The black hole; otherwise known as: the fridge

Check out the fancy punctuation on that title. Hu, pretty impressive hu? You gotta say it just right. The black hole, small pause, otherwise known as, longer pause, let the anticipation rise, the fridge.

And I am not even joking. Our fridge and its ability to capture innocent left-over food items is really that dramatic. I am pretty sure that if that thing were an animal it could not catch more food than we willingly feed it if it were faster than a cheetah. Although, it would have to go through some long droughts of zero food being passed through its gaping door and placed on the racks of teeth.

I loaded Steven up with some sorry looking vegetables, a few containers of yogurt, vienna sausages from a 'shopping while pregnant' episode, chicken, fruit and a few other things that were otherwise unidentifiable other than the fact that I knew the containers they were captured in had been sitting in our icebox much too long. The best thing about using empty yogurt and sour cream containers for left-over containers is if they are left too long it is much easier to toss the whole shebang than stink up our food disposal and risk the need for gas masks to avoid mold spores.

These are things that most people find in the fridge, buried in the deepest corners, often frozen as they are pushed further and further back nearer the vents. However, most people find these things after they have eaten what was fresh in their fridge and are getting to the nitty gritties of things that were not so delectable and were just scooched further and further back. Not so much in our case. Those containers were right up-front and center. In fact, we had more yuckies in our fridge than eatable items and therefore gave us the disillusion that our fridge was full. And this happens ALL of the time. Not just on occasions, all of the time. You can always count on finding some left overs that are being purposefully overlooked. And it's not that I don't know what's in the fridge, it's that I know exactly what is in the fridge and wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep thinking about the trapped contents that we will never consume. But are also just too disgusting to take care of and throw out.

We have two cereal bowls right now when our usual number is up around six. They are all in the fridge covered with plastic wrap housing bacteria science experiments. I know. It's disgusting. And I just can't bring myself to clean them out. So they sit there, because at least when they are in cooler temperatures than they don't give off any offensive smell.

And that is our fridge. We can't go shopping 'cause there's no room for anything but the occasional gallon of milk with all the rancid food taking up space. The only reason that doesn't go bad is 'cause it's got an easy-access cap and a handle to pull it out of the cold abyss. Our black hole needs to be emptied out and we need to fill it with some eatable things, but when everything over-does its stay its just not too encouraging to go and fill up on fresh vegetables and fruits and things that come with good intentions and sit in neglect. It's just not fair.

Our black hole is looking famished right now after the load I put into Steven's arms, but it is still a black hole and you know what they say about those things. They never go away, they just get stronger.

Enter: laundry help

Ikea didn't have what we were looking for. Target had what we were looking for. While going in to look for some shorts we browsed through the living organization section.

Side note on the shorts, this happens to me every year. I always need clothes too far into the end of a season and I am such a grateful 'normal' size that everything that is cute is sold out in my size. Blessings of being such an average size. It's ridiculous. But it happens, to no end, especially in the summer. Last year it was a swimsuit. This year I got my swim suit in March. That's right, when kids are still skating on frozen ponds here in Utah. However, I am still looking for shorts. After being sick for so long and feeling accomplished if I got my hair washed that day I am tired of mulling around in jeans or sweats. I need some shorts. And there are no shorts to be found. Bummer deal.

Now, please tangent back to our laundry situation from the last episode of my ridiculous life. We were looking for something to dump clean clothes into so that they don't have to spread all over our green, shag carpeted floor. Don't take a double-take on the shag. It's normal life. Don't worry about it. And the all too well-known pea green carpet of the 70's, don't pretend you're not jealous. Sometimes I think that my clothes look better on the floor 'cause then there isn't so much green. So much shag green making you think you're outside and perhaps should throw down a picnic blanket.

And we found it. We found a woven basket. Woven casket? Casket. It's huge. 80$ huge. We could only afford one. We could only fit one in our car. We had an arm wrestle over who got to use it. Steven won. Of course. He wasn't playing weak for such a tremendous reward. I get to use the dresser. The whole dresser. The whole boring dresser. That I promise I will put pink wall paper in the drawers. That's what I get to use, minus one drawer that Steven keeps his belts and odd clothes in, like shorts and long sleeve shirts and stuff that doesn't get worn too often. Mostly because I try not to remind him of those clothes that should probably be given to DI. Or burned.

We've got a casket in our bedroom against the wall, and it looks awesome. I no longer need to worry about folding clothes. I just need to get them sorted and practice my shooting skills. It's going to be fantastic.

How to make friends

Well... first you gotta get yourself a jeep. The more broken down, the better. You gotta park it in your barn of a garage, kind of out in the open. That way people can see it. And they can see you working on it. Now, it had better sit there for a little while first. That way people get used to seeing it and then when you're out there they can ask you questions about it. Like where it came from and what in the world you plan on doing with it and most importantly, 'Does that thing run?'

We are now the most popular people on our block. No joke. There are always people coming up our little bit of a driveway to check out our 'glorious, awesome piece of yellow metal.' Its beastliness just calls out across the pavement.

We've had people on their evening walks come and talk to us. Me sitting in the passenger seat, a lamp tipped to spread light over the book I am currently reading. Steven rolled under that thing somewhere, clunking on things and shaking others.

The neighbor boys (the boys that are married but have no children yet) drop by once in awhile, checking in on the progress and offering their advice and sometimes their muscles in a tricky spot. We even get to know them a little better as Steven has to run across the street or across the lawn, depending on who's brains he needs to pick, and asks them for a hour of their time to help him figure something out and twist something that I can't even see, let alone understand what its function is and why I am doing this. Pretty much I am only good for scooting the tool box around to the other side when needed.

Steven's a smart guy and keeps most of his tools within this convenient tray filled with the goodies. This makes it easy for me to hand him what he needs 'cause I can just hand him the whole thing instead of searching under boxes and through old jeep parts to find a hammer. Seriously, this jeep building is as messy as crafting.

Good intentions

We've all got them. Those things we do, trying to make our lives easier. Buying a planner in January and using it for a week. Signing up for a gym membership. Purchasing fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. Don't even try to tell me that there has never been some broccoli hiding out in the bottom drawer of your fridge until the stench gives it away.

I am alright at washing clothes. I don't mind the switching of wash and the frustration when I know that our washer does not know the difference between hot and scalding hot. There is no such thing as cold water. Therefore I have a lot of clothes that are tinted just a smear bit. I don't even mind cleaning the lint out of the dryer. But I do mind folding clothes. Oh, yes, I do. It takes half a day to remember to switch and start batches of clothes and by the time they hit our bed in their dryer sheet yumminess I am not about to fold those things and put them away. No way.

So they sit there. On our bed. Until bedtime. When handsome husband carries me to bed after falling asleep in his lap watching a movie they get pushed to the floor. So they sit there. Until we have worn them through again and they are once again in the laundry basket.

This happens again and again. Story of my life in high school. Except back then, it wasn't clothes that had been pushed off the bed, it was clothes that hadn't made it to my chosen wardrobe of the day after three outfits. Any normal high school girl's room would look like that. I've never seen my parent's room look like this, however. I think we have our own thing goin' on right now. It's high school girl room multiplied by two.

Steven, wanting to keep the clothes from under-foot, even if they weren't put away, grabbed a large suitcase from downstairs and lugged it up, lifting all the clothes into it. This was fine, except that the clothes were then piled so high that it took forever to dig through them and they ended up sprawled all over the floor again. Forgive the good intentions.

I went through my clothes and took a whole great bagful to DI. I thought that if my dresser drawers were empty enough so that when laundry was done I could still close the drawers I may put clothes away. I now have half the clothes, but they just get used more often now so they are in the laundry one day and then on the floor the next.

It's getting kind of old to crawl around on the floor every morning looking for matching socks, or any socks at all. It's getting kind of old to not be able to take a quick inventory of my clean clothes. And it's getting really old hurdling clothes while clambering into bed every night.

I am starting to feel better now that this baby is floating in more water (seriously, I feel like a camel every time I drink from a water fountain) instead of laying up against whatever she was pushing on before. And the doctor specifically told me get things done and enjoy the next few months 'cause they won't last long enough. So, perhaps the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But the road to clean laundry is paved with good intentions, as well.

So, we better start gettin' on our way. Start knocking one good intention out at a time. 'Cause I can tell you one thing that I know for certain from babysitting. There's nothing like trying to find baby clothing pieces that match. Those things are seriously like Barbie shoes. You know what I am talking about. They sink to the bottom of the toy box and you can never find two at a time. We need to get some organization going on in this house.

I have strong feelings about how cute things make everything better. I always decorated my science notebooks and math notebooks with the cutest of stickers so that I would be excited to open them up and write in them. I used the cutest folders I could find and when things got really tough, I took notes with crayola markers for some added color.

Ikea is known for their awesome stuff, and guess who's going on Monday? This girl, right here. Our first good intention is to get some cute stuff to help us stay organized. Like a cutesie laundry bag, some racks for the closets and some nice boxes.

Also, perhaps the drawers need to be jazzed up a little bit. You know what I am talking about, wrapping paper glued to the insides and all that. And maybe a cute little label on the drawers with promised clean t-shirts and socks. Or maybe it just needs some paint. Everything looks better with paint. The only problem is that it's so... contemporary looking. So boring and nice. Paint looks best on scrollies and swirlies and some awesomely ridiculous hardware knobs. This dresser is so contemporary it doesn't even have knobs! I don't know how it would feel about being painted bright red or turquoise. It would probably rebel by looking nasty. But the paper in the drawers, now there's an idea that may just stick. I love those old drawers with wrapping in them. It just says, 'surprise, you have just opened a beautiful present.' Exactly what I need to get my motivation into movement of putting clothes away.

Mac and cheese and me

Just to give you a little insight into how deprived I was as a child, I had never even held a box of macaroni and cheese until I was babysitting at age 16. I know. Gasp.

I had been given instructions to make two boxes, three if the kids didn't eat any snacks in the mean time, and that there was extra cheese to sprinkle on top in the fridge if needs be. You know, if behavior was exceptional and all that. Food brings forth miracles, especially the promise of extra cheese. I never would have thought.

While the five year-old was telling me that I needed to boil the water in a sauce pan I was scanning the directions for stove-top and grateful for the simple pictures on the box that could quickly take the place of the 1st grade reading skills needed to understand the print.

I had no idea of the complications this meal had. Butter AND milk. At least with ramen everything comes in the bag for ya. So many dirtied dishes. A butter knife. A measuring cup. And to top it all off, a nasty cheese-covered pan with miscellaneous noodles that did not get scraped into 2nd and 3rd helpings of this american house-wife staple. I had no idea three year-olds could eat so many noodles! All of the kids just stuffed up on that noodley goodness.

My second encounter with the orange cheese-covered carbohydrate was much better. Supplement a meal with hot dogs and everything is more tastefully done. This certain family ate their noodles and all with ketchup. It was kind of peculiar when the little ones were setting the table and the ketchup found its way to the table. I thought it was probably for the hot dogs but was soon corrected.

Two squirts of the red stuff made that cheesy slop edible. 'Cause you see, I've never been a fan of 'fake cheese.' You put cheese in a can and call it cheese whiz and I can tell you something is extraordinarily wrong with the composition of that substance. Try to give me anything with the cheese that comes in individual packets and I will not go within two feet of it. Cheese and crackers that come together in a package could hardly be called cheese. More like dried up and preserved cow's udder milk. Ewww. But that ketchup, now that changes things. And so I have used ketchup on my mac and cheese whenever it is necessary that I eat the stuff.

It comes in phases, the need for noodles slathered in orange goo. I have made my own recipe where I only use half the cheese and no butter. It tastes fine. Cuts down on dishes (by one knife) and you don't get so much of the slimy orange left in your bowl at the end of a meal. I ate it a lot my first years of college 'cause it was cheap, healthier than ramen, and other people liked it so I didn't have to feel the need to eat a whole box by myself. Shhh, I didn't know about only making a portion at a time back then. It used to be all or nothing, ya know? Plus that's extra math to halve everything.

I recently went to the store as a pregnant lady who's cart is full of random things. Things I wouldn't buy if I were in a normal state of mind. Things like chile and Vienna sausages. Vienna? Who even eats that any more? I never even liked those things, but I saw them sitting in their cute little can and remembered being in Utah at my grandmas. She would always send us with a few cans when we went swimming. No one liked them much, but you get hungry out there in the mermaid surf (although more often than not, we were dolphins. Dolphins get to jump more.) and when you drip a little chlorine water on them they don't taste so bad. It was a nostalgic moment.

I also came home with mac and cheese. Not just any mac and cheese, but Cars mac and cheese. Noodles shaped like Cars characters. Let me just tell you, they don't taste as good. They've got too much noodle. There isn't enough cheese, even for a fake cheese hater like me. I even used the whole package. I know, gross. There's just too much mass to the noodle. And I ate it with ketchup.

Flaming Gorge part 2

Sorry, didn't want to make that last post 40 billions hours long. So we get there at 11:30 or so and find out that instead of sharing the trailer with Steven's mom and dad we're going to share it with Nic and Heather. Which is kind of funny because they were SO concerned about sleeping in a tent by themselves. You know, newly-weds and all, they wanted their own little place. But we opened the door and there were definitely some snores coming from behind the curtain. Which is chill, ya know. I was so tired I didn't even care and could hardly stand long enough for Steven to unfold our brand new sleeping bags and flop a pillow down for my wee head.

I was so out of it that I didn't even realize that the space we were sleeping in was actually the table with the cushions all arranged in a bed. That part was really weird in the morning when we put everything back in place and there appeared a table. There's just something kinda wrong about sleeping on a table without knowing it. Right up there with table dancing. It wasn't a very large space and I am pretty sure that Steven slept with half his body off the edge while I squished up against the wall and window. But we love each other.

I woke up wide-awake around five and there was no turning back. I had to pee like a child needs a candy bar and lucky for us, we were the closest ever to the porta potty. Count your blessings. I was feeling kind of groggy and thought a shower would be a good idea. I waited for Steven's mom to gather up her things to go with me and away we went, on to another adventure, leaving Steven instructions to comb his hair.

Unfortunately, I hadn't really planned on showering. Therefor towel, no check, shampoo and conditioner, no check. I did have clean under things and face lotion, though. It's always good to be kind of prepared. And a blow dryer and straightener complete with makeup. Can't leave the house without the essentials, ya know.

I was surprised there was no line for the potties or the showers, it didn't even seem as if anyone had been in there since the night before. It was relieving. This meant that the floor was still dry and not slippery from previous showers. It also meant that the mirrors were not fogged up. Not that this really helped them out. They were more like mirrors from a fun house. The kind that make one part of your body look dis-proportioned from the rest.

In order to get the shower water to spray you had to push the water button. There was no temperature changer, if I remember. The magic button was located in that vital spot. So I pushed it once and let the water warm from Antarctic ocean cold to Pacific ocean cold. Pushed it again and let it warm from Pacific ocean cold to Atlantic ocean warm. And there it stayed. At this point the air was colder than the water and I jumped in. My shower was all of one button push long and I was out of there, drying off with a sweatshirt. Luckily my mother-in-law was longer at taking a shower but shorter at getting dressed and getting ready. I had my hair blown dry and straightened, finishing up my make-up by the time she was out and her low-maintenance hair and ability to put on makeup with a small mirror got us out of there at the same time. We left the fun-house mirrors behind and drove back to camp for some hot chocolate.

Flaming Gorge part 1

As everyone knows, Steven and I LOVE roadtrips. We love talking, singing to the I-pod, dancing our best seat-moves as we pass cars in the fast lane and me snuggling up close to his bulky arm and sleeping. It's the best. The best besides the neck cramps and the bum pains.

Steven's family (as in his mom's brothers and sister and mom and dad and cute cousins) do an annual get-together and this year was camping. Now, you must know that I have not been camping since my last year of Girl's camp in 2007. Some quick math says four years. That's a long time. And there are some reasons behind that.

I hate waking up sweaty from a non-breathing sleeping bag. I don't like dew. Camping food takes more time to make than to eat and even MORE time to clean and put away. If your stuff touches the tent side and it rains your stuff gets soaked. There is tons of walking. Walking to the bathroom, walking to the running water, walking for recreation, walking to keep yourself from going crazy, walking. I don't like changing my clothes so many times. Waking up and putting jeans and sweatshirt on and then a hour later having to change into shorts and t-shirt to keep from suffocating. The regular stuff. Mmm... the sun. It's everywhere. And if it's not everywhere, than it's freezing cold in the shade. This girl has a hard time with temperature.

We started our 4-hour road trip to the Flaming Gorge when I got off work at 5:30, which doesn't say a lot 'cause that means that we still didn't leave the house until 7:30 or so. It's hard work packing last minute. We weren't so well prepared for this trip this time, leaving without our usual stock of drinks and candy. I have something terrible against eating healthy in the car. Kind of defeats the purpose of a road-trip if you know what I mean. We had 4 hours ahead of us and we made the most of it. We raced a mustang, and seriously, it felt like we were racing a horse through that canyon. Steven did his best to make that animal move and kind of rode beside them for a bit and then took off. The mustang stayed behind for about 5 minutes and then I guess got sick of us taunting him and raced off ahead of us.

Finally around the 3 hour mark we were getting a little antsy and stopped at the last place of civilization for some gas and nourishment supplies. I love tootsie rolls, the original chocolate kind the best, and most gas stations have a nice collection of the huge ones for a buck. Well... not this one. Seems not too many people share my love for the chocolate chewiness 'cause Steven came out with 6 of the medium size ones. You know, the long skinny ones that you get in a pack of fun candy at the store that's got the dots and suckers and tootsie rolls in it? Yeah, 6 of them. And they were rock hard. Those things have been sitting there for quite the amount of time. But I still loved them. It took me all of three minutes to get through all of them. Which made for a long time as Steven gnawed on his nasty candy bars that I didn't dare touch 'cause they are kinda gross. I think he did it on purpose.

We made it to the campsite just after everyone had gone to bed and were hardly ready for it to end. We had just gotten started!