A day later but not a dollar short!

I guess I have to start off by explaining….

I am a total busy body and am usually doing 10 things at once for 12-14 hour stints. Since I haven’t been working (as in employed by a company outside of my home) I would get up at whatever time Carl gives me morning kisses (5:00-5:30ish) and roll back over and snuggle with Boscoe Bear until 8:00-8:30ish, give or take an hour. Then I would unpack, plan dinner, yadda-yadda, etcetera....

(For example: Strip the bed of linens, start the washer, fold the clothes in the dryer. Haul some boxes from the garage. Go back to garage and grab the step-stool. Go to kitchen and take out spices, teas, baking goods from cabinet. Measure, cut and line cabinet. Re-organize shelves. Take picture. Go to garage and grab Pfaltzgraff plates. Unpack the plates. Remove all boxes from closet under-he-staircase closet. Take all empty boxes upstairs. (I have a strange infatuation with keeping original boxes for crock pots, fondue sets, etc….) Put boxes away in attic. Take a folded down moving box out of the attic. Run downstairs, get packing tape, re-fold and re-tape moving box. Pack Alex’s clothes that he left in the guestroom closet in the box. Tape it up and put it in the storage. Run back downstairs, grab the duster. Dust the closet. Run back downstairs, grab the vacuum (that I just put in the newly cleaned out under-the-staircase closet) and vacuum the spare bedroom. Go back to the kitchen. Move all the white dishes from the left side of dishes cabinet and stack them in symmetrical order. Move Seychelles Green Sea dishes to empty side of dishes cabinet. Take a picture. Get bag of foliage in Disney bag out of pantry. Move step ladder to other side of kitchen. Move decorative plates above cabinets. Cabinet ledge too deep. Climb down off countertops. Go back to garage. Get some empty boxes. Get back up on countertops. Put down cardboard. Display items. Crawl back down and take picture. Take foliage out of bag. (Remember, symmetry is my Freddie Krueger.) Drag stepladder across kitchen tile. Climb back up on opposite countertops. Grab display items. Crawl back down, go back to garage and get more cardboard boxes. Re-line cabinets tops with boxes and display items. Get back down. Separate foliage into even piles. Go back up. Add green. Come back down. Drag ladder, climb up add green. Down. Up. Add flowers. Drag ladder. Up. Flowers. Down. Picture…Send photo-mail to email while heading to laundry room to move linens to dryer. Start washing machine with detergent. Leave phone on dryer, go to master bedroom closet. Sort all of (He likes to leave these on the floor NEXT to the hamper, anybody else married to one of these? LOL.) Carl’s dirty electrician’s clothes. Pull all the crap out of his pockets and add it to the “Carl’s pocket crap pile” on the bathroom sink counter. Take laundry basket to laundry room and dump into washer. Grab cell phone. Say a prayer that I’m not washing clothes by hand. (Still haunting me.) Go to garage. Grab box labeled “winter coats and other random crap from living room closet”. Carl obviously packed this box. Start hanging coats in living room closet. Cut taped flaps on box. Fold up and put by staircase to take back upstairs to attic. Go to garage. Grab a box of stuff. Ooooooh. Dehydrator! Punch bowls. Serving dishes. These aren’t for everyday use so I stick these in the back corner of the under-the-staircase- closet. Oooooh. This reminds me that I want to put our suitcases in here, so I return to the bedroom. Grab my 3 piece luggage set. Stuff Carry-on bag in little carry-on suitcase and that suitcase into the big luggage bag. Like nestle boxes! I contemplate taking a picture of this, decide against it. Grab Carl’s suitcase and drag both pieces to the closet and stow away. Remember that the vacuum needs to reside here as well. Sprint back up the stairs; go into the “Alex” guestroom. Wind up cord. Carry vacuum downstairs. I then realize I need to vacuum after moving all the dirty dusty boxes in from the garage. Grab broom from garage. Sweep kitchen. Stop. Grab duster (which is inconveniently UPSTAIRS!) dust off counters from my sandals on the kitchen counters and then get wet rag and wash countertops now that they're dut free. Resume sweeping onto formal dining room carpets. Sweep foyer into the living room and kitchen nook into other side of living room. Uncoil cord and vacuum the entire downstairs. Empty vacuum cylinder into trash. Return to kitchen to get broom. Put it away in garage. Get a soda. Text Lisa. Retrieve linens from dryer. Put back on bed. Make bed. Go back to laundry room. Put clothes in dryer. Start washer. Go back to bedroom. Grab whites. Load washing machine, which reminds me that I need to start the dishwasher after I eat something. Crap! I forgot to eat something. Get a soda. Chug some of it. Grab a plate. Put it back. Better use a white plate since there are 15 up there, and there should really be 14 instead of 15 on one side of the cabinet and 7 Sea Green ones on the other, leave 8 up there, yes. Decide on white plate. Make Salami and Brie on Wheat crackers while adding Beans to large pot to boil and soak. Finish eating. Load dishwasher, add soap and start her up!....OK, so I write the way I get caught up in doing stuff. At this time, it’s like 11:00 a.m. on his example day. Are you SERIOUS? I’ve only been up for like 2 hours by the time I’ve done all this crap….so back to my initial blog of today.)

I continuously go about the day re-doing every room in my house. Carl comes home, we have dinner. Talk about our day, eat dessert. He generally will take Boscoe for a walk and then relax on the couch and watch TV.

I am not a big TV watcher. I was when I was younger but now I just crave life and rarely watch anything. Grey’s is something I try to tune in to and an occasional episode of Desperate Housewives but I’m still not a religious watcher of any TV show……

Well, I am usually busy rinsing dishes. Unloading the dishwasher, neurotically balancing my cabinets with the clean stuff, re-loading, packing lunches or freezing leftover food. Wiping down the table and maybe sweeping the floor. My poor hubby is so tired he’s usually asleep by the time I’m done! So he told me the other day that he felt neglected. It was so cute! So I have vowed to get up in the mornings with him and use the extra hours in the morning for emails, blogging and additional freakishly OCD behavior. LOL.

Boscoe is not happy about 5:30 AM blogging….It’s just too early for him!



So the real reason for this blog.

Dinner last night. We had the ever tasty Corned Beef and Cabbage. Now, I wouldn’t blog about this since I have already explained our weird rituals in the Brauning Household in Texas, but I found a GREAT recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage “Gravy” if you will. You thicken up the sauce with rue and add a few TBSPs of mustard to taste. No salt needed of course because the Beef Stock from the cured Beef is enough to dehydrate ANYONE… So if you do Corned Beef and Cabbage at your house for St. Patrick’s Day, keep some stock.







Chop some cabbage and set aside for your “gravy”. Transfer your Cabbage, Potatoes, Onion and Beef into a serving plate. Add chopped cabbage to your stock and boil the reserved raw cabbage until tender. Whisk some mustard and flour (Or Wondra…ahhhhh. How we love Wondra!) in water until mixed thoroughly. Add to stock until thickened. I put a few scoops of ground Cayenne into it because well, I put ground Cayenne in everything and we like spicy! And it was delicious! There is a lot left over so I’m thinking of a Cabbage Soup? I’ll let you know how it turns out. OH.

I was looking for a nice bread to compliment our meal. I don’t have any yeast on hand so I googled yeast free bread. I made Rotti. It could have been the recipe I found but it was SO BAD, it makes me cringe at the thought of trying any other Rotti recipe. Urgggggle. I only share it so that if you come acrossed it in your recipe research, you back away slowly!

Rotti:
1 cup wheat flour
1 tsp Vegetable Flour
Salt to taste
Warm water until dough is thick

PLEASE I BEG OF YOU; DON’T GO THERE!

Well, Now that I’ve found a new yeast-less bread recipe to try, went through all my emails, paid bills, balanced my check book. Talked to Carl and Lisa on the phone, and am ready to publish my post I will see ya all tomorrow. Write devilishly good things on your blogs! I’ll be waiting to see them! Ciao Bella!