Author: whatthemom123

Cast Iron? Yes please!

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I’ve always loved cast iron, its never mattered if it was ‘name brand’ or unmarked…the heft of the skillet, the ease of use and care has always struck me as awesome. When I was about to move to California to be with my then boyfriend, I bought my very first pans from a woman off of craigslist, 3 old and very well loved vintage lodge pans pre 1960. My mom and grandmother had always had cast iron, and now I did to! Great! That slight obsession has had me hooked since. I now own 16 pieces which contain mostly older vintage lodge, a few Wagner, and one unmarked Griswold. I have skillets, griddles, a chicken fryer and a dutch oven, all of which I’ve been painstakingly seasoning and dipping in the lye bath.  The best part about my collection, to me, is that i’ll never have to replace them unless something horrible happens to them like (god forbid) a house fire or someone is silly enough to leave them to long on a to hot fire. I love knowing that these pieces I will be able to pass down should my son want them, or I can keep them in great condition and sell them for probably 4xs what i’ve actually spent. My latest find was a 10 1/2′ griddle by wagner, its currently at my moms house sitting in a lye bath so I can get it back to its former glory. Below i’ve attached some pictures…enjoy! From left to right:

15 of my 20 pieces, the middle is an unmarked 1800’s piece my mom gave me last night, the last piece is trivets! So fun to collect, my mom gave me the trivets for my birthday last year and my husband and I plan on hanging them up and using them for their intended purpose as well…keeping hot things up off the table! I have a few more pieces at my moms house soaking in the lye tank, but im excited to get them out and clean them up!

Bye bye holidays!

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The holidays were spent with all of so sick, my husband missed his first three days of work at his new command, my son had a fever more often than not, I have another sinus infection…but the good news is we are finally getting over it all. Little bit (son) also has a really nasty inner ear infection, so bad that the dr was shocked his ear drum didnt rupture which is never something you want to hear as a parent.

We all had a safe holiday, even if it was spent at home curled up on the couch. Gavin of course made out like a bandit with tons of toys and lots of loves and hugs. I wish we had been able to make it up to see the in-laws as I know they wanted to spend time with Gavin but…that drive just wasnt going to happen and we were to sick to really entertain the idea of doing much more than groaning and sleeping. We did manage to drag our sorry selves over to my moms house for about 2 hours which while nice, was painful. Flu season hit us and it just kept hitting us. Boo to that I say!

With the Holidays and all the excitement and sickness finally coming to a close its time to focus on school once more, which while I need to do it, I find myself not wanting to, at all. I may or may not have mentioned this but as someone married to a guy in the military, they have a lot of perks for ‘spouses’ which included MyCAA…I am taking medical transcription so I can work from hope and if I do well enough, work for the school im taking the course through. I dont want to stick Gavin in day care and enjoy being able to be home with him. I’d be open to a few days, but not every day. What is even more awesome…I dont have to pay a dime for this course and im so incredibly thankful for that. A free education, even if its just certs, is a blessing to any family or person trying to better themselves.

Im still batteling my PTSD and severe anxiety, and while im running out of meds, im not longer freaking out like I was. I feel I can do this with limited medications…at least, thats my goal. Guess we’ll see when/if I ever get off my butt and get back to taking care of my mental health (I should rephrase that…I am taking care of it, just not under the supervision of a professional…I still have medication and I have a good support team…finding someone who was open to take new patients during the holidays proved to be harder than I would have liked, so we’ll try again after this weekend).

On a much lighter note…I have become addicted to watching ‘open an oyster’ on facebook. Have you guys seen this shenanigans? I know the pearls arent actually valuable, and I can’t see myself paying the prices they are asking for…but I WANT TO DO THIS LIKE YESTERDAY lol. Matt keeps finding me curled up on the couch or in bed watching this woman open these oysters (they are all cultured pearls and are guaranteed to have a pearl in them)…its a strange addiction to have…I dont even like pearls. I guess it kind of reminds me of when I was a teenager and we went to North Carolina to go ‘mining’..mining meaning you paid 10 dollars a bucket for a thing of mud that you sifted through to see what goodies you could find…peridots, sapphires, random quartz, some things that looked vaguely like sea glass. It was a ton of fun and I can’t wait for Gavin to reach about the age of 5 so we can go and do it!

I have found a homegoods…this can not be good. My husband may take my debit card away. I need all the things that will never get hung up or match any of the crap we already have, lol.

 

 

Well that didnt last

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When we adopted Brutus, like most animals, we had a ‘meet and greet’ for about an hour to see if there was any aggression and at that time, there was none. We were so excited! Gavin loved him instantly, we thought he would make a great addition to the family..and he was, for about four days.

We couldn’t get the dog to pee or poop outside. Not a big deal, I have a steam cleaner I actually love using, and a steam mop, plus plenty of time to take him outside. We figured that within a few days he would get the hang of it….haha. hahahahahahaaaaaa. After the third day of him being outside for over an hour, with doing nothing but sniffing, he would come inside and as soon as our backs were turned, he would unleash the foulness. And you could 100% tell he would holding all that crap in because the pee puddles were huge and the poop was never ending rope of disgusting.

After the first accident in the house, he had to sleep in the kitchen. He had a nice big fuzzy blanket to sleep on, and we would take his food/water up at bedtime to hopefully stop accidents. It didnt work. Nothing did. A few days after, say day 3, he started chewing up the couch. We need new furniture as the movers broke ours and we have yet to claim it, but still…come on dog, you have 10 million bones to chew on, plus socks/plushie toys, a kong…yourself…leave my couch alone! On day 5…day 5 was the deciding day.

It started like all the other days, until he starting nipping when you would play with him. I dont even mean rough play, I mean petting him on his head or his neck or belly or back…he would nip. If you would play tug of war with him with his rope, he would nip…eventually, on day 6…the nips became bites. Folks…this dog who we had grown to love and were willing to work on in whatever way made it so we could keep him bit my 2 year old. It wasnt aggressive, but it was hard enough to leave bruises…no skin broken thankfully. He had to go. The very next day, exactly 7 days after initially adopting him we were at the SPCA before they even allowed people in, and when they saw us let us in immediately and couldn’t believe the behavior we were describing.

In tears I had to fill out all of his paperwork and begged to know if he would be put to sleep because thats not what I wanted…they assured me that no, he would just be placed in a home with no small children which I think is exactly what he needed. I know my son is no saint, he isnt perfect and for fucks sake, hes 2…of course he was rough with the dog, but we would always, as soon as we caught it, correct his actions and make him say sorry and then he would get a time out. Being in our house stressed the poor dog out, he ended up losing weight which he really couldn’t afford because he was already underweight.

They credited us the 150 we spent and said we could use it for another dog when our family was ready, which im not going to lie, feels all kinds of wrong. I am not one for wanting to take an animal back to a shelter but I also can’t risk my sons safety…which brings me to the most frustrating part.

Why on earth do people value the animal of a dog over the safety of my child, and also, when mentioning getting a puppy, who the hell are you to tell me I shouldn’t? I will be the very first person to say I am not an animal lover…I dont hate dogs or cats or any other furry friend you have, but I am not a huge lover of them either. I do however have tons of fond memories of playing with all of our dogs and cats growing up and I’d like for my son to have the same options and memories I did. It truly upsets me to be called a bad person for protecting my son. Is it fair Brutus had to go back to the SPCA? Not really, but on the same page here…would it have been fair or right or even ok to leave a dog in the house that could potentially bite my child causing permanent disfigurement or even worse, death? Gavins life with always be more important than anyone or anything, even myself.

Its ok to be passionate about animals (but if you dont even take care of the ones you own, who the hell do you think you are telling me im wrong for giving the dog a better chance at a happy, healthy stress free life by not living in a home with small children?) , your rescues, your volunteer time with many organizations who do amazing things…whats not ok is that my own family members have the nerve to tell me its ‘not fair’ to Brutus to be taken back after he has bite not once, not twice, but three times. He got My husband 2 times and my son once. I am not ashamed to say if that dog would have broken skin or hurt my son in any way shape or form….i’d be writing a very different blog.

I told my husband we could try again after Christmas. I do want a puppy, one that we can train from the get go, and one that will be use to children already. Also, those that are thinking of adopting from a shelter or rescue, dont do it just because its Christmas. Kids can be jerks rather you want to admit it or not, so do your research first because your little furry baby is going to grow up to be a full grown dog.

Dog

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Well, today was the day we decided to have another child…and by another child, I mean we went to the SPCA and adopted a mutt we’ve named Brutus. Hes pretty awesome, and I feel we got very lucky with him…he loves our son, and while he is underweight, seems to be in great health.

Brutus seems to be a hound mix of some kind, and when he finally fills out and gains weight im guessing he’ll be around 75 to 80ishlbs…hes about 60 at the moment. Now, let me tell you about this slobbery jowled dog we’ve come to love in a little over a day…

He loves to play fetch, ate to many chicken nuggets and had a butt ‘splosion all over the carpet (thank god for that new steam cleaner), drools like crazy, loves to be scratched behind his right ear and in general seems to love his new human family. He was a surrender and its clear he hasn’t really had any training but thats ok, we found a great obedience training place locally for a pretty affordable price that we will be signing him up for…he loves ham, I should make him a sign that says will sit for ham! He really needs some leash training but really…i’d be crazy excited and pulling to go if i’d been in a shelter for over a month as well.

My search for friends continues, I’ve joined a few pages dedicated to the wives of enlisted service members, and while most of those pages are crawling with drama, some seem to be alright…not to sure if anything will come of it as the one in San Diego just managed to get way to much drama into our lives so we’re trying to avoid that…I mean, why is it so hard ot find people to smoke hookah with, play board games, eat food with, and take our kids to the park? Heres to hoping the dog park will make for easy friendships!

Also…when our lease is up, we need to find a place with a  yard so he can run and soak up the sun as he pleases…good luck to us finding a place that’ll let us move in with a 80lb fur ball haha

 

Brutus just farted and snored himself awake….when he snores and gets a good snort, his jowls flap. This dog…haha!

Modern Mom seeks friends

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I became a mom to a pretty cool little guy back in 2014, he came into the world at 5:41am after 27 hours of me furiously trying to evict him; he obviously gave in as hes currently upstairs screaming NO to bedtime.

In the 2 years that I’ve been a mother, I’ve noticed a sad, but very common trend: Moms need mom friends. Mom tries to make friends with other moms and half of the women look at you like you have a horn growing out of your head and while I like to tell myself they give that look to you because they are shocked that finally SOMEONE wants to be their new BFF, the truth is, we are to wrapped up in our phones at play time, and nap time becomes the time where we women get some quick crumb sweeping onto the floor to vacuum later so we can sit down and finally take a breather and not feel like we’re going to lose it. I’ll give you some examples of how it goes when you try to find a mom friend:

You casually strike up conversations of things you have in common with your children and theirs, you laugh, you compare, you laugh some more, you both seem to hit it off…”this is going kind of great” you think to yourself…then you kind of awkwardly ask for their phone number…and surprise! They give it to you! HOLY CRAP! You enter their number into your phone with a promise to text later that evening and try to make a play date…and you do just that. You get home, you get the counters wiped down and the laundry picked up off the floor and tossed into the basket a whole two feet away and you sit down…you type out some generic ‘hi! It was great to meet you tonight!’ and then…silence.After a few days you try to say hi again thinking maybe she just had mom brain, it happens. Another Hi, another hows it going and hope you’re doing well…and silence again. Another few days and your nervously pick up your phone and then put it back down, I mean…I can take a hint right? right…?! “Hi! its Mandy! Would you guys like to get out of the house and go to the library? They are having story time! I bet your littles would love that! It starts at 2, see you there?” and as you watch your phone like a hawk, pray to all that is holy you get a response…and FINALLY…yeah, no finally. You basically just spent a week trying to ask some woman out on a mom date who clearly isn’t that into you.

The next approach goes sort of like the first but you usually meet them at the park, they are on their phone ignoring everything and everyone…hey no shame in your facebook game, stop stalking that one guy though, seriously, I’ve watched you go back and forth looking at this profile more times then I go back for coffee in the morning….You casually strike up a conversation, ask about their kids, get half hearted answers as this mom wears a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas….you still try though cause why not? You’ve tried everything else….You ask about her kids, her work, what color the sky is and she finally manages a slight smile and says ‘sorry, this is the only time I get to myself so….’ and you go back to kicking the stupid sand at the bench while she facebook stalks some dude.

So really, it doesn’t seem to matter where you meet other Moms, some are super friendly but you just dont ‘click’ or have much in common, some are really rude and make it clear they could care less you’re trying to be friendly…and others pray upon those they think are weak, use you, gossip about you, and are, in general, asshats. Its all kind of sad really, we’re all parents and we could all use some good play dates so really…what exactly does it take to snag a mom friend? I’ve tried facebook, craigslist, mommy and me friend app, i’ve tried randomly (but friendly) talking to other women in the store, at the park, in restaurants. I’ve tried being polite/sarcastic/amusing/supportive/or just disinterested and nothing…NOTHING works. Meanwhile I have a 2 year old who is pretty fun for the most part who would love some friends his own age and the more I try for him, the more I fail.

So im left with a few options. My child hood friends and I have drifted to the point where we dont know each other anymore, and you know? Thats ok. No hard feelings! Life happens, people move, people change, you talk every once in a while but you no longer really know that person, and some of those people have left a pretty bitter taste in your mouth so its healthy and normal to move on from those friendships. I figured since we’re living back on the east coast (in the state I call home with all of my family and childhood friends less than 20 mins from me….) and are going to buy a second car, why not get involved at the local library, join a mommy and me class, and just focus on my son. Hes outgoing and has no trouble making friends all on his own, he doesn’t really need my help in that area so lets hope my little guy makes some buddies with parents who will want to stay in touch so we can let the littles have fun every once in a while at the park, or a different class, anything really. I’ve tried for two years now and failed each time….I’ve reach out to cousins, to random strangers, to friends and I keep getting silence or a ‘maybe another time’ kind of responses. And thats ok. I still have my hopes on a few ladies i’ve recently reached out to and if that fails we at least have the classes/parks/etc to go to and keep on trying.