The Answer - Sen10r Year Edition!

The doorbell rings...

of course the dogs go crazy barking...

we live on a culdesac, so that is really bad for ding dong and ditching...

but luckily for any heathens seeking revenge, they get a huge running head start on us because because we have to put the dogs up, before we open the door.

Why we don't just allow the eating alive of potential heathens? Because sometimes it is actually a nice neighbor, and apparently the ol' saying "it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission" doesn't apply with big bad scary dogs AT ALL!

Too bad, because we could actually have fun with it... if anyone ever figured out what sweet fuzzy pushovers they really are.

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So the scene...

A burning candle and a box of Cocoa Puffs...

It's obviously for the teenager...

Yep, It looks suspicious...

Hmmm....

There is a note...

It's encrypted...

Okay now every one's curiosity is peaking...

Let's put our skills together.

Ha Ha! The Strong Silent Mysterious man walks back through the clues...

There has to be something he missed?

So while the teenager tries to decode the message...

The "Old Man" continues to search for more clues...

The teenager comes back on the scene...

after every piece of evidence had been ripped through.

He confirmed the Chinese character indeed says

"YES"

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As for the burning candle... well it was a Catholic candle "Prayer to the Holy Spirit" and from what we have learned so far, it is the Prayer of St. Augustine;

to help reveal to the soul the mysteries of heavenly things;

to give an answer to those things which have been asked through prayer.

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So there you go... the answer revealed... a very happy teenager!

Blackberry Pie...

Yesterday My Strong Silent Mysterious Man (bless his heart) got one of these from his job...

A Blackberry!

For just about anyone else... you would immediately think UPGRADE, sweet!!

But for him, stress would be the first word that came to my mind.

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He was excited for one feature it has... voice activation!

That will totally save his life!

(not having to find, read or punch those tiny little buttons with his big ol' paws)

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I first had to tease him when he was telling me all the cool things it will do... I said "Well that's great, I hope it can makes you dinner too"! I just couldn't hold back my sarcastic tongue. He knew I was only joking, and we can already laugh about the dinner drama, so it's all good in paradise.

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Needless to say, the teenager and I are pretty green with envy, but Jim seems like he is very determined to learn and know how to use this to the best of his advantage to make his job easier. I had to laugh when he brought it home though... he had only learned how to tell it "find google" and proceeded to show me that.... Google sure enough came up on the screen, but he didn't know how to get it to do anything else, like actually search for a business or anything... so funny. So when we were all separated last night going to mutual and scouts etc. we never could reach him after that... apparently google was just one step before figuring out how to answer it. Ha ha LOL!

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Technology is only as good as the one who is using it.

Yep, I hope it can at least make him a blackberry pie!

Dinner for One...

I do have issues with "dinner"... it has become this topic that tends to put me into the pressure cooker of emotions!

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I try to be organized in the kitchen and have a plan. I try and have a menu before I go shopping; and then try to have meals for my boys every night, because I really believe it makes a difference in our family when we sit and eat meals together at home. I am not great at it, but I really try.

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I know this sounds crazy, and it should probably be an easy part of my duties as Mom and wife... but there are allot of the things that have lead up to my "dinner breakdowns".

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I had a church meeting scheduled this afternoon and I knew it might run into dinner time a little, and I hadn't planned ahead far enough to get meat thawed out to make the meatloaf dinner I wanted to; so before my meeting started I threw in 3 sweet potatoes in the oven to bake for an hour and I had a yummy brown sugar turkey kielbasa recipe I wanted to try out... so I thought if the potatoes were in I could throw together a salad while the meat cooked and pull together a meal for my boys! It's a plan, I am all set... so one would think.

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I knew I might be taking a little tiny chance with the Strong Silent Mysterious Man by buying TURKEY kielbasa, but hey, he has switched over to turkey pepperoni now on our homemade pizza's, and I even made ground turkey in tacos once and he agreed to deal with it, so we could try and be a little healthier. So turkey kielbasa wasn't really a huge stretch from there.

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So as soon as I could get dinner going, they were hoovering and asking THE BIG QUESTION... "what's for dinner?"

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Much to my surprise the dinner discussion breakdown didn't end up being over the turkey kielbasa, it was over the sweet potatoes! My strong silent mysterious man doesn't like sweet potatoes??? REALLY?? We went all the way to the part where he asked ME "how long have we been married, and how many sweet potatoes have you seen me eat?".

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Okay now I am a loser mom/wife not only because I can't seem to get dinner on the table for my boys, but because I have been married for almost 18 years and didn't know my husband doesn't like sweet potatoes!! CAPITAL "L"!

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That wasn't the worst part, the worse part is that they actually left and went and got fast food for dinner! I KNOW!!

So I took my sweet potato and turkey and salad and ate my dinner for one.

In their defense they did come home and offer to share their meals with me.... they were nice about the whole entire thing, they really were, it could have gone much worse.

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But going forward, how does one recover from this?

I like to try new things, I am trying to make healthier choices for me and for US. My boys could eat a can of Nalley's chili literally EVERY night of the week. But I just can't go there! I have too much to do in a day to make two or three meals. I don't feel like a good Mom letting my family eat a can of chili. They are fine fixing for themselves, but how do I be everything I need and want to be (good Mom, good Wife, thinner healthier me) going in this direction?

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I don't know, it was a day I felt like I worked towards being all the things I aspired to be, and then got kicked in the stomach! I will have to sleep on this one.