Truly, your day is now complete. Because I heard you, way over yonder, pining to see if my dirty kitchen in the middle of the night looks the same as in your dreams. And I aim to please. And to show you that yes, it is actually as ramshackle as your unconcious is telling you.

But ohhh it smells good. I wish there was a smellbucket, instead of just a photobucket. Or an online scratch’n’sniff app. Excuse me while I write a quick email to Steve Jobby… (I know of a man near here who doesn’t know who Bill Gates is. WHOA. Is this a good thing? Maybe.. does he know who our Prime Minister is?? Is that more important? Maybe..)

SORRY. The photos roz, the photos.

yes, we do like our fruit here at chez roztime...

After Teddy died, I was sad, and so I decided to cheer myself I was going to learn how to cook Southern. And I ordered this book off Amazon, and it did not disappoint – it cooks with shortening. And bacon grease. It has recipes for biscuits, and fried chicken. Really, is there any better way to get over grief than skyrocketing your cholesterol?!?

I decided I was going to make her calzones recipe tonight. So I made the dough yesterday (Wow. It was so, so easy, and yet actually really tasty). *there’s only flour, yeast, and olive oil in there!

two batches for the price of one! sweetness!

Instead of photos of me making it, just imagine me trying to run around my already messy kitchen (product of having a baby with a raging ear infection that only received medication right before this calzone-making-event) about to be late for my women’s bible study night. With ManCold in the basement yelling at the soccer game. And the baby totally gurgling for him, which was cute, but I was all REALLY?? WHERE WAS THAT FOR THE LAST 12 HOURS.

See? You didn’t need a photo!

The end product:

they look oddly lumpy.. but lumps of yumminess

I know, not that tasty looking, but they were gooood.

My kitchen aftermath was kind of intense though. Going to be up late again cleaning, YAY!

ew. I didn't have the heart to show you the dirty dishes counter

My kitchen helper, Franklin, was closeby (because he knows that after this is cleaned up, I make MC’s lunch for work, and it includes peanut butter and HEAVEN, he gets a smidge).

Wooo my awesome focusing skills

The cookbook is written by Renee Drummond, who writes the famous PioneerWoman.com blog/website for everything fascinating. I thought it was going to be recipes I could never use and snarky comments, but actually? She’s really genuine – kind of person who you think would be fabulous to have over for dinner (okay, after seeing photos of her ranch, more like over to her place!). And the photos she takes of her step-by-step recipes are so normal looking! I love it. It was the perfect pick-me-up. (as were your kind words – I love you all, SMUAH!)

Okay, so that was random. But in conclusion, you should go buy that cookbook – and if I move to Alabama or Texas in the near future, you know why. Because they cook tastiness. Also, they don’t have snow and minus 20 Celsius. But you can visit me, and we can eat fried chicken together. Mmmm…

Well hello there. It’s been a while. Or at least it feels like ages, because I’ve been avoiding this here baby of mine.

This past weekend sucked. So did the week leading up to it.

All started two weekends ago, when Teddy again attacked a small dog on a walk. Not the first time, and we didn’t think it would be the last, as his aggression outside of our home was escalating. He also liked to bite men who tried to come into the house without me opening the door first, which is understandable but sadly not appreciated by salesmen, even if they’re idiots. There’s more to it than I feel like talking about, but suffice it to say, he was the cutest dog in the world – until another dog/small child walked by.

MC and I decided after that weekend that while we had tried to curb the aggression, it was likely going to get worse rather than better. And the one thing I couldn’t stomach was the thought of Teddy being taken away by Animal Control and put down by a strange vet without either of us there. So. MC took him this past Saturday. We both cried, a lot, the week before and especially this weekend. We both seemed to be  much better this week… (Thankyou, btw, for all the kind words & thoughts & gestures made by people through twitter, facebook, real life. They truly helped).

We brought Teddy home in March 2008 from the local shelter – he was a stray who had lived ‘in the wild’ for a few weeks. I took that video soon after we brought him home, because at the time? I didn’t know how to upload photos on wordpress

He had two awesome years with us. He died with MC holding him, and totally unaware of what was going on – he was still eating cookies as he went. Typical.

I shall miss his snuggliness.

OKAY. So I have only a few minutes before teething hell resumes – I mean, Maria wakes up from a nap. So:

From the very talented & wonderful Tara at The Short Bus, here is the happy!

I am totally lame, and therefore not going to do the whole award (which includes tagging other bloggers). Uh, I tag all of my blogroll??
10 things that make me happy:

1. God stuff/Jesus/my church. Yes, I already stated I was lame. I don’t know anything else that can give me this peace; a contentedness that goes beyond just making me happy.
2. Mah youth group. OH. How I love them! There’s many-a post about them you can find through the tag cloud. Never an end to the drama (currently? Couples breaking up and making it awkward; leadership difficulties; tension created by secrets), or to the immense amount of fun.
3. Chocolate. I need a hit at least once a day. The penultimate is Sprungli hot chocolate that I bought in Zurich, and really, it’s better than sex. No, really. (Okay, I’ll admit it’s at least on par with great sex).
4. Good music, especially whilst driving… Anything from Metric to strange CBC radio picks to Paramore (what? I’m still young right??)
5. The intertubes the intertubes!! Social media is just vonderful. Laundry, not so much.
6. Shiny things. Sparkly things. Things coloured magenta. Shiny sparkly magenta things? WHOA.
7. Friends; both on & offline, because wow do they ever put up with a lot from me. And I admire them so (for many other reasons!)
8. Good tv shows, like Flashpoint or The Border or Glee… COME BACK TV!! The filler shows SUCK.
9. Family (or as the Old Man says, fambly). You know, just like those friends, they do put up with a lot. Like, uh, calling me when it’s a bad time. And apparently, they were supposed to KNOW it was a bad time, and when they haven’t managed to use their telepathy correctly I GET ANGRY. And it’s not much fun. So, um, sorry? And I love you?
10. Mattycakes. I love him.

Would it be different? Sure. There would be the genes – it would actually have my eyes, rather than having people comment how Maria has mine but of course, she doesn’t really. There would be the birth; I would have a birth story. I would have control over what the pregnancy was like. Okay, so not complete control – I know enough about IF and have journeyed with friends who have discovered what this lack of control really looks like in the saddest sense, but I would be able to say what I ate and so on. (Oh, and you know, NOT take illegal substances or alcohol. Which would be somewhat strange – a baby NOT addicted? Wha?)

And yet the strange part that makes me cry sometimes, and at the strangest of times, is how it would change my marriage, my view of my own life, my future. (the strange was the marriage part)

Would MC take time off work? Because he didn’t for Maria, and I don’t fault him for that. He helped, sure, but it wasn’t the same as I hear from other friends’ husbands when they become a dad. Because it’s their child. When Maria was a newborn and she cried, there was a part of me that just wanted it to go away (when it’s 4am and neither Maria or I have slept yet for the screaming). But I dealt with it because otherwise who would? I was her mother, for all intents and purposes at that point. Perhaps it was because it was our first foster child, our first dealings with a newborn, but MC wasn’t too into it. Who can blame him? It screamed, pooped, and slept. It wasn’t much fun, this newborn. Cute, sure, but they look like aliens, and if you say ‘no but they’re so adorable!!’ then you’re talking about the experience you’ve had from your own natural, genes-given, birth of your own baby. That’s the lens you’re likely viewing it from, no? And I’m not. I don’t. I can’t. So no, they look like aliens. (They do get monstrously adorable later on though. OH. I could eat Maria right now. SO. BEAUTIFUL.)

I bet if it was ours biologically, there would be leave of work taken. And I would have my own stories, and he his, of how he heroically did all the laundry and cooking so I could sleep, or of how we snuggled for hours in awe of our creation as a family. Oh, please don’t construe this as what MC did not do when we first were given Maria. You can read about his awesomeness here, or about our relationship in all its realistic glory here or here.

(Other than my Jesus, Matt is truly what gets me through life. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of how amazing it is that I’m married to him – he should be with someone so much better. I would be one hell of a sucky person without him; he is so, so, freakin’ awesome. I could go on, but that’s not why I’m here right now okay?)

You get by now that I’m not saying MC isn’t a great foster-dad, or that he didn’t help me enough/doesn’t help me enough now with Maria. It’s deeper than that. It’s that we would share something, this bond of a child, that my imagination pictures as so much smoother of a desire to help with parenting. With fostering you do it from an altruistic sense of parenting, of loving another person who is not connected to you – and I mean this especially at first in a placement, when you have no prior relationship. Absolutely, you create one, and then the desire to do a diaper change or laundry etc comes from that relationship (and some altruism, if we’re honest) rather than purely from a sense of it-is-what-it-is.  (This is my understanding of it. If you want someone else’s, go find my blogroll)

I know, I say I’m okay with being an infertile and then I go blog on and on about the damn thing-that-won’t-die. I have to compartmentalize my feelings about it all, because if I let them just go wild I can’t get through the things I want to get through. Like my youth group tonight, or cleaning the house like I should be doing right now while I’m babe-free, or even parenting Maria and being fully present while doing so. Maybe that’s unhealthy. But maybe that’s what this blog is for. Indulging my narcississtic and unhealthy side.

Because I’m standing in my kitchen and it’s 10:35, and everyone’s asleep except me and the music coming out of my palliative laptop, and I’ve just made waffles because I had a craving and now I am making the Husband’s lunch.

And I was looking at some of my favourite crafty blogs, like Alicia’s, or Nie, or ‘famous’ bloggies like soulemama. Which tend to make me feel like I am a terrible person, because their beautiful creations and lovely homes make mine pathetic in comparison. But then I take a walk around my house, and I remember why I call it home. Because it has my stamp all over it, from the strange stuffed creatures that stare at you from inside vintage tea cups to the vintage or hand-me-down furniture to the mountains of dog hair bunnies roaming the place.  And now I can add to that a new washer & dryer, which are awesome and will have photos of themselves up soon… but after I clean up the mess that they are currently living in.

So typical of this home, MC spent the whole weekend putting the things up and making a plinth for the washer/dryer, hooking them up etc. And then put a load in, except he put the new bottle of HE detergent on the top of the washer. I should tell you this bottle is from Costco, so it ain’t small. Suffice it to say I came downstairs later, to put my groceries in the ‘pantry’, to a large pool of blue liquid spread out all over the laundry room floor, under the plinth, all over the walls, freezer, furnace, paint cans… everything that lives in that room. At least it smells Tide fresh now?

I need to remember that when I feel so inadequate it’s because I choose to prioritize other things in my life. So instead of having a beautiful, magazine worthy home that’s full of handmade things, I have a crazy and awesome youth group. And while I used to bake bread and many other delicious things, I now buy all that (COSTCO!! WHEE!!) because I have a sweet and fascinating foster child. It’s not that I don’t still stand in wonder at all those that are able to do the above and still keep it all looking & smelling wonderful. It’s just that I accept I’m never going to meet that standard in my head that I construct when I read and enjoy those websites, books, magazines.

You know what though? Y’all are welcome in my home anytime. I’ll make you tea and store-bought cookies, and you can ignore that while your feet are telling you the floor is carpeted, your eyes tell you there’s actually hardwood down there…

Look for a Happy 101 post a la SanitySrchr coming in the future, as soon as I finish eating these fantabulous Aunt Jem.ima waffles!

Right. Sit back, because I’m about to explain how I am a Massive Suck.

Tonight MC and I rented 123 Pelham, the new version of the movie. We were in the mood for a cheap thriller, and um, we gots it. It’s one of those movies where you know what’s going to happen the whole movie from just the first scene, but you’re still on edge the whole time. Or at least, I was.

*spoiler alert*

So there’s some gore, because people get shot. A few get shot point blank. And for the most part you know it’s coming, and there’s a couple (like the co-conspirator) who die and you’re all, meh, got what’s coming to them etc.

But there’s a few innocent types who die and it’s sad peeps, I find it sad. Like, I run out of the room or put it on mute because I can’t handle watching that. Yes, I know it’s just a movie. For the love of everything magenta, PLEASE don’t tell me that again.

I can take a decent amount of trauma – not necessarily in my own life (MC can tell you stories of me curled up on the upstairs landing in tears a few years ago) – but in other people’s. I’ve seen and heard crazy stuff from kids, parents, women, men, etc. Duh I’m not purporting to be some amazing healer or one who has ‘heard it all’, I’m just saying I have seen and heard stories that should have affected me in a negative way – are stories that most people I know find incredibly emotionally difficult to work through. And I haven’t; I can let them roll off me (even when they’re not in a professional context, although especially then).

But I just can’t take seeing it on film. The images stay with me, they haunt me; I can still remember the horrible scenes in movies that I saw years ago, cheesy or realistic. I’ve heard worse than I’ve seen on screen, although I don’t watch horror movies (duh), and MC has learned to know the storyline before watching a movie with me if he wants to still be married tomorrow. It really is something about seeing it acted out on screen. Is it because it’s in my relaxing space? In my home? Where I’m fully emotionally invested? (Because whoa, I get reallly into every movie I watch, even chick flicks like The Ugly Truth)

So yes, I am not the type you want to watch a movie with. That and I exclaim things like,

LOOK BEHIND YOU!

&

Wow. Do you see what that girl is wearing?? Who were the costume people on this movie?!

&

WTF?? HOW ARE THOSE PEOPLE CELEBRATING?? They just watched people die and then nearly crashed in their open subway car at the end of the line. PTSD.  THEY WOULD HAVE PTS-FREAKING-D. Not to mention shock. geez.

&

Ooo. I want that. (Okay. That was me during the entire SATC movie )