Sweet serenity!

I hope I get a scalp massage while they wash my hair. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, which I don’t understand because this is an uppity salon and I tip very well. Maybe I should lodge a complaint. And leave the kids at Wally’s office all day.

But while I’m not here, possibly getting or not getting a scalp massage, I have some other stuff to share with you. Because I love you.

Do you know Sara Swears a Lot? Well, you should. She’s my new BBFF (bloggy best friend forever) after she emailed me and we discussed booger picking. It was more than awesome, almost as awesome as her texting post.

Or this celebrity tweeting post by Fuck Yeah, Motherhood. It makes me want to follow celebrities on Twitter, which sort of goes against everything I stand for – peace, honor, and reverse snobbery.

Of course I could just link to anything Stacey writes, I love her so. She has a shrine in my house, you know. In the linen closet. Same goes for Amalah and Oh the Joys.

And hey, have you RSVP’d for the Mouthy Housewives Two Hour Cocktail Party at BlogHer? Read about it here, or just follow @MouthyHousewife on Twitter for the link to the invitation. Good times are promised. I hear rumors of Marinka vs. Wendi shot drinking contests, followed by girl wrestling with Kelcey and one lucky contestant from the audience. I hear these rumors because I made them up. Spread the word!

Also, I’m at The Mouthy Housewives today discussing rogue buggies….or are they shopping carts? Whichever. Do you tell on yourself if your buggy dings a car?

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

But here’s the thing about working outside the home where you don’t have access to a computer. It forces you to live in the outside world and not the world in your head. Gah, I still have to deal with PEOPLE! And be polite to them. It’s exhausting.

There’s the eavesdropping on people’s white trash family drama. And fending off old men who want me to give them a kiss. And strangers asking me how much money I make. And asking me to help their relative get a job.

I knew society was insane, but this is almost too much.

But I have to do it. I HAVE to get out in society, y’all. I’m sitting on my front porch as I write this and caught myself about to pick my nose. ON THE FRONT PORCH WHERE PEOPLE COULD SEE. OMFG.

What was I suppose to write about again?

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

I would be very surprised if Johnny Depp doesn’t come and woo me away from Wally, that’s how hot this picture is.

A sad, but true story…

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember how to spell ‘woo,’ that’s HOW LONG I’VE BEEN MARRIED. I kept trying to put an ‘h’ in it. So I asked Wally on AIM. (Yes, that’s HOW OLD WE ARE, we still use instant messaging.)

Heather: How do you spell whoo. You know, as in romance.

Wally: whoohoo.

OMFG, we are SO married. Possibly too married. Is there such a thing?

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

“What are your plans for today?” Wally asked as he dressed for work.

“Oooooh, really exciting stuff! I’m going to buy a new mop. Jealous?”

“So jealous. Tell you what, wait until tomorrow to buy it and I’ll mop the floors this weekend.”

Swoon!

That’s 16 years of romance right there, and why you should marry for love, not money.

Of course, if we had a lot of money, we could just hire someone to do the mopping for us.

So I’m not entirely sure how that old adage works out?

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

I swear to God, if there is one thing about men that could make me turn lesbian it’s the length of time they spend in the bathroom.

As a result of such non-stop exposure to skid marks, ball-scratching and burping, my brain is somewhat mushy. It’s difficult for me to form coherent much less witty thoughts.

However, I did hear on the radio the other day that consumer inflation has remained steady over the past 25 years, if you exclude food and energy prices.

So for those of us who do not need to eat and live in a cave lit by pine torches and still get from tribe meeting to tribe meeting via a horse, we are doing great!

Don’t you love good news?!

Now for a bit of bad news. Girl Scout cookies are out, if you didn’t know already. Personally I’m bombarded with requests to buy them every where I go but perhaps you have escaped the stalkers. Lucky you.

What I find perplexing is how excited people get when the cookies come out. Have these people tasted the cookies? They aren’t good. I know because I guilted myself into buying a box of Samoas from a friend’s daughter and ate the entire box. I kept eating one after another, waiting for that moment of gastronomic bliss, for the flavor to explode in my mouth, because surely this is what gets people excited about these cookies?

It never happened. Unless you count the taste of cheap chocolate as gastronomic bliss, which I don’t.

I wonder, the next time I’m asked to buy cookies from a Troop sitting outside of Wal-Mart’s doors, can I be completely honest and tell them I don’t want to buy the cookies because they taste like crap?

Next year when I’m asked by friends to buy cookies from their daughters, can I tell them I don’t want to because they taste like crap?

How do you escape the Girl Scout Cookie trap?!?

I think the reason people get excited about Girl Scout cookies is because they can’t escape the trap and in order to preserve their ego, they convince themselves they want the cookies.

I’m determined to escape the trap next year. If only I knew how…

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

And this is where I was going to write about one of those awesome numerical posts, detailing exactly what I’ve learned about Le Creuset in just two days. But screw that shit, I have a national emergency here.

I HAVE LOST MY WEDDING RING.

My large-and-pretty-we-could-never-afford-to-replace-it-now-that-we-have-children-and-a-mortgage wedding ring.

Is 9 am too early for a glass of Mad Housewife merlot?

I can’t even remember when I took them off. I vaguely remember taking them off last night to put on lotion, placing my rings on the kitchen counter, FAR AWAY from the kitchen sink. But the memory is so fuzzy. And it’s winter, so I’ve taken my rings off a hundred times for lotion, am I even remembering the right day?

I also vaguely remember a clinking sound while in the kitchen last night, like something falling. I think? Where was I? I’m not even sure! The kitchen? (Boy, this convinces me to stop cooking with wine!) I can remember looking down at the floor, wondering what that was, but not seeing anything that caught my eye. WAS THAT MY RING? OMFG!?

So I spent about 30 minutes in utter terror that my rings went down the kitchen drain. Then I got smart, grabbed another one of my rings and tried to make it go down the kitchen drain. The drain holes are too small. Or it really pays to have meaty fingers, whichever, I don’t care. What a relief that my rings couldn’t have gone down the drain.

And just then, I started to thank God for that miracle, but now I’m wondering if I should be mad at God. Is this punishment for me bragging about my Le Creuset steal and using it as proof God loves me?

Right now I’m convinced God wants to keep me humble and Le Creuset was actually a gift from the devil.

I’ve ransacked my room in search of my rings. I pulled out the couch cushions and dug through the cracks, finding enough whale cracker crumbs to cover snack time in Parker’s class. But no ring.

I went through my pants and jacket pockets of the clothes I wore yesterday, and even the clothes I thought about wearing but can’t because I gained four pounds over Christmas. As if my rings would magically insert themselves into the pocket of my skinny jeans. This is desperation setting in.

I looked under my buffet table in the kitchen. Under the cabinets, behind the boys’ backpack stations. I’m about to get out the screwdriver and look under the dishwasher and then brave the army of dust bunnies under the fridge and look there.

I even got out my son’s metal detector (yay for smart, nerdy kids!) but the thing beeps at every damn thing.

I suppose I also need to dig through the kitchen trash, in case my rings got swept up in a mountain of school papers as they went into the trash. Damn kids and their fucking education, always screwing shit up!

Is it expecting too much for Wally to rush home from work to help me find my wedding rings? I can’t believe I have to deal with this travesty alone because he has a job. What the hell?

Fuck, I can’t take this anymore. I would make promises to God that I will never ever ever put my rings anywhere again but in their proper place, even for lotion! But I’m mad at God right now.

Instead, I’m going to knock myself unconscious and spend the rest of the day in oblivion.

UPDATE!

I found my rings. You may now proceed with your own lives.

I found them in the strangest place, and you people will either think I’m really stupid, or really crazy. Or maybe you’ll believe me, and if so, that makes you my most favorite reader.

They were in the pocket of the jeans I’m wearing. But I SWEAR upon all that is holy, such as a bottle of Kettle One, I checked my pockets several times and they weren’t in there.

My boss called me after she read my post and got me to calm down, walked me through a meditation, and less than 5 minutes later the rings appeared in my pocket. I say ‘appeared’ because, I’m telling you, they were not in my pocket before that.

Weird, huh? Especially since I joked about my rings magically appearing in my skinny jeans and that’s exactly what they did. Except not in the skinny jeans, which is really thoughtful of my rings because it’ll be 4 weeks before I wear those again.

Now if I could just meditate a winning lottery ticket in my jeans pocket, that would be great.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

This really puts into perspective the insignificance of universal health care. Who gives a damn about that, what we really want to know is how world leaders will avert a famine-induced Eggo Apocalypse.

My guess is the government will take over Eggo production and we’ll be forced to appear before committees, testifying why we deserve to receive our weekly allotment of Eggo waffles instead of death.

Well, thank God you’re reading my blog, because this full-blooded American has a solution. Power to the people! and all that revolutionary, anti-government Beatles/John Lennon shit.

Today I will explain how to make your own waffles, again without pictures. But pay attention anyway, even without the picture pages! There is a lot of classified & highly intellectual stuff in here that Eggo wouldn’t want you to have, like the ability to pronounce all of the ingredients in your waffles.

First, plug in your waffle iron to begin heating, then crack two eggs into a bowl, preferably one with a pour spout.

Next, mix in…

1 3/4 C. milk
1/2 C. oil
2 C. flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
dash of vanilla

Just dump it all in and then whip all of it together with a wire whisk until smooth.

What, that’s it?

Yes, for quite a while, Eggo had me thinking homemade waffles were more complicated too, but it’s an easy recipe.

Now! Pour desired amount of batter into the griddle. This part is a bit tricky. If you pour too much, the batter will ooze out the sides and back which makes me utter cuss words before 8 am, it’s a huge pain in the ass to clean up that kind of mess. So, pour less than you think you need to fill up the griddle sections and then spread the batter around to see if it fills in. If not, add a little bit more.

Close your griddle. Give it a couple of minutes, but once you see a good amount of steam coming from the iron, lift it up and check. My boys don’t like crispy waffles, so I take mine out when lightly browned. Adjust brownness for your tastes.

See? That wasn’t hard at all and I averted an apocalypse. You’re welcome.

In other world-stopping news, here are my children home from school, ELECTIVELY PLAYING WITH TOYS INSTEAD OF VIDEO GAMES. TOGETHER! WITHOUT FIGHTING! OMFG.

Also, stop the presses, here’s the laundry basket, devoid of dirty clothes. Because I’m all caught up with laundry.

This moment lasted all of 2 hours so it’s vitally important to record such historic moments for posterity, people. If we don’t, these memories can be lost to vodka tonics and tranquilizers. Don’t be like me and learn this the hard way. Look at my kitchen.

It was clean for a good 5.78 seconds, but stupid me, I didn’t grab the camera within that time and before I could turn around, it looked like that.

Don’t let history pass you by.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Like right now? I’m making my chocolate chip cookies. Should I share my secret, custom recipe, along with all the stirring and gadgetry tricks that has taken about 599 million different tries and approximately 650 pounds lost and gained in 5 pound increments to perfect?

Do I share that with you too, because the pumpkin fudge recipe post was actually fun for me. Though it wasn’t my recipe. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is my recipe, and what if I want to do something with it? Like sell it to…I don’t know, someone. Someone who will make me rich off of it. Or get a job at a bakery, all through the awesomeness that is my cookies, even though I’ve never worked at a bakery and have lazy objections to working on the weekend.

But if I’ve posted my recipe here, everyone has access to it so why would they need to buy my cookies or hire me for my cookies, I PUT IT IN GOOGLE CACHE!

Gesh, ego demands I have a plan. I a 35-year-old desperate housewife with both children in school and in an economy that is almost impossible to find a job – I NEED A LIFE PLAN! Even if it’s an imaginary plan.

But like Paula Deen and Rachel Ray became famous by keeping their recipes secret.

In other questions of over-sharing, over here we’re talking about energy beams up your vagina. Should you? Or no? It’s a personal decision, I suppose, whether to allow alien technology up your lady parts, but she did ask so don’t hesitate to chime in.

And did you read Neil’s advice on bl0w jobs? I mean, really. Get your questions in to us while you can before we become famous. Energy beams up vaginas and a man’s advice on giving blow jobs. It’s inevitable, people.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Now there are some weirdos out there who don’t care for fudge, even though they have tasted mine. I’ve heard this odd behavior is a side effect of a botched lobotomy so don’t even try to understand them. Pity them instead

This recipe is not of my own but comes from Southern Living, also known as the Golden Compass of all Southern Cooks.

The directions come from me, but really, it’s like coming straight from God such is the magic when my hands meet sugar and butter and chocolate. I will tell you all my confectionary secrets pertaining to fudge. Except for one. It will cost you $19.95.

Pumpkin Fudge

(imagine pretty picture of fudge here)

Ingredients
3 C. sugar
¾ C. melted butter
2/3 C. evaporated milk
½ C. canned pumpkin
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
12 oz. package of white chocolate chips
7 oz. jar marshmallow cream
1 C chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla

First things first when making fudge – your pot. Oh my, this is important. This is my fudge pot…

…I don’t know the exact size, sorry. It’s the tallish one. You want it tall so your butter/sugar/milk has room to rise as it boils AND it’s deep enough to get a proper reading on your candy thermometer.

Second things first when making fudge – your candy thermometer. Get one.

Third things first when making fudge – your spoon. There is only one spoon I will use to make fudge and this is it:

It’s the best spoon in the world. Notice the partial metal handle? Stirring fudge is stiff business. All plastic spoons flex and bend as you stir in the chips & marshmallow cream and that’s annoying.

A wooden spoon probably works good too, though I do think spoons are like the wands from Harry Potter – the spoon chooses the confectionary wizard. My spoon chose me. Okay, it was really Wally’s spoon from college, but he chose me, so whatever.

Now onto the actual cooking.

(insert here professional-looking picture of all of my ingredients pre-measured in pretty bowls, such as Paula Deen’s bowls. Right now I don’t have these or any pretty bowls since #1 the economy sucks and #2 what the economy doesn’t suck out of me monetarily, my children do. School picture packages cost HOW MUCH?)

Melt enough butter to clog the arteries of 10 different people. This is where you melt butter.

In a microwave. That is clean. Please verbally appreciate the cleanliness of my microwave since no one in my home ever does.

Pour your sugar, melted butter, evaporated milk, pumpkin, corn syrup & pumpkin pie spice into your pot. Grab your spoon and gird up your loins in preparation of a lifetime of constant stirring.

Turn stove eye onto medium-high heat and stir your ingredients together.

Keep stirring. Do not stop. Do not pass go. Do not do pour a glass of wine, cooking fudge takes concentration!

Keep stirring. Constantly. Your life depends on it. Do not stop!

(insert here culinary picture of Heather stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring until she finally props herself up on the stove from fatigue.)

Once sugar mixture begins to boil, insert your candy thermometer (in the pot and not elsewhere, you nasty freak) and keep it in there, waiting for the temperature to reach 234 degrees. Keep stirring!

Now, some recipes will tell you to do that or simply boil the sugar mixture for 12 minutes. THIS 12 MINUTE THING IS A LIE. I’m convinced this lie is propagated by certain chain fudge companies so you will fail and keep buying their fudge.

So use the candy thermometer and keep stirring. Be strong!

(insert picture of Heather’s fingertips turning red from potential steam burns.)

Check your candy thermometer a thousand times. While it doesn’t take that long to go from 0 to 230 degrees, it will take three light years to go from 230 degrees to 234 degrees.

Once it reads 234 degrees, immediately remove pan from heat (don’t forget to turn off eye) and quickly stir in the white chocolate chips until melted. Then stir in the marshmallow cream.

You may want help at this stage. My arms tire by this point so I call in the husband. I have feminine arms and no matter what Jillian’s 30 Day Shred thinks, I will never be a she-man. I need a stirring partner.

Once the marshmallow cream is blended in completely, stir in vanilla and pecans. Pour into a greased (with cooking spray) 13×9 casserole dish. Now lick the spoon and pot. But don’t burn your tongue, idiot. That stuff was 234 degrees just a couple of minutes before.

Allow fudge to cool and set, preferably overnight. Cut and enjoy. And then thank me for all my wonderful insight.

If for some reason the recipe doesn’t work for you, please send in $19.95 and I will tell you what you did wrong.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

As you know, we’re on this no artificial dye lifestyle. It’s one step closer to us becoming European since the UK bans six of these dyes, and, how interesting, they have lower rates of autism and ADHD than us. Hmm.

Next stop? France; where French women don’t get fat. I’m only 5 pounds away from my size 8s fitting perfectly. Funny how eliminating artificial dyes also eliminates a lot of crappy food you can buy and voilá! You lose 5 of your 10 pounds without even trying.

Of course, Wally and I haven’t eaten dyes in over a month either, but we both ate something with red dye once this week. Within a few hours we felt agitated, restless, and imagined there was something we should be stressed about, though we couldn’t think what.

I searched my mind for this hidden worry: is there some money issue I should be stressed about? School problem? Car repair bill? What is IT?! I must find the reason I’m stressed!

Then I realized I had red dye #40.

Obviously artificial dyes cause delusional stress, so let’s all do ourselves a favor and stop eating them, then watch a lot of people in the US come off their anti-anxiety meds. Look out for that pesky red dye #40 especially, but even the yellow dyes are nasty culprits too.

Of course, my personal Prozac goes by a different name: vodka martinis. And you know what? I’m not drinking as much of those either. Who needs them when there is no school drama 3 times a week, when I’m not getting phone calls from principals and constant requests for parent conferences? Not me.

_______________________________________________________

We’re trying to save up for a Disney World/Sea World vacation. Apparently I say ‘fuck’ too much on this blog to be sent on any of these mom blogger trips. But that’s fine. I’m not giving up the F bomb just to save $4000 dollars. I have principles, you know.

Unfortunately those principles also dictate I not sell off my firstborn in order to afford to go, which is pretty much what it takes if you want to stay on the park. My god. And let’s not talk about the emotional pain of actually planning the trip, what with the 100,000 different ways to do it? Maybe Orlando vacations have more to do with people taking Prozac than artificial dyes. It could be a draw.

So lately I’ve been looking for ways to save money to put aside for this trip. Hopefully before the boys are in high school. I decided the best way to do this might be by cutting back the grocery budget. This idea came to me after a local blogger was featured in our Sunday newspaper, on the front page no less.

I’ve visited a couple of these grocery bargain blogs. There are only as many of those as there are hotels in Orlando. But I picked a couple, including this local stay-at-home mom bargain blogger who claims, with a family of four, that she only spends $110 a month on groceries.

How do they spend this little and still provide adequate fresh fruits, vegetables, and protein every day? I don’t see how that’s possible.

I asked two of the bargain bloggers, politely, of course, since I do have principles. Neither has answer my email asking for clarification on the fruits, vegetables and meat purchases, and one of the bloggers won’t approve my comment out of moderation.

What the hell?

I say bullshit on these cutthroat budgets.

End note to this cheap grocery budget thing: I used those bargain blogs shopping tips to do my grocery shopping this weekend and I came to a realization. This is focusing ALL the wrong way. Instead of humping the newspaper boy’s leg for the next coupon insert in the paper so I can spend hours stacking coupons and comparing sales and driving to four different stores to save $20, I’m going to focus on being rich enough it doesn’t matter.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.