Beans & Ham Muffins

The tiny little piece of country in girl me ♥ a big 'ol bowl of beans with cornbread on the side. Brown beans are a big nasty no over here in Casa de Beasty but I do love me some navy beans.

My favorite way to make them is to let them simmer in the crockpot for about 8 hours. I follow a pretty simple recipe:

1/2 a bag, give or take, of navy beans; sorted & rinsed.
{Any more than 1/2 a bag ends up going to waste in our house, so I am able to make 2 full meals out of 1 bag of beans.}
3 fat slices of salt pork, cut into thin strips & fried.
1/2 an onion, sliced in chunks & fried in the salt pork grease.
Generous palmful of kosher salt
Generous sprinkle of pepper
32oz chicken broth
Water, as needed

After sorting & rinsing the beans, put in crockpot & cover with about 16oz of chicken broth. Fry the salt pork, add to pot. Fry the onion in the salt pork grease then add to the pot. Add salt & pepper & any other seasonings you want. Fill the crockpot to 3/4 full with water.

As the beans cook during the day, stir periodically, replenishing fluid level with equal parts chicken broth & water.

I generally cook mine on high for about 4 hours to get the cooking process started, then turn the heat down to low for another 3-4 hours, until the beans reach the tenderness we like.

Now the old, poor college student me used to just whip up a box of Jif cornbread mix to accompany this meal. Really...how can you turn down a box of cornbread that only costs $0.33? Now, I still enjoy the sweet sugary goodness of Jif on occasion, but I've fallen in love with these muffins & they have replaced my old standby at almost every occasion.



{Taken from the "Taste of Home Guilt Free Cooking" cookbook}

Ham 'n Cheese Muffins
1/3C finely chopped onion
1Tbs butter
2C shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese
1 1/2C reduced-fat biscuit/baking mix
1/2C fat-free milk
1 egg, beaten
1C finely chopped fully cooked ham {I've also substituted turkey}

1. In a nonstick skillet, saute the onion in butter until tender; set aside. In a large bowl {I rely on my KitchenAid mixer for any & every mixing task}, combine the cheese & biscuit mix. Stir in the milk & egg just until moistened. Fold in the ham & onion.

2. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; feel 3/4 full with batter. Bake at 425 for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm.

I've also substituted good 'ol pancake mix when I was completely out of baking mix & they were just as good, if not better! These are great alongside a bowl of beans or chili, or even for breakfast with some scrambled eggs.



The best part about this meal? It's ridiculously cheap & usually lasts us for 2 meals. It's also fairly healthy & could be even healthier if I left out the fried salt pork.

The start of something new...

Hello, bloggy loves...

I have really missed you the past 2 weeks.

Let's just say dummy dog is in the process of finding a new home. I am NOT a dog person, never have been, never will be. I can officially subtract 4 shoes from my meager shoe wardrobe. Notice I did not say 4 {pair} of shoes, because that would be too easy for the dog. Nay. She only destroyed one shoe from each pair. Methinks she's smarter than she lets on.

I have spent more time scrubbing pee & poop out of my carpet in the last 6 weeks of having a dog than I have in 26 months of being a parent.

The dog makes sure to go out of her way every.single.day to make sure & remind me that I am not her "person". I take her outside to do her biz & am lucky if she goes 1 out of 5 times. We come back inside, she immediately either pees on the carpet or waits until I put her out on the deck for her food & water, makes sure I'm not watching her, & then drops a big steaming load out there. The final straw was when I called her to go outside on Friday, she ran to the door to meet me & as soon as she stepped on the tile, looked at me & whizzed all over the place.

That dog? Knows how to push my buttons.

Long, long ago, I blogged about Bear dumping an entire box of Trix on my floor & what the vacuum looked like with a pound of fruity little balls inside of it. {heh...fruity little balls} I must have deleted the post because I can't find it. And I'm guessing the picture is on my laptop, because it's not on the trusty 'ol dinosaur. Anyways. The point being, Bear demonstrated her massive, super-baby guns {yes, she knows what her guns are & loves to kiss them}, dragged a 20lb bag of dog food into the living room & proceeded to spread it from one corner to the other.

Do you have any clue just how much food is in a 20lb bag? Do you have any clue how BAD it smells?

Let me enlighten you, my friends.

{A: food spread across the floor. B: In the vacuum. I'm guessing it was able to hold about 2lbs at a time.}



And just in case you didn't know...dog food in your vacuum makes your house smell disgusting. The end. And all that dog hair that got sucked up in the vacuum? Yes. Yes, I did just dump it all back into the bag. She licks herself all the time anyways, so a little extra fur won't hurt her too bad.

At least it wasn't the redonkulously expensive food that I have to drive FORTY MILES to buy for her. It's either drive 40 miles & pay $42 for a 25lb bag of food or continue to use my carpet shampooer multiple times a day to get diarrhea off of my carpet {you know, since she refuses to use the bathroom out in the yard & likes to hide in either the kids' room or playroom}.

OK, so anyways. Besides the beastlets growing up too fast, the dog chewing up my laptop cord, not being able to sit down at the desktop & blog lately, & finding the dog a new home, something else is about to change. In two phases.

{First} I am taking Momma Says & jumping ship. No more of Blogger's dirty little shenanigans for moi. I'm tired of wondering what happened to all of my wonderful bloggy loves, going off to search for them, only to find that hey, they posted 3 times this week but Blogger & her dirty little wench, Google Reader, have yet to update & let me know I've got more reading material. The actual move & new design is still in the works & it may not happen for a few weeks, but I'll let you know when it's all said & done.

{Second} I'm going to do a little spin-off from Momma Says. Sure, over here on Momma Says I enjoy writing about life in the Beasty household, about what Bear said or did, who pooped on the floor this week, what Crazy Neighbor did today. Lately I've really gotten in to trying out new recipes, making homemade breads, cloth diapering; we all know my love for my homemade laundry detergent & I've been nosing around, trying to find the most effective homemade household cleaner. So when I get the spin-off up & running, it will address these things. Reviews of what I've done around the house & what worked {or didn't} for the Beasty household. I'll be open to taking suggestions-what have you tried that you think I should? Is there something you want to try but you don't want to invest the time or money into it, not knowing if it's worth it? If it's reasonably priced & not ridiculously time consuming, and if you sweet talk me enough, you could quite possibly convince me to try the product out for you & tell you what I think.

So thanks, everyone, for being patient & forgiving the last few weeks while I've been MIA over here at Momma Says. The sooner dummy dog gets out of here & the sooner I can get a new laptop cord, the sooner I'll be back to your regularly scheduled sarcasm & embarrassment. And I hope you'll all stick with me through the transition to a new site & the creation of a new blog.

**********

OK, so it's been a whopping 10 minutes since I hit publish & I'm already back for an edit. And it's an exciting one!

My amazing bloggy buddy, Ali {who can be found over at My Life With Them} got ahold of me & said she wanted to help with the new blog. YES! Let me tell you something. Ali will NOT disappoint! She's become one of my best online buds & I seriously cannot wait to meet her IRL at BlogHer '10!

I still don't like her.

Pioneer Woman, that is.

Since Chase has decided he's in a food rut, I put on my big girl panties & headed over to her website to dig through her recipes. I figured since it was for Chase, I could ignore everything about her that annoys me & just go straight for the food.

{A small side note: My husband thinks he's in a food rut now? Perhaps he'd like to keep complaining about it & then I'll show him what a real "rut" is when he's forced to eat PB&J for days on end, while my apron hangs in the pantry, nice & clean.}


Now. Were where we? Oh yes. The recipes I stole from PW & slightly modified. Steak bites & crash-hot potatoes. Along with sauteed zucchini & homemade potato bread.


And Chase promptly apologized for ever using the word rut. My secret? Butter. And lots of it.

Now, if PW could just quit babbling & get to the fracking point, she'd be goodtolerable.


In other boringly domestic news, I've been dinking around with my laundry detergent "recipe". We have a farmer's market here every weekend & one of the vendors sells handmade soaps. On a whim I decided to pick up a few bars from her "reject" pile to try out in my upcoming batch of soap & let me tell you. Spending the extra money on the soap was worth it.

The detergent smells uhhhh-may-zing. The soap isn't overly scented but just enough so that I didn't put any essential oil in. Perhaps it's just my imagination (although we all know I'm pretending it isn't) but I think the kids' skin has cleared up even more.

I also found that I like my detergent with a little more Borax than the original recipe called for. I usually do about a 2:1 ratio rather than a 1:1. Since it's a booster & a whitener, I've been able completely cut out OxiClean. You can also make a little paste with it & apply directly to spots before washing, which has eliminated the need for any kind of spot treatment products.

I played around with the amount of detergent I used in each wash, too, after reading a recipe on another blogger's site. When I started out using my homemade detergent, I was using only 2Tbs (or 1/8C) per load, as recommended by the original recipe I'd found. Her variation called for 1/4C if you had hard water. I've found that if I toss in a really dirty load of clothes (or Chase's clothes after a softball game) & use 1/4C of soap, the clothes come out clean & fresh smelling & don't require an extra wash like they sometimes did in the past, with commercial detergent.

So there you have it. Things have been so exciting around here lately I've been reduced to posting pictures of what I eat & debating the merits of an 1/8C of laundry detergent vs. a 1/4C.

I'm sorry.

(also? WTH Blogger. I've tried to adjust my font size about 09283 times & you still won't save my changes. Wench.)

Laundry Detergent

Let me just say I was quite surprised that I didn't get any "Bwahhaa, you hippie nut, you make your own laundry detergent?" comments last night :)

Not only do I really feel that it's better for our skin & actually makes our clothes cleaner, but it is ridiculously cheap.

With commercial detergents, unless you buy the dollar store brand, you're paying anywhere from $7ish-$20+ a bottle, depending on size, brand, location, etc.

I think I probably spent about $15 to get started, which included the ingredients, a large plastic jar with lid, & a cheese grater.

I make powdered soap. Mostly because I am lazy & don't feel like taking the time needed to make the liquid/gel soap. If you're interested in the liquid version, let me know & I've got a few recipes saved.

If you don't like my version of the soap recipe, just Google "make your own laundry detergent" & you'll get a whole handful of sites.

Here's the powdered soap recipe that I use:

1 box of Borax


1 box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (This is not the same as baking soda & they are not interchangeable)


3pk of original Ivory soap (You can use Ivory, Dove, etc. However, the "beauty bars" such as Olay or anything that have added moisturizers will, over time, cause buildup on your clothing)


(If you have incredibly dirty, greasy clothes [ie your husband is a mechanic or your kids are fond of going out to the driveway & rolling around in those nasty oil spill puddles], you may want to consider using a stronger bar soap such as Fels Naptha, Zout, or one of those other peel your skin off soaps that our grandparents were so very fond of.)

Essential oil of your choice. I prefer Clean Linen or Citrus scents. Lavendar would also be a nice choice.

It is ridiculously easy to put this together. I followed a 1:1 ratio with the Borax & Washing Soda.

• In your blender, mix 1 cup Borax with 1 cup Washing Soda. Mix on low speed until they are combined. Repeat until you have used all of the powdered ingredients.
  
• Add in the essential oils. The original recipe that I found called for only 2-3 drops of oil for the entire batch. I probably ended up using about 15 drops all together & still noticed little to no scent on my clean clothes.
  
• You will need to grate the soap with the cheese grater. If you have a food processor that can handle the stickiness & thickness of the grated soap, grating with the large holes will work best. However, if you manage to kill yours (like I did) while trying to chop it into smaller pieces, simply use the small holes on the cheese grater & you can mix them right into the powdered ingredients without trying to chop them any smaller.
  
• Mix the soap with the powdered ingredients. Pour into a container with a lid.
  
• Wash your clothes.
  

It really is that simple. You will want to play around with the amount needed for your washing machine, but it should not require much soap at all. For light loads, I use 1 (yes, ONE) Tablespoon of powder. For heavy loads, extremely dirty loads, etc. I use 2 Tablespoons plus a scoop of OxyClean.

This soap will not suds up in the washer, so don't think that you need to continue to add more soap in an attempt to achieve sudsing. Also, I don't know how this would work in an HE or front loader. I'm sure you could ask Sir Google & get an answer fairly quickly.

I was able to find all the ingredients minus the Washing Soda at Wal-Mart. If yours carries it, it will be in the laundry aisle, close to the Borax. If not, check your local grocery store & possibly even hardware stores. If all else fails, you can buy it on Amazon. At the grocery store, I know I paid less than $3 for the box, but I can't remember just how big the box was. The one on Amazon is 55oz but is over $10 before S&H, so check around. The essential oils, I found in the potpourri aisle at Wal-Mart as well. I don't think they say "essential oil" rather, something along the lines of liquid potpourri. You can order essential oils off of Amazon or if you have a health foods store near you, you can pick them up there, as well.

I made my first batch roughly 5-6 weeks ago, right after we moved into the new house. I have probably 5 loads worth left in the jar. And that's with doing sometimes as many as 10 loads of laundry a week. So, this stuff lasts quite a while, as opposed to going & buying a new bottle of detergent every 2-3 weeks.

If you want to take it a step further, you can cut out your commercial fabric softeners as well. There are recipes that call for water & plain hair conditioner. Good 'ol vinegar works the best in my opinion. Simply fill your Downy ball to the line with plain white vineger & toss in the washer. Your clothes do not come out smelling like vinegar. After a few washes with the laundry detergent & vinegar combo, you will notice that your clothes are coming out softer & brighter. You are getting rid of all of the product buildup that has accumulated from the commercial detergents & softeners.

Same goes for your dryer sheets. I've read a variety of suggestions for dryer softeners. From "Soak a washcloth in the commercial liquid softener & toss it into the dryer-lasts for approximately 10 loads" to "Soak a washcloth in hair conditioner" to "Don't use anything at all. Eventually your clothes will cease to be staticky."

I like to use dryer balls. Occasionally I'll have something come out of the dryer a little staticky but that's generally after I've tossed in Bear's "silky" blanket.


There you have it. My laundry recipe. Youc an also tweak this around to make a dishwasher detergent (omit the Ivory soap, keep a 1:1 ratio of Borax & Washing Soda, add in essential oil of your choice) but I was never able to make it work in my dishwasher. No matter how I changed the amount of soap I was putting in, my dishes still came out spotted, streaked & filmy. However, I do use vinegar rather than Jet Dry in the rinse agent dispenser & have had next to no spotting at all on my dishes.

Laundry is the bane of my existance

I'm sure if I had these beauties sitting in my laundry room, I'd be a tiny bit more motivated...


What's that you say? Ya'll aren't buying it? I didn't think you would.

I am always amazed at how quickly the laundry piles up. We're only four people! The kids clothes I can understand, because there are days when we go through 2 or 3 outfits. But what is the Doctor's excuse? What is mine?

If I was smart, I'd run a load or two every day. But I've never claimed (at least on here) to be smart.

The washing, drying & folding isn't such a big deal. It's not too hard to pop in there every 45-60 minutes to check on the clothes & switch them out as needed.

It's the putting away that breaks my metaphorical back.

It's hard to put the kids clothes away during the day. If I try to do it while they are awake, forget about it. Bear's pulling clothes out as fast as I can put them in, Roo's whining & boo-hooing because I'm not holding him, Bear's whining because she wants to wear THOSE CLOTHES or she needs a new pair of panties...RIGHT NOW.

I could put them away at night, after they've gone to bed, but selfish me, I tend to reserve the time between 8:30-11:00pm for hanging out with my husband, taking a long hot bath, catching up on blogs. Things that don't require me to move much at all.

So usually, I wash, dry, fold & let it sit. Sometimes for up to a week. Whenever I can have the opportunity to have Doctor watch the kids for 30-45min so I can put away their laundry & clean their room. Or I suck it up & do it after they've gone to bed.

I hate messing with the Doctor's clothes, too. Having to pull his pants out of the dryer before the buzzer goes off so any leftover wrinkles are easy to shake out. I've just stopped setting out his shirts that have to be ironed because I despise ironing. I used to drop his pants off at the dry cleaners every 2-3 weeks but got sick of wasting the money. The only reason I felt like it was a waste of money (since it was saving me from having to mess with them) was because instead of being a responsible, considerate husband & hanging his pants up when he got home in the evening, he'd just drop them on the floor in heaps, thus wrinkling them all over again.

My laundry isn't that big of a deal, since I'm still lacking in the whole "having things to wear" department. Especially when it comes to summer clothes. After Bear was born, I was still wearing maternity clothes for a while & then back into my regular clothes. With Roo, I was pregnant the entire mother truckin' summer, so more maternity clothes for me. Anything I had after Bear was born doesn't fit any more, so it's gone the way of Goodwill or the trashcan.

The one thing I do like about laundry? The smell. That's the only nice thing about it. Especially since I make my own laundry soap. I'd toyed around with the idea for a while & found quite a few "recipes" online. I was skeptical about it but went ahead & mixed up a whole batch of it & put in a few drops of essential oils.

It took a while for me to notice a difference, but there has been quite a big one. My clothes feel softer, they smell better, & they definitely look cleaner. The biggest difference though? The kids' skin.

Both my kids have sensitive, dry skin. It wasn't uncommon to see scaly patches all over their arms & legs. However, within about a week of no longer using commercial detergents, their skin started to clear up, the dry patches started to disappear, & now after about a month & a half of using the homemade soap, their skin isn't dull, dry & flaky if I forget to put on lotion after their bathtime.

Has anyone else tried using homemade laundry detergent? What did you think about it? Did you use liquid or powder?

Why I love my tile floors

Alternative title:

Who would like to come teach my children proper table etiquette?

I do believe I've mentioned in the past the hideous, completely pointless, completely horrid white carpet that was in our rent house? I may have failed to mention that this carpet extended into the dining room.

Sure, I hated that carpet. Hated it in the rest of the house. I totally, utterly, completely detested having carpet underneath my dining room table. That would be a common-sense FAIL right there.

The ridiculous carpet necessitated a sheet being kept underneath Bear's highchair at all times. And that sheet? Had to be washed pretty much daily because, well, she wasis a slob.

Which leads me to my love of my tile floors in the dining room & kitchen. Bear's still a total slob & Roo's just starting to get the hang of eating something that doesn't look like pureed dog doo, so he's lucky if he gets 50% of the food into his mouth.

It usually works like this:

• 7:00am: Start out the day with beautiful shining floors, clean table, clean highchairs.
  
• 9:00am: Feeding time at the zoo has begun.
  
• 9:15am: Step on some puffs, curse because it is totally smushed into my foot & I actually have to scrape it off.
  
• 9:20am: One of the beastlets has decided they are done eating, so whatever food is left on their plate is dumped.
  
• 9:21am: Take a peek at the floor, think Bear actually did a decent job of eating & that there isn't much food under her chair. Take a peek under Roo's highchair, wonder why I bother to put food on his plate at all. He'd be happier if I scattered it across the floor a la Hansel & Gretel & set him free to act as a human vacuum.
  
• 9:22am: Get kids down from table. Depending on what was served for breakfast, either herd them into the tub or herd them into the playroom.
  
• 9:23am: Walk out of kitchen & leave the mess on the floor.
  
• 11:45am: Repeat scene from breakfast. Except now it's lunch, so the food is a little messier.
  
• 12:15pm: Again repeat scene from breakfast. Remove beastlets from chairs, decide between bath or diaper/clothing changes & naptime wind down.
  
• 12:45pm: Beastlets are in bed. Whip out the trusty broom, dustpan & mop. Proceed to clean up approximately 2/3 of all food I painstakingly unwrapped prepared for the terrors.
  
• 3:30pm: Snacktime. Why did I bother sweeping & mopping?
  
• 7:45pm: Dinner. Repeat food scene played out through entire day.
  

So there you have it. I'm lazy. I don't sweep and/or mop after every feeding. If I did, my schedule would look like this: Feed, sweep, mop. Repeat 4x.

But it can't be that bad you might be saying to yourself. Ha! would be my reply. Still don't believe me? Here's photographic evidence. This is from breakfast & lunch today.

Here it is, still all spread out:


And here is the massive pile once it's been swept up:


I know...you're just totally clamoring to come eat with me & my kids. Right?

Seriously though. Those pictures? Proof of why, when we go out to eat, we tip based off of how big of a mess the kids made. Your service sucked balls? If they made a mess like the one above, you're still getting $10.

Packing Shmacking

Dear Mr. Appraiser:

Thanks for totally screwing us this week. How hard is it to understand that a 3:00pm Thursday deadline means TURN IN THE PAPERWORK AT 3:00PM??!

Lucky for you, we have an awesome realtor & a bank who cannot wait to no longer own a house that has been sitting on the market for over a year.

Since they are totally awesome & just as annoyed at you as I am, they have gone ahead & given us the keys to our new home.

And hey-a verbal affirmation of appraised value, it'll do for now, right?

Well, no, Mr. Appraiser, it won't do. Thanks for shoving our closing date back until next week.

But, like I said, you're lucky we have an awesome realtor. I won't write you a true letter of complaint this time.

Sincerely,
A slightly annoyed (almost) homeowner.

So instead of addressing a letter to the appraiser, I really should be doing some more packing. Yet, here I sit.

I've got about 75% of the stuff done. The Doctor & Totally Awesome Neighbor spent the evening moving a lot of stuff over to the house. My dad & stepmom are headed up tomorrow to help The Doctor with all the heavy lifting.

Oh friends, I'm sure you can feel my pain & sadness when I say that unfortunately, the kids & I will be missing out on all the heavy lifting, last minute shoving of junk into boxes, & eleventy gazillion trips up the stairs.

Instead, we'll be spending the day with Rockin' Sister-In-Law & her soon-to-be husband, watching them open all their presents. And then we'll be headed out to the family pond for the annual Easter egg hunt. Otherwise known as the "watch all the "adults" shove each other out of the way to grab all the eggs they can so they can get the most money" hunt.

When we make our way back into town tomorrow night, we'll be going home to our new house. Where the majority of my boxes will have been unpacked for me, the beds will be assembled, & the only thing I will be required to do is put my two monsters into bed & try out the brand-new jacuzzi tub.

{{{And the angels sang}}}

Unfortunately, the cable company can't get out to the house until Friday to hook up our internet.

Suckfest.

So, unless some kindly neighbor happens to have their Wi-Fi unlocked, I will have to sit out my favorite part of the day.

Ha. Who am I kidding? I'll be sitting in the McDonald's parking lot during naptime using their free Wi-Fi.

And wondering why the heck McDonald's has Wi-Fi. Is it some hip, happenin' meeting spot that I have been missing out on all these years?

See you in a week!

Oh Landlord...

How I will not miss thee.

I will not miss sending out that monthly rent check.

I will not miss the poorly insulated house that requires me to keep the thermostat around 74 degrees in the winter time so that we're not shivering.

I will not miss the heated/cooled garage that helps to hike up my utility bill.

I will not miss the carpeted garage.

(All together now. W-T-H??? A garage with carpet & heating/cooling vents?)

I will not miss not having a bathtub. I'm not sure you, in your infinite old woman wisdom, realize what a task this makes bathing two babes.

I will not miss the ridiculous yards of ceramic tile. Do you grasp what that does to a newly walking babe's body?

I will not miss the doors that do not close properly. Every.single.door. in the house.

I will not miss the yard with the unidentifiable plants that only look like massivly overgrown weeds during the summer.

I will not miss the dishwasher that runs at 10x the normal volume a new dishwasher should run at.

I will not miss the sink that backs up at inopportune moments.

I will not miss the garbage disposal that randomly blows torn up food & water out the other side of the sink.

Mostly, Landlord, I will not miss this horrible, ridiculous white carpet. My trusty shampooer hasn't made a difference in the stains that accompany two young babes & a husband who is apparently color-blind to the fact that we have WHITE carpet.

***singing "Stanly Steemer gets your carpets cleaner!***

So, Landlord, even though you have been just about the best, least intrusive, most laid-back landlord I've ever had...I will not miss you or your over-priced house.

***Has anyone ever wondered what a chalk rainbow looks like on white carpet? Oh, you've never had the opportunity to see one before? Well here, let me show you!***

Newsey news

Soooo...I promised some news.

How many of you tried to guess & thought, "Hmmm...is there a #3 on the way?"

If that was you-please sit back down & say 10 Hail Mary's & ask for forgivness for thinking such a wretched thought.

OK. Kidding. Having a #3 wouldn't be wretched, it would just be damn hard. And I am in no way, shape, or form ready for that to happen. Ask me again in 5 years.

Although Hubband would tell you differently. I still haven't sold him on the idea. Right now, he's so anti-#3 that, on average, once a month he offers to go get the "Big V."

Anyways. Back on topic.

In two weeks, we will officially be the proud owners of this:


Our first home! I'm just a little excited.

Right now it's a 3-bedroom, 2 bath. Right now? Yep, right now. It has an unfinished basement that has the potential to be an additional 1577sqft of living space. Eventually there will be an office, bathroom, 1 extra bedroom, & a 2nd living area down there.

And, uh, Kansas? WTH is up with the siding/brick combo? Can you not just pick one?

You think I'm kidding. But seriously. It is almost impossible to find a house that is completely one or the other here. Not that I'm really complaining about it, but I'm used to houses that are, well, one or the other.

So if everything goes well, we should close in 2 weeks. Then the fun sets in. How very convenient er, unfortunate for me that I will be out of town the weekend that we move, thus leaving Hubband to do all the heavy lifting himself.

And yes, we've Chase has already started packing. He won't have another weekend off until the move so he wanted to take advantage of it. Which really means, we cleaned out the desk area & packed up the playroom & then picked up the rest of the house.

Because the guys next door are drinking beer & grilling. And, honey? I'm really hungry. And I'm still annoyed from our shopping trip today, so I'm just going to go have a beer or two or twelve. And I mean, if you wanna just relax & take it easy, that's cool with me, too.

Oh, annoyed from our shopping trip? Puh-lease, Hubband. You have balls (well, I mean, yes, in fact, you do) to tell ME that YOU are annoyed.

Somehow "You can pick out whatever you like for the living room, dining room, & kitchen" turned into:

(H)"What kind of fridge should we get?" (me) "I don't care, as long as it's black so that it matches the rest of the appliances." (H)"OK. I like this stainless steel one."

(H)"What kind of living room furniture are you wanting?" (me) "A leather sectional. And no recliner. I'm seriously over recliners." (H)"Sounds good, lets go look." (me) "That one! That's the sectional I want." (H)"Huh. Nah. I'm really liking that motion furniture. You know, the ones where the recliners are built into it?" (me)"No recliners. We'll look for a chair & ottoman to match, but no recliners." (H)"Oh wow! I think this it! Have a seat, it's so comfortable!" (As he dies & goes to Heaven whilst in a couch with a recliner built into it.)

Soooo...we're at a standstill with the furniture shopping. Rest assured, though. I WILL get my way.