by like 10 minutes! I was so close. Good thing I have Jacob and that he's SUCH a good helper :) Jake helped me carry in the groceries, and I cleaned and put away groceries while he finished up classes. Then he had a "live lesson" for school, and I kept cleaning. The kitchen looked pretty good when I was done. I didn't wanna bake with a messy kitchen, you know!

Jake and I watched "Fringe" during his lunch break, and I worked on a work project. And got it all done and completed. Yeah me!

After lunch, he went back to work, and I started in on the zucchini bread. I don't know if I've made it before or not. Surely I must have, right? My online friend Sharon (who makes all the layouts for me) told me that she had a GREAT recipe, but I didn't get it in time to make it. So I looked up a recipe on allrecipe.com. LOVE that site :) I'll use Sharons later on in the week. I have TONS of zucchini's. ROFL!

Oh yeah, but first, check out this Christmas countdown calendar that I found at the Dollar Tree. My kids are SO excited to start using it. hehe. I had to show Jimmy on the real calendar that we're still in November, and that Wednesday was the first day for the countdown. He tried to convince me that we were on day 24. Yeah, not buying it, kid...AND, I finally bought some more of my FAVORITE seasoning! I'd been out for about a month. I just kept forgetting to go and buy more. Silly me! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it in my melted cheese sandwich! Buy some, I'm SURE you'll love it too!

And, here's my 4 big bags of zucchinis!

I got out my cheese grater, and then realized that I had a food processor! I'd gotten it from my brother/sister in law one year for Christmas! So, I shredded one whole bag of zucchinis. And here's a WHoLE bowl full. I had to put the soda can there for perspective, you know...

Here's what I did. In a LARGE bowl, combine:

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg

Mix, and set aside.

In a separate large bowl, combine:

3 eggs
1 cup oil
3 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups sugar

Beat until well combined, then add in the flour mixture.

Mix until well combined, then add in:

2 cups shredded zucchini

Mix until well combined, then add in:

1/2 bag chocolate chips

Gently mix, and split batter between 2 well greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 for 40-60 minutes. It was WAY closer to 60 minutes for me :)


And I made 3 batches. Yeah, I was a baking MACHINE! After the last batch was mixed and in the loaf pans, I put all 6 loaves into the oven, and ran to the bus stop to get Jim. My how the time flew! hehe.

Ha! I totally forgot to take off my apron - hehe

We came back home, Jake finished up some more school, Jimmy watched a show, and I cleaned up my HUGE mess while my zucchini bread baked. And here I am, sporting a very SEXY bandaid on my face...



See, a while back, at the Dollar Tree, we found this product called "Liquid Skin". Super glue for owies. OK, so the theory is sound. You get a cut, you glue it back together. No mess. No bandaid. Sounds solid, right? Yeah, well, they didn't intend it for your face, apparently. hehe.

See, I'd gotten this zit on my face a few days ago, and yeah, I'm incapable of leaving it alone. I squeeze it and pick at it and AHHH, if I just left it alone, it'd be gone by now. But no.... Anyhow, I decided to squeeze it real good, and then put some Liquid Skin on it so it wouldn't bleed. And it appeared to work for a few hours!

But then, it started to stretch funny. And tear at my skin. And so I put more on. Not such a great idea. Then the next day, it started to peel, and take my skin with it. And then I had a HUGE sore on my face the size of the glue. Grrrr. So my little zit that I picked is now a HUGE sore on my face. Nice, huh?

I kept putting cream on it (antibacterial ointment or something like that), but it would dry out So fast. So I decided to put a bandaid on it. I was gonna just be home, no worries, right? hehe.

Yeah, I know, I'm a dork. At least I could have gotten one of those circular ones, right? I should buy some of those.....

Anyway, around the time that Joe got home from the bus, the zucchini bread was done! Isn't it beautiful!!!???

KaI had a piece, and it was SOOOO good!

At 4:00pm, all the kids were home from school, had had a snack, and changed into their swim clothes, and we headed for the pool. I made sure that they brought their big coats, because it was COLD outside. And super windy, too. It's supposed to get into the 20's-30's tonight! That's cold for El Paso, you know! Not terrible during the day, because it's SO sunny, but when the sun goes down, watch out! You'll freeze!

Kari was there, and Veronica, and we chatted while the kids swam. Kari and I made plans to go back on Tuesday and swim laps, kid free. Swimming is an aWESOMe workout, I hear. hehe. I hope I don't die - LOL!

Here's Joe after swimming. Freezing! Look at those beautiful eyes he has!

I worked on my new headband I was crocheting while at the pool, and finished it off! What do ya think? I still have some yarn left, so I'm totally making more :)

I'd started a crock pot with sausage, onions, chicken, potatoes, frozen veggies, chicken broth, italian seasoning, and zucchini's before we went to the pool, and we headed home at 5:30pm, so I figured that it should be about done.

It was SO cold for the poor kids on the way home. Next time, we may need to bring towels to dry off on, and blankets to snuggle with in the truck. ROFL!

We got home, kids changed into warm clothes, and we ate some dinner. Yeah, the potatoes were not soft enough, so we dipped up bowls of stew, put the potatoes back in to cook longer, and ate dinner. It was really pretty good. And since I didn't eat the potatoes, it was on my menu, and I could eat it! Yes!

After we cleaned up the dinner mess, the kids were SO getting on my nerves. hehe. Bickering and fighting and complaining. Ahhhhh. Somedays it's easier to block it all out more than others. hehe. Tonight was NOT that night - ha!

I was SO happy when Captain America came home, and we got him some stew, and chatted for a bit. Then went out and had FAmily Home Evening with the kids. We decided to sing Christmas Hymns all month long at Family Prayer time, so we pulled up the church website on my laptop that's connected to the TV, and pulled up the music player, and sang along with the hymn. And it was cool, because we could choose what parts the piano played, and showed the kids which part Captain America sang (bass), which part I sang (alto), which part Eme would sing (soprano), and the tenor part. They thought it was pretty neat.

Then, we read our scriptures together, and had a family prayer, and put the little boys to bed, and sent kids to their room. It was about 8:30pm, and the house was finally quiet. hehe. Captain America and I watched the last 2 episodes of The Office that we hadn't seen yet (we're not all caught up!) and headed to bed. Well, he headed to bed. He's fast asleep now, and I'm almost done blogging. And it's not even 11pm yet! Yes!

I'm hoping that tomorrow is another great day, filled with things that I enjoy doing, and that make me happy :) Taking time for myself, and doing things things that I enjoy really has improved my mental well-being, you know. Instead of doing negative things when I started to feel down, or upset, or self destructive things, or dwelling on negative things, I've been filling my "time" with things that "fill me up" and make me happy. Exercising, and crocheting, and designing, and chatting with friends, and thrift store shopping, and baking, and baking some more, and watching Fringe with Jake, and taking kids to the pool, and watching shows with Captain America, and soda runs, and all those little things that make my life SO much more enjoyable! You know, there really is joy in "righteous living"... :)

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