This is not the weekend you where looking for

This weekend turned into a "how not to do things" weekend.

A dear and well-meaning friend asked me to to stop thinking about trying to get pregnant and to focus on hobbies and cleaning the house.   I took offence (for a millisecond) because I already had a new year's resolution of focusing on seeing people socially, instead of thinking about making plans, and never calling anyone because I'm too burnt out from work. That's all the resolutions I have in mind for now. I think it's a healthy one.

She's a solid type A and for her, cleaning the house is a transcendent, calming experience.  For me it is not. 

Let me tell you how this shit went down.

Friday - woke up with a migraine and asthma. I suspect it had to do with the vodka I had for dinner.   I decide that I really should take her advice and clean the house because when this whole asthma and migraine cycle has been going on too long.  The 3 inch layer of dust in the bedroom can not help this situation. Instead, I limp onto my couch and read baby related things said friend told me I shouldn't read.  Around 10 pm I start a massive chain of laundry rounds.  I also clean a good amount of clutter and sanitize the bathroom because my husband flying home at 10 and I'm always too distracted to sit and watch TV when waiting.   Cleaning essentials reached. Yea for me.

Saturday -  This day just did not go well.  The morning starts off with me thinking that it's a good idea to clean and fumigate Puppy's bed to make sure there are no critters lurking inside. The sure-fire way to do this is to wash the cover and bake the pillow inserts in the dryer on high heat to cook the critters, provided the pillow inserts are cotton covered.
They weren't.  The covers melted open and brown polyester fill that looks like doll hair went EVERYWHERE. Some even stuck to the dog's queen sized temperpedic pillow that he inherited from my husband.  I managed to stuff most of the stuffing back into the dog bed. At some point I'll sew cotton pillow inserts for it. Can't be that hard, and the cover is still good.

Fail: My dog's pillow has a merkin.

My husband decides to go out. So I start to clean all the things, after being embarrassed by the state of the house, despite lack of normal clutter, because there are still dust bunnies everywhere. I start in on cleaning the kitchen, loading the dishwasher  and dusting the TV. Why do TVs collect so much dust?

A friend calls to catch up  and I sit down to chat. After a while I start to smell a funny plastic smell. I notice I inadvertently turned on the PlayStation and then closed the glass door. I assume that that is the cause of the smell.   I open the door and turn the super-heated PlayStation off and then sit down on the coffee table, still chatting. 

Fail: Over-heated Play Station.

The  smell gets worse. I describe the smell to my friend as "You've got Cancer" and I start to waive a magazine at the play station to cool it off.

The smell gets worse. I look up and realize that there's smoke hanging out in the pot-lights. It dawns on me that it must be coming from the dishwasher.  Yup. I melted a plastic measuring cup on the washer's heating coil during the "dry" cycle.  By now the smell is so potent, I hope to God the alarms don't go off and I start throwing open  all of the windows.

Fail: Set the dishwasher on fire.
Fail: You've got Cancer!-gassed myself and the dog.

Sunday -

Fail: Daylight Savings time. 

No really, it's OK.  I found a Dyson vacuum and glass storage bowls on sale at target! I decluttered my kitchen Tupperware drawer and recycled most of it. No more burning plastic, thank you. We'll stick with glass containers from now on.

Afternoon:
My husband and I found the floor of the bedroom, threw out the dog's other bed (spoiled sott) and dusted down all of the items including our decorative doors leaning against the walls. more on that fail in another post. I also unearthed a Pottery Barn duvet cover that I spent hundreds on two years ago and never took out of the bag because I was too lasy to wash it. I took a solemn but meaningless oath today that from now on I will keep the bedroom clean and start making my bed like an adult.  HA! I can't even type that with a strait face.

Weekend total:
Fail One: Pillow. Merkin.
Fail Two: Over-heated Play Station
Fail Three: Set the dishwasher on fire.
Fail Four: Melted favorite measuring up.
Fail Five: You've got Cancer!-gassed myself and the dog.
Fail Six: Daylight Savings Time.

Win One: I have an adult bedroom
Win Two: We threw out 25+ pounds of clutter.
Win Three: Smugly listening to Spa Music while blogging.
 
Potential Life Threatening Hazzard:I'm about to skillet-bake a steak in the oven. Stay tuned for how that turns out!

My second Baby Shower Favor

This quick and easy baby shower favor was a huge hit! Each place setting had a cute duckie martini with a tiny white and blue ribbon around the stem. The martini Recipe follows.

Duckie Martini

Ingredients:

• 12 Martini glasses 7 3/8" tall
• 12 Duckies - Ensure these are the kind that float right-side up
• 2 two pound bags of blue lavender scented bath salts
• 3 canisters of white sea salt
• 1 spool of teal blue ribbon
• 1 spool of white ribbon

Take-away kit:

• 1 pack of 13 medium sized gift bags
• 1 pack of mesh favor bags with a large mouth

Step One - Before the Baby Shower

Cut 12 lengths of each ribbon. Hold one white and blue ribbon back to back and tie around the stem of the martini glass. Repeat until all of the glasses are bedecked.

Mix the four pounds of blue bath salts and one canister of the sea salt together in a high quality gallon freezer bag - seriously, don't cheap out on the bag, 5 pounds of salt is heavy.

The purpose of adding the sea salt is to make the fancy bath salts spread further. You don't want to use anything besides sea salt and you don't want to use too much or it will be noticeable.

I triple-bagged the salt to make sure there was no chance the seal opened up. This may seem extreme, but again, you don’t want any to spill out on the way to the shower.

That's it for pre-setup!

Step Two - The Day of the Shower

Ideally you should fill the glasses away from the final tablescape, if your hands are shaky.

Put about 3/4 cup of the blue salt in each glass. Fill all of the glasses with the blue salt first, in case you have to shift it around a bit to fill them evenly. Pour the white salt as close to the edge of the martini glass, leaving a little nest for the duckie to sit in. Proudly display!

Step Three - Take Away!

Remove the duckie and pour the sand into the mesh bags. Tie them and place them in the gift bag. Pop in the duckie and martini glass. If you want to make your life easier, using quart sized freezer bags works even better because the mouth of the martini glass will fit right in, minimizing spill. You decide how fancy the take away bag needs to be on the inside.   :)

It's 2012. How the hell did that happen? I plan to post a few of my projects on here throughout the year. I am currently working on a scarf, a quilt for a friend, and a blanket.

I'm sure the project of making a baby will sneak on here because its pretty much consumes all my waking thoughts at this time, after work hours of course. I'm currently in a holding pattern right now, waiting to start the initial blood workup.

em, meep?

I should really start using this thing.  I had so much fun with setting it up, then, well. I lost interest.  Writing is such a strange medium, one I am completely unworthy of.  I can barely speak English most days.  I suppose writing will only improve my speech. HA.

So what to dedicate a blog to? How to stand out? Well my half hour lunch is over and I have twelve bites of salad left, so this shall have to suffice.

Heh heh.  I used a big word.