Without my kitchen, how can I claim to be a housewife?

We are remodelling. It is hell. The microwave and the oven are in my dining room. Neither are hooked up. The refrigerator, luckily, still resides in the kitchen, which is getting a new tile floor.(goodbye, fake wood linoleum!)

But not having a kitchen and having all the kitchen stuff packed into the dining room makes it awful hard for me to call myself a housewife. (I do this on my days off so I don't feel guilty about not working full time.) I usually cook and clean and do laundry. Housewively things. But I can't cook without a stove. I won't bother cleaning when there is crap piled up in the dining room. Laundry it is!

Good thing we have the kitchenette in the basement apartment. I can dump some beans from the can in a pot and at least warm them up down there. Because, quite frankly, (and I never thought I would say this...) I miss real food. Not pizza, not Subway, not cereal or PB&J. Vegetables.

That said, tonight is weiners and beans. With ceasar salad and watermelon. I sure wish it would get warm so my summer meals were more enjoyable.

"Hatfield" vs Erickson

My husband's family is pretty well known about Duluth. His father is active in several social clubs, owns a few properties, and is referred to by most as the "head of the Norweigian Mafia." Everyone knows there are no mafioso that are Scandanavian, but you get the idea. A pretty important guy around here.

So I have to be careful what I say here...

The other day on the way to pick up my kiddos from day care, I was taking my normal route and just happened to be behind a school bus. Where I turn off the #4 onto the dirt road where my daycare provider lives, there is a turn lane that the bus pulls onto to let a couple kids off. I waited patiently behind it. I was in no particular hurry and was enjoying actually listening to the radio, not Russ Bono singing about singing frogs. (Zane's favorite song)

Two boys belonging to one of the other infamous Duluth families got off the bus. They're infamous for their eccentricity, their role in the Apostolic Lutheran sect, their old-fashioned beliefs concerning the roles of women, and their large broods. (Simonsons, Lipes, Bruckelmeyers, etc.)
I watched them both flip the bus the bird as it drove away. Not impressed, I drove past them.

I am one of those people who wears her heart on her sleeve. My lack of appreciation for these two pre-teen boys' antics was probably written all over my face. I'm pretty sure they got wind of it, too, because they yelled something unpleasant at me as I drove past them. One boy, the bigger of the two, picked up a rock and actually threw it half-heartedly at my truck.

Now, my truck is no gem. My kids write their names in the dirt on the sides. The tailgate frequently begs for me to "wash me." There are a couple pretty good dents in it, and the paint is starting to peel off along the bottom of the doors. But I will be damned if I was going to let those little punks act that way toward me. I slammed on the brakes and backed up fast.

The looks on their faces were priceless. I think the younger boy peed himself a little bit. I asked them if they had something to say to me. Both were shaking in their Nikes at this point. They mumbled "no" and stared at me. I suggested at that point then that they not yell, throw things, or wave a certain finger at any other cars again. This was done under threat of me giving them a ride home so we could all three talk to their mother together and figure out how to solve their little attitude problem.

Now, knowing what I know about their family, I doubt their mother would be able to discipline these worthless little turds at all. I wondered what she would say to me, an outsider, chastising her children. I'm pretty sure she would take one look at my short hair, tattoos and ratty clothes and deem my ass unworthy of opinion.

But for the sake of not starting a feud that rivals the Hatfields and McCoys, I sure hope those little shits don't mess with me again. 'Cuz messing with the Norweigian Mafia around here is like playing with fire...eventually you'll get burned. (And as an Italian, I know some pretty good REAL mafia moves, and am not afraid to use them.)

How can it be?

I've been trying to figure this out. I tell it like it is. I get so many compliments on my frankness, the fact that I don't sugar-coat shit. But at the same time, that is what I get in the most trouble for at work.

So six of one, half a dozen of another. Should I shut up and be well-behaved or not? Should I speak my mind and deal with the repercussions? How come some people can get away with being sarcastic assholes and I get my ass spanked for it? WHY CAN'T I JUST BE ME? You guys read me cuz you like me, I'm guessing. I say the things we all think, in ways that are sometimes offensive. Sometimes they are refreshing. But sometimes life is offensive. Its hard to be good ALL the time. That's why there are so many alcoholics and drug abusers out there, maybe, they need an excuse for the things they say. Well, I don't need the guise of vices like those to speak my mind. I'll tell you what I think, even if you don't want to hear it. But know that it is always the honest truth. I'll never be kind just for the sake of being kind. Because if its all lies anyway, isn't that just as hurtful?

So yes, your loved-one may die. They are sick. They had serious procedures done. A hospital is a place of death, dying, and disease. It happens to all of us eventually. And if your family member is inpatient, its likely they have something wrong with them. Don't ask me for odds. Don't ssk me for false hope, especially where there is none. Ask me for my professional opinion, and that's what you will get. I wont spare your feelings.

Probably why I get very few day shifts. The boss likes me on nights, when no one is around to ask me what I think.

Kids, like Gremlins...

Who knew kids were so much like Gremlins?

They start out all cute and fuzzy, snuggly and cooing. Then, seemingly overnight, they become green warty troublemakers. Send them out into the neighborhood to play, and they multiply. Get them wet, and they boil, a rancid scent rising from the fouled waters. Feed them after midnight? Yeah, right. Then they turn into teenagers!

Epic love is infinite.

Heroic, majestic and impressively great are the words used to define EPIC. Some people are so epic I can't get enough of being around them. Epic people make you want to be better but they aren't necessarily heroic, majestic or impressively great. Sometimes epic-ness is subtle. Sometimes it is not.

Being a parent is daily bursts of subtle epic-ness. It is the common thread that keeps all of us sane yet we look for the mountain-top epic-ness, often ignoring the idea that the key to surviving and thriving in this life is merely just taking the next breath. Sometimes as a parent you have to give your children the next breath so that they can go on.

I'm not a fan of parenting websites in general. Most books, websites, blogs and even pamphlets on parenting don't even scratch the surface of how completely epic it is to be a parent yet I keep reading. I want to be an epic mom.

Don't play the result. I read that expression today in an interview with Michael J. Fox. We all know how it ends, right? We are born, we live and we die. Life is epic, no matter how it's lived and no matter how someone tells me to live so why is do l keep seeking some sort of epic, majestic and impressively great advice or wisdom on the right way to live, love or raise my children? The result won't be favorable if I don't focus on the process.

Reading the interview today reminded me that the epic-ness of my life with my kids lies in the moment. Each moment has the potential to be epic but if I'm not actually there in that moment, then I am merely existing as I await the next grand gesture or memory making moment that they might remember when I'm pushing up daisies.

I try to remember to continue to smile when they are driving me crazy. I try, but its hard. All I want sometimes is peace and quiet for five whole minutes. If the quiet went much beyond that, I think I would die. Every moment is precious, epic in its own right. Will they remember me as an epic mom, when all I did was yell and cuss? Probably. They're my kiddos and I love them, and that goes on forever. Epic.

There are starving children in Africa, you know

My kids eat their dinner. The rule at our house is that we eat our dinner or we go to bed, but this has been a relaxed rule since Zane and Nora began eating real food, people-food, if you will. I want the little beasts to have a wide variety of foods that they like. When Brian and I began dating, I recall there was a certain young man that would only eat corn dogs and chicken nuggets, both high in nutrients (preservatives are nutrients, right?)and I didn't want to have to fight the vegetable battle with the new batch of kids too.

So in order to expand their palates, I make a variety of foods. Some are kid-friendly, some are not. Tonight was burritos of the bean and cheese variety and rice with black beans and corn. It wasn't spicy or bitter, two characteristics in foods that the little folks balk at. But from all the whining and protesting, you would think I was feeding them deep fried snake balls dipped in jalepeno fire sauce.

We ate outside at our new picnic table,too, and perhaps it was the novelty of that situation that set them off. Neither Zane nor Nora would eat their dinner. This resulted in me yelling at them, then threatening them, then standing sentinel at the end of their table, making sure they stuffed something into their pie-holes besides their juice boxes and their raspberries. I almost pulled out the guilt trip my folks used to use on my ass on meatloaf night. (Coincidentally I still despise meatloaf) My mom would put on her "I'm soooo disappointed in you" puss and then tell me about the starving children in Africa, specifically in Ethiopia at that time.

What I really wanted to tell her was to box up my meatloaf and send it over there. None of those Ethiopian kids were that hungry, anyway, I was sure. Tonight the Africans would have been the recipients of beans and rice and burritos. I wonder how those kids feel about Mexican.

While I was on maternity leave, I got a new checking account at the bank across the road. I am a grown up now, and have to balance the account. My old checking account was so far off, there was no hope of balancing it. I still don't think there is, and the balance remains (I think) at zero. So I have been pretty diligent about this so far. Luna is almost 4 months old, so that means I have kept up on this for over 2 months. It's really not so hard. Mostly because I don't have internet banking access anymore.

That was a real kicker. I would look and see how much money was in my account on a daily basis, and spend accordingly. Nevermind that checks hadn't cleared. Nevermind that there was going to be an automatic withdrawal the next day. But like I said, grown up. Reality. FUCKING INTERNET BANKING BULLSHIT! I can't tell you how many overdraft fees that shit cost me.