This post is as random as my thought process these days

It's been a rather chaotic month and will probably only get more so until after the holidays. We moved out of our corporate apartment and into Husband's parent's house. Lord willing and the creek don't rise (one of my most favorite saying from my mama), we'll close on a house on 12/15. I'm trying to remain relatively guarded until we actually have the papers signed and keys in our hand.

The kids and I were back in our Ft Worth house for the last 9 days and Husband was there for Thanksgiving weekend.

Poor Little A is so confused about Christmas and how Santa will know how to find her. We will have slept in no less than 5 houses between last week and Christmas.

We have packers and movers (thanks to Husband's nice relocation package), but I still have been doing a massive decluttering and clean out. Which means that I have scrutinized just about everything that we possess and decided if it is for keeping, recycling, donating, selling or trashing. I really don't think of myself as a pack-rat, but, man, we have a lot. It is amazing how much stuff we have acquired with the kids. Between outgrown clothes we are saving to hand down and too-big clothes we are saving to grown into, Little A's toys we are saving for Little Mister and big stuff like bikes, wagon, tricycles, cars and strollers, we may be candidates for that Hoarders show soon.

I've also re-confirmed how odd I am. I cannot recycle a magazine unless I have read the whole thing and torn out any interesting recipes, tips, book reviews or exercises. I have this fear that if I toss the magazine before reading, I could be throwing away the very life changing article that I need. Also, I have a really hard time parting with books. I have visions of someday having days and months to sit and re-read all the books I've once read and therefore, must keep them all. Of course, I'll be too busy reading magazines to get to those books. Yes, I am a mess.

Please hang with me for the next month and I promise I'll be back with actual posts that make actual points and required some forethought. I should leave stream of consciousness writing to the pros.

Oh, and I love the peppermint Hershey kisses. They were sent from God to make my December bearable and my pants a little snug.

Sisters

Back to the BCS.

It was just the weekend I needed. Sometimes you need heart to heart times with friends and other times you need one-lines and laughter. This was the latter and it was perfect.

Old friends enjoying some time away. Journeying back to the campus and town where so many happy times were had. We ate (boy did we eat), drank, slept in and ate some more. There was a football game. There was Northgate. There was KAJ ('there are drugs for that too'), Mr KAJ (GeeeeeeJayyyyyyy), the future Woodlanders and the Georgians. Funny, loyal and treasured friends.

I hope it doesn't take us 10 years to plan another get together!

Aggie Football

Final Halloween Pictures

The one picture I have of him with his costume.

Little Mister was done with his costume (see it in my hands) You want cotton candy in addition to all the other candy? Sure, why not?

Kitchen Necessities

We are living in a furnished apartment for the month of November. I brought a minivan load of clothes, toys, books, toiletries, randomness, food and kitchen tools. I thought a month was too long to be without the following:

• Bread Machine
• Magic Bullet
• Kitchen Aid Mixer
• Immersion Blender

I've used each one several times, so the were worth the precious cargo space they took up in the backseat. I should have also brought my knives and good cutting boards.

That got thinking and curious. I ask you, dear readers, what kitchen tools can you not be without?

Weekly Menu

Dinners:
New Black Bean soup recipe (from a Bobby Flay cookbook)
Eggs, Bacon and Toast (both my kids would eat their body weight in bacon if allowed)
Pasta with Jarred Sauce - easy night!
Chicken Tortilla Soup to use up some leftover frozen fajita meat

Halloween Pictures - part 2

School Party

Frugal Friday - $5 Cooking Light Subscription

The majority of my cooking is done from Cooking Light magazine or their website. I love using their recipes as a guide and then tweak and modify as I go along.

This week Amazon.com is offering Cooking Light subscriptions for $5. I've never seen a price that low. The offer is over tomorrow.

And Then

The day started off good: healthy breakfast, read some books.

And then I let the kids watch a good hour and a half of TV while I looked at houses online.

And then I packed the kids into the car to meet the realtor to look at houses.

And then I schlepped the kids all around town looking at houses from 11 - 2. Yep, right through lunch and naptime. I passed back a bag of stale cheerios at one point.

And then I let Little A choose where she wanted me to get lunch from (at 2:15 mind you) since she did such a good job going from house to house.

And then I went through the McDonalds drive through. Thanks Mickey D for having My Little Ponies in the happy meals (and thanks to my Dad for teaching her about Happy Meals. That! Come! With! A! Toy!)

And then, in one instance, realized I became the mom my idealistic 28 year old self would have wanted to kick: harried, no make-up, sporting yesterday's hair, driving a mini-van, passing back McDonalds french fries to two kids who looked away from Clifford on the van DVD just long enough to reach for the fried, white-carb heavy, nutrient lacking, GMO, mass produced substance.

And then, Little Mister decided that the 10 minute nap he took between houses was enough. Except it wasn't. So, he spent from 3-5 being grumpy, yawning and moaning.

And then I let Little A play computer games on pbskids.org while I sat on the couch with Little Mister and watched Big Green Rabbit on repeat.

And then this song implanted itself firmly into my head and will play on repeat for the next 2 weeks.

And then I almost called CPS on myself.

But, all hope is not lost. Yes, I may have lost the contest for world's best mom for this week month year, true.

But then, I sang Little Mister to sleep (granted it was pretty easy since he was ready for bed since 5pm) and got to snuggle with his sleeping self and feel his sweet, cool breath on my cheek.

And then I got to watch Little A's delighted face as I read A Bad Case of the Stripes (complete with voices) before bed and smile as she asked when she could try lima beans like the little girl in the story.

And then I got to snuggle with her until she fell asleep.

And then I had a nice glass of wine and recounted the day on my trusty little blog.

And then I am going to bed!