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Death by Gingerbread House

Death by Gingerbread House
(this is not our house. Far, far from it).

 

Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, all due to the intense and relentless desire of our son to make a gingerbread house.

We made one once, in the U.S., before we knew that you could preserve your sanity and use a kit. I vowed never again to make one from scratch. I would have used a kit here, but IKEA ran out before we got one, and the other places are too expensive.

So here I am, so exhausted, frustrated, and stressed that I resorted to taking a few old potatoes and hurling them at my shower wall as hard as possible.

I need more potatoes.

I thought that it might be hard to make a gingerbread house here because of the high humidity. That was the least of our issues.

I thought it would help to use a box inside for reinforcement. Yeah, that wasn’t much help.

I could list out the problems, but let’s say that in the end, we have a gingerbread house precariously held together with not just frosting but also tape, glue, staples, nails, and sewing pins. It is a house that any inspector would instantly condemn.

I’m afraid to let the kids decorate it because I know the second someone touches it, it will collapse. So it will remain undecorated. In fact, when I get around to it, I’m pitching it. I’d like to pitch it against my shower wall too, but I still have to clean up the potatoes. And the nails might scratch the enamel.

I informed our son that we are never ever going to attempt another gingerbread house from scratch. The crazed look on my face convinced him not to argue. I told him maybe we could just paint a box brown and decorate that. He said maybe we could just eat the decorations. Hey, even better!

The biggest bummer is that I was at a Christmas luncheon on Thursday and part of the dessert was these really cute little figures made of sugar – trees and people. I asked everyone at our table to give me theirs so I have a virtual sugar forest and village. They will be homeless this Christmas.

Related posts:

Missing Christmas 

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Why I Need a Dog

Sometimes I imagine a conversation between the Father and Jesus that went like this:

Father: I think we should give Gina a dog.
Jesus: I don’t think she would like that. I think she would find it disruptive.
Father: Exactly.
Jesus: Oh, this is going to be fun.

Oh yes, she’s been disruptive. She’s required countless hours of training, walking, feeding. She has woken me at 4 am many times to throw up whatever it was she indiscriminately ate on the street the day before. Always 4 am.

We have shelled out crazy dollars to fly her around the world and attempt to diagnose various mysterious illnesses she seems to have. We have lived out the cliche of “everyone in the family wants a dog, but mom ends up taking care of her.”

And at the end of the day, I need it.

I need a dog to remind me that I am not as important as I think I am, and neither are the tasks from which she takes me.

I need a dog to slow me down, make me take walks around the neighborhood, go outside early in the morning and breathe.

I need a dog to show me how to love people well – to always greet them at the door like they’re the best thing that’s happened today, to stay close to them wherever they go, to depend on them for what you need.

I need a dog who burps in my face, and sticks her tongue out at me, and runs around like a Tasmanian devil, to make me laugh when I least expect it.

Disruptive? Yes. Fun? Absolutely. Just what I need? Yep.

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Wrong Number

In college, our dorm phone number was 836-2223. Unfortunately to drunk frat boys at 2 am, this translated to 836-BABE. I was the one who was typically awakened by these calls. I always gave them to my roommate. She did not appreciate it.

We had a few wrong numbers in China. My favorite was this woman, who insisted that her sister must live at my house because that was the number she had written down.

This week, it’s “call for someone else” week at the Butz house. I’ve had at least 6 people call in the last three days looking for a variety of people. Some of them have called more than once. There’s a person in Wisconsin who seems intent on reaching me on my cell, but when I call back it says Kohls. Why would Kohls be calling me? One man even resorted to swearing at us on our answering machine. Well, swearing at his friend, “Why won’t you pick up? I know you’re there.” Really? Do you know who is here? Because the message on the machine should have clued you in.

Sorry, it’s just the four of us here. I hope you find who you’re looking for. Please stop calling.

* Also, I realized that my comments setting was like Fort Knox, so if you have tried to comment in the past and found it too complicated, I think I’ve remedied that. Comment away!

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Conquering the Highways

There is an intersection here at Hwy 528 and the Florida turnpike that’s a little nutty. It feels like some maniacal engineers drew the plans to ensure the highest number of people would accidentally be forced out in a place not their intended destination. There should be a sign at the entrance, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating because the first two times I tried to navigate it, I came out in completely the wrong direction and had to drive 20 minutes to get turned back the right way. It’s enough to make even someone who has successfully driven the streets of China apprehensive.

I have to drive this way most weekends to get to our daughter’s “home” soccer games which are in The Villages. For you native central Floridians, that’s Lake Nona to The Villages. “Home.” For those in my hometown, imagine your home field is in Bloomington. Uff da. Anyone else, we’re talking over an hour.

Today, I determined that this intersection would not cause me a moment of anxiety. In fact, I would do it without consulting my map! And lo and behold, I did it! Victory! It’s the little things, remember? I feel now that I could conquer anything those Floridian engineers throw my way.

Bring it on, Florida highways. Bring. It. On.

What are you calling victory today?

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Avoiding a Ticket

It’s hard to find victory in being pulled over by the police, but I’m going to try.

First of all, just before I left the house, I almost didn’t grab my purse because it was just a short drive to drop our daughter off at a birthday party. I had this thought though, “What if I get pulled over?” which was really the Holy Spirit saying, “Gina, you don’t know it, but you’re about to do something stupid. Let’s not make it stupider.” I’m just going to call that the grace of God.

Second, this was a nice police officer. I mean really, genuinely nice. Again, pure grace of God.

So he asked me the classic, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” and I honestly, truly did not. Apparently I rolled through a stop sign (in my defense – a stop sign at an L in the road). He asked me, “Do you realize that you need to come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign?” Yes, yes I do officer. (why do they ask questions that beg for sarcasm?)

Then he asked me, “Do you realize that there is a $164 fine and 3 points off your license if you do not come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign?” No, no I did not.

“I’m going to go back to my car and decide if I need to give you this $164 fine.”

So I got to wait while he consulted the police gods on my fate. In a few minutes he came back and said, “I’d really like to not have to give you a $164 fine,” to which I responded, “I would so appreciate it if you did not.”

His conclusion was, “You’ve been very nice to me, so I’m going to be nice to you and not give you this $164 fine” (Wait, can you remind me how much it is again?). “As long as you promise me you will come to a full and complete stop at stop signs in the future” (full and complete, I’m on it).

So I guess my victory could be avoiding a (clearly) $164 fine? I’d say the greater victory for me was not crying in front of the police officer who undid me with his patience and kindness in the midst of my embarrassment and anxiety. It was certainly a humbling moment. Maybe just experiencing it and staying in it was victory enough.

What are you calling victory today?

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Pants

I realize this is late, but I was away for the weekend in a hotel with no internet service, and I just can’t type a whole post on my phone. And here you thought I’d given up. Never!

And now for something fairly shallow: my victory for Friday was pants. Yes, pants.

The weather is slowly turning cooler here in Orlando, which is wonderful. I love wearing warmer clothes, and because I chill easily, anything less than 80 degrees is justification for me to wear pants. Problem is, I don’t have a lot of pants.

You see, God saw fit to give me the curvy body of a woman on the skeletal frame of the average 6th grader. This makes clothes shopping relatively difficult. Most women’s departments do not run small enough for me, and most juniors departments do not expect their shoppers to have borne two children. Or to have hips. Or a sense of modesty. Finding something suitable can be a challenge.

That’s why it was a great victory when I ordered some pants in the mail and they fit perfectly! It shouldn’t have been a great surprise because I already own two pairs of the same pants in other colors, but I bought the other ones a year ago and you just never know when they’re going to change things. Honestly, this made my day. I think I’m going to buy every color they have.

What are you calling victory today?

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Gators

One of my biggest fears in moving to Orlando was the gators. No, seriously. I pictured gators everywhere. In the lakes. Crawling out of drainage pipes. Eating my dog. We had friends who had a gator in their garage. They don’t even live near water. Basically I thought we were moving to an episode of Swamp People.

I was wary, the first few times I ran around our neighborhood. I tiptoed on the dock. I made wide berths around puddles and swampy looking water. I was suspicious of large bushes.

But six months passed and no sign of gators. I think I heard some in the reeds one night at the lake, if gators make a sound something like a pig. So either gators or water pigs was what I heard. But no sightings.

I started to get a little disappointed, nay, a lot disappointed. I was told there’d be gators. When I mentioned this gatorless existence on Facebook, people suggested I had not been leaving my house, and I simply needed to look harder.

So I’ve looked. I look at every body of water I pass. I squint into swampy places. It’s not that this area lacks wildlife. I’ve seen deer, armadillo, otters, sand cranes, and more vultures than I care to count. I had almost given up hope.

And then today, I’m pretty sure I saw one. It was on the left side of the road, probably 50 feet from the street, sunning itself on the side of a lake (I use the term lake generously). Finally! I think I was starting to get a complex, an “everyone’s seen a gator but me what am I doing wrong?” complex. No more! I now believe there are gators in Orlando.

How long will it be until I am no longer excited to see gators? Probably when I see one in my garage. Definitely if they eat my dog.

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Thoughts on Unpacking

Thoughts going through my mind as we try to organize our belongings into a home:

I’d like to ___________ (hang the shower curtain, assemble the bed, dry my hair, etc) if only I could find ______________(curtain rings, the set of screws, my hair dryer, etc.)

Hey look – that fits perfectly there!

Where are my indoor shoes?

Hmm . . . where on earth are we going to put this piece of furniture?

Hey! That thing!

Wow. Our master bedroom is stinkin’ huge.

Where are my indoor shoes?

It’s amazing how fast our dog can run when given the chance.

I love Target.

Where did all this stuff come from?

I still need my indoor shoes.

They’re in here somewhere.

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Tap water and other novelties

America is novel to me right now.

This morning I watched a line of 5 cars creeping along behind a truck on a quiet road. The road was wide enough for three cars, and I thought, “In China, all of those cars would have gone around him, even if there had been oncoming traffic.”

Last night I threw a melatonin pill in my mouth and immediately realized it was not the kind you suck. Ack! Ack! What to do? And then I realized – I can drink this tap water. I have to say it wasn’t the best tasting water seeing as it was in the bathroom, but people, it was tap water. I walked around feeling weird about that for a little while.

Did you know that they make peanut butter Cheerios? And vanilla nut? Or something like that. I feel a little badly for regular Cheerios, like they aren’t good enough.

They have Crystal Light single packets that come in mixed drink flavors now like margarita, because nothing says, “Soccer mom who’d rather be at happy hour” like fake alcohol in your water bottle.

The grapes are big but there are no seeds, and the skins don’t feel like something you need to cut through with a knife!

America really knows how to do paper products. I feel like I’m wiping my nose with a blanket.

The internet is crazy fast here!

Yeah, I’m enjoying it all.

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