Doing nothing special.........

Tonight was really nice. The kids were all back after the weekend away and it was just a nice, relaxed time. Hannah was craving "peanut butter noodles" for dinner. I looked up a recipe and Jeff made it (along with the exotic side of chicken nuggets). When deciding what veggie to serve, Jeff suggested we serve canned peas, just to see what reaction we'd get. Well, I personally HATE canned peas, but figured I could gag down a few spoonfuls. So, I heated up two cans, with a little butter and garlic salt. Man, were those a hit! Who knew? Harrison and Arlie had three servings. I'm pretty sure Hannah scraped a few into her mouth, but was was even more impressive is she didn't complain about them. Hayley was at a meeting at school, so she didn't eat with us. But it was still amusing to see them devour canned peas when I normally skip right over those cans because I don't like them (they weren't that bad). I'm trying to save on the grocery bill by "eating from the pantry" this month. Instead of doing a big grocery trip every week, I'm going to make dinners with what we have (I'll still have to buy fruit and stuff, and we get our milk delivered). I read about a family who did this and saved a ton of money. So, I figured what the heck? We have so much food stored. My mom calls it our "Mormon pantry"! (We are not Mormon, for those of you who wondered). Oh, and I made snickerdoodles (another Hannah craving) for dessert and we devoured them. Yum!

Anyway, later we actually sat and watched TV - all of us! We almost never do that and it was nice to just snuggle up on the couch and kick back. Those are the kinds of things I wish we had more time for - just doing nothing.

Oh, and the kids did their chores without complaining today. I am trying to find the right balance between chores and being a drill sargeant. (I think I spelled that wrong and it's driving me crazy). Anyway, this week, I whittled down the chore list. I may have mentioned my meltdown at the kids' bathroom last week. I refrained from posting a photo of the enormous amount of clothing and towels that came from that tiny room. We are talking MOUNTAINS! I had them sort it into the hallway and they are all responsible for doing certain loads of it until it's all done. So, tonight a couple of loads got washed. And in order to do that, they had to fold a couple of loads. Well, their technique for that is to dump everything on my bed and fold away while watching TV. Later, Jeff came downstairs holding a bra and saying "who's trying to sabotage my marriage? I found this under my pillow!" I thought someone planted it there, but no, it was an honest mistake. Still pretty funny.

I'm having surgery on Wednesday. I'll be short one ovary after, but I'm not really using them anymore so it's ok. I have a cyst on my left ovary that is called a dermoid. These are present at birth and derive from a single cell that can turn into basically anything in the human body. As a result, they are totally freaky. While they can show up in many parts of the body (including the face, brain, spinal cord, etc.) they often occur on the ovaries. And since they contain embryonic cells they often have hair, muscle fibers and well-formed teeth. Yes, teeth. I once saw one of these freaks of nature at an exhibit on the human body. It had about four fully-formed human teeth and long hair coming out of it. Kind of like a semi-human within a human. Yes, I know - sounds like some sort of alien abduction thing, right? But it's for real. Jeff calls mine "Chomper" and when he saw a real one at that exhibit, his response was "Holy Hell, get that thing out of you!". And even weirder is that most people have them someplace in the body, but they normally do not grow or cause any problems so most people never know about them. Mine was discovered by accident. And it's been "monitored" for two years, but I'm ready to have it out now. And since it's wrapped around my ovary, I decided to have them just take the whole damn thing out. It's an easier surgery and I'm all for easier when I'm under general anesthesia. Anyway, I told them to take pictures and keep it so I can see it before they send it off to pathology. If I have a freakish half-human residing inside me, I at least want to see it before it goes. Don't worry, I'll refrain from posting photos here. Anyway, that's your medical mystery for the day. Hope you enjoyed it.