Another Ubiquitous Update

Quick rundown, in case you were wondering:

Working on Chapter 23 of the book as I type this. Okay, not as I type this, or I'd be typing in my book file, which file, however, IS open and minimized on my desktop. In other words, as soon as I'm done here, I'll be working on Chapter 23. Considering that - thanks to Adrienne and Cory and Katrina and Ana - I have now finished 8 chapters in 6 days, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself...especially since I honestly had not touched the book since Thanksgiving.

9 chapters (including the one I'm working on) plus an epilogue to go. Life is good. Now let's see if I can do it!

On the home front...and I do mean home...we have an offer on a home that has been or will be submitted to the bank...the only offer that will be submitted to the bank. Apparently it has been on the market for the last couple of months, and the other offer they received for the home was lower than ours...which works out very well for us. It has ALSO worked out well for us that the photos posted on the internet to advertise the home in the first place were absolute CRAP...the home is SOOOOO much more beautiful than any of those photos showed, and I don't understand why they selected those photos in the first place...but I don't care, either. It has worked in our favor. That rocks.

So now, since the home is a short sale (ie. distress sale...the people living in it want to sell it and are working with the bank to sell the home for less than they themselves paid for it so they can walk away without destroying their own credit), we're pretty much just waiting on the bank to get back to us with a "that's way too low an offer, go house hunt somewhere else!" or a "let's start escrow now." With our luck, it'll be a "hunt somewhere else!", but we're trying to be optimistic because we really do love the home: it's in a REALLY nice neighborhood in Lake Elsinore, is 3200 sq ft with a 3 car garage and an island kitchen, and has 4 bedrooms, a den, a formal living and dining area, a casual living and dining area, and a whole lot of extra, well, extras, that I can't remember off the top of my head. In other words, we REALLY want it...which is why I'm worried that we're NOT going to get it.

Cest la vie.

Kids are good, Jason's good, (working long hours still, but at least he enjoys his job now!) and we're looking forward to a quickly-approaching visit from the Keith&Wendy family grouping. Other than that, we have a few playdates scheduled, I'm writing my fingers bloody, and I can't think of one single thing more to say! Thanks for checking in, and I'll try to have something intelligent to post as an update soon!

AWESOME

Not that it makes any difference in the great scheme of things, but I have a new favorite thing:

MAGNETIC CHIP CLIPS.

Those puppies are awesome!

I love chip clips anyway, of course, because we often have multiple bags of a variety of chips of some sort in the house (don't judge me), and we're slow to go through them (SEE?!) so they often get stale before we reach the bottom of the bag...but the chip clips will delay that inevitable ickiness, making them invaluable...

...when you can find them in your tiny little overcrowded poor excuse for a kitchen, that is.

Enter the magnetic chip clip. Need a chip clip stat? Look no farther than your own refrigerator! THERE IT IS!!!

However thought to put a magnet on the back of a chip clip deserves a Mommy Award, because, Dude...You Rock.

AWESOME

Not that it makes any difference in the great scheme of things, but I have a new favorite thing:

MAGNETIC CHIP CLIPS.

Whatda Het?!

Magoo approached me just a moment ago, said, "I love you, Mom," and proceeded to turn my head to face her...and then immediately placed an unpopped corn kernel IN MY EAR.

I looked at her and said, "What the heck?"

She parroted, "Whatda het?"

I reached into my ear and pulled out the corn kernel, asking her to put it in the trash, and she marched to the garbage, threw it in, and summarily announced "I'm mad at you, Mom!"

I just smiled.

When it didn't have the desired effect, she asked, "Do you mont do know my?" (Translation: Do you want to know why?")

I said, "Sure, tell me why."

And she stared at me, her nostrils flared, obviously grumpy, and stated at the top of her lungs: "I don't know!"

Must be hard being 3.

Boning & Stuffing a Chicken

That's right, I'm a Martha Stewart...without the prison term, self-righteous, high-handed moralizing, or crappy attitude!

Yes, I, too, can remove all the bones from and roll with stuffing a considerably-sized chicken!

Care to watch?

Well, ya can't. My hands were coated in chicken, and Jason wasn't home yet...but he DID get home in time to take a few rolling-and-baking photos for me, so at least you'll get to see those!

Fully boned, laid flat, and ready for a line of stuffing down the middle!

Speaking of that line of stuffing...okay, it was more like a giant log of stuffing...

Rolling it up breast-meat first (because light meat burns more easily, and this way, with the dark meat wrapped over it, it's self-basting!) so I can make Jason butcher tie it for me. (He's really good at butcher-tying, oddly enough!)

Told you he was good at butcher-tying! Yeah, yeah, it looks awful now...like a headless, legless, deformed baby pig. But JUST...YOU..WAIT.

Even a headless, legless, deformed baby pig looks better rubbed with a thick layer of butter and surrounded by leftover stuffing!

People, this chicken baked @ 350 in 90 minutes (and probably less, but I wanted to be sure), the stuffing was built-in and fully cooked, and the stuffing surrounding it took the cake; crispy, butter-soaked, and hedonistic to the max. No, really, check it out...compare the photo above it to the stuffing in this shot. OH...MY...GOODHEAVENS.

The masterpiece. Wow. (No, not the cheese-bacon-sour cream mashed potatoes. Not the Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, either. Geez.) That, my friends, is a one inch-thick cross-section slice of white-and-dark-meat boned chicken roll-up with stuffing in the middle. And once you've had it that way, you'll never, ever, ever go back. (Unless, of course, you screw up the chicken when you bone it, and then you'll just be mad at me. But it's a trial-and-error process...don't forget that. My first boned chicken wasn't so pretty either.)

If you want help boning a chicken, let me know...or do a google search for deboning a chicken. (Is it boning or deboning? Boning would be getting the bones out, and deboning would be getting the bones out, too, wouldn't? Why waste the extra syllable on de-boning?) Anyway...YUUUUMMM. Jason's new favorite way to eat roast chicken...plus, he gets white AND dark meat in every bite!

Bon Appetit!