I have no clever title for today.

I don't really have much to post about today--well, I do, but my head is pounding and I don't feel like it.

But, I did want to offer a cleaning tip that some of you may or may not already know. I discovered it a couple weeks ago by trying something out, and just had to utilize it a few minutes ago because my six year old son still eats like a 1 year old baby--messy face, grubby hands, and OHMYGOD CRUMBS--and got tiny bits of Goldfish everywhere.

So, cleaning tip of the day:
If you have a microfiber or suede couch (and probably any type of couch that isn't leather, really), then you know how hard it is to wipe crumbs and dirt off of it. You wipe with your hand to get it into your other hand or onto the floor to be swept/vacuumed, and it just sticks or bounces around, moving to a different cushion or falling between cushions, frustrating you to the point that you'd rather set the couch on fire than deal with it again. Right? Is that just me?

Ok well anyway, if you take your little hand broom and use that to sweep the crumbs off the couch into the dustpan (or just onto the floor, cuz fuck it, the floor's already filthy and needs a good sweeping anyway), this works WAY better than the previously mentioned "method." You have to sweep them off a couple times cuz they don't just slide right off, but it is a much more efficient method.

Another good use for your hand broom: use it to wipe the dust off of your baseboards when they're looking disgusting, and then sweep it all off the floor. Then have your husband or one of your kids (whoever is annoying you more at that moment) go behind you with a damp cloth and quickly wipe the baseboards down. Seriously, if you use the hand broom to do it first, it makes "cleaning" them WAY easier.

Hope this is useful! Enjoy!

Diaper hilarity (and trauma).

So, a while back I registered on the Huggies (and others) website so I could get diaper coupons and stuff, although we ended up switching to Pampers, then realized how expensive those are and said "Screw you Pampers, Walmart brand it is!"

Anyway, so of course you put in your baby's birthday and all that, so they can send you emails periodically about things pertaining to your little bundle of joy's age group. For anyone who doesn't know, he's now 14 months old.

Well I just got an email from them and the subject said "Is it time for your baby to move up to a size 4 diaper?"

HA! HA HA HA!!!!!

Oh Huggies, your naivety is so adorable. My baby has been in a size FIVE diaper for the last six months or so. My baby is a future linebacker and your puny size fours are laughable to parents like my husband and me. He would look at a size 4 diaper and probably wonder if it's supposed to go on his leg. Or, if he were capable, he would probably say, "What is this, a diaper for ants? Are there really babies my age that are this small?"


And speaking of diapers...let's talk about baby poop. No, really--let's. This incident actually happened a few days ago, but I was too traumatized by the event to write about it the same day. I think I'm ready now...

It was a normal Saturday morning. My child had a dirty diaper. I discovered this while laying on the couch when he crawled to me and started climbing up right on top of me, and I realized that the air I was breathing was suddenly filled with a dreadfully familiar poop pollution. He was climbing all over me, giggling away, pulling my hair, slamming his head into mine and causing me to say very colorful words very loudly in front of my six year old, you know, the usual charming things babies and toddlers do. I managed to free myself from his grasp and got off the couch, then turned to pick him up so I could change his terrible smelling diaper, and then I realized that his dirty diaper had, well...exploded.

It was all over his back, on my couch, on the pillow I was laying on, and I could feel that it was on the back of my shirt too. The box of baby wipes was nowhere to be seen and I started yelling "WHERE ARE THE WIPES??!!" as if this would make them appear before my eyes, but I was becoming more and more traumatized by the minute and got a little panicked. My husband, who had previously been asleep in our room, suddenly emerged wondering what the hell was going on. Luckily HE knew where the wipes were, since he was the one who had left them on the dining room table the night before (ahem), and brought them to me. Then HE saw what the hell was going on and understood exactly why I was yelling and took over from there. He went to clean the little darling off, I started the bath water (otherwise we would've used an entire box of wipes on this one), and then went to change my shirt which did, in fact, have poop on it. Before I could even remove my shirt, however, I wanted to put my hair in a ponytail because my hair is very long and I was afraid it would get in the mess on the back of my shirt. As I was doing this, I realized...there was baby poop in my hair. And then of course on my hand since I had my hair in my hand.

I have never wanted to cry about baby poop before that day. I can deal with it if it gets on my hand (still gross, but hey, it's motherhood, we all have plenty of hand soap and anti bacterial spray and gel and whatnot), or on the floor (especially now that we don't live in a carpeted home - much easier to clean it off of wood floors than out of carpet), and I wasn't even all that grossed out about it being on my shirt or my pillow or my couch. These can all easily be washed. But my hair...ew.

Now yes my hair can easily be washed as well. But there is just something about having your son's (or anyone's for that matter) CRAP in your own HAIR that just, well, makes you want to vomit and cry at the same time.

All in all, I think I handled the situation fairly well. And everyone I've told this story to has found it very humorous, but let me tell you something. It was NOT humorous at the time. Funny parenting story now, life-ruining tragic event as it was occurring.

Do you have any similar stories that are just as disgustingly traumatizing as this one? If you're ready to discuss them (I understand if you're still shell--I mean, shit-shocked over the experience and unable to discuss it), feel free to comment and tell me your story. We can commiserate (and laugh/cry/puke) together.

Today was fine. Then it wasn't.

You know, I'm pretty good at a lot of beauty related things. I find that I'm actually quite talented with makeup (I haven't perfected the art of "costume" makeup yet, but still), I can style my hair fairly nicely, and I dye it at home all the time, by myself. However. Highlights...are an entirely different story. And today, for me, it wasn't merely highlights, it was going back over the highlights I did last week. My hair is so dark they came out a little golden and orange in some parts so I had to go back over them.

Here's how to ruin a perfectly good, normal day, if you're in the mood to do so:

1. Make the decision to highlight (or touch up existing highlights) your OWN hair - all by yourself.

2. Get all your necessary tools together (foils, clips, tinting brush, bleach, developer, etc., etc.) and mix your bleach or your hair color and all that.

3. Make sure to wear gloves. Otherwise when the smallest glob of bleach mixture falls onto your hand, it will feel like it's being pricked by about a thousand needles all at once in that one spot. Trust me on this one. Now then. If you're merely highlighting your hair, skip step 4. If you're re-doing or fixing existing highlights (like me), proceed to step 4.

4. Spend 30 fucking minutes or more trying to find and separate out all of your existing highlights. OBVIOUSLY when you first did them the week prior you weren't counting on having to go over them a second time and you probably decided to put them in obscure locations and you can't seem to figure out which way you had your hair parted when you did them. Am I right?!?!?! UGH.

5. Hold your section of hair to be highlighted in one hand and your foil in the other and hold your foil against your head AND PROCEED TO COMPLETELY SCREW YOURSELF OVER. Seriously, from what I've heard, you get better at it with practice, much like most other things (hence my theory about parenting abilities improving with each child - practice makes perfect, so my first born is screwed), but I don't know how people can STAND to do this on themselves often enough to become good at it. I'm sure it's so much easier foiling on other people than it is on yourself. But I am pretty sure I will never do it again. My foils kept sliding, making bleach touch parts of my hair that I didn't want it to. Halfway through my "waiting around in misery until I can finally wash this smelly garbage out of my hair" time, my foils started...how do I put this...EXPLODING?! Leaking bleach out everywhere, dripping down my freaking neck, and once again MAKING BLEACH TOUCH MORE PARTS OF MY HAIR THAT I DIDN'T WANT IT TO.

6. Continue selecting chunks to highlight or however you want to do it and continue screwing yourself, and your hair, over completely. See step 5 if you need additional instructions or reminders.

7. Wait around in misery until you can finally wash that smelly garbage out of your hair.

8. Take the foils out and rinse the bleach from your hair. Rinse really well, or you will regret it. Then shampoo your hair with a mild shampoo (I like that Mane n Tail stuff for things like this). If you're worried about brassiness, you can also try the Clairol stuff that I cannot think of the damn name of and am too lazy to walk the five feet to my shower to look at it - it's in a purple bottle and the shampoo itself is purple. It's good for non-natural-blonde hair.

9. Condition the CRAP out of your hair, even though you and I both know that you can condition all you want, that bleach killed your fucking hair and it's gonna feel like crap. The conditioning will just help it feel less like crap, temporarily. And it will also make it smell good.

10. Towel dry your hair and check yourself out in the mirror. Now note what time it is and realize that you've wasted FOUR HOURS OF YOUR DAMN DAY doing this shit, and then realize that's probably why your husband kept giving you dirty looks every time he walked by and saw you still standing there declaring mutiny on yourself and your hair. HE saw it as declaring mutiny on him because the baby decided to be a pain in the ass for him the whole time you were busy with your hair. He has no clue what trauma you've just been through; you may need to kick him in the shin.

11. Do your highlights look nice? If the answer is yes, proceed to steps 12-13.
If the answer is no, congratulations, you've done exactly what I did a week ago, and you wasted all that time and energy, and all those awesome new curse words you came up with during the process that no one was around to hear. Guess what, you'll get to repeat all these amazing steps again when your hair is done crying and trying to mend itself! THEN you'll get to do steps 12-13!

12. You can now, for the first time in FOUR MOTHER-F*ING HOURS, smile and be proud of your work. However, now would be a good time to text all your girl friends the same message: "Remind me to never highlight my own effing hair again."

13. Go seek compliments from your husband about your amazing new highlights. If he doesn't notice, doesn't compliment them, or doesn't like them, then mix up some more bleach later that night and bleach his hair in his sleep. This will be even more awesome if your husband, like mine, has extremely dark hair, for two reasons: one, it would probably be orangey or at least golden, and two, his thick dark eyebrows won't match at all and he will look ridiculous.

Fortunately, my husband liked my highlights very much and made sure to tell me so. So his head of soft, lovely, dark brown (with some grays...heh) is safe. For now.

Taco Soup

So, since I promised there would be some recipes on here, I made sure to take pictures while I was making my taco soup the other night.

Note: I do not give a shit about taking fancy pictures of food or anything else I might be making like most cooking and crafty blogs do. I take pictures on my iPhone as I go, if I remember to, and all I care about is whether or not they're in focus. So if you're looking for fancy pictures of food, then visit someone else's blog. I do not have the time, patience, or even the desire, to try to impress anyone with pretty, neat pictures of all my spices and herbs poured out onto a flat surface next to the nicely minced garlic and already chopped onion, arranged neatly around whatever meat or "main ingredient"the recipe calls for. Who's got the f*ing time for that? Not this gal.

End rant.

This recipe is actually (mostly) the way my mom makes her taco soup, and one day I asked her to write the recipe down for me so I could make it. I don't do it exactly the way she does every time, but it's almost exactly like hers. It's REALLY easy to make and I often have most of the ingredients I need already on hand. If you know how to brown beef, then you can probably handle the rest. It's one of those foods that's just perfect to make on really cold nights.

Anyway, here's a few pictures and brief descriptions of the steps (and some self deprecating comments about my picture taking), but don't worry, the full recipe is at the bottom. Oh, and if you're wondering why I used such an enormous pot when clearly I am not going to be filling even half of it, it's because I just freaking can.

Not that anyone doesn't really know what browning beef looks like, but hey, I remembered to take pictures as I was cooking, which is impressive enough on its own. After browning the beef you simply add some onion, garlic, taco seasoning, water and beef bouillon cubes...

This doesn't look attractive at all. But I promise, the smell is amazing, and you'll thank me for the wonderful aroma that fills your kitchen (or at least masks the scent of dirty diapers in the trash, whatever), especially when you move on to the next two steps.

Here it looks much better, unless you don't like corn or pinto beans or tomatoes. In which case I suggest you not even bother making this dish.

Ahh, this is really my favorite part, besides devouring it. This is where you add the cilantro! If I could put cilantro in everything...I probably would. 

The final product, topped with sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese.

Once it's all mixed up and ready to be stuffed into my mouth, it looks like this, and I like to break a few tortilla chips into it for some crunch. Also, aren't you just loving the fact that I've still got my Christmas tablecloth on my dining room table?

Taco Soup

Servings: I have no idea the exact number of servings, I can tell you it makes plenty for my family and we've still got a lot left.

Prep/cook time: It literally took me over two hours to make this dish ONLY BECAUSE of all the times I had to stop what I was doing and kiss bo-bo's and change diapers and deal with homework and whiny kids. But if I didn't have to do all that, it would've probably taken about 30 minutes total.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 2 tbsp chili powder, or more/less as desired
• 1/2 white onion, chopped (you can do a whole onion if you prefer, but I don't have the patience to chop an entire onion unless I absolutely have to)
• 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 cups water*
• 2 packets taco seasoning mix**
• 2 beef bouillon cubes
• 4 cans Rotel (Mild or Original)
• 1 can whole kernel corn
• 2 cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• Chopped fresh cilantro, to taste (I like a lot of cilantro so I used 2 cups of cilantro leaves - which turns into much less once you actually chop them up)
• Sour cream (optional)
• Shredded cheddar OR Mexican Blend cheese (optional)
• Tortilla chips (optional)

*The amount of water is totally up to you - if you want more soup and want it to be a bit more liquidy, then 4 cups or even more would probably suit you better. If you want more veggies and meat than soup, than 2 or 3 cups would work fine.

**When I made it this time, I only had one packet of taco seasoning mix, so I added a tad bit more chili powder and a little cumin, and it came out just fine.

Directions:

1. Brown the beef in a deep pot. Drain grease and return beef to the pot.
2. Add the onion, garlic, chili powder, taco seasoning, water and beef bouillon cubes. If you're adding any cumin or other spices, dump those in too. Stir until the taco seasoning and spices are dissolved into the mixture. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
3. Once it's boiling, add the Rotel, pinto beans and corn, and stir them all into the beef mixture. Cover and turn the heat down to medium-low; let it simmer for as long as you want (I usually let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes or so, or however long it takes me to chop my cilantro and get kids rounded up at the table). Stir occasionally.
4. Uncover, mix in the cilantro and remove from heat.
5. Ladle soup into bowls and top with the shredded cheese and sour cream. Serve with tortilla chips for dipping or breaking up/adding to the soup.
6. Also, if you generally like jalapenos on your tacos or at all, you could try adding some chopped up and seeded jalapenos on top with the cheese and sour cream!

An Introduction.

Here's the thing. Anyone who knows me (or at least sees the stuff I put on my Facebook) probably thinks I'm rather June Cleaver-esque (compared to the me a few years ago, especially), because I do actually enjoy cooking, doing a little baking occasionally, and SOME crafty things (I recently discovered I'm pretty good at making tulle wreaths--and I really like making them). The irony of my blog title is not lost on me. But, for the most part, I am definitely no June Cleaver.

I don't decorate cakes (although I probably would if I could--but I don't have the time or the expertise to do so), hell I'm not even a very good baker. I don't garden, I don't keep a spotless and immaculate household, I don't wear dresses or fancy clothes every day, I don't wear pearls all the time (although now that I think about it, I may start...), I'm not always happy with my husband or my children, and I am definitely not ladylike, mild mannered, soft spoken or even very polite. Dinners at my house are never a big, fancy affair--the only thing "big" about dinner time is the mess made by my kids or the scary, angry vein protruding from my neck. I have never really hosted a party, I've never been to a PTA meeting, and I don't bake cupcakes for my kids' classmates on birthdays or any other occasions (I prefer to buy them at the store and tell everyone they're homemade). I also suck at wrapping presents, although I can coordinate tissue paper with gift bags like it's nobody's business.

The four things I CAN bake (as far as things made from scratch) surprisingly well: blueberry muffins, cobbler (my favorite is blackberry), sugar cookies and brownies. I am actually a pretty good cook, and I do enjoy cooking, but I don't get to do it very often now that my husband works nights. There are even a handful of foods I make that I am actually extremely proud of and totally fine with bragging about: lasagna, burgers (my burgers are actually very popular, to the point that I refuse to share the recipe because, well, they're mine), salsa, pork tenderloin with cilantro pesto, and seafood chowder. My house may not be spotless, but I clean every single day and I try to at least keep it "neat." I love my husband and my children very much and I would honestly be lost without them (maybe a little more relaxed...but lost nonetheless).

I'm loud, hot tempered, often quite angry, and I cuss like a sailor. I prefer beer over wine any day of the week and I am a cigarette smoker who is constantly trying to quit and constantly failing to do so. I do enjoy dressing up and looking nice but I don't often have a reason to--cleaning and lounging around my house with grubby, sticky kids are definitely not reasons to look my best, in my opinion. Not that there's ever really time for lounging...

So, in case you still cannot tell the difference between the ultra feminine, polite, loving, wholesome matriarch of Leave It To Beaver and myself, I'll make it perfectly clear: this is DEFINITELY not June Cleaver's blog. There will be profanity, angry rants about kids misbehaving, sad pity-parties about the condition my body was left in after having children, woes about bills, husbands, pets, cleaning, etc., etc...

But, on a more positive note, there might also OCCASIONALLY be some recipes, some crafty type posts, some fun-with-the-family stories/pictures, and perhaps even some kind words (or at least humorous anecdotes) to uplift other tired and annoyed stay-at-home-mothers out there. So, enjoy, and don't say you weren't warned.

Question (and annoyance) of the day: Am I the only one who gets really annoyed reading posts on parenting sites/forums when people use those ridiculous DH, DS, etc., abbreviations?