Home is Where Your Hoard Is

Boots has been working late this week and I've been catching up on bad tv.
Have you seen that show Hoarders?
I think I could be a hoarder.
I have potential.
I keep everything.
Everything!
Gift bags and tissue paper from our wedding showers.
Pencils that are probably ten years old because the erasers haven't been completely used.
Broken purses and shirts I don't wear anymore because I might need to make something with the material.
I don't even sew!
I can't put a button on a shirt.
I have potential, definitely.
I am going to do something about it.
I'm off the next two days and I'm going to get organized.
My name is Rachel, and I'm a hoarder.

I'm going through a blogging slump right now so I'll just post something I read that I liked.

"Inside the God Box" by Mary Lou Quinlan

Dear Husband,

Congratulations!
You've made it one month- only 599 more to go.

Much love and admiration,
Yo' Wife

Why is it that the best, I mean the best, blog ideas come to me at night when I'm just about to drift off into dreamland?

I'm cooking again.

And including lots of very bad pictures.

Here we go!

Heat broiler.

Combine 1 pound ground lamb or ground beef with 1/4 cup finely chopped apricots, 1/2 teaspoon coriander, half of a small red onion, finely chopped......

That's where the pictures start.

I'm so not good at chopping and the onion went e v e r y w h e r e ! !

Everywhere!

(I have one of those chopper things, why haven't I used it?)

Here's the ground beef, chopped apricots, and coriander just chilling out.

Literally, chilling out.

I forgot to thaw the meat, again!

Same stuff as above, plus onions, salt (Kosher, of course!) and black pepper.

Form into balls and broil until cooked.

Are they done yet?

Are they done NOW?

Squeeze the crap juice out of one lemon to barely get enough juice for 3 tablespoons.

Vow that the whole lemon squashing process is too arduous and that next time you'll just buy the juice.

Mix lemon juice with 3 tablespoons EVOO, and more salt and pepper.

Oh, yeah.

1 cup couscous plus 1 cup hot water.

(Couscous smells like play-doh to me.)

Let the water and couscous (I swear, it looks like grits!) sit for five minutes, covered.

Then fluff with a fork.

Chop two plum tomatoes (the key to not squashing the guts out of your tomatoes is a very sharp knife), 1/2 English cucumber (what's the difference between American and English?  I just used whatever theTargets had.), mix dressing vigorously, fluff couscous again, and try not to eat all the Feta.

I LOVE feta!!!

Feta and me......what can I say?

I like cheese!

Boots, please don't shake your head at me like that!!

When your meatballs are finally cooked, arrange them prettily with all your stuff in the previous picture.

Enjoy!

Oh, and......cue camera batteries to go dead right when you're ready to take a picture of the finished product.

Yay.

Everybody's Got a Story. This One's Mine.

Three Februarys ago, I started learning what it's like to be on the other side of the casket.

I was nineteen, in my first year of college, and one semester in mortuary school.
I'd bugged him for over a month (I've bugged someone for every job I've ever had!) for an apprenticeship and finally got an invitation to work my first funeral.

I wore one of the only two suits I had.
It was black with purple pinstripes and purple collars and had one of those "false shirts" which I didn't think needed backup with a "real" shirt.
Mistake!

That was the absolute coldest day of my life.
(Since then I've experienced the second coldest day of my life but, that day takes the (frozen) cake.)
I had no coat suitable for a funeral so I went without, telling myself I was "conditioning" in case someone asked, "Aren't you cold?!"

He gave me a tour of his funeral home and taught me the code for the back door.
I sat in his office and read everything on his walls over and over as he sat at his desk and talked on the phone or read the paper or just stared into space.
I would have killed for a nap, I was so bored!
I was wondering if I had it in me to be a funeral director after three hours of mind-blowing self-reflection boredom when Hallelujah! it was finally time to go funeralize!
(My word, not the Urban Dictionary's.)

At the church, I pretty much did nothing.
He said carry flowers, I carried flowers.
He said seat these people, seat them I did.
He said hold this cord and I did.
For the whole funeral.
That elastic cord never left my side!
I was on top of this funeral business!

I froze my nose off at the cemetery.
I was starving to death and mentally exhausted.
I was so glad to finally be "in" and couldn't wait for the next one!

That was the only funeral we ever worked together.
The next week I got a call from the funeral home I work for now and decided I had to take a sure job rather than an occasional experience.
He understood and there were no hard feelings.

I tried to keep in touch with him and keep him up to date on my accomplishments in the funeral world.
At times I wondered if maybe I should have just kept part-timing with him but, since then he's sold his funeral and changing hands mid-stream would have probably been harder.
His health problems started becoming pretty serious and eventually they took over.

He died a few days ago and today was his funeral.
I didn't work his funeral, I only attended.
I'm terribly uncomfortable in situations I don't have defined roles in.
After spending so much time on the working side of the casket it's hard to go back to being on the mourning side.

The funeral was just great.
Great songs, great readings, great eulogies, and a great job by the funeral directors.

I'm sure he'd be happy.