The Day I Was Mistaken for Jennifer Aniston

Today I was mistaken for Jennifer Aniston.

This was very significant. I have been a Jennifer Aniston fan for quite some time. My husband & I watch reruns of Friends rather frequently. I may even name the child in my uterus Rachel. If it's a girl, that is. We won't know for awhile. But I digress.

This evening the side effects of pregnancy were wearing on me. Swollen feet. Nausea. Heartburn. Nausea. Fatigue. Nausea. Once Husband came home, we had plans to all go for a dip in the pool. At the last moment I declined. I went immediately to bed. (Of course, I asked for the iPad. Because it rocks. And it has Netflix on it. And I can immediately watch a number of movies featuring Jennifer Aniston.)

After a couple of hours and most of the way through "Picture Perfect" (featuring Jennifer Aniston & Kevin Bacon. Yummy.), my 3-year old son Chris came into the room. He crawled up into the bed and asked what I was watching. I showed him the screen and he saw Jennifer Aniston.

He looked at her. He thought for a second. He looked at me. He thought for a second.

He said, "Mommy, is that YOU?"

Because me, with my swollen feet, fluid retention, frumpy PJs, messy hair, and oily skin (because pregnancy hormones do CRAZY things to my pores) I am the spitting image of Jennifer Aniston. Tall, slender, graceful, perfect-skinned Jennifer Aniston.

Seriously. The only thing that I have in common with Jennifer Aniston is, well, our first name. That's it.

Aniston- tall (at least I think she is. I've never stood next to her to compare.)

Me- short

Aniston- slender and graceful

Me- thick around the middle and clumsy

Aniston- perfect comedic timing

Me- can't tell a joke to save her life

But in the eyes of my son, I am beautiful, graceful, speak with a melodic voice, and funny.

I think I'll stick with his opinion.

Reasons to Grow Up

I love that my son is now old enough to carry on conversations. The mind of a 3 1/2 year old is a truly marvelous thing. Yesterday in the car I told him I wished he could stop growing for a little while. Here is our conversation:

Me: Will you stay a little boy forever?

Him: No. I'm growing.

Me: Can you just stop growing for a little while?

Him: NO! You can't put anything on top of me!!!!

Me: I won't put anything on top of you. Isn't it fun being a kid?

Him: NO!

Me: Do you want to be a grown-up?

Him: YES!

Me: Why?

Him: Because....... I can have big knees. Daddy has big knees, Mommy has big knees....(sadly and with a little bit of a whine) I have little knees.

Me: through muffled laughter Oh, I see. Grown-ups have big knees.

Him: YES!

Theme & Variations on Alfredo Sauce

We had unexpected guests at our house this evening.

Well, I didn't expect them. My husband did. But not for an hour. One of them showed up while I was not, ahem, decent so I had to run out of sight quickly to fix the problem because this polite gentleman walked in without knocking. But I digress.

With unexpected guests coming at dinnertime, I felt obligated to prepare some food. Because I was raised in a southern family, and you just quite simply do not have people in your home at any time of day without offering some form of refreshment. Oftentimes a bag of chips will suffice, but they showed up at DINNERTIME! Being a resourceful sort of person, I surveyed the contents of my pantry. Not much. (I had been planning on doing grilled cheese sandwiches but there wasn't enough bread for everyone.) I found a small jar of Alfredo sauce and half a box of pasta. Looked good. Not quite enough sauce, though. It was a very small jar. Then I remembered that I had 3/4 of a jar in the fridge, as I had opened it the previous night to dip breadsticks in!

Now, not being as talented as my good friend Jessica, the Novice Chef (I quite happily admit that I am much novicer than she.) I needed to improvise a bit. My husband is the cook of the family and he is very particular about his sauces. Opening a jar and dumping it in the pot doesn't quite cut it around here.

SO-- I improvised. I combined the two small jars. One was "sundried tomato alfredo" and one was "romano and parmesan." I didn't stop there. I also added a splash of white wine. I didn't stop there, either. Also in my fridge, I found some already-cubed-up grilled chicken, so I tossed that in for good measure.

Anyone who didn't know that jarred sauce had been present wouldn't have figured it out. It tasted completely homemade and delicious. I was ecstatic, being that I am the novicest chef.

Then I announced that dinner was ready. And these gentleman, who showed up at my house unannounced and with poor timing, informed me that they had plans to have dinner with some other friends later, but they were thankful for my offer. Grmph.

I guess I'll just have to go for seconds!

SQLBBQ: The Aftermath

On August 1, 2010, we hosted a BBQ at our house. For a whole bunch of strangers. (Who are now friends.) Computer geeks, actually. I was a little nervous, as I seem to have a little bit of social anxiety when I'm around people I don't know. My husband at least knew most of these people from Twitter (@BrentO, @SQLAgentMan, @SQLChicken, and lots and lots more....)

So anyhoo. They all descend upon my house. After an hour (and 3 strawberry daiquiris,) I relax and start to enjoy the company of those around me. This SQL group are good people! So here is the story of the Aftermath of SQLBBQ...

There were so many nice, helpful folks attending SQLBBQ. People carried things in and out, did some cooking, poured some drinks, played with my kid, and brought trays of meat into the kitchen. One of these helpful folks (who is still unknown) placed some extra ribs, chicken, and corn-on-the-cob into a baking dish and stashed it into the oven to keep warm. Very well intentioned. As the night wore down and the last guest left, I surveyed the remains- 5 hot dogs and a couple of burgers. I was astounded! How could there not be more leftovers than this? Either my husband planned very well when purchasing food or someone went hungry. I shrugged it off and packed the extra hot dogs and burgers into a Rubbermaid container, tossed it in the fridge, ran a load of dishes, and went to bed.

Several days pass. Nearly a full week, actually.

It is Friday evening. I decide to cook a frozen pizza. Now, we have two ovens in our house. We typically use the upper oven because it's just easier to get into and out of, and doesn't involve backing into a cabinet in order to remove the food. The upper oven we have been using all week. The lower oven hasn't been touched. Until tonight, because the pan I use to cook frozen pizzas is too deep for the upper oven, necessitating the use of backing into the cabinets in order to open the oven in order to insert food.

The pizza was ready to go. I added extra cheese and pepperoni, and a few pineapple slices for good measure. I back myself into the cabinets, and open the door of the lower oven.

A foul stench greets my olfactory nerve. I blink. Three flies escape from the blazing warmth of the pre-heat setting on my oven. I cautiously open the door a little more to figure out what on earth is going on.

And there is a baking dish, filled with ribs and chicken and corn on the cob, which had been placed there by a well-meaning individual and whom I am certain had no malice in their hearts when they performed such an act. Tears begin to sting my eyes. I quickly grab a garbage bag and throw out what should have been excellent leftovers.

A bit of a melt-down was had. Things were not pretty. I lit as many candles as I possibly could and ran all the fans in the house. My mood was as foul as the stench which pervaded my kitchen.

But everything's OK now. Now, I laugh about it. It's actually one of my better stories.

That's kind of sad, that I don't have any better stories than that.

I need to get out more.

Like maybe on next year's SQLCruise??

That's My Peanut

*Note: I will be employing some creative spelling throughout this post, so as to discourage visits from unscrupulous individuals. That is all.*

It is not, evidently, only grown men who are fascinated with their reproduhuctif orginn. My son, two and a half years old, has often found Mr. Winky to be a source of amusement. (Any of you mothers who have boys can surely attest to this fact. It's a great bath toy- you can squeeze it, pull it, make splashes with it, and if you're REALLY lucky, you can make liquid come out of it into the bathtub and make Mommy squirm because she just cleaned the bathtub this morning.)

Anyhoo. A few days ago while I was changing his diaper, he grasped himself (which is not unusual) and asked very matter-of-factly, "What's THAT?" (Up until now, he was quite happy with the mere existence of it. Never before had he inquired as to the appropriate word to use when referring to it.)

Because I try so very, very hard to be grown-up and mature about such things, I very matter-of-factly informed him, "That is your pea-niss."

This new information delighted my son. When he has new information, he enjoys proclaiming it loudly. A shout arose. (This is not "creative spelling," this is what he actually said.) "THAT'S RIGHT! THAT'S MY PEANUT!"

I, of course, just about fell down laughing. This only made it worse, because next to loudly proclaiming new information, his favorite thing in life is to make people (particularly me) laugh. So of course, every time he has a diaper change, he starts yelling, "My PEANUT! MY PEANUT!!!!"

This evening, he was sitting in my husband's lap watching TV and drinking milk out of a sippy cup. He squirmed a little bit, accidently kicking my husband in the "peanut." My husband made a sound expressing discomfort, and Kiddo laughed. My husband said, "No son, that's not funny."

Because I have such a highly developed and sophisticated sense of humor, I said, "Sweetie, you hurt Daddy's peanut." My sweet little boy, having learned that when he is hurt he will get a kiss, feels sympathy for my husband and wants to make Daddy feel better.

I have never seen my husband twist himself up in such a formation before.

It was highly entertaining.

Photo Contest: Faces

This is my entry for A Cowboy's Wife photography contest: Faces.

My son Chris was eating some ice cream and was just looking so cute, I had to snap some photos of him! I did some minor post-processing on this, a little color adjustment and I added some edge vignetting.

Do you have a great photo of someone's face? Join in the contest!

The Wrong Doily

Hello! How's everyone? Wow, it's been a MONTH since I've updated!! Here's what's been going on.

I am working full-time at a local bakery/cafe which sells bagels, pastries, sandwiches, salads, and soups. I go in every morning at 5 am. Yes, you read that correctly. 5:00 in the morning. Dark and early! My duties include setting up the bakery window so that all the pastries look too good to actually EAT (before I worked here, I thought the display pastries were fakes!! Little did I know...) fill the bagel baskets, arrange the bread on the shelves, make orange juice cups, fruit cups, and yogurt parfaits, and most importantly, ensure that everything is on the correct doily.

Yes, there is such a thing as the wrong doily. As I found out when I tried to put the wrong doilie underneath the Caramel Brownies. There's also such a thing as too many doilies. Those things stick together like the dickens. Pain in the rear ends, they are, especially when you're wearing gloves to keep the pastries sanitary and you can't feel if you have 1 or 17 doilies all stuck together. Heaven forbid you get CAUGHT placing more than one doily on a basket or tray, because then you are RAISING! OVERHEAD! EXPENSES!

Anyhoo. I go in at 5 am, I leave between 11-noon, pick up Kiddo from daycare, we have lunch, sometimes go for a swim, then it's naptime for BOTH of us. So while it stinks that I have to go to work so early, it's GREAT that I get to spend most of the day with Kiddo and that I get to take naps again! I love naps. Especially when I have only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before because my body is not yet accustomed to rising at 4 am, necessitating an earlier bedtime. I require "allergy medication" to help me fall asleep at night, and then coffee in the morning and throughout the day is ESSENTIAL to maintain the eyes-keeping-open-thing. So now I'm the cliche druggie cashier. Better hope I don't spit on your cherry danish. Hah.

Anxiously awaiting school to start again so I can go back to being the evil substitute teacher that sends kids to the office for looking at me wrong. By the way, one of those kids came into my bakery/cafe and ordered a cherry danish. On a day when I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before.