Meet my daughter... Alyzinnia...?

Learn how to give your child a normal name.

Kennedy, Carter and Reagan were presidents, not babies. Bentley is a car. Hunter is someone who catches me some delicious venison. And Jaxon is just a really dumb way to spell a dog's name.

If you want me to identify your child as male or female, then dress them in either blue or pink, respectively, and don't name them something nonspecific like Jayden or Peyton. I WILL say "look how pretty she is!" when I see a baby dressed in yellow with voluminous eyelashes and flowing curly hair.

Sorry, Riley, your mother didn't have the balls to give you a man's name or dress you in overalls with trucks and dinosaurs all over them.

Mother of the year.

There's nothing like browsing mommy blogs to bring my ego down a few notches...

This lady helped me feel inferior today, with her well-lit photographs of contrived arts and crafts completed by her overachieving kids. It's great that your kids didn't take the lids off of the painted pop-bottles used for bowling; my kids are smarter than that and would have jammed about 12 dollars worth of change into them and started whaling each other in the head after about two and a half minutes.

And what kid is going to eat dragon fruit!??!!? It looks like chopped-up Yahtzee dice!!

There's no way this mom is for real. I did notice she's Canadian, so that only increases the probability that she's imaginary.

I have to give her props for being so ambitious, because the most prestigious arts and crafts my kids and I have undertaken this week consisted of handing Z an empty toilet paper roll and saying "use your imagination."

At least I can take solace in the fact that my kids are much better looking than hers.

Sandcastles in the sand.

You know I love to pick favorites.

Favorite baking ingredient: brown sugar.

Far superior over that regular old granulated crap.

It's such a soft brown, with the texture of sand at the beach. I start to bake and I feel like I'm on an ocean coast, only it smells like butter and vanilla (not a bad idea for a suntan lotion scent).

If I can't build sandcastles every day, at least I can build scrumptious treats full of calories to fill out my beach body.

I have a real problem, and it's called baking.

A change of scenery.

I have a hard time believing there are people out there who are afraid of change. I'll admit, someone hurling nickels and dimes at me does sound a little frightening (bad pun!), but things becoming different is so much fun!

Life would be awful if things never changed.

Proof: The Lions certainly wouldn't be in the playoffs!!! (I'm still freaking out a little. Super Bowl!!!!!!!)


And how could people really be afraid of changing if so many people make new years resolutions? Unless you're resolving to stay exactly the same, I'd say that's embracing changes.

I'm also assuming most people aren't afraid of change when it comes to their underpants.


I love change so much it's gotten to the point where my husband is afraid of what I've done to the house when he gets home from a long day.

        "I saw you had the window open in our bedroom, and I was nervous that you had rearranged the whole house"

Really? I didn't know an open window could signify so much. In all fairness, I had moved the furniture in a third of our house the previous day... maybe he figured I wanted to round out to a whole number.

Happy 2012, everyone. Enjoy the changes that the new year brings!

1000 points delicious!

Have you met the new and improved Lolo, self-proclaimed master housewife extraordinaire?

It's true, after only three and a half years of marriage I've become a pro chef, baker, cleaner, grocery shopper and mom.

You don't believe me? Let's stack up the evidence:

1. Today, I made cookies without using a recipe. Granted, I had an idea of what kind of cookie I would like to make, and I'm sure there exists a recipe for double-chocolate Andes mint chip cookies with bonus chocolate chips, but I did not feel like scouring the internet for said recipe. I hate following recipes. That stupid, pretentious cookbook telling me what to do is inexplicably obnoxious. Let me do my own thing!

Not to mention, this is the second time I've done this in one month!

15 points to Lolo (hey, making a new baking recipe is hard! It's science!)

2. I made a bacon cheeseburger meatloaf for dinner on Monday. Again, no recipes. Does this really need any back-up explanation? The husband loves me.

8 points


3. My house smells like fabric softener and baked goods all the time, and not like human excrement. This is quite the feat considering we're in the midst of potty training a two and a half year old, and we have a seven month old who recently began eating a variety of fruits and veggies.

5 points


4. As far as I know, my kids love Jesus. Z says the Hail Mary every night, and sings The King of Glory as we light the advent wreath, and G doesn't cry too much at mass.

175 points (don't judge, that's God's job.)

5. I'm pretty good at hiding my faults from the public. Though I can bake and cook with mad skills, and keep my children on the path to righteousness whilst smelling sweet, I'll admit I have my off days. However, the whole internet doesn't need to know about it!

- 4 points (for a lack of transparency)

If I can do math properly, which I'm sure all my patients hope to heaven that I can, that totals out to 199. Don't ask me what the scale is for homemaker of the year, because I just made up random point amounts with no real justification. I'm guessing I'm somewhere in the top 3,529, though.

Revel in my prowess and prolificity, bitches.

Story time!

The Leaky Roof.

I walked in to find the bathroom floor soaking wet and water rushing like a waterfall from the vent in the ceiling....(slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect. "slow trickle" might be more accurate) In those brief moments of horrific discovery I pictured my house slowly morphing into 320 Sycamore, complete with a serenading policeman and cab-driver outside my window. 

All I could do was yell "Bucket! I need a bucket!!" and put my hands on my face Macaulay Culkin-style. The husband attempted to allay my hysteria as I ran toward the basement to fetch a pail for water. He gave me a figurative slap across the face and yelled "we don't need a bucket!" I was convinced he had somehow miraculously repaired the leak in the 10 seconds I had been flailing around the house.

He didn't.

However, he did repair my obsession with a bucket.

He opened the toilet, and the water from the vent, which was situated directly above, had a lovely compartment in which to drain.

Duh.

Just goes to show, God knows how to give you a leaky roof on your birthday. He simply puts it directly above the built-in bucket.

Keep Christ in Christmas, and Christmas in December... and January.

Join my campaign to keep the spirit of Christmas alive.

You might be thinking, "What are you talking about, Lolo? I see Christmas spirit everywhere!!"

It's true. Some folks have taken to the ostentatious display of Christmas paraphernalia so early in the year, but I see it as an affront to true Christmas values.

We're so hopped up on tinsel and good-tidings starting with the serenade of  "All I Want for Christmas is You" in mid-October, that when the Holiday finally arrives we're feeling a bit bah-humbuggish.

So please, join me in my temporary Grinchitude until the season truly starts: December 25th.

Don't worry, if you feel that's too long to wait, we Polaks and Polkas like to celebrate the Christmas season from the Wigilia to Candlemas to make up for lost time!