I wish life were like a box of chocolates.

I havent said much about anything lately, not because I have nothing to talk about or have been bored or anything… but the big “P” word keep’s sneaking up on me and forestall my efforts to write. The “P” word I’m talking about is Procrastination, oh yes, serious procrastination, but here I am trying to foible the “P” word and regain a little gumption. So lets see, whats new?

I am still going forward with my plans to have weight loss surgery but it is not something that is on my mind that much because there really is no set date when it will take place because it is a long process. So far I have had my psych evaluation, EKG, blood work and am still on my pre op diet, next I just have to go to a nutritionist which is set for December 1st and from there it should be fairly close to done.

Family life has it’s up’s and downs but lately it has been decidedly down because I am the caretaker for my mother in law who is a brittle diabetic with a christmas list of ailments I cannot keep track of, this of course adds stress to daily life which can sometimes seem like too much and often times IS to much but I take each day as it comes.

My four-year old son has been in preschool for about a month and a half now which is exciting because I can see a change in him that is encouraging, he loves books now and has other children his age to play with while he learns new and interesting things… oh and he brings me home little things he makes at school daily 🙂

As for my 19 month old daughter, she is entering that phase of whining and crying at the drop of a hat… drama queen to the max, but she is my cutie pie, gotta love her even when she is throwing herself on the floor screaming because I wont give her my soda (sorry, no soda fer joo!)

I just turned 30… like, today. How odd, I don’t feel 30 and I don’t think I look 30, or maybe that is just wishful thinking, anywho, its bed time, time to cut this short.

That’s all for now folks!

-Nicko

Oh ya, postage.

Kittens are great… but only during daylight hours, when night falls they turn into party monsters, the only thing that is missing seems to be the keg and disco ball. We adopted a kitten recently and although it was supposed to be my husband and kids kitty as well as mine, it has sort of attached itself to me. I have never experienced such a clingy kitten, it jumps on me at the drop of a hat, when it’s on the floor and im standing up it leaps into my arms… this is one talented feline. We have an older cat I have had for almost 14 years and the kitten has made me notice how old he really is, my poor old man has grown chunky and lazy, when did that happen? I have to put him on a diet because he is eating too much, I had a self dispensing food dish but ever since he had a couple bad teeth removed he has started packing on the ounces (that’s a lot for a small built kitty).

Snickers, our new kitten

I have not been doing as much in my back yard lately, I think the heat is one part of the problem but the rest is just the daily struggle with depression. My mood swings tapered off for a while but then a couple of days ago I became angry and anxious and there was nothing I could do to relieve these symptoms, it felt so uncomfortable that finally I just started balling like a baby and wouldn’t you know it, my symptoms the next day were almost entirely gone… I guess I just needed a good cry.

I have been trying to find the perfect yellow and green eyeshadow and I have been missing the mark because either the color turns out to have very little pigment or it is just to neutral of a shade… I am on a quest to find some better eyeshadow pallets… for now I have made a few cool looks with my newer colors.

Yellow and orange

Purple and silver

green, aqua, blue and orange

That’s all for me tonight, I am one tired cookie!

-Nicko

Blah and more blah

Today was LONG. Did ton’s of yard work, including but not limited to puting down grass seed and starter. My mom and brother came over for a visit but did not stay to long, my mom was tired. After everyone left I did some more yard work and fed my daughter (my son was taking a much-needed nap).

Me and my husband ended up going to the asparagus festival for a couple of hours and while there I was harassed by two meter maids who felt the need to be especially nasty because of an honest mistake, I know that if it were my brother there instead of me he would have had them cowering. After leaving the festival I made a pit stop at target and got a new hose since the one I have has very shallow grooves where you attach things (nozzle, weed killer etc.) so every time I use the hose with an attachment the said attachment comes flying off and I get sprayed with a bucket of water which makes me a very unhappy girl. Once home I grilled some chicken and made mexican rice for dinner and by that time my son was awake so he was super happy to play outside while I grilled.

A lot more went on today (and tonight) but it just feel so forced to talk about it, I have no reserve energy and zero patience with myself right now. I am hoping I can sleep in for at least an hour tomorrow… is it just my husband or do all of them normally make the woman handle all things child related (unless its fun)? I love how my husband gripes how hard children are to raise but I am the one who stays home with them all day and he rarely stays home alone with even one of them, men are so lucky were not spiders or we would eat them after being inseminated.

My eyelashes are getting super long, when I get around to it I will post some updated pictures on how well the latisse is working, the only draw back is the skin darkening on my eye lids. thankfully I have brown eyes already so I do not have to worry about my eye color changing to brown.

Oh ya, I won a raffle (I think that is what it’s called) for a chef’s knife last week from the blog “dark side of the fridge” they are in my blog roll if you want to check them out, I do not read many blogs but there’s I read vigilantly because they seem like “normal” people who make interesting food that does not require culinary school but looks and sounds awesome.

anyways, that’s all for now, im tired and need sleep.

-Nicko

My brown thumb might be turning green

The destruction of the weeds in my backyard is all I can think of lately, they are driving me insane! I was tempted to use a ground clearing product that kills everything but could not think of having to wait over a year to replant so im doing baby steps. I have tried two products so far, one is a weed and grass killer and the other was a weed killer that attaches to a garden hose… if that doesn’t work I will try the weed killer attached to my garden hose again and then I will probably have to get on my hands and knees and yank every last weed from my lawn, which will be quite painful since the weeds I have are the kind with thorns all over.

I am growing my little indoor garden and am a very proud plant mama, is that weird? I mean, I talk to my little plants and pet there little leaves… that does make me weird right? Anyways the pinto bean is growing fast and since he happened on accident I sorta went out and got some other seeds to grow. Lets see, I bought a little strawberry kit, a sweet peppers kit and then two different kinds of tomato seed packets. I planted the peppers and the strawberries, the strawberries had a couple of accidents (my daughter will eat anything) but a few did manage to survive. I got a couple of pictures I took of all of their progress about a week ago, I would have taken newer ones but I forgot to charge my camera (oops) so they are a little bigger than pictured now, but at least I tried lol.

My pinto bean got big, very quickly!

My little strawberry plants look so sad... but at least there alive!

I think I'm going to have a lot of pepper's

I have a pot all ready for one of my tomato seed packets, the other one I do not have a pot for yet, but I plan on reusing one of the pots I have again once I transfer them into my back yard (if i can get a planter box) I have a huge problem with pilbugs, snails and every other kind of bug known to man it seems… not to mention those evil little weeds that cause me never-ending grief, so I need to deal with all these issues before even transferring my plants.

Today we had a new dishwasher installed and I am absolutely in love with it… not just because its pretty but also because it has some mean skills. I put a bunch of dishes and pans in it from dinner and even the baked on grime was gone when it was finished, that was impressive. We probably would not have gotten a new dishwasher had the old one worked somewhat but sadly it did not so we have been doing the dishes the old-fashioned way… not any more!.. well, within reason that is. Some of my pots and pans cannot be put in the dishwasher, but I don’t mind, the bulk of stuff will be taken care of at least!

My old non-working dishwasher

My new and improved super sexy dishwasher... oh ya, hot!

I am in no hurry for summertime weather but the rain has been a little annoying, I was going to barbeque for Easter but now im going to have to just make a ham because I do not want to be stuck outside cooking (or my husband I should say) getting drenched by some unforseen rain cloud. That’s okay though, it will still be a lovely day spent with my family no matter what.

Never took the Hatter as a scottish lad.

This past couple days has been pretty uneventful… even by my standards but I did get out of the house to go see Alice in Wonderland on the IMAX… I am still not a big fan of the genre but at least it wasn’t complete rubbish, there were two things that bothered me in the movie though… er, well three actually. Firstly the storyline was weak… seriously weak. There was nothing new that was noteworthy and since it is supposed to be a continuation of the first Alice in Wonderland they could have done so much more with it. Secondly, the ending was just boring, im not going to spoil it but I have to say it just felt like they ran out of production time and couldn’t think of anything exciting. Lastly, the actress that played Alice looked okay as Alice, but not a 19-year-old Alice (or 18, whichever) she looked like she was at most 15, also, her acting skill’s were limited. Just my opinion though.

Only a couple more day’s and the hubby and I will be off for a 3 night vacation near red hawk casino and even though I’m not really a gambler I think just getting away for a few days will recharge my batteries, I wonder if there is a day spa nearby there, I will have to look. My mom is thankfully going to be babysitting the kids, hopefully they behave for her and I come home to children who are not to badly spoiled.

It’s been almost a week since I have stopped drinking regular soda and started drinking Diet. I of course miss regular cola but it is getting easier to resist and the taste of coke zero is not as nasty as it was. I have not gone completely diet nuts, I still drink regular milk and regular juice but the soda is a BIG step. I am still not happy about the water situation… I would like to drink more of it, more often but I am slacking.

Since it be the luck o’ the Irish day I am hoping I can get supplies to make corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight… sigh, should have thought of it last time I got groceries. I’m not Irish but the hubby is, I wouldn’t want him to feel blue when he is supposed to be feeling green lol.

L’oreal Lash Serum end results

Okay so I’m going to do a L’oreal lash serum update tonight, mostly because it is wayyyyy overdue and I need to just stop procrastinating and DO IT!

These are my final results using the Lash Serum by L’oreal and although I will keep on using the product for a while more since I do have favorable results using it, I will be switching to Latisse to see if I can amp up the results I have gotten from the Lash Serum… anyways if you want to see the before picture’s and the in progress pictures you will have to look in my archives… these are my result pictures.

The end result im going for is length, but this particular product did not lengthen as much as it darkened and thickened my lashes, which is not unfavorable but I was hoping for length also since my lashes are on the shorter side (to me at least) especially when I compare my lashes to my son and daughters lashes, holy guacamole my children have LONG lashes! Take a look at this!

My 3 year old son's eye's

My daughters are similar but have more curl to them but ya, my son has pretty eyes.

So the next time I update on my lashes I will not be updating on the Lash Serum anymore but instead will be updating on Latisse.

This post is sponsered by ambien…well, not really.

I have a lot that I have to update and talk about but right now I just can’t, it has been a rough couple weeks dealing with everyone in my house being sick and having to go to multiple doctors. I had a dentist appointment yesterday and have to go back in a couple days because one of my back teeth needs deep cleaning with some laser action because of a pocket developing due to bone loss… so, I really will not be having fun.

Last week my bean sprout was attacked by a pilbug (aka: Rolly Polly) and sustained damage…. surprisingly it has flourished and soon I will show you pictures of how it looks now. I really want to find some cute pots I can put it in once its outside…. my gardener might just pull him out like a weed if I plant him directly into the ground….. arg, scared.

My daughter has learned how to walk within the past few weeks so she is getting really good and can actually cross a whole room without falling on her bottom, she looks so cute when she is moving, her hands are all stretched out and she has this huge smile on her face, because I think she knows she is doing something really special.

My husband and I have a wedding anniversary coming up and we are planning to be out-of-town for a few days while my mom baby sits the kids, it will be nice just to be with each other and celebrate how far we have come.

I have been noticing a lot lately that when I wake up my face looks more lined than usual so im kind of freaking out a bit since I have a pretty good routine with my skin care… I am not sure if the olay proX is actually doing what its supposed to be doing… so once im out I might get something similar from Avon and see how I like it and if I notice a difference.

Soon I will have to cut out all the soda I drink and all the white bread I eat in anticipation of the medically imposed diet I will have no choice in following unless I want dire side effects, so ya, I have no idea how im going to do it yet but boy howdy am I going to be one stressed out mama. My doctor has put me on Metformin once again… 2000 mg a day. oy.

We have been cutting back on some bills lately because it just seemed wasteful to keep services we weren’t using, we changed out cable plan so now it is extended basic with discovery channels, nickjr and sprout added on along with HBO… so basically we cut out starz and encore along with some other channels we just do not watch. I told the hubby to get rid of HBO even but he thinks we should keep it… *shrug* either way I don’t watch it much.

Any who, its late and I am tired, time for bed. The sooner I sleep, the sooner I wake up and get to see my son. He is spending the night at his Nanna’s house with his uncle’s and there two dogs so he has a lot of things to do over there… doesn’t make me not miss him though, little booger can annoy me to tears but take him away for a night and im lost without him lol.

-Nicko

In which life is created

It feels like a long time since I have blogged when its only been a few days. I havent had much to talk about lately because my kids and I have been sick with a cold.  The only thing interesting I really have to talk about is the growth of new life!… and im not talking about the production of baby humans but the production of a plant… or, a baby plant? I know virtually nothing about plants or the growth of them, if I had to describe my abilities to keep plant life alive it would be bleak at best… I have a brown thumb instead of a green one.

A quick story about the first time I ever grew anything. I was either in kindergarten or first grade I cannot remember which but my teacher had a little class project that was really neat for all of the kids. We were instructed to bring an empty gallon milk container from home that had been washed really good because we were going to grow our very own tomato plants. I remember cutting a hole in the side of the milk container with safety scissors and then we all got a bit of soil and a couple seeds to put in it. Everyday we would watch our plants and one day they just started growing and eventually little tomatoes started popping up (they were small and green at first but still cool) when the tomatoes started getting red the teacher finally let us take our tomato plants home and I was so happy because I felt like I had done something big. This story has a sad ending though because my tomato plant ended up dying and that is when my thumb turned brown.

Okay so about this new life form. It all started a few days ago quite by accident, you see I had made my first batch of homemade beans a very yummy batch of beans if I might add (although a bit to chewy, oops)

Beans beans the magical fruit!

Before I could even get to the point of cooking I had to soak a bunch of pinto beans a while and somehow or another one of the beans that I soaked got “misplaced” and started to sprout! When I saw this little thing growing I wasnt sure what to do because I couldn’t just throw it away or put it down the disposal because it was life! I had accidentally created a little being… even if it is just a plant. So what did I do? Well, I sorta just put it in a pinch bowl and have it submersed in water and it has doubled in size since yesterday!

I guess all babies look the same when there in this stage.

For now it is just kicking back in the bowl but I have a feeling its going to need soil soon, so maybe tomorrow I will find some dirt and put it in the pot/wannabe vase that I got for valentine’s day from my hubby (edible arrangements come in them and there kinda like pretty keepsakes) and I hope I can keep it alive. Wish me luck, because im going to need it!

-Nicko

Adventures with Chinese food!

I have always wanted to make chinese food but somehow found myself intimidated by the process, not because I thought it was hard but because i did not want to fail at making something so simple. Yesterday I pushed aside my trepidation and went forward, going boldly where I have never gone before (wow, just had a star trek moment!)! I made my own version of chicken fried rice and general chicken, which tastes pretty much just like you get at any westernized chinese restaurant minus the vegetables since the hubby is not into them and I had no acceptable ones on hand lol. Anyways I started out with some rice:

Oooo Rice!

I basically followed the directions to make this rice, the only thing I did differently is I used less water than called for because I do not like my rice sticky or watery (gimme that fluff!). After the rice was done it looked pretty much like regular white rice so I knew I didn’t screw it up lol.

Perfect!

Since im making two dishes that call for chicken I marinated 5 chicken breasts in teriyaki sauce for about an hour.

Look's like it's done marinating!

So once my chicken was done marinating I took two breasts and cubed it and then the three reminding breasts I cut into strips.

Chicken strips

cubed chicken.

After getting everything all cut up I started frying everything like a mad woman… first up is the rice, I throw it in the skillet and swish in some sesame seed oil and some soy sauce getting it a little combined, then I start to fry up the cubed chicken, after it gets a little toasty I add two eggs and make a very choppy scramble… at that stage I just throw it into the pan with the rice… kinda like this:

chicken and eggs, pre dump.

chicken and egg dumped on top of the frying rice

Now at this point the meal looks slightly weird and unfinished… mostly because, it is! okay so after I dump all that in I just start working it all around with a wooden spoon getting everything combined, I then proceed to layer flavors starting with onion powder, next comes sugar…. yes, sugar! I added about a tablespoon of sugar, depending on your taste you can either add or take away. once I have those flavors in I add a little more soy sauce but not too much, don’t wanna over power the rice. I mix it all really well, fluffing with my wooden spoon untill the rice turns that oh so lovely shade that tells you “im done! 🙂 ” and if you dont know it, it looks like this:

happy rice! yey!

So now that the rice is done I now start working on my General Chicken!

First thing is first… I get out the tin foil and flour… ya, this sounds weird but it’s what I do, k? so I get out the tin foil and fllllower:

This is what I do with the tin foil and flower!

now that that’s out, I take my chicken strips who are happy to be getting some attention and I throw them into the flower, I coat the chicken lightly since I want to taste the chicken and not a bunch of breading… the flower is just more for texture and to give the glaze something to hold onto.

Silly chicken strips, they seem to be having a sexy party and they forgot the sauce!

okay so, chicken gets tossed in the pan with a dash of sesame seed oil and i just herd the little nuggets around til they get brown… at which point the chicken strips finally remember the sauce and have a real sexy party!

Wow there at it again! and this time with sauce!

so when all is said and done the food came out wonderfully and it was easy… I took a picture of my plate right before dinner to show you how they look together (aww, chicken fried rice and general chicken, a match made in… uh… my pan)

Yum... look at all those CARBS!

It may not be traditional, but it tasted it!

-Nicko

Who needs clay pidgeons when you have frozen beef patty disks?

If you have not noticed lately, I have not posted an updated picture of my eyelashes in a while… this is because of several reasons but mostly because there has been zero, and I mean ZERO change since the last update, it has left me a little let down and maybe even a bit annoyed.

the lash serum trying to look cool on my bathroom vanity

I do have to admit, my lashes do feel softer and more moisture infused, maybe even a bit denser than they were but I was expecting so much more by now. There is still hope though! I have plenty of Lash Serum left so I will just keep on applying daily until it is all gone. I will post more pics when and if there is more change to my lashes.

The hubby and I got out of the house on sunday which was awesome since I have been clawing at the walls wanting fresh air and to be reminded that there is a world outside of my house. I managed to get my new glasses ordered from SEARS optical and now I just have to wait a week to get them.

I got a couple new shirts from Lane Bryant and I actually went out on a limb (for me that is) and bought one in neon green, yup, I have gone insane but lately I have had a thing about wearing different shade’s of green, I think it might have something to do with the color of my hair right now (yes I colored it again!) I chose a new Auburn color from a different brand, the Clairol color I was using rocked but it washed out to a mousey brown within 2 weeks flat… so now im using L’Oreal’s Superior Preference in Intense Dark Red.

Intense Dark Red

The color on the box looks great, the only problem I have with it is it shows up much darker on me and has more of a “Purple” hue to it… so my quest to find the perfect Dark Auburn is far from over so for now I might just try using a color glaze to see if the red can be intensified.

I had to order my groceries online this week and I had an OOPS moment… I accidentally bought the wrong kind of hamburgers *sigh* usually I get my hamburger meat in a large tube because its cheap and I can work miracles with that meat, well, this time I accidentally got the frozen pre-formed patties, so now I have to figure out how to prepare them so they don’t taste as terrible as I know they are, right now im working on a few things in my head that might work but if anyone knows how to make these little frozen disks taste like anything other than cow manure (not that I know what it tastes like) let me know.

-Nicko