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Labor day at my house

Updated on November 16, 2010

Labor Day - That means Mom has to work.

Holidays around my house are mostly always amusing, today is Labor Day 2010. My eldest daughter would like to have a ‘family day’ at my house. We haven’t had one of those in a long time and she is planning on bringing Ribs and Chicken. She has called my eldest son who also live nearby, he is bringing the Hot Dogs and Hamburger. All I need to have is the charcoal they tell me. Well that was all I needed until the phone call at 11:15 pm last night “Hey Mom, can you make deviled eggs?” or my sons call “Hey Mom, can you make pasta salad?” Yep, just charcoal… things are never as they seem around here.

I will assume that it is up to me to cook. Last week my daughter called and asked what I was making for dinner. When I told her fried chicken she said she might come over and bring more chicken. She took her time in getting here and by the time she did, I was done cooking and we had already eaten. She now wanted me to cook for her, oh boy what fun. I showed where everything was and told her to ‘Have at it’. She was a little perturbed at this and said “If I wanted to cook for myself, I’d have stayed at home”. Thanks. (Does anyone remember the N story? This is the N child, well sort of)

Aren't kids great?

Anyway, back to this holiday.  Yesterday my other daughter decided to clean her room, so now everything she didn’t want in there is out here, in my living space.  I have no garage, no basement and the shed?  That is N’s domain, and it is jam-packed-can’t-fit-another-thing, in other words it is full.  We may have a bonfire with the stuff sitting out here, after she leaves for work.  That should be fun.

I baby sit my grand daughter while my daughter works, and my other kids will be bringing their kids.  I’m not sure exactly how many kids will be coming yet, one goes with his Mother, one may come from her father…  You get the idea, plan big, always. 

Someone slap me Please!

Oh and let’s not forget Curtis, he is the newest addition to my huge family. He is another product of Barney. Barney is my Mini-Pin, who’s love life is becoming world renowned. Since he doesn’t leave the yard this is quite a feat, the girls all come to him. But as a good dog parent, I at least try to help out the other family by taking a pup. What was I thinking? I was told when I got him that he was ‘almost’ house broken. I should have paid more attention to the ‘almost’ part, and questioned it. If they would have said, ‘he goes to the bathroom’ that would have been more accurate. I’m not quite understanding the mind of the dog that goes outside, runs around and romps for ½ an hour then comes in to go on the floor immediately. I need to have my head examined.

My husband has to leave for work by 3 so it will be all about hurry up and cook, stuff it in our faces and then leave. I think I need a nap to prepare. It is after all Labor Day, I must be destined to work.

More later….   If I've survived...

Obviously I survived!

Well as usual it was a mad house. Suzanne, the one who had to work, was upset that we decided to have a gathering when she had to work. She thought for sure we had planned this out so she wouldn’t be here. Not. My husband and I had a good solid hour to get things ready. I started on the stuff that was left out from the room cleaning expedition, took care of most of it, until I just about had enough. Shove it up against the wall and deal with it later is my motto. So that’s where it went.

Papa (my hubby) finally figured out that Memaw (me) had rules regarding the baby. I keep her out of the kitchen (with a gate), since the cat litter box is just off the laundry room beyond the kitchen. She thinks it’s great fun to hit the litter box just after the cat has visited, babies and ‘gummy bears’ are just plain GROSS. He thought it would be fun to let her roam around the kitchen with the promise of ‘keeping an eye on her’, yeah that was harder than he thought.

Smooth around my house? Never!

Things were going smoothly, for a while. I started boiling the eggs for deviled eggs, trimming the green beans, fresh is always best, and roasting ‘just dug up‘ potatoes. I had ¾ of a watermelon that would work nicely for the kids, if cut up beforehand. My husband decided to try his hand at making watermelon chunks, just as he was finishing up, a good size hunk slid off the counter to splat all over the floor and splash on the stove, cupboards and halfway across the kitchen. So much for getting things in order.

Just as this mess was getting cleaned up, my oldest daughter came in with her two boys. She is kind of like a tornado mixed with a hurricane, if that can be used to describe a person. I like to be on my toes when preparing for her, but I can’t always do that. She brought in all of her bags of goodies and a pretty plate of veggies and dip that for some reason would just not stay on the plate. Veggies went flying everywhere. The potato salad looked yummy, can I help it she inherited my best quality? She’s a darned good cook!

Hurry up and wait

While he was gone we finished making preparations, peeling 2 dozen eggs. Why is it that when you are attempting to make deviled eggs and would like a nice presentation, they shells don’t come off right? Yeah, they weren’t exactly pretty, but at least they tasted good.

The green beans were steamed a bit, then tossed in a little oil and butter with some onions and minced garlic, YUM. New fingerling potatoes rubbed in oil and a little sea salt, YUM. Deviled eggs, Uhuh now we’re cookin’.  Cookin’? Wait where is the charcoal? Oh yeah, we are waiting on Matthew. So of course we started picking at the food that was already cooked. Prepped the meat for cooking. My hubby was supposed to leave to be at his work by 3 that meant he should leave by 2 (it takes an hour to get there, and yes, of course he changed the time). So for the next hour or so we picked at the food and chatted, listening to kids playing, and waited… and waited…

Finally about 1:30 Matthew showed up with the charcoal. So hubby made a huge pile in the grill, we soaked the briquettes with fluid and set it on fire. Due to the serious moisture that we had earlier (Yeah, ok it rained) the charcoal didn’t really want to light. Mom to the rescue!!! I still have my eyebrows, but I think I burned my chest hair off. Lucky for us I think we like the taste of lighter fluid.

Of course!

Without warning I heard the familiar call from the bathroom, “Can someone bring me some toilet paper?” Oops! I (someone) forgot to buy some when I was at the store yesterday! How did that happen? Lucky for me it’s the nose running season and I have plenty of tissues. Will someone please tell me why it is that when it is mentioned ‘we’re out of toilet paper’ EVERYONE has to go, now?

A good day

My hubby likes to think he is the quintessential grill master. Yum, charcoal briquette burgers and ribs! Well the deviled eggs still tasted good, lucky for me I made a lot. He must have been in a hurry, well that is his tale about it, I sit on mine.

Time for me to take my hubby to work, so we fixed him a couple of plates of food to wrap up to eat later and got all of his things together. Just before we were leaving my eldest daughter said she was leaving too. Ummm, but what about the mess? I guess it will be here when I get back!

Yep it was. At least no one got hurt, (hey, I didn’t need that chest hair anyway it looks funny on a girl) and no female dogs got knocked up, there weren’t any present. None of the kids ended up beating each other up. There were only 3 dog fights, Curtis ate entirely too much and now he's throwing up all over. All in all it was a good day, messy but good.

working

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