Plotting a Stealth Mission in My Mind...

Maybe Wynonna was right. I remember a few years back reading a story about Wynonna Judd in a magazine. She was taking some major heat from animal activists because she had her dog's vocal chords clipped. They just couldn't imagine how someone who made their living using their vocal chords could do such a deed to an animal.

They apparently didn't have my new neighbors.

I live in a relatively quiet community; however, the houses are very close together. Having a conversation outdoors typically means if your neighbors want to be nosey they'll know what you were just saying. You can imagine if you can hear an outdoor conversation, you can almost certainly hear noises made by outdoor pets.

Don't get me wrong. I like animals. I have a yappy dog myself. I try very hard to make sure she doesn't cause any disturbances, but just by being an animal it is not uncommon that she's going to bark. I understand that, my neighbors understand that. No hard feelings. We all get along in our little bubble just fine.

Enter new people. They have two ginormous labs in their backyard. These two dogs do not care for their new surroundings AT ALL! These dogs fight during the day (literally tear each other's heads off) - I am hearing them snarl and gnash at one another as I type this. And, at night there are long periods of nonstop barking. I'm secretly hoping a large starving coyote wanders into the neighborhood and eats them.

PETA may come picket my yard for this, but I have found myself plotting... my vast array of black clothes are perfect for a night-time ninja mission. Maybe a few well thrown ninja stars will hush them. I've already scoped out areas in my upstairs where I have perfect line of vision and nobody could trace my line of attack back here. A quick slip over the back fence, few stealth moves and I'm sure I could perform the procedure Wynonna had done.

But, alas, I'm too much of a scaredy cat myself. Don't feel like getting picketed by PETA, or going to jail for animal cruelty. So, I guess we'll just have to live out the rest of our days listening to these dogs go at it. My hope is that they'll be stupid and get one more (from my spying missions when I go for walks I have already determined they have these two, plus one lap dog inside which means they are at the limit as decreed by city ordinance). One more shows up and hopefully Animal Control will do something about it. In the meantime, I'll just continue to grit my teeth.

Random Thoughts

How did I go from no job to many jobs? True, I still consider myself a stay at home mom, because I do work from home. But in the last two months I started working for a family business basically handling scheduling and billing from home. It's flexible, it's all done by computer and telephone, and it lets me raise the baby without having to rely on daycare - which is always a plus!

However, in the last few weeks I've been approached to assist in running a small political campaign back home, assist in designing a website (which I don't know if I can do, but I'm fairly certain I can follow the templates), and now I've been approached to work free-lance doing some press releases for a contact out here.

So my brain has begun to spin... you know, it's very seldom that it isn't spinning out of control. But, now I'm wondering - would it be possible to turn these freelance requests into an actual job? For those of you who may recall, I interviewed with a small public relations firm out here around the holidays. Timing for that wasn't quite right on either end. But that company was a husband and wife team who started a great business in their basement and have been able to steadily grow it over the years.

I know a LOT of people back home who did similiar things - running their own one-woman design or marketing  businesses out of their homes. So, why would I be any different? It's living the American dream, right? Working for yourself? True, there's the whole issue of billing, keeping up with time, making sure you don't bill the client for the time you had to feed and change your child.

So, for the next few weeks as I work on these various projects, I'm also going to start doing a little bit of research on the side. Talking to people who have done it, researching the market, figuring things out. Basically seeing if this is another hair-brained idea I've cooked up, or if it could have any meat to it.

Sorry that today's blog wasn't comical, whimsical, or anything that I started out saying it would be - but I had a need to get my idea out there... to see what others thought of it. Feel free to comment, mock, encourage, etc. I need all of the above to decide if it's a leap we're willing to attempt! We'll return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!

Home Improvement: Take I

My fascination with reality tv is about to literally hit home in our daily lives. Andre (aka the hubs) and I love watching "Moving Up" and various shows about flipping/improving homes, etc. When we purchased our house last summer it needed some work. We've repainted most of it, and plan to finish that task very soon. Now to move on to the floors.

Our house is fully carpeted. This is an odd concept to me. Who carpets the bathrooms? So the plan is to rip out the carpet and put in new hardwood and tile. We may put new carpeting upstairs, this is still debatable. Andre seems to think he can do all this himself (except carpet install) which is even more intriguing to me. Needless to say, I may be temporarily living in a hotel during the time of the upgrades - just to keep the possibility for disaster to a minimum.

I can already picture the disaster that will probably occur. Sure, Andre's plenty handy... but my household luck is a lot like Tim Allen's. And, unfortunately I don't know if we have an "Al" nearby. (Although the real life Al does some ads for a handyman in town, but I digress.)

Anyone who knows me knows that even the simplest of projects become a daunting overhaul when I'm involved. The OCD in me requires intense/extensive research on the project at hand. Which means in a matter of days I will probably become a self proclaimed expert at the variations between Oak, Bamboo, Pine, Hickory, etc. Lord help us all!

As I begin this quest, I'm curious to know who else has survived a major home improvement project, and would you do it again? I've heard it said that building a home can make or break a relashionship. And, I've heard that "improvement projects" are sometimes worse than planning from ground zero. So, if you have any interesting tidbits you'd like to share - feel free. And be prepared, you'll probably see lots of rants/comments in the months to come (once we decide on a "go date") on this topic. But in the end, hopefully we won't have accomplished a complete demolish of our beloved home, rather I'll be able to post some really amazing before/after shots.

Grudgingly Jumping on the Running Bandwagon

Recently, I splurged and bought some new running shoes. I don't buy things for myself very often. Let's face it - I'm a hermit, hermits don't need much - so when I decided to spend that much money on something for myself you would think I'd use them, correct? Umm, not so much.

In case you can't tell, they are Brooks. Brooks are higly rated by Runner's World magazine. We'll see...

For those of you who may not know me or my family very well, I'll fill you in. The spousal unit is very into athletics. There's not much he hasn't done athletically, and he's very competitive. He was a golden gloves boxer, great tennis/raquetball player, he runs, road bikes, and is currently in training for an ironman later this year. Then there's me. Exercise in my mind is walking up and down the stairs 15 times a day. Yes, I've had moments when I thought I'd get into better shape. But, really - who are we kidding here? I'm one of the klutziest people on the planet. And for a while, my kltuziness resulted in a surgery (or at least multiple doctor's visits) a year, so why tempt fate now that I seem to be past that section of my life?

But, alas - he continues to pester me on this subject because this would be "quality time" for us to spend together. Ha Ha Ha... as if quality time were described by me getting angry at the fact that he runs/bikes ahead while I try to stay upright on the trail. This subject could easily land me and the hubs on The Marriage Ref.


But really, how hard can it be? I mean the people on Biggest Looser can do it. Random people I know on FB who don't look too athletic continuously post about their mileage. And, even my just as athletically challenged as I am friend has started walking/working up to running a mile - you can read about her quest here.

So, since it's become apparent that my apathy towards all things athletic or exercise related may soon enough land me in divorce court (or at the very least as a contestant on The Marriage Ref) I guess I'll vow today to start doing something. We'll start small. Maybe a walk around the neigborhood... but eventually I'm turning into this woman:

I thought the picture was appropriate since I'm in CO. Of course to run up a mountain like that will probably land me in the hospital with all sorts of broken bones/collapsed lung.

What're You Arguing About?

The Marriage Ref - It made it's debut after the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, and I think many may have skipped it. If you haven't seen it - it's worth the watch. It'll be on it's regular timeslot on Thursday evenings during the hole left by Leno's return to late night. It was hilarious!

I actually missed it when it came on the other night, but caught it "On Demand". (My love for this feature of cable should be the subject of a future blog, but that's beside the point.) Here's a brief synopsis - Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Papa have teamed up for a new show. They get a panel of "experts" (i.e. anyone famous who is or has been married) to watch arguments between couples and weigh in on their decisions. They tell Papa, the "ref", what they would do in said argument. Papa then announces the winner of the argument. And, the couples have to abide by the ref's decree.

I thought I had some weird arguments with the hubs before, but these loons take the cake. I mean seriously?! The first couple got into it because the husband's dog died. He took "The Fonz" (dog's name) to the taxidermist and had him stuffed. He then chose to display The Fonz in a shrine he built in their stairwell. Now they lived in a nice house - they seemed a little like the cast of Jersey Shore, but one wouldn't really think from the looks of their home that you'd find a taxidermied dog stuck in a cubby in the stairwell. Creepy. Of course, the ref chose to side with the wife and relegated The Fonz to the attic.

Couple #2 was interesting. While this isn't a discussion I've had with the hubs, I can easily see this being a more common argument among some folks. Husband #2 tried his best to persuade his wife to install a stripper pole (ummm, he called it an "exercise pole") in their bedroom. He said he'd even settle for it out in the garage. There's a classy image, stripping alongside the lawnmower. Her response was classic, "People in Hell want ice water, but they don't get it!" After much debate among the judges, the ref sided with the wife - no pole for them.

This got me to thinking. Where do they come up with these people? I mean, according to some research provided by the show approximately 1,000 people nationwide had their beloved pets stuffed last year. So that guy would probably literally be classified as crazy for his behavior. Admit it, sometimes we do fight over the most ridiculous things. But, would you really want to announce to a national television audience your most bizarre arguments as couples? If you would, please share your argument. Maybe it's good enough to get on TV and win a cruise like these two couples did. I'll submit for you, just so long as I get to tag along in your suitcase!

Farfalle con gamberetti e piselli

Fancy title, eh? In the spirit of Lent I decided to post a non-meat dish this week. We've eaten this on Fridays a couple times already this year, and really enjoy it. My family loves pasta, and they generally like most seafood. So, when I ran across this recipe in my "The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia" I thought it would be worth a try. Plus, it's fairly simple to make.

It's not often that I make and serve something that every member of the family enjoys. I give "Farfalle con gamberetti e piselli" a.k.a. Pasta Bows with Prawns and Peas an A. (By the way, forgive the blurry picture - there was none to be found online so this is a picture of the picture in the book. Sorry, I'll try to do better next week.)

Ingredients

3 Tbs olive oil

2 Tbs butter

2 spring onions, chopped

12 oz. fresh or frozen peeled prawns

1 1/4 cups frozen peas, thawed

14 oz. farfalle pasta

1 cup dry white wine

a few strands fresh saffron or 1/8 tsp powdered saffron

salt & pepper

2 tbsp chopped fresh fennel or dill, to serve

(serves approx. 4)

Directions

1. Bring a large pan of water to boil. Heat the oil and butter in a large frying pan and sautee the spring onions lightly. Add the prawns and peas, and cook for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add salt and the pasta to the boiling water. Stir the wine and saffron into the prawn mixture. Raise the heat and cook until the wine is reduced by about half. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low.

3. Drain the pasta when it is al dente. Add it to the pan with the sauce. Stir over high heat for 2-3 minutes, coating pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle with fresh herbs and serve at once.

*Blogger's Note: It calls for farfalle, and that is the best choice, but I've made it with other pasta I had in the pantry and it turned out just as good. Also, I've used random herbs such as parsely, oregano, and rosemary and it's been very good, too. This is a pretty easy recipe and fairly adjustable to different herbs you have in the cabinet. I say play with it a bit, but if you like shrimp - it's a must try!

Mimes v. Puppeteers

So, my daughter has a book called "Coke or Pepsi" it's an entire book of quizzes... basically things like Would you rather be stuck in a traffic jam or listen to 3 hours of your parents music,do you like stinky cheese, etc. One of the questions I found very interesting...

Would you rather spend the rest of your life as a mime or a puppeteer?

For me, this isn't difficult. I love to talk. Since not talking is a pretty important job requirement I would not be a very good mime..The whole charades bit 24/7 would not be very good to my mental stability. But, I got to thinking.... what would life be like as a puppeteer?

Of course, the whole walking around with marionette strings tied to your fingers all the time would be very aggravating. So, let's say you could be a "mind puppeteer". Does this mean you are the mastermind behind all of the actions around you, having control over people as if they are puppets on a string? If so, this would be a fantastical super power to have.

A real life Michael Corleone, only you can't use your powers for evil. Imagine all the sticky situations you could get yourself out of. And, you'd never have to do housework again because with the mere power of suggestion the kids/spouse would gladly do it!

All kidding aside, isn't that already part of the job description of a parent? You already are a puppeteer in some form. You have to pull the strings to try to make your kids make the right decisions. Sometimes it's not so fun guiding them through homework, using your mind powers to try to force them to do the right thing - sometimes we fail at this, but it makes both us and our "puppets" stronger. We are all already puppeteers in some form, but we have to take the good shows with the bad.