You’re going to CANCUN, MEXICO!!!

The phone rings. I pick up and the automated voice says ‘CONGRATULATIONS! Your application has been chosen and you’ve won an all inclusive trip to Cancun, Mexico!’ It doesn’t tell me WHO is calling. ever.

I keep listening, hoping something will clue me in or remind me of some application I sent in for a trip to Mexico.. Nothing. So, it tells me to press 1 to find out more. I HAD to. I was very aware that it could be a scam, but I needed to know if I was really getting to go to Cancun as I have dear ones very near to Cancun and that would be really exciting because Cancun is much further away than it used to be.

So I press 1. Then this guy picks up. He must be sitting in a room full of LOTS of people and machines. He says, ‘CONGRATULATIONS!’ from some company that I couldn’t understand the name of. So I’m like, ‘who is this that’s calling me?’ So he tells me his name. ha. Then I say, ‘no, what’s the company’ and he rattles it off again, still have no idea what he’s talking about. So he says, ‘isn’t this Mrs. So & So that lives here [about 20 minutes on foot from where I live]?’ and I say, ‘no this is Mrs. Church and I live on North Street.’ And he says, ‘Oh sorry.’ And I’m like, yeah you should be! Getting my hopes up like that! geeez. Some people.

No, I didn’t say that to him. And no I’m not going to Cancun. Maybe next time.


By the way.. I'm just wondering who thinks it's a good idea to play the bagpipes at 12:13AM?? Seriously. I mean I love the way they sound (even at 12:13am) but come on..

A sure sign that my worlds are colliding in new ways.

Sometimes when I’m painting and I ‘mess up’… (it’s hard to mess up when painting because you can just paint over it.. there’s always a way to fix it, right Bob, right? Our happy accidents??)

I frantically search for the ‘edit, undo’ button.

And then I remember that life doesn’t work that way. :)


“That'll be our little secret.”

- Bob Ross

Resolve

It has come to pass that we have made a great many resolutions since we have moved here. Suddenly with modified responsibilities, we have lost, to a certain degree, motivation for many things that should be a ‘given’ in daily life.

For example..

We now have a dishwasher (awesome!), but it’s not the greatest dishwasher ever and you have to scrub the dishes before you put them in or they come out with the same gunkiness they had to begin with (we mostly rely on the sanitizing nature of the dishwasher as opposed to that whole ‘washing’ thing). So, instead of letting the dishes sit in the sink for weeks like we used to, you know, to get them good and fuzzy before we spent hours wishing we had done them sooner, we let them sit for a day or two before we spend about an hour wishing we would’ve just done it piece by piece.

And we have resolved to do that. And it lasted about one mealtime.


Another example…

We have this great habit of leaving things about the house instead of putting them away. I get home from work, change into comfy clothes and lay my work clothes on the bed, chair, whatever surface is available. That goes on for a week, until finally on Saturday I spend an hour cleaning the bedroom. And Ian loves his piles. Piles everywhere. And I don’t know what to do with stuff so I just chuck it somewhere to ‘deal with it later’.

We resolved to put our [fill in the blank] away (at least twice) and that actually may have never happened.


Yup, we’re still going…

Remember this? When I resolved to paint every morning? Yeah, well, I’ve been painting, but it has gotten more and more sporadic as the weeks have passed. My only hope is that with being consistently full time at work, I will be a consistent painter, as I was the first week I started this resolution, when I was working full time.


Not to mention when we were going to start working out consistently (at least a dozen times this year).


And that is only the tip of the iceberg. I have been able to maintain a few things that I have consciously decided to do pretty consistently, but that’s about it. The frustrating thing is, I genuinely want to do these things.. really badly. I want to be disciplined. I want to ‘have it all together’ at least at the most basic level. I want to be able to overcome my desire not to do something by realizing the value of doing it. You know?

I also want to tell myself things like ‘oh, you’ll figure it out eventually’ ‘when you have kids it’ll get straightened out’ ‘you’re going through so many transitions all the time, how can you possibly hope for any consistency’, but I know that those are just excuses and ways to put off the truth of the matter. I’ve just got to do it. It’s not going to be any easier tomorrow (and who am I kidding thinking KIDS will make it easier??), in fact it will probably just get harder and more frustrating the longer I find ways to drag it out.

So. I’m going to try to come up with some kind of system for myself to dredge up that motivation on the good days, so it’s not as hard to find on the bad days. I would also love suggestions… :)

The Return of the Hamburger Things

The hamburger thing is a beautiful meal. It's like hot pocket, but you can customize it. My mom always made these for her picky kids, two Pillsbury crescent rolls laid out flat, filled with ONLY hamburger, then folded over to make the 'pocket'. Being married and also a college student, I loved this meal because it only took like 20 minutes to make for dinner. And it tasted sooooo good! 

When we moved to Scotland, I discovered that 1) I didn't really care for the flavor of the beef - the main ingredient, and 2) I couldn't find Pillsbury rolls anywhere (although, now I'm on the lookout - thanks Kristin!). Since Tesco has some pretty great clearance deals on their meat, we ended up with some beef and had a hankerin for hamburger things, so we started looking to see what kind of pastry we could find. We ended up getting a 'roll it out yourself' puff pastry to attempt the dinner and got the lovely result above. I cooked the meat with seasoned salt and pepper, and next time I'm going to add some onions to make it taste EVEN BETTER (just give my mother a moment to pick herself up off the floor). Ian likes to stick cheese in there with the meat for some extra goodness as well. 

They were delicious - even on day 2! - and we are so grateful for the re-discovery of a quick and easy meal! :)

Now, I just have to learn how to make 'tastes like kraft' macaroni and cheese from scratch, then we'll be all set.. (Yes, my childish taste buds still prefer kraft over 'sophisticated' macaroni & cheeses, unless it's made with velveeta.. mmmm velveeta :)