Pitiful Points

I haven’t been tracking the points for a while (-5 Martha points) because I’ve been a little distracted  by a few things. After the Situation Under the Refrigerator, I am humbly sitting at –2 Martha Points.

The fundraiser (+10 Martha Points) has been an awful lot of incredibly fun and rewarding work, and then the Pumpkin War (-5 Martha Points with a -3 Karma Point rider) has been taking up a lot of attention too.

I’ve managed to get a fair amount of holiday decorating done (+6 Martha Points) but at the expense of my house upkeep (-6 Martha Points) which necessitating me outsourcing some of those activities (-8 Martha Points but with a +5 Economic Stimulus credit).

Report cards have arrived and the kids are all doing well (no Martha Points for this activity but there is a Postitive-Parenting-Warm-and-Fuzzy), and although they’re not with us for Halloween, they’ve decided they’re all too old for that stuff anyway ( free nostalgic sorrow gift with purchase).

Thanksgiving will be here in the blink of an eye, but I don’t decorate for this holiday beyond letting the uncarved pumpkins hang around (-4 Martha Points). Dinner will be at my house for the first time since Himself and I started seeing each other (+10 Martha Points) but since there is a small crowd this year, I’m not going to roast a whole turkey (-5 Martha Points, with a 30% chance of familial thunderstorms).

So if I update the register here, I see that I’m at -7 Martha Points.

*sigh*

Maybe I should can something.

I have no idea how to do that, or even what to can.

I’ve got marshmallows in the pantry.

Do you can marshmallows?

 

Mercenary Points

Sometimes…

Sometimes…

Sometimes we just do things we’re not proud of.

We hold ourselves up to certain standards.

Tell ourselves that tomorrow, we want to be proud of who we were today.

But there are times when circumstances and situations simply get the better of us and choices that we would not make for ourselves or our families, all things being equal, just have to be made.

I find that in these situations that it’s better to simply come clean and be honest with the limitations that our lives impose on us, and to accept the circumstances we find ourselves in as gracefully as possible. We need to make peace with our decisions, and give ourselves permission to be disappointed without passing judgement on ourselves.

I say these things, but sometimes I don’t listen to myself very well.

Today…*deep breath*…I’m finding this hard to say.

I know you all love me, and I’m confident that you will find ways to forgive me, but these sorts of confessions simply aren’t easy no matter how strong our support networks.

Ok, let me try again…

TodayIhaveahousecleanercoming.

I chose the fast, rip-the-bandaid-off-quickly approach.

What? You didn’t catch that?

*heavy heavy sigh*

Ahem.

Today, I have a housecleaner coming.

I’m holding my breath now.

Are you all still there?

Please! Say something! Anything!

I know you’re all shocked, and possibly you feel…cheated…dirty.

I promise she means nothing to me!

And it wasn’t even my idea! It was Himself’s! Blame him!

Although… I agreed.

Reluctantly, yes, but I agreed.

And I’ve never done this before, I swear! There were those few experiments with having a service clean the rental after I moved out, but that’s all!

I mean, I’m a working mom in the suburbs! All my friends are doing it! I just wanted to fit in!

Oh, let’s face it. Those are excuses, just ways to make it seem not so bad.

But the thing I’m most afraid of is…what if…what if…what if I enjoy it?

What if I want to do it again?

These things are insidious. You think it’s just once, to get yourself through a rough patch. It’s no big deal, it’s not like you’re dependent or anything. Everyone needs a little help now and then. But then you think about how good it felt and how it’s not like a thousand other people aren’t doing it too. So you do it a second time, just because it’s a special occasion. You know you can walk away. But then, it’s stops being a way to get through a rough week, or just something you do when there’s a party, and starts being something that you need to have regularly. Monthly. Then…then…weekly.

I think, maybe, that you all should have an intervention prepared.

You know.

Just in case.

Gone, Baby, Gone

First, make sure to check out Natalie’s story over at Project:Purse and Boots. Learn wow shiny sequins can enhance your fantasy life.

Second, a loving thank you to Mama P over at Keeper of the Penguins for bestowing upon me The Versatile Blogger Award. I am so happy that she chose to pass this honor on to me that I am not going to deduct any points for the fact that this week she set her vacuum on fire.

The same, however, cannot be said for me. (About the points, not the setting on fire of vacuums.)

You may recall that I have been sitting for the past two weeks on a robust +48 Martha Points for all my work on Himself’s 50th birthday party. That’s a pretty comfy buffer between me and negative numbers.

Or so I thought.

Warning: The following post is not for the faint of heart nor the meek of spirit. Consult your physician before reading. This installment of In Pursuit of Martha Points is not recommended for women who are pregnant, nursing or may become pregnant, men who are considering careers in animal husbandry or people who think it’s wrong to kick puppies. Please consult your own attorney or legal representative before reading. In Pursuit of Martha Points is not responsible for any nausea, vomiting, oogies, willies, or creepy-crawly sensations as a result of reading. In Pursuit of Martha Points is not a licensed distributor of medical advice, housekeeping advice, parenting advice, which sibling you should invite to Thanksgiving after one totals the other’s car advice, or any advice that might influence the way you think, reason, breathe or sort socks.

I’m going to tell you a story. A story of domestic turpitude so bad, so vile, that it matters not one whit that I spent the weekend cleaning, doing laundry, making pot-luck dishes, photographing a friend’s birthday party, or hemming 18 feet of taffeta on Child A’s choir dress. By hand.

No. None of those things can dig me out of this hole.

You’ll believe me in a moment.

It started with a toy. A little ball bearing magnet toy that we got for Child A when we went to Carmel. Interestingly, the boy children got t-shirts, while the girl child got a science toy. That’s how things sometimes go in our house. The ball bearing magnet toy has 216 ball bearings. Yes, 216. Now, they’re pretty powerfully magnetized and so they stick together, but two of them got lost and we were hunting around the kitchen and family room looking for them. Cause hunting for two 5mm ball bearings in 220 square feet of living space is a fun thing to do on a Saturday night.

We found one ball bearing stuck to the fridge. Child A said, “Oh, I was swinging the chain and they must have been attracted to the fridge!”

Sensible.

So, hypothesizing that where there was one there might be the second, we started hunting around the fridge. Himself, thinking – not irrationally – that one might have rolled UNDER the fridge, pulled the fridge away from the wall to look.

I was prepared for dust. I was prepared for grime. I was not prepared for what we found.

Himself knelt down and stared at the brown, rough lumps under the fridge. Perplexed he said, “What is that?”

Warning: This is where you should if, at all possible, stop reading. Unless you are OCD like me and CAN’T stop once you’ve started, in which case I suggest you have a phone with 911 on speed dial handy. And if you CAN stop now, go right ahead. Click over to something that is less likely to disturb you. Like LiveSurgeryWhileYouWatch.com.

I couldn’t quite make out what was on the floor. It looked like shredded cardboard. My first thought was, “Crap, there’s a mouse getting under the refrigerator.”

Oh no, not a mouse. I would have been happy with a mouse. THRILLED.

I got down on the floor and peered at the fuzz.

No, not fuzz…not shredded cardboard.

Bugs.

Wee little squirmy bugs.

UGH. UGH UGH BLERGHH BLECHHH UGH UGH!!!

We then did the traditional Dance of Wigging Out in Disgust.

Then we vacuumed. And sterilized. And emptied the vacuum. And sterilized again. And sprayed vinegar all over EVERYTHING (which made us all vaguely hungry for fish and chips) and wiped and scrubbed and cleaned and wiped and scrubbed.

Then we all bathed in turpentine.

I’m thinking that that’s probably a -50 point hit right there.  No explanations. No rationalizations. If you end up with bugs breeding unbeknownst to you under your refrigerator, you take your lumps.

Or in this case, you lose your points.

I now sit in humiliated (but bug-free) disgrace at -2 Martha Points.

*sigh*

Vegetation Meditation

I’m afraid of my vegetable bin.

Everything has a breaking point. Everything has that fine line beyond which more cannot be taken.

I believe I am well past this point with the vegetable bin.

I swear by the holiest of holies (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups) that my intentions are good: healthy, nutritious meals. Side dishes of lean, fibery goodness. Fresh fruit to lead to rosy cheeked children ready to learn.

In my imagination I am also wearing pumps and I vacuum all day wearing pearls and dresses with full skirts.

And if you look down you’ll see my pavers that say “good intentions” on them leading right along the path to that fiery pit of hellfire over yonder.

What is in my vegetable bin starts off as innocent produce and is then alchemically transmogrified into something that rivals the deficit for sheer terror.

There are colors that do not exist outside of Industrial Light and Magic’s special effects offices.

There are materials of indeterminate states of matter that require a team of people from “Outbreak” to initiate proper disposal protocols.

And all because I meant to add zucchini to the pasta but then got too tired to slice it at the last minute and added extra butter instead.

Sanitation standards that wouldn’t be considered adequate for a developing nation that didn’t yet have the infrastructure for a sewage system are running rampant in the lower bin of my refrigerator.

Why? Because I was delusional and thought that I’d serve two vegetables with dinner one night which was a stupid thing for me to think when we had anything other than vegetables in the house. Here is my inner monologue: Hmmm…I can do chicken with broccoli and saute up some mushrooms, or…Oh, look! Kraft Mac and Cheese! Special super-hero shapes!

This is the slippery slope that ends up with a house having a red tag on its door and your children on the local news.

There are times when I have to think back through significant events to figure out when I might have purchased something and how long it’s been lurking in the produce drawer. The vegetation equivalent of carbon dating. What did we use this mint for? Oh, wait…I remember, for Christmas mint-cocoa. In 2003.

And at this very moment, a mass of horror and putrescence is growing in the refrigerator. Growing mass, growing intelligence and probably growing tentacles.

I’ll send the kids in first.

Exposed.

First, let us talk about the ways in which I am clever.

Because talking about how I am clever, pretty, funny, charming or winning at a board game are some of my favorite topics.

We really don’t get to talk about these things enough.

This may be my fault.

On Friday, Himself stopped at Costco on the way home from work to pick up a few essentials. Toilet paper, butter, a twelve-pack of flat-screen TV’s, you know.

I suggested that maybe he could look for something for dinner. Especially if, perchance, crab legs were to be had for a really good price.

And it turns out that crab legs were to be had for a really good price.

There was swoonage. I don’t get to have crab anywhere near as often as I think I am entitled to have crab.

So dinner was set to  be rosemary bread, salad, and steamed crab legs.

We encountered an eensy weensy hiccup in that the only steamer we own can’t even handle asparagus, let alone three Alaskan King Crab legs.

I hate boiling crab. The shells become unmanageable and the meat gets too tough. Steaming. It has to be steaming.

So this is where the clever part happens.

One of us (also known as Himself) suggests the big roaster. Which is large enough for the crab legs, but has no steamer inset.

Then one of us (I don’t actually remember who but we’ll go with me) thinks to line the bottom of the roaster with cookie cutters to rest the crab upon.

Brilliance. Sheer brilliance. Someone should think to send my name to the Nobel Committee for Creative Crustacean Cookery.

Plus, it adds the festive "Christmas in June" look.

Don't you wish YOU were so clever?

So once we had the giant turkey roaster lined with copper Christmas cookie cutters and an inch of water happily boiling away, we added our three Costco Crab Legs.

I bet Bobbie Flay does it this way ALL the time.

Then we melted up half a dairy’s worth of butter and sat down to a feast.

This, however, is where the happy-making discussion will end.

Because I have ignored the inevitable for too long.

While I was merrily tallying points for all my crafty door-painting and ashtray-enhancing, I was also ignoring many other things in my house. Things like the carpet being an inch thicker than it’s meant to be for all the cat hair, the layer of dust on the bedroom furniture that had become thick enough to grow crops in, and the discoloration of certain porcelain household fixtures that should really only happen in laboratories designed to test industrial strength cleaning materials for the military.

And despite the reader suggestions that things behind the bedroom door are the private business of two consenting and sometimes-slovenly adults, there does come a point when enough is simply enough and responsibility must be taken.

My office at WORK never got this bad.

My desk is made of wood, right? I can't tell any longer.

Previous score: +26 points

• Allowing an entire new level of carpet to grow on top of the previous layer of carpet: -5 points
• Allowing dust to cultivate its own microclimates: -5 points
• Ignoring the master bathroom to the point where even a teenaged boy isn’t happy to use it: -8 points
• Paying such close and caring attention to our growing plants that we actually have baby tomatoes and baby lemons: +6 points
• Allowing the home office to evolve into a new species of sentient furniture is counterbalanced by the reason being creating a storage back-up system so that music files stop dragging down the operating systems and photos have a back-up in case of drive failure: 0 points
• And finally, for taking the “if I ignore it it’ll just go away” approach to what’s growing under the dish drainer: -4 points

New score: +10 points

All I can offer is huge relief that I’m still in positive numbers. Because I was braced, I can tell you.

Points de Resistance

First: Thank heavens for random number generators, as if I had to choose an entry I would absolutely die. (A ka-trillion apologies if people thought otherwise. Covered in chocolate. A ka-trillion and one, even. With sprinkles.) I have been cracking up since Tuesday morning. From Kristen’s washing a single spoon for ice cream, to Liz’ straightforward coveting, to LauraK’s attempts to leverage Friday into the weekend (which, for the record, I think is totally okay) and Poppy’s entering of other contests in a attempt to win something to barter with in case she doesn’t win. I have been laughing so hard my eyes have teared up. I mean, someone gets a mug and all, but I didn’t appreciate how much fun it was going to be for me. And then there’s the whole brawl, which I think I should charge admission for.

I’m just the bringer of ceramic happiness, that’s all I can say.

If you haven’t entered to win the Mug ‘o Martha Points, please leave a comment here. Entries open through Friday morning.

And it’s time to be doin’ some tallyin’ peoples, because I’ve just spent the week as Hostess with the Mostest. Mostest dirty floors, mostest spotty wineglasses, mostest yelling at cats. I can say, with utter humility, that I have no equal in this department at the moment.

An ignominious distinction, I think.

Let’s Count.

Current score: +5 points

• Hosting mother-in-law for seven days. +5 points (Note: If my mom-in-law were in anyway difficult I would award myself more points, but she’s lovely and heavily low-maintenance from a houseguest standpoint, so standard MP’s apply here.)
• Forgetting how many children we have in the hosting mom-in-law/graduation brou-ha-ha and almost getting the wrong number of graduation tickets: -10 points
• Mopping the kitchen floor mid-visit: +6 points
• Falling asleep on the couch while socializing…twice: -4 points
• NOT running out of wine: +8 points
• Running out of food: -5 points
• Running out of nice weather: -6 points (I know, I know, but I bet Martha could have done something about it for her houseguests.)
• Taking mom-in-law winetasting: +4 points
• Taking mom-in-law out to Puerto Rican food: +4 points
• Taking mom-in-law to sit in the blistering sun for Child B’s graduation and encouraging her to wear a sweater: -8 points (in my defense, it had been raining all week up until exactly 2.5 hours before the ceremony started. But I think I lose as many points for almost rotisserie-ing her to death as I would have for almost giving her pneumonia.)

Bringing my new total to: -1 points

WHAT??? I was robbed! No one starved to death! No children were actually misplaced or anything! Mom-in-law slept indoors for Pete’s sake, and the cats only drew blood one time.

Honestly.

Projects, Points, Pedicures…Oh My!

Disclaimer: There is no pedicure. I just couldn’t think of anything else that started with “P.” I hope I didn’t get anyone’s hopes up…

So  my plan was to write this great post about the Bathroom Project, complete with amusing pictures. The light fixture in the hall bath that the kid use has been dying for some time, but apparently died an ultimate death sometime last week. When? We’re not sure as it took the kids several days to share with us that they were showering in the dark. Our temporary solution? Put a lamp in the bathroom. An honest-t0-goodness lamp that you need to turn on by hand. Hopefully a dry hand. We may have mentioned that to the kids. Maybe. Possibly not. Anyway, we assumed that the fixtutre would need to be replaced, complete with search for fixture, installation, and repainting of the bathroom because of course the new mount wouldn’t match the paint lines from the old mount. This was going to result in, I was sure, many funny stories. But, as it turns out, Himself was able to re-wire the fixture, replace the bulbs and basically fix the problem with $20 worth of parts and one trip to the hardware store. And as much as I wanted to be irritated that he ruined what was sure to be a hysterical blog-post, I really wasn’t all that disappointed to NOT be painting more walls in my house. As Painting Walls in My House is a post that will be written another time, but which I can assure you will start with, “Chapter One – The Rainbow Doesn’t Have Enough Colors.”

So, that’s not what we’ll talk about today. Instead, we’ll talk about Spring Cleaning and the Patio.

So, let me show you a few before pictures from the patio:

Dead plants? Why yes, but only a few. I'm on a diet.

I could claim it's dormant, but only if by "dormant" we mean "stone cold dead."

This is not the environment in which we optimally enjoy pursuing new states of drunken-ness sampling new vintages. So this weekend, with the Mother-in-Law coming and all, we decided to make some improvements.

So, first, allow me to show you this:

It's not a traffic cone. You can tell because it's not orange.

Ok, here’s the script for this next bit of dialogue. Read carefully.

You: “Ummm….Lori…What the hell is that?”

Me: (proudly) “It’s a fountain!”

You: “Lori, dear, you have really bad taste.”

Me: “No, there’s an explanation!”

You: “Is it going Trick-or-Treating?”

Me: “Is it October already?”

So, here’s the explanation, and I promise if you read slowly it’ll make sense. We have a fountain that sits on the patio. Since we put up all the birdfeeders last fall there have been a ton of finches in the yard and they drink from the fountain. The fountain turned fourteen shades of manky (possibly because finches are drinking from it?) and really needed to be cleaned. With bleach. But I didn’t want finches possibly drinking from it with bleach running through it, so I moved it to the side of the house. But then, worried about the generally large population of birds that frequent the yards with Backyard Neighbor and I both putting out the equivalent of Sizzler’s All You Can Eat BBQ Ribs for Birds on a daily basis, I was concerned that just moving the bleach-filled fountain wouldn’t be enough, so I put a cover over it. But in order to make sure that the cover rested over the water instead of in it, I put a step-stool on top of it, and then covered it with a sheet. With a leaf pattern, because, you know, it’s spring and all.

See how much sense that makes when I put it that way?

After letting the fountain run bleach through it for it for an hour we scrubbed, rinsed, scrubbed some more, put clean water in it and put it back. We also ripped out dead plants, planted new plants, put root-bound trees in the ground and planted a tomato seedling (more on that in a minute.) And the net result was this:

You can tell it's better, because in the reflection in the window I'm now wearing a hat.

This is what the fountain looks like when it's NOT wearing a step-ladder and sheet.

Wherein I PROVE that I can tell the difference between live and dead plants.

The perfect end to the day...

And trust me, after all this? There was an epic nap. We just can’t plant the crops the way we used to.

But about that tomato seedling…

I love fresh tomatoes, I covet fresh tomatoes, I exert HUGE amounts of restraint to keep myself from foraging in the neighbors’ yards in search of fresh tomatoes. But my own yard is not hugely “fresh tomato” friendly. So…

Well…

Because of all that, you know…

We did this:

It's not like we got color choices, you know.

The tomato plant is not as traumatized as it looks. I actually lied down (laid down? lay down? I HATE this one!) on the ground to stare up at it and assess the relative perki-ness of the leaves. They’re pretty perky. It doesn’t seem to mind its current habitat.

Himself wanted to be sure I mentioned that we selected a strategic location where you really can’t see the planter from anywhere else in the yard.

You really get a good sense of our bowling-alley shaped yard with this shot.

Although claiming that aesthetics are important to us at this stage of the game feels a little empty.

So between the Spring Cleaning and the Gettin’ Back to Nature, this was how we spent the weekend.

And now to the question you’ve all been waiting for…What’s the Current Points Score?

The previous score: +19 points

• Store-bought cake to celebrate my mother’s 64th birthday: -10 points (yes, this was a biggie.)
• Major Spring Cleaning in anticipation of my mother-in-law: +12 points
• Needing a visit from my mother-in-law to get me off my arse to clean: -8 points
• Not finding any food actually liquified in the refrigerator vegetable bin: +4 points
• Discovering new species of plants in the vegetable bin: -3 points
• Semi-sentient laundry: -5 points
• Not notifying SETI about the semi-sentient laundry: -3 points (they’re practically defunct anyway)
• Spiffy new patio plantings: +4 points
• Convincing the children that frozen French Fries counts as a vegetable: -2 points
• Convincing the children that garlic on the frozen French Fries increases the nutritional value: -2 points
• Finding ourselves out of toothpaste after feeding the family garlic fries: -5 points
• Tomato plant – +2 points for deciding to try and grow our own tomatoes, -5 points for horrific hanging tomato planter, but with a +1 point credit for strategic placement of said horrific planter for a net tomato score of: -2 points

For a new total of: -1 points

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!! And with my mother-in-law coming!!!

Let’s just step back and savor the irony for a moment – I haven’t been in negative points since March. And two days before my mother-in-law flies into town I totally blow it with tacky tomato planters and garlic fries.

It’s the little things, you know?

This post happily (and somewhat embarrassingly) linked to “Metamorphosis Monday” at Between Naps on the Porch and The Before and After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick!

 

At least it matches the carpet.

This is in my living room.

Nobody…and I mean NOBODY…better suggest that we don’t really, REALLY love our cats.

And despite the fact that is 8-linear-feet-worth-of-adoration for the furry demons that infest our home….it is ENORMOUS. And it is IN MY LIVING ROOM.

It costs me: -11 Martha Points

Interventions, treatment program recommendations, support group suggestions or links to people even further in the deep end than we are can be sent to: crazycatpeoplewhoneedhelp@dysfunctionalpersonsemail.com

Lori and the Bee

I dream of gardens.

Beautiful lush gardens with weeping willows and waterfalls where it doesn’t matter that geologically speaking I technically live in a desert. I want foxgloves and ferns, roses and rhododendrons, daisies and daffodils, bluebells and….and…damn, I’m out.

Also having no place in the fantasy garden is the fact that I live on a 6000 square foot lot. There is exactly enough room for a modest Japanese maple and small water feature. I can have a weeping willow, or I can have a bedroom for our oldest son. So we did what parents everywhere do when faced with these difficult choices. We tossed a coin.

Despite the lack of fecund soil or acreage, we do manage to get a little of the petaly stuff to grow. As do our neighbors. And we’re not above luring flowers into our yard with promises of sweets, sun, flavored water and attendants that will feed them peeled grapes. (Hey, the boy had to do something to earn the bedroom.)

So we do manage to get some charming pops of color into the space which should, theoretically, quench my thirst for quaint cottage gardens and give me hours of enjoyment while sipping cosmopolitans on my deck.

But there’s one more problem. Allow me to illustrate.

Contrasted with:

Bees (which is a category that describes any flying, stinging insect) cause me to break out in hives, a cold sweat, and Broadway show tunes. Bees (which is a category that includes any unidentified insect that may or may not sting but is guilty until proven innocent) inspire in me a speed which I have not yet equaled in any vehicle not powered  by a combustion engine. Bees (which is a category that includes any insect that I can’t see that makes an audible buzzing sound) manage to drive me indoors despite the fact that I out-mass ALL THE BEES IN MY YARD AT ONCE by a factor of about a zillion to one.

And no. I am not allergic. Although I once lied to a police officer about that when I thought the alternative was finding myself arrested for being stupid.

After 42 years of bee phobia I can manage the occasional flyby of a honey-bee, or shoo away a yellowjacket at a picnic table.

But that’s as far as it goes, people. You can’t ask more of me than that. I can’t handle it! AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!

This problem is heightened by the carpenter bees that have developed a chemical addiction to our bleeding hearts. (Or whatever that flower is in the first picture. I know it’s not a bleeding heart, I just don’t know what it is. If anyone knows, please tell me so I can get the bees into the correct treatment program.) The carpenter bees are the insect world’s Hell’s Angels, complete with shiny black attire, obnoxiously loud engines, and majorly aggressive attitude. Although the few times I ever hung out with Hell’s Angels they were pretty cool, and more than one of them had teddy bears strapped to the backs of their hogs. So really, the bees are worse.

It’s spring, the flowers are blooming, all should be loveliness and cucumber sandwiches.

And I’m standing safely behind a window giving a paper wasp the hairy eyeball.

– 10 Martha Points for me. Irrational fears don’t get me ahead.

Phooey.

This post linked to “Home Is…” @ The Reluctant Entertainer

I’m doing this all wrong!

I humbly ask forgiveness…I’m new at this.

So, it never occurred to me that if one was posting an entry about cookies (and crackers), that people were going to read it (like, for instance, you wanted them to) and then the people staring at the pictures of the cookies might be interested in the recipe.

Martha would never make this mistake. Martha would have wrapped up cookie care packages for each guest with an adorable little printout of the recipe tied to the package with festive ribbons.

I really chose a pretty  high peg to hang my hat on. Martha Stewart. Oh, and Pioneer Woman. I’m not going to feel inadequate about myself, my home, my cooking, my blog or my photography any time ever, oh no! Not me!

I should really start looking for psychotherapists now.

OH! AND…(I’ve really worked myself up here)…I mentioned Julia in my last post, cavalierly assuming that everyone would remember who Julia was, cause my blog is just THAT important and everyone remembers EVERYTHING I say all. the. time.

I should just not be let out of the house. That’s all there is to it.

So to make ammends:

The cookie recipe came from AllRecipes.com, which is my go-to recipe site, and the recipe can be found here: Best Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. Notes: per some reviewers, we cut the sugar down by half-cup and split the sugar half-white, half-brown. Also, although delicious, they did not store well and many many of them have fallen apart (not that I have any objection to eating cookies with a spoon, however.)

Julia is from Work, Wife, Mom…Life! and was the kind soul who featured me on her blog yesterday.

And my neighbor asked if she could borrow my kids. Sure. But then you have to feed them. Not a task to be undertaken lightly.

Ok, the penalty for this horrible breach of lifestyle-humor-home-decor-cooking-catwrangling-parenting-blogger etiquette is: -10 Martha Points.

I’ll get this all down. Honest.

Thank you for being patient.

Thank you for not yelling at me (I got scolded by another blogger today. It’s left a mark. I’m psychologically scarred now.)

And where’s my cocktail?

It’s 4:47. Close enough.