The Mom Thing...

I constantly feel that I am woefully unequipped for motherhood.  You would think I'd have it down by now.  

I have a messy house, live in the shadow of a laundry pile, and have a perpetually empty fridge.  I feel like I work way to hard to have so many loose ends.  I can't leave the house with out forgetting something or everything. 

Other moms seem to have it together.  My friend A has a five year old and three year old twins (twins!) and she works all day at the craziest job ever and her husband travels a lot and SHE manages.   Why can't I get it? 

Life was much easier when I went to work everyday.  This stay-at-home mom stuff is for the birds!

That Cake...

Andy and I are training for a 10k in March.  We're trying to eat reasonably.  That didn't stop us from finishing the birthday cake.

I made butter cream frosting for the first time.  I thought it would be enough to ice the cake and do some piping too.  It was not.  Two sticks of butter and 1/2 cup of shortening did not make enough icing to decorate with.  The frosting was tasty though.



I've been the anti-grocery-shopper lately.  The whole week of Snowmageddon, we survived on my sparse pantry and now I'm at it again.  Yesterday, I made this amazingly healthy dish that I surprisingly had all of the ingredients for.  (Why, you ask, do I have Kielbasa on hand? It was a BOGO at Kroger when I was making some black bean and sausage dish from Martha Stewart. Really good.  Really. Anyway, I figured it keeps for ever so maybe I would use the second one someday.  Today was that day.)  Eating reasonably, what?  Beside the fact that it was totally unhealthy, it was quite good.  I'm pretty sure Andy helped himself to thirds.

 Does anyone else make a huge mess in the kitchen? I'm usually pretty organized and keep stuff on the counters to a minimum and wash dishes as I go but I'm super messy.  Yesterday was worse than usual.  This is our kitchen, post mac and cheese. I was a disorganized mess. When dumping the cooked sausage into the mac and cheese, I dropped several greasy sausage pieces on the floor.  I burned all kinds of crap to the cook top.  (Don't get me started on hating the cook top. )  My apparently cracked measuring cup leaked milk all over the counter. Cleaning up was not fun. 

Cake

The in-laws are coming.  Tomorrow.  Yay!  I actually love my in-laws, they're really super fantastic people.  I couldn't have asked for a better family to marry in to.  They have their quirks like any family but, wow, I got lucky - a fantastic husband who has fantastic parents that make fantastic grandparents.

So, those "quirks".  Kathy is persnickety.  I think that's why I like her so much.  We're both persnickety.  Anyway, she gives the best gifts.  They're always good and always surprises (Mark insists on surprises).  Our birthdays also happen to be five days apart and next week.  I was so tickled when I found the perfect gift on a post Christmas Homegoods clearance.  I then ordered a perfect accompaniment to the perfect gift on Amazon.com.  BUT, thanks to Snowmageddon, UPS, and the US Mail for that matter, have not delivered to us in a week.  A WEEK!  So much for two day shipping.    Here's to hoping my packages come today.  Andy and I counted.  We have some 9 odd packages on their way to us, apparently via the Oregon Trail.

To make up for my half gift failure which was no fault of my own, I was going to head to my favorite bakery and buy her a birthday cake.  After about an hour of reading their long list of cakes and going back and forth between my favorite options, I decided that the four of us really don't need 30lbs of cake.  Not to mention that I don't need to spend $35 on a cake.

So, I baked a cake.  From a box.  It just didn't seem to rise like I hoped and the two layers stacked on top of each other looked pathetic. So, like any reasonable person would do, I baked another cake. From another box.  Chocolate. It looks better.  However, now in the works, is a massive four layer cake.

Excuse my food photography... needs work.

In order to finish cake-zilla, a trip to Publix is in order.  We need groceries so bad that Andy and I actually ate the uneven vanilla cake top for breakfast.  How pathetic is that?  It's freak snow storms like these that make me wish I was better at stocking up on frozen foods or really any foods.  Maybe I'll be a grown-up someday?

Snowmageddon 2011: So Over It

Atlanta is an ice skating rink. STILL.  (Yes, I am yelling.) FOUR DAYS LATER.  I'm sitting in the living room, in my pajamas, watching cars slide down our street as our desperate neighbors make fleeting attempts at freedom.  Don't get me wrong, if it wasn't for K and my responsibility to her, I would so be out there.  I have all wheel drive, after all.  Shouldn't I use it on the one occasion it has been warranted in the last three years of using way too much gas for no good reason?

GET ME OUT! 

The self employed and the retired being good neighbors.

Sleep

Not going to do it.  Just don't want to. You can't make me.  

My Very Own Sewing Machine!

I'm really excited.  Next week I start Intro to Sewing at Whipstitch - this way trendy sewing store on the Westside.  Have I mentioned that I love living on the Westside? When we left it was just becoming cool... in the past three years, it has become way cool.  Anyway, back on topic.  I've been sewing a bit with Kathy's old Kenmore that she got way back in 1978. 

Her machine looks just like this one... I'm too lazy to take a photo myself since it's dark and rainy and getting good lighting will be a challenge.  Photo courtesy of http://possumjimandelizabeth.com/

It's a great old machine.  Works really well, as far as I can tell.  However, I don't have all of the pieces and I eventually need to return it to her anyway.  So I decided that I should buy my very own sewing machine before I start class! 
Seriously, did you know how hard it is to choose a sewing machine?  Apparently simplicity is over-rated when it comes to the modern versions.  After an agonizing morning reading reviews and an informative call to Whipstitch, I made my decision.   Here she is:

She is the Brother CE-5000 PRW. The PRW stands for Project Runway.  I was a little leery of buying a machine associated with the show, it seemed gimmicky but I went with it.  I was mesmerizer by its snazzy features.  Fifty built in stitches!  Fifty!  (I think Kathy's has straight and zig-zag but I can't really get zig-zag to work.)  It's also a Consumer's Digest Best Buy.  I found mine refurbished on overstock.com for a great price and I had a 10% off coupon.  She will be here in 5 to 10 business days... Lets hope for closer to 5 or I will have to start class with the Kenmore after all.

Where to Start?

I've been a stay-at-home mom for about five months now.  It's been quite a whirlwind.  They say having a baby changes everything and, well, that pretty much sums it up.  Everything was different once K arrived - California just didn't feel quite right anymore (not that it was ever really home).

I quit my job as an engineer in the public works department of the City of Indio, Andy packed up i85Media, Inc. and we moved back to Atlanta and back into our aging townhome that we weren't able to sell back when we left for California in 2007.

Returning to Atlanta in the fall has been glorious. It reminds me of fall 2002 when I first came to Atlanta as a freshman at Georgia Tech.  So much has changed in the past eight years!  It's been great to reconnect with old friends and explore all that's new and exciting in Atlanta (more on that in a future post).

Anyway, we've finally settled in to a manageable routine! Yay! Having new-found freedom during nap time and increased mobility since a 5 month old is easier  (read: less scary) to transport than a newborn,  I'm ready for a hobby!  I've never really had  In my search for a hobby, I realized a few things... 

1. That all of the cool moms have blogs.  So, clearly, I need a blog. 
2. Everyone who has a blog has such pretty stuff, maybe blogging will make me see my stuff in a prettier light? 
3. For all of my dreaming about a hobby, I still don't know what I want my hobby to be. I have a few ideas.  I'm going to try sewing, cooking, a bit of home improvement and decorating, maybe some photography and, by default, some writing.  I've never been a fan of writing, I prefer numbers but I'm going to give it a go!