One Woman’s World

That’s my answer to almost any question you could ask me today. I do. I know I do. I was born for days like this.

And if tomorrow’s anything like today, I’m moving to another country, and changing my name to Fred.

This morning I got up and grabbed my baby and took off to drive the Mormon sister missionaries around town for their preparation day activities. I didn’t get home from their errand day until around one o’clock.

At that point, I had to unload the piles of groceries I bought while waiting around for the missionaries to finish their shopping.

**Random inspirational moment in all this. When we got to the checkout, the sisters’ debit cards weren’t working. We suspect that they were delayed getting their mission funds installed. Anyways, they weren’t working, and the sisters didn’t know what to do, since their groceries were already all in the cart. We went to try to withdraw money from the ATM, and as we came back to the checkout line, the cashier was all choked up in tears. “Here’s your receipt,” she said, handing the sister a receipt as though she had already paid. “An anonymous customer donated today, and paid for your groceries. You can go.”

We were deeply moved. LDS missionaries give 1.5-2 years of their own time and their own money to support themselves to come on missions and serve God for that time. It was amazing to see someone just come out of nowhere and support their endeavor. What a blessing.

Anyway, I was with the sisters until 1:00 p.m. When I returned home with my car full of groceries, my husband happened to be home for lunch. So he helped me unload the groceries, and then he watched Bean while I edited bridal portraits for 45 minutes. Just before 1:30, the first of the five additional kids I was babysitting this afternoon arrived. I watched all of the kids all afternoon, during which time I also made 6 quarts of taco soup, 6 quarts of vegetable beef soup, 2 casseroles of funeral potatoes, 2 meals worth of taco meat, and later, 3 large pizzas. All of these foods are now filling my deep-freeze, in anticipation of the many nights that I don’t want to cook.

When the kids left, I finished up my meals, and cleaned up the mess from the whirlwind cooking fiesta. I cleaned until about 6:30, and then put my feet up for the first time today and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. With a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Everything But The… ice cream. If you haven’t tried it, and you like chocolate at all, you should.

At 7:30, my other friends dropped their daughter by so she can stay with me until Thursday while they fly to their new hometown and buy a house. I just put J and the Bean to bed. And now, more photo editing, then downstairs to put the beef soup in freezer containers, and put in a new crock pot of beans for tomorrow’s projects. Tomorrow is chicken day at the house of major cookery.

It’s the new plan… only cook for three days a month. I’ll let you know how it works out.

And I’m so tired that I can hardly stand up. When Cody gets home from reviewing a movie at 10:00 tonight, there’ll be a yummy dinner for him to eat 5 hours late, and a clean house, and a comatose wife. Oh… and that just gets us to 11:00 our time, when I get to tally the final winners for the Share The Love Blog Awards.

Sheesh! Hopefully I’ll sleep some, too.

Not the Amazing Bean, my friends, but to the amazing beans. Refried beans. No, it’s not a bizarre form of cannibalism to suggest that I love and adore beans.

This is a post for all those of you out there who typically eat Rosarita refried beans out of a can, and think… well… these aren’t as good as a restaurant’s refried beans, but they’re fast, and will do in a pinch.

Once you sample the heavenly delight of refried beans that you can eat by the spoonful, you’ll never, ever want to go back.

Here, in all its glory, is my mama’s recipe for the refried beans. Complete with the empanada recipe for the bean-and-cheese empanadas that showcases these beans at their best.

Mom’s Famous Refried Beans

6 cups dry pinto beans
Rinse in strainer, and remove any particles or rocks which may be in with the dry beans.
Put in 5-6 quart slow-cooker and fill with water. Cook overnight, or approximately 8 hours on high heat setting.

Mash (including some of the cooking liquid) in food-mill or food-processor, or……by hand if you have all the patience of Job.

Mix with:
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
½ tsp garlic powder
4 tsp chili powder
2 ½ tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp paprika
2 ½ tsp onion salt
1 pound ground beef (this part is optional. I usually eliminate it to make it low-fat and cheap.)
Heat and serve.
These beans freeze really well, and can be warmed in the microwave.

Empanadas – Heather Clark

1 C butter
1 C fat free cottage cheese
2 C flour

Cream butter and cheese. Add flour. Chill until easier to work with. Roll out 1/8 inch thick. Cut into circles. Spoon beans into middle and sprinkle cheese on top. Fold over and seal securely. Bake approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown at 425. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

To reduce the fat, I have also made this recipe with 1/2 C butter to 1 1/2 C cottage cheese. They’re less crispy, but the dough still works quite well.

Alternate use of this recipe is for a dessert. Fill with favorite pie-filling and top with whipped cream.

But wait! I don’t want to be the one sharing here, and miss out on your secrets. I know you’ve got them! Don’t go. I want your amazing recipes that turn something normal and boring into something wonderful and gourmet. I want them, do you hear. What’s your secret recipe that will change and help my cooking skills. If you want to participate, please post your recipe on your site, and let me know what you’re posting in the comments. No freeloaders here, I’m serious.

Another thing I didn’t realize I was teaching my kid, was to whine, “stop it.” whenever anyone does anything she doesn’t like. And yet, that is exactly what I have taught her.

Yesterday went something like this:

Me - (not giving Bean the 23rd glass of milk she wants)
Bean - “Stop It!”
Me - (walking away from Bean when she’d like to be picked up)
Bean - “Stop It!”
Me - (strapping Bean into her carseat)
Bean - “Stop It!”
Me - (doing anything and everything that is not exactly what Bean desires)
Bean - “waaaah, waaaah, waaaaaaaaah, Stop it!”

Needless to say, Cody and I have switched to, “Bean, please don’t do that. Please don’t, honey.”

:)Oh the lessons we learn the hard way as parents!

It’s been the way of expressing incredulity around One Woman’s World for a loooong time.

For me, it dates back to my freshman year in college–you know, before color television–when we would laugh ourselves silly trying to teach my roommate to say “shut up” with the right emphasis so that it sounded like you were shocked and skeptical, and not like the original “shut up.” Every time she would say it, it just sounded like she wanted you to shut your mouth and die and go away and never speak to her again.

I’m not sure when “shut up” became “shut it,” but suffice it to say that I remember many conversations from the beginning of my marriage to Cody that ran along these lines:

C-Shut it!
Me - I will not shut it!
C-You will not shut it? (the response, wait for it… wait for it..) shut it!
Me- I will not….

Ok, enough already.

All of that preamble to tell you that this morning I discovered the negative power of an unchecked mommy vocabulary at work.

Bean - Milk… please. (whiny voice)
Me - (trying to maintain my sense of humor amidst being whined at for about the 10th time already today by the girl who would drink 1/2 a gallon of milk a day if I let her) - Bean, you want milk, Shut it!
Bean - (Clear as day) Shut it!
Me - (Choking on my laughter. Dying. Dead.)

And on that note, something gross and disgusting for my tough readers. Do not proceed if you are faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Here’s how I know I’ve drunk the kool-aid and become a mother. A new creature from the grossed-out by every bodily function girl I was pre-Bean. Hope you can follow my convoluted sentence-structure, today. It is what it is, and I’m in a strange and wonderful mood.

Anyway, this morning, we stripped the Bean naked to get her ready to hop in the tub and get clean. But stupidly, we didn’t put her in immediately. And I decided to go to the bathroom with Bean standing right there in front of me. I had no sooner started to pee, when Bean had to sympathy-pee. She started, and there was nothing I could do from my awkward position.

It was reflexive, folks. It was a mommy reflex, and before I knew what was happening, I had cupped my hands under the stream, and was catching her pee before it could flood over the entire bathmat. Why, I don’t know, since I missed the first bit, and have to wash the bathmat anyway. I held on until my hands were at the overflowing point, and disposed of the pee in the toilet where it belonged.

Then I just washed my hands and washed Beanie. Like I’d caught someone’s pee in my hands mid-stream a hundred times. I just had a shiver go through me at the thought of it. Proving again what I’ve thought before. There are moments of motherhood that are seriously the ultimate in indignity.

Happy Thursday to you all.

It’s only 10:22. If I take the time to come up with a post, I’ll miss my window. This way, I get to curl up in bed with my book next to my sweetheart for at least 20 minutes, and still be asleep before 11:00.

Goodnight, folks!

Today, on my way to the Midwives to do a bunch of girly hormonal bloodwork, I had the most astounding experience. In the middle of nowhere, and listening to the Fine Young Cannibals on the radio–hardly the stuff of the spiritual realm… I just felt like God was giving me a hug. I felt the most intense feeling that everything is going to be just fine in my life. That whatever happened, it would be for the best, and that I wouldn’t need to wait long to be on my way to having my next darling baby. It wasn’t a feeling I could shrug off or pretend didn’t exist, and it definitely came from somewhere outside of me. I couldn’t deny that God was communicating with me. It felt so beautiful, that I felt wrapped up and protected and loved.

mmmmmm. Just a happy day.

Also, I just might be the luckiest girl alive. I have to switch OB-Gyn, because of insurance. (Don’t even get me STARTED on the evil health insurance industry!) Essentially, because of the red-tape involved, unless I want to decide flat out to have a Caesarean with my next child, I can’t stay with my midwives/OB. Rarrrrr!

When I asked them for a reference, they told me that I’d have a rough time finding an OB who is pro-VBAC…(That’s Vaginal Birth After Caesarean) And when I told them that no one in my family EVER goes into labor on their own, they told me that I would never find an OB who would be willing to try a VBAC with pitocin induction. So I was more or less resigning myself to C-Sections with all the rest of my babies.

Until today, when I found — as though a gift from heaven, An OB closer to home than my midwives, who is pro-VBAC, and will even attempt them with induction if necessary, and if the circumstances are right, and who my plan will cover, and who is accepting new patients, and who comes highly referred from a good friend.

As to why this fills my soul with peace and joy. I don’t know… but control freak that I am, it just does.

:)

Oh… and Go VOTE!

Click HERE for information about voting in the Share The Love Blog Awards. The Final phase of voting is now underway!

That’s what I need to learn to do, folks. I need to like the mess, the goo, the slime, the crumbs, the toys covering every square inch of my carpet. And why do I need to learn to accept the chaos? Because I chose to be a mother.

This point was driven home to me very forcefully today by the Bean. I was cleaning. It was important to me. The entire main floor needed to be perfected all at once. In the old days, before kids, I used to aim for the entire house clean at once. This is no longer the case. Now, if the kitchen, living room, and dining room are relatively clean, I rejoice, and move on. Tomorrow can be upstairs-time. Cause Mommy can’t take it!

It’s mostly done, but the floor is still un-vacuumed. Oh how I miss the pre-Bean days of vacuuming once a week. Now, if I want it to look somehow decent, it must be done daily. Whiner? Why yes… that is my middle name. I know I only have one child, and that I shouldn’t be aggravated that Bean threw her play dishes all over the floor three times while I was trying to prepare the floor to be vacuumed. It’s just that it doesn’t bode well. If I can’t get the house clean while engaging in concentrated effort with only one child to help dismantle things, where will I be when I have two children. Or heaven forbid, the six children that my husband and I had initially imagined having.

I just miss the time when things stayed put together. When books and CD’s stayed on shelves. When DVD players played without skipping because they hadn’t been turned on and off and on and off and on and off in rapid fire.

Most things about having Bean enrich and beautify my life… but the physical surroundings of our home. I’m afraid her smile is about the only thing contributing in that department.

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The Finalists are in! Go check them out here.

My husband planned it. I should have him plan our days more often.

We started out by sleeping in. mmmmmm, how I love the sleeping in. And how I love the baby who lets us do it.

Next we went to the gym, via the store where we had to do some shopping for church.

Following this we booked it home, and Cody set off to attend a baby shower for someone in his office. I was invited, but my presence was not required. Cody suggested that I stay home so I could have some alone time. Perfect. I sent him, a very primped-out Bean, and a little baby gift with a big puffy pink hat I had crocheted for the new little one and some bottles. I stayed home. I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. I ate lunch. I blogged. I read my new book, The Sparrow, which is absolutely riveting. I frittered my time away, girls. Frittered!

Then Cody got home, and I heard him putting Bean immediately down for her afternoon nap. He told me he spent the whole trip home singing to keep her awake, so we could have her naptime to spend together. He is one smart cookie!

After naptime, we headed over to Olive Garden where we had their wonderful lunch soup and salad and breadsticks. Yum, yum. They make a mean Minestrone.

Then we dropped the Bean off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and went to the temple together. It is always wonderful to go to the temple together. It’s a healing, empowering, peaceful experience. It is especially nice when we go to the same temple we were married in, like we did yesterday.

Afterwards, we went to the grocery store to buy snacks to sneak into the movie. Cody thinks that snacks are just SO much more satisfying when there is sneaking required. We’re back on the Weight Watchers core plan, so we bought “core” snacks. Jerky and rice cakes and red seedless grapes. Then, I decided we needed water bottles, too. So we bought bottled water.

We picked up Bean from Grandma and Grandpa’s, and dropped her off at her Aunt and Uncle’s house, to play with her little cousins.

Then we were off to see again a certain mind-blowing movie for the third time. Honestly, it just gets better and better EVERY time I see it. It is one of the most powerful faith-promoting films I’ve seen.
*I have to mention here, that I saw my husband wipe a tear away during the movie last night. I also felt his shoulders shake, and heard him sniffling. I didn’t want to look too closely at him, for fear of breaking the spell. I have never seen my husband cry.

So then we picked up the Bean and drove home in the falling snow.

Then I did some work preparing for church, and Cody went to Kinkos to make some copies I needed for church, and we fell asleep snuggled up next to each other, reading.

:)I feel happy and warm all over just thinking about such a perfect day.

There has been a minor scandal in the internet recently revolving around criticism of the Share The Love Blog Awards. It caused me to look at my initial motivations for hosting the blog awards. It has made me look at how I set them up. It’s made me ponder how I blog and what I say and that is never a bad thing. Yes, there has been a little bit of a scandal, but you wouldn’t know it just by coming to my site.

And the reason you wouldn’t know it is that everyone involved, and I mean everyone, has been entirely classy in their responses to me and my readers on this site. I have received only support and care. I’ve been buoyed up in the loving comments of readers on this site. And I want to thank you for sharing the love.

The real reason for the title of this post, however, is not the love I’m receiving from the blogosphere. It’s a little experience I had last night. I’ll start by saying that Bean has not wanted to sleep in her crib lately. She’s been getting scared and frantic by herself when she wakes up in the dark, and sometimes, out of self-preservation, we let her come and sleep with us. (A squishy prospect: A kicking bean, two parents, two body-pillows in a queen-sized bed.)

Last night was no exception. She was just so frantic that I brought her into bed with us, where she could sleep like a little Bean-sandwich.

But before the sleeping…. there was a very precious moment.

18-month-old Bean pushed up repeatedly on her arms, saying, “Hiiiiii, mama.” in her sweetest and most endearing voice. Then I’d see a little wildly-grinning face looming over me in the darkness, and I’d hear her say, “kiss!” Then she’d plant a wet one on my forehead or chin, or other part of my face, and lie back down. The procedure was repeated as she fell asleep approximately 10-20 times. I could hardly keep myself from bursting into laughter and squeezing and tickling her silly.

Trust a little late-night sleepless baby to make you feel more loved than you ever have in your whole, entire life.

Also trust that same baby when she finally nods off to give you a good swift kick in the kidneys.