Whew!

Well, despite a number of hiccups, we made it through the 10-day revocation period on the adoption I mentioned in the last post.  The birthmother hasn't been in touch since Saturday, and while I hope that she is staying sober, I doubt it.  I can only do so much and, like anyone who interacts with an addict, I have to maintain a safe distance between her messes and my life.  The baby was released from the hospital without needing a prescription for methadone, which is wonderful!  The happy new family have returned home to the Midwest, where this child will enjoy all the love and support her parents have to give.  I am confident that she'll have all the tools necessary to meet her full potential.  I've bene working to get birthmom into a rehab program, but she is resistant.  I can only hope that the judge in her DUI case will mandate treatment.  Even then, it's a long shot that she'll get sober and stay sober; addiction has been her life for too long for this to be an easy recovery.

After all the madness of the last two weeks, I really needed to unplug for a while.  Tank and I headed to the Taj MaHell to decompress and hang out with family.  Shawn stayed behind at Gilligan's Island to catch up on some work he needed to do.  Unfortunately, the craziness I was dealing with bled over into his work life, too, since he had to leave work early several times to keep Tank while I ran back and forth to the hospital.

Tank and I laid low for the most part, although we did tie on the feedbag at the Farm Maven's a couple of times...wonderful, fresh-from-the-garden veggies and even some home-made ice cream made with milk from the Maven's new cow!  Yup, she has a cow.  Me, I'm sticking with Publix, but I'm all for her freedom to shovel cow sh*t if that makes her happy.  And it apparently does!

Tank also had a blast in Papa's pool...now that he will use the water wings we got him, he loves swimming from one end to the other and would stay in all day, if he could. 

One happy dude

Since I can't resist tackling a project, I primed the back porch/mudroom.  On our last trip to the Taj, we removed the old upper and lower cabinets that used to be there.  While the extra storage was nice, they just weren't doing it for me.  The cabinets were hung off-center which made the doorway to the kitchen tight and created a useless corner next to the window.  I took off the old chair rail, since it had been cut around the cabinets.  The chair rail was nailed on with 3 1/2 inch nails, so that was tons-o-fun right there.

Here's the mudroom when we bought the Taj:

Here it is, minus the cabiets and chair rail:

And here it is, primed.  The plan is to paint the bench either red or black, add a coat hook above, refinish the floor and just generally spiff it up.  But for the time being, this is an improvement!

A couple of trips ago, we bought twin beds from the Amazing Sister In Law.  She'd painted them black, but I needed white in Tank's room, so a few coats of primer and paint later, we had white twin beds.  The bedding is from Target...it was a great deal and should be versatile enough for whatever we decide to do with his room.  I still haven't finished the toy box.bench, since I'm not sure what I'm going to decorate his room with.  Leaning towards baseball, but we'll see.

And I couldn't resist painting this dresser while I was there.  We scored this at a yard sale on Gilligan's Island for $10.  The drawer slides are broken and will need attention, but for now it provides storage for t-shirts and shorts and we can deal with floppy drawers until I get around to fixing it.  At least it's painted and has new knobs!

And after all that, who wouldn't need a mini-treat, courtesy of a local Mexican eatery?  I said I wanted a margarita the size of my head.  I had to make do:

Until next time.....

My arch-nemesis, Betty Crocker

So, it's Memorial Day weekend, here on Gilligan's Island.  We're going to the house of some friends across the street for dinner tomorrow and I volunteered to bring a dessert.

Those of you who know me, are laughing right now.

It's not that I can't cook, per se.  It's just that I don't.  And when I do try, strange things happen.  I've had accomplished culinary artists provide me with a "foolproof recipe", supervise my every move and be rendered speechless by the ensuing tragedy.  It would be funny except that I am hungry.

When we were waiting and hoping for a child, people didn't ask what we'd name a son or daughter, but what we'd feed them. 

I do manage to keep us all alive, but it's usually only because I rely heavily on processed and pre-packaged foods.  I'm working on that, but two jobs and two houses and an active little dude all add up to me not having a ton of time to LEARN how to cook.  As I explained to my sister, the Farm Maven, I don't have a repertoire of recipes available to me.  There was silence on her end of the line as she digested this news.

Then, always the Fixer, she began to recite a "foolproof and easy" recipe for a dessert that I could take over to our friends' tomorrow.  After the seventh ingredient, my eyes rolled back in my head and I started looking at the tubs of cookie dough at Kroger.  Seriously...who has the TIME?!

But, in Country Living this month, there was an easy-peasy recipe for petit-fours.  THREE ingredients:  pound cake purchased from the grocery store, confectioner's sugar and water.  I CAN DO THAT, I thought to myself!  AND IT WILL BE SO PRETTY, JUST LIKE THE MAGAZINE PHOTO!

Damn you, Country Living, you deceitful wench!

First of all,  in order to pour the icing over the cake, I needed cooling racks to set the cakes on.  I do have them, I swear...but they're at the Taj MaHell.  Not wanting to buy something I already had and DEFINITELY not wanting to go to the store on the Saturday before Memorial Day in a seaside community...I improvised.

With spaghetti noodles.

(Hey, it actually worked.  Don't be a hater)

So, cooling rack dilemma solved, I got started.  My next disaster  minor setback was that the ratio in the recipe was all wrong.  Two cups sifted confectioner's sugar and four tablespoons water does NOT make a "60-second frosting."  It makes a six-hour hot mess.

Observe:

I kept adding more and more sugar until it finally reached a consistency somewhere between snot and cement.  As you can see, it didn't neatly cascade down the cakes, but instead just made a couple of uneven streaks and called it a day.

I sliced up TWO poundcakes and used so much sugar that I only got about a third of the dang things glazed before I ran out.  So, I DID have to go to the stupid store on the Saturday before Memorial Day, in a seaside community.  Tank was a good sport and went along for the ride, which was good because...like he had a choice, right??

Since he was such a good boy, he was allowed to pick a Matchbox car as a prize.  I believe he chose most wisely:

A Hong Kong Phooey car.  Awesome on a number of levels.

Sadly, the awesomeness ends right there.  The petit-fours experiment was abandoned and all the Rhesus monkeys were set free, before more harm could come to them.

I've decided to take a no-bake pie tomorrow.

I know what you're thinking...no way she can eff that up.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

 

****UPDATE****
The Farm Maven read the above and had this to say:  "Well, if nothing else, you can be proud that you've managed to somehow reach this point in your life without actually learning to cook."

We celebrate the small victories here, folks.

The Taj -- Now With More Flushing!

We have WATER!

And a TOILET!

You have no idea how huge this is!  This afternoon, the fabulous Diamond Dave (Farm Maven's hubby) came by the Taj and helped (and by 'helped' I mean pretty much single-handedly) install the toilet.  I had to run around a bit and tighten the caps on the old sink lines and the old shower has a steady drip, but everything went very well.  I have a bucket under the old shower head and the plumber should be able to start soon, so bye-bye old shower, anyway.

I could have CRIED, I was so happy to have running water again.  I've been hesitant to tackle skim-coating or painting without cleanup capabilities.  Now, things look more do-able.

The new vanity has been shimmed into place, but I still need a small 1 1/2" PVC extender to hook up the drain line.  It's not the look I necessarily wanted (I still mourn the loss of the fabulous Kohler pedestal sink), but it will be a functional bathroom for Tank and for guests.  THANK GOD.  Honestly, there were moments (many) when I didn't think I'd make it.

But all the news isn't sunshine and roses.  The Farm Maven and Co.suffered a significant blow to the funding for their second adoption when an unexpectedly high tax bill arrived.  It's really sickening to know that almost half your income goes to fund the lifestyles of those who won't work and that's why you work your tail off and you STILL barely make it.  Don't get me wrong, I know that there are many deserving recipients of government funds out there...I just think those folks are outnumbered by the ones who cheat the system simply because they don't want to work.  And now a child waits even longer for a loving family, so that another family can sit on their arses.  It just isn't fair.

The Occupy the Taj Movement

I read this morning that the Occupy Wall Street protesters got a reprieve when they began cleaning up their own mess, so that the city of NY didn't have to shoo them all away and clean up for them. Am I the only person who thinks this whole mess is stupid? After a day or so, I haven't even paid attention to the news reminders that this "movement" is on-going. I look at the headlines, see something about the Occupy folks and go, "Meh" and move on.

The last time anything political was accomplished by sitting still, it was Rosa Parks. These peeps aren't Rosa Parks.

Well, at least they're sweeping up the fast-food wrappers and tags from their brand-new Birkenstocks, so the rest of the world can squeeze past them and get to work. Incidentally, even if I thought parking my big butt down on property owned by someone else was going to serve any purpose, I don't have the TIME. Because I have TWO JOBS. So that I can pay my bills and not have to cry to Diane Sawyer about how this country has failed me, because I can't afford cable TV and cigarettes. Y'all keep up your "protest"--I'll keep paying for your kids to go to school free, eat free and get free health care.

Argh. Enough of that.

Michael and I arrived in Mayberry yesterday evening and had supper with the Farm Maven and her brood. Rebecca had spent the day volunteering at the Mayberry Munchkin Farm, a small private school near their home. She enjoys grading papers and helping the teacher and reports that the kids are all sweet and cute. Sounds like she inherited her mother's teaching gene. Me, I no gots it. I don't learn well by verbal instruction; I learn by physically performing a task. The byproduct of that is that I don't explain things worth diddly. Also, I tend to make up my own words for things, which is why taking me to a tool store is an adventure. "I need one of those things that goes on the end of the drill and looks like a biscuit cutter." The guy begins looking for the items you'd use to actually make a biscuit joint, but what I'm talking about is a hole saw bit. To me, it looks like what Mama used to cut out biscuits. Sometimes, being me is a lot like traveling in a foreign country. I am forever being misunderstood, misunderstanding those around me and generally embarrassing myself.

I haven't ventured over to the Taj yet, but once Tank wakes up and gets his daily dose of Wallace and Gromit, I guess we'll check in. Need to call the plumber dudes, too. Busy day, but without busy days, nothing gets done.

Right, Occupy protesters?

I Came, I Saw, I Taj-ed

We're all back at Gilligan's Island now, after spending the weekend in Mayberry.  We did some work at the Taj, but since yesterday was Tank's birthday, this trip was mostly about seeing family and celebrating the Big Boy turning THEE!

We had lots of fun with family on Saturday, when we had a small gathering for cake, ice cream and presents.  Shawn and I decorated Uncle Todd's Cabin with Spanish moss I brought from the yard of our church (with permission, I swear!!) and gators, frogs and turtles.  No snakes, though.  I know they live in the swamp, too, but Mama does not decorate with snakes.  I share Samuel L. Jackson's attitude about them.

Anyway, it was a great party and Farm Maven and I managed to create a passable gator out of yellow cake and chocolate frosting.  Farm Maven baked an oval cake, a large loaf pan cake and two small loaves and we hacked them to bits and pinned them together with frosting and toothpicks until we had a decent alligator. 

Tank got lots of great toys that he is still enthralled by...made the drive home very pleasant, except for the UNRELENTING NOISE of the Leapfrog Leapster that his daddy got him.  "K says kuh.  Kangaroo!"  "I says Imma throw that thing out the window in a minute!"

As for the Taj, we were thrilled to find that the Very Nice Electrician has done probably 90% of the work there.  Almost all the receptacles are redone, and nearly all the switches.  The new lights are installed downstairs, but we still need the new upstairs overhead lights run and a light in the living room, which currently has no overhead.  Very Nice Electrician has been swamped with work, so we had told him it was fine to fit us in as he could.  Looks like he has been doing that, and has done a great job.

We need to get the plumber to return our calls and then we'll be making some real progress!

While we were there this weekend, we did work some in the yard and I stripped the wallpaper of the hallway bath walls and began patching the plaster cracks in there.  Bit by bit, it's becoming more the house it has the potential to be.

Or maybe I'm just delirious from all the Gator Cake.

Til next time...
me

Of Mice and Mold

Howdy there.  How was your holiday weekend?  Lovely, I hope.  As for me and mine, we just kept up the crazy pace at the Taj, but we did get a lot done.  Now I just need a holiday from my holiday!
Today, we finished the demo on the master bath.  Well, we left what remains of the floor, but other than that, we took everything down.  There ended up being more mold than we'd thought, but now that we have a new roof, we should be good to go.  The damaged bits are going bye-bye and everything got a nice bleach bath in the meantime, cuz Mama don't "do" mold!

We also had to hack the old shower into bits and haul it out in pieces.  Underneath the shower "seat" we found a 2-foot-high pile of....leaves.  Dry, old leaves and twigs.  No sign of any critters having made that a nest, but it was definitely a strange discovery.  I'd rather find a stash of gold coins or an unknown Rembrandt, but no, I get leaves.

Sigh.

Grandmother (Shawn's mom) was Tank-sitting today, but he was not feeling it, so we ended up with a Very Helpful Boy on our hands.  I'm embarrassed to say, the kid handles a hammer better than I do.  I gave him one to bang on the floor with and he was a natural.  Darn those child labor laws!

After working, we cleaned up enough to be passable and went over to my sister the Farm Maven's for another WONDERFUL home-cooked meal.  Last night it was salmon croquettes (for Shawn) and homemade mac-n-cheese (for me), with home grown and home canned green beans and sauteed squash and onions.  Tonight we had roast beef with veggies, plus biscuits and gravy and vanilla ice cream with home made fudge sauce for dessert.  I am still so full I could die, but what a way to go! 

I admire the Farm Maven's culinary abilities, but I do not share them.  I'd probably like to cook if someone else cleaned up and went to the store for me.  Since that's not going to happen, though, I am not much of a chef.  I'm going to have to do better, though, because we really should be eating healthier than we are.  Just thinking about it makes me tired, though.  I TOTALLY understand how TV dinners came into existence.

Anyway, we did get a good bit accomplished this trip.  We're looking to leave Mayberry tomorrow after lunch, but we'll be back next weekend to celebrate Tank's 3rd birthday with family.  Hard to believe my little dude will be three!  Or, as he says it, "thee." 

Well, without further ado-be-doo, I'm attaching a few photos of the Taj in its current state.

Here is the master bath BEFORE:

Weird shower seat

Right-hand vanity with view of washer and dryer

And here it is NOW:

Where the right-hand vanity was

Where the washer and dryer were.

And, just because you've been so nice and asked so politely, here's a pic of the leaves under the shower:

You're welcome.

Well, you have a great rest of your weekend and I will be back here soon!