Packing Up. Again.

I’ve mentioned that this was coming, but I’ll be moving soon to a new blog space. It’s happening soonish, in time for BlogHer next month. The new site is up, but it’s not pretty yet, and has nothing really new there. But leave me a comment, and I’ll send you the link so you can add to your reader or whatever you use to keep track.

The reasons for the move are numerous but mainly because this URL was registered on a drunken idea at BlogHer last year. When I felt like I had to flee my old site, this was just a domain I had registered so it was an easy quick move. This never really felt like a space that fit me very well.

I’ll be trying to maintain a little bit of privacy for others’ sake. The EX will remain so named and so will Betsy. And honestly if you’ve never commented before, I might be a bit hesitant to give you the new URL. I’m not a comment whore or anything, but I do believe that the spirit of blogging is based on a reciprocal relationship. I’m happy to let you peek into my life if you want to, but I do appreciate knowing you’re there and hearing what you have to say even if it’s just every now and then.

Glimmers of Hope

So lately I’ve been having these moments where I feel hopeful about the future. I won’t say that it started with making out with a stranger in a parking lot, but I will say it’s happened more often since that night. Sometimes I think about my old life, perhaps a certain former family member that I no longer have to cater to, and I think “Well thank god, THAT’S over!” Or I think about a decorating idea that the EX would have hated and I think “Ha! I can girl it on up in this joint now that I don’t have him to complain about it!”

I surely won’t say I’m happy that this happened because I’m not. I do still wish that my family was intact. Betsy is starting to sort of realize what’s going on. She told me that she wished she saw her daddy more and that he stayed over here with us more. I had to explain to her that Mommy and Daddy are not married anymore so we won’t ever live in the same house again, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still love her the same as always. She said that made her sad, and I said that it made me sad too sometimes and that’s ok, but she just needs to know we love her and will always love her and she won’t always feel sad about it. I hope that was the right thing to say.

But at long last I am realizing that my life can and will still be good as long as I try to make it that way. So I’ll keep on trying.

“Get a Babysitter” Macaroni and Cheese

I posted the other day on Twitter that I was making homemade macaroni and cheese, and a couple people asked for the recipe. So better late than never I suppose.

I call it “Get a Babysitter” macaroni and cheese, because a) you’ll need one to watch your kids while you make it, and then b) you’ll want to be alone with this macaroni and cheese when it’s done.

Listen, this recipe is not easy, healthy or fancy. It’s fat laden and labor intensive but it is comforting to me. I’ve tried other recipes that promise to be better, and used fancier cheeses, but this one is just what comes to my mind when I think of comfort food.

7 oz of pasta, cooked and drained. (Now, no one sells a 7 oz box of pasta so you are either going to have to weigh it or eyeball it. The pasta I like to use the best is a Ronzoni pasta with added fiber. That one comes in a 14 oz box so you can easily gauge about half the box. Also this recipe does cover up the ick factor of whole wheat pasta pretty well if you are so inclined. Elbow macaroni is traditional but I actually like it better with rotini because the sauce gets caught in all the twirls and it’s so yummy!)

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese. (You absolutely MUST shred your own. No ifs ands or buts about it. The packaged shredded cheese has flour or cornstarch in it to keep the cheese from sticking together. This will ruin your sauce, I promise you. Plus it’s cheaper to buy a block of cheese and just shred it yourself. I use an 8 oz block of sharp cheddar. If you wanted to get crazy you might experiment with different cheeses. I, however, am a lover of the routine.)

2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp BUTTER (if you use margarine in this, I can no longer speak to you)
1 cup water
1 12 oz can of evaporated milk

Combine the dry ingredients in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. If you have Calphalon, this is the time to use it. Add butter, water and evaporated milk.

Using a whisk, stir CONSTANTLY over medium or medium-low heat. Do not try to rush this sauce. If you do, you’ll regret it. This is the most time consuming step and I’m not going to lie, it’s not fun. It takes a long ass time. But really work that whisk around and make sure you get no scorched film on the bottom or in the corners of the saucepan. I’m not even kidding. Don’t stop for anything unless one of your kids is bleeding or on fire. Eventually you will start to see the mixture thicken; it will start to cling to the sides of the pan. Now, you might pause for a nanosecond to see if it’s boiling. If you pause and immediately see bubbles in the middle of the pan, you are boiling, Now get back to stirring, but set your timer for ONE MINUTE and keep stirring. This is a marathon, people, not a sprint. You just want to make sure you get to optimum thickness, without getting too thick, because the cheese is going to add thickness, as will the starch from the pasta.

OK, after one minute of boiling and stirring, remove the pan from the heat, and start tossing in your shredded cheese, a handful at a time. After every addition, whisk it together to incorporate. I usually leave about a half cup of cheese out of the sauce to use on top, but you can taste the sauce to see if it’s cheesy enough for you.

Now dump in your cooked macaroni and toss it all together. You want to have more sauce than pasta because the pasta is going to soak some up when you bake it. It’s just creamier this way. Pour it into a casserole dish (I use the medium oval Corning Ware myself but a square pan would work too, you just want about a 2 quart capacity.) that you’ve sprayed with cooking spray.

Now you can either sprinkle the leftover cheese on top, or you can get fresh cheese to put on top if you’ve used all yours in the sauce. I also like to sometimes mix my cheese with breadcrumbs and paprika to make a pretty crust on top.

Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes until the top looks how you want it too and it’s bubbly.

Next, go walk on the treadmill for about six hours and go to confession.

Oh, quick side note. I have made this recipe using 2% cheese, and I’ve made it using 2% evaporated milk. I would not recommend you go low fat on BOTH though. One or the other if you feel guilty . And today is the first time I’ve ever made it in advance, then transported it to bake elsewhere. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Secure Women

Today I read THE MOST amazing post by Miss Britt. I’ll send you on to her post because I can’t add a single thing to her insight. But I will post my favorite part here so even if you are too lazy to click through (which, WTF? It’s just a click!) you can get the point.

After spending a few months focusing my friendship time and energy almost exclusively on secure women, I’ve noticed some distinct advantages of being friends with people who generally like themselves.  For example:

• Secure women don’t take it personally if you forget to call them on their birthday.  They understand that your poor manners are a reflection of you, not them, which makes it much easier for them to forgive you (every single year).
• Secure women aren’t afraid to come right out and ask if they think they might have hurt your feelings or pissed you off.
• Secure women can be trusted to tell you, eventually, if you have done something to hurt their feelings or piss them off.
• Secure women can be trusted when they tell you they are happy for you.  And they will tell you, because they aren’t threatened by building someone else up.
• Secure women inspire you, in part because they aren’t afraid to share their progress with the world.
• Secure women believe you when you tell them that you love them, and they will continue to believe you until tell (or show) them otherwise.  Explicitly.  If they haven’t heard from you in a while, they assume you’re busy.

I plan to devote more of my life to becoming a more secure woman.

This Time of Year Sucks

First, let me assure you this is not a rant about the weather. I find complaining constantly about the heat in TEXAS to be ridiculously banal and drives me to want to slap you and remind you that you could always move to Alaska. Not YOU of course. No, that’s a lie. I do mean you.

What I mean is that a year ago, my marriage started to implode. It started on an ill-fated family getaway to the Cascade mountains when we lived in Seattle for like a minute and a half. The EX and I came back barely speaking to one another. Then we all three got colds, then we started talking, and it all went downhill from there. I can’t help but remember that these days.

The worst part is that my birthday is a particularly bad memory. I was out of town on my birthday last year, sent to visit friends by the EX as my gift, which was totally sweet. Except that on my actual birthday, although we talked like four times on the phone, he never once wished me a happy birthday. I finally texted him after midnight to admit that my feelings were really hurt by that, especially because that was not the first time in our relationship that he had forgotten my birthday on the actual day. He felt badly, apologized profusely, and I felt better. Until I got home the next day to him telling me he wanted to separate and had been researching places in town to rent apartments. Which means that that is how he spent my birthday – figuring out how to leave me.

I am a huge birthday person. I love to celebrate birthdays – everyone’s birthday. I also love my birthday. Well, I used to. This year, I want nothing to do with it. I wish that I could turn the calendar page and just miss the day altogether. I even asked the EX to please not get me anything (as he has been overly generous at Christmas and Mother’s Day) and to not bother helping Betsy get me anything. She is too young to actually care about doing anything for me, so anything would really be coming from him.

Maybe next year I can get excited about my birthday again. This year, I will pretend it’s not happening.

I *Heart* Houston

Oh, y’all… I just got back from a great weekend in Houston with my dear, dear friends. I consider these girls family, and it had been forever since we had time to sit and talk and just hang out together. It was amazing. We ate, we drank, we shopped, we talked….

I ate some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had in my life. The restaurant was even more awesome because there is an adorable man who sings a kind of karaoke. He’s more like a lounge singer who uses the karaoke machine as his backup band. He’s pretty good, but it’s mostly cool because he just looks so genuinely happy to be there.

My girls and I went to a nearby bar to have some cocktails and talk. I won’t go into the whole story, but we met a group of guys. One was obnoxious, one was HOTT and one was also hot but a 24 year old Spanish guy named Humberto who had his shirt open practically to his navel. I loved him because he told me I look like I’m 24 or 25. Totally a line and I knew it then too but I loved it. The HOTT one was named Blake and other than being HOTT he was just not my type at all. He’s a hunter, he’s very conservative, and I think that he’s probably truly a dick. But as I said, he was HOTT and he was willing to verbally spar with me over many things. To make a long story short, we took a walk in the parking lot to look for animals (I don’t know. I was drunk. Don’t don’t ask me.) and made out while leaning up against someone’s car. I was content to just kiss him for a while because… did I mention he was HOTT? He was kind of trying to take it a bit farther, so I went back to my friends. I couldn’t resist jabbing him for it – “Way to make out with a stranger in a parking lot, Mr. Family Values. I’m a crazy socialist hippie, I’m supposed to do these things, but you are supposed to know better.” It was fun. And I think it went a far way toward reminding me yet again that my life will go on. It may have been trampy but it was also healing. So, Blake the conservative Phi Delt dude I met in a bar in Houston – Thank You!

But let me just tell you that five martinis is too many. I’m sure that sounds elementary to all of you, but apparently I needed to be reminded. Today I am nursing a hangover of epic proportions. Totally worth it though.

Sometimes making bad choices is fun.

Oh, I Give Up

Betsy has now taken to changing her own diaper.

Yes, that’s right. She realizes she needs one, and has the ability to find the diapers, take her old one off and put a fresh one on.

I give up. She obviously wants to wear diapers for the rest of her life.

Making Good Choices

Seems lately that the big parenting mantra is “make good choices!” I’ve used it myself until I realized it doesn’t work. At least not on my kid. But I do try to teach Betsy about choices and consequences, and how every choice has a consequence – some good and some bad.

Unless you live under a rock you are somewhat familiar with the Joran van der Sloot stuff in the news. And it’s absolutely tragic that two young girls lost their lives. He is undoubtedly a predator. But it also cannot go ignored that both the girls that he killed (the ones we know about) made bad choices. One went wild on her graduation trip, drank too much and went off with a stranger, the other went back to the hotel room of a man she just met. Now, I am not saying that either girl deserved what happened to her. Obviously they did not deserve to die for making a bad choice. How many countless women make these same bad choices every day of the world and have no consequences at all?

I’ve always been an overly cautious person. I was the fuddy-duddy college girl urging my roommates and friends not to get in cars with guys they didn’t know. I was always of the opinion that until you knew someone a little better, it was a good idea to meet them for dates. I still believe that, even at my age. I would never let a date pick me up at my house even now. I never brought a random guy home with me and I never went home with a random guy, not even in college. I don’t say this to put myself up as the poster child for good decisions because, trust me, even not having done those things I made TONS of bad choices in my life. And if I had done those things, chances are good that all would have been fine. But I’m pessimistic and I don’t like to play the odds.

I’ve got this daughter who has absolutely no fear. I know that this could change and probably will. But it makes me worry about how I can teach her to be safe and make good choices while still letting her have fun. I want to be able to send her off on a fun trip for her high school graduation and feel confident that she will make good choices. Stay with her friends, at least one at all times, don’t go with any random boys anywhere, and don’t accept drinks that you didn’t watch the bartender make. I’m not saying she should be exactly like me, because lord knows I probably missed out on a lot of fun. Sure, I never got drugged and raped, but isn’t there a happy medium?

I suppose the only thing to do is talk talk talk talk about these choices and what can happen and why some choices are good and some are bad. Of course now is not the time to talk about the date rape drug, but I guess being in the habit of talking about choices and consequences will make it go smoothly in a few years.

God, this parenting shit is hard.

EDIT: I just remembered that the night I met the EX he was at a party at my apartments, and after talking to him all night, he was invited up to my apartment so I could give him my phone number because he had asked me out on a date. So he knew where I lived. And then he picked me up for our first date. See? Shouldn’t ever do it. Because things could suck ten years later.

Hello, Black Rage

I am in a state of anger the likes of which I cannot recall. We used to joke that Clom!d created in me the Black Rage and it was best to avoid me for a few days when I was taking it. This is way worse. I’m just so full of rage I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t even have the ability to get it out in a physical way. I guess I could vacuum but I really want to hit something or someone.

I feel betrayed, lied to, abandoned and just downright done wrong. I know everyone says that the happiness was worth the pain. I call bullshit. If I could go back in time and not marry the EX I would. If I knew how this was going to turn out, what I’d feel right now, I would not let myself in for it.

I hate myself for feeling that way, because of course that would mean no Betsy. But do you have any idea how hard it is to have living breathing mini-EX running around your house, pushing your buttons all the time? And then I am forced to speak to him on the phone every fucking day. I see him at least twice a week, when what I really want is to never see him or hear his voice again.

As I dropped Betsy off at his house tonight, he asked me three times what was wrong and I just wanted to punch him in the stomach. Since I couldn’t give in to the rant then, you all get it now.

“You don’t get to ask me that, fucker. How I am is of no consequence to you anymore. We aren’t friends because you threw that away. I will pretend to be friendly in front of our kid, but I am not your friend. You have ruined my life and it will take a long time to rebuild it. And right now? I hate you.”

Sadly furiously typing those words doesn’t really make me feel better. Maybe I’ll see if I can go hit some of Betsy’s stuffed animals with a pillow or something.

FML

I got some distressing news via instant messenger last night from the EX. Seems he is seeing someone and wants to introduce her to Betsy “just as his friend” but he kindly did not want Betsy to be the one to spill the beans to me. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach yet again. Funny thing, though. I sort of knew before he even typed it that he was about to deliver such news. I’ve felt it coming for a while, actually. I guess I do still know him well enough to know when he’s hiding something from me, and that’s pretty much the only thing he’d have reason to hide from me.

After that conversation abruptly ended (because I turned off IM) I popped an Amb!ien and laid down in bed to ponder my life. Sure, there were tears, lots of them. I hadn’t had a good cry in AGES so it was ok. I honestly don’t know why the universe continues to hand me this shit. Perhaps I was Hitler in a past life. In any event this shit does keep landing on my plate and somehow I keep breathing. I never think I can or will. I think surely this time I deserve to curl up in a ball and die. But I don’t. My lot in life is to be the pitiable jilted ex-wife, still hopelessly hanging on to a marriage that is dead and an ex-husband who has so obviously moved on. Maybe this is the kick in the pants I needed to finally let it go. I don’t know. We’ll see.

In other news. I took my first regular Amb!ien last night. I tried a CR last week with mixed results because I didn’t give myself enough sleep time. But last night I wanted the good stuff. I slept like a rock and it took me a good ten minutes of being awake this morning before I remembered the events of last night, so that was kind of nice. And then I remembered that I texted with my friend and accepted an invitation to a party tonight because the date I was supposed to have is obviously not happening. I had to check my phone to see what I’d said, but all was fine. I do not remember turning off the TV or my light, though. I like the pills, but I doubt very much that I could take one if Betsy were home. I just don’t think I’d be responsive enough to her if she needed me.

So speaking of my date…. I had been emailing back and forth with a guy and he asked me earlier in the month if I wanted to get dinner or drinks. I said that I would like that but it seemed like the first time that would work would be this weekend because of prior plans for me on weekends, and his standing Wednesday night plans. He sort of poked fun at me, and I thought all was well, but all this week I never heard from him to make plans. I am absolutely fine with that. I’m not ready and I was silly to try to push myself. In fact, I canceled my membership to the dating site. That never felt right to me. I don’t judge people who use the sites, but there is just so much more to a person than you can ever find out online. I felt like I was dismissing too many people and worrying that maybe I was missing out on someone good. But you can’t go out with them all, can you? I don’t have time for that.

Anyway, to sum up this very rambling post, I’m left to rely on my strength yet again. Strength that I never knew I had. This situation doesn’t have the decency to just kill me, so it must be making my stronger, right?