No such thing as a perfect day.

I am going to have to compartmentalize today into:

• the incredible 6 hours I had to myself to do whatever.I.wanted.whenever.I.wanted.
  and
• the rest of it.

Let's take the bad first, so that I can end on a good note. I was feeling all refreshed and amazing and thinking how lovely waiting in the car line is when I don't have the "baby crybaby" conversation going on in the back seat. I read my book, uninterrupted, for 20 whole minutes until the car line started to move. Then the boys get into the car and Eric is crying right off the bat because he saw the van in front of us and it was identical in color & model to ours, so despite the teachers trying to lead him to me he got right in. Then realized his mistake and broke down crying because we were all laughing (in our defense, it was kind of funny.) So, I talked him down, told him it could have happened to anyone and it was OKAY. So, crisis over, we headed toward Orlando. I thought about dropping by the house to get the boys DS's but thought it was a SHORT ride and they would be FINE. Yea, not fine. They pretty much whined the entire way. I was annoyed to say the least.

At least, I thought, the little guys would be worn out from their day of fun and sleep on the way home. Um, no. Ben, whether overtired or just really, really mad that he had to leave Granny cried the whole way home. He screamed because he couldn't get his shoe off. He yelled at me that I needed to STOP.DRIVING.SO.FAST!!! Which is ridiculous because traffic was a nightmare and not moving very quickly at all. Finally, 20 minutes from home he fell asleep and then Zack started talking. Which is usually quite cute and charming, but maybe not when I've been trying to get his brother to calm down for almost an hour.

Words do not do the stress of a child inconsolably crying for that amount of time. But you all know, cause you've all been there.

Anyway, made it home, had some time to unwind... and it's all good.

The part of the day I will choose to remember is I went to the neighborhood clubhouse to work out. About 10 minutes in, I decided to bag the workout, because I had made lunch plans with a friend and if I wanted to get my massage or pedicure and still have time to do a few chores I would need to go shower & get ready quickly. Shower, hair, makeup... and left the house. The massage place couldn't take a walk in so I went a few doors down and got a pedicure while watching Tiger Woods' apology (no comment on that.)

I went home until time to go to lunch which was kind of surreal because I am so unaccustomed to being alone in my house. Lunch was great, and then I went home and straightened up the house in record time.

Then I still had over an hour before I needed to be at the school so I went to Target and just wandered. I still made it back in time to clean the van a little and vacuum it. And yes, I'm excited about this.

So, as of right now I am going to block out the memory of the ride to and from Orlando, and keep this gift my mom gave me of a day to myself in my brain forever.

Fishy Results

Steps involved in gutting a fish.



1. Watch video on youtube about topic.

2. Try really hard not to throw up.

3. Remove fish from refrigerator.

4. Try hard not to think to hard about the video.

5. Take a deep breath.

6. Try not to throw up.

7. Lay fish across a plastic bag so as not to have grossness on the kitchen counter.

8. Insert hand into a smaller plastic bag so as not to have to touch any grossness.

9. Select knife.

10. Turn fish over and prepare to cut.

11. Breathe a huge sigh of relief upon realizing Mr. Fishy has already been gutted.

12. Laugh hysterically at self for stressing out about this for the last two days.

13. Place Mr. Fishy in a baggy and back into refrigerator until time to prepare dinner.

14. Resume laughing at self.


Mr. Fishy did get cooked, and eaten. However, despite having already had the yuckiest part done for me, I was stressed the entire time I prepared dinner. I guess having him in his "whole" form was just too much for me. However, I pushed through and it was tasty!

Anyway, lessons learned here are:

I'm more of a filet kind of girl!
My kids actually will eat fish! Woot!
I do not wish to cook anything that still looks like an animal. Ick.
I actually hate wasting food enough to push through and do it anyway.
A one pound fish doesn't yield very much actual fish. Should have bought 2.

Not doing this again, but it was an interesting experience.

Me Vs. Fish

Awhile back I decided to try out a local fish market that claims to specialize in Fresh Fish. Not coincidentally, this was at the same time that I wanted to try a recipe for Ahi Tuna but did not really trust the fish departments at any of the grocery stores we frequent. Anyway, got the tuna, and looked over their list of fresh items for the day. On that list was whole yellow snapper and it was a really good price so I got one. They were even nice enough to descale the thing for me. So I brought home my whole fish and stuck it in the freezer. This probably negates the whole "fresh" idea, but that night Ahi was on the menu.

Since then, Mr. Fishy has taunted me every time I've opened the freezer. "You'll never cook me. You are scared of me because I still have my head on my body. You'll never do it! Hahahahaha!!" He's pretty mouthy for a dead fish.

Yesterday, I took Mr. Fishy out of the freezer and put him into the fridge. I found a recipe and stopped cold when I read the part about "gutting" the fish. This whole time I've been worried about the head and never even thought about the.. ahem... insides. Ewwww. WHY did I buy that fish? Oh yea, fresh... and inexpensive. Darn.

Would you believe that even after chilling out in the fridge all day (with occasional "you'll never eat me, you are too squeamish lady!") Mr Fishy was still frozen mostly solid. So, I put off the unpleasant task of beheading and de-gutting until today. I just checked and Mr. Fishy is thaw, and in the interest of not letting him spoil, I plan to cook him today. I even have a recipe picked out.

I'm not looking forward to this you all. I have a backup plan for pork chops on the grill just in case I chicken out.

I'm putting up a poll to see who you think will win in this woman vs. fish drama. Be sure to vote!!

Crutches

Update on ornament contest - no ornaments were broken yesterday - I was shocked. If you haven't already entered go here to guess the total # of ornaments that will be broken by Christmas Day. Guess the closest and win a prize!
---------------------------------------
So, not to be a total whiner, but this post is whiny... Fair warning.

I went to the podiatrist yesterday for my foot. Which was feeling much better, but I decided to go in so that I could ask why I get these random injuries for no real good reason. Plus, it still hurt to walk, just not as badly as the days before.

More x-rays.

Turns out that I do not, in fact have a stress fracture. Instead, it's some joint pain thing caused by my chronic ankle twisting in my younger days. Also, he said there were some cysts on the bone which I guess is possibly a sign of arthritis (dude, that word is SCARY at 31) but he wasn't concerned about that as they were few in number & tiny.

Anyway, he recommended a cortisone shot in the joint that is hurting and mentioned that it might hurt worse for a few days and then get much better.

So, long complain-y story short, I've gone from walking with pain, to walking on crutches. I can't even drive. Can I tell you chasing after 2 toddlers on crutches is HARD? (The older guys don't require much chasing and are being awesome to help me out right now. However they are now at school so it's all me with Zack and crazy man Ben.

Some notes about walking with crutches.

1. I'm much better at it than last time I had to use them. I guess that time in the gym has made me a little stronger.

2. It really sucks when you can bear no weight on a foot and your lovely children KEEP stealing your crutches to use them as fishing poles, and or weapons. Then when you need to do something like go to the bathroom and there is no crutch to be found anywhere so you are left to hop into the other room.

3. Stairs. I haven't attempted them because I'm fairly confident I will die. However, this will make naptime somewhat of a dilemma, so I'm totally hoping to be miraculously able to walk unassisted by around 12:00 or so.

4. Mark calls crutches "crunches" which I find totally adorable.

I hear on good authority that these cortisone injections are awesome to relieve pain. They better be because so far I'm thinking they are pretty evil. Notwithstanding the pain they are causing now it hurt like crazy going in and I am thinking this better be WORTH it.

One more funny thing in all this. Mark suggested I just get a wheelchair. Made me laugh, but definitely excessive. Although I'm thinking maybe I can scoot around in this computer chair a little for those times my crutches mysteriously disappear.

The time frame for the pain is supposed to be 1 -2 days so hopefully by noonish tomorrow I'll feel lots better. I'm glad it's a short lived thing because I'm pretty sure my friends and family couldn't handle my incessant griping much longer.