Know any good microwave recipes?

When we moved into this house 7 years ago, my mom announced that it had the "ugliest kitchen she had ever seen". While I think that may have been a bit harsh, it is pretty damn ugly.



Finally, 7 years later, we are saying good-bye to the kitchen!

The kids have spent the last couple of weeks decorating the walls.


Mostly with tanks, guns, knives and general destruction.

"Goodby wall!"


Demo day finally arrived on June 13th.


By lunch time, this is what our kitchen looked like!

We have set up a temporary kitchen in the garage. I figure after 3 months out here, I will love our new kitchen no matter what. Hell, after 3 months out here, I will probably happily take back the old kitchen!


I am sure the neighbors will get a kick out of watching us eat dinner.

We have a microwave and a toaster oven. Pete has a big BBQ out back that even has a burner. Not bad!

2 weeks in, and this is what we have so far. The wall is gone and there are new wires and cables everywhere. What a mess.


We are really changing the entire downstairs.


Can you believe all that brick?

Well, it is now gone. The mess it made was truly epic. Brick dust sucks when you have bad allergies.

That mess is what some of our ceilings look like now. It has something to do with an audio sound system with speakers in the ceiling and in our bedroom. I care nothing about any of that mumbo-jumbo. That is for Pete. Whatever makes him happy.

So, know any good microwave recipes?

Maybe this means he will be a doctor...

Christopher came home from preschool with this drawing of himself with Pete. Notice anything?


I asked him what the black line under the belly button was.

"Our privates Mom!"

Clearly they aren't very private. I am sure the preschool teacher was thrilled.

Good-bye...and Hello!!

Lots happening over here today!

Christopher had his end of the year preschool celebration. It was sort of a graduation, although he is not going to kindergarten next year.

Unfortunately next years class schedule for this preschool just isn't going to work for us, so this was also a good bye.


We loved it here and will miss it next year.


We also had an exciting hello today!

Introducing the newest member of our family, Buster Posey Contini! We just call him Buster.


He is a baby corn snake. Isn't he awesome?!! My boys have been bugging us for a pet for a while now. After much research, I decided one of these guys would be perfect. They like being held, you only have to feed them every week or two, easy to keep clean, they don't make any noise, you don't have to walk them and they can be left alone when we go on vacation. Almost a perfect pet! Why almost? Because this guy will grow to be 5- 6 feet long and he will live 20 - 22 years. Needless to say, someone will be sneaking him into his dorm room one day!


What else happened today?

Zach got braces! Hello Metal Mouth and good-bye to skittles and starburst!

Just call me "one-eye"

One of the joys of my 40's so far has been my loss of near vision. It started to come on slowly, and was easy to compensate by just stretching out my arms to read things. It has now progressed to the point where I am having difficulty reading/sending texts and can't read my running watch while out running. It was time to do something about it.

Last year I went to an optometrist for real glasses. I wanted a pair that I could always wear. I was given some progressive lens (talk about feeling like an old lady!) to try. I don't think I really needed the distance Rx though, because while they worked fine for reading, I couldn't stand them for distance.

Which brings me to this years appointment. My Aunt had been talking to me about monovision--she just wears 1 contact for near vision. I was a little squeamish at the idea of sticking a contact in my eye, but was willing to try anything.

I got my contacts last week. I had no idea how to put one in, so Pete tried to help. We spent a ridiculous amount of time, and half a bottle of saline, but he finally got it in. I looked around. Nothing. I was so disappointed. Everything looked the same. Maybe Costco gave me the wrong Rx? I looked at the box. Nope. Was it really in? Pete looked in my eye. Yep, he said. It is in there. Shoot. Maybe it just takes time. I decided to keep it in and see if my eyes adjusted to it. On the plus side, I could hardly even tell it was in.

At the end of the day I went to my bathroom to take it out. I reached down to grab the case, and sitting on the counter was this little hard round thing. My contact. It was never even in my eye. Sigh.

So I tried again the next day. Long story short, I can get it in now. It it helps tremendously with reading and looking at my phone. But my distance vision is blurry. I feel like I have an oily film over my eyes all the time. It is especially bad when driving. I have been wearing them for about 6 or so hours a day. I think the blurriness is getting better, but am not sure if it is just wishful thinking. I have decided to give it at least 2 weeks before scrapping the idea. Does anyone out there have monovision? Do your eyes just learn to turn turn off and on depending which one you are using? Or am I stuck sending wacky text messages because I can't see what I am doing?