Meat & Potatoes

Now that we've got that moving surprise out of the way, let's talk some more internet friends.

Alright, we're still a little on the moving thing.

Let's be fair though, moving 30 minutes away into our first home that we own is not like a small single blog post kind of event.

I'mma be selfish. Let's talk about ME! Because it's my blog about our life, and it turns out I'm a large (haha! fat!) portion of that.

Enough fluff, lady! Meat and potatoes, please!

Well, since you said please.

And meat and potatoes it has been.

Meal planning has been, to say the least, not a priority. Budgeting is always a priority especially after scraping the bottom for a home. (A damn nice one if I do say so myself) What's a stressed out, bottom scraping, house...fiance? to do?

Pork chops. Instant mashed potatoes.

I have gotten shockingly adept at cooking a flavorful and juicy pork chop. Good enough in fact, that my "flavorful" ranch mashed potatoes were exceedingly bland in comparison. In this house, adding flavor usually means adding calories. SO I FREAKING DID. Tony has a physically demanding job, so why not? I make sure he gets the larger portion of the meal because of it. Leftover mozzerella cheese, parmesan, more ranch, and seasoning salt.

Seasoning salt is magic. MAGIC. It's like the bacon of seasonings. Throw it on anything. TADA! BETTER FOOD. More salt... but BETTER FOOD! Yay! *confetti toss*

Really though, pork chops and mashed potatoes have been a life and wallet saver on a good number of meals already. Pork chops I can get 4 for under $5 and I always have a box of cheap, instant mashed potatoes.

Don't cringe at my cheap potatoes, they're better than the individual packets. The ingredient list usually only includes one thing. Potatoes.

Tony gets his veggies in, but I (not so) sadly don't. I don't include that in my description of meals because I quite honestly don't care. Vegetables and I have not become friends, I imagine we will not be friends for a while yet.

A hearty and cheap meal on backup has been really great for me. I can't tell you how much crap I have to sort through and organize in the house taking up my time. On top of that, I've picked up an addiction. A certain citrus soda of some dewy range that's highly caffeinated. I decided to kick it because A: It's an expensive (legal) addiction. (I mean it's not like it's crack. Then again I'm not sure how much crack rocks go for either so...?) B: It's terrible for me and mostly importantly C: I actually don't even really LIKE that soda. I needed a carbonated and cold drink and it was there. Now it's STUCK to me, dammit.

For 2 days, I've been trying to kick it. I. Want. To. Die. Figuratively of course. I already suffer from chronic migraines, so this has been hell. The reason I can even look at the screen to type now? I broke down and took some Excedrin Migraine. That's right. I've even held off on Excedrin for 2 days of migraines. Normally taking some for a migraine is fine, but as it has a caffeine aid in it, it would NOT be a good idea when you're trying to kick the level of jacked up I've been. Vomiting my guts out wasn't really a good idea either so I took it.

Alright I took it with a chocolate eclair, so sue me.

It was such a shame to be dying on the couch today though, as the temp sat over 60 F and was a great opportunity to clean up all the twigs in the yard and yank some weeds out of our landscaping. Our neighbor puts my landscaping enthusiasm to shame. The man already has all of his landscaping raked out, weeded, and re-mulched. AND he did it already last week. I on the other hand have been considering if I would like to put on pants and go outside.

Side note: I am a cave troll. This is just something I need to deal with. In our home, I am a sloppy nightshirt wearing, hair a rat nest in a poor excuse for a pony tail, cave troll. Do not knock on the door if you are expecting some nicely made up, polished house-wifey type. Or don't knock at all really. If we don't expect you, we don't answer. End note.

I did accomplish one tiny thing today. I pulled the bag of potting soil out of the trunk of the car. MHHMMMM. That's right. We're getting ready to plant. Since there won't be a full-fledged garden this year, I'm container gardening and we're starting with bell peppers. So stay tuned for our dirt adventures.

I'm excited. Are you excited? If you aren't, that's a shame. And also, dirt adventures are like... 50% of this blog, what are you doing here?

We love you anyway. :)

picture provided by PEXELS

My Mother

So as you can imagine, it's been go go go these last few weeks. It's no surprise after all the running around I finally caught something. I had been feeling physically too good for too long. I've been coming down with something for over a week now and today seemed to be the worst of it. ( Let's not jinx it.) So today while I was sitting on the bathroom floor deciding if I could just live there, I had a mild freakout. I haven't bought groceries in over a week. The meal plan I made can't be done without the groceries, there isn't really anything in the house that Tony can make for his dinner and work lunch without waking up hours earlier, and I've been living on ramen because it seems to be the only thing I can keep down.

So I broke down and called my mother. 

I cannot describe how much I appreciate my mother and how she's always ready to help no matter what it is. So she was ready to go with some hamburger and beans dish for Tony for his lunch, some really good quality hot dogs, a pizza for later, and Sprite and crackers for me.
Clear sodas and crackers. are. magical. You forget how good they are when you aren't sick.
You can also forget how good your mother is when you don't need something. Thankfully, I've reached that point in my life I never thought I'd get to. I've finally reached that "your mother is your friend" point past the teen angst garbage.
As I've been going through this process of being a stay at home "wife", there are a few things I realized and came to respect about my mother. Today I'll be giving you 3 things I realized. We'll keep it short so I can go lie down again.

My Mother is NOT Lazy
As a nasty angsty teenager that really needed anti-anxiety medication, I thought my mother was the laziest mother on the planet. I would come home from school and she'd be napping. On the weekend she'd be napping by noon. What I didn't get? My mother wasn't napping because she's lazy. She was napping because she was EXHAUSTED. I never saw her getting up at 4 in the morning, cooking multiple meals because of multiple picky eaters in the house and for my father's lunch, the multiple loads of laundry washed AND put away, grocery shopping, running crap to me at school, vacuuming and washing dishes and ON AND ON.
I get it now. Dear God, do I get it now.

Just Because I Didn't See a Change in the House Doesn't Mean She Didn't Do Anything
The basic concept of "if she had done nothing at all, the house would be worse, not the same" never occurred to me until I was much much older than I ever should have been to be first realizing it. The work piles up visibly in a day. It is constant work. Constant. Improvement? Not if she had to take care of a schmuck like me. My immaturity and need to see flaws in the main authority in my life overshadowed basic sense.

The Reason She Eats in the Kitchen Isn't Because She Hates Socializing During Dinner

She wants to sit down, I promise you. She feels an overwhelming need to make sure everyone else has their food first. To produce enough hot food for everyone and make sure she herself gets some of the hot food, she eats on her feet while she continues to make food. Either eat it hot in the kitchen or chance not getting any of the food you made. I've struggled with this and it's just Tony and I. I can't imagine feeding 5 children and a husband and manage for all of them to get hot food let alone for me to get hot food. I've quietly been making food sacrifices without letting Tony know (now you know, honey... oops!) since we've been together to make sure he always has enough. He needs the fuel to keep going at work and I can snack on odds and ends here at home. I cannot imagine how many food sacrifices (let alone all other sorts of sacrifices) my mother has made over the years. My eldest brother is in his 40's. She's been making these sacrifices for over 4 decades and I never knew until I was in a similar place in my life. I never saw them, and when I did, I still didn't SEE it.

I see it now quite clearly even if I haven't gone through nearly so much. I haven't experienced it on any sort of level she has, but I've definitely gained invaluable insight.

So thank you mom. I wish I could say it more.

picture provided by Pexels

Accept Your Success

Hey guys! I haven't posted in about a week. I've been pretty busy. By pretty busy I mean I've been enjoying what I feel has been the start of Fall. I've been working on a project for Halloween and have been compiling that for a future post, so look for my Halloween DIY post later this month! For now, please enjoy this short post about chronic illness.

Posted from 08/18

Homemaking. Home. Making. We take the word for granted. I cannot express the change in how I feel about my home. While Tony and I would like to own a home, it makes whatever place we are able to live in so much better. After the past few weeks, I've come to appreciate how much better our home feels. It no longer feels just like the place we come to to pass out. It feels like a real home. Everything I do here helps to improve the feel of our home. I really am making this place ours. Even on the days I struggle most, I can still feel satisfaction in our (slowly) improving home.

And struggle I do. “The struggle is real, bruh.” I suffer from chronic migraines so everything is always extra fun. Last year I FINALLY had a care provider listen and was implanted with an IUD which has so drastically reduced my migraine days. I used to have a migraine every day for 2 weeks straight out of the month, and have now reduced to maybe 10 migraines a month. Still not wonderful considering there are some magical unicorns in life that have never experienced a single migraine. But we do what we can, because I'm more like a narwhal in life; unique enough some people think they don't exist, but legit an actual living creature if not commonly seen. Note* I don't have a horn and also don't stab people.

Bubbles watches over me when I'm sick

My chronic migraines are no joke when it comes to being a functioning human being/narwhal. I spent the last day and a half with an on/off migraine with the “off” being a downgrade of a bad headache. I took that time as a green light and did what I could. I did a few dishes but I have to tell you the pile in and around our sink has reached near catastrophic proportions. I've taken a before picture but I will not be showing it until I have a satisfactory after picture. So that's what I did in 2 days. I managed to wash a few dishes and cooked a single meal. The meal I cooked was a boxed meal but I'll take it as a success.

Sometimes the successes we accept for ourselves are failures for other people, but who cares? They don't live here anyway.