Fly on the Wall: Picture This

Welcome to a monthly Fly on the Wall group post. Today 14 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house. At the end of my post you’ll find links to this month’s other participants’ posts.

 

I keep an eye on PurDude's checking account and saw a charge made by the USPS. That's weird, what could he be doing there?

A few days later I got a package from him. It wasn't ticking so I opened it. Inside was his frat formal class picture for 2014 - 2015.

And, PurDude being PurDude, there was a note. Written in pencil on notebook paper:

"Please do not hang this in a place where people will see it."

So instead of hanging it on my front door or the back window of my car, it's on the refrigerator.

That works, right?

 

 

Like his mom, PurDude doesn't like having his picture taken. I keep telling him he'll be sorry later in life if he doesn't have pictures from all he's done in his college years. 

When he's home, I can sneak some pictures in, but when he's away it's harder, of course. I do bug him when I call and when I text to send on some pictures of his activities, his friends, parties and the frat.

So I was pretty excited when he texted me a picture. Until I saw that it's the door to his room.

Ah, the stuff that memories are made of . . . 

Speaking of pictures, PurDude had a large picture that he had inherited with his room in his frat. The frame was falling apart, and when he went to change rooms this year, he took the picture but had to throw the frame away. The picture is large and not a standard size so he couldn't find a frame locally. When I was talking to him on the phone earlier this month, he told me he'd ordered one through Amazon and he'd have it that day.

An hour later UPS delivered a large package to me. Ooops. 

I called PurDude, who said that he realized that Amazon had our home as his default address, but that he'd realized it immediately, called the vendor and, when the vendor assured him they could change the address on the order, gave them the address of his frat.

Guess that didn't happen. 

I told PurDude to call the vendor. They'd have to send me a pre-paid UPS sticker to send the package to him. Meanwhile, the big box sat in various spots in my kitchen, where I tripped over it regularly.

Five days later I texted PurDude: Did you ever hear back from the vendor?
PurDude: Yes, he refunded my money and told me just to re-order it to the right address.

I sat there fuming for a while thinking "when were you going to let me know this?" And then "what am I supposed to do with this big box in my kitchen?" when suddenly I heard the ding of another text.

PurDude: Happy Birthday, Mom. I got you a picture frame.

Smart ass.

 

On a Tuesday after a long weekend, I'm doing a load of laundry. I'm folding the clothes and something's not adding up.

Hubs' clothes: 3 pairs of shorts, 3 t-shirts, 3 pairs of underwear and 3 pairs of socks. 
OK, makes sense.

My clothes: 3 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts and 3 days worth of underwear.
OK, makes sense. 

College Boy's clothes: 3 pairs of jeans, 4 shirts, 2 pairs of underwear, 7 socks.
Huh?

 

 And while we're on the topics of pictures and of laundry, I did finally get a few pictures of PurDude's room. This must be a guy thing because I'm no interior designer, but I do know where to store items in the home, what should and should not be out in the open. What's in those pictures? Well, a nice decorative shelf on his wall  . . . holding his toiletries. And what do I see right inside the front door?

Apparently nothing says "welcome to my room" like walking into his dirty laundry basket.

 Caramel Ginger Baked Apples

College Boy: I just killed a spider on the stairs.When is that terminator coming?
Me: Terminator?
College Boy: You know the big guy with the huge gun who annihilates all the spiders and then says "ahhhhl be baaaack".
Oh, that terminator.

By now many of you know about the phone call I got on my birthday.
PurDude: Happy Birthday, Mom. I have some bad news. 
          {{Mom starts to freak out}}
PurDude: I don't want you to freak out too much.
          {{too late}}
PurDude: I just got back from the hospital.
          {{did I just sit down, or did I fall down}}
PurDude: I broke my ankle.
          {{Happy Birthday to me}}.

Obviously PurDude was in a very lot of pain. He had fallen down the concrete stairs out the back door of his frat late at night.
I told him that I hope that some day he'll tell me the rest of the story but he insists he had spent the night with some brothers and had stepped out alone for some fresh air. Well, that's his story and he's sticking to it. Truth is he does have visual/spatial issues and has fallen down stairs regularly his whole life.
I spoke to him a couple of times that night and he wasn't himself, clearly in a lot of pain.
It was a 4 day weekend and I was worried that not a lot of people were around to help him out. The next day I texted him:

Me: Are you any better today? Are you getting food?
PurDude: Yeah, I just had some chinese food.
Me: For breakfast?
PurDude: Even if I had a full set of working legs I wouldn't get up early enough on a day off to eat breakfast.

Yup, there's my boy. He's clearly feeling better.

We were supposed to video chat with him that next day but he had not been able to leave the couch in the frat living room so although he had his laptop with him, it was out of batteries. He had done homework on it and could not get up the stairs to his room to get the cord to recharge it. So I spoke to him instead.

Me: Do you have a ride to the your appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon tomorrow?
PurDude: When we finish talking I'm going to call and make the appointment so I can ask someone for a ride.
Me: I thought the hospital made an appointment for you.
PurDude: No, they just gave me the name and number of the doctor. I'll call now and get an appointment.
Me: It's 6:00 pm.
PurDude: {{silence}}.
Me: Sunday night.
PurDude: {{silence}}.
Me: Think that might be a problem?
PurDude: {{silence}}.

Who the hell raised this kid anyway?

 

We are now 10 days into the season of the broken leg and PurDude is on his third cast. The first one was a soft cast put on by the hospital, followed by a black cast put on by the Orthopedic Surgeon and a few days ago he got a third cast. There are at least 2 more in his future.

Me: You sent me a pic of the soft cast and the black one, send me a pic of this new one.
PurDude: Why? It looks like the black one just a different color.
Me: I want pictures of all of them.
PurDude: Why?
Me: Years from now we'll laugh about this. I want to have pictures of it all. I'm going to make a GIF. A cast GIF.
PurDude (in his stern, "you're in trouble young lady" voice): No. You're. Not.

Yes I am. Shhh. Don't tell on me.   

PS: I've been getting quite a few personal questions in private messages on my FB page. Somehow, maybe in a moment of low blood sugar or something, I agreed to answer them publicly if I got 20 questions from 20 different people, I'm sure thinking no way I'd get that many, I'd be off the hook. So . . . it's close. Way closer than I ever imagined. If you have a question, PM me on Facebook or email me. I'm a few questions away from dodging the bullet. And a few questions away from biting the bullet . . . Oy.

Now click on the links below for a peek into some other homes:

Spatulas on Parade

Follow me home

Menopausal Mother

Never Ever Give Up Hope

The Momisodes

Someone Else's Genius
Eileen's Perpetually Busy 
Cluttered Genius 
Southern Belle Charm 
Go Mama O 
Searching for Sanity 
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy 
Nichole Mom of 8 

Caramel Ginger Baked Apples

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com


Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
4 apples
1 1/2 cups ginger ale
1 box (5 - 6 oz) Sugar Babies candies (caramel apple flavor or original)
8 Hot Tamale candies
2 TBSP butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger

gummy worms

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the ginger ale in an 8 X 8 baking dish.
*Core the apples, being sure not to poke all the way through the bottom. Cut around the cored center, taking a little more of the apple out to leave more room for the center ingredients. 
*Place the apples into the baking dish. Fill each apple with 2 Hot Tamales and the sugar babies candies. Top each one with 1/2 TBSP butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and ginger.
*Cover with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake for another approximately 10 minutes or until the apples are soft. Garnish with gummy worms.
NOTE: Use caution when they are first out of the oven, caramel center is very hot.