Excuse me while I go purchase some additional home owner's insurance

Aaron's favorite television show is Mythbusters.

He loves to watch how they scientifically try to prove or confirm whether or not a myth is truth, however, I think his favorite part is watching how they blow up stuff if it doesn't blow up in the first place.

He once told me that this was a good show for him to watch because he can let someone else experiment, and he can still see whether or not something works (and he won't have to try to blow it up himself)

I do like how they begin every show saying "Don't try this at home" (However, Aaron has changed that phrase to "Don't try this at home, go to a friends house.")

It never really occurred to me to be worried about his fascination with this show until one day when he came up to me and said "Hey mom, can you get me some liquid nitrogen?"

Say what?

Liquid nitrogen?

My response, naturally was "NO!"

Then a few days later, he asked me if I could get him some lithium. And an incinerator.

(again NO!)

Last week we were trying to clean a spill off of the stove. I'm not sure what it was, but it was burnt on pretty good. Aaron said "Hey! I know what would clean that stuff off of the stove!"

"OK, what?' I asked.

"Sulfuric acid! Of course I would have to wear a bio hazard suit and there probably wouldn't be much of the stove left when I'm finished, but it would definitely get rid of that burnt stuff!"

No Aaron, I will not get you any sulfuric acid.

Then yesterday he came up to me really excited and asked if I knew of any way he could earn forty dollars.

"Forty dollars is a lot of money" I told him "Why do you need forty dollars?"

"Well, I found something really cool on Amazon and I want to buy it!"

He's really into electronics, and it's not unusual for him to find some sort of cable or memory stick or other computer accessory that he wants, so I just assumed that it would be something like that, so I was very surprised when he told me what he wants to buy on Amazon for forty dollars.

Are you ready for this?

Uranium ore.

That's right, believe it or not, you can purchase a chunk of uranium ore on Amazon for $40.00

Naturally, I told him "NO!" to which he replied..............

"But it's radioactive AND explosive!!"

Apparently, I really am that clueless and pathetic - garden edition

The good news is that there's a bunch of plants growing in our garden!!

The bad news is that we're not really sure which are the ones we planted and which ones are the weeds.
Today, we* will bring pictures of cucumber, pumpkin, watermelon, pepper and zucchini plants out to our garden with us and pull out everything that doesn't look like the pictures.

*And when I say "we" I most likely just mean "me", because so far this year, the kids haven't been incredibly helpful with the whole "helping with the garden" thing. For example, yesterday I asked one of my offspring to go and water the garden, and said offspring replied "Um, I don't know how to do that."

So today, I will also be teaching the children how to spray water on dirt.

Actually, to be fair, the kids did help with the planting of the garden. They had input on the buying of the seeds, and they did some of the planting.
In retrospect, I probably should have done a better job of supervising the planting because they planted an entire row of zucchini.

The kids said that this would be OK because they really like zucchini............




Yes, I can hear you all laughing through the computer.

I plan on using this as an example of how they should believe what I tell them. Hopefully later this summer/fall, when we have so many zucchinis that we have to start storing them in the kids rooms, they might get a clue and understand that I might occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Does zucchini freeze well?

Do you know why it's so important to lock your car doors at church during the summer time?
It's because if you leave them unlocked, when church is over, you will find your car full of zucchini.

Yesterday I had a friend tell me that I can give her any extra zucchini that we have, I don't really think she has a clue to what she might have coming.

I can see it now, zucchini bread, zucchini brownies, zucchini pancakes, zucchini pudding, zucchini ice cream.......

I bet you can't wait to see all of the creative uses we find for zucchini!





You know, if you type the word zucchini enough times, it starts to look funny.

Mystery food revealed!

I know everyone has just been sitting on the edge of their chair waiting to find out what the unidentifiable food is.

The truth is, I'm really not sure.

I am, however, quite convinced that it was some sort of food.

Nobody even came close to guessing where I found it. This strange looking morsel was tucked down by the hinges in my dishwasher. I'm not positive how long it had been there.

Here's my best guess of what happened.

One of the kids was loading the dishwasher, and decided that it was probably OK just to put the bowl holding the spaghetti sauce in the dishwasher without emptying the remaining amount of sauce from the bowl. I discovered this the next morning, after the dishes had been "washed" with spaghetti sauce. Apparently, when there is more sauce in the dishwasher than dishwasher detergent, the spaghetti sauce wins and all of the dishes turn a not so lovely shade of orange/red.

They also have a really great greasy feel to them.

Anyway, I emptied the remaining contents of the spaghetti sauce from the bowl (yes, there was still some in there. I shudder to think of how much was still in the bowl when it was put in the dishwasher) and I re-washed the dishes. This time they came out clean.

My guess is that some sauce slid down and got stuck by the hinges of the dishwasher door.

It was a pretty solid chunk when I found it, and I think I recognized the remnants of a slice of mushroom on the side, which is really strange, because I don't put mushrooms in my sauce.

So, it looks like the winner of the GUESS THE MYSTERY FOOD game is Katie who said "It looks like a mushroom with pizza sauce"

So Katie, CONGRATULATIONS!!

You win THE RESPECT AND ADMIRATION OF YOUR PEERS!!

Which, when you really think about it, is about the best prize anyone can win!

(plus, it doesn't cost me anything in shipping, because that could get costly ;0)

And to those of you who guessed anything to do with chocolate, you should know better. I would never let chocolate go unnoticed long enough for it to look that way. I am able to search out any unattended chocolate in the house.

What can I say, it's a gift, kind of like a sixth sense or something.

Join me tomorrow when I sort through Max's dirty clothes hamper and we play the exciting new game "IDENTIFY THE STAIN"

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the salsa

Alternate titles:
"Some like it hot"
"Just one more reason why I shouldn't be allowed to cook"
"Hot lips"

An older couple in our neighborhood have hired CJ and his friend to mow their lawn each week. This last Saturday, when CJ came home, he was toting a large bag of fresh tomatoes from their garden.
These tomatoes smelled SO good! As soon as I saw them, I knew that I wanted to make some salsa.
Today I went to the grocery store to buy the rest of the ingredients for the salsa. I bought a huge onion, serrano peppers, garlic and a few limes.
I haven't made salsa for years, and I couldn't remember how many peppers I needed, so I just bought a few handfulls.
When I got home, Aaron helped me chop all the tomatoes. I sliced them and he pulverized them with the chopper. The huge bowl was nearly full, so we decided to make half into spaghetti sauce, so we put half into a big jar to save it for spaghetti.
I was able to show the kids what a real tomato looked and tasted like. I had almost forgotten just how delicious a home grown tomato is. They were amazed at the deep red color inside the tomato. Aaron said "These aren't pink or yellow inside like the ones we get from the store!"

When we got all of the tomatoes chopped, we chopped and added the onion and pressed in several cloves of garlic.
The onion was a strong one, and it wasn't long before my eyes were burning and tears were running down my face. I tried to get Aaron to go and get his swimming goggles for me to wear, but he didn't know where they were.
Next, I chopped up the peppers. I honestly can't remember how many I put in. I do remember smelling them and wondering if I even got the right kind of peppers because honestly, they didn't smell hot.
In retrospect, I should have just added a few peppers at a time instead of all of them.

I stirred in some freshly squeezed lime juice and some salt, then tried a small bite.


It started out OK, then slowly, the burning sensation began on the tip of my tongue and radiated through the rest of my mouth.

IT. WAS. HOT!

DH started laughing because he likes super hot salsa, and he thought I was being a wimp.

Then he tried some. His response?

"That DOES have some kick to it!"

By now I've got the cannister of sugar out, scooping spoonfulls in my mouth, trying to cool the burn. (if you didn't already know this, it really works)

Aaron had tried some of the salsa on a tortilla chip, and he was now dumping the sugar into his mouth to try to put out the fire.

DH liked the salsa. He kept saying that it was really good and he liked it.

I dumped the extra jar of tomatoes in the salsa, hoping to dilute it a bit, but it didn't really work.

Now I'm not quite sure what to do with this 5+ alarm salsa.

Any ideas?

Actual conversation between me and the kids while wandering through the parking lot at Wal Mart last night at 10:30 pm

Me: "Where did we park? "

Brielle: "I don't know, wasn't it over this way?"

Me: "No, I don't think so, I think it was more over that way. It drives me crazy when we bring Dad's car, because it's harder to find."

Aaron: "I think I remember walking down this way."

Me: "Are you sure? I kind of remember facing south when we parked."

Aaron: "Didn't we park next to a tree?"

Me: " I don't think so, I don't like parking in those spots with the trees."

Brielle: "Why didn't we bring your car mom?"

Me: "I wish we had, then I could hit the button on the keys and the horn would honk."

Aaron: "Maybe it was over on this row."

Brielle: "No, I think it was closer to this entrance."

Me: "What color is Dad's car anyway?"

Brielle: "MOM! You know what color it is, it's silver."

Me: "Or is it more of a gray?"

Aaron: "I'm pretty sure we parked by a tree."

Brielle: "Look over there Mom, that car is just like your car!"

Me: "It does look kind of like my car doesn't it?"

Brielle: "I wish it was your car, then we would know where it was."

Aaron: "Hey Mom! Look at the license plate! That IS your car!"

Brielle: "Oh yeah, we did come in your car!"






If I hadn't brought the kids with me to Wal Mart, I might still be wandering around, looking for the wrong car.....................


Don't judge. It was dark outside.

Wordless Wednesday