Blurred Vision

Between training class, homework, painting, visiting family, and just pure exhaustion I have been quite the blog slacker.

My bad!

I don't ever mean to slack off this much, but one day turns into 3, which becomes 5 and then before I know it, it's been a week and a half with no blogging!! Holy goodness!

This week, McStudly and I vowed to do absolutely nothing beyond what was absolutely necessary. Needless to say, we've only been doing dishes in the Puhl household. We worked so stinking hard the last couple of weeks that we are pooped! So this week has been relaxing, catching up on our backlog of tv shows (our poor DVR was at 96%, which I didn't think was possible), eating yummy meals at home again (after eating out so much due to our rush), and just enjoying each other's company.

It's been so nice. It's already Thursday and I am SO glad we've spent most of the week relaxing. We didn't get everything done that we wanted to before his mom got into town, but we were close! I know I'll be forgetting something, but here's a quick version of what we did in just 2 weeks:

- prime everything

- paint living room

- paint kitchen

- paint spare bedroom

- catch up on laundry that's WAY overdue

- new faceplates on all outlets and switches (except in the master bedroom)

- fresh paint on window sills and doorways in the kitchen and living room

- switch up a bit of the decor for fall (and to go with the new orange wall)

- dust EVERYthing (also long overdue)

- vacuum everywhere

- BIG bathroom clean downstairs

- TOTAL bathroom wipe-down upstairs (again - long overdue, but our toilet is kept clean, I'm not that gross!)

- dressers de-cluttered

- kitchen table de-cluttered (it collected quite the random mix while we were getting all of this work down around the house)

And, as is with any Puhl House remodelling project, we ran into a few setbacks along the way (thankfully, there was no need to call the Home Owners Insurance this time around):

- primer was spilled on the carpet (have I mentioned how clumsy I am?!). We had to stop everything we were doing to clean that junk up... scrub. Rent a rug doctor from the local grocery store (thank goodness someone had thought of that) and steam the rest of that mess outta there. Luckily, we acted fast and furious and you can't tell ANYthing was spilled, now - SCORE!

- Austin, our McPup, was spending one of our paint days over at my parents' house with Luke, their Labrador, frolicking through the backyard care free. Well, apparently something either bit him or somehow infected him, because he came home with a bump on his side. We checked him for ticks, and found nothing. Then, a week later, the hair feel off on that spot. Eek! Then it seemed like it was getting a little bigger. I took him to the vets immediately and they thought it may be something as simple as ringworm and gave me some ointment to put on his boo boo twice daily. It seems to be helping a little, and I think the hair is finally starting to grow back, BUT the samples they took turned out negative for ringworm. Who knows what it was! He never really reacted to us touching it or anything, but I'm glad he's finally getting better. My poor little puppy!

- I bought some white touch-up paint for the ceiling and trim and such. Well, I didn't pay a ton of attention and accidentally bought sating finish, instead of flat. Needless to say, the ceiling now has a few shiny spots. It's a little weird, but it's only temporary. I finally bought some flat paint and we'll be fixing that oopsie pretty soon. Nice, huh?!

- I bought the wrong size blinds for our windows. :-( My bad. Luckily Lowes is awesome and I just returned them for the right ones, but it was still a bummer, for sure!

- We didn't even think to check for the studs in the wall when putting up the curtain rods. Let's just say it ended up not happening, and we now have 4 new holes to patch and paint over. Awesome, right? yeah... we didn't think so either. And we're way tired of our nosy neighbor looking into our house through our deck door. Creeper!!

We still have a little bit of work to do, like painting the trim and window sills in the spare bedroom, and replacing all of the outlets and switches (we ended up just putting the faceplates on the old ugly ones to save time last week). And the blinds and curtains need to be hung, too, so we'll have to get that taken care of sometime, too, I guess.

Basically, a TON has been done, but there'e still a lot left to do. I will leave you, today with pictures of our yucky old green kitchen. It looks like green threw up in there because it was EVERYwhere! Way too much green, and not the nice pretty green, either. Check it:

Uh-Oh, but Yumm-O!

SO yesterday I played housewife.

Okay, you're right, I kind've play housewife every day, BUT I was a little better at it than usual yesterday!! You see, I kind've planned a few options for dinner this week and everything ready for me to just decide which meal I (we) want that night and WHAM-o. Get to cooking! So I went shopping Monday and wah-lah. Awesomeness for the whole week. Rock on!!


I even bought some things for us to try out a few new recipes from the AWESOME "Cooking Light Cookbook" that I picked up (at Lowes, oddly enough) and absolutely love!! There's SO many good ideas. And the food isn't like gross healthy, it's like "I'll probably even LIKE that" healthy type food. Know what I mean? Sure you do. ;-)


Anywho, yesterday I got home from work. Spent a little cuddle time with McStudly (shh! Don't tell, he's sure it'll ruin his street cred.) and then started on dinner before realizing I needed another ingredient (dang it... SO close!). So he ran to the store while I hung out with the pup.

While I waited to got dishes done (the sink was EMPTY folks!) and wiped down all the counters and the stove... blah blah blah. When he got home, I made dinner (Chicken Spaghetti - if you ask real nice and you're lucky, maybe I'll give you the recipe - and no, it's nothing at all like Chicken Permagiana, just FYI), washing and putting away dishes as I went (that's right - hand out the bonus points!). After we had dinner, I finished dishes, put leftovers in the fridge (one of a very short list of meals that tastes just as good, sometimes better, as leftovers).

Then I sat for a few before rushing to meet Mom and lil' Sister at goodwill for a shopping date. I scored a few shirts, nothing good in the home-front section (not even anything to work with, I mean) and then headed to their house for a quick stop. I picked up my Aunt's old dress (as in she wore it when she was my age, and now it fits me perfectly... just gotta get some shoes - post w/ pics probably to follow) and headed home to my McStudly.


We were anxious to try out a new Strawberry Banana shake recipe (we're not the healthiest eaters, but we'll try it if there's a good picture!) so I set out to get started. I cut up the Nanas, and pulled out the Strawberries to find... MOLD! Ugh! I JUST bought them Monday (call me uneducated, I thought they'd be fine to sit out one night before putting them in the fridge - okay I forgot - but ONE night and they already molded? No fair! I call a do-over). I was SO upset!

But then, McStudly came to my rescue. He reminded me that we had some blueberries in the freezer (old as they may be... still blueberries nonetheless). So I replaced the strawberries with blueberries and wah-lah. It was actually pretty tasty!!


Happy ending: McStudly saved the day, I left the kitchen clean and [somewhat] organized, and all went to bed happy. And for those of you wondering:


Blueberry Banana Shakes!

2 cups sliced bananas
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup orange juice
3 cups low fat/fat free vanilla ice cream


Mix first 3 ingredient in a blender until smooth. Add ice cream one scoop at a time, blending until smooth. Then dish-out and serve immediately. Makes about 4 servings, 1 cup/serving.




So there you have it - sometimes even oopsies in the kitchen can turn into quite a yummy (and somewhat healthy) surprise. Score for all!!

Foot In Mouth Disease

Here are six reasons why you should think before you speak - the last one is great!

Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back? Or that you could crawl into a hole? Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did:


FIRST TESTIMONY:

I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly,

'How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?'

I turned around and walked back out and never went back.

My husband didn't say a word...he knew better.


SECOND TESTIMONY:

I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who works at the store. He asked if he could help me.

Without thinking, I looked at him and said, 'I think I like playing with men's balls'


THIRD TESTIMONY:

My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help.

I replied, 'No, I'm just looking at your nuts.'

My sister started to laugh hysterically. The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away. To this day, my sister has never let me forget.


FOURTH TESTIMONY :

While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving 'right now' she would be punished.

To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening,

'If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!'

The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing. I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me, were screams of laughter.


FIFTH TESTIMONY:

Have you ever asked your child a question too many times? My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly.

One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch, in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room. While enjoying m y taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, she was clean. Then realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while.

I asked him if he needed to go, and he said 'No'. I kept thinking 'Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don't have any clothes with me.' Then I said,'Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?' 'No,' he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo, I asked one more time, 'Danny did you have an accident?'

This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over, spread his cheeks and yelled 'SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!'

While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better,thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!


LAST BUT NOT LEAST TESTIMONY:

This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks. What happens when you predict snow but don't get any -

We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked:

'So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?'

Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!





Oh my word... I've been there SO many times! (to those of you that weren't there, 'How would you punish your pet monkey if he misbehaved?')