Here’s a little tip: don’t ever utter that you’re feeling balanced because you will inevitably get caught up in a whirlwind wherein just the opposite is revealed.

It started with the missed bike clinic. Remember? The one I thought was on Friday when it was, in actuality, Wednesday. Actually, it goes back even farther when I bought a couple of birthdays presents at Wal-Mart last week.

Should have just stuck with my beloved Target. I know that now.

There is not a Wal-Mart close to my house. After schlepping across town to buy the gifts, Hadley informed me that her friend already had one of them.

Fast-forward to the bike clinic on Friday night. You know, the one that never happened. I decided to take the opportunity to return the presents and exchange them for the game Cariboo by Cranium that my friend Tina requested. It was late in the evening, very few people were on duty, and I spent 45 minutes on a wild goose chase throughout the store as various uninformed people informed me they had the game.

Take it from me: they did not.

Exasperated, this mommy blogger left the store and headed to my beloved Target. I called them on the way over to ensure they had Cariboo. They did! And they promised to leave it for me at the Customer Service desk!

I limped in there right before closing, plopped down my money and did not give it another thought.

Until yesterday, a mere hour before the party when I finally got around to wrapping it. That is when I learned the dreaded truth: they gave me the wrong Cranium game. In my comatose state, I hadn’t even noticed.

I dragged the kids back to Target, only to discover they did not carry the game. With mere minutes before we needed to leave before the party, I desperately grabbed the only semi-decent game I could find:

Because my life is anything but.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

I’ve been having fun playing with my Frigidaire dishwasher as the part of Frididaire Mom’s test drive.

Wait. Did I just say fun and dishwasher in the same sentence?

Alright, back to reality.

And that reality is asking my husband his opinion of our Frigidaire.

“When it comes to dishwashers, you know me. I’m speechless.”

Though this dishwasher has experienced an unprecedented phenomenon: my husband has actually run several loads in it. Now, I’m not here to husband-bash because there are many domestic duties my husband excels at.

Cleaning the kitchen is not among them.

He could say the same about my ironing (or lack thereof).

Even though the rest of my house may sometimes look like a hurricane hit, I usually stay on top of the dishes and you will rarely find a sink full of dirty ones.

Unless the husband is in charge.

I saw his pre-marriage days. I heard the stories of how he paid his sister to do his dishes for him. Or his roommate’s admonition that when they had company over one day, instead of washing the many dirty dishes, they simply loaded them up in a bucket and hid them in the bedroom.

Suffice it to say, I am in charge of all dish duties but due to my busy travel schedule this winter, he has had to endure the unthinkable: loading and running the Frigidaire. All by himself.

When I’ve traveled in the past, he has completely cleaned the house in honor of my return but was never able to force himself to do the dishes. Times have changed since we got the new Frigidaire. When I returned from a recent trip to Park City, the kitchen was gloriously spotless, the sink devoid of dishes.

“Jamie, did you actually use the dishwasher?”
“Yep,” he said proudly, opening the Frigidaire, unveiling a batch of shiny-clean dishes.

Of course, it would have been asking too much to ask him to unload it.

As I showered praises on him, I noticed something. Even though the majority of the dishes had come out sparkling, there were a few pots and pans on the bottom that still had food residue.

“Errr, Jamie. Just how long were these sitting in the sink before you loaded them?”
“Oh, about five days.”

It was then that I introduced a phenomenon called soaking dishes, especially if they were going to camp out in the sink. Then I showed him the hi-temp wash on the Frigidaire, which is great for melting away those nasty, caked-on stains that are only accrued when dish-loathing husbands are in charge.

It’s all about baby steps. Or husband-sized ones.

Who does the dishes at your house? Is it a battle?

I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Dishwasher to facilitate my review.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

I’ve been sick.

This should not be a shock to anyone who reads this blog with any regularity. What is shocking is that I have gone more than a few months without falling ill.

This time, the timing could not have been worse. We were supposed to hold a garage sale and our dinner group was congregating at my friend Lisa’s house for grilled steak. Out of sympathy, she brought me flowers because she knew how disappointed I was to stay home. It was such a thoughtful gesture.

Though I would have been equally as excited if she’d dropped off a big slab of beef.

I have a 2-hour window while both kids are in school and I took full advantage by sleeping. On Friday, I doped myself up on cold medication, grabbed Remy (the cat) and nestled into my cave. My slumbers started blissfully: I was at the Magellan Inn, a charming beach-side resort in Costa Rica where Jamie and I spent out honeymoon. I was momentarily whisked away by vacated beaches, white sand and big surf.

Until a big storm blew in. As it turns out, we were actually sleeping on a submarine and I was somehow sitting in the driver’s seat. It was filled to capacity with people and I was the one who needed to save us. In vain, I tried to steer but we flipped over from the monster waves.

Then I was being crushed.

Suffocated.

Asphyxiated.

I gasped for air and realized that Hurley from ABC’s LOST was in the passenger seat and was using me as a human trash compactor.

Struggling for my final moment of life, I flung him off me, flipped the submarine to safety and woke up.

And realized Remy was lying on my chest.

We don’t call him the “Fat Kitty” for nothing.

When have your dreams imitated reality? What’re you dreaming about these days?

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

First, there was my obsession with pumpkin.

It was triggered during pregnancy and over the course of the last several years, I have made numerous pumpkin dishes including pumpkin gnocchi, enchiladas, shakes, yogurt, cookies, fritters, doughnuts, soup and so much more.

I have now moved onto coconut.

Coconut milk’s lineage descends directly from the gods. Thai food is resplendent with its goodness but when I stumbled upon a recipe for coconut macaroon pancakes last night, I knew we were a match made in heaven.

If you’ve ever made macaroons, you know there are a lot of eggs with very little/no flour to bind the ingredients together. This is not a complication when you plop them on a cookie sheet but when you have a macaroon pancake recipe that requires flipping?

My pancakes were the very antithesis of the above photo.

I adapted this recipe. I say adapted because the first few batches were a disaster. I was unable to flip them and most pancakes were broken into about four pieces. It was not until I added additional flour and a bit of coconut extract that they started resembling actual pancakes, not the cat’s kitty litter.

I piled the broken pieces on a plate, dreading my food-critic family’s reaction. I formulated a plan.

“You know how we were learning about when the Prophet Samuel called David to replace Saul as king when he was only a lowly shepherd boy?”

(Jamie, Hadley and Bode looked at me suspiciously.) “Yessssss.”

“Well, just remember what the Lord told him: ‘…Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’”

Got any favorite coconut recipes you’d like to share, particularly ones that do not involve flipping?

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog