Cheddar Soup or Humble Pie

A trip to the hospital yesterday confirmed that the two older kids were sick, as well as, Uwe. Marcus went to school today, but Uwe and Matthea stayed home. With everyone feeling sick I thought I should be the good wife/mom and fix a nice cheddar soup for lunch. Meg and I walked to the store and bought the cream and bacon.
I returned ready to overwhelm my husband with my cooking ablilties. I began with pouring the chicken broth in the pot to warm up. I then got the starch ready to thicken up the liquid. Once the broth warmed up I added the starch and waited, and waited, and stirred, and waited some more. But, it never thickened up. I added a bit more starch and stirred and waited, but still nothing. Time was running out, so I gave up and hoped that the cheese would make it thicken up a bit. I openned the cream and added it next. After the soup warmed up again I addd shredded cheddar, stirring until it was all melted. It still was thick, but I thought it might be ok.
I was so excited to make a warm lunch for my sick husband. He is never home for lunch, so I thought it would be fun to have something nice. With this thought I poured a small bowl of soup and tasted it.
"Sweet?", I thought to myself, "Why is this sweet?"
I looked at the cream box. "Whipping Cream" it read, which doesn't mean it has sugar added to it. But, when I read the Chinese I knew what the problem was. It said, "Sweet Cream".
"Great!", I yelled from the kitchen.
"What's wrong?", asked Uwe.
I told him and he tried it as well.
He looked at me and said, "Well, I think it would be a great soup with regular cream and not the sweet one. Don't worry about it. I'll go to Subway and get a couple of sandwiches for us."
And off he headed out.
As I was cleaning up my mess. I thought about my "wonderful cooking abilities" and laughed as I realized that Humble Pie was pretty easy for me to make. So much for me being the wonderful wife today. Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who didn't marry me for my cooking abilities.

A Paper Towel Kind of Day

I should have known that this day was going to be at least interesting since both Marcus and Matthea stayed home from school sick. All was good until the afternoon. That was when the paper towels came in handy. Megan was taking a nap. Matthea was in her booster chair playing with cars. Marcus, engrossed in a comic book, was lounging on the couch with his legs crossed. He had his cup of hot tea sitting next to him on the red kid's table. Matthea was far enough away, but not far enough. She scooted herself over to the table. Then bending down, she picked up one end of the plastic table sliding the cup of tea onto the tile floor with a crash. Of course, I didn't see any of it in time to intervene. I only heard the crash of the ceramic coffee cup and the yell of my seven year old. The hot tea had spilled onto Marcus's foot and soaked his sock. His foot was ok. After getting him to go change I assessed the damage. The handleless tea cup lay on it's side in the middle of a puddle of tea.
"Why don't I buy paper towels at Costco," was the thought that ran through my mind as I scanned the just mopped floor.

To blog or not to blog, we'll see

"To blog or not to blog," is a question that I haven't been able to answer (or probably more accurately, not taken time to sit and do it). About four months ago I was in a discussion over a blog with some friends and thought, "Yes, this is just what I need to do. I love writing and what a great way to do it." Well, I checked out the blogspot website and found out that we, the Maurers, actually had an account. "What? When did we creat this? I sure don't remember this," was my first thoughts.
I read some of the blog and thought to myself, "Ahhh, yes. I remember this. I had orginally thought I would use it as a newsletter to keep people updated about us." OK, that was I think about 2-3 years ago.
So, today, after reading a friend's blog I got inspired again to try it. But this time I want to use it not as a "newsletter", but maybe as more of a place for me to practice writing through my life. So, here goes the first blog of a new series. Who knows, maybe I'll become a blogger after all!