I painted today. I’m so tired and sore I could cry. We need to eat but I can’t move. Jared left for a meeting. Help! Someone bring us food! I have to say though, the hallway looks so good. I didn’t realize how gross it was until I started painting it. Ahhh, accomplishment. It numbs the ache a little.

Seeing others as God sees them. Is it even possible?

This Santa is sad!

Eye of the Tiger is back (turn up the volume)

I was sick of being at home, so I came up with a plan. I took the recycling in, planning to use it for lunch but it was only $10…duh. So I’ll just give the coupon to our family project. Anyway, then I told the kids we could go to the BK in Fillmore with a big playground that they always ask about whenever we’ve driven by. So we spent about an hour at BK where the kids had a blast and then on the way back we stopped at a new furniture store I heard about with pretty good prices. On the way to drop my mom off (she came along to give me adult company) Riley (5) says, “We never do anything fun.” I wanted to scream. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Ok, so I guess I can mess up the pre-mix sugar cookies. In my defense the packaging is misleading. On the front they show pictures of pretty cut out cookies…just what I wanted to make. So I mixed em up noticing it was awfully goopy. How are you supposed to roll these out? I thought. Then I look on the back…there on the bottom in a little box “Special instructions for cut-out cookies”. Duh. Why would I NOT want to make cut out cookies? So I have some gloopy drop sugar cookies, then I added some flour and made a few cut-out ones. The main thing is, I’m done. The cooking for this year is over. As far as the “candy” goes. I melted some chocolate, spread it over the peanut butter, froze it, then flipped it. The “candy” part is still a white goopy mess. With the addition of the chocolate it is cutable and sooooo sweet- but goopy. Anyone want to come over and try it? Be my guest, Dan. It will be in the bin tomorrow.

I am admitedly not a cook. I don’t really enjoy it. It takes a lot of work, a lot of clean up and a lot of money if you want to make something good. But the crappy part is that there are no guarantees. You can follow a recipe word for word and make something that is as far from the projected outcome as can be. I was tring to be a holiday mom. I started with something easy…Rice Krispy Squares. No problem. Then I jumped into something more difficult. I had to cook the sugar into a candy like substance. I had a candy thermometer. I found out later it didn’t work. The first batch was coming along, then suddenly it reeked and was smoking. I chose to ignore the smoke. Maybe it is supposed to do that. After mixing it with the eggs. Not so much. After soaking the burned candy goop off of my pans and bowls, I was not daunted. I would begin again. Somewhere after “soft ball” on the theremometer, I realized it was not working. I grabbed what I think is actually a meat thermometer, and put in my mixture…It shot past the other by about 80 degrees. I panicked. Should I cook it a little longer? Should I stop. I decided to err on the side of caution. At least it wouldn’t be burnt. Well, it didn’t get hard. Should I throw it away? NO! I now am putting chocolate on the top and will attempt to flip it when it gets solid. I have created a new form of chocolate peanut butter candy. Taste remains to be tested. Ah well, on to the packaged sugar cookies. I can’t screw those up. Can I? By the way, I did manage to make some smashing “Daquiri Balls”. No actual cooking involved.

I don’t remember being insecure when I was younger. I think I have insecurity issues that were supressed and now when I think my kids are being picked on, I personlize it- that I did something to make it happen. It is so stupid and it always is proven wrong. I take things out of context or that they aren’t even directed towards me at all. They are so secure in who they are why must I ruin it by dwelling on imaginary things? Ramble Ramble.

Well, I didn’t have time to get the study “cheats” as Nathan suggested. I had to take it today at 12:15. So, off I went feeling very excited. I haven’t taken an academic class since right out of high school. The test turned out to be not so bad. I knew the stuff…a lot because I had been teaching it the last 4 months. The only things I couldn’t remember how to do was the square root stuff and the graphing equeations. I always struggled with the graphing in high school. The thing I did best on was word problems…who knows…I never would have guessed that one! The thing I don’t really get is the scoring. Out of 50 problems you only need 25 correct to get into the Intermediate Algebra class. Isn’t that an F? So I got a 33. I’m happy. I knew there were 9 that I totally did not know and only tried one of them, so that means there were only 9 that I actually missed. Anyway, off to math class, and tennis I go!