Getting From There to Here.

Otherwise titled: How The Hell We Ended Up In My In-laws Basement in Nebraska.

In the beginning, God created real estate and it was good. It was really, really good for over 20 years, actually. Especially good in Arizona. My hubby started in real estate in 1997. He was not an independent real estate agent. Instead, he sold homes for various home builders over the coarse of 11 years. Some really great home builders and some that I'd like to verbally rip apart if ever given the opportunity but that is neither here nor there. Though there were times when money got tight, overall, real estate was very good to us.

We rode the proverbial real estate wave of good fortune and honestly believed there would never be an end to it. We heard whispers of an oncoming crash but thought that only applied to the rest of the country. Surely, nothing bad could happen in Arizona where people had moved to in droves for over 20 years or more. Arizona was untouchable. Arizona was where one moved when things didn't work out elsewhere. Arizona was the fresh start, the new life, the "we're on our way now" of the country.

Arizona was the Big Time for new home builders and you know what they say - the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Paul lost his job the first week of January, 2008. A LOT of real estate agents lost their jobs in 2008. You know how they say everyone in L.A. who has a regular job is also an actor? Well, everyone in Arizona is also a real estate agent. Out-of-work agents flooded the streets like confetti during a Macy's parade. Not that it mattered to Paul. He wasn't going back to real estate anyway. He would be getting another job just as soon as you can say 'pickle'. Except we did say pickle. We said it a lot. So much so that we ended up in one.

to be continued...

Girly Girl

No, I am not a girly-girl. I once took a Facebook test titled, "How Girly Are You?" and scored a 0%.

Zero percent. Yeah, not good for the feminine ego. And while, yes, it can be said that I primarily live in tennis shoes, rarely carry a purse, have out-right ordered my husband to never buy me jewelry and consider power tools a perfectly acceptable anniversary gift, I'm not exactly SNL's Pat for crap's sake!

I vehemently disagree with my Facebook score. Anyone that knows me knows that, at a minimum, I should have scored in the tenth percentile! In defense of my Girliehood, I would like to present to you the following evidence:

My favorite color is pink.
I prefer chick flicks over any other genre of movie (The Hangover is a chick flick, right?)
I pay considerable attention to my hair.
I love decorative pillows.
I will not handle bugs or anything that emits a liquid substance when threatened.
I watch Lifetime for Women.*

And I paint my toes! See:

I purchased some of those pretty, flowery sticky thingies to decorate my toes with but, alas, I have given birth to a true, dyed-in-the-wool girly-girl and she claimed them as her own right away and I haven't seen them since.

Hmm...maybe I should have Punky start taking my tests for me!

*Okay, that one is a lie. I hate that channel. It sounded good for a minute though.

Mom, Can I Play In The Sink?

This question is a double-edged sword in my home. On one side, we have an opportunity to have a child well occupied for an hour or two without electronic assistance.
On the other, the possibility...ah, hell, the all likelihood that a mess is going to be made.

But with laundry on the horizon and a myriad of other household duties on my list (not to mention another episode of Kitchen Nightmares recorded, ready to be watched), I'll take the hours of quiet time and consider the somewhat small mess an easy price to pay.

It helps to take some precautions. With a little planning, some of the mess will take care of itself.

That is, with the help of a load of towels that will need to be washed. Easy enough.

When it takes so little to entertain - a little water, a couple of racing buddies and a vivid imagination...

it makes it hard to say no. He comes up with the storyline on his own instead of it being told to him. That's the best part, I think. Messes come and go but an imagination only grows when adequately encouraged.

This mess, for instance, came rather quickly when the orange VW bus that had previously been through some mud was invited into the pool.

Meh. When did a little mud ever hurt anyone, anyway?

Chocolate Chip Muffins

For some time now, we have been buying those mini-muffins from Hostess for the kids to have for breakfast a couple days a week. They come five to a pack, four packs to a box. I was buying them strictly for the convenience factor.

For the record, my kids usually get a banana with their muffins, just so you know their breakfasts aren't completely without nutritional merit. Oh, and I stopped feeding them Pop-tarts, too! Write that down because that's really important! Your testimony may help me in court some day.

Anyhoo, those dang muffins are expensive and filled with all sorts of "stuff" in order to make them last longer than the plastic on Joan Rivers' face. In an effort to transition towards healthier eating and a more dollar-friendly grocery bill, I've decided to start baking more from scratch. I found a recipe for chocolate chip muffins on AllRecipes.com - a website I highly recommend, by the way!

Here's the recipe from Janice at AllRecipes.com. If you read the comments (and I ALWAYS read the comments! You can pick up some valuable tips from others who have tried the recipe), you'll see that a few of them increased the amount of liquid in the recipe. I have tried it with and without doing this and, let me tell you, you MUST increase the liquid ingredients. The muffins come out much too dry otherwise.

For this last batch, I opted for Sweet Caramel Sprinkle from Pampered Chef to sprinkle on the tops of the muffins (before going into the oven) instead of the white sugar/brown sugar combo. They turned out dee-lish!

I would like to start switching out my mainstream ingredients for their organic cousins. I just ran out of flour, so I think this would be a good time to buy an organic version. Baby steps, baby steps. I just found out that Fremont has an organic bakery. I hope to stop by very soon and speak to the owner about her ingredients and where she buys them. Of course, I'll probably have to taste test a few of her creations.

We'll call it "research". There are no calories in research!

Try the chocolate chip muffins or just try baking from scratch but, definitely let go of the pop-tarts!

Oops! I'm At It Again!

Yep. Blogging. It's kinda what I do. I write. I stop writing. I start writing again.

Huh. Funny, now that I think about it, I seem to have that same pattern with dieting.

Just be thankful that you are only a reader and not a pair of my jeans. Or worse, the spot on the mattress where your butt rests when you sleep that dips after a year or two but the rest of the mattress stays the same.

Oh, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about! A butt crater! You have a butt crater on your bed! Go look if you don't believe me. I'll wait.

Anyway. Writing. I'm doing it again and you get to come along for the ride.

Everybody say, "Weeeeeee!" like that little Geico pig.

Niiiiiice. Thank you for that.

I'll blog more detailing what the sam-hell this here blog is about later on. In a day or two. Or maybe in the next half-hour. I don't know. That's kinda how I roll: with a passion for uncertainty in a land of oblivion - with a take-no-prisoners approach to my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sense of adventure.

No, really, I have two small kids so finding 15 minutes of uninterrupted time is like finding a man who will change a diaper without several minutes of bargaining and negotiations. I have to jump on my opportunities when they come.

In the meantime, go flip your mattress. It'll make you feel better.