Friday the 13th

People are always surprised to hear that I don't like scary movies. Perhaps it's because we turned Seanie Mac into Georgie from IT for Halloween, but in all honestly, pretty much everything scares me. I never liked the dark, stemming from an incident at the creepiest amusement park on the planet, called The Enchanted Forest (which was recently featured on Ghost Adventures, so who's laughing at me now, huh?) I was deep into the pitch black Rabbit Hole cave when I was just a wee one, and my older cousin let out a blood curdling scream, and my mom said I was absolutely terrified of the dark from that moment on. Hmmm, I wonder if we could've sued them for emotional damages? Kidding!! So yes, my secret is out. I'm a gigantic chicken. I can't handle the dark at all, nor scary movies. I came home beyond hysterical in middle school because a teacher read us a Goosebumps style book about a monster hiding in a basement and I was traumatized for days. Don't even ask me about that one time I spent the night at a friend's house (she lived in one of those really old, creepy historic houses too with secret passageways and shit), and we watched Silence of the Lambs. It's the one and only time I've ever seen that wretched movie, and I wouldn't use my own bathroom for months because we had a heater grate above the toilet and there was a scene where they pull open the grate and a dead body fell out. I could give you a million other examples of movies that I never got over, but you get the idea.

If for some reason you still don't believe me and need more proof, my husband took me to the latest IT movie last fall and it was one of the worst experiences of my life, next to that one time I got a perm and looked like a Poodle. I've seen the original IT and I can actually tolerate that one just fine because it was made for television so it's not gory and it's a bit cheesy. Plus my kids have watched it a bazillion times so I'm sort of desensitized to it now (I tried to watch it when I was a kid and didn't even make it past the first scene).

So I knew that Georgie was going to get his arm eaten off (sorry for the spoiler if you live in a cave and haven't seen or heard about it). But, this damn Pennywise was so flipping creepy that I literally hunched over in a ball, wedged my fat rolls into the stiff, uncomfortable arm rest of the movie chair, covered my eyes and literally stayed frozen in the fetal position (fat rolls planted firmly into the arm rest) until the torture was over.

My husband saw the new IT movie about a month before me during a soccer tournament with our teenager (she handled it much better than I did), and he assured me that I could totally handle it. He knows I despise movies where things jump out and that's pretty much ALL this damn movie was from start to finish, so needless to say I was not happy with him when the lights turned back on and I had to let go of the arm rest that I had pretty much clung to for dear life. He acted shocked that I didn't like it, which just made me more upset and he was like, "You're pretty pissed at me, aren't you?"  DUH!!!

Since IT was the last movie of the night to play at the theater, it was really late when it got out and I had to pee super badly. I dashed into the empty bathroom and I'm midstream when all of a sudden all of the lights went out in the mother f#$king bathroom!!!! I think I screamed, but I was so petrified that I'm not even sure an actual sound came out. It's like when you're having a nightmare and something is chasing you and you try to scream but you can't at all...yeah, it was pretty much like that.  I've never pulled up my pants and bolted out of a bathroom that fast in my entire life.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I peed my pants a little too.  Not cool at all movie theater people. Had I slipped and fallen on my own urine, cracking my skull in the process, it would've been all of your asses on the line!!!

I've heard rumors that IT Part Two is coming out next year and my response when people ask if I'm going to see it, is something along the lines of "Eat shit and die" so that's a big fat nope. Besides, I can scream for free at home, like for example, whenever I step on the scale or step foot inside the kids' bathroom.

My next scary movie experience would've been a few weeks later when we tried to have a happy family movie night. Somehow despite the first hand knowledge that I hate scary movies, my husband was still somehow shocked that I had never seen the original Poltergeist before. Husbands are so observant aren't they? We settled down to watch the movie and at first I thought, "Hey, this isn't so bad", but by the end of it, I was feeling a little frightened and tense. I headed upstairs while my husband stayed downstairs to watch a little more television. So, there I was, totally abandoned by my loved ones, and left all alone in my room. I was seconds from falling asleep when I realized that evil was lurking inside of my closet (aside from outdated, heinously ugly clothes that no longer fit).  I was much too scared to scream, so I literally sent my husband a frantic text message while hiding under my covers, trembling with fear.

Actual text message sent to my husband: 

(excuse the bad language but I was about to die so...)

He came upstairs and searched and then assured me there was nothing in the closet (with a smirk on his face I might add). However, it's not like the Poltergeist is going to come right out and say, "Here I am Mr Crazy Husband Man who might hit me upside the head with that large baseball bat" so whatever. He was there, lurking about in my closet, ready to attack me at any given moment, I swear.

So life went on without any problems, until today. Last night my husband and I both fell asleep on the couch fairly early. He fell asleep before me, and then I crashed shortly after while watching House Hunters. It's hard to stay awake sometimes with some of those couples. I don't know where they find these people, but I'm super happy for them that they were able to find someone equally as boring to marry them. Anyways, this isn't even about House Hunters, it's about the fact that my house is haunted, ok?

So shortly after midnight, I was woken up to this horrible, heinous, something ain't right here sound. It wasn't my husband snoring, or the kids puking, or the usual scary, middle of the night noises that wake me from a deep slumber, but rather, this creepy Poltergeisty sound coming from our TV.  The screen was black but it was making this sound that I cannot even begin to describe to you. Like super loud static with electronic sounds (demons) and stuff. I quickly turned off the TV (which was frozen) but eventually it turned off and we went to bed. I noticed the time was just after midnight, which may not be significant to y'all, until you realize that it's Friday the 13th. Mmmhmmm. Not a coincidence at all.

So, this morning I get up and try to turn on the TV, and it's totally gone, dead, fried, toast. Not only is it making desperate sounds from hell, but it's summer break, and I'm stuck inside of a house with four kids on summer break without a TV!! This means no Bounce Patrol for Seanie Mac, no Dateline mysteries for me, no electronic babysitter to keep my children from whining and asking me make them 3,000 sandwiches before noon!!! I TOLD you we have a Poltergeist because there is nothing truly more terrifying than a mom stranded on summer break without a working TV (except for maybe no wifi, which also happened, because when I tried to unplug the demonic possessed TV, I accidentally unplugged our router and now our internet is spotty at best).

RIP old Toshiba..you brought us many hours of happiness and joy 

I'm so sorry you've been possessed by a Poltergeist

So, please Mr Poltergeist, Carol Anne, or whoever the hell is living inside of my now useless, paper weight of a TV, please go find another family to torture and mess with, because unless you plan on pulling me in through that filthy (never been dusted) dead screen and transporting me to Hawaii, I have laundry to fold, dishes to unload, and sandwiches to make. On second thought, please take me. Please!!!

Pukey pasta

If I were a YouTube star or a Facebook live person, I'd start this off with "Hey guys" but since I'm not a star, I'll just keep on typing. I have several new blog posts to share with y'all (I know, it's only been a million years since I posted and we actually don't even say y'all here in Oregon, but I've always wanted to say that) but then I thought, "Oh no, no, no, they'd MUCH rather hear a graphic, disgusting, TMI, description of what went down this week/evening, so here goes! It all started last Saturday night. We took the kids to a popular, crowded pizza place (I could just stop right there and end my story since crowds and people, both kinda disgust me, but that's not even the disgusting part of my story, so I'll keep going). The kids were touching EVERYTHING in the restaurant and the arcade (except for their overpriced food of course). I'm talking they were pounding and pressing on buttons, knobs, dirty, sticky, slimy steering wheels that doubled as a Kleenex, etc, ALL things that a million grubby little hands touch on any given day. So yeah, there were my darling "healthy" kids happily playing, touching, putting their hands in mouth, more touching, grabbing whatever drink was sitting on our table and drinking it (not knowing if it belonged to them or not), probably picking up the chewed gum they found on the ground and eating it, etc.

The following day my dad came over to pick up the grandkids to take them out for the day (doubt he'll be doing this ever again, but please keep reading). They went to McDonald's for lunch and then out for ice cream, I should stop and mention here that my dad is a total pushover/sucker so the kids always con him into the triple scoop, it's bigger than your head, no parent in their right mind would EVER in a million buy that asininely-sized ice cream cone for their child (can I get an amen here?) Shortly after digging into his 10,000 calorie ice cream cone, Peanut apparently began to projectile vomit ALL over their upscale, trendy, expensive, "gelato" for you snobs too good for ice cream, restaurant (yet another local public establishment here in town that we're probably banned for life from ever entering again).

My dad apologizes to the restaurant staff, and attempts to help clean up what he can with those cheap little restaurant napkins (wish I had video footage of this), but they insist on calling in their emergency cleaning crew because it's THAT bad, and my dad slinks out in shame and brings the kids straight home and I can see that Peanut is just one big giant pukeball before he even enters the house. I briefly considered not answering the door and pretending that we weren't home...kidding, but seriously, this is not an enjoyable moment in any parent's life and you briefly imagine what your life could've been like, had you only raised dogs or cats, because at least when a pet starts barfing you can just open the sliding door and push them outside until they get it all out. NO, I didn't actually do that to poor little Peanut so no need to get excited and write me a nasty email. This boy had so much puke ingrained into his clothing, there was even puke smashed into the tiny little grooves of his brand new Adidas that I still have no clue how to get out (washed them twice already and they are still bright McOrange with chunks of gelato). Within 24 hours of Peanut, Mahlon proceeds to throw up on our couch during family movie night (I personally enjoyed Daddy's Home 2 and didn't think it needed that harsh of a review, but that's just me). Poor Mahlon threw up all night and into the morning.

We woke up today all paranoid like "Alright who's next?" like we were on an episode of Survivor and we're ready to take each other out if need be to protect ourselves. Seanie Mac only wanted dad all day and since he's usually a hardcore momma's boy, we were both on edge like "Watch out, this kid's gonna blow any second" because this boy is SO insanely attached to me that whenever he goes to dad instead (like on purpose), we automatically assume something's up and he's sick because #momlife. As the day progressed without any puke, we loosened up a little bit and were like "It's okay. We're all good. Crisis over" and I took Seanie downstairs for a small pre-bedtime snack. I barely had time to hand him his sippy cup when without any warning at all (because almost two year olds are kinda selfish and inconsiderate) he starts projectile vomiting all over my kitchen. This wasn't just a little puke folks. Nope. Remember the puke scenes from Stand by Me or Problem Child 2? Well, that's exactly what my kitchen resembled tonight. I'm not quite sure how he did it, but he somehow spewed all over every square inch (I always knew that boy was gifted). My husband graciously cleaned it up, while I carried a drippy, pukey baby upstairs and straight into the tub.

So, here I am, sitting on my bed, next to a gurgly, rumbling, squirming baby with scratchy, uncomfortable towels spread out all over my bed (just in case he gears up for round two which we'll call "The bedroom scene"), armed with a large shiny puke bucket at my feet, (AKA the big metal pan that we cook our spaghetti in and will still continue to use for pasta after this is all over with). You've been warned if we ever invite you over for an Italian theme night at our house. 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Party Take Two

It's that time of year again. The leaves are colorful, the air is crisp, the kids are back in school, and this means that fall is upon us. As soon as the calendar switched over to October, I began to feel an enormous sense of pressure take over on how we should celebrate Mahlon's tenth birthday. We originally planned on hosting it somewhere outside of the home, especially since we got so many comments about how we shouldn't of hosted the party at our house, but we recently purchased a new home and then my husband suddenly lost his job without any warning. Financially things haven't been so great for our family (will update more on all of the other stuff that's been going on in our lives these last several months in a separate post). Since paying hundreds of dollars to invite his entire fourth grade class and fall soccer team to a fancy party place was definitely out of the question, we decided to just invite a handful of his closest friends over to our house for pizza and cake again. I wont post the actual party date as I don't want any media showing up on my doorstep.

Basically we're having a Diary of a Wimpy Kid party, take two. 

In case you're wondering why we would dare to repeat last year's fiasco, Mahlon is dead set on having the EXACT same birthday party he attempted to have for his ninth. I'm talking he wants every single detail to mimic last year's party....same cake topper, games, decorations, goodie bags, pizza, literally EVERYTHING exactly the same (except for the whole nobody showing up thing of course). Bless his little heart. When I asked why he didn't want to just pick a fresh new theme (I was trying to convince him to do a Halloween theme since he loves scary movies and costumes), he looked at me with his big brown eyes and said, "But mom, I didn't get to play any of those fun games with my friends last year because none of them came. I just want to share those games with them". I know, I know, this kid sure knows how to punch you right in the emotional stomach, huh?  Plus, he still loves Diary of a Wimpy Kid more than anything (who doesn't?)

I got a bit emotional digging up these photos 

 

One of the games we had planned on playing last year (hey Gershy, remember these are names of DOAWK characters, not party guests who didn't show up..hahaha!!):

 Still one of Jeff Kinney's biggest fans!!!

Here's Mahlon with his little brother at the latest DOAWK movie last May: 

So, there I found myself digging through boxes of miscellaneous party supplies in my drafty, spider infested attic, trying to find the leftover Diary of a Wimpy Kid invitations from last year, and the memories and emotions of everything that took place last October, came flooding back. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the cold, hard attic floor, blubbering like a baby.  My biggest fear of course being "What if this happens to him again?" but I had already told myself that if we didn't get a single RSVP this year, then we would not be going ahead with the party and would try and reschedule for another date. However, this time around, we've literally gotten an RSVP from every single guest and everyone has said "yes", minus one who has a family conflict, so I'm fairly confident that at least one child will show up. Honestly that's all Mahlon wanted last year. If even just one child had showed up, none of this would've ever happened, and I wouldn't even be writing this follow up post.

Custom Diary of a Wimpy Kid invites we had made last year: 

This year's DOAWK cake topper:

he chose the blue book cover instead of red this time: 

 Last year's cake...

I ordered a bigger cake this year as I could barely squeeze this baby onto a quarter sheet cake and I screwed up the pretty frosting border in the process:

If for some evil twist of fate, history repeats itself and no one comes, we'll be much better prepared on how to handle it. Plus Mahlon knows he is loved, and he is much more confident in himself. He has lots of friends from school, soccer and our neighborhood who care about him. Not to mention the tens of thousands of people from all over the world who reached out to show him some love. We are forever grateful to each and every one of you!!! Mahlon would like to record a special video message for all of you on his actual birthday, so I'll be posting a live video, hopefully on his actual birthday which is Oct. 23rd. Of course his birthday just happens to fall on a Monday this year, and it's a school day, so once we figure out a time, I'll post an update on my page.

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for the incredible outpouring of love and support that you showed our family. I wish we could invite ALL of you to Mahlon's birthday party!!

Want to write a memoir but don't have the time?

For many years now, I've been telling friends and family that I'm going to write a book or memoir about my life.  Although my blog is primarily humorous, I've been through many difficult life experiences, some of which are so crazy, I could easily star in my own cheesy Lifetime movie. Well, I wouldn't personally be starring in it as I'm not as actress, but maybe I could get Tori Spelling to play me or something, as she's the only actress I can think of off the top of my head who has a million kids like myself.

It sounds easy enough to write a book, right? I mean I've been a blogger for several years so writing a book shouldn't be too far of a stretch. But for whatever reason, the second I sit down in front of my laptop, I end up staring at a blank screen with a small blinking cursor looking back at me, almost mocking me in a sense. Before I know it I'm adding more cleaning supplies to my online shopping cart, or ordering more clothes for the kids who seriously don't need anymore clothes (as I sit in the same pair of stretched out yoga pants I've owned for over a decade). I don't know why I can't just buckle down and get started, but writing a memoir, especially about yourself is so much more difficult than it sounds.

Hello, my name is Seanie Mac 

and my mom orders me lots of clothes because I'm adorable 

Did you know that there are people out there who will do this monumental task for you? It's a dream come true, right? Yes, you can still shuttle three kids off to three different soccer practices across town, come home after 7 pm, cook dinner, clean up the mess, get four kids in bed and actually relax on the couch (or go to bed if you're smart which I'm not), and not have to kill yourself trying to write a book in those rare few hours that most people call sleep.

Plus think about how incredible it would be to own a copy of your special, unique personal life story to gift to someone in your family, pass down to your children or grandchildren, or just to keep for yourself if you aren’t ready to share it with others. I lost my mom when I was young, and my father’s memory isn’t the greatest (plus let’s be honest, many men have trouble recalling those crucial little details that a woman never ever, ever forgets).  To have a memoir written about her life experiences would’ve been so precious to me. I would love the ability to pass something like that onto my children, but if it were left up to myself, it would probably never get written as I just don’t have the time or motivation.

If this sounds like something you're interested in, please visit Nechamie of Writing the Soul to view her packages and to get a free consultation. In addition to memoirs and biographies she offers so much more, including children's books! Yet another dream of mine that I have yet to accomplish.

Disclaimer: This was a sponsored post and I received compensation in exchange for a review. However all opinions are my own. 

Pizza. It's what's for dinner...every single night until we die!!!

If it were up to my kids, they would seriously eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They love anything pizza related too, pizza rolls, pizza pockets, pizza wheels, those pizza on a bagel thingies, etc. I'm just waiting for a cereal company to finally make their dreams come true and release a pizza flavored cereal, because I have no doubt my kids would eat that too.  I know exactly where they get their undying love and adoration for pizza from too....their dear old dad.

When I first started dating my husband, he was a bachelor living in his own man cave, otherwise known as a one bedroom apartment. The inside of his refrigerator was completely barren minus some ketchup and soy sauce packets from various fast food places and a twelve pack of Mountain Dew. He ordered pepperoni pizza for dinner pretty much every single night of the week. In fact the place he ordered it from, immediately recognized his number on the caller ID, so they knew his order before he even had to say hello.

I like pizza too, but I don't wish to eat it for every single meal, especially as I get older. I swear if I even look twice at a slice of veggie or cheese pizza (really the only two kinds of pizza I can consume since I'm a vegetarian), I gain about ten pounds, pretty much all around my waistline. It may be warm, cheesy, saucy and delicious, but it's best when eaten once a week (twice tops). However, tell that to my dear, sweet, children, as they literally don't want to eat anything else.

Last night I attempted to cook some spinach and cheese ravioli from Costco. You would've thought those little pockets of pasta were stuffed full of rat poison judging from their expressions. They ate one or two little bites of pasta (they literally chewed the outside ring of the ravioli so they didn't have to touch any filling) and then ate a thousand pieces of french bread with butter.

I try very hard to cook them a variety of meals.  For example, I can cook a mean vegetarian crock pot chili but that has *gasp* beans in it so they carefully lick the sauce off the spoon so that they don't accidentally swallow a bean because that would be apparently equal their sudden and immediate demise and then they eat all of the cheese off the top of the chili. Then of course after they get told "No you can't add more cheese on top of your chili until you actually eat some of the chili" they dump their bowls into the sink and then complain about being hungry. This is precisely why I don't kill myself cooking complicated meals because I'm probably the only one who would eat them, along with our dog Olive, who eats absolutely everything with Seanie Mac's poopy diapers being her all time favorite meal.

Our typical meal rotation consists of things like vegetarian hot dogs, veggie burgers, spaghetti, teriyaki ChikN and rice (notice I said ChikN not chicken as it's not really chicken because we don't eat meat...which by the way, things were absolutely no different back when we did eat meat. They still hated everything I cooked), baked macaroni and cheese, tacos, loaded baked potatoes, etc. These are things that I can at least get them to partially eat, but they still would much rather have pizza if given a choice. I on the other hand am sick to death of all of these things. I've tried cooking other meals in the past like lasagna, enchiladas, tofu stir fry, curry and rice, various homemade soups, casseroles, etc, and the majority of the meals ended up going to waste. It's frustrating because people always say, "They will eventually get hungry and eat what's on their plate if you don't give them a choice" but these people obviously haven't met my stubborn little angels. Getting them to do something they don't want is like trying to catch a cat in a carrier to take to a veterinary appointment. Think of the little girl in the Mommy Dearest movie who refused to eat her bloody raw steak (okay so I can't say that I really blame her on that one), but it's pretty much an FBI style standoff every single time, especially with Peanut. This kid could seriously sit at the table for two solid days to avoid eating something that he views as yucky or disgusting (which again is pretty much anything besides pizza or peanut butter and jelly). 

All I can hope is that their palates mature and their minds open up a little as they get older, and that maybe eventually, someday I'll actually be able to feed them a vegetable without them barfing it back up on their plates (yes, this actually happened once with our oldest). I'm not holding my breath though, as I really don't foresee this happening anytime soon. As for what we're eating for dinner tonight? Yep, you guessed it. Pizza.

The most amazing tofu tacos you've probably never had

I know what you're thinking...tofu? BARF!!! Is this chick for real? But before you click out of this post and take me off of your blogroll forever, please just hear me out. These tofu tacos are so ridiculously good you'll want to slap your husband (okay, so you'll want to slap him anyways, for reasons other than tofu tacos, but this gives you a valid reason).

It's extremely unusual for me to post recipes on my blog because as you all know, I suck at all things domestic, but on the rare occasion when I do actually hit one out of the park, I figure it's only fair that I share my success and wisdom with others. Sure, there may be some of you out there who've achieved successful careers, nice homes, fancy cars, vacation condos on tropical islands that I can't even pronounce, but I can cook tofu. We all have our special talents and do the best with what we are given. 

I'll admit that a block of tofu straight out of the package looks pretty unappetizing (AKA pretty damn gross). It kinda reminds me of a giant Magic Clear Eraser but it's wet, slimy and crumbles like blue cheese when you touch it. I haven't had a chance to clean my tub with it yet to see if it has the same cleaning capabilities as a MCE, but I'll get back to you on that one later. 

My husband and I discovered the awesomeness that is tofu tacos at this amazing, trendy restaurant in Bend (which will remain nameless because I would die of embarrassment if they saw my photos which are pitiful compared to their artistic culinary masterpieces). We loved these silly little tofu tacos so much that we were going daily for awhile. Not only did we start to feel a little stalkerish about going to the same restaurant and ordering the same food item every single day, but dining out really starts to add up. We needed to figure out a way to make them ourselves so we could save some money and completely pig out on them without judgment (e.g. someone taking secret cell phone photos of us stuffing our pie holes with tacos) in the privacy of our own home. 

Although we have no idea what the recipe or ingredients are in the tofu tacos at our favorite restaurant (my husband first suggested that we should ask them for their recipe but I was like, "Um, babe, we eat here everyday. Do you really think they're going to just hand us their super top secret recipe so we can copy it and stop spending money at their restaurant? Probably not!"), so we decided to try our own knock off tofu tacos.  Although they don't look anywhere near as pretty as their tacos, the knock offs turned out incredible and now my husband and I are literally gorging ourselves right into the next pant size.

Ingredients you will need for the tacos:
white corn tortillas
olive oil 
tofu (I bought two firm blocks because I wanted leftovers)
cajun seasoning (I use Weber N'Orleans Cajun Seasoning)
lime juice
Salad/spinach greens or cabbage or both for the topping (I like both but my hubby hates cabbage so I leave it off)
cilantro for the topping
jalapeno peppers for the topping (optional)

Ingredients you will need for the spicy chipotle sauce: 
1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce  (you wont use an entire can unless you want to set your mouth on fire, which I did the first time I made this sauce....lesson learned)
3/4 to 1 cup of mayo (didn't measure out very accurately..told ya I sucked at cooking)
1/2 cup of sour cream (feel free add more if you want)
1/4 tsp of minced garlic (I may have added a couple of these as I love garlic)
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste

Directions for the tofu tacos:
*Drain the tofu, blot well with paper towels, cut blocks in half width wise into two equal pieces and then cut into smaller cubes
*Add cajun seasoning into a plastic bag or container. Squirt tofu squares with some lime juice. Shake cajun seasoning onto tofu until it's well coated
*Cook tofu on a skillet over medium heat with a little olive oil until it starts to turn slightly crispy
*Warm corn tortillas on a frying pan with a small amount of oil and heat on both sides
*Cut up cilantro, salad greens/spinach, cabbage, and jalapenos and set aside

Directions for the spicy chipotle sauce:
Add mayo, sour cream, minced garlic, 1/2 can of adobo peppers, and a few squirts of lemon and lime juice. Blend in blender (I use my NutriBullet) until smooth. I will admit, I adjusted amounts until it tasted good to me (adding more lemon or lime for example) so there is no right or wrong way to make this sauce. I know, I'm super duper helpful.

Once you warm the corn tortillas on the skillet (a couple of min on each side usually) with a little oil, it's time to arrange your tacos. There is no exact science to this process. I put about 4-5 cubes of tofu in each taco, add some salad greens, cilantro and the spicy chipotle sauce on top. My final step is to squirt some additional lime juice on top (I love lime juice if you haven't noticed). You can also add some freshly sliced up jalapenos on top, but I find these tacos are spicy and hot enough without them so do what you wish but definitely have some water nearby because these tacos have quite the kick.

I know, I know, you're super jealous of my mad food photography skills, along with my fancy puke green fine china--courtesy of Walmart

I promise you that these babies taste so much better than they look. And I should probably mention that I added WAY more spicy chipotle sauce than a normal person would (hence the reason why my mouth was on fire). You probably wont want to start with this much sauce and had I not dumped a crapton of sauce all over the tacos, you actually would've been able to see what they looked like underneath (sorry). I told you there's a very good reason why I don't blog about cooking. I promise these tacos are good, and before you know it, you'll be buying the large boxes of tofu at Costco.

To buy or continue renting, that is the question

This house is falling apart, much like my life at the moment. I know, I know, a tad over dramatic for a Tuesday afternoon, but hey, I'm a drama queen, so just be grateful that you're not my husband. Right now we're stuck in a teeny tiny rental house (that we're paying way too much for), and everything seems to be going wrong with it all at once. That's typically how life seems to go though isn't it? When one thing goes wrong, there's usually another disaster lurking right around the corner.  I swear I'm just waiting for my husband's vasectomy to fail next...kidding! That is the ONE thing that cannot break down and you better believe we'd be taking a road trip to Portland with all four kids in tow, and marching into his Urologist's office for a full refund (we paid for his procedure out of pocket and it wasn't cheap)!!  And, once again, I'm totally getting off track! I'm supposed to be talking about houses, not my husband's private parts. Moving on....Luckily we don't own the house, so we aren't responsible for the repairs, but it hasn't been easy having repairmen in and out of the house for several weeks, especially when they always seem to come over during Seanie's nap time and I'm left to entertain a fussy, exhausted infant and a barking Vizsla, who suddenly thinks she's Cujo whenever someone new enters the house.

Our dog who acts tough but couldn't harm a flea...literally

she's completely useless at catching anything

After three unsuccessful attempts to fix the hot water/wimpy water pressure issues (they even ripped up our master bathroom at one point and left it in total disarray for a week while still not being able to fix the problem), they finally replaced the hot water heater.  I do admit that it's been nice to not have to stand at the kitchen sink for thirty minutes waiting for the water to heat from cold to lukewarm. However, it's not just the water pressure that drives me bonkers. The dishwasher sucks, the carpet in the bedrooms is matted and gross, the bedrooms have plain white walls but we're not allowed to paint them, the oven handle keeps falling off, the floors are chipping in certain areas, and the toilet in the kids' bathroom overflows all the time. My husband is convinced it's because the kids use an arsenal of toilet paper, but I've used their bathroom before (out of sheer desperation of course, nobody ever uses the same toilet as their children on purpose), and it overflowed for me too.  It's gotten to the point where I know exactly how many seconds I have to get to the toilet to plunge it before I'm running to the hall closet to grab an armload of towels to throw down on the poopy water filled ground.

 After being long term, serial renters, my husband and I have decided the time has finally come to buy our very first home. You'd think I'd be super excited about this process, but when you live in a very desirable tourist town, it's not nearly as exciting as you think.  To get the monthly payment where we want it, we have to lower our expectations quite a bit and unfortunately there aren't a ton of choices to begin with in this small town where housing options are extremely limited. It's even more depressing when you look at what you can get in other states for the same price (think mansion compared to tool shed).  Before we totally commit to buy though and sign on the dotted line, we still have a lot of really big, life changing decisions to make and since I suck at making decisions this could explain why my dreams have been nothing but natural disasters, violence, chaos and turmoil. For example, last night I was swept away by a roaring tsunami. Considering we live in Central Oregon, I have a much better chance of getting shot and killed by a deer hunter, but what can I say? Dreams are weird.

The main reason we haven't taken the plunge and purchased a home before is mostly because we have major commitment issues, at least when it comes to settling down in one place for the rest of our lives. My husband is an Air Force brat and gets stir crazy living in one place for very long.  In fact we've been in our current town for nearly eight months, and he's already thinking about where we should move to next. Needless to say we go back and forth about whether or not to continue renting, even though rentals are ridiculously expensive and hard to come by in this town, or settle down and buy something.  The amount of money we're throwing away in rent every year is pretty depressing. Plus, the rental we're in right now, just isn't going to work long term. Sure, we could stay here another year, but that's pushing it before we have to get a bigger place.  My husband and I are currently sharing a bedroom with Seanie Mac, our daughter has her own room and then Mahlon and Peanut share the third bedroom. The bedrooms are ridiculously dinky here, so half of the boys' belongings are currently in storage until we move to a bigger house.  Seanie Mac is nearing his first birthday and really needs his own room as soon as possible. He doesn't sleep all that great yet, and he's already accumulating quite a bit of baby crap, which is mostly stored in our living room for now. My husband isn't a fan of his living room looking like a BabiesRUs showroom.

And might I just add in here that after living in such a small space, I really don't get why tiny houses are so popular?  I'd personally rather remain being married, but maybe that's just me. My sister in law and her husband are permanent RV'ers and my husband and I joke all the time that we'd probably kill each other after just one week of being stuck in a RV or tiny house together, especially with our children. Okay, so it's not really a joke, because he would straight up get a frying pan to the back of the head the first time he spent an hour and a half stinking up our one and only bathroom, or left 900,000 half empty cans of LaCroix scattered all over the only counter top in the entire house which happens to be the size of pizza box and also doubles as an ironing board, your office desk and kitchen table. No thank you!

We've pretty much come to the conclusion that it just makes sense to buy at this stage of our lives, especially because the tourist town we live in will always be a highly desirable place to live. We can always sell later, or rent out our house should we decide to move elsewhere. So wish us luck that we don't become those annoying ding dongs on HGTV's House Hunters who complain about silly little mundane things like interior paint colors, ugly light fixtures or my personal fave, "lack of entertaining space" because seriously, who the hell entertains anymore? Well, okay, probably lots of you do, but we have no friends so there's one thing we can cross off of our wish list.