Mac and Cheese Pizza

It is the end of the year and people everywhere are viewing and reviewing their lives and what has happened to them. I have never been one to look back, to wonder what had changed about me and what has not. So instead of mulling over the past I am going to talk about what I had for dinner tonight.

I made Mac and Cheese pizza. I will admit that I used some things that I bought but it was good for a first attempt next time I am going to add onion and more bacon. So how did I make this master of pizza. It was easy. What is needed is:

One Boboli
1/4 to 1/2 cup Cheeze Whiz
1 TBS butter
1 TBS flour
1 cup milk
1 cup cheese
2 cups cooked pasta
3 or more slices cooked crumbled bacon
1/2 cup grated cheese of your choice

Start with the crust. I used Boboli, then for the sauce a thin covering of Cheeze Whiz ( I know, I know but it was the only thing I could think of that would work) Heat the oven according to the Boboli package.

Boil water and salt to cook the pasta, cook pasta to just al dente. When done drain pasta, while the pasta is cooking prepare the following sauce.

In a smaller pan melt 1 Tablespoon (TBS) butter. When the butter is melted stir in 1 TBS flour. When flour and butter are well combined slowly stir in one Cup milk. When the milk sauce is warm, add one cup grated Cheddar cheese (the pre-grated does not melt or blend as well for this sauce), add drained cooked pasta to this sauce.

Spoon on to the prepared Boboli, add crumbled cooked bacon, and top with more grated cheese.

This is great for kids who love pizza, and Mac&Cheese.

Yesterday and last night

My son was to have flown from Tucson to Seattle. The flight out of Tucson was running about 20 minutes late, that with all the weather that we in the norther states are having. Just as he landed in Los Vegas for the lay over all flights to Seattle were canceled. It is hard to explain about all of the worry and stress I had trying to get him someplace safe. I know that he is 17 and is still a minor, I also know that some people see him and don't think about his age. They see someone who is almost an adult, but that is not the case. At 17 he can make some choices but if he were to have gotten stuck in Nevada he would have had to stay at the airport as he is not old enough to register for a hotel room.

I have to say that for all my worrying, and fussing the people at Southwest were wonderful. They got him a flight back to Tucson. He did have to hang out at the airport for several hours, and that of course had me calling him every 30 minuets to see if he was OK. He got back into Tucson after midnight. I am just so thankful that he is OK that he got back.

Thank God that he did not end up in a shelter like the people stuck at the bus depot in Seattle.

I also don't know if his plans would have worked out anyway. We are having power outages, side streets are a mess, and it is snowing again. We have over a foot of snow and more is falling as I write this. We did loose power last night, it was only for a few hours. I woke up to darkness, and silence at about 4am. I did not know how long the power had been out but I knew that there were a few things I had to do.

I ran into the bathroom, opened the counter door, turned the water on so that the pipes would not freeze. Then I went into the kitchen and filled the hot water bottle full of hot water, thank goodness we still had hot water in the tank. I wrapped that in a towel, then took the heat lamp off of Gex's aquarium, put the hot water bottle in the tank and covered it with a blanket to help keep him warm. Left some cold water on in the kitchen and then went back to bed.

When I woke up this morning, the power was on, and I was burning a hole in the floor. I had forgotten to turn the heat lamp off when I put it on the ground. I now have a melted carpet, BUT I have a kid that is safe, and a live lizard. Woohoo!!

Update

We are getting more snow. I know that is not a surprise to some of you but to us it is. I know that the weather reports have been saying that we are to get more but it is one of those cases where seeing is believing. In the last 2 hours we have gotten 4 inches and they are saying that we might get up to 12 new inches of snow here tonight.

The trees are full of the stuff, and my brother and I have prepared for the eventuality of power outages. If the weather warms up just a little bit then we will have freezing rain and that will cause power lines and trees to break. I hope that it does not come to that but chances are it might.

On the work front, I managed to get in 4 hours this week. WooooHoooo! I feel as if I am going brain dead. With all the accidents on the roads one would think that the hospitals would need staff. Guess not.

My insomnia seems to be gone. Honey, talked me through a sleeping exercise that worked it. No not that kind get your minds out of the gutter. It worked so well that I took a nap this afternoon and still fell rested. Thank you Honey.

Things swept to the back of the news

I read this article and I am can't write about it. It just upsets me to much, I hope that they catch the bastards who did this. This is not something for the squeamish to read. Sorry, but I had to pass it along.

Insomnia

I have not been sleeping and when I do it is for no more than four hours at a time. At first I thought that it had to do with the stress that December brings. This year there are a lot of stresses, first there is the lack of work 24 hours in 2 weeks. Then there is weather, snow and ice and the coldest it has been in over 20 years. Adding on to that I do not like to fly and my son is flying out here on Sunday, the day when the storm is to be the worst. He is a minor and flying by himself I know that he will be OK but I still worry.

Then for me it is that time of the month. The first time I called it Aunt Flo around Honey I thought she was going to hurt herself she was giggling so hard.

Then I realized that part of what is keeping me up are the worries, the fears, and Aunt Flo does not help. However, that is not the largest contributor. Plain and simple I miss Honey. Every night when I go to bed I dream about holding her, listening to her sleep. I miss her and that is why I am not sleeping. I want to hold her, to feel her next to me.

Our snow

This is my backyard at least it was this afternoon. Weather reports are calling for a total of seven inches of the stuff.

Yes, out here in Washington we have three legged birds.

Santa

My son hates Santa, I mean hates him. I do think that we his family are to blame in this manner. It started just after he was born at the end of November, someone bought him a Santa outfit. If I had a scanner I would post a pic that we have of him in the outfit, the dog (Boo) is looking at him with a "I'm so happy that is not me in that outfit" look.

After that it went down hill. The stuffed Santa with a motion detector in it that would yell "HOHOHO" the play a very bad tinny rendition of Jingle Bells. K, so hated that thing that I did not need a baby gate, just put Santa at the bottom of the stairs and the kid avoided them like the plague.

Then someone bought a Santa hat. The hat was left about the house to show him that yes, he was watching. Not only that but my mother, this kids grandmother had someone the uncles types wear it outside and run buy a high window. Yes, she had that much control over our lives.

God, this is sick stuff. Anyway why am I putting all of this here. Well, this is background to explain what I call the Santa wars. The Santa wars are still being worked on and as I get them done I will post them.

Stolen

I don't often do meme's but this one looked like fun so I stole it from Tina. It was not as fun as I thought it would be it took me hours to get the pictures here. I still can't move them to where I want them.

The Rules: Type the answer to the following questions into Google Image, then pick from the first page.

Age at my next birthday:

Place I'd like to travel:

Place I've been:

Favorite food:

Place I was born:

Place I live:

Name of past pet: (he is current I could not find a pic of last pet name)

Best friend's nickname:

(this is another name for my Honey)

My first name:

First job:

Wacko's weather, and other things

OMG! I am not going to post the name of the group that is going on and on about getting something up at the capital that talks about Santa and hell. Now, I knew that these cult like, picketing, people were crazy but now I know that they are nuts. I really really wished that they had gone to Canada where with their signs they would have all gotten jail time. Anyway, as I am not mentioning the wackos by name here is an article from a local paper about what they are trying to do.

Weather, we are now under a winter storm warning. What that means for us, is a sudden drop in temperature, rain/snow, snow, high wind and if we are lucky we will still have power in the morning. They keep changing when this storm is to get here but the last I heard was 2200 tonight. That is why I am blogging now so that I can.

I did work today, woohoo. Well, kind of. Today I worked at the hospitals Hospice House. I don't mind that kind of work but going from working with one patient to 5 was hard. It is a nice place to work, everyone there tries to make the passage from this world to the next as easy as possible.

Yes, I do believe in an after life. It might not be what we expect in fact I think that the Wackos will be totally surprised at what is there.

No Work

I am so sick of not working right now. It seems as if the hospitals have put everything on hold. Last week I worked all of 10 hours and this week nothing. Every shift I have had has been cancelled. I know a lot of it is the economy, elective surgeries are not being done. That cuts down on patient load but you would think that with all of the emergency's and car accidents that they would not be sending people home.

This morning I was just about to walk out the door when they called. At least I get late cancel pay.

I have been working on my stitching and have finished a panel. I should take a pic and show what is done. But at least it keeps me busy, and I would rather be busy than go shopping and spend money. Though if I get cancelled tomorrow, I might go and spend the day at the book stores. I don't know all of this inactivity is starting to make my brains go mushy.

Remembering Christmas Part 2

My sister and I are several years apart in age. Not a huge age gap but enough so that people could tell I was the older one. Mom, use to buy us matching outfits. I don't know if that was the "Thing" or if she thought it was cute or if we wanted them that way. I do remember when that all stopped.

It is a family tradition that on Christmas eve we all got to open one give, new Jammie's. My sister and I always got matching ones. Then one year, I don't know if my parents were at a party or where they had gone, but they were not at Grandma and Grandpa's. This year the three of us got footie Jammie's. My sister and I matching ones again they were pink. My brother I think had cars on his.

When it came time for us to get ready for bed we all went to put on our new pj's. At that time I was about 4 inches taller than my sister. I did not think anything of it when I put on my PJ's and they were short. I had to scrunch down to get my shoulders in the sleeves, my knees bent it was miserable I could not stand up straight. Now, my sister, hers were to long. Footie's dragging behind her, sleeves covering her hands. So what did we do, not change clothes. Oh no, I was in MY Jammie's and she was in HERS. So we did the natural thing. "GRANDPAAAA!!!!"

What did he do, he took one look at us grabbed a pair of scissors and cut my feet free, the he attacked my sisters PJ's and cut off all of the extra material. She looked OK just a bit ragged, I looked like I was wearing high waders. The elastic that should have been around my ankles were around my calf's.

Needless to say mom was not happy when she got back later that night. However, we never got matching PJ's again. I think that my Grandfather did that deliberately. He was a very smart man.

Remembering Christmas

When I was six years old my Grandfather got in trouble. It was not his fault, someone bought my brother a toy dart gun for Christmas or that my grandmother had hung up honeycomb crepe paper bells in all the door frames of the house. It was not his fault that my brother was more interested in the trucks that he got.

So I asked Grandpa if he would teach me how to shoot. So what the bells made convenient target practice, it was not his fault that I had good aim. Boy, was my Grandmother mad. She hollered and yelled and even cussed him out.

But out of all of that, I remember spending time with grandpa (who always smelled like pipe tobacco). Sitting on his lap taking careful aim at the bell, and shooting it. It was as if we were the only two in the house and I know that was not true. The house was full of people. Grandma, Grandpa, kids, parents, aunts, and uncles.

But what I remember the most is Grandpa, the smell of his pipe, sitting on his lap, and target practice.

Years Past

Today the 29Th is my son's birthday, he is 17 now. The years just go by so quickly. So today I was thinking about him and some of the things that he has done over the years that make him who he is.

First there is Boo's Box, my cocker spaniel had a box. It was his bed, his safe place and if I was lucky I could get his blanket out to wash it every once in a while. When the Boy was nine months old he was bound and determined to see what was so cool in the box. He had already checked out the dog food, and water dish, now it was time for the box. The only thing is Boo was in the box. The Boy crawled over to the box reached in grabbed Boo's long ears and started to try to pull him out of the box. Boo was not having that, he did not bark, growl or show teeth. He pulled back. It was going to be an epic tug of war, who would win the Boy or the dog. Neither, I won. I picked the Boy up.

When the Boy was three we had taken him to Costco and he fell asleep in the car. Getting him out of the car woke him up. He was not quite awake enough to walk so my brother was caring him. It was December and the store had a Santa outside handing out candy canes. The man came up to my brother and said, "little boy would you like to have a candy..." Before he could finish his sentence the Boy punched him right in the nose. He has always hated Santa, there will be more on this if I remember to post about it.

When he was four he was enrolled in karate. He was in it up until he got his green belt. However, when he was six he used it for the first time. He and my brother were roughhousing. My brother kept picking him up and tossing him on the couch. The Boy said "stop" several times. Bro of course did not listen to him. So what did the Boy do? A round house kick, got my brother right in the knee. Dropped him like a rock. The Boy was standing over him crying "I did not know it would work, I didn't". R was on the floor rolling about holding his knee. I like a good mother and a good sister was laughing my a$$ off.

So Happy 17Th Kid.

Tequila Suprise

When I go out drinking Tequila is my drink of choice. I love to have it plan in a glass, just a shot or a double shot. I know that there are all kinds of other ways to drink Tequila, there is the Sunrise, the Margarita, Acid Trip, and many others. Now there is a new use for Tequila. I would have never thought about that.

Thank you Dr.'s however this better not cause a Tequila shortage.

The Laundry

Today was laundry day, the only thing I like about doing it at a mat is that in an hour and a half all of it is done. What I don't like is dealing with all of the people. Most of the time they leave me alone and let me do my cross stitching. Sometimes I get questions on what I am doing or making, when they find out it is stitching their eyes glaze over and they walk away.

Sometimes I will start up a conversation, but I have to be in a chatty mood to do that. I think the last time I started a conversation was a week before the election. I see doing my laundry at a mat as a personal time.

Today however, there was a family in there and I would have liked to slap the parents about the head with a common sense stick. Mom and dad doing laundry and a bright boy about 2. He ran all over the place opening the machines if they were running or not, wandering off outside, then talking to a stranger. Now to me all of these at that age are unacceptable. Playing with the equipment there I understand, the kid is curious. When his parents would tell this little boy not to do something or to mind them he would say quite clearly "F**k off". Guess what mom and dad did, give up. They laughed.

Mulberry Street

Today I saw a man in his yard with a house vaccume cleaner vaccuming his yard. He had it turned on and was vaccuming his grass. I don't know if he was trying to suck up the leaves or the pine needles but it was an intersting to see him out there vaccuming the grass.

This kind of reminded me of my favorite poet. I know that most people do not feel this way about Dr. Seuss. Just read Green Eggs and Ham, or A B C and you will see what I mean. He has a way with words. If I had to choose between Dr. Seuss or Ogden Nash I would have a hard time. Ogden Nash is another favorite poet of mine.

Anyway, when I lived in Springfield MA. I found Mulberry Street, the street that Dr Seuss wrote about and I think lived on when he was a kid. When I saw this man vaccuming his yard I thought about what I saw on Mulberry Street. I have not read that book in a long time.

2 Pics and a link.

Project Postcard

I have 5 postcards at home for this I need to get more. Oh and I still have no computer at home.

An update

The computer is still in the shop. Bummer.

My sister and I talked about my being a lesbian and she is cool with that. Yeah sis. I still have to tell the aunts and my brother. But, I am getting there. Honey is on the east coast this week and I wish I could have gone with her. I miss her when she is in CA and I miss her even more when she is in FL.

A friend of mine who lives in Canada the town of Oshawa sent this to me. She works at that school but did not see the attack she had her back to the parking lot when it started. This is the updated article.

If you have not yet checked out Join The Impact the next event is DEC 10Th.

NO Computer

I am without computer at home for at least a week and I am not to be using the one at work for personal things. I am going to try and get to the library on a daily basis and see if my laptop will connect to their wifi. So I am going to have to try and catch up or seek a peek at the hospital.

Hard things, I guess that we are coming out together

In life there are somethings harder than others. It is not until they are faced that it is seen how hard and how easy events, and situations in life are. Then the same thing can be easy or hard depending on how they are dealt with.

This past week has been one of those dreaded and then not so dreaded times. My blog I have kept from my family because I post things on here that I thought would get some of them very upset, that I would be rejected. I do know what that feels like and it is not a good feeling. The other day my sister found my blog, it was a link to a link type of deal. I don't even know who is reading my posts that she is reading from. I know confusing, but we all know how that goes. Anyway, I posted some topic on here that we had talked about and she asked me if Katzenjammer was mine. After mumbling a bit I admitted that it was. She then lost the link, and I did not send her one. A few days later she found it again. We have talked but I am sure that she has things she wants to ask me about that I have not yet brought up.

How do I tell her the night that I knew from the time I was a late teen that I found women more attractive, or that I married because I thought it was what I was to do ( that was a HUGE mistake)? Or the nights when I would get off the phone with my best friend and tell myself that I was not in love with her, that I had myself convinced of that? Or that weeks later when I saw her again I started having panic attacks when I realized that I did love her. That I for days was a nervous wreck, or the joy I felt when she said that she loves me too. We have not talked about any of this. There is a lot to talk about, the present and the future.

I would like to think that my dad would have been OK with me being a lesbian. My mom would have called me a slut and a whore among other things, but she did that when some guy would smile in my general direction when we were at the store.

So today I took another step in the process of coming out. I called my cousin. I wanted to meet someplace for lunch and talk face to face but with his new job that is not possible. After a bit of chatting, I told him that this summer I had gotten engaged and that my Honey is a woman. He was OK with that, I thought he might be and that is why I told him before some of the others.

As I write this I am tearing up. It is OK Honey. It is a relief to have it out there and yet there are still more people to tell. The one that I fear telling the most is my brother, my aunts I have some worry about and as for my son I will have to tell him when I can sit down and tell him face to face, but I want there to be people that he trusts that he can talk if and when he needs to.