We went for two months without eating out.  We had one paycheck that was short, and we issued the challenge to ourselves: no eating out this paycheck.

I say “challenge” because it sounds more adventurous than “rule.”
We stuck by it, man. I cooked this and whipped up that. I was amazed at how much food we really did have in our cupboards. It isn’t like we eat out all the time. We tend to order pizza about once every two weeks. During a particularly hairy time, we might average one take-out meal every 10 days. But because we did so well NOT eating out, we extended the challenge to the next paycheck and the next and the next.
Before I knew it, we had gone TWO MONTHS without eating out (except for the one time the kids and I ate hot dogs at the food court in Sam’s Club, but I don’t really count that since there was no way around it. Also it cost me all of $5.)

Last week on Thursday, I had HAD it. I was tired and the kids were tired. I was hungry and the kids were hungry. I’d had a hankering for cheese sticks and I didn’t have any appropriate cheese on hand to make any, so I asked my husband if we could eat out. He was fine with the idea, so we decided to eat at Denny’s. I felt terrible about it, really. All this time, I’d saved and saved and saved and cooked and cooked and cooked, only to be overthrown by a hasty decision essentially made by my stomach.
I tried to shake it off, but I couldn’t.
Even when my plate of cheese sticks was placed in front of me and a voice inside was crying out, “YOU DESERVE THIS!” I still couldn’t shake it.
The next day, we went shopping. It’s been a while since my husband went shopping with us, and he really hates watching prices go up. By the time we were done checking out, he, ahem, wasn’t the happiest camper in the world. So I took a slight detour on the way home. That is to say: instead of depositing our car on the highway and heading home, I deposited our car at Sonic and ordered up some greasy grub. Food always makes my husband happy.
After we’d eaten (for only $8! Can you beat that?! If you’re not Sam’s Club, I mean…) we drove home. The next morning, we woke up, packed up, and headed to Thatcher.
My sister was graduating, and after her ceremony we… ate out. As a family.
I didn’t even come CLOSE to finishing my three creamy chicken enchiladas. Something just tasted… off.

And something WAS off. I tossed and turned all that night, falling in and out of sleep as my stomach would allow. The next day, I woke up and the family and I made our way to Denny’s again -this time with the rest of the family. We had one more family meal (breakfast) before we all split up and headed our different directions. I ordered one Grand Slam for me and the kids.
The kids ate more than I did. I mean… the kids ate more than I COULD.
I tried all day to shake the ache in my stomach. We stayed with my good friend, Stephanie, and I felt like the biggest jerk ever -plastered to her couch sipping on Sprite and cursing Casa Manana and their chicken enchiladas.

We finally made it back to our own house around 10:30 at night. My poor husband took the wheel for the long ride home, and I sat passenger, clutching my trusty Sprite and a pillow.
I collapsed on the couch when we got home and woke up a few times in the night with a roaring stomach ache. I’m not exactly proficient at.. purging (shall I say?) so the stomach ache simply stayed with me with no way to really work it’s way out.
I did make it to church, but only barely.

But I will tell you this much: the challenge is BACK ON.
No eating out! NO EATING OUT!!

In other news: here’s the only picture I took this weekend. I only took one picture for three reasons: my camera is dead and I can’t find the charger, my phone camera’s zooming function quit working, and I was plastered to poor Stephanie’s couch.

It’s a nice, relaxing picture though. Isn’t it? The kids were enjoying an afternoon splashing away in a kiddie pool. I enjoyed the sunshine and the green grass and the mountains in the distance.

As for yesterday, I snapped a couple of pictures with my zoom-less camera phone. My grandmother has a merry-go-round in her backyard. She’s had it for as long as I can remember.

When it comes to company, the merry-go-round has never been found wanting.

(no, I didn’t let them ride around like that. But I did have to get a picture before telling them to dismount.)

I left the kids to their playing and made my way into the house where I was greeted by THIS:

A necklace my aunt had made that I admired. I’m not big on jewelry, but my aunt’s taste is FANTASTIC!
Mira:

Am I planning today’s hairstyle, make-up and outfit around this necklace?
Of course I am.

Just before heading to bed, I snapped this picture of two of my favorite people sharing a late night snack while they watched the game highlights on ESPN.com:

That, readers, is my weekend report.
Today will consist of wearing my necklace (priority!), cleaning the house to get it ready for a day of fun with my nieces, taking the kids to the cemetery to clean-up, taking the kids swimming for an hour, and then heading to a friend’s birthday BBQ.

Days like today should always begin with a necklace like mine.
Please excuse me, the boy is drinking from the toilet.

Mother’s Day is Sunday.  I hope I’m not the only one out there who has to give my husband warnings.

“Mother’s Day is in two weeks.”
“Mother’s Day is happening during this pay period.”
“This is your one week Mother’s Day warning.”

He never gets upset about the reminding. He only thanks me profusely. I’m excited for Mother’s Day this year. Every year, I cook a Mother’s Day dinner for my grandma and mom. This year we’ll be having BBQ ribs (made with Dr. Pepper), homemade potato salad, leaf salad, and cinnamon rolls for dessert. I can’t wait for the meal to come together! I can’t wait for our families to come together! Did I mention that I was excited to give my mom her Mother’s Day gift? I AM! It was put into my hands on Sunday, and I’m absolutely hopping excited to hand it over to my mom. I even took pictures of it! But I can’t share them yet. Because I signed my mom up for email feeds from my blog, so she HAS to read my crap.

Anyway.
My husband got asked to speak in church on Mother’s Day. AND so did my Dad. Excitement! Yes I’ll attend an extra hour of church just to hear my dad speak. Don’t you think I won’t!

Last night, I started feeling the Mother’s Day love. After the kids got out of their bath, they came to me on the couch for lotion and PJs. My son has the cutest hooded towel, and I was surprised when he crawled up on the couch and nestled himself down for the biggest, most snuggly hug in the whole world.

Can you see his little towel-clad arms wrapped around me?
It was the sweetest thing.

And there he stayed until he’d gotten his fill. Then he moved and let his sister get her lotion and PJs. After I got her dressed, I sat on the floor.
“You might brush my hair,” my daughter said.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “sit right here…” I motioned to a spot on the floor in the front of me between my legs.
“No,” she shook her head, “You might put your legs like…” She pushed my legs together and then laid herself on top of them. It took my by completely surprise! Have you ever balanced a four-year old on your legs before? It might have been hard had she not been a perfect fit.

(see the wreath off to the right side? Remind me to tell you about THAT later.)
I looked down at our feet and it made me so happy.

We said our prayers and then told the kids to hop in bed, but they didn’t. Lacy wanted her hair brushed some more, and Trenton wanted to play with his Dad some more.
So I went on brushing completely unaware that my husband took this picture.

He bought a Droid (Thunderbolt) last month and he’s been using the heck out of it. He went a little picture happy. And he went a little effects happy too. Why is the above picture blue? I asked him.
Because it can be! He answered.

Ahhhhhh… freshly bathed babies. Nothing in the world smells as sweet.

I only wonder where my son went when all of this picture taking was going down…

And now. I’m going to tell you about the wreath. I started it on Friday night. I saw a tutorial on a website for it. The woman talked about how easy it was to make. How she saw one at a boutique for $40 and then went home and made one for $2. I was really excited about the idea of making one. I sat curled up on the floor Friday night and watched television with my husband as I cut swirls out of pages torn from a book and made little roses and glued them to a wreath.
I giggled with every new rose made and paraded the wreath in front of my husband’s face.
“Isn’t it looking good?” I squealed.
And then came Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. And that blasted thing STILL isn’t done! I’ve been working on it for days and hours and hours! I’ve streamed just about every classic Netflix movie that looks even remotely interesting! My husband came home from work last night and found me curled up in front of my poor page-ripped book.
“Still at it?” He asked. I aimed the glue gun at my wreath and pretended to shoot it.
He laughed at me.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You were so excited about it and now you hate it,” he laughed, “It’s cute.”

Want to know what to get me for Mother’s Day darling?
Some good sense to not start silly projects like this!
Also… dear, can you make paper roses? I need about 40 more.

A few days ago, I wrote a post about housekeeping. I shared a few pictures from a housekeeping book. In that same housekeeping book, the author (Daryl V. Hoole) suggests getting yourself dressed and ready for the day before serving breakfast. I thought it was a good idea in general, but nothing I was ever going to attempt. But the thought lingered. And lingered. And lingered longer, and I suddenly found myself thinking of it as a challenge.
Yesterday, I took that challenge -by jingo. I woke up, showered, dressed, did my make-up, did my hair, and then served breakfast to my husband with a (sarcastic) smile.
“This is for you, dearest,” I beamed.
“Thank you, darling,” he beamed back.

And then he left for work.
But before he left for work, he kissed me. Because I had gotten ready for the day, I was wearing lip gloss deliciously flavored with strawberry something-or-other (probably chemicals, right?). And his normal quick “I’m heading out the door” peck on the lips was replaced with a long, long, long… kiiiiiiissssssssss. The kind that make you swoon.
After he pulled away, he looked at me, thanked me for remembering just how much he loves the tasty lip gloss, and then told me I was hot.

Hot? Say whaaa?

I must here state that I really half-arsed my way through “getting ready for the day.” Instead of washing my hair, I straightened day-old hair. Instead of dressing up in something impressive, I opted for my comfy tennis shoes, my Old Navy jeans, and a handy blue Hansen’s Auto t-shirt. Did I mention that I’m still carrying a mound of holiday weight around my mid-section? Well I am.
But throughout the day I got texts from him.
“How are you?”
“What are you up to?”
And when he came home, he showered me in compliments the likes of which have never been heard since the dating days. This is shocking! And I’ll tell you why.
It has nothing to do with my husband. He’s as sweet as a honeysuckle. It has everything to do with me and those children running around my ankles.
THESE children.

There was NO END to their naughtiness yesterday! Absolutely no end! My main goal yesterday was to fold laundry. My loveseat is overflowing with laundry, and I was going to fold it come hell or high water!
But guess what?
On account of my children’s naughty behavior, I took my exhausted self and banished it to the kitchen instead. I hid behind beef soup (made with steak -sorry dad), dishes, and -surprisingly -pineapple meringue pie. Do you remember that old graduation song -the one filled with great advice and catchy music? Every now and then, a phrase from that song will pop out at me.
Like:
Do one thing every day that scares you.

Well, meringue scares me, okay? It looks so easy to mess up! So I took it on. I let the laundry sit where it may and I beat egg whites to my heart’s content. Because I banished myself to the kitchen, dinner happened to be ready when my husband walked through the door at 5.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL!
And I think it sort of cancels out that one time I served my family dinner at 11:45 in the PM.

As the day wore on, what was left of my patience flew out the window and despite the fact that my make-up was on and my hair was done, I sounded quite the beast. But my husband told me several times over how hot I was.
Hot. Hot.
I’m still wrapping my mind around that.
Hot? No. I’m not hot. I’m a mom!
(“I’m not a woman anymore. I’m a mom!” Name it…)

We ran into town to get a few Eastery things for an Easter package we were assembling for our brother on a mission, and I tried to keep my cool and not dump my negativity all over my husband. I didn’t succeed 100%, but I did okay. We stopped off at the post office to get the mail before they locked the door AND to shove candy in my son’s mouth so he would stop falling asleep since it was nigh unto 7 in the PM and he had skipped his nap.
Which is another story.
And mama doesn’t allow naps at 7 in the PM. EV-ER.

When my husband came back out with the mail, he told me that the latest issue of Country Living had come in. He almost set it aside (gasp!) but I held out my eager hands and begged for it.
I squealed with delight and hugged it to my chest, clinging to my huge ray of sunshine on an otherwise trying day.
As I did so, my husband continued to say some of the sweetest things I’ve heard since we were dating.

During my Kitchen Confinement, I had done the dishes approximately 70 billion times (okay, 3) and after dinner was done, I did them once again. But I didn’t put the soup up.
After the packages were assembled, my husband put the soup up. I didn’t ask him to, he just DID.  Then he scrounged up every dirty dish in the house and washed them.
Then he turned on The Odd Couple as I put the kids into bed (never been so happy to).
Then he laid a blanket out in front of the television.
Then he offered me his arm.
And we laughed and ate pineapple meringue pie.

I also gave him the best foot rub known to mankind as my way of saying “Sorry for my lousy attitude, chum.”

I’m still trying to figure out what went on yesterday, and this is what I’ve come up with so far.

Meager attempt to look nice + flavored lip gloss > losing patience with naughty children

June Cleaver, the world may condemn you in their own way, but today -as I served breakfast to my husband 100% dressed and ready for the day -I praised you. Though your ways and hair may seem dated, they stand for something monumental.
And let’s face it: he did my dishes. without even so much as a nudge.

But today I’ve really got to buckle down and fold that laundry.
Thank goodness for leftover pineapple meringue pie in the fridge.

Here’s a few shots of our package assembly last night (aka FHE):

Check out how happy I look in this picture. Can you tell it had been a long day? (lie and say “no”…)

World’s Greatest Man and his children. See how the daughter is clinging to him for affection? See how the son is mid-whine and saying “Nooooooo!” because his mother asked him to smile for the picture?

Happy Tuesday, all. May it be better than Monday.