I didn't set a goal for myself last week, but I will for this one

I didn't set a FJ1W goal for myself last week because I just couldn't think of anything good. Plus, I kind of felt like I deserved a break after the last one. Being easy going and trying to not care about the little messes and such really took a lot out of me. ☺ It was so totally against my nature.

I think I have a noble and worthwhile goal for this week. I'm going to get my bedroom really good and clean. It's cluttered right now. Not Hoarders type cluttered (which is one of the more disturbing shows I've seen in a long time), but it's still bad enough that it's beginning to make me anxious. I'm going to give myself until Friday of this week to get it done. I need a shorter window because I know I'm going to push getting it done until the last possible second. The smaller the window of opportunity, the sooner I'll get my butt into gear and get it done. I'm experiencing a weird sense of excited anticipation and dread over this one. I'm excited to see the end result, I just don't want to have to do the work to get there. I've been a little, shall we say, on the lazy side lately. This goal is going to help be get out this funk.

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What's on the menu today: I can't remember and I'm feeling too lazy to go find my menu. I'm pretty sure it's a beef brisket crock pot recipe. I haven't posted it on my cooking blog. I'll try to get to that today and will maybe link to it tomorrow because I know people are just dying to to what my family is eating.

Twitchy & Friday Tunes Nov. 6 edition

1. Makin' Whoopee - Dr. John & Rickie Lee Jones / Sleepless in Seattle
2. Stickshifts & Safetybelts - Cake
3. Silly Putty - Stanley Clarke
4. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson
5. Gettin Jiggy Wit It - Will Smith
6. Georgiana - Pride & Prejudice (2005)
7. Best Imitation of Myself - Ben Folds
8. Space Between - Dave Matthews Band
9. Tonight, Tonight - The Smashing Pumpkins
10. Overjoyed - Stevie Wonder

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My eye has been twitching, on average, every 5 minutes since Sunday. WHY? It's getting seriously irritating and makes me look ridiculous. I had to tell the checker at the food court in Costco the other night that I wasn't winking at him and really didn't want more than a slice of pepperoni pizza. I finally had to cover my eye while I finished my order because it just wouldn't stop.

I did a little Google search and some of the causes of a twitching eye are stress or fatigue. I'm always anxious, it's just my nature, and being tired is part of being a mom. So, I have no idea what's causing this. I really need it to stop. It's done it 3 times since I started typing. That's way more often than every 5 minutes. STOP NOW!

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Cameron locked himself in the bathroom on three separate occasions this morning. It's his latest way of throwing a fit. He storms off, screaming and yelling something like "I hate you! You're the worst mother ever!" Then he sits in there waiting for me to come and pound on the door and yell at him to come out. He delights in seeing me freak out. Most of the time, I try to ignore it and let him sit and stew. I couldn't do that this morning because he had to leave for school in about 3 minutes and he was still in pajamas. I may have lost my temper just a little bit while telling him to get his butt out of the bathroom. Like, there was a little swearing involved and me saying to him it would be a "joy" to send him to school and that I couldn't wait for it. Not my finest moment.

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What's on the menu today: Southwestern Bean Medley.

Surprise!

Happy 60th Birthday to my Dad! Although we won't be having the surprise party of your dreams tonight, we'll all live it up on Saturday. There might even be some dreaded black decorations involved. You just try and stop us. ☺

I love you dad and appreciate you so very much. Thanks for being such a great dad to me. And I guess those other two, but I still contend that I was the only necessary one. You could have stopped at me and been just fine.

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I was moderately successful with my FJ1W goal for last week. I got a little stressed a couple of times, but no major freak outs. My kids took full advantage of the fact that I was trying to not sweat stuff like messes. They wanted me to take it "easy" and ignore them and more importantly, not make them clean at all. Well, I'm sorry, but it's hard to ignore an entire Malt 'O Meal bag of Captain Crunch that has been dumped onto the family room floor. That's something that kind of needs to be cleaned up. It's also not right leaving dirty underwear, socks, pants, shirts and shoes on the floor of the bathroom. It has to go to the laundry room, otherwise the pile would reach the ceiling by the end of the week. So, a little cleaning up had to take place. Tyler tried to convince me on Monday of this week that I said I was going to be easy going for the rest of my life and not just for one week. Nice try buddy. We're mostly back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm just going to try to be less shrew like from now on. Not more slob like.

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What's on the menu today: Golden Mushroom Pork & Apples.

There's nothing worse

I have a go to comfort food when I'm feeling a little blah. French fries. There's just something about them that, for me, chases the blah away.

I've had a cold threatening for the past couple of days. It's nothing terrible and I'm fine, just a little tired is all. So, after I finished my grocery shopping this morning, I went to a drive thru and ordered some hot, salty, starchy, fattening comfort. I pulled one out, popped it in my mouth and it was the opposite of what it should have been. It was NOT hot and crispy and comforting. It was limp and cold and annoying. Not cold because it was old and had been sitting out too long. Cold because it wasn't cooked all the way through. How does that even happen? There is just nothing worse then wanting some hot fries and ending up with disgusting, skunky ones instead. Nothing worse at all. I may have cried over it I was so upset. Don't try to tell me that it could have been worse, or point out the bright side. Like, I saved myself from eating empty, fattening calories. I don't care. I needed a french fry hug and I didn't get it. Feel sorry for me.

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What's on the menu today: Some sort of cheesy, broccoli, chicken and rice casserole that I'm going to make up as I go along.

Happy Halloween

Is it really November 1st tomorrow? I guess that means only 55 more days until Christmas. I need to get started on my shopping.

Creepy

I've been intrigued by the Jack the Ripper case since I was about 12 years old. I think what is so intriguing to me, and to any other Ripperologist, is the fact the he was never caught. It just makes me stark, raving crazy not knowing who he was. One of the first things I want to find out when I get to Heaven (assuming I make it there, I'll most likely be going to the other place ☺) is who he was. I NEED to know.

Some might remember I went on a tour of the murder sites while in London last year. It was so spooky, but oh so thrilling. Especially for someone like me. Our tour guide, Philip Hutchinson, is apparently one of the more reputable of all the many guides in London. He has, in fact, even written a book about the case. Plus, I saw him in a documentary about Jack on the History Channel just a week or two after we came home from London. So, that must mean he knows what he's talking about. TV would never lie.

I wanted to buy the book when we got home, but couldn't find it here in the U.S. I tried for a while and then sort of forgot about it and gave up. Ryan didn't. He's been searching and waiting for it all this time. So, when a new revised and updated version was recently published, he bought it from amazon.com/uk for me.

It came on Monday and I had it finished by Tuesday. It contains biographies of the victims, a timeline leading up to their murders, crime scene descriptions, descriptions of the area, what life was like at the time and lots of grainy black and white photos. There's nothing in it but facts, no speculating on who he might have been, etc. It's so scary and unsettling. I love it. I did most of my reading in the evening after my kids had gone to bed. After I would finish, I would turn out the lights in the house and then go to bed. My bedroom is at the end of a dark, windowless hallway. It took every ounce of self control I have to keep myself from running down it into my bedroom. I would be so creeped out, I was just sure Jack would be waiting at the end of it for me.

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What's on the menu today: I had kind of a busy day of errands yesterday. I realized at around 1:00 in the afternoon that I hadn't put dinner in the crock pot. It was too late to put it in then and have it be ready in a timely manner. We had a trunk or treat Halloween party to go to at 6:00 and so I just let the kids have hot dogs. Fast and easy. We're going to be having Chicken & Rice Pacifica tonight.

Can I change my mind?

Once I decided on my goal for this week, I almost immediately regretted my decision. I want to not sweat the small stuff, but it's really hard when you have a 2 year old. Especially a 2 year old boy who is kind of naughty.

Yesterday evening, Peyton was downstairs playing. (I should remember to include here that Ryan was working late again and was not here to help me.) He had been down there for a while and so I thought I should check on him. I found him in the laundry room (I don't know how he got in there). He had opened up the dryer, removed the clothes that were in there and was sitting inside playing. My initial reaction was, "Crap! He's put clean clothes on the floor." I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it was really no big deal. I could always rewash the clothes if necessary. It wouldn't kill me.

I pulled him out of the dryer and noticed that he was kind of stinky. I took him upstairs to change his diaper. However, when the diaper was removed, there was nothing there. He was barely wet. Strange. I picked him up, but again smelled something stinky. I started looking him over and found a dried, brown substance on one of his hands. I immediately knew what had happened. Avery had used the downstairs bathroom and not flushed it. I don't know how I knew that, it's just the thought that came to my mind. I turned to Avery, who was close by and asked her if that's what had happened. She said, "oh, probably." Great. I cleaned Peyton's hand and went downstairs slowly because I was really dreading what I might find.

Sure enough, Avery had NOT flushed the toilet after using it. Peyton had managed to get into another room he shouldn't have been in. I was greeted with a lovely sight. Poop smeared all over the toilet. He had taken the toilet scrubbing brush and swirled it around in the toilet and outside it as well. He was kind enough to return it to it's caddy, but it was covered. As was the caddy and the floor it was sitting on. If that wasn't enough, he had also pulled off about a half a roll of toilet paper, strewing it on the floor and in the bathtub. Not losing my cool right then was tough. My right eye started twitching and my forehead started to throb.

I knew the only thing to do was clean it up and so I did. It was disgusting, but nothing a little disinfecting spray couldn't take care of. No big deal. Right? That's what I had to keep telling myself over and over and over. Next, I put Peyton in the tub. I cleaned him up and dressed him and I was congratulating myself on remaining calm. It was at that moment that Cameron called me, needing help with something. I walked away for about 30 seconds. I came back to find Peyton sitting in the tub again. I laughed and told him to get out and then I noticed that I had forgotten to drain the water out of it. He was wet up to his chest. I screamed. Not yelling at him screaming. A scream of frustration.

Now, Peyton has 6 pairs of pajamas. One of them he was wearing and the other 5 were in the washer with 45 minutes left on the cycle. There was nothing to do but strip him down and pray that he didn't take off his diaper while waiting for clean pajamas. You see, if he can get to his diaper, he will take it off. If you catch him in time, it's not a problem. If you don't, he...well, you can guess what happens. He did take it off a couple of times. Thankfully, I caught him before anything bad happened, but it was still a very long night. Oh, and Ryan came home just as I was putting on Peyton's clean pajamas. He got to miss all of the fun. As usual. ☺

I hope this was the worst of it and I can keep my calm the rest of the week. Otherwise, it's going to be a very long one.

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What's on the menu today: Chicken & Rice Pacifica.