Fly on the Wall: Nature's Gone Quackers

Welcome to a monthly Fly on the Wall group post. Today 8 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 put the boys' swing set up for sale on Craig's List. We stipulated that whoever bought it would need to take it down and move it. 

The first person to call purchased it. After he had moved it, there were a few stakes left in the ground which I removed and put by the garage door to be thrown out. 

College Boy comes home and walks into the house.

College Boy: Mom, what are the stakes on the driveway for?
Me: Oh, they were left behind by the guy who bought the swing set. I stuck them out front to be put in the trash.
College Boy: Well, at least they aren't to drive into my heart.
Me: What? Why would you say a thing like that?
College Boy: Says the woman who just sold my childhood.

OUCH. Guess he drove that stake into my heart.

College Boy comes by his sweet tooth naturally. He acquired it in utero.

But one night it seemed like he was in the kitchen every 10 minutes. First for ice cream, then for my Pretzel Sandwich Snacks, and then a third time for cookies.

Me: You know you can't just keep eating sweets all night long.
College Boy: Hush.
Me: {{blink, blink}}.

And just like that, the kid had figured out how to stun me into silence.

It's actually one of a very few nice days this Spring. College Boy leaves to go swimming with friends. After less than an hour he comes home angry. It's raining.

College Boy: Thanks a lot, Mom.
Me: Me? What did I do?
College Boy: You ruined the day. It's raining.
Me: And that's my fault?
College Boy: Let me guess, you're planning a dinner that's cooked on the grill.
Me: Well, yes.
College Boy: I rest my case.

It's so funny how we all have our cell phones set up differently. The other night I was making dinner and I'd left my cell phone in the den.

Hubs: Your cell's ringing.
Me: No, that's a text.

A couple of minutes later:

Hubs: Your cell's ringing.
Me: No, that's an email.

A couple of minutes later:

Hubs: Your cell's not ringing.
Me: Actually, this time it is!

 

PurDude has been home from school for a month now and I've yet to see him with his eyes open.

So basically, all through those toddler years when I prayed the kid would take a nap? Well, that's come back to bite me in the butt.

And I've even tried making all of his favorite foods too.

Mashed Potato Casserole

It has been SO rainy and wet this Spring.
How wet, you ask?
Well, apparently these guys came in for a landing when they mistook my back yard for a lake.

Has nature gone completely quackers? Imagine my surprise when, that same day, I walked out front and saw this egg just sitting on the driveway by my garage door.

And wait. There's another one on the driveway by Hubs' garage door.

Last month was Mother's Day and College Boy gave me this card:

I had a genius way for him to save money and recycle. Change the word "you" on the inside to "Mom", put it in a clean envelope and give it to Hubs for Father's Day.

Genius, right?

I have a bank debit card that I use for most purchases. I also have overdraft protection and although we've asked them not to associate that account with any credit card, they sent us one.

Last week I got a replacement debit card. I activated it, shredded my old card and started using the new one.

Bet you know where this is going, right?

The new card, which I'd been using as a debit card, was charging to my overdraft account. Damn it!

So you can imagine the look I got when I went into the bank for a replacement debit card.

Banker: Did you lose your card?
Me: No. I shredded it.

Yeah, it's not just my kids. Apparently bankers roll their eyes at me too.

Our den has couches and chairs and lots of comfy spots to watch TV. But there's one couch that's just the perfect spot to lay down and watch. So on a Sunday afternoon I rearranged the pillows on that couch, put down a throw and got ready to watch the Red Sox. Perfect.

I go to the bathroom before laying down and as I come out I can see what's happening. PurDude and I are both headed for "my" spot. I'm ahead of him as I round the big chair and am just putting my butt down when he leaps over the chair and coffee table and hits the couch right where my butt is headed. Damn, he beat me.

Me: Get off of this couch!
Him: Get off of me!
Me (admittedly sounding like a 5 year old): I was here first.
Him: Then why are you sitting on me?

So I give him the best spot to watch TV and what does he do? Immediately covers his face with a pillow and falls asleep, of course.

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

 Juicebox Confession
Menopausal Mother 
 Spatulas on Parade 
Searching for Sanity 

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
Southern Belle Charm
Eileen’s Perpetually Busy 

Mashed Potato Casserole

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
3 large potatoes
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk 
2 green onions, rinsed and chopped 
3 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
1/3 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3 pats butter
salt and pepper to taste
paprika

Directions:
*Grease a baking dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Peel, cube and cook the potatoes until soft.
*Mash the potatoes with sour cream and milk. Beat for 1 minute.
*Mix in the green onion, bacon, most of the cheese, butter, salt and pepper.
*Top with the rest of the cheese and sprinkle with paprika.
*NOTE: You can cover and refrigerate at this point for cooking later.
*Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes or until the cheese melts and the top browns.

Sincerely Sarah: Set The Course

Anniversaries are often marked with gifts. And the Progressive Story Project is about a gift, the gift of words. So today, on Baking In A Tornado's 4th Blogiversary, I'm honored to have been gifted by a number of my blogging friends with contributions to this, the 4th story of this project.

I'm as excited about this collaboration as I was when I first pitched it to my blogging friends. Not only is it fun to participate in something this unique, but readers tell me often how much they anticipate these stories.

If you're new to this blog, let me explain how this goes. Each project is a piece of fiction, broken up into 3 - 5 chapters. Each writer adds their voice, building on what those before her have written. In this way, everyone contributes to but no one controls the story.

Our first Progressive Story Project was written by sixteen bloggers in December of 2014 and called A Holiday Story. It was a fantasy, worthy of the holiday season.

The next piece was completely different, a little darker. Eighteen bloggers wrote Storm Past, which posted in July of 2015.

In December of 2015, fourteen bloggers revisited and added 4 more chapters to the continuation of A Holiday Story. 

Today I'd like to introduce you to a new story. Once again a group of bloggers will be telling it to you over the next few weeks. We're calling it Sincerely Sarah. 

As always, I've started the story and passed it along to my friends. The name of each segment's author is to the top left of their contribution. I've added a link to their blog as well, and I highly recommend you click on over and see what else they have to offer.

Chapter One: Set the Course

Karen of Baking In A Tornado

 Anticipation. No, that wasn't right, way to positive for how she was feeling. Expectation? Not that either, by now she knew to close herself off from expectations. Certainly not hope, although she was still closer to hope than to despair. Otherwise she wouldn't be trying again.

But she was, in fact, trying again. Less with optimism this time and more with resignation. She just wasn't ready to give up. She'd know when it was time to stop, wouldn't she? And although she'd certainly considered it, lately quite seriously, she hadn't yet resigned herself to completely walking away.

So with, yes despite herself, a touch of anticipation and expectation. With equal parts resignation and determination and even with a bit of both excitement and dread mixed in, she was trying again. Maybe, one way or another, this would be the last time. But then again, maybe not.

 Dawn of Spatulas on Parade

 Sarah stood and looked at herself in the mirror. "Well, it's time" she thought. "Here I go out the door with expectation and with a little dread and fear". She picked up her coat and purse then headed for the door. At that moment her phone rang, she stopped, looked at the caller ID and shook her head. "I do not have time for this today, I will not answer this call and I will not let this person drag me down one moment longer". She dropped the phone in her purse, grabbed the door handle and propelled herself out the door into the world that was waiting for her.

Once in her car she had to give herself a pep talk. "You can do that, you are strong, you are independent, you are capable, you are fierce. I Am Woman, hear me roar." She laughed at herself then turned the ignition key and she was off down the road.

Pulling into the parking lot she could see that it was very busy. Driving slowly and carefully, she looked around for a spot. Almost at the point of giving up she saw one, breathing a sigh of relief she pulled in and stopped her car. Sarah took a deep breath, checking her hair and makeup in the mirror, grabbed her purse and said, "okay girl, it's now or never, let's do this." Stepping out of the car she knew life was about to change and she was ready, or at least she thought she was.

Lydia of Cluttered Genius

Sarah tucked a dark curl behind her ear, and began the walk toward the revolving door of the office building. As she stepped into the first available section, she sighed in relief that she didn't, once again, catch her heel. The last time, her left shoe had become stuck right as she tried to leave the revolving door, and she'd fallen to the floor. This had caused a catastrophic domino effect of those behind her in the door.

Security had run to her aide, and she'd had to hide her face from the gasps of shock as onlookers both stared and hid their chuckles at the sight of her. She'd been bruised pretty badly and spent a week avoiding references to The Fall Guy or Legends of the Fall.

Today, though, Sarah made it through the door without incident. Her nerves began to dissipate, and her shoulders straightened when she caught the eye of the security guard who nodded in her direction. She gave him a slight smile and turned her attention to the elevator. Two flights up, and she'd be back in the office. Back where it started. Back where it ended. She could do this.

She pressed the up button and waited. She smoothed her skirt. Checked her blouse. Shifted her weight slowly from her left foot to her right. The elevator door opened, and she stepped in. As Sarah turned to face the front of the elevator and press the 3, she saw him.

  Sarah of Not That Sarah Michelle

 Leaning against the wall of the elevator, pretending he didn't see her, Parker felt the prickle of awareness that is always felt when Sarah is around. This feeling was dangerous, because it was drumming up something that should have been buried long ago.

But feelings don't just die.

No, what they shared was so much more. There was passion and fire. Love. For the first time since his divorce, he'd loved someone again. But one miscalculated step and that fire between them was put out with a hiss. It didn't even have a chance to recover. Her walking in and finding him in that precarious situation with his assistant was the end of something so powerful, words couldn't explain it.

He stared at the back of her head, longing to reach out ans caress that curly mess that just looked so damn sexy because it was untamable. Just like Sarah. Oh, she seemed like she was demure and reserved, but in reality she was outspoken and unguarded. Her blue eyes had a mischievous glint to them and she wore a devil's smile when she was up to something.

If he were being completely honest with himself, he was still madly, wildly in love with her. But he couldn't act on it. Not now, when she was putting the shattered pieces of her life back together. The supposed affair and the devastating loss we shared ripped her world, and heart, to shreds. Seeing her standing there, her spine a steel rod of pure strength, he admired her in a new way. She truly was the strongest person he'd ever met, ever known.

His heart knew it before his head had a chance to catch up. He knew what he had to do, what he NEEDED to do.

He had to make her his once again.

Jules of The Bergham Chronicles

 The elevator doors opened and they both walked out into the law office. The office where they had met. The office where they had fallen in love. The office where their story had been written. The office where their story had so abruptly ended.

Sarah hurried off towards her personal office, stopping to talk with her assistant, while Parker watched quietly from near the door of his own office. He watched as her expression turned from flustered to determined. Alexa must be telling her about the latest development with the Danielson prosecution. He had found out earlier, and tried to call and tell her himself, but of course she had not taken his call. She had not taken any of his calls in the previous weeks, since she had seen him with Danica.

If only she had not seen that. If only she had let him explain that she had not actually seen what she thought she had seen. If only she understood that it was Danica coming on to him, and him not returning her advances, and then Danica trying to physically force matters, and him trying to politely decline. he is sure things looked quite differently to her when she walked into his office that night.

He had hoped that when she found out he had immediately terminated Danica's employment, that would help to smooth things over, and possibly open lines of communication, but it had only made things worse.

Just then he snapped out of his thoughts as he watched Declan approach Sarah and Alexa. He felt anger start to burn inside him as he watched a smile spread across Sarah's face. The hardest part of not being able to be by Sarah's side the past few weeks was watching the firm's new partner Declan be by her side. Slowly becoming closer and closer to her.

Yes, he had to do something. Sarah was his. he knew it. He just needed to remind her.

 Jenniy of Climaxed

 Sarah was determined to reinvent herself. For as long as she could remember, she had been involved with a man, swept up in being a half of a whole instead of on being her true self. She really had no idea who her true self even was. She had one boyfriend all throughout high school and college and had stayed faithful, going home every weekend instead of going to Frat parties. Then she found out he was sleeping with her childhood best friend. She married the next guy she dated, learning to hunt and fish with him on the weekends and giving up any dreams she had about becoming a partner in her law firm, instead focusing more on being a good wife and trying to become a mother.

Sarah couldn't have children though, and when she learned that fact her husband ended up leaving her for a woman he worked with at his own law firm - a law firm where he was a partner. Of course.

When she started dating Parker, she repeated those same old patterns. She stopped focusing on her own ambition. She took on his hobbies - hockey and comic book movies. At no time during their relationship did she ever try to focus on her own goals and dreams and interests. There were no girls' nights out, no push to get promoted at the firm. She focused solely on their relationship, on building Parker up and compromising to keep things going.

When she saw him with Danica she was hurt. Who wouldn't be? It sucker-punched her straight in the solar plexus stealing her breath and making her eyes tear up. She ran from the office, cried into a bottle (or few) of wine, and wondered for days where she went wrong, why this kept happening to her.

Clarity finally reached through her self-pitying fog, though. Nothing was happening to her. She was doing it to herself. She never respected herself enough to stand on her own, to be her own person. How could she expect anyone else to show her something she never bothered to give her own self? After a few days, breaking free of Parker looked like freedom. So when Danica sent her an email explaining exactly what had happened and apologizing for what she had done, Sarah never thought twice about it.

She sent the email straight to the trash bin and pretended like she had never gotten it. 

Rena of The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver and The Blogging 911

 She was over it, over him, and over men altogether for the forseeable future. She was going to just do her and nobody else for a change. She was finally going to figure out what she wanted out of life. She was going to prove to herself that she could make it on her own. Not only make it, but kill it.

~ ~ ~ Be sure to stop by next week for Chapter Two of Sincerely Sarah ~ ~ ~

Use Your Words: Beer and Martinis

Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I’m using: Father's Day ~ beer ~ teddy bear ~ transportation ~ career ~ barber

They were submitted by: Spatulas on Parade.

I'm guessing I'm not taking anyone by surprise by saying that Father's Day is right around the corner. It'll be my first without my dad.

It's funny, I've been 1500 miles away from my family for so long now that Father's Day has been about my kids' dad for many, many years. So it's not that I've been physically with my dad for these celebrations lately, it's just that my dad has been physically celebrating and celebrated. This year we'll honor Hubs as usual, but there will be a sense of melancholy too.

My dad wasn't much of a beer drinker. He went for Martinis. Rather than showing up with a case of beer, I'd often buy him Vermouth for Father's Day. I think the martini kind of fit him. He was not just a CPA, but through his career had gotten his Masters in Taxation, had started and run his own firm. He wasn't someone you sat down, had a beer and watched sports with. He was a martini guy.

Now Hubs, he's a guy you have a beer with while screaming at the Red Sox on TV. 

Different guys, yet in many ways alike. Both intelligent, dedicated, hard workers. Both dependable and honest. And both teddy bears.

Then with Dad and now with Hubs, there'll be no transportation required on Father's Day. Home cook outs are the way to go. And no need for him to shave, no trips to the barber. Casual and comfortable was and will be the order of the day. My stepmother used to grill us steaks. This year Hubs has requested Marinated Grilled Ham Steaks. I'm making another favorite, Mashed Potato Casserole (recipe coming next week). Dessert is a Father's Day tradition around here, Ice Cream Sandwich Cake.

Marinated Grilled Ham Steak

(going onto the grill)

So we'll have a casual, comfortable cook out again this year on Father's Day. My husband and sons will have a beer together. I'll be there too, of course. Yelling at the Red Sox on TV. And drinking a Martini.

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:

Southern Belle Charm 
 Not That Sarah Michelle
Spatulas on Parade 
The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver 
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy 
My Brain on Kids 
The Bergham Chronicles 
The Angrivated Mom  
Confessions of a part time working mom 
Climaxed 

Marinated Grilled Ham Steak

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 fully cooked ham steak (boneless or bone in)
2 TBSP brown sugar
2 TBSP maple syrup
1 TBSP stone ground mustard
1 TBSP vinegar
1 TBSP orange juice
1 TBSP water

Directions:
*On a plate with a lip, mix the brown sugar, maple syrup, mustard, vinegar, orange juice and water. 
*Place the ham steak in the marinade, then flip over so both sides have the marinade on them. Place a piece of wax paper over it and refrigerate for 2 hours to all day, turning the ham steak over now and then.
*Spray your cold grill grates with nonstick spray. Heat the grill to medium.
*Place the ham steak on the grill. Do not discard the marinade on the plate. Grill for 3 to 4 minutes. You are just heating the ham as it's already cooked.
*Flip the ham and cook the other side for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the ham to the plate with the marinade still on it. Cut and serve.