Cookies you can pretend are homemade!

I got to preview the cookies from www.ohmascookies.com They won't be open for business until September, but you can go ahead and place your Thanksgiving and Christmas orders now. Get your orders in early to make sure you have these homemade cookies in your freezer when your overachieving neighbors send you an invitation to their cookie swaps, or your relatives come to visit and you need to impress them with your (non-existent) baking skills.

True story, my nit picky mother in law was coming over to visit the day Ohma's Cookies arrived. She is the type who always wished her son had married a nice old fashioned girl who cooks and cleans instead of me. As you all know, I am a terrible cook. But then these cookies, lemon stars to be exact, showed up at my doorstep looking like a championship baker had made them. Being the deviant I am, I arranged them on a plate and served them with a cup of tea to my mother in law. She was so excited by my new found baking skills, I got to act all modest and tell her I wished I could give her the recipe, but it's a family secret.

Ohmas is my homemade cookie shop from now on.

But if you come over and I serve cookies, at least pretend you think I made them.

Music Review

By Guest Blogger Ben, teenage boy

I got this CD from http://www.cdbaby.com/. You can always find new stuff there that isn't the same stuff you hear over and over on the radio.

This CD is called I'm In Love and I Hate It by Nick Bognar. It totally rocks so hard. The drums are awesome and the songs get stuck in your head. This guy has great music and lyrics that actually mean something. Wasted Man is my favorite song off this CD right now, I like the part where he says, "I don't need freedom half as much as anonymity." I am trying to learn how to play all the songs on my guitar.

If you go to http://cdbaby.com/cd/nickbognar you can hear parts of all of his songs. You can also see more of Nick at www.myspace.com/nickbognar. On his Myspace page he also lists the places and dates where you can see him play live.

Bad Panty Day?

Too many bad panty days have left me on an eternal search for a pair that doesn't ride up. Some days, having a wedgie is more than I can tolerate. I saw these Hanes 100% cotton Bikini panties with a "No Ride Up Comfort Fit Promise" at the Target the other day. The ad sounded good to me, but will they deliver a day free of wedgie annoyance? I took them home fully expecting that these panties would be invading my nether regions before I left my bedroom.
Good news!
These panties didn't go anywhere. They stayed glued to my butt like I was a pageant girl. I wore them caring for the baby, picking up the house, vacuuming, and going out shopping, nothing made these move.
I am in love!

How to Make A Small Kitchen Seem Bigger

I had a question from a reader about how to make a small kitchen seem bigger. I don't know about you, but my kitchen seems small no matter how big it is. There is clutter like folded laundry and mail on my table, my purse, magazines, my reusable grocery bags on the counter and dog and kid toys all over the floor. Here are some ideas that I have personally employed to make my tiny kitchen more workable.
1) Store table linen, like cloths and napkins in a dresser in another room. This idea works great! I have an antique dresser in my living room that holds my holiday dishes, linen, candles, waffle iron, and other rarely used kitchen items. If you get a low dresser, it can look like a side table if you throw a table cloth over it. If it is a decorative dresser, let it speak for itself. I also use the high shelves in my kids closets for storage. They can't reach up there anyway, why not put my cake pans there? It's not like I am using them.
2) put your microwave over the stove. Don't waste valuable counter space to store appliances. You will prefer it when your microwave his higher up anyway. It will be easier to scrape all that cooked on food off the sides too.
3) Clear out the clutter. Your little ceramic cows and chickens take up space. Move them to the kids rooms. The kids are just using that space to store their dirty laundry and trash, why not make it pretty?
4) Light everything up to within an inch of its life. A brighter space will seem bigger. While you are at the Home Depot, get a can of white paint and paint your cabinets too.
5) If you don't have drawer space, get a flatware holder and store your forks and stuff right on the table.
6) Go to Ikea. That store is excellent and inexpensive when it comes to organizing a small space.

Embarassment at the vet

My cat had to have surgery.
My husband Steve and I were in the vet office. They prepped the cat for surgery while we talked to the vet tech.
Here's a transcript of the actual conversation:
Vet Tech: "I will give you a call if anything goes wrong. It will probably be awhile before we get started on the actual surgery. The doctor is really anal about making sure everything is perfect."
Steve: "We like anal."

End of the Year Teacher Gifts.

My two oldest go to public school for some classes and are homeschooled the rest of the time. Believe me, they are no picnic to teach. Since we are coming up on the end of the school year, it is time to pick up that teacher gift that says, "hope you have a relaxing summer, sorry my kids were such a pain." Of course, the gift that says that the best is Vodka, but we all know that is inappropriate in a school setting.
I thought about a coffee gift card, but coffee isn't relaxing and probably every other parent would bring those in. I decided to order from http://www.prismtea.com/ because a friend ordered a Mother's Day gift there and her mom loved it. I had it shipped here so I could see it before giving it to the teacher.
It was super nice. Even the box it was shipped in was all fancy white with frilly paper. The gift was beautiful and high quality from the box, to the treats, to the posh tea and tea strainer. It looked exactly like it did in the picture and I feel certain it will score me some points with the teacher, which is what education is all about .

Work at home nightmare

Because I am the kind of girl who likes to try new things, I got a seasonal job taking orders for one of the nation's biggest florist networks. I would tell you the name of the company, but since I am about to talk bad about them, it probably wouldn't be polite.
There were some good things about the job. I got to work from home and in the middle of the night, so I was still able to take care of the kids.
The job started with a week of training. This training was supposed to cover how to take orders, monitor your progress as a sales rep, and how to use the computer system. My training class ended up having so many technical problems, the instructor just gave us the answers to the training quiz and set us loose to take orders.
From call number one, I knew I was in trouble. The supervisors who were supposed to help me via chatroom were strangely absent for hours at a time while I sat making small talk with irate customers and apologizing for the lack of resolution to their problems. One customer was mad, but ended up chatting with me for 45 minutes about 1970's rock bands while we waited for a supervisor to answer my call for help.
When the supervisors answered, more often than not their version of "help" was, "you should have learned that in training class." As if I could travel back in time and force my trainer to share the answer to my future question.
I dreaded each shift, sometimes even praying for lightening to strike my phone line dead.
The worst part of the whole experience was fielding the hundreds of calls from angry customers whose flowers weren't delivered at all. When people send flowers, it is important, and the huge volume of orders that weren't filled was appalling.
The happy ending is that I have now eliminated call center operator from my dream job list.

How much do my carpets stink?

True story:
We took the kids and pets ( 2 dogs and 3 cats) on a vacation in the RV. We were gone for a week. If you know anything about cats, you know they do not like change. They were not happy on this trip. I knew they wouldn't be, but I don't have a pet sitter so what could I do?
Anyway, we came back and cleaned the RV. The cats had expressed their displeasure in several places. This was a major concern for me because the RV was going into storage and would be baking in the hot sun until the next time we wanted to take a trip. I went up to the Walgreens and picked up this Arm & Hammer Carpet and Pet Fresh spray. I soaked the entire RV, said a little prayer, and closed it up for storage.
A few months later, we went to get the RV. I was more than a little afraid that we would open the door and be blasted back with a wall of hot stink.
You know what? When we opened the door to the RV, it smelled as if there had never been any cats in there at all. I was sold! I use it in my house now too and on the occasional desecrated curtain or piece of furniture. It is amazing stuff! I have spent lots more on other pet odor removal products and none work like Pet Fresh.
The answer to how much my carpets stink is:

Not at all.

They are so cute at this age

Some punk wants to date my daughter.
He called and asked her to come spend the night and go in the hot tub.
Yeah, whatever buddy!
Little 16 year old pervert.
Step away from my daughter!

My messed up hair

Pool chlorine and (ahem) color enhanced hair are not a good match. My hair is gets crispier every time I swim. Sometimes my hair is so bad that after I wash it, it is all frizzy and ratty looking. I use shampoo and conditioner, but it hasn't been enough. One day a sample of Sunsilk Hydra TLC landed in my mailbox and wow! I use the tiniest amount, the size of a pencil eraser, on my hair right when I get out of the shower. And like a miracle, my hair becomes soft, straight and manageable.
It smells kind of fruity, in a nice way, but the smell goes away once it dries.

What's for dinner?

I am trying to learn to cook, but sometimes I don't have time or, to be honest, the inclination. My husband, Steve, has a "thing" about frozen dinners. I think he has too many bad memories of starchy, sticky old school TV dinners.
If we are to remain happily married, I must help him overcome this prejudice. It is my plan to make this On-Cor Gravy and Salisbury Steaks frozen dinner, put it on plates, hide the trash, and tell Steve I picked up dinner at the diner around the corner. When he says it is good- WHAM- I throw it out there that it is a frozen dinner.
Look at that! It was so easy to make. 10 minutes in the microwave, stir, and back in for 7. I poured it over some leftover instant mashed potatoes and Yummy!
It really did taste like it came from the diner. The gravy was good too. Steve never knew what hit him! A-HA!

Self Tanner for the Pale.

Texas is hot and sunny. All you need to do to get a tan is step outside for about 10 minutes. I have lived here all my life and summer to me is lying out in the sun and baking. This, of course, is bad bad bad! My family wears sunscreen, the higher the number the better. But then we all are so pale we glow in the dark. I know that I personally seem to radiate light from my normal skin.
My daughter, Annalise, and I decided to get some self tanner this year. We tried a different brand a few years ago and both turned a several unattractive shades of streaky orange.
I picked the Banana Boat Everyday Glow SunDial Self-Tanning Moisturizer because it had the coolest container of all the tanners up at the Walgreens, and that is how shallow I am. It has a dial on the top so you can pick the exact color you would like to be. I chose a mid range while Annalise decided to go Caribbean bronze.
I an happy to report that it worked great! You rub it on your skin and wait a few hours for the color to develop. If it isn't what you want, add more. If you are at the right color, you have a few days before you have to reapply. It isn't slimy, it feels like lotion and smoothed right into my skin. Smelled nice too. Neither of us ended up orange and best of all, no sun damage!

Hi! It's me!

Hi! I am Jessica, and I am new here!
I recently quit my not so high powered job to join the world's most glamorous profession, housewife. The only problem I can foresee is that I have no discernible houswifery skills. I can't cook, I don't know how to clean, and I am semi-okay at raising my kids. I mean, they haven't gotten arrested yet, so I must be doing a good job.
Being a housewife is harder than it looks. I have to take care of the kids, cook for the family (why do they want to eat so often?), grow a garden to help the environment, take care of my pets, and still look like a pin-up girl.
I decided to start this blog so you all could learn from my traumatic household mistakes and humiliations. I will try every convenience product I can get my hands on and let you know if it is really convenient or just a waste of money. I will read trashy novels and tell you all about them because no one has time for bad books. I will make horrific parenting mistakes that will bring great embarrassment upon my children and I will tell you all about them. When I find lipstick that lasts all day or mascara that doesn't flake, you will be the first to know. You will see every burned dinner, every fallen cake, and every sad looking plant in my garden.
The kids will probably drop in every now and then to tell what is going on with them. Music, books, game reviews, reviews off my parenting, reviews of my cooking, etc. We homeschool too, so I will be able to force it as an assignment when I am to lazy to write.
Please leave me comments with advice and whatever you want to see. Maybe we will all get through this alive after all!