ah-ha moment

I've been married for 6 years this year. And for probably all six years I've occasionally felt that marriage is unfair, unequal, blah, blah, blah. I always felt mad when things weren't going the way I wanted them to, that I had to change (sounds a little selfish) to try and fix it. Why didn't my husband have to work as hard on our marriage as I was?

The truth: he was. He is.

The injustices I kept seeing were failed attempts at communication on my part, on his part, on both our parts. No matter how awesome I am, I can't read minds and never will be able too darn it. If something is bothering me, it's my problem and I need to change or fix it; which could be as simple as asking him about it.

This was my ah-ha moment.

AZ wants to kill me

I found my very first (and hopefully last) scorpion in my house the other day. I don't know what kind it was but it looked like this:

This is a bark scorpion that is the only scorpion considered to be life threatening. I found this little bad boy in my kitchen, in close proximity to my 4 year-old's chair.

I had just put my baby to bed and decided that my kitchen needed to be cleaned in a bad way. I had the weird thought that I should put shoes on. So I did and started cleaning.

I had seen this scorpion without seeing it; I thought it was just a big crumb on the floor. After all, it was by my son's chair at the dinner table and he's not the cleanest person in the world (what boy is?). I brushed it with the broom and it came alive! It uncurled and started walking!! Before it registered in my brain what it was, I thought, "How weird. That crumb is walking."

THAT CRUMB IS WALKING?!

I crouched down so I could get a good look at it and stared at it for a good minute, willing it to just disappear. I couldn't muster squishing it with my shoe (I had heard stories from a sister in Texas about how crunchy scorpions are) so I grabbed a fly swatter and obliterated that scorpion.

Have you seen this ecard yet?

Exactly how I felt.

I swept it up into my pile and had a sinking feeling that this scorpion was a bionic scorpion and would soon pop open like most cockroaches and come after me. shiver

I'm happy to report that the scorpion did not come back alive, I haven't seen another one for the past couple of days, and that we had a pest control guy over that very day to spray our entire house, inside and out.

recipe: gyozas

Last week was Joe's birthday. We invited some of his friends over and fed them gyozas and Thai noodles with jerk chicken.

Holy smokes. I LOVE gyozas! One of my brother-in-laws, who learned from his Japanese grandmother, showed me how to make them when I visited them a long long time ago. I've only  made these little bad boys a handful of times because they take FOREVER to make! This time, however, we recruited the help of Joe's friends and made them earn their keep by wrapping all 3.5 pounds of meat! I'm the best hostess ever!

Want the recipe? Umm... okay.

Gyozas
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork --I hope it's obvious that I doubled the recipe for our friends.
3 stalks green onion, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 TBSP garlic (powder OR actual vegetable)
1/4 cup corn starch
Sweet Chili Sauce (I use Mae Ploy)
Square Wraps (I use Azumaya. This time I found them in the organic section of my grocery store)
**Over the years that I've made these, it has been hit and miss on the stores having the chili sauce and the square wraps. I usually find the sweet chili sauce in the oriental section of the grocery store. The wraps are usually refrigerated and found in the organic section of the grocery store. Good luck! And happy hunting!! 

1. Mush together pork and beef until well combined.
2. Brown meat with chopped green onions and garlic IF using the actual vegetable, NOT THE POWDER.
3. Drain fat.
4. Sprinkle soy sauce so it coats the entire top of the meat. --The meat turns a dark brown.
5. Sprinkle corn starch over meat until thickens. --This could take more or less than a 1/4 cup.
6. Remove from stove and let cool.
7. Place small spoonful of meat in middle of wrap and seal. --The trick to sealing the wraps is to have a small bowl of water. Dip your finger in the water and wet two sides of the wrappers. Make sure and seal the wrapper so it doesn't fall apart when frying in the oil.
8.  Fry gyozas in heated oil.
9. Serve with sweet chili sauce. --I usually make ham fried rice with this.

Does this recipe make sense? I'm super good at following recipes, but I'm not that great at making them. If you try them, let me know how they turned out!

book review: A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days

"A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days" was a little disappointing to me. There were several insights I walked away with from this book, but overall, I would not recommend this book to someone who wanted different insights to the End Times that had a knowledge of the Bible.

It seemed like Jonathan Bernis' target audience was to the Jewish people or to members of his own congregation. He kept mentioning the house of Israel as only consisting of Jews, or the house of Judah, but there are 10 other houses that make up Israel and each house has a job to do before Jesus Christ comes back the second time; not just the Jews.

Bernis' outlook on the Garden of Eden and Satan's role in this world was fascinating. I grew up reading the Bible and have attended regular church meetings. I've heard the story of the Garden with Eve, the apple, the serpent; all is very familiar. Bernis taught me that Satan has this demented vision that he can still win. And because he believes this, and he he knows that if he doesn't win, his time is drawing to a close and his end is near.

I'm not doing this description justice. If you are going to read "A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days" read the first 5 chapters and that should be sufficient. I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House to review.

potty talk

"Do I look funny, mom?" How would you respond to that? Me? I laughed and grabbed my phone. 

Corban turns 5 in September and is barely getting the hang of potty training. When I got pregnant with baby #2, I DID NOT want to change 2 bummies. No, thank you! I pushed him hard when he was 2 but he is kind of the stubborn sort and refused. I was too sick to fight that battle, so he went back into diapers. I tried again when he was 3. And again when he was 4 and he got it!

Something clicked and he has been doing really good. Notice the key word, "has". Recently he has been pooping in his underpants and pooping on the floor right next to the toilet! I make him clean up his own messes and his TV privilege gets revoked. Just to show me, I swear, as he's cleaning the poop up in the bathroom, he'll pee all over the floor! He's even told me, "See. That's what you get when you make me clean up my poop."

I have tried every method out there, I swear. And they would work for about a day. What potty training method worked for you?

happy happy birthday

My man is in his 30s! 

Happy birthday to the greatest husband, friend, and papa! Love you lots.

cheap doesn't always mean good

Never. Ever. Ever buy cheap spray paint. There are things that I'll buy that the no-name brand is fine. But never, never, never buy cheap spray paint! I can't say that enough.

I'm making a project inspired from Pinterest that requires red, white, and blue paint. So, me being on a student-budget, I opted for the cheap, less than $2 spray paint, thinking I had fooled the system and was pulling a fast one. Oh, boy. The ENTIRE can of white paint barely covered the surface one time! The nozzle was so hard to press down that my arm gave up and my finger popped up like a timer in a turkey. I had to use my other hand to hold down the finger of my original hand!

I'm happy to say that I have successfully painted the white and blue parts and now am moving on to the red. Pictures as soon as I complete my project.