Err, mah BABIES’-Daddy!

Seriously, what is the proper grammer for the daddy to TWO babies? The world needs to know.

This weekend, I kept pestering James to tell me whether he wanted me to make him a cake, or if I should just buy the ultra decadent so-much-chocolate-it-may-kill-you cake from Costco (the tall layer one, with shaved chocolate on top of the frosting. OK, I’m salivating now. Good lord.)

He said, “Oh, you can just get the costco one, that’s fine.”
me: “Or I could make you one.”
him: “That’s fine too.”
me: “I’m gonna make you one.”
him: “ok already!”

I wanted to make him a cake because I haven’t baked anything in a while, and I love to bake. And also because it’s much funner with the kids to make one than to just go buy one. We had the important “what kind of cake should we make for daddy?” discussion.

“Carrot cake!” was Ethan’s vote. I quickly corrected him. (He’s really come about-face on this carrot cake business.)
“Well, carrot cake is good, but I think maybe chocolate. Because your daddy LOVES the chocolate. He is a chocolate lover.”

Jocelyn loved this description of James and has used it multiple times over the past few days. “Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER!”

So in the end, I decided to make him a marble cake, because that’s what his mom used to make him when he was a kid. Only I wanted to fancify it, so instead of just using a 13×9 cake pan like the recipe said to, I decided to put it in 2 round pans.

Marble cake is a vanilla cake where you take part of the batter and add chocolate to it, and then pour the vanilla batter in first, and the chocolate on top and swirl it around a bit so when it’s baked and you cut into it, it’s all marbley with vanilla and chocolate cake.

So, since James IS a chocolate lover, I debated aloud on whether I should make the primary cake chocolate, instead of vanilla, so that would make the majority of the batter chocolate, which he likes better. Then I decided not to, and said aloud, “I should probably just stick to the recipe.”

james: “So NOW you’re going to stick to the recipe, but when I cook, you always want me to do things your way even when I’m trying to stick to the recipe!”

Pish. That’s all I have to say about that. (”Pish” is good for when you have no leg to stand on, see.)

So last night, I prepared my batter and sprayed my 2 round pans, and had the batter all ready to pour, but it did NOT LOOK like nearly enough batter to fill 2 round pans. So I poured the whole thing into ONE round pan and right then, I could tell I was really screwed. It was way too full. But it’s a MARBLE cake, so I couldn’t transfer some of it to the other cake pan or it would stop being marble-y and just be … all mixed together brown cake? Not marble cake? Not sure what you would call it! So, knowing I had screwed the pooch, I just put the over-full round pan on a cookie sheet and slid it into the oven.

(Another reason one should probably not make marble cake in 2 round pans - the “marble” effect is probably better acheived in a single big pan. Then there is plenty of each batter (plain and chocolate) to make it the nice marbly effect when one batter is put on top of the other batter. If you split all that in half, as you would have to with 2 pans, there’s not as much of each type of batter to blend with each other it probably wouldn’t make as nice of an effect.)

Sure enough, 30 minutes later it had overflowed and half the cake had bubbled out onto the sheet pan.

So for James’ birthday, he gets the costco it-will-send-your-blood-sugar-to-new-heights chocolate cake AND he gets to taunt me about tweaking the recipe with disastrous results, which I usually bristle at with unbridled fervor. Now he can tease me all he likes and I will just have to TAKE it because of my cake disaster. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY! MAKE MY LIFE HELL!

This morning James made the “i’m getting out of bed” movements, so I quick told him to stay put for a few minutes and scurried into the kids room.

me: “Guess what today is?”
Now usually, Ethan answers these sort of questions first. But today, Jocelyn totally put the smack down and answered instantly.
j: “DADDY’S BIRTHDAY!!!!!”
m: “You guys want to climb into our bed and sing him happy birthday?”
j&e: “YEAAAAAAHHHH!!”

And so they did. And it was so super cute. Cuter than bunnies on top of puppies, they were so cute.

Then I told the kids, “Guess what, guys. Mommy ruined the birthday cake! So I’m going to pick you up early from school, and we’re going to go to costco to get one from there.”

Ethan: “Yay! Carrot cake!”
Jocelyn: “No! Not carrot cake. CHOCOLATE. Because Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.”

That girl. She kills me with the CUTE.

So this morning, we had a gouge or two out of the ruined birthday cake for a post breakfast snack, and tonight we’ll be lighting candles on top of the costco death-by-chocolate cake.

Because James is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.

Happy birthday to the best baby-daddy a girl could have!

love you sweetie.

We celebrate James’ birthday in April, so it’s only fitting to have a banner that also celebrates him - and what a great daddy he is Happy birthday month, baby.

This photos were taken in September 2006 - and are still some of my favorites.

Previous banners.

Now, I realize that money is one of those things that you are not supposed to talk about, along with religion and politics (and I’ve been pretty good on all those subjects on this here blog so far). I really debated about posting this, as it crosses a line about how much information I want about me and my family out there for all to see. But I feel like there are probably a lot of normal people out there plodding along like we have, who don’t like their situation and who might benefit from hearing some of this.

Without going into too much detail, I’ve been crushing on all the personal finance blogginess and podcasts out there in the inkernet. One of my new years resolutions was to get a better handle on our finances. More than just making sure the bills were paid on time and then spending on whatever until the rest was gone. Probably not a good plan, right? Right! We’ve let some debt accumulate and so it was time to pull my head out of the sand and get moving on it.

(I have even started a super secret money blog in order to keep me motivated. Hello, I am fickle. I need things to keep my attention from wandering when something shiny walks past. And no, I’m not telling you the url. Some dirty laundry should only be read by STRANGERS! See above re: how much information i want about me and my family out there.) (If you’re a stranger, maybe I’ll tell you.)

Obviously, the first order of business was to start spending less, which James is already good at, and me, not so good at. I stopped eating out at work (except for group lunches) and more importantly, on the WAY to work. While this is a good first step, I still needed to know where our money was going and get it to go where I wanted it to go.

Now, I handle the finances in our household, a role that James is fine with. Discussing money and budgeting in our household has not been without stress, conflict, and outright tension. OK, I admit it, when he sometimes (rightfully so) criticizes the state of our finances, I would usually throw up my hands and say, “Let’s see YOU pay all the bills then!” and it would stop about right there.

So the very big important second step was getting the budget in order. I know how to budget - a handy spreadsheet will suffice for most everything, really, but I ran across some budgeting software purely by chance (linked off of one of the personal finance blogs I’m crushing on). It’s called, “You Need A Budget.” Catchy, huh! I’m a quicken user, and I have tried using the budgeting part of quicken, but have found it lacking. Usually I just ignore it, and assign things to categories as the transactions occure. Which, yes, shows you WHERE the money went, after you spent it, but doesn’t not help you put it where you want it to go! And yes, assigning a $200 Target bill to just “household: groceries” is me lying to myself, don’t you think?
So enter You Need A Budget - this program is really cool. It’s not produced by a company, just a guy who decided to put his own budgeting system into software form (it was originally an excel spreadsheet, which you can also purchase) and there you go.

Now this is the part where I should just point you to the software and let you look further if you’re interested, but I can’t. I love it so much, I’m going to get into it right here. I don’t blame you if you skip the rest, but there’s some touchy feely crap at the bottom, if you want to just skip to there.

The software has 2 main screens - the register, and the budget. The budget screen has the month at the top, with a big number, which is your available money. Then there are all the categories. To start, you switch over to the register, make an income entry which is whatever your checking account balance is, and then when you go back to the budgeting side, voila, that number is there as “available” to budget with.

So then, you think about what you’ve got coming up, (the phone bill, the gas bill, the kids’ piano tuition, groceries, etc.) and in each category, you assign what you think you’ll spend. As you enter numbers for each category, the available amount decreases. You keep on doing this, until you get that available number to 0. Now all your money is ASSIGNED. It all has a JOB to do. You can make or change categories to fit your needs.

Now, as you go through the month, you enter your purchases in the register, and it will show up as “spent” in the budgeting screen. You can see with a quick glance that you’ve spent $79 of your $400 grocery budget, and it will even show you the available balance left.

It used to be that as the month went on and our checking account balance dwindled, I would grow worried & concerned $600 left in the checking account used to be, “what is going to happen? will that stretch far enough?” Now, in my budgeting screen, if I’ve assigned amounts to all the categories I can think of (including some categories for yearly expenses, like car tax and tuition) and see that I still have $600 “available” - it’s like I “found” money to put into savings or towards debt!

There’s a whole other side to the software too, which is the methodology, called the “Rules” which I also adore. I am not going to get into them much though - if you want to read more, it’s on the website.

I could go on, and I WILL go on, if you really want me to. But I won’t go on any more right here. If you’re looking to get your finances in order, this is a great piece of budgeting software.

TOUCHY FEELY CRAP

Let me just say this - the best part about this software? James and I are on the same page. He still doesn’t really look at the budget, I’m pretty much handling all the money… But no one feels like they’re being told what to do, we’re in this together and there are no more arguments, we both know where the money is going, and we are both on the same page. We have made some very specific goals and our budget reflects that. You HAVE heard that money is the #1 cause of divorce, right? (OK, I just made that up, but it MIGHT be true!) While we still have work to do in front of us, it is nice to have a plan, and nice to know we’re pointed in the right direction.

Also - It really makes me think twice about buying stuff. It’s very freeing. I don’t feel the need to buy useless crap anymore. Crap that only clutters my home and we don’t really need. I know this feeling won’t last, and there’ll be times when I just want the INSTANT GRATIFICATION of a new whateverwhatsits..

But you know what else? If I do? There’s money in the “Amy’s fun money” budget category for whatever the hell I want.

-amy

me: Do all high school boys really talk like this??

james: *just looks at me*

me: OK, did YOU really talk like this?

james: *just looks at me*

me: *just looks at him*

james: Actually, I don’t think I was *that* bad.

me: I don’t want our children to grow up. Ever.

james: I don’t think that plan will really work.

me: OK. Then next week we’re going to church. They can reject religion later in life, just as long as they don’t act like this when they get to high school.

.. and I don’t know why.

#1 I’d like to blame the drugs I’ve been taking (muscle relaxer for a majorly knotted up back, stayed home tuesday because of the inability to move my head). However, the side effects listed include dizziness and nausea, but nothing about being bitchy and wanting to run away from home to a tropical island while crying “WOE IS ME!” The drugs, I think are not the problem, but the fucked up back probably is. Today it feels better.

#2 I’d like to blame the fact that I decided way too late to make some little things for my family members and need to ship them soon in order for them to get there and am too stressed out about it. This is probably it.

#3 But what I AM blaming is my husband, who is just pissing me off for no reason and I want to throw things at him. I keep thinking of all the reasons why this is ALL HIS FAULT and when the list starts with “needs to clip his fingernails more often” and ends with “should be able to read my mind” even I can tell, in my deranged state, that I am messed up. In the head. As in, KOO-KOO!

I know that the reasons are probably parts #1 and #2 and none of part #3 (maybe a smidge of part #3), but that doesn’t help me stop with the #3 and the need to throw things.

I feel like crying and throwing things. Big lumpy things. Cross your fingers for me, and give James your sympathies for having to live with a crazy woman.

… the prodigal wallet has (been) returned. All was intact, including $15 bucks in cash.

We killed the fatted calf and made merry. The wallet that never strayed sulked and wondered what outrageous thing he should do to get some attention around here. We ignored it and slathered more attention on the wayward-but-now-has-returned-to-the-path wallet.

OK, not really, but I did stop on my way home from picking it up for ice cream. Please, everyone, come attend my seminar on How-To-Save-Your-Marriage-With-Extra-Thick-Chocolate-Shakes. It’s a winner. The jist of it is, bring ice cream. DO NOT say ANYTHING along the lines of, “See, I told you it would turn up, all that screaming until you were hoarse was for NAUGHT,” if you really want the effects of the ice cream to take effect.

I need to get that keyringer thingee.

the summation:

• we left thursday for jellystone park, a campground (with cabins! that have AC! and showers! they also have tent campsites too. But guess which one we picked!) with all sorts of fun things to do like a humgous waterslide, 2 pools, mini golf, paddle boats (on a very small, and somewhat swampy pond) and a huge field and play ground. Oh, and it’s by Luray, with all that has to offer. We camped (cabin-style!) swam, golfed, swam, went underground to gaze at huge stalactites/malagnicryptonitites, mini golfed, wandered and got lost in hedge mazes*, saw animals, petted animals, swam, ate ice cream, mini golfed and swam. And went on a wagon ride with Boo Boo. We left for home on Sunday.

*ok there was just one, and i was the only one to get lost, but i got out eventually. see? here i am, writing this. proof.

• swam at our own pool
• lost my wallet. AGAIN. Those of you who have been following our heroine for some time will know that she is notorious for this activity. Usually, she confines it to wallets. But she has been known to lose her keys as well (if you’re going to just read one of those links, choose the keys one, because it’s funny. the wallet one is just depressing). She has been known to take Losing Things to epic proportions. She also seems to think that talking about herself in the third person will somehow take away the shame of the latest loss, which is STILL ONGOING. That’s right folks. It’s still lost. Constant monitoring of the bank activity is ongoing, but other than ordering a replacement driver’s license (which can be done online, thank GOD) and carrying her husband’s credit card around, the wait to see if it turns up continues. Please cross your fingers for her. And your toes. And by the way, go look around manassass for it would you please because our heroine is looking at imminent divorce for this “habit” of hers and despite her insistence that “it ALWAYS TURNS UP!” her husband is not buying it and is growing quite bored distraught shrill interested in divorce lawyers… let’s just say he’s not happy.
• took the kids to their first day of school. not too big a deal for jocelyn, as she moves across the hall from her old class, and her old teacher was in the classroom when we arrived. Much bigger deal to Ethan, who….

  STARTED KINDERGARTEN TODAY.

  I actually wondered if he realized if this was a big deal, as he is still at the same school he’s always been for the last 2 years, just in their private kindergarten now. I was a big dumb dumb, because he has pointed out the ways he knows this is a big difference in several ways this morning:

  “Daddy, I’m going to learn how to READ and WRITE AND SPELL!”
  “Mommy, Kindergarteners go on FIELD TRIPS! I’M GOING TO GO ON FIELD TRIPS!”
  “Mommy I’m five! I’M A KINDERGARTENER! I CAN’T WAIT! I’M FIVE!”

  A couple of kids were naturally squeamish on leaving their parents’ arms to venture into the classroom, but Ethan leaned way back, made a “pweeeeeooohhhhh!” sound, ran in place for a few steps and then took off into the room. That is my son. The epitome of my son. The kindergartener. HE’S FIVE.

• Just in case you missed it, my wallet is out there. Just longing to be returned to me. Do your duty and go find it, would you? I’ve already tried, TRUST ME. I am looking into this keyringer device that may perhaps save my marriage one day, as it is now hanging by a thread.

More pictures of cryptonitites, goats, mini golf, first day of school to come this week. No hedge mazes though. Or wallets.

… when I heard this story involving Jocelyn.

Go on over to James’ often neglected site to hear it for yourself.

I waited to relate this until I had the pictures taken and off the camera and uploaded. Yay!

We had a lovely father’s day. The kids got up and snuck downstairs while James and I slept in a bit. I must say, this is the nicest part about them getting a bit older. When they started making a bit of a racket, I got up and went downstairs with them so daddy could sleep in.

We got out the present we had gotten for James and got to work. I mixed up some concret, poured it in the mold, and then the kids got busy sticking glass bead-like things in it, making hand impressions, and trying very hard to distract me so that they could do letter stamps all over the place willy nilly. I, however, used my mom-powers to not get distracted and kept all the words as actual words.

The resulting garden stepping stone turned out quite nicely.

I am pretty unoriginal, as this is the same thing we did for Father’s Day 2 years ago. I’m glad I got a fancier kit this time, because in the other one, we had to just scratch the letters into the concret with a toothpick and it really didn’t look that great. We had to embellish everything with paint.

I don’t mind that it’s unoriginal and now we have 2 because look at those handprints! We’ll want those later! Too cute!

So we made the stepping stone and set it in a safe place to set for 2 days. After we let James sleep in, we brought him breakfast in bed (poptarts and coke) and all the homemade cards and pictures the kids had made in school.

The sweetest part of the day was after I shooed the kids from basically jumping on Daddy, he turned to me, his eyes moist and said, “I’m so happy we have them. I love being a daddy. They make me so happy.”

We spent the rest of the day poking around at the Potomac mall (legos for ethan, new shoes for jocelyn) and then came home to launch teeeny tiny rockets at a nearby soccer field.

Everyone had a great day.

Thanks for being such a great daddy, James. I love you.

-amy

me: *cough, hack, cough, cough* *clutch at glass of water, guzzle guzzle*

james: are you feeling all right?

me: *stare* No! I’m not all right! That’s why I’ve been saying, for the past 2 hours, every 10 minutes, “boy, i don’t feel good. damn, my head is going to explode. jeez, i feel like crap. argh, i feel downright shitty.”

james: *grins a little*

me: Hi! I’m your wife! Do you EVER listen to me?! Do you ever pay attention to anything I’m saying?! My name is Amy, by the way!

james: Are you annoyed about something?

I stare at him and then we both break up laughing.