Afghans and Recipes

With the kid’s dad visiting, I have been working on an afghan for Miles’ birthday. I am hoping to get it done by the 15th. I decided to do a granny square in red, black and purple. And if I have enough time, I will make two matching pillows to go with it. Hopefully I will be done by his birthday. I’ll try to get some good photos of it if I can find my camera, and I’ll post them on here. Hopefully he doesn’t read the blog before his birthday.

I’ve also been playing with my Allrecipes membership creating menus. With their dad here, I’ve mostly left them to their own devises and have been hanging at my friend’s house. I was trying to create a meal plan with all our dietary needs in mind, but I gave up. I ended up just making multi-main dish meals.

It’s too impossible to try to find a low-sodium, low-carb, heart friendly, allergen-free (milk-free, peanut-free, corn-free, wheat-free, fish-free, beef-free, etc.) low-fat, low-protein, high-fiber, low-sugar, low-cholesterol meal plan and still have something other than Broccoli on the menu.

I finally said… well, it was a few cuss words followed by “it” and decided everyone can keep making their own meals. Miles makes awesome smoothies, Mendek makes awesome chicken and their dad makes some pretty cool salads. They aren’t going to starve.

But, hey! If you are bored, feel free to try and come up with a meal plan! You’ll have to email me for the allergen list. If you are new to this blog, I’ll warn you… I have 47, Miles 33 and Mendek 26. But if you are up to the challenge… good luck!

My Bedroom Floor Collapsed

It's not as horrible as it sounds, but my bedroom floor did give way and scared the pee out of me. My kids and I were all sitting on my bed as my youngest was showing us a new game demo for a game he has been drooling over for a week. We were giggling over some of the stuff he was doing when it sounded like someone dropped a bunch of wood behind the head of the bed and then I felt it shift. We all looked at each other and my oldest jumped off the bed and I scrambled off my side of the bed as fast as I could. I think that is the fastest I have moved since June 26.

My youngest son was trying to figure out what was going on when my oldest looked at me and said "I know what that was! Mendel, get off the bed." Mendel quickly crawled off the bed and Miles started inspecting something near the head of the bed, stood back up and said "OH! I was right! The floor collapsed!" WTF!? I walked around the bed and sure enough, the floor was bowing downward. Miles pulled my bed out and then the boys moved everything away from the damaged floor area while I tried to calm my nerves.

They moved the shelf away from the wall and moved everything around. My room looks like crap now but we can clearly see a nice sized gap where the floor and the wall meet, or where they used to meet. After a lot of oogling and nerve calming, Miles decided to investigate more. He walked over and stood on the area commenting on how flimsy it felt and his brother was so supportive of his curiosity by encouraging him to jump. Oh my, children! I told him not to give me a heart attack! Instead he settled for Miles putting both feet together in one spot. I was JUST about to explain why that was a bad idea when Miles laughed and said "OKAY!" and put his feet together... and then promptly dropped an inch.

I think I actually tasted my heart as it came leaping out of my throat. Trying to keep the calm-mom-in-the-face-of-danger mode, I said "Miles, why don't you get off the collapsing floor and come over here." The look on his face was priceless as he said "I can't" and laughed nervously. It was a cross between a look that says "this is hilarious" and a look that said "I know I am about to meet the creepy spider family in the basement up close and personal!" I couldn't help but laugh. So I grabbed a hold of him and pulled him towards me.

No one has gone downstairs to see if there is damage down there, and frankly I am not that curious. I am sure someone will go look eventually but it won't be me! Besides having a hurt back and not being able to make it down and up the stairs again, have you actually seen my basement? It is creepy. Not just creepy like a normal creepy basement. My basement looks like the scene to a horror movie. No really! It does. Ever see Texas Chainsaw Massacre? You know that scene with the basement where they go down the creepy wooden stairs to a dirt and gravel floor and it's dusty and dank and cobwebs everywhere. Yea, that is what my basement looks like. It scares the hell out of me!

As if that isn't bad enough, I swear to you the amount of spiders down there is astronomical! There are cobwebs on top of cobwebs. It's like those creepy attacks in the horror movies where you have to move spiderwebs to the side so you can get by. I open the door and I instantly hear shrieking horror movie music in my head. Mostly spiders don't scare me. But a small army led by Aragog living in my basement makes my skin crawl off and leave the basement without me!

Here's the kicker. The genius that built this place had the bright idea to put the breaker box DOWNSTAIRS in the MIDDLE of the basement! I want to find that sadistic bastard that had that epiphany and make them go downstairs and flip the breaker in the middle of the night because I sure the hell am NOT going down there. You could tell me there is a chunk of gold down there and I'll do the same thing as when the breakers trip. I'll call my brother and wait for him to get off work. He'll go down there.

Enjoying a Weekend in the Country!

We are house sitting in the country, about 10 miles outside of Libby, this weekend. I really love it out here. My friend has land out here as well and we are both talking about buying trailer homes and moving out to her property. That would be AWESOME! Now, those of you who know me and my experience living in BFE in Tennessee are probably thinking "What are you thinking? How will this be any different?" So let me so you the difference!


In Tennessee we lived 10 miles from anywhere... 
In Montana we will be 10 miles from the town that is 90 miles from anywhere. See... way better.


In Tennessee, we have 8 acres of land with a creek. 
In Montana, we will have 2 acres of land that is right near a huge bit of land that has a creek.


In Tennessee, the land had almost no trees at the top, then sloped down to the most beautiful piece of property you have ever seen. It had a lot of trees, a mossy path, a lot of blackberry bushes, a small meadow... everything that would make it a dream piece of property that was breathtaking!
Here in Montana... well, it has trees! And it's next to the road. And, um, it has trees? Did I mention the trees?


In Tennessee, I spent about 8-9 months out of the year indoors. It was too hot and humid to go outside. I enjoyed the month of winter, the week of spring and the 2 weeks of fall. But beyond that, I was resigned myself to the fact that I was trapped indoors for the rest of my life. Depressing.
In Montana, the weather is perfect for me. Okay, sure, August and September (and sometimes October) just sucks for heat. But I can go outside 8-9 months out of the year. Yes, it is mostly at night or dressed like a freak to keep from breaking out in a rash. But, the point is, I CAN GO OUTSIDE!


This next is the most important part. 


In Tennessee, I had very few neighbors, hardly any friends, no support network and I was lonely. I was isolated and alienated. I had no one to turn to when I needed it the most. Leslie was my ONLY true support network that I could depend on all the time. She was my heart sister, she was family to me, my best friend... and the only person I felt was truly my friend 100% of the time. When she died, my world ended. My best friend, my heart sister, the only person that was like family to me in that very lonely state... was gone. I was left alone and sad with nothing. No friends, no family around, no support and no best friend. I really, truly was alone and I never really felt like Tennessee was home. It was just a place I lived and an experience I endured.


In Montana, I would be living on a property with my best friend as my neighbor. Her mom would be a quick walk away. My family would be a 20 minute drive away. My friends would be 20 minutes away. My HOME would still be here, in Libby. My support network would still be here for me. I would not feel like I was lonely. I have so much here that I would not give up for anything.


The most important things in my life are not money, or if I have the most toys. I don't want to be rich if it means I have money and no friends. I would much rather live with no money and a lot of friends and support. I want to be happy and feel life and that is more to me than any amount of money. 


I don't give a crap about the Jones' or keeping up with them. I just want to be a Latham. Happy, funny, full of life, surrounded by love and family... isn't that worth more than a dream property that is lonely? I think so.

My hubby made it home safe!

I picked up my hubby from the airport today. On the way I noticed something that I've been paying attention to this last week. I think it is hilarious that people in the city buy these huge trucks or SUV's that could easily drive up stairs, mountainsides and across shallow streams and them avoid every city obstacle there is.

One man was driving a large pick up truck with tires half the size of monster truck tires. He could have easily drove his truck over a curb and never felt it or even a small vehicle with a quizzical "what was that bump?" But watching him drive it down the main road in Coronado had me belly laughing.

Picture this: I am driving down Yuppyville Lane in my roaring beast of a van checking out all the multimillion dollar homes. All these very rich hooty tooty people in Jaguars and Porsche's are near me in traffic. There is a cop ahead and a lot of other nice shiney cars. Even the one that looks like a rolling bread box. As the traffic starts to clear I am toodling along in my wonder beast enjoying the sunshine and breeze.

It came to a point where we could drive at normal speed and along we all drove at all 35 miles per hour, humdy doodly. Along this road there a "speed humps" and speed dips to make sure everyone stays slow. God fobird should a jaywalking pedestrian get hit by a car... any whoodles... I drive over the "speed humps" and slow to 30 over the dips. No biggy.

Then, I hear this rumbling roaring scream of an engine that can only be a monster truck ready to overtake my van. We weren't far from the dip but far enough that Sir Prance-a-lot managed to pass us. I was watching because I figured this monster truck stunt driver wanna be was revving his engine to woo us all in blaze of glory as sped his way through the dips at all of 40 miles per hour. Be still my beating heart.

OH NO! Mr I-have-more-money-than-I-have-balls went flying up and then slowed to about 5 miles an hour to crawl over the bump. I nearly peed myself with laughter. My 13-year-old son was mortified at how much of a wuss this "bad-arse" tatoo'd macho man turned out to be. Instead of AH, we got HA!

The next hump was even better. This faker floors it to the "speed hump", slowed down and went diagonal across the hump. I had to clean my windshield from spit-laughter spray. All I could do was laugh and say "Is this a JOKE?" The man has a vehicle that sits 3 feet off the ground and he's driving diagonal across the hump? What is he afraid of? That the hump might hit the bottom of the truck? It's all of 4 or 6 inches off the ground. Why crawl across the dips? Afraid your shocks might break? Good grief.

Well, today I noticed it again. Another "cool dude" driving an SUV doing the same thing. What is the point of having the really cool "suped up" vehicle if you can't drive it. These SUV's and truck haven't seen dirt their whole life. And that layer of smog ooze grease that develops on the windshields doesn't count!

If you are going to buy a vehicle that is meant to go off road, at least drive it like that on road instead of this prissy tip-toe across the water puddles and carefully climbing over the bumps. While your at it, you might want to avoid that McDonald's straw on the road! It might puncture your gas tank! Shoot, my 1986 Volvo sedan has done more offroading than these guys SUV's ever will!