Joys of life

First blog post ever so bear with me please. Expect me to be serious. Expect me to be sarcastic. EXPECT ANYTHING!

What a better way to kick off my first blog than a trip through the joys of life. The particular joys on my mind right now are the joys of being a single parent and they joys of the Christmas rush and the way they mixed together today (actually yesterday now).

It's nearly 1:30 in the morning on the 22nd of December. Nothing went as planned yesterday. The plans were: get the living room cleaned fully, pick up my daughter from my soon-to-be-ex-wife, get the last of the ingredients I need for the mountain of cookies I plan to make (for family, friends, and co-workers), set up the Christmas tree with my daughter's help, and make the dough for the cookies. Yeah. Right.

Let's see where the plans fell apart: 1) got up late thereby got a late start on the cleaning; 2) cleaning interrupted by call from my soon-to-be-ex-wife asking for help since she and my daughter are at Wal-Mart and have too many bags to get on the bus with. CHUMP! I drop what I am doing and help her get home; 3) spend too much time wrapping presents for the kids and still haven't done the shopping I need to or finish cleaning; and 4) picked up my daughter (as planned -SOMETHING WENT RIGHT!) and stayed in town shopping with her way, way too late.

Yes, there are still more deviations from my plans in the process but numbering all them was getting monotonous.

You thought so too? Glad I'm not the only one.

I had offered to pick up some things for Mom so she wouldn't have to drive into town. Not a big deal. Stinker (my daughter) and I took the peas, 'Nilla Wafers, etc to Mom only to find that an aunt and uncle I rarely get to see were visiting. Another big delay and variation from my plans.

I hope this isn't sounding too negative. This is just background that is needed. I can hear Stimpson J. Cat in the other room practicing for his rendition of the Happy Happy Joy Joy song. Stick with me please.

By the time we got home it was too late to think about putting the tree up so I let Silly Girl (same daughter - different pet name) open the NickToons Christmas DVD I bought today. I was supposed to be working in the kitchen while she watched it but I chose to download music (legally) and chat with a friend in Seattle who has been scarce lately.

Goofy (still the same daughter) was about to fall out of the chair by the time the Rugrats part of the DVD was over so I put her in bed and headed for the kitchen.

I got the counters clear and clean. I laid out all of my measuring cups and spoons. I hooked up the very nice mixer that my soon-to-be-ex-wife didn't take with her. I laid out all of the ingredients for various types of cookies I plan to make.

Make dough, let it chill overnight, bake cookies in the morning before Silly (still same daughter) and I head to Mom and Dad's for the family Christmas get-together. Sounds okay? Yep.

My plans at this point had been revised. Not too bad for me. Going to put up the Christmas tree after my sister and her family head back to Dallas. The movie I had planned to take the little redhead (could that be anyone but my daughter?) to see won't be out until Wednesday so time on the tree tonight won't be a problem.

I need to stray from the string of events to give a little background. My soon-to-be-ex-wife loves cats. We had a cat that was born about the same time as (OKAY! I've run out of pet names for her!). A second cat that I said "NO!" to got added to the mix in July. The lazy, fat, older cat left with my soon-to-be-ex-wife. I have the blond, six-month old, tomcat that I never wanted but am cursed to love and won't part with. He fits into this tale so continue to bear with me please.

As I was saying... Everything was laid out. I decided to start with chocolate chip cookies first. First part of recipe: DONE! Second part: add the flour and make sure to keep it scraped from the edge of the bowl. Not a problem. The mixer, as I said earlier is a nice one. Restaurant grade.

Remember the tomcat?

The turntable on the mixer is running at full speed. I switch the mixer itself from low speed range to high. All of the flour is in the bowl now. I am using a spatula to keep the mixture from the edge of the bowl and channeled towards the beaters.

Did I mention the tomcat?

At this point the large measuring cup that was by the mixer crashes to the floor. It's spot is now full of the tomcat. Uh oh. The tomcat is looking at the mixer and is obviously wondering what I am doing and if what's in the bowl is something it wants. I do the obvious thing. I grabbed the tomcat. It's bad enough that he's on my food prep surface. He had a broken leg when we got him. I didn't want him to lose that leg in my mixer.

You can uncover your eyes and keep reading. I successfully removed him from the counter. He wound out taking a short flight that didn't hurt anything but his pride. Why did he take a flight? No, it had nothing to do with me being angry with him. I had only had time to react to keep him from being hurt.

The reason he took flight: Remember the spatula? The cheap plastic handled spatula that I got for a buck at the dollar store?

In my haste to grab the cat, I simply turned loose of the spatula. Where did it go you ask? Right into the beaters. Horrible grinding noise. Half mixed cookie dough flying out of the bowl. Cat launched from hands and across the kitchen.

I got the mixer turned off and expected to be pulling pieces of the spatula out of the bowl. It was, and is, still in one piece. Not a scratch on it. I started the mixer up again and here goes a horrible noise again. Different but still horrible. I wish the people who made the beaters for this high dollar mixer had made them as sturdy as that one dollar spatula.

I look in the accessory drawer I got the beaters out of in the first place. Hmmm. Looks like my soon-to-be-ex-wife never bothered to get a second pair of beaters for the mixer. Lets see... It's just a little after midnight. It shouldn't be too big of a deal to go to Wally World and get more. Oops. Remember that "joy" part of being a single parent?

My little red headed angelic (because she is asleep) daughter is only six years old. I can't leave her and getting this done tonight is not worth waking her for.

So what is to be done now? Clean up my mess. Can't leave that out. Throw away the half mixed dough. Go to bed. Get up early enough to go to the store to get more beaters. Make cookies. Get to my parent's house (which is thankfully next door) by noon with the cookies for my sister and her family.

Good revision to the plan? Sounds like it. So how did starting a blog and writing until after 2:30 get into the mix?

All in all, it was a good day. I learned some lessons (mainly to lock the cat in the bathroom when I am making cookies) and I had a great time running around with my daughter. We had fun and cut up a lot. She and I don't get a lot of time alone together since I have full custody of my son from my first marriage (something for a different tale). He is with his maternal grandmother this week and Silly/Stinker/Goofy/Silly Girl/Etc. and I plan on taking full advantage of it, at least until she goes back to her mother on Wednesday night.

The Christmas rush is going to start back up for me in about five hours so I had better forget about the blog and get to bed.

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!' Joys of life indeed.