Give ‘em the Finger

OK, admit it, sometimes people drive you nuts. Telemarketers who call your house every 3 minutes, Customer Service reps who won’t help you, drivers who can’t drive, blog comment spammers, your kids.

No one can make me crazier than my kids. I mean gone-blind want to kill ‘em nuts. They are experts at pushing me to my limit and beyond. I’m the first to say, the best spur-of-the-moment release of all that anger and frustration is a good stream of every swear word I can think of (and I can think of a lot). Preferably at the top of my lungs. Second best option, the dreaded finger. The more forceful the better. Accompanied with a “HEY” so they know to look. But is that usually an option? No, sigh, sadly not.

Or is it? Yes, actually, it is. Well, sorta. With a little ingenuity. You see, folks, what I learned is that we have other fingers. And it actually feels kinda good to unleash ‘em every now and then. Yup, I have started generously giving out the old Ring Finger.

Now the first time I gave it to my kids, forcefully and loud “HEY” included, I think they were stunned. I’m sure they thought I had actually given them THE finger. No kids, count again. That’s the dreaded (OK, not so dreaded) Ring Finger. Stunned silence. I gave then the death-glare (don’t pretend you don’t know the one) and walked off with my head held high. Was it a victory? A failure? I don’t know. The good news: they don’t either.

Hey, Telemarketers, talk to my voicemail. And Ring Finger you!

Customer Service rep, I called ‘cause I need assistance. You don’t want to help me? Well Ring Finger you!

Driver in front of me, that thing to the right of that brake you’re riding is the gas pedal, use it. Oh, and Ring Finger you!

Comment Spammers, got something for you. Ring Finger you!

What, you’re teenagers and you’re still whining about dinner? Ring Finger you!

White Chili (with Cornbread)
 

Oh, and Facebook, always screwing with my news feed. Do you really think I’m going to pay you $5 per post so the people who’ve liked my page can see what I have to say? Well I’ve got a whole other finger for you (OK same finger, just another hand), but Ring Finger you!

White Chili
                                    © www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 lb. boneless chicken breasts cut into bite sized chunks
garlic powder for sprinkling
1 chopped onion (I use frozen chopped onion in this recipe)
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
2 cans (I like medium heat) green chilis
2 tsp garlic powder
2 1/4 tsp cumin
chopped fresh cilantro (amount depends on your tastes)
2 cans white beans, undrained (I like Great Northern)
1 can corn, drained 
 
 Directions:

* Sprinkle chicken with garlic powder, then saute in a large pot until cooked. If making this in a crock pot (see below) just saute in a fry pan.

*Add the chicken broth, the chilis, the garlic powder, cumin and cilantro.

*Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

*Add the beans and corn.

*Simmer another 20 minutes.

NOTE: I will often saute the chicken, then finish making it in the crock pot.

NOTE: This recipe was adapted from Southwestern White Chili by Ellie Deaner

Permanent Record

Have you ever “googled” yourself? I bet you have. We are all curious about whatever information is out there about us, what we’ve left behind as we go through life, what, if anything, people will see if they “googled” us. There’s a lot about us that’s out there that’s permanent, footprints we’ve left deliberately or inadvertently. I think there’s more available on Baking In A Tornado than there is about me personally, and that makes me happy. I prefer the anonymity on the personal front.

When Older Son was really little he somewhere heard the term “permanent record”. He wanted me to explain it to him, which was difficult given his age. He listened and then asked about his own permanent record. We ended up having multiple conversations as I tried to assure him that it was really OK that he didn’t yet have a permanent record.

When Older Son was in second grade the school district had the teachers fill out forms on the students rating their character. I was uncomfortable with the whole idea. One of the rankings concerning Jason surprised me and I went in to speak with the teacher. She gave me an example of the questionable behavior: She had asked for “p” words and Older Son said “potty”. After I got my jaw back under control I challenged her, “potty” IS a “p” word, isn’t a curse word and that answer does not rise to the level of her questioning his character. 

The scariest part was when I talked to Older Son about being careful about what he says in class, and he insisted that it was not him but his friend who has said it. His friend happened to be at our house and readily admitted (I’m sure his parents had no problem with the word either) that it was he (the friend) who used that particular “p” word. End result: I don’t believe schools should be documenting their assessment of a 7 year old’s character, I don’t consider the use of “potty” a character flaw, but bottom line my kid hadn’t even said it. I could just see him running for President one day and the opposition producing a whole commercial on Older Son’s use of “potty” on the second grade, resulting in his teacher’s questioning his character. I got the assessment amended.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because my kids are at the end of their High School years. When they were younger, a lot of their choices didn’t have any long term consequences. Once they hit High School, though they are leaving their mark. They have to be more cognizant of not just what they do but how it is perceived, how it will be recorded.

Cinnamon Ginger Cookies

And maybe I’ve been thinking about it because of this little conversation I had with the boys just the other day:

Me: “Do you want me to get you a parking sticker so you can park in the school parking lot?”
Younger Son: “No, there are more accidents there than you can imagine".”
Older Son (indignantly): “No, they take the drug dogs out there and they think just because you’re on school property, they have the right to just go and search your car.”

Could be he’s just trying to push my buttons (his favorite sport). Could be he’s going to have his wish for a permanent record after all. Could be I need to bake . . . after I search his room.

Cinnamon Ginger Cookies
                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened
3/4 cups sugar (plus more for rolling dough)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cinnamon baking chips  

Directions:

*Beat butter, margarine, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, and egg until creamy.
*Mix in flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, cloves and salt
*Mix in cinnamon chips last. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
 *Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheets with no-stick spray.
*Roll dough into 3/4 inch balls. Roll each dough ball in white sugar and put onto cooking sheet.
*Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 to 2 minutes before removing. 

In Support

Today’s post is in support of a fellow blogger. She blogs at Life on Peanut Layne and she recently wrote a very brave and honest piece explaining her recent and continuing absence from blogging. She’s struggled for a very long time and has just, finally, been diagnosed with a very rare Autoimmune disorder. In her absence, many of us who’ve been lucky enough to have been amused by her for so long are going to try to keep her blog from sitting idle. So in the spirit of "putting my money where my mouth is" (yum), I’m up first. Click on this link: Life on Peanut Layne and come see what this picture is all about:

Many more guest posts by a diverse group of talented writers are coming up, so visit her often and catch them all.

Get well quick, Peanut Layne. And in the meantime, we’ve got your back.

January Fly on the Wall

Welcome to a Fly on the Wall group post. Today 14 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what goes on in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house.

 
 
When you’re done, click on the links below for a peek into some other homes:
 
Baking In A Tornado
Insomniac's Dream
Menopausal Mother
Sanity Waiting to Happen
My Brain on Kids
Stacy Sews and Schools
Just a Little Nutty
IBD, Daddy and me!
The Rowdy Baker
The Sadder But Wiser Girl  
WhenCrazyMeetsExhaustion
The Momisodes
SpecialEd/ArmyWife
DeBie Hive
  
 We always try to have family meals. When the kids were babies and went to bed early, I’d get them up and dressed in the morning for a family breakfast,. Once we were all able to eat at the same time in the evening, we switched to family dinners like most people do. I’m here to tell you that family dinner isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Both boys didn’t like dinners in general and mine specifically.
Fast forward to the teen years. Phew, now we can all sit like adults and have a pleasant dinner, right? Not so much. For one thing, the boys have been consistent in their criticism of my dinner choices and of my cooking and now of me in general. In order to have a conflict free dinner, I started reading the paper and watching the news for funny stories to use as neutral (non-Mom-critical) topics for dinner conversations. If anyone wants to try this, local news is best for absurd stories.
 
 

 

So here’s what dinner sounds like at my house:
*Flasher rings doorbells. Watch out, they’ve found their way out of the parks. Great, if your baby is sick, Doctors no longer make house call. But the Wee Willy Wonkers do. The flasher, last name of Snotty (what chance did this guy have, really?) was ultimately caught by a bartender (be sure to tip your bartenders, folks). Police are not releasing the offender’s picture. Probably cause they don’t have one above the waist. You can’t make this stuff up.

*Kids found $20 on the street and turned it in to the police. This is supposed to be a sweet story about children learning honesty but really, are you kidding me? I understand turning in someone’s found personal property, but who’s going to end up with that $20 bill? It probably cost those kids’ parents more than $20 in gas to drive to the police station to turn it in. If my kids were to find $20 on the street, I’d tell them to keep it. Well, most of it. 60%/40%, and I’m the adult.

*A man is suing his county, village, fire department, and many elected officials for negligence after he was hurt in a pre-planned controlled burn ignited in a field. He says authorities failed to spot him lying in a nearby field when they started the fire on a “dangerously windy day”. I know it’s not funny that he was hurt, but by the time we stopped laughing at this particular genius, dinner was over.

*If you want your skin to look younger, there’s a new thing called slap therapy. You voluntarily go in and sit there as your therapist slaps you in the face over and over again. AND you get to pay $1000.00 for the privilege. I want to know how you get a job as a Slap Therapist, and if you get to go out and pick your own clients. I’d even go door to door. Cause there are a few women I can think of . . .

 

 *The annual Frozen Turkey Bowling Event is on! For a $5 donation you can roll a turkey for a single frame at each of 7 participating bars. I have so many questions: Was someone drunk when they thought this up? Do you bring your own turkey? Do you have to pick that thing up and walk with it from bar to bar? If you’re bowling in a bar not a bowling alley, what are you aiming for, customers on stools?
 

 

*A Sound-Off section of the newspaper allows people to write in about things that bother them. One woman wrote in complaining that adjusters to her bra straps are in the back. She went on to explain that she can’t reach them while the bra is on and it’s hard to adjust correctly when the bra is off. Silly me, wasting my time worrying about health, war, the economy . . .

 
So I’m sure I’ve pretty much talked everyone in the planet out of ever coming to my house for dinner.  Your loss, we're having Chinese food and I made Crab Pockets as an appetizer.  Everyone here loves Crab Pockets.
 

 Crab Pockets 

 

Crab Pockets

                                        ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
18 wonton wrappers
5 ounces canned white crabmeat
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 stick butter, melted
water
Opt: Sweet and Sour Sauce for serving  

  
Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Mash together the cream cheese and mayonnaise until well mixed.
*Mix in the crabmeat, then the green onions.
*Put a little bit of water into a bowl.
*Brush a cookie sheet with some of the melted butter. 
*Lay out half of the wontons (keep the rest covered so they don't dry out).
*Put a spoonful of the crab mixture into the center of each wonton.
*Dip your finger into the water and wet all the edges around the entire square of the wonton, this will help them to stick shut. 
*Fold the wonton like a triangle and pinch both open sides so that they stay shut and all of the filling is sealed inside. 
*Lay the wontons onto the prepared cookie sheet. They should not be touching each other. 
*Prepare the rest of the wontons the same way.
*Brush the tops of the wontons with the rest of the melted butter.
*Bake for approx. 7 minutes, turn and bake approx. another 7 minutes or until the edges start to turn golden brown.
* Opt: serve with Sweet and Sour Sauce.

Ninja Pioneer Woman

A few weeks ago a blizzard hit here at Casa Tornado. Well, it didn’t hit only my house, but you know what I mean. We were sort of expecting it, the local meteorologists had forecasted 9 inches of snow and blowing, whipping winds. As much as I’ve come to expect the opposite of what’s forecast, this particular blizzard did appear. It started just as school let out on a Wednesday. My son, who’s been driving for less than a year, drove home from school and brought a friend. He had intended to drop this friend off but his friend’s house is halfway down a street with a very steep hill and they slid right past the house to the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. So Plan B was that Sanjay came to our house for the afternoon. I would have preferred Plan B to have been Plan A and that they had skipped sliding down the hill in the car, but then nobody asked me.

By 7:30 that evening the schools had closed for the next day. Bad news for me, I’d have to spend the day hiding from or arguing with the kids: “Yes, you will have school on Friday and yes you have to study, your finals will not all be canceled”, that kind of thing.

Sometime around 1:00 am, I woke up and saw that the clock in the bedroom was flashing. I thought “we lost electricity at some point, I’ll have to re-set that clock in the morning”. About an hour later I woke up and the clock had gone out, the charge light on the phone was out too. I could hear the grandfather clock downstairs bonging, it was 2:00 am and we had no electricity.

I woke up at 9:00 am, frozen solid. We still didn’t have electricity. Not good. Rick went down to the basement level and started the gas fireplace, then went out to snow blow the driveway. I went to the main floor and started the wood fireplace.

No TV, internet, music, I’d have to find ways to keep myself occupied. No problem, I’ll sit in front of the fire and work out the necessities. If pioneer women could do this so could I.

Yesterday I’d had my son bring plenty of firewood from the pile out back into the garage. Perfect, we’d stay warm, pioneer style. I’ll pull out the candles and matches and flashlights to be prepared for the evening.

I had cereal and pop tarts for breakfast. I had bread and peanut butter and chips, that’s lunch. Snacks were covered, I had made Chocolate Raspberry Meringues yesterday. Dinner would have to be subs. I had rolls and cold cuts. Wait, genius idea, we could use skewers to make hot dogs and sausages over the fire, camping out style. I just figured out a hot meal. Not just any pioneer woman, I’m a Ninja Pioneer Woman.

Chocolate Raspberry Meringues

Alright. More logistics olden days style. We may have to move food from the refrigerator to the garage. We may have to empty the freezer in the basement into coolers and put them onto the deck. Not fun, but we could do it. I am rocking this roughing it thing, just need to use my brain.

I have on my Kindle a book I haven’t finished so I can do some reading for as long as the battery holds out. The boys’ phones could get me internet long enough for me to publish my Fly on the Wall group posting and send out Secret Subject Swap prompts Friday morning. Never know how long these power outages will last but didn’t I just spend most of the morning keeping myself busy making plans? See, it’s  . . .what? . . . only 9:10 am? . . . I’ve only been sitting here 10 minutes? . . .  this may end up being a long day after all. Doesn’t matter, even without my beloved coffee, I’ve so got this under control. I could have been born a few hundred years ago and made it all look easy.

So I’m heading up the stairs to put on some warm sweat pants, and I’m in the little room off the Master bedroom. You know the one. I’m sitting there minding my own business when there’s a knock on the door. Now my kids are way too old not to allow me to go to the bathroom in peace, but the voice I hear through the door is actually Husband’s “be sure you don’t flush”. Don’t flush? What do you mean don’t flush? Nooooooo . . . Hellllppppp . . . Emergency . . .  Call out the National Guard . . . I am SO NOT cut out for this!

Chocolate Raspberry Meringues
                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 – 3/4 tsp raspberry extract (depending on your taste)
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
Opt: red food coloring
Multicolored sprinkles

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cover cooking sheet with parchment paper.
*Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Beat in the sugar, a little at a time.
*Gently mix in the raspberry extract and food coloring, then the mini chocolate chips.
*Scoop or pipe onto baking sheet, should make about 2 dozen cookies.
*Sprinkle with the sprinkles.
*Bake for about 30 minutes, or until they harden. Shut off the oven and let them sit for 10 minutes inside.
*Remove from oven. Let sit for 10 minutes before removing from parchment paper.

Take 2- January Secret Subject Swap

Welcome to Take 2 of January’s Secret Subject Swap. This week, 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swaps. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado
Menopausal Mother
Life on the SONny Side
Suburbia Interrupted
Big A and little a
IBD, Daddy and me!
Stacy Sews and Schools
The Sadder but Wiser Girl
Something Clever 2.0
The Mommy Ref
Moore Organized Mayhem
Just Piddlin'
Mommy Unmuted

My prompt is: You’ve been asked to pitch a new children’s television show to network execs . . . one that won’t drive the poor parents who have to watch it totally crazy, but that kids will still adore . . . What does it look like?  It was submitted by: Life on the SONny Side.                                   

Quite a tall order, SONny Side, I owe you one. And I don’t forget. That whole “Moms have eyes in the back of their heads” thing is about to take on a whole new meaning for you. But I agreed to do this thing (hell, I started it), so here goes:

My idea for the children’s show is one that is interactive. The best way to keep kids’ attention and keep parents sane is to keep those little buggers, um, sweethearts busy.

Picture this: our host, Jacksonville Potluck, is an artist. Each episode finds him walking through his town to draw scenery in different locations. With him is his trusty sketch pad.

The show is made up of six 4-minute segments. In each segment, Jacksonville meets someone to help him head towards his destination. At the end of each segment he yells “Freeze”. Everyone on screen freezes. Your little Satan Dali stops munching on the toilet paper roll. It’s time to draw. With simple strokes Potluck talks your little artist through a few lines of a picture. By the end of the show they’ve drawn, for instance, a book if he’s going to the library or a flasher if he’s going to the park.

There are a few things Moms need to know to prepare for this new show. First, it is necessary for you to have paper in the house at all times. If not, prepare to frame whole sections of your wall, compliments of your favorite offspring. Lack of paper will not stop your little Andy Wall-hole from drawing. Yes, the show is that good.

Next, be sure you have cookies available. Not only will your little Runny-nose Rembrandt need their strength for some heavy lifting in the finale but, after the show, cookies will keep them busy while Mom has a little . . . ahem . . . recovery time.

Chocolate PB Chip Cookies with Peanut Butter Drizzle

Why does Mom need recovery time, you ask? What’s in this for Mom, you ask? Well, this show is not just interactive for the kiddies. No, no, no. I AM a Mom after all, and I’ve designed this show to allow my fellow Moms 30 minutes of nostalgic bliss. You see, each time Jacksonville yells “Freeze”, Mom must do a shot. Don’t worry, Pablo Pics-his-nose is drawing. And don’t tell me you’re not familiar with this game. I know you played that “do-a-shot-when-you-hear-a-certain-word” game in College or wherever you spent your post High School years, you’re not fooling me.

Now Mom, please try to maintain a little dignity. I get the whole Pavlov’s Dog thing, but no drooling while waiting for the yelling of “Freeze”. That’s just so desperate. And do not stand in front of the TV screaming “SAY FREEZE, SAY FREEZE”. You’ll scare the kids. Your next shot is no more than 4 minutes away. Have some pride.

And now for the finale: A little heavy lifting . . . I mean healthy exercise . . . for the kids while singing our theme song, which goes something like this:

                                                        

Now we pick Mommy up off the floor,

Put our picture on the refrigerator door,

Later on we’ll go to the store,

Mommy will need supplies galore,

Cause tomorrow we’ll play some more!

So, what do you say? Are we on?

Chocolate PB Chip Cookies with Peanut Butter Drizzle
                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Cookie Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2/3 cup baking cocoa

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups peanut butter baking chips

Drizzle Ingredients:

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 TBSP milk

2 TBSP smooth peanut butter

Cookie Directions:

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.

*Beat butter, margarine and both sugars until creamy.

*Beat in eggs and vanilla.

*Mix in flour, baking cocoa, baking soda and salt.

*Mix in peanut butter baking chips.

*Drop by tablespoons onto cooking sheet.

*Bake for 12 minutes.

*Let cool for one minute before removing from baking sheets.

Drizzle Directions:

*Cool cookies completely before drizzling.

*Mix all drizzle ingredients together and drizzle over the cookies.

The Mom Bowls

Some members of my family have been busy watching the College Bowls. For those of you who are athletically challenged (or easily bored) like I am, let me explain the system to you as best I can.

From what I understand, a College Bowl game is a football game that isn’t on the teams’ schedule, it’s a post-season invitational. More like a beauty pageant than a sports rivalry. There are games that are considered more prestigious and viewed as play-offs between better teams. Think Miss Congeniality. The rest seem to be an attempt to fill time between commercials.

I may not be a football player, but I’ve maintained a home and been a Mom for a while now, and I’ve been involved in a few post-season invitationals myself over the years. So here’s a list of MY Bowl moments:

The Home Based Bowls:
The Dust Bowl: No one’s playing cause who’s got time? This is an easy bowl to ignore.
The Laundry Bowl: No winner here. You can play the game but the next day you end up playing all over again.
The Toilet Bowl: The never ending bowl. You play round after round but no one wants to be called the winner.
The “I Hate Dinner” Bowl: Winner goes to bed hungry.

The Childcare Bowls:
The Enema Bowl: Sorry, game canceled. We need to evacuate the field.
The Diaper Rash Bowl: The competition is raw.
The Ipecac Bowl: This challenge is a god old-fashioned throw down (up).
The Disrespect Bowl: Everyone loses because no one follows the rules.
The Where’d it Go Bowl: Everything disappears; first the concessions, then the players.

Popovers, loved by all in my family

The “Letter” Bowls:

The MYOB Bowl: We won’t be divulging who the players are.

The BYOB Bowl.  Best. Bowl. Ever. The fans win!

Popovers
                                           ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (for 12):

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

6 thin slices of butter

Directions:

*Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
*Spray the muffin tins with cooking spray.
*Put 1/2 slice of butter in each tin.
*Whisk eggs. Whisk in milk, then flour and salt.
*Put the muffin tin into the preheated oven and watch carefully. Leave there until the butter melts.
*Remove the muffin tin from the oven and move it around a little so the butter swirls around in the bottom of the tins.
*Quickly fill the tins with the batter and return to oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
*DO NOT OPEN OVEN at all during cooking or they'll fall.   

Take 1 - Jan Secret Subject Swap

Welcome to Take 1 -January Secret Subject Swap, the first of two this month. This week, 15 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swaps. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:


Baking In A Tornado
Chewylicious
It's a Dome Life
My Life as Lucille
The Mommy Chronicles
The Insomniac's Dream
Life on Peanut Layne
Raising Ragan
DeBie Hive
My Brain on Kids
Follow me home . . .
 The Family Pants
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
Momaical
Juat a Little Nutty

My subject is: Think of a day in your life when everything seemed to be going wrong. Write about it. It was submitted by:  Life on Peanut Layne.  Here goes:

Think of a day when everything seemed to be going wrong? Really? It would be easier to pick a day when it didn’t seem like everything was going wrong. Eeny meeny miny mo, how many bad days in a row . . .

OK, I’ve picked one. But just so my bad mojo doesn’t rub off on any of my friends who are reading this, instead of telling you about my bad day, I’m going to tell you how to avoid my bad day. That way if you read this and then have one of your own, we’ll both know it’s not my fault.

2. Do not wake up while it’s still pitch black out, grab the glass of water off of your bedside table and think that you can make it down the stairs in one piece without turning the hall light on.

1. Let’s go backwards. First of all, do not wake up while it’s still pitch black out.

3. Do not think that the glass of water that you spilled all over yourself going down the stairs constitutes a shower. This will inevitably be the day the new neighbor stops by.

4. Do not check your email when you know that your son’s teacher sends out emails when an assignment is missing.

5. Do not start to make Potato Crusted Meatloaf without checking to see if you have all of the ingredients.

Potato Crusted Meatloaf 

 6. Do not call your husband out of an important meeting because your car keys were stolen. He told you this morning (probably as he was stepping over you at the bottom of the stairs, again) that you left them in the bathroom. He does not choose to remind you of this in a calm way at this particular time.

7. Do not run out to the garage to get your missing ingredients forgetting that your kids have taken your car to school. Before you run out to get the ingredients you’ll have to walk up to the school and play hide-and-go-seek with the car.

8. Do not think that the campus police will not choose to speak to you if you are wandering up and down every aisle of the school parking lot looking like a person who hadn’t showered in a while.

9. Do not turn the oven on before walking up to the school and forget to turn it off. Yes, there was grease in the bottom from last night’s dinner and yes the smoke alarm is loud and yes that’s the same new neighbor standing in your driveway giving you the same look she gave you this morning when you answered the door looking like something the cat would never dare to drag in.

10. Do not call your husband out of yet another important meeting to tell him that you have to move because you think the new neighbor is giving you the evil eye. He will not choose to discuss the sale of your home in a calm way at this particular time.

11. Do not think that you will be able to convince yourself that the banging coming from the washing machine is normal. Or that the water under it is either.

12. Do not think that you are going to be able to move that giant TV that is in the basement directly below the washing machine by yourself without a whole lot of trouble and swearing and grunting and groaning and pushing and pulling.

13. Do not even think about calling your husband at work again.

14. After all that exertion, do not fall asleep, even for a couple of minutes, with your neck turned in that position. You absolutely will walk around for the rest of the day looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

15. Do not answer the door. Hide. You know it’s going to be that new neighbor again and you know you still haven’t showered, your hair is standing straight up from falling asleep and you’re walking around like Quasimodo. And you’ve already tried the “sale of the house” discussion with your husband and it did not go well.

16. Do not be surprised when your son calls to say he’s called the police because the car has been stolen. What did you think was going to happen when you took the car, forget to text him, and didn’t bring it back?

17. Do not. I repeat do not under any circumstances, when you are having a day like this, think you aren’t asking for trouble if you allow your kids to come home from school . . .

Note: Potato Crusted Meatloaf featured as a Best Winter Recipe from The Daily Meal's Culinary Content Network on The Saturday Evening Post's website on 2-14-14

Potato Crusted Meatloaf
                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

 Printable Recipe

 

Meatloaf Ingredients:
 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1/4 cup ketchup
1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 egg
1 TBSP seasoned salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp pepper

Topping Ingredients
1 1/2 to  2 cups mashed potatoes
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 to 3/4 cups shredded cheddar
1 TBSP chives, chopped
2 - 3 TBSP butter or margarine, sliced
paprika

Directions:

*Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put tin foil into a 9 X 13 pan.
*Gently, with your hands, mix all meatloaf ingredients just until incorporated, don't over mix.
*Form meatloaf into a log, leaving room around all sides so you can add mashed potatoes later.
*Bake for one hour.
*While it's cooking, make mashed potatoes. Add in the garlic, cheddar and chives. Set aside.
*After one hour, take meatloaf out of oven. If your beef was very lean, there shouldn't be much fat around the loaf, but if there is any, I like to gently remove it with a paper towel.
*Spread the mashed potatoes onto the top and around the sides of the meatloaf.
*Top with pats of butter and and sprinkle with paprika.
*Return to oven for 20 - 25 minutes. Take out and let stand for 5 minutes before slicing.