Hi and Stuff

Some days I feel like I suck at the blog because all I can think to yak on about is mom stuff.  Fear not, I have much more mom stuff in the queue, but I’m sure you agree the internet needs a break from my incessant commentary.  Mommentary? BAHAHA did you see what I did there?  My jokes also get exponentially worse with each passing day.  Here at the Becker homestead we affectionately call the pacifier the “Fi”, and I cannot go a day without singing “Everybody in the club/all fis on us/all fis on us” and I crack up and Jeff tells me this is another one of those situations where it’s possible it’s funnier in my mind than everyone else’s.  LIES.  Because today in the car I heard a radio commercial for spicy brown mustard that actually made a bratwurst/”bratbest” joke.  YES THAT HAPPENED.  That means that someone was paid money to come up with that.  Mustard execs, call me!

So I say to myself, what the heck? How did so much hilarious stuff used to happen to me? Days used to begin uneventfully and then 13 hours later I’d return home with hilarious blog fodder like splashing shrimp juice all over the place or strangers accosting me on the metro or crazies or crazies in ridiculous headphones.  And I realize, oh yea, I used to live and ride public transportation in a large urban area.  And one upside to starting your days on a crowded train smashed crotch-to-butt and face-to-ponytail against smelly strangers is that you got a lot of funny stories out of it.  And my lack of funny stories is probably due to the fact that I now spend my days dispensing breast milk and monitoring my child’s bowel movements.  I am living the dream.  (And believe it or not, I do mean that in all seriousness.)

But– EXCITING NEWS Y’ALL– today we made it out of the house and ran three (3) errands.  One of which was picking up a book from the library which even in boring Pennsylvania never fails to disappoint.  One day back a few months ago I was working from the library and some yahoo approached me and asked if he could borrow my laptop.  WHATTA? No? IT’S THE LIBRARY.  Home of The People’s Computer.  GO AWAY.  Except I said it in a polite way, I promise.

So I huff into the library, car seat in tow.  By the way, I hate that stinking car seat.  But less than I hate the stroller, so I usually end up carrying it.  The car seat is light.  The baby is light.  How is that combining the two makes it weigh 65 pounds? I’m working on getting more fluent with his wrap.  Anyway, in we go and there is a couple in some kind of lover’s quarrel right in front of the circulation desk.  The chick is obviously really angry and the guy keeps pleading, “Please just let me walk you home! Please just let me walk you home!”.  I took my sweet old time retrieving my book from the hold shelf so I could watch this unfurl, because, like I said, this is probably the most exciting thing that will happen to me all month and I was BUSTING OUT MY POPCORN.  Then she asked the librarian to use their phone, and I sort of lost the story from here, but I caught her saying something about a letter this guy had gotten.  I have seen enough reality TV to know that anything involving letters usually indicates a critically high level of craziness.

I further lost the story when I had to go up to the help desk cause I was having issues with the self checkout machine thing.  As the kind librarian pointed out to me, I had been scanning the wrong bar code.  I was scanning the actual bar code on the book itself instead of the library bar code sticker.  I was SO EMBARRASSED.  So much cluelessness. SO MUCH.

Then that night I went home and I placed a call on my cell phone, except I was holding the baby monitor in my other hand, and I brought the baby monitor up to my ear instead of the phone.  Then this morning I came perilously close to pouring coffee onto my lidded cup before I caught myself at the last minute and removed the lid.  I think I’ll stick with blaming hormones for my stoopidity.

Uhh, OK, that’s all I have for now.  Sorry it sucks so much.

Just So You Know

This happened today: I pointed the remote for the car at the house’s front door and hit the unlock button.  Yep.  Not made up.

Deep Thoughts

Someday, on a slow news kind of someday, I may write in-depth about a few items that have been game changers in the kitchen.  (Until then, I can only assume you will pine, yearn, hunger, thirst, burn in anticipation.)

Probably the biggest thing in this category was our nice cutlery set.  In our pre-marital days, all slicing and dicing was performed by one (1) paring knife.  It was a hearty and intrepid little guy, but chopping anything with it was kind of like chop………. chop……chop…… choppy chop…… choppity……chop……. I give up let’s get Chinese.

Now I have a cornucopia of bad ass cutlery at my disposal so chopping is more like CHOPOPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP and I won’t lie to you and say I’ve never pretended in my mind that I was being filmed for a cooking show.

The dark side to this, and I was sharing this with someone over the weekend but I can’t remember who, so I apologize if you’re hearing this bad story a second time, is that I stare in amazement at these knives, then take an honest look at my own levels of personal clumsiness, and I get kind of terrified.

God willing, I have some years left in me, is it really possible that I will live out the rest of my life without encountering a chopping disaster that will result in the loss of a finger(s)? You guys, this is honestly a concern.  I just keep looking at these statistics and the picture is not pretty.

Historical incidents which are cause for concern:

• The time I lost half my finger nail peeling an avocado with a potato peeler (apparently this is not a widely accepted technique for avocado handling)
• The time I managed to stab myself on the little head of hair on a shallot.  Did you know that stuff was sharp?!  That happened tonight and was the inspiration for this ridiculous material.  BLAME THE SHALLOT.

Incidents in my favor:

• Successful operation of a Dairy Queen Blizzard machine in an occupational setting, years 2002-2003.
• That’s all
• The list is short but impressive.  Those Blizzard machines are fierce.

We’ll see.  UMM I’ll stop for tonight.  Probably best.  The end!

Awkward Commuting Moments Chapter 31096

(Chapter 31095)

Preface: Allow me to introduce you to the tastiest, yummiest salad and the easiest meal ever.  I am a total sucker for all those links proffering “Weeknight Meals in 20 Minutes!” blah blah blah Rachel Ray blah blah.  And then you click it, and all the recipes start with “Preheat oven to…” and “In a large skillet…”.  NO.  Heating things=cooking things=400 things to clean.  Which is all well and good if cooking a nice dinner is the one extracurricular activity you planned for the evening, but if you’re interested in doing anything else with your time away from work, I require recipes that are more along the lines of combine-this-and-this-and-ta-da-you’re-done-collect-100-gold-star-wife-points. 

Which is what this salads is! It is an exact replica of the Santorini salad from Sweet Green, which is one of the most delicious things in the universe, but, you know, prohibitively expensive for regular consumption.

The picture looks like dog barf but I swear it’s really good:

Here is the formula: Romaine+garbanzos+grapes+feta+shrimp+splash of lemon juice+Gazebo Room or whatever greek-ish dressing you have access to.  BAM.  The shrimpies were just the pre-spiced, pre-cooked ones from the cooler at the store.  I guess it would be more laborious if you had to cook the shrimp.

Okay… Now… My commuting problem.

We had a little left over so I brought it in to eat at work today.  (Gold star frugal wifey WOO!).  I got around to eating it at like 3:00, so by the time I was rushing out the door at 5:10, the empty tupperware was still on my desk.  I was in a super rush to make the 5:30 bus, so ended up just putting the lid back on the tupperware and throwing the whole thing in my purse and running out the door.  Why didn’t I make my way to the office kitchen at 5:08 so I could rinse and dry it before departing? I don’t have the answer to this question.  It’s probably the same reason that I, once again, was sprinting after the bus this morning like a wild woman because I cannot get my mess of a self to the corner at the proper time.  Jeff is dumbfounded as to why I can’t wake up 60 seconds earlier so I don’t keep missing the bus by 10 seconds. It seems so simple, doesn’t it?

I had one of those foreshadowing moments of clarity as I was carelessly tossing the tupperware into my bag.  Because from past experience I do know you cannot trust anything in a purse no matter how well you think it’s secured.  I swear I’m just walking around with this thing over my shoulder at 2 miles per hour, I really don’t know where these crazy forces of physics and nature are coming from that turn my bag into a vessel of absolute destruction.  You leave the office with everything perfectly nestled in the little compartments, and 30 minutes later it’s: Headphones? Crushed.  Sunglasses? Dismembered.  Wallet? Has inverted itself and dumped $8.54 in pennies into the purse abyss.   Cell phone? It’s unlocked itself and is dialing someone who lived on your floor freshman year who is inexplicably still saved in your contacts 9 years later. 

So as I’m looking at this tupperware with about 3/4 tablespoon of dressing residue swirling around the bottom, I’m very clearly saying in my head: Self….. seeeelf? This is not a good idea, self.  Come on.  Go be a good girl and rinse this thing out.  BUT NO! I thought of my embarrassing morning moment and reminded myself that saving 60 seconds and catching the preferred bus would get me home 20 minutes earlier. 

I was about 3 minutes into my commute when I noticed a slight liquidy sheen on my wallet as I swiped through the metro turnstile.  Yep.  Somehow, someway, the bond of bowl-to-lid had been compromised.  Odd, because it was intact upon inspection!  ONCE AGAIN… mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle of the Handbag.

And here is where the fun starts.  One warning about my knock-off Sweet Green salad: SHRIMP-JUICE-RESIDUE-STUFF IS SMELLY.  Like, WAY smelly.  I’m not exaggerating.  I wasn’t noticing it “only because I was looking for it.”    I was most certainly aboard the train with a very strong fish stench wafting from my general direction.  Lolololololol MORTIFYING.

It was kind of one of those moments where I was like… Is this going to be more awkward if I bring this up and explain it to the person next to me?  (I decided yes, yes that would be more awkward).  So now I feel like I need to post, like, a reverse missed connection on Craigslist:

M/F4W: Girl on Metro Who Stank Like Seafood.  I promise there is a very real explanation for my fruits-of-the-sea odor and it is unrelated to any personal hygiene deficiencies.  CALL ME! 

Photo Dump: Outgoing Blackberry Edition

We’re switching over to new Blackberries at work tomorrow (Holla) so I had to pull off the few photos that were saved onto my current device.  Its memory maxed out at, like, 7 of them so I’m hoping our upgrade might offer more storage in that department.  It’s very frustrating to not be able to photograph a magical, fleeting moment because of the darned “File System Full” error…

So without further a-doo-doo…

Big Choochin, spendin’ Gs, it’s just that jigga man Chooch and…. AHEM HEM I’m stopping I’m stopping. 

Chooch’s favorite activity is lounging on the bed and snatching things off our night stands when we’re distracted while getting ready in the mornings.  I actually think he is being belligerent because he knows showers+hair dryers+closets opening=Impending Abandonment.  Poor baby.  Breaks my heart.

Umm, see what I mean…

I probably should have stopped him here but I was too busy cracking up! love his little eyebrows stuck on the rim. 

This was me as “Panda Claws” at the Zoo back over Christmas…. a proud moment.

Oh hai…. Just reading a text book….. with my blinged out headphones….. Don’t hate the player hate the game. 

Where do you GET headphones like this!? I can only assume they are the result of these things mating…

OH and to make matters worse… I was standing immediately over this guy on the metro and of course was trying to discretely take this picture… I guess I had some stupid “loud” profile enabled, because when I pressed the button it made the little ker-CHUNK! fake shutter sound.  OMG I was mortified and thought this gangster was going to turn around, narrow his eyes, and take me down to Chinatown.  I mean normally you wouldn’t fear that from a gentleman of his demographic but WITH THOSE HEADPHONES WHO KNOWS.  Guy is NOT messing around.

OK one last dumb story that I just have to document for eternity.  UMM remember, like, yesterday when I acknowledged that it was probably irrational for me to fear the blender? (If I didn’t believe it to be irrational then, the act of typing in “…for me to fear the blender?” just sealed the deal).  Dudes I can’t help, the thing is so loud and powerful it sounds like a freaking Airbus in engine distress and all I can think is that it’s going to explode, or take off, or attack me, or just combust in some way.  So to make another Home Alone reference, blender=terrorizing, bullying furnace.  ANYWAY apparently it was not in fact irrational, and was actually a deep, subconscious self-defense mechanism, cause today…………JEFFREY EARMUFFS……….. I freaking turned the blender on WITH A SPOON IN IT.  I thought I was gonna die. 

I’m happy to report that all involved in the incident (appliance, utensil, and moronic human operator) survived unscathed.  A good fortune I most certainly do not deserve.

Sunday

Hi! Afraid there’s no earth shattering excitement to report on today. Had a great weekend full of yoga and gathered buddies, and now settling in for a nice little Sunday night that will hopefully involve a Julia Roberts or Reese Witherspoon movie on TBS.  I love when the chick flicks come out to play on weekends! Yoga-wise, we had a ridiculously awesome guest instructor on anatomy.  She is even teaching a special workshop on gait which I will be trying my best to attend.  Seriously, why am I such a crappy walker?! Today I tripped and had an epic wipe out– like, it flung my sunglasses off and I laid there pathetically for a second moaning and being buried under all the bags I was hauling.  Mercifully, it went un-witnessed (seriously, I owe you HUGE for that, God ::fist bump::).  So I now have my first genuine skinned knee since I was like 10.  Hot.  Anyhoo… off I go in pursuit of said television programming… and to hopefully enjoy a few final hours before a crazy few days at work coming up! Have a happy week, y’all!

Go Away, Cold….NOBODY LIKES YOU AND YOU SMELL!

People.  It was approximately 14 degrees outside today.  Labor Day is depressing enough, but at least I can always remind myself that although summer is over by the standards set forth by neighborhood pools everywhere, meteorologically I can still look forward to a few more weeks of hot weather before the Gregorian Calendar crushes my dreams and the Autumnal Equinox rears its ugly, ugly head.  Which, coincidentally, the universe decided would be my birthday.  Cruel irony!

Seriously.  Here I am, 2 days post vacation, my tan-level at its annual peak, and last night I was all waaa wooww… back to work tomorrow… but hark! My cute-aqua-and-navy-blue-only-the-finest-from-Target-sundress is clean! Things are looking up! And then went outside at 7:00 with Chooch only to be met with a friggin’ Arctic blast.  And a neighbor who said “Yea, it’s not supposed to get any warmer than this today.”

So, suddenly this snuggly long-sleeved cardigan also laying in the clean laundry pile was looking more inviting.  I ended up wearing it and PANTS today.  PANTS! I hate pants.  I have one pair of work pants that I got only for days when it is literally, and not figuratively, 14 degrees outside.  I definitely haven’t worn them since Memorial Day.  BAH!

But in the interests of trying to cheer myself up about the impending cold weather, here are a few things I could think of that are OKAY about fall and winter. 

• Jeans! I don’t like work pants but who doesn’t love jeans?! AMERICA HATERS, that’s who!
• Sweaters and Hoodies. Chunky turtlenecks, cable knit…. purr.  And hoodies! I have 3 which is 2 more than I need (my college, little sister’s college, and… uhh… sorority letters), but geez do I love snuggling up in PJ pants and a hoodie in the winter.  And speaking of college and hoodies, part of my attraction to them is probably all the comfort they brought me when the weather turned cold my second semester of freshman year and nothing else fit my portly self.  Thanks for having my back, hoodies!
• Jeff in a Sweater. Sorry.  Has to be said.  It’s adorable.  And when he rocks the khakis/dress shirt/tie/sweater-on-top combo on Casual Friday? Meow!
• Cold Weather Shoes and Accessories.  Boots of all kinds (love), scarves (double love), snuggly little knit hats, MITTENS…. swoon!
• High School Football.  We lived a quarter mile away from a high school for 2 years and despite me saying every 4 seconds “I want to go to a high school football game!!!” I never planned the date.  I’ll make it happen this year.  One of the few things I really liked about high school.
• Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentines, Lent…  Cold months are a powerhouse of awesome holidays!
• Snoooww Dayys!!! What’s better than snow days? Oh… wait… I got this… NOTHING!
• American Idol.  DUH!
• The Pennsylvania Farm Show.  Bird calling competition, cow milking contests, hundreds of adorable piggies, and the yummiest milkshakes known to humankind? Uhh, yes please!
• The Fireplace When It’s Snowing Outside.  Life is perfect in that moment.
• Many Months Till You Have to Put a Swimsuit on Again.  BRING ON THE EGGNOG!

***

 Unrelated but just something I wanted to document.  Today I was eating a spinach salad (PHOOEY ON YOU, vacation detox!) and I guess got a little voracious (didn’t know that was possible with a barf-tastic spinach salad) and I freaking BIT a tine off my plastic fork.  Oh my gosh.  Traumatizing.  OK that’s all.

Blurbs

Terrible habit #509234 of mine: writing down extremely abbreviated abbreviations and then having no clue what the heck I am supposed to remember.  (Also see: putting important things in super secret awesome hiding places, never to be found again).  I taped this note to my monitor at work the other day…

Plunk? Pluck? PMK? It was 3 days before I figured out what it was again.  I REALLY need to quit doing this.  The other month I made a note that said “C 22,” and again, couldn’t figure it out for a while, then realized it meant I was supposed to tell someone (whose name started with a C) that we had 22 people for a meeting.  I was like “SERIOUSLY, past Sarah?!!?” Ugh!

Pinterest.  There really, really, REALLY needs to be some sort of “block wedding” feature.  The sheer volume of wedding gorgeousness……. it’s… I mean…. there are….. WORDS ESCAPE ME.  Pure torture that I no longer have one to plan.  How short of time is socially acceptable before we can renew our vows?!

Unfortunate Name for a Person in Broadcasting.  We caught this guy on the local news the other day…

Yea, as in “I can molest Tina”.  I thought producers changed stuff like that?!

Here’s Your Sign.  The other day I called a place and asked for a person that worked there.  A front desk person picked up and I said “Hi, is ______ there?” And she said, “Yes, would you like me to transfer you?”…”Uhh… yes?” WTF? No, I’m planning their surprise party, just curious if they were at their desks! Or: no, I since decided I want to talk to you instead! Hello! NOW, I gave this person the benefit of the doubt, because Lord KNOWS I’ve done my share of fumbling while fielding calls, but I called back again and the same exchange happened! As in, they must be trained to offer this response!?

Her name was Lola… So, my office building has a lobby with cavernous ceilings, such that there is some serious echo/amplification acoustics going on.  Like, conversations and sounds travel really well and loudly.  The other day as I was leaving, it was quiet but for a person whistling “Copa Cabana.”  It was loud.  And funny.  That is all.

A Really Long Post About How I Made Jumbo Scrabble Tiles. Yep.

DUDES.  The most X-TREME project yet.  Brace yourselves for some… JUMBO SCRABBLE TILES! (I know! Extreme! Just stop now if you can’t handle the intensity!)

I undertook this as part of another Pinterest challenge, this time sponsored by the very talented chicks at Better Life Bags.  Seriously I’m loving these challenges! introducing an element of competition makes me so much more productive! Why aren’t there challenges for cleaning the house or scheduling dental appointments or getting my lazy patooty out of bed in the morning and jogging?! I would suck at life a lot less!

So, this Scrabble stuff seems to be all over the place lately, so I am not sure if it’s en vogue or if it’s already passed its peak.  Since I’m just now noticing I’m guessing it’s the latter.  Whatevs.  Here were the original jumbo tiles that piqued my interest…

Adorable! I had been looking around for something to put over the doorway in the kitchen and thus this idea was born.  Instead of individually mounting the letters (which sounded like a pain), I decided to fashion a ledge sort of thing to just rest them on top of.  I also modified the look in general so it’s more “inspired” by the picture above than a replica. 

To start at the beginning.  I mentioned a few posts back that Jeff and I had been at a wedding last week.  The Maid of Honor, in her toast, mentioned something that really stuck with me for whatever reason.  Her advice to the couple, as a married person herself, was to always remember that you had married a person you loved.  Anytime you were angry or frustrated or irritated, she said remember that you loved and chose that person, and that would soften your feelings.  Allegedly.  It sounds so unbelievably simple and obvious, but it really struck me as a sweet reflection! So, I toyed with a bunch of different things to spell with my little tiles, but settled on I-L-O-V-E-U.  Easy as that   Sorry that I have induced nausea here.  Enough of the mushy stuff and on to… CARPENTRY!

Measure. I mocked it up on newspaper to see if the size worked in the space. 

I measured the length (it was 25″), then subtracted a few inches to account for some space between the tiles and the edges of the ledge.  The remaining length I divided by the number of letters, and measured those increments.

Whoops! Started over with fresh newspaper when I realized my little catch phrase has 6 letters, not 5.  This step optional for non-morons

Ahh better.  Actually I’m going to flip this over so that child isn’t starting at me.

There we go.

Looks good! Not sure all of this step was totally necessary, but since I am not the most spatially intelligent person (like that time I thought “I love u” was 5 letters) it helped me visualize everything.

My final measurements ended up looking like this. And the ledge-thingy is less tricky, just a sliver cut out of the board.

Procure/Cut Lumber.  I went to Home Depot and got a plank of something called Red Oak… which looked pretty close to Scrabble color.  (Google tells me Milton Bradley uses Vermont Oak… fun fact). 

I traced the measurements onto the board and it was time to cut!  Oh, I will mention this for the good of the order- Home Depot does NOT make cuts less than 12″.  Neither do a bunch of other places I called.  So I, in my moronic glory, tried to do this on our back deck with a handsaw.  Not advised.  I just kept thinking “If what’s-his-face from 127 Hours can cut his humerus with a swiss army knife, by God I can cut these tiles myself!” Umm, no.  Not exactly precise enough for our purposes.

  

So, I admitted failure and had to ask for help.  My girlfriend Ashley volunteered her husband’s assistance and reciprocating saw to get this thing cut.  They came over and he cut the wood in my kitchen (since it just HAD to downpour at that time), and in exchange they left their sweet toddler with me and enjoyed a nice date night Thanks you two!

The devastation.

They’re cut! (Needed sanded after too).  And bonus Chooch/Kiddie cameo!

Stencil.  I picked up some stenciling paper from Utrecht.  Oh man I LOVE Utrecht.  Sorry, this is already getting ridiculously long so I’ll save my art store love tangent for another time! I got this stuff…

So, allegedly it was supposed to be ink-jet friendly but mine turned out a hot mess.  It printed fine but the ink wouldn’t dry and it was all over the place.  So instead, I printed on normal paper, cut out the letters, traced onto the stencil paper, and cut out the letters again.  Yea this step was a pain and I’m sure there was a smarter way I could have done it.  Next time. 

Oh, and for the text, I used Arial Narrow for the letters and David for the numbers (size 260 and 100 respectively).  Google believes the font used on actual tiles is a variant of News Gothic, but I’m limited to whatever Word has Oh and just plain black acyrlic paint for this.

Other dumb things I did during this step:

1) Had to start over on the numbers and the L when I realized I had transcribed the letters on the wrong side of the paper (such that when you turned them sticky-side down the letters were backwards)
2) Accidentally put the 4 number on the U letter (it goes on the V)
3) The fan I propped up to dry the paint toppled over and took a cup of OJ with it, spraying it all over the place (I really tried to clean all of it but I’m guessing word has already spread among neighborhood ants) and
4) Completely forgot to paint one of the numbers.  

Yea, my life is pretty much one big face palm.  Last step… hold your breath and pray they turned out!

 

WAH! Cute! A spray of sealer for good measure and we’re done here!

I love them! Worth the suffering! I will say they are perfect for where they are positioned.  Close-up, you can tell it was a hand-stenciled operation (the 4 on the V is particularly gnarly), so I’d be hesitant to display them closer to eye level.  But they are great above the doorway, which is where I needed to stick something anyway. 

As for the mounting- right now the ledge is just resting (somewhat precariously) on two long nails.  I plan to later drill holes into the ledge and hang them a little more firmly on the nails.  But the drill was acting up and I’m retiring for the night.

Gold medal if you made it all the way to the bottom of this! My parents and aunt and uncle are in town this weekend (Go Phillies!) so I’ll catch you next week!