And these are a few of the funny little things my daughters have said already this morning:

Like this that I made. Yum.

You know, I loved camping when I was growing up. My family never had any money, so camping trips were our family vacations. I loved the ride in the family vehicle - making a nest in the back with blankets and pillows and listening to cassette tapes in my walkman. I loved the tent and the being outside and the lack of rules and the fact that my dad had a penchant for packing a gallon of salsa and giant bags of tortilla chips. I really, really loved all of it. As I've gotten older, the shine has worn off a bit. And since I've had kids, I downright dislike it. I don't like all of the logistics involved and the bugs and never being warm enough. I always wish that I was in a hotel or back at home. I've decided that I loved it when I was a kid because I didn't have to do anything but show up (and really, I didn't even have a choice in the matter). Adult camping is laden with responsibility and that just doesn't seem like a vacation to me.

The dunes

The sky reflected in the water

I've been doing a lot of research this week into being a personal chef - who else is doing it in Portland, what they're charging for which services, etc. It's sort of exciting and sort of overwhelming all at the same time. I'm definitely cheaper than the four or so that I found and I also realized that not everybody is professionally trained, which boosted my confidence a bit. I need to set my pricing by portion size. I need beautiful marketing materials. I need to figure out exactly what licensing and insurance I need. I also need to come up with a name for my business. I asked for name suggestions on Facebook, noting that my porn name - Violet Nash - doesn't work. I was trying to be cute, but someone suggested Violet Nosh. I kind of love it. I'm not married to it yet, but I kind of love it. It's food-related, but not specific. Any of you have other suggestions?

One of the things I tend to dislike about "mommy" blogs is that there is a whole cadre of women who try really hard to fit into some look-how-badly-i'm-parenting-but-isn't-it-funny-and-I-hope-I don't-fuck-them-up stereotype. I sincerely hope I don't come across like that. I want nothing but the best for my little darlings. I try really, really hard to be a good mother while readily admitting that I'm not as good at it as I thought I would be. I thought I'd be that super-mom with infinite patience who bakes cookies and has a every kind art supply known to mankind. But I'm just.... not.

For about a year plus, there has been an onslaught of stickers in this house. I absolutely forbid them being stuck on walls or windows or furniture, but they are always on the floor which means they are always stuck to my feet, my socks, my shoes. And because I am always picking them up and sticking them in pocket to throw them away, they are always getting forgotten, washed, and stuck to my clothes. They drive me insane. Truly.

So my last post was about the girls in bed this morning. Here's tonight's story....

Without getting into the sordid details of our terrible sleeping situation (please, baby Jesus and baby Allah, let us have this rectified by the time they're 4), I was lying in bed at 6:30am spooning Belly. She had been awake for an hour at that point and, understanding that she wasn't going to go back to sleep, I was just trying to keep her quiet so Buggy could keep sleeping. It was sort of a farce, though, because the Bug had been stirring and was in the beginning throes of waking up for real. Anyway, I was in the middle of the girls and both Belly and I had our backs to her sister. Belly whispered something I couldn't understand. What? She whispered it again. What? She whispered very clearly, very slowly, "She's. Eating. Her. Boogers." I rolled over and looked at Buggy. Sure enough, the mostly-asleep little punk was digging in her nose and popping it in her mouth. Twintuition? I think it just might be!

I make this spinach dip that is crazy, crazy good. The first time I had it was at a memorial service. Not to make light of a tragic moment in my life, but I was pretty inconsolable and only eating a little something because I was tired of people coming up and telling me I should. So I put a spoonful of dip and a couple chips on a plate. I nibbled the dip. It was the BEST spinach dip ever - hot and cheesy and perfect. I found out who made it and insisted she give me the recipe. Now that's the standard easy potluck dish I make. And I always say it's like the best of white-trash cooking because there's no real cooking involved (zapped in the microwave), it uses canned and frozen food; the most complicated part is cutting a bit of onion. Oh, but it's delicious and you'd never know. And the fact that I make it, people never suspect. Ha! Anyway, I got this idea in my head about a month ago that that dip would make a great filling for chile rellenos. I kept thinking about it and thinking about it. So this week I made it for my cooking gig (and us).

I should also mention that I've never made chile rellenos. I was unaware that there were so many steps involved. I was a little short on time. And I broke a sweat getting it all done. I felt sort of like I was on a reality cooking show trying to get everything ready before the clock expired and I had to put my hands in the air. I didn't want to be the chef who mouths "fuck!" as I slam down some key, unused ingredient, or the one who starts crying and murmuring, "I could've done better.... I could've done better...." I almost always hate the crier. Man up, for christ's sake. But I digress.

The peppers I got from the store were ridiculously big. I could only fit half of them on my largest baking sheet to broil them, so I had to do two rounds. I broiled them, stuck them in a paper bag until they cooled, peeled, and stuffed them with the dip.

Then I dredged them in flour, dipped 'em in eggs, dredged them in cornmeal, fried them up in a skillet. THEN they went in the oven to make sure the insides were melty and hot all the way through. I served them with salsa and sliced avocado. Plus I made a green salad with a buttermilk-blue cheese dressing. They were incredibly good, but I will not make them again without another person to help me. I could've seriously used another set of hands.

Screw the fourth. I didn't have an independence day. I had a whole independence weekend! And my oh my it was glorious. Dude took the girls to my mom's for the weekend - leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Monday around 1pm. That whole time, I was fancy free. I got up when I wanted. I made coffee and toast for breakfast. Nobody yelled at me, was rude to me, made unreasonable demands of me. I set out to accomplish absolutely nothing. And that's exactly what I did. Except..... something inside of me snapped. Something strange. If you know me, you know there is pretty much nothing I hate doing more than cleaning. But my house was crazy messy and the toy tornado twins were nowhere in sight. I cleaned up all their kitchen stuff. Then I tackled this big pile that ended up having the kitchen table underneath it. Then I took a break. Then I decided that I wanted to read in the sunroom, but there was too much crap everywhere. So I cleaned it. And then I read on the floor in there. This is how I meandered throughout the whole house and before I knew it, I'd cleaned the entire thing top to bottom. Let me assure you that this is unlike me to the nth degree. But I was sooooo happy to spend the weekend in a clean house. I even entertained some girlfriends on Sunday evening, just like a real grownup - drinks and snacks on the back deck and I didn't have to say, "Please excuse the kid mess. You know how it goes...."