Joy

I have a poster that has some kitschy sayings on it. My favorite line on this poster has really reverberated in my life and has stuck with me a while.
The line is, "Don't postpone joy to clean the bathroom or scrub the kitchen sink."
For some reason, this line goes through my head a couple times a day. Even before I had children I held on to this saying.
I think the reason it means so much to me is that it is an easy way to say, "Hey, slow down, enjoy life, don't get worried about stupid sh*t."
I tend to get uptight and obsessive about things sometimes. I enjoy a clean, uncluttered home. However, the ideal picture of perfection is not always attainable.
Let's put it this way. When I was working, I could come home from work and stress about the unwashed laundry and dirty kitchen, or I could sit down and have a nice chat with my husband about his day.
On the weekend, I could spend all day scrubbing floors and toilets, or go for a nice walk and enjoy the sunshine.
Now that I have children, this is even more important. I can vacuum floors, or color with my son. I can dust cabinets, or snuggle with my newborn.
I always kid one of my good friends. It seems like she is always ironing or getting ready to iron her fresh laundry. I kid, "Ironing? What's that?" I retired my iron a long time ago. If it needs ironed on a daily basis, I don’t' buy it. My husbands work clothes go to the cleaners. It's just a few bucks a month, and the time I save by not ironing is invaluable to me. If I win the lottery, I'm having a cleaning person come four times a month, just to clean bathrooms.
It's a good thing we like to entertain friends and family. If we never had vistors, my house wouldn't get cleaned as often. In fact, I told my husband the other day to invite a co-worker to our house, just because I needed an excuse to clean.
Which is not to say that I never clean. My philosophy is just this, if you are in the moment enjoying shared time, it isn't necessary to jump up and do housework.
If I'm doing dishes, and my son brings me a book that he wants me to read, I usually put the dishrag down and cuddle in with him.
If I'm putting clothes in the laundry and my son wants my attention, we play a fun game of sock basketball.
It's all in how you spend your time. Remember not to postpone joy. We only live once. If you die tomorrow, does it really matter if the bathrooms are clean?

Tater Head

As all of my family knows, I have a love of potatoes. My dad used to say that I was probably Irish in a previous life.

As a child, I used to eat them raw, with just a little salt sprinkled over them. At an early age, I perfected the perfect hashbrown. Golden fried in butter, soft and white on the inside.
Strangely, it wasn't until I was older that I discovered other types of spuds. I now love parsley buttered red potatoes, crusty rosemary roasted Yukon’s, and baked sweet potatoes heaped with brown sugar and butter.

My brother-in-law loves my Hashbrown Casserole, made with hot sausage and frozen prepared hashbrowns, baked with a sour cream and cheese base. He paid me a dear complement when he declared, "You make the best hashbrowns."
My husband is a big fan of the Hot German Potato salad. It has about a pound of bacon in it, and it tastes better if you don't drain off all of the bacon fat. Not the healthiest dish, but very good. The German heritage in my blood approves. Now all you need is a good pilsner. Hey, that's what a German Fest is for, right?

If there were a potato recipe contest, I would enter it.

In fact, I think my mother-in-law thinks I'm a little odd. Every time she asks, "What's for breakfast?" I reply, "Hash browns, of course." Sometimes we do have potato pancakes.
As much as I love potatoes, I really hate peeling them. The drudgery of it all gets to me. I could never peel potatoes for a living.

Have you ever picked a potato from a garden? Actually, they grow underground. When you dig them up, they are unpleasantly dusty and dirty.

One potato I haven't tried is the purple potato. They look interesting. I bet they would make a garish potato salad. If I ever see one in the store, I'll buy one and let you know how they taste.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had a craving for potatoes. At one point, it was all I could eat without getting sick. I kidded around that I would name him Tater. Funny enough, mashed potatoes are his favorite dinner. With my second, I craved Salt and Vinegar Potato chips, which my husband kept taking away from me. He didn't think they were very healthy for the baby or me.

One of my son's favorite toys is Mr. & Mrs. Potato head. Now, you can buy all sorts of alternative outfits for them. I just bought the safari outfit, which comes with a monkey, an elephant, and a bird costume. It's too cute. He learned his body parts that way. I would hand him Mr. Tater heads nose, and he would put it in the correct spot. They also have a princess outfit I'm considering buying for Mrs. Potato head. Every girl deserves to be treated like a princess by her Spud in shining armor.
So what's for lunch? I'm having potato soup!

How to freeze your butt off

It has been freezing cold here in Indianapolis. So cold in fact, that you can leave your drink in the car and it will freeze into a solid chunk of ice. I am very glad we moved and got a garage so I can keep my car from freezing into a giant green colored ice cube.
The thermometer has been hovering around 0. Today, with the wind chill, it was in the negatives. It was the kind of cold you can't outrun on your way inside.
So, braving the cold, I headed out for my bi-weekly shopping day. I go sans kids, which makes shopping day almost a treat for me. I decided to range a little farther from home today, forgoing my usual Wal-mart run in favor of a Meier run. Meier is farther away, but they have a lot more selection and some good deals.
The place was a madhouse. It seemed like every person in Indianapolis was out buying beer and Fritos for the big Super Bowl event tomorrow. In Indiana, you have to buy your beer on Saturday, because for some idiotic reason you can't buy any kind of alcohol on Sunday. Dodging around Colts fans dressed in blue, who were buying anything that was dyed blue, I managed to completely fill my cart with assorted household products. None of which were dyed any shade of blue.
So heading out of the parking lot, I about hit about 3 old ladies (dressed in blue), 5 men toting light beer in commemorative Colts packaging, and 10 women (in Peyton Manning jerseys) carting out tons of Super Bowl party supplies. I finally got my shopping wedged into the truck of my Taurus around my huge double stroller. I even managed to find space to tuck in my free commemorative Colts flag they gave me at the door.
As I turned onto the main road, I gave my sporty sport Taurus SES a little gas and chirped the tires, dreaming that I was headed to the airport to catch the next flight to warm and sunny Miami to watch the Super Bowl. But alas, I lack the proper massive fundage to actually buy tickets. Well, maybe if I took out a second mortgage on my house and drained my savings, we could afford to go instead of just going to a Super Bowl party.
A few miles into my daydream, I head an ominous thumping sound coming from the rear of my car. I glanced at the road, wondering if it needed repaved. Alas, the sound continued. I pulled off into a fancy subdivision, put my blinkers on, and popped out of my car.
The expletive that flew out of my mouth next can only be rivaled by my drug free pontification a few weeks ago at the birth of my daughter. I had a fricken FLAT! It was only negative who knows what outside, I had a trunkful of groceries, and I had left the cell phone home with my husband.
On a good note, I do know how to change a tire. Thanks again dad, for making me learn how to change a tire before you would let me get my license. It has come in handy now on two occasions in my life.
I buttoned up my heavy coat, pulled my hat over my head, and stared at my gloveless hands. (Sigh). I knew this was going to suck BIG TIME. First, I had to haul all the groceries out of the truck and place them inside my car. Then I had to haul the big double stroller out of my car. Next, I took out the false floor of my truck and prayed that my spare was in working condition and that I had a jack.
Luckily I did. After laying on the cold pavement trying to find the correct spot to place the jack, and then wrestling with the jack to slowly slowly slowly turn its frozen handle the correct way, I managed to use every bit of strength I had to break the lug nuts free. Then I had to man handle the old tire off and put the donut on. Finally, after loosing all feeling in my hands, legs, and butt, I managed to get everything done and everything back into the truck.
And it only took me 45 minutes of intense painful cold to get this done. Of course, I took just as long to warm up.
And that my friend, is a great way to freeze your butt off.