I'm a Travelin' (wo)Man....

I suppose I'll be pulling out the suitcases again soon.  It's good news though.  I hereby formally announce...

TA TA Ta DA (a trumpet fanfare)

MOM IS MOVING OUT!!!!

I may have made mention in the last post the rent house behind ours was becoming available again.  Mom, as sick of us as we are of her, trotted over and talked to the landlord and decided to rent it.  Hubby and I guided her that she should ask for just a six month lease in case the disability drags out to forever or some other malady strikes.  The last week or so has been a brainstorm session of what is the most feasible and economical way to get down to Arkansas and back with her stuff.  After much internet searching and the like Mom and I will fly down, rent a U-Haul, load it with some help from Uncle's farm labor and drive it back to Wisconsin.  Hubby will stay here and either leave work early or work from home the three days or so it will take us to make the trip.

I think the landlady cut Mom a deal on the rent because last year when we inquired about it the rent seemed about $100 higher.  Mom told her there was no need to re-paint as there was just some minor dents in the paint.  So with that cost removed and knowing the yard work would fall upon our shoulders (and likely any minor repairs) and not having to look for a tenant etc. might have worked in Mom's favor.  Luckily the yard is TINY, like honestly it will take a whole extra 10 minutes to mow in the summer. 

I'm so excited, would it be wrong to start dragging her clothes over there and blow up and air mattress for her?  he he

The good part of her being close is she'll still be handy to keep an eye on the kids now and then and we can keep an eye on her as well.  I can call her over for supper a couple of times a week to make sure she's not living completely off of ham sandwiches and Lean Cuisines but if I feed the kids chicken nuggets and canned corn for supper I won't hear any complaints.  Mom is also excited she won't have to pay for internet and will be able just to hack into our Wi-Fi.  Hopefully it will work out well.  Funny when I think about it this is the third generation of our family to live next door to grandparents.  Mom lived next door to grandmother when she was a child, I lived next door to my grandmother from third grade on, and now my kids will live next door to their grandmother at least for a time.

At least three more trips are on the books for me as well, two to go up north and deal with FIL's household.  SIL asked that we come up in the next few weeks and work at trying to clean up FIL's house so we could try to market it somehow. I also promised SIL I would come up for a week or so after school is out, and we could start sorting through all of FIL's stuff and have a giant yard sale.

Hubby also got the green light and the kids are going to stay with MIL and SIL for a week while we fly out to Oregon to visit some with an uncle of his and just mill around the Pacific North West.  I've never been to that part of the country and Hubby hasn't been since he was a young child.  Definitely on our to do list is see giant redwoods in northern CA but other than that we don't know.  I have already requested if it's not entirely too much extra money that we rent a convertible or a jeep for driving around in but we'll have to see.  I hope we can swing reasonable airfare as that will be the biggest bill of the trip.  We haven't made reservations yet, but it's in the near future.

Over all things are looking up and after Mom gets moved we will hopefully fall into a more normal rhythm of middle class, middle American life.  I'm almost scared to type that because you know that just has something sneaky hiding behind it waiting to throw a wrench into the inner workings.

So keep your fingers crossed and don't swear too much at the Uhaul with two women in the cab if you happen to be somewhere between Arkansas and Wisconsin!

I'm from a Third World Country (sort of)

Yesterday on Facebook an acquaintance from high school posted a link to a music video excited that several people were in it including her.  I watched the video out of curiosity of course.  It seems that the video was a very nicely (an probably expensively) produced music video promoting Heifer Project International.  I'm out of the loop, so it's really possible the guy singing it is some giant pop star, but I doubt it.

The video flips between images that are very distinctly South American and scenes from the town I grew up in, with some shots in front of Heifer Project's headquarters.  The scenes from my Arkansas Delta hometown were frankly more depressing than the mountain landscapes with rural people in the south American mountains.

A quick gander at Heifer Project's website shows that they only have two programs running in the U.S.  One in Oregon, and one in the Delta.  The rest of their projects are in either 3rd world countries or "second" world countries such as Ukraine. 

I'm torn though.  I'm glad that some well organized group is getting in there and trying to get people to help themselves; on the flip side I feel it destined to failure.  There is so little employment there, the school district has collapsed in mess of lawsuits and apathy, and the area is riddled with gangs and drug dealing and abuse.   People in general there have so little pride in their surroundings that when a building falls into disrepair it simply falls down and the pile stays there.  If there is a fire the burned shell of the building stays.  There are no public playgrounds or parks nor is there a tax base or a willing group of volunteers to work at things like this.  When the city does manage to scrape together a little money such as putting out concrete picnic tables the thugs come along break the tables apart.  Metal is stolen at an amazing clip - my uncle who farms there replaces culverts and parts on his irrigation systems frequently.  Depressing.

So to say that I'm from a third world "county" is not too far fetched, even major international charities think so.

This in no way colors my opinion of Heifer Project.  Honestly I feel it one of the better aid programs out there and urge you to donate money to the charity.  If you are not familiar with the philosophy of Heifer Project please read up on it as it was based on "pay forward" long before the term became popular.

In a weird footnote to the whole thing I might have been the one to put Hometown on Heifer Project's radar.  I don't know this for sure of course. A few years ago when the mayor that hired Mom was soon to be up for re-election and we knew he would likely be booted out, I spent hours on the computer trying to get agencies into the town and looking for grants.  I distinctly remember writing an e-mail to Heifer Project as they were starting new programs in the U.S. at that time.  Do I KNOW that I sent Heifer to Hometown, nope I don't, but I can't help but wonder.

Where O Where?

 

Where O Where is the Springtime?

 

Why isn't it coming to Wisconsin my home?

 

I searched the web over, and thought I'd found springtime,

 

but I checked my bankbook,

 

and Pftttt that idea was gone.

 

 

I you happen to be a youngster and don't remember Hee Haw the above should be sung to the following:

 



 



Besides the fact we've had more snow in March than we had in December and January combined I am still hopeful that spring is around the corner.  I can see bare ground in my yard which has a few hazards, one is the inevitable mud that happens in the less grassy areas of the yard - which a good chunk of the side yard.  The other is land mines laid by Callie.  Snow covers a lot of ills.  Today Sonny Boy was given a handful of plastic bags and told to go pick up poo.  Igor in an effort of never being left out of anything, insisted he be given a bag so he could participate as well.  Whatever floats your boat kid.  I didn't watch, but I imagine that most of the poop that was cleaned up was done by Igor just cause that's the kind of kid he is.  Good news for the kids is that I have a bid in on fancy pooper scooper on Ebay, bad news is I didn't realize that the auction didn't run out for 6 days yet, so unless I'm out bid it will be a little while before the super dooper scooper gets here.

Like we don't have enough stress going Hubby has gotten a wild hair that we must remodel the kitchen.  Now I'm not against remodeling the kitchen, all the kitchen gods agree that the kitchen is far from being functional, and only a couple of upgrades ahead of where it was when the house was built in 1893.  I'm just not sure right now is the best time to tackle such a stressful project.  However we have been planning on remodeling the kitchen since the day we bought the house 8 1/2 years ago so it's probably time.  Since the kitchen has such a poor design layout and we hope to remove a couple of walls, and somehow squeeze a mudroom/laundry out of the deal, we have hired an architect to design and tell us how to deal with the structural elements.  Today the architect came and measured all over the house from the attic to the basement.  If this proves feasible both structurally and financially I'll likely be cooking meals in the camper all summer.  Yay.

The little rent house behind us is emptying out again.  The young family that moved in last spring is in the process of moving out.  Kind of a shame as they have been our best neighbors there yet, actually keeping the lawn mown and doing a couple of little outdoor projects that looked very nice.  Mom is eyeballing it and threatening to rent it and live off of her savings.  I don't think I'm going to talk her out of it if she does.  I have no idea how much longer it will be before her disability is approved, but honestly I've had about all of it I can stand and frankly she's sick of us as well.  I'm hoping she goes for it.  Hubby says that maybe she can get a six month lease so if the disability isn't approved she would have a way out and at least we would get a break.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for the landlords and send her over to speak with them as they always come in and clean up after each tenant.

Mom has been good about going up to the library for her coupon job.   Mostly she's been stuck filing coupons which I'm sure sucks.  The upside is she LEAVES THE HOUSE for a couple of hours a week which has been really good for her.  She is still not good about getting dressed, she stayed in PJ's all day both Saturday and Sunday and most of the day on Monday.  I was flipping through the calendar today and saw that she has a shrink appointment in a couple of weeks.  I'm going to go with her and tattle.  I don't need to go and listen to her deepest darkest secrets, but I know her and she won't report she only dresses 3-4 days a week, and makes no big effort to make friends here in town.

Today I was telling Mom about a dream job opportunity (same company) that we hope comes Hubby's way.  Right now it's a very long shot, but he has definitely thrown his name in the hat.  If the dream job comes to fruition it would mean moving temporarily.  Mom's first concern was what about me?  My response was "you live here rent free!"  "But I don't know anybody!" and I told her she better get out and start making some friends.  Of course this is all just talk at this point and very well may never happen

Sonny Boy is being a handful lately.  His daily reports from his teacher are rather hit and miss.  Homework and behavior have become regular issues despite being warned, grounded and the like.  I'm beginning to think it's time to up his ADHD med dosage as he must be in a growth spurt because it's totally impossible to keep groceries around.  I honestly think I haven't seen the kid eating something in the last two weeks.  I also discovered that he was eating breakfast at home and then going and eating it at school as well!  I called the cafeteria and put a stop to that as he can eat his fill at home.

Igor had an open house this last week that Hubby and I attended.  He had glowing reports from his teacher and was proud to show off stuff.  It was the first time Hubby had been in Igor's classroom so everything was new to him.  Igor's teacher reports that his reading has really "blossomed" in the last month.  Igor really wants to be a reader but he has to work at it, however he's right on grade level so we don't have any worries.

Good News!  FIL's crazy live-in moved out of his house without us having to pay a lawyer.  Thank God for small miracles.  Maybe the plea I posted on FIL's facebook page to haunt her worked.

Well it's late, and the is quickly descending into drivel.  I always come up with great blog topics as I lie down to sleep, but like magic they are gone by the time I get to a keyboard so I write about my real life dramas.

A Glimmer

Well hopefully we might be seeing some improvement in things around here.  I'm saying this optimistically.

The nightmare with FIL crazy live-in should come to a close soon.  She has promised to be out by the 17th, if she is not we have already contacted an attorney to get her thrown out.  Every time we talk about it we all get angry because she has all these "rights" to property that is not hers by any means be it lease or deed.  Either way that drama will likely be over with in the next couple of weeks and we can start really cleaning up FIL's place and put it up for sale.

Hubby and I sat Mom down for a heart to heart the other night.  I didn't say anything new, but Hubby was involved in it which was and for some reason when Mom hears something from him it's no longer me nagging but is heard at least somewhat.  We basically said she has to get out of the house for some amount of time - I offered up 6 hours a week - doing SOMETHING - because it was totally unhealthy for her to go weeks at a time without leaving.  I also offered up she needs to dress daily and do some walking.  When I went to the library on Monday to check out some books I asked the librarian if they had any volunteer jobs Mom could do. She was super excited to have Mom come clip coupons and file them.  The library clips all the coupons from the many newspapers they get, and puts them in a file for the people in the community to use. They have stacked up for weeks as they don't have time or a volunteer to get it done.  I came home with this information and the afternoon book club book.  Mom went yesterday to talk to them and came home rather excited because they were super nice and glad to have the help.  Thank God.  Maybe clipping coupons will give her some way to feel needed in the world if she has that silly little job to go to.  So now I have at least two hours of the house all to myself!!!  I might have a party, or just pay bills if I can ever get the bank website up.

Wrestling season came to an end.  Sonny Boy did better than expected at the regional tournament defeating his first opponent, however he was beaten the next two rounds and was out.  Weigh - in was the night before and when we got there he was .4 lb from the lower weight bracket, in hopes of giving him a little edge we dressed him in Igor's jacket, his own jacket, and my jacket and he ran laps around the gym for 45 minutes.  Yeah not the healthiest way to drop weight, nor really something I wanted to teach him. We have always just let him wrestle at whatever he weighed in at, but we knew competition would be fierce, and being at the top end of the weight bracket does give a bit of advantage.  Now I'm looking into summer camps, just got an email from a parent who wants to get a group together to attend a camp, it's rather expensive, especially compared to a camp at a nearby university campus.  The hitch is that is a rather prestigious camp that has a good reputation, so we'll see if the team discount and a commuter discount (I'll take the camper and stay nearby) will make it something we can do.

The dishwasher is still out of order.  The repairman came on Tuesday and said the motor was shot, he didn't have a replacement motor in stock so it is on order and he will be back next Thursday.  Yay, another week of hand washing dishes.

The head cold I struggled through last week passed on to Hubby who battled it a couple of days.  The kids seemed to have missed it, but yesterday the dog started coughing.  My resident Internet vet (Hubby) declared she has "Kennel Cough" and that it will clear on it's own.  The worst part is she coughs so hard she starts gagging and pukes up a little.  Nice.  So now when she starts a spell we all run for the door in hopes she gets outside in time.  Today she seems a bit better, but yesterday was rough on her,  Igor was concerned and wanted to take her to the vet immediately and to be honest he's not even that in love with her.  For now I'm feeding her small amounts of food at a time and the kids have been ordered to leave her alone so she can rest as the coughing seems to start up when she gets excited playing.

My 39th birthday is looming very near.  To be honest I don't really care, but I do.  Why?  I don't really know, I still get carded when I buy liquor at the grocery store, but then again they say they card anybody who looks under 40.  Like the saying goes, it's better than the alternative!

I wish spring would get here.  I have some daffodils that are trying to poke up in the bed by the back door (that bed is always very early as it is pretty sheltered) however I'm still looking at a fair amount of snow in the yard and it's spitting snow as I type.  March is always the time I get really sick of Wisconsin winter and yearn for Arkansas's early spring.

Blah, I'm going to see if I can get my bills paid now.  Double Blah.

Yuck

The dishwasher has been making funny noises for a while.  Hubby looked at it declared it needed work and since it's less than a year old he called the repairman who is supposed to be here on Tuesday.  The dishwasher went to dishwasher heaven last night as the load I ran through it, funny noises and all isn't even remotely clean.  Now I have a full dishwasher of dirty dishes and a counter full of dirty dishes to hand wash.  Nice.

To top it off I have one heck of head cold.  The kind of head cold where you can't breathe through your nose at all and it feels like your sinuses are going to explode out through your eyeballs.  Horizontal is not a position that works at all, but of course that's the only way I can sleep.

Lovely, I'm off to blow my nose and see if I get Mom to help me with the dishes before somebody from the health department shows up.

A little bit of nothing

The last couple of months our weekends have centered around Sonny Boy's wrestling tournaments.  I am amazed at the amount of youth tournaments in Wisconsin in a given weekend.  Now I'm sure some of them don't draw the same amount of crowds as the ones we attend but I'd guess on any given weekend in Dec, Jan, Feb and early March there are 10-20 tournaments in Wisconsin. 

This one was a couple of weeks ago.  Sonny Boy in 3rd here but only missed 2nd place by 1 point.  The kid who won was a real scrapper and certainly had an advantage on Sonny Boy. 

Today's tournament didn't go nearly so well, in fact I don't know if I'm up to attending that tournament again.  We were in a large "field house" where the only bleachers must have been dragged in from outdoors and were only 3 levels high.  We ended up sitting against the wall - on a set of two step bleachers that were behind another set of bleachers.  Ug, between that and the fact Sonny Boy was in an 8 kid bracket which leaves little room for flubbing a match and placing well.  Today Sonny Boy placed 7th.  The first kid he wrestled pinned him very quickly, the second kid he gave a really hard time but lost by decision.  The third match he was mad, and made the kid pay, and won it but gave us and his coaches a few heart attacks by nearly getting pinned once or twice.

Couple the fact the last nights supper came back to haunt me and I had to make several embarrassing trips to a very busy ladies room early in the day left me not too humoured to be there.

Next week is regional.  Honestly I don't expect him to make it too far.  Several of the better wrestlers on the team are not going after being disappointed last year.  We've done our best to explain to Andrew that he's not likely to do great but he declares that it's just like any other tournament.  The only upside I can see is that it's double elimination and once he loses twice we go home.  Is that bad?

Hubby is trying to fit in a little ice fishing here and there.  Really only gotten out once and the kids are begging to go again.

 

 

A week or so ago he took the boys out and this little northern pike is all they caught.  I know he looks longish but they are a bony fish and must be pretty big before they are worth keeping.  Not to mention they smell, even 10 seconds out of the water they are slimy and stink.  Fun to catch though as they are pretty aggressive.

 

Currently the I can't decide what's offending my nose more.  Hubby dragged up his beer making stuff and made a batch of beer this afternoon and that smells pretty bad.  Couple that with the methane releaser we call a dog this evening and I want to put a clothespin over my nose.  Normally I have a nice candle around to try to cover up the stink but I haven't purchased a good one in a while and the cheap ones hardly have smell to them at all.

 

Tomorrow nothing is down on the "books".  Hubby said he may have to tend an broken airplane, if not it's possible he'll take the boys fishing again. 

 

 

 

 





Change your view, change your mood?

I spent the last couple of evenings going back and reading my old posts.  Geez I'm a whiney, grumpy bitch, or at least appear so on the blog.

Realizing this I am going to make a concerted effort to write a post every now and then that doesn't focus on my frustration with Mom and my lack of being able to really do anything about it. 

With that in mind it's really hard to come up with a topic because of course the frustration of dealing with Mom is usually foremost in my mind.

So with random things in mind, here's also minor things that are going on behind all the big drama.

Hubby came home with a new Ipad from his last school adventure a week or two ago.  I've spent time hunting freebie aps to put on it for the kids, mostly learning games.  The problem is that's one more screen I have to battle them about.  It has worked well for drilling Sonny Boy's spelling words as both of us hate that chore and I can load the words on there and he'll do drills with them.  Last week he didn't miss one word on the test and while he usually does pretty well, he generally misses at least one.  The app I like best is Magic Piano.  It's a silly app that straddles the line well between being hard and simple.  I play it way too much.  I understand the aps are money making ventures but I do wish there were more quality aps for free.  I did sprint $2 for a math app for Sonny Boy.  Do you have good aps for Ipad?  Preferably ones that have some learning thing to them?


Reviewing the old blog posts made me laugh, when school started I had big plans to clean out closets, organize and do all the stuff that's hard to do with the kids underfoot.  Ha, haven't done a one.  If I've done anything in the last month it's been hibernate.  I sleep during the day - a lot.  I get up, get the kids fed and off to school (some days that takes a lot out of me) and I crawl back into bed and sleep until I have to get up for some appointment or another.  I don't know if it's the weather, my habit of staying up way too late, the drugs I take for the TMJ or what but I don't have energy to do anything beyond the bare minimum.  I suppose a good amount of depression is in there as well.  Hubby is the same way, any chance either of us can find to sneak off and crawl in bed for an hour or two is taken.

Well I must cut this short.  Sonny Boy just reported to me that a kid at school is calling him "gay".  Where do they get this stuff?  He's only in 3rd grade.  With that discussion I had to explain what "gay" in that context meant.  Lovely, now I'm off to try and word an email to his teacher that doesn't make me sound like a crazy person but takes care of the problem.  Home school is sounding better and better

Copyrighted

I hereby officially copyright my blog.  Why?  Well I figure it's good fodder for a dramady plot line and I don't want some Hollywood big wig to stumble over it and make a zillion dollars without cutting me in.  After all, it is my crazy life which keeps getting crazier.

You'll never believe the latest episode..

Yesterday I discovered that Mom has not been taking her anti-depressants correctly in God knows how long.  I figured this out as she was trying to get refills and I knew she was supposed to take two of one of the pills and she had only been taking one.  I called the doctor got the Rx's straightened out so hopefully we will see some sort improvement there.  Like I explained to the pharmacist and the doctor's nurse "she follows what's written on the bottle, the directions must be written on the bottle".  The mix up came when she had just filled a Rx and then the shrink changed dosages on her and told her to double one since she had just had it filled and with no insurance you use what you have.

The other thrilling moment came when Mom left to go the pharmacy to pick up the Rx she slipped on a patch of ice in the driveway.  She got up, embarrassed and got into her car and drove the 6 blocks or so to Walgreens.  When she got to Walgreens she felt something on her neck, put her hand up there and it came away covered in blood.  Mom drove home and came in with blood all down her neck, shirt, a wad of napkins.  A mess.  I stuck her head in the kitchen sink to rinse some of the blood away because past experience tells me head wounds bleed a lot even if they are very minor.  We got down to the gash, found a huge goose egg and a very open wound that definitely needed some stitches.  I stuck dinner in the oven, I had just finished preparing, set the timer and told Hubby to feed it to the kids and himself.  Loaded Mom into the van and off to the ER.  We get to the ER and it's stuffed, so we wait, and wait, and wait.  Then Mom moved around and much to the waiting room's horror it was discovered she'd been dripping blood down her arm onto the floor.  I told the girl working the desk who brought me some gauze which mom quickly soaked through as I held it to the head wound.  Finally they found her a place to land in the ER hallway and a nurse came by and wrapped up her head like a war wound battle dressing, just as two ambulances pulled in with two women who had been in a car accident, one of them not a very good English speaker.  In between the vehicle accident women the doctor stopped by and ordered a CT scan and Mom was whisked away for a CT scan. 

When she returned from the CT scan she was put in a room and nice nurse cleaned at the wound and stapled her up.  15 staples in her head later and she was still oozing blood pretty good.  The doctor then ordered some sort of blood clotting bandage gauze stuff put on it and wrapped up her head and ordered us to leave it on 24 hours.  Yuck, her hair was FULL of blood and there would be no real washing it that night.  We finally get home at 9:00 pm, I put Mom in the tub and wash the hair that was hanging out of the dressing and her neck, ears and the like.  We eat and all climb into bed.

This morning I awoke with a migraine, stumbling out of bed just long enough to find my miracle drugs.  I finally crawled out at 1:00 pm.  Thankfully Hubby was working from home and got the kids off to school.  Mom's dressing had come off in the night, and the wound had bled some on her pillow but not too bad and seemed to have clotted up.  I put her in the bathtub and with the hand held shower I worked at her hair rinsing blood and blood clots out and shampooing around the wound for a good long while.  What a nasty mess.  After I gave up I combed it out and there was still tons of gunk in her hair but it will have to wait as I don't think the wound needs to get wet again for a day or two.  Her hair is reasonably clean, but not good.

This weekend is supposed to be blessedly quite.  No wrestling tournaments, no projects planned, nothing on the agenda. 

Wrestling tournaments are our weekends lately.  Last weekend Sonny Boy placed third in some pretty stiff competition and was only one point from placing second.  Next weekend is another tournament that will likely be pretty tough.  The weekend after that is regional which will likely be the end of wrestling season unless Sonny Boy pulls something out his hat and makes it to state which we figure is pretty unlikely.

Well, that's my crazy life lately.  Like I said, fodder for some dramady on TV.  I really don't make this up, it's too wild for my imagination.

German Burgers

In my hometown school district there were certain favorites made in the cafeteria, of course there was the inevitable "mystery meat" dishes but there were some that still haunt alumni of the school district.  We had REAL cooks in our cafeterias, not the heat some stuff up that I think is fed to my kids for lunch.  Our lunch ladies knew soul food and got the best out of the commodities and mediocre ingredients they were given.  The days that certain meals were on the menu it was a given that even those of us who rarely ate in the cafeteria (an option granted when we got to the high school campus in 7th grade) would show up for lunch.  Not many people can say they crave foods that were made in their grade school / high school cafeteria but there are some from a small town in the Arkansas Delta that do.

German Burgers are the one that we all seem to miss and for some reason I seem to be the only one who holds the recipe for this.  Word seems to have gotten out that I have the recipe - I do, it was published in a community cookbook sometime around 1990 and I get request for it now and again.  I will copy it here so I can simply give a link to it.  So if I've given you the link there is a chance I know you in real life, if I do, please pretend you don't know my real name.  Please understand that the blog has become more than just a communication device, it's my place to dump the things that are driving me crazy, the place where I scream to the world (my robust following of about 6) and get things off of my chest when I can no longer keep the craziness in my head.  Yes, probably a diary in my bedside table would be more appropriate than a public blog, but this started as a way to keep folks up to date on the drama of Igor's adoption and has continued as a cathartic hobby.

Without further ado GERMAN BURGERS:
maybe some day I'll make them and take artsy fartsy photographs like a food blog, but I know a former drum major who is waiting on the recipe.

2 lb ground beef
2 c grated cabbage
2 grated onions
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup ketchup
salt & pepper to taste
yeast dough

brown meat; drain and season.  Saute onions in small amount of fat; add cabbage and continue cooking and turning until tender, about 10 minutes.  Drain.  Combine meat, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and ketchup.  Add cabbage and onions.  Cool.  Roll yeast dough to about 4 inch square.  Put 1/4 cup meat mixture in center of square.  Bring up edges of dough; seal to form bun.  Place in greased baking pan; lightly spread butter on each bun.  Let rise 30 minutes.  Bake at 350 about 30 minutes.

My notes on the recipe:
I usually make the dough in the bread machine, though you can probably use frozen bread dough.
If you have a food processor use it for all that shredding.
Seal the buns tightly and put them seam down or else they will split open when rising and baking.
This always seems sweeter than what I remember in high school, I think it's the use of real ketchup and not the homemade stuff that was used in the cafeteria. 
I suppose it's "german" burgers because there is cabbage in it.
This makes a fair amount, and I would say will feed 5 or 6 people easily - possibly more it's been a while since I made it.

I Get It

You know the old story where a Mom runs to the store to buy a gallon of milk and three months later they find her in California waiting tables at a Denny's?  Mom will say something to the effect of I just couldn't take it anymore and people who have never been there, or who have never had kids, or parents, or crazy jobs will shake their heads and wonder "How could she leave her kids?"

I get it.  I'm this far - from going to the store for milk and not coming home for a few days.

Last week was a little wild, luckily some things from the crazy schedule got dropped, which relieved some of the stress.  Other news trickled in that dug the depression / anxiety  hole even deeper.

Mom heard from Social Security and she was denied benefits.  This despite the fact that two different shrinks concluded she is unable to effectively hold a job.  Today we went to the attorney's office to sign papers for an appeal.   The attorney was optimistic she will eventually get benefits but we may be looking at another 8 months or so, especially if the appeal fails which is statistically likely.  The attorney gave me a rather large questionnaire to fill out on mom's abilities and I am going to have her former boss write a letter that states he could see her work abilities failing.  I doubt it will hurt anything, but I wish we'd done it in the first place.  Today marked her one year anniversary of living with us.  Yay, about 6 months too long.  If I had a sibling it would be his/her turn to take care of Mom for a while.  As it is I'm considering contacting her brother and buying her a plane ticket for a nice long visit.

Last Friday was the Blue & Gold banquet for the Cub Scouts.  I made a giant cake.

This was not my best work, in fact I was all for scraping the icing off and starting over if I'd had time.  Alas I did not. and took it to the banquet.  It was very well received with many pictures snapped but I can't say I was proud to have my name associated with it.  Associated with it though it was, I got a phone call on Monday morning from a local higher end grocery store asking me to come in for an interview as cake decorator.  Now, I had applied to this store in September of '10 and never gotten so much as thank you for your application, and a few weeks later saw a write up in the local paper that the store had hired some girl with pastry chef experience. I can't compete with that and never gave it another thought.  The day before the banquet I noticed the store was looking for a cake decorator and with life so nuts I'm not about to go looking for more trouble and just breezed over the ad.  I don't know if somebody from the store was at the banquet, or if they were mining their old files and found my name or what but I was called up.  I went to the interview on Monday afternoon and go back for a second "try-out" interview to test my skill this coming Monday.  If I manage to land the job it will be part time, and might be a God send for my sanity.  In the meantime I've been practicing my buttercream piping skills and plan to bake a cake and time myself decorating it grocery store style.  I figure if I can put a decent cake out in 20-30 minutes time I might land the job.  I do worry about smoothing the buttercream as that is an art that drives me to distraction.

Beyond that, Hubby and I spent Valentine's day alternately getting along nicely or at each other's throats concerning taking a vacation.  The vacation I so much wanted to plan for RIGHT NOW he proclaims must wait on the kids to be out of school for spring break since they have missed so much school this year.  (Sonny Boy missed most of last week with bronchitis)  Now it seems it won't happen on spring break either as the only place we have to plant the kid's is at his sister's or mother's and they are either out of town or overwhelmed with sports tournaments.  Now my vacation I wanted to take RIGHT NOW is held off until at least June, which gives it whole new set of requirements because I'm not going to go south and broil on some beach like a grilled lobster.  Mom doesn't get why we just don't leave the kids with her, but the fact she couldn't remember what time the attorney's appointment was, gets items on the calendar mixed up constantly, and gave a baby aspirin to Sonny Boy the other day as he was coming down with his bug (Hubby was home working in the garage) despite the fact that the bottle says "Do not give to children or teenagers".  I just don't trust her with the kids if I can't get back to them quickly with a phone call.  Not to mention they would live on frozen pizza, video games and questionable TV the entire time we were gone.

In other news Igor got a note home for wrestling another boy in the classroom during class and the two got marker all over each other.  Sonny Boy hasn't had anymore bad reports but we have a teacher conference next week so we'll see then.  I got a "new" haircut and color, nothing drastic just shorter and with some red highlights.  Sonny Boy has a wrestling tournament on Sunday which is likely to be some tough competition.  It's 1:00 am, I'm going to sleep now.