I love that song Africa by that group Toto.

Honestly, that title is the most random thing I’ve ever written and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything–I just needed to write something.

But, it’s true.

I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired to write this week, simply because I’ve had an annoying cold/sore throat/cough/runny nose for 9 days now, and because I’ve been quite busy with work as well.  So, I’ve really had no time to reflect on anything, or find much humor in anything either.  I’ve just been trying to get at least one good night of sleep and not to overdose on cough medicine.

I did just have a nice pedicure with my mom this afternoon.  I don’t usually treat myself to those kind of things, but my mom really enjoys going and so I  booked us a double-pedicure so we could have our nails done and chat.

I learned a few things about my mom today:

She apparently loves Eminem’s new song “Monster” featuring Rhianna, and knows every word.

What?!?!  How awesome is that?!?!   I can remember when all she’d play is Anita Baker when I was in high school (gag).  Glad to know that as a mother, you never lose your ability to “get with the times”.

She picked toenail polish called, “Too Hot To Handle”.   Is she referring to her hot flashes or has her self-image drastically changed?  Either way, I love it.

The last two times I’ve gone to get my toenails done, I’ve randomly chosen colors called, “Smoke and Mirrors” and “Freedom”.  Hhhmmmmm………

Anyway, I’m going to cheat a little bit today and just post a couple of links to some older posts I wrote a while back that are much more entertaining.  One about Marriage and the other one about my Almost-Fatal accident, because if you just need a laugh today, that one will most likely give you one.

Hopefully I’ll be on the mend soon and will come up with something much more entertaining for you.

Until then, thanks for still stopping by:)

What do you get when you cross an anxious mother with WebMD.com?

Salmonella Poisoning.

So, the boys and I were home all the live-long day today while Husband went ice fishing.  We actually had a great time:  we played out in the snow, walked in the woods, walked all along our frozen brook and then played a little ice hockey on our skating rink that my handy husband built himself.

After a lot of fresh air during the day, I promised the boys that later this evening, I would make them Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins.  A favorite of ours.  (Well, not my husband’s favorite, but I just made him his lemon bars last weekend and he was gone all day sitting in his quiet fishing shanty all day long, so it was our turn).

As usual, I had got both boys sitting on top of our kitchen bar ‘helping’ me with the batter (a.k.a. cracking the eggs in such a way, that I have to spend 10 minutes fishing them out of the bowl with a spoon; blowing into the bowl of flour so that it flies everywhere and brings on coughing fits; fighting over who gets to use the egg beaters, grabbing things willy-nilly and attempting to just pour the whole bottle of vanilla in instead of using the teaspoon I have poised for them.

But at last, the batter was done, the mixing was done and I did what my mom always did when I was young–

Gave them each an egg beater to lick.  Back then it was almost better than eating the actual cooked dessert she had just made.

After a minute or so, my husband calls to me from in the living room, “hey, doesn’t that have raw egg on it?”.  I rolled my eyes at him to show him just how ridiculous he was being, waited about 20 seconds to second-guess myself, and then snatched them out of their hands mid-lick.

“WTF mom???”, said their poor faces.

“Ok, all done.  Get down, I’ll put them in the oven and they’ll be ready soon”.  The eased off the counter, licking every morsel off their fingers as   I tried to assuage my anxiety by telling myself that they had only been licking for about 60 seconds, but I knew.

The damage had already been done.

Instead of just letting things be and waiting to see if they get sick, I decided that, if they do in fact contract Salmonella Poisoning from the raw egg that was in the batter that I gave them, it wouldn’t be right for me to sit by idly while they suffer, so I ate a big honkin’ spoonful of raw batter myself.

You might call it crazy.  I call it L. O.V. E.

See, this way, if I begin to have symptoms of Salmonella Poisoning, then a) I won’t feel as guilty because I’ll be sick too and b) I’ll know that they’ll eventually get symptoms too and I can immediately rush them to the hospital.

It’s so true what the y say.  There is such a fine line between ‘crazy’ and ‘genius’, isn’t there?

And then, I waited.  I waited for symptoms to arise.  We all ate the batter at about 6:15pm, which means that if no one is running to the toilet by tomorrow morning things look good, since symptoms usually set in anywhere between 12-72 hours after consumption.  But, that means that for at least the next three days I’ll be on the lookout for abdominal pain, fever, vomiting and/or diarrhea.

On top of making you feel better about your parenting, I’ve decided to give you a link to the recipe for these yummy muffins as well.  We usually pull them right out of the oven, cut them in half, smear some melted butter all over them and savor them with a small glass of milk.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

It doesn’t go over this in the directions, but you have 3 options with the batter:

1) Throw caution to the wind and let your kids lick the egg beaters with delight like we all used to do before our society became hyper-paranoid about anything and everything.  (I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself).

2) Let them lick the egg beaters, but save one big whopping spoonful for yourself so that, just in case they do contract Salmonella Poisoning, you’ll have it too and you won’t feel so guilty.

3) Don’t let them lick the egg beaters and when they ask ‘why not’, explain to them that they can’t because there is a small chance they could die from it.  Because we have got to teach our kids that it’s better to be safe than sorry and frankly, ingesting raw egg is nothing short of culinary Russian Roulette!!!

Bon Appetit!