Cheap tricks and a treat

If you read my post about the infamous Homecoming dress, I'm sure you've gathered that I'm a rather frugal person. Not cheap. Just responsible. (That's what I tell myself, anyway.) So when it comes to spending $20 or more on a child's Halloween costume, I cringe.

Last November when we walked into Walmart and found a rack of toddler costumes marked down to $1, we had a stroke of genius. We snatched up one of each style for both C and K. Half were in their current sizes and the other half were in their next size up. Complete the set with a mirror and a cute pink crate and you've got an awesome dress-up themed Christmas present that pleased both a two year old and a 10 year old. Many times throughout this past year, we were treated to the occasional fashion show, and once this summer I looked up to realize that two spooky ninjas were stalking me as I mowed the grass.

When Halloween rolled around this year, we dragged out the crate and asked the girls what they'd like to be. They excitedly dove in and had fun making their choices. And as an added bonus, they chose different costumes for different functions and we were even able to make a last minute swap when the weather took a cold dive on the night of trick-or-treat. A huge success and we're planning to repeat the process this year.

Onto the carving of the pumpkins. Asking me to pay $5 for something that we're going to take home and carve holes into is like asking me to take a $5 dollar bill, fold it up, and cut it into a paper snowflake to decorate for Christmas. (One per person, mind you.) It ain't gonna happen. But I'm all about tradition. Therefore, the first weekend in November of each year my family carves pumpkins.....that we get on clearance for .50 cents apiece. Let's face it, when you're looking at pictures of yourselves carving pumpkins from past years, does it really matter which month it was in? Waiting until November also means we've extended the life of the pumpkin and they're still in great shape by Thanksgiving. Why do we care what kind of shape they're in at Thanksgiving? Because we turn the faces toward the back and from the front we have a beautiful gathering of pumpkins on our porch to greet our guests.

The weekend after Thanksgiving is another family tradition. Some people do their Christmas shopping. Our family can be found in the backyard with our array of weapons; BB guns, bows and arrows, and of course the family favorite.....the shot gun....and we have target practice with those .50 cent pumpkins. Come on, could you actually shoot at a pumpkin that cost you $5? I think not. (FYI; our colored eggs suffer the same fate the weekend after Easter.)

Okay, I promised you a treat, so here it comes. This recipe has a minimum of two ingredients & a maximum of three. As if that's not reason enough to celebrate, it also has minimal calories & minimal fat grams. Before I share it with you, I'd like to ask one small favor.....please don't tell my husband that it's healthy! He loves this treat and would be devastated if he found out it wasn't clogging his arteries. Thanks!

Pumpkin Spice Cake
Ingredients: One box of Spice Cake mix
One 15 oz. can of Pumpkin
spoonful of cream cheese icing (Optional)
OR light whipped cream (Also optional)

What to do:
1. Combine the dry mix with the can of pumpkin. (Don't use any other ingredients. Batter will be thick but manageable.)
2. Spread the batter into 9 x 13 casserole dish sprayed with non-stick spray.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes or until done in the middle.
4. Optional: Upon removing from oven, poke holes across the top of the cake, warm up a spoonful of cream cheese icing, and drizzle it across the cake allowing it to seep into the holes.
5. Optional: Or simply serve with a scoop of whipped cream.

**Whether you use icing, whipped cream, or allow it to stand alone, this cake is a crowd pleaser. Hope you enjoy it**

Wishing you all a wonderful, fun and safe Halloween!

When life hands you lemons.....make oatmeal cookies.

I don't normally blog 2 days in a row, but I had to make an exception. On the heels of "Peek at a week" we had a rather huge day. When I left you yesterday, I was waiting for the tile installers to (hopefully) return to our home to begin laying the tile in the sitting area half of our newly constructed bedroom. I'm relieved to say that they finally returned.....smelling like a brewery, mind you, but they returned.

Shortly after I finished my entry, I headed upstairs to fix lunch for my family. Little did I know, that was the last time, for a period of 24 hours, that I was allowed in my bedroom. Apparently, you're not allowed to step one foot onto newly installed tile until the following day after it gets grouted. You'd think that would be a tiny little detail the installers would tell us. Maybe sober ones do. Please add my name to the support of 'Mothers Against Drunk Tilers'.....or MADT.

That left me committed to living the next 24 hours in my Mens flannel polar bear pajama bottoms and a black tank top, sans a bra, and Hubby in his work clothes. Not a huge deal until we realized we had to make a mandatory trip back to Menards to choose and order our bedroom carpet on the one day of their big sale. Lovely.

In the meantime, I was excited to try a new steak recipe I saw on the Today Show last week. Z had to work so I made his portion first and C opted to join him for an early dinner. When A and K smelled the delicious food, they decided that they would also prefer to eat early. (Enter round II of cooking.) When the actual dinner time rolled around, it was only Hubby and me eating at the table, so why not take advantage of it? With the girls in their bedroom and the 2 drunks downstairs, Hubby and I enjoyed a romantic dinner, complete with candles.....and me in my jammies and him in his work clothes.

Shortly after the tilers left, having refused our offer to call them a designated driver, it was time to brave the dreaded trip to get our carpet. Thankfully we made it through Menards without the cashier I'd recently mamed seeing the flip-flop-pajama-clad bra-less lunatic back so soon.

When we got home, the girls were starving and ready for a snack and oatmeal cookies sounded really good to all of us. I was halfway through the recipe when I realized we had no eggs. The tiny country store in our area closes at dark and our neighbor didn't have any either. Crap. K asked me what eggs did and if they were really necessary. I explained that from my understanding, it's the eggs that keep the cookies soft after they cool. Hmmm.......that left us only one option.....we had to eat an entire batch of oatmeal cookies before they cooled.

No problem. Forty-two warm oatmeal cookies later and we were ready for bed. Bed. Crap. Where are we gonna sleep?

An hour later we were tucked into bed and saying goodnight......I was on K's top bunk and Hubby was on C's bottom bunk. Like they say; Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you handle it.....and for good or for bad, we made some memories yesterday. (Especially for that carpet salesman who couldn't seem to take his eyes off my tank top.)

A peek at a week

This month has been a blur as we've been in the process of remodeling our entire downstairs. We started with the rec room which has lived up to the 'rec' description of it's name the entire six years we've lived here. That entailed a thorough cleaning, de-cluttering, painting, and new carpet.

Then it was onto our bedroom, which was originally supposed to be a large family room complete with a fireplace. What it ended up turning into was a playroom, computer room, and general hangout for our kids and their friends that just so happened to have our bed stuck in the middle of it. The evening we were laying in our bed and Z and his friends walked in and joined us to watch tv, I knew that something had to be done, and fast. My idea was to build a wall with french doors that would divide the room in half, thus allowing us to open the doors to enjoy the fireplace or close them for privacy. We're currently nearing the completion of that huge undertaking.

Needless to say, our house and our lives have been in complete upheaval during this process and I've been forced out of my comfort zone on more than one occasion. Last week I needed to run to Lowe's without my husband. Lowe's isn't my kind of store and I'm not comfortable making purchases alone, so I took Z along with me as back up. We walked in the door armed with our list consisting of drywall and sandpaper and I immediately started looking for an employee to ask for assistance. Z rolled his eyes and said, "We don't need help." (Typical male.) But when we passed a female cashier and she asked if she could help me with anything, I accepted her offer and she took us to the isle we needed. I had no idea there were so many 'grades' of sandpaper. Several phone calls to my husband and one teary eyed moment later, Z was pushing our flat cart full of items to the cashier who initially helped us. As she checked us out, she asked me out. Yep, she asked me out! With a deer-in-the-head-lights look, I turned to Z who was giving me his best Jim Halpert face and shrugged at me. We made an awkward exit and pushed the cart through the parking lot in silence until Z said, "Dude, she looked like daddy." (Um, NO she didn't.) I swore off Lowes and vowed to work on my vibe.

When my husband needed to go to a home improvement store again, I refused to tag along unless it was Menards. Several LONG hours later, we were headed toward the front with yet another flat cart filled with long pieces of wooden trim. Since I was the one pushing the cart, I got to choose which check-out line, therefore I headed toward the one male cashier. (Not taking anymore chances.) I turned into his lane, misjudged my distance, and not only impaled him with the trim, but managed to run over both of his feet with my cart. (Um, sorry?) At least he didn't ask me out, right? Unfortunately, my cart-pushing privileges have been suspended indefinitely.

In the midst of all of that, I've had to juggle the normal every day activities such as C's weekly Gymnastics class on Thursdays. Since my treadmill is currently buried beneath mounds of crap, I've been trying to squeeze in exercise wherever I can. For several weeks after I drop her off, I've managed to sneak across the street to the park, walk 4 miles, and make it back in time to pick her up without her noticing I was gone.....until, this week. I no sooner made it to the furthest point on the trail and my cell phone rang. It was C's teacher informing me that she had been removed from the class for "causing a disturbance" and I needed to pick her up immediately. I arrived back at Gymnastics to find C sobbing in the waiting room and wearing someone elses sweatsuit because she liked it better than her own. I did not have time for this. After trying unsuccessfully to reason with a 3 year old, I finally broke down and bribed her with McDonalds if she would finish out the class without a scene. It worked, but I'm now "that mom" in the waiting room that gets "the look" from the other moms who like to tell themselves that they have complete control over their toddlers and I can only hope that they don't remember that it was my daughter who threw the tantrum during the spring recital and refused to do the much-anticipated-much-practiced-much-talked-about group bow. Whatever. I drove home silently promising myself to never resort to bribery again.

But it wasn't over for me yet. That evening as we painted our bedroom walls, I had to endure a long lecture from my hubby for rewarding bad behavior and using bribery to get what I wanted. When I couldn't take another minute, I offered him a massage if he'd stop talking about it. He agreed. So much for that no-more-bribery promise, but ya know what? Who cares. Because today's concern is all about tile installation. The guy showed up, asked for his check for half of the installation fee, and abruptly left for the bank with the promise to return in 15 minutes. That was an hour ago. Guess it's time to think up another bribe to get him to come back........

"Dear Lord, please let next week be better than this one.....if you do, I promise to.....oh, never mind. Amen."

Going, Going, Gone.

I graduated in 1990. It's 2010. That's right, twenty years now separate me from my youth. Not that I sit around and count the years because who has time for that? I got married three years after high school. My twenties are a blur of babies, diapers, breastfeeding, and trying to stay ahead of things financially. If you know someone in their twenties who appears to be living in a world of chaos, seems to be making some bad decisions on every level, and could very well be losing their mind, please try to extend them some grace because you're probably right about all of it. I look back at my twenties with lots of wonderful memories and lots and lots of regrets. I doubt I'm alone in that.

Enter my thirties. The kids are out of diapers, two of them are in school, and our heads are comfortably above water financially, so things will calm down, right? Wrong. The first half of my thirties is a blur of juggling wife-hood, mother-hood, and piles and piles of flashcards that I carried with me everywhere as I earned my massage degree and top it off with a family move to get my husband closer to his work. I barely remember anything between the age of 29 and 35 and the only reason I remember 35 is because that's how old I was when C was born which brings us back full circle to a blur of diapers and breastfeeding. And somewhere along the way, I developed wrinkles, an extra chin, and my boobs hang several inches lower than they used to and permanently point south. Don't remember that happening.

At 38, I'm in the midst of experiencing the second half of my thirties and I think I finally get it. Life is chaos. My husband works full time as an Engineer and goes to school one night a week to further his education. Z goes to high school part time, college part time, works part time, and is actively involved in extra-curricular activities. A is playing basketball. K is playing the drums in the band. And C is 3 and that speaks for itself. Part of my job is to keep it all running smoothly while also keeping everyone clean and fed. But my most important job is to make sure that these years don't become the blur that the last 20 years have become. I want to teach my kids to live in today. Enjoy right now. Laugh. Have fun. Because if you're waiting for life to slow down, you'll blink and you'll miss it.

In less than 2 years, I'll be 40. Will I be able to remember anything between the ages of 35 and 39? Yep, I will. Because all I'll have to do is scroll down my Facebook page if I forget. Who says technology is all bad? And there are plenty of pictures to look back on and remember fondly, "Aaahhh, the good old days when my boobs couldn't touch my belly button....."

(This entry was inspired by my recent 20 year high school reunion. That surreal moment when you realize the class clown is bald, my junior high boyfriend is completely gray, and silicone implants have officially taken over. Yikes.)

Womb with a view

I'm becoming convinced that's it's impossible for women to maintain a shred of dignity. From the time our period starts, we're on a continual loop of humiliating life experiences.

When I was a teenager my cousin thought it would be funny to throw me into the pool....that situation quickly became hysterical when my pad came floating to the top. Enter the 'Learning to insert a tampon' phase. (Don't panic. I've chosen to spare you from my water park story. You can thank me later.)

There's the fun of finding places to discreetly carry our necessities. When K was a baby, we were in the crowded church nursery and I asked Z to bring me a diaper out of her bag. He skipped over carrying an open super-all-day maxi pad with 'wings' no less. Sadly, I think it would have fit her. Of course none of that compares to our annual appointments with the gynecologist. I could practically hear the beeps of a large truck backing up as the nurse directed me onto the scale when I was eight months pregnant with Z. Her gestures looked like she was trying to land a small plane.

And the weigh-ins don't get any easier when you're not pregnant either. Those are followed by stirrups, and a 'you're about to feel a little pressure' comment as you lay there trying to think about anything other than 'what if I farted right now'......

The list could go on. The birthing process, breast milk arriving, engorgement that brightens the eyes of your husband with hopes that those things will stay that size forever, and the fun of trying to learn the art of feeding your own infant with those giant monsters while trying not to suffocate the infant. It's horrifying.

Anyway, last year I discovered a lump under my C-Section scar. My gynecologist diagnosed it as Endometriosis. Painful but nothing serious. I opted to have it removed and we scheduled my surgery. Last November I sat in the surgery center for over nine hours, starving, wearing a revealing hospital gown, hooked up to a constant flow of IV liquids, with the occasional visits from the male nurse anesthetist who would give me shots of something to 'relax me' but that would actually work as truth serum and I would tell him how good looking he was right in front of my husband every time he'd inject me with one. All for nothing because my doctor never freaking showed up! I pulled the plug on that little 'prisoner of war' experience and walked out swearing off Gynecologists forever.

Almost a year later, I was finally ready to deal with this situation once and for all. I found an amazing new doctor who seems like the type that would show up to do your scheduled surgery. He agreed with my previous doctor's assessment of my lump and ordered an Ultra Sound before scheduling my surgery.

My Ultra-Sound was yesterday and I was instructed to have my bladder full. I lay there on the table trying not to pee myself while a technician named Lisa pressed down with her machine as her student follower, Amanda, watched and I thought, "This couldn't possibly get any worse." Then she told me to empty my bladder (whoo hoo) because she's going to do an internal scan. (S***).

Ten minutes later I was lying on the table again, feeling like a human video game as Lisa moved the controller and Amanda studied the screen and once again made the mistake of thinking, "Okay, now this couldn't possibly get any worse." And then Lisa asked me if I would mind if Amanda took a turn. (Why not at this point?) Just before I went to my happy place where my orifices weren't being invaded, I heard Lisa tell Amanda, "Oh look....she has to pee again." (Thanks for the heads-up.......)

Homecoming...The good, the bad, and the clinically insane.

Several weeks ago, our beautiful daughter, Aubrey, announced that she had been voted to be the Freshman Attendant on the Homecoming Court. I was ecstatic! I had never received such an honor in school and was so excited to experience it with her. We immediately started planning our dress shopping day and all the fun we would have together.

The following day, she brought home a contract that she had to sign. The contract stated that we would allow 'The Queen' to pick her dress....huh?!? I'm sorry, I thought this was Homecoming. I didn't realize it was the queen's wedding.

Thinking back to how it worked when I was in school, all of the members of the court got to choose whatever they wanted to wear. (Suits were the attire of choice way back when.) And no one even found out which Senior Attendant was 'The Queen' until halftime of the Homecoming Game. Right? Shouldn't there be a level of suspense here? So, why is it that we even know who the queen is, much less, hand over our checkbooks to her and allow her to choose our daughter's dress?

Please allow me to take this moment to make something very clear. I hold nothing against the girl who was chosen as queen. My kids have nothing but wonderful things to say about her and although I don't know her well, from my few interactions with her, she seems like a great and down-to-earth girl. She did nothing that wasn't within her rights under the 'law' of this (stupid) tradition. That being said, here we go...

Due to the timing of the vote and the date of the game, we had less than two weeks to make all this happen. We were told on a Friday night that they were going dress shopping on Sunday. We weren't available to go that day. We received word on Sunday evening that Aubrey should bring $200 to school on Wednesday so that they could go pick up her dress. Let's hold on one second here, shall we? We're expected to hand over $200 for a dress, sight unseen, that may not even look right on my daughter and it may very well end up hanging in the back of a closet forever because she hates it so much.....sound about right? Not to this Momma.

Other than my part time massage clients, my husband is our sole provider. As equal partners in this marriage, I see my role with the finances as protector and respecter. He would freely hand over the checkbook to me without so much as a question and I could very easily take advantage of that, but I promise you, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did. I love and respect him too much for that.

I also love and respect my daughter. She is worthy of a $200 dress and I didn't want her to think otherwise, but here's the deal. Just as my husband sets the standard of a man for Zac to look up to, I'm the standard my daughters see. (Heaven help them.) This is where lessons are taught and examples are set. This is life and this is where the rubber meets the road.

I had to strike a delicate balance between respect for the checkbook and respect for my daughter. I wasn't about to rock the boat for her at school or rob her of the excitement of this huge honor. This was about her, and this was for her, so I proceeded with caution.

I found out the store they chose the dress from, the color and name of the exact dress, and I looked it up on-line. Cute dress. Short dress. Certainly not a $200 dress. I'm not a good shopper, so my next step was to take full advantage of the shopping skills of my several hundred closest Facebook friends. (Technology is great!) I posted the dress information and posted my offer...."free massage to whoever finds the cheapest version of this dress." And, voila! Twenty minutes later, Alison, (ironically a friend I met in Massage School), came through with flying colors. We lined the two dresses up on the screen and Aubrey and I went over it with a fine tooth comb. To our eye, they were a perfect match. But I didn't want to take this lightly, so my next step was to ask another girl on the court who had already purchased the 'real' dress. I sent her our link and she couldn't find a difference. So that evening, we ordered Aubrey's Homecoming dress from Amazon for a mere $66 and a massage. Thank you Alison! And while we're on the topic of awesome friends, a friend from church who is a hair stylist offered to come to our house to do her hair! Thank you Melanie!

Next stop, shoes. We headed to the mall and found $55 shoes marked down to...ready for this?...$6.97. Yes, that's right, six dollars and ninety seven cents! And they fit me too! (But that's neither here nor there.)

Dress, check. Shoes, check. Hair, check. Let's see, what other fun things could we squeeze into this experience....aaahhhh.....pedicures! Back to the mall we went. Aubrey had a wonderful young girl who gave her a luxurious experience and not only painted her nails but decorated them too! I, on the other hand, had a surgical-glove-wearing, angry Vietnamese woman, who communicated to me through mean taps to my legs and if I didn't understand, I was rewarded with harder taps and vicious glares. How relaxing.

Over dinner with Aubrey, I pointed out our victory. We got her dress, shoes, hair, nails, make-up, and hair accessories and it still didn't add up to the price of the 'real' dress. (Whoo Hoo and high fives all around.) That's what we call success!

But the following day I received an angry phone call. Not from the Queen, but from the "Queen Mother." She heard that we bought a 'different' dress. I assured her that the dress wasn't 'different' but that it simply cost a lot less. She proceeded to fill my ear with tales of distraught court mothers, a distraught queen, who I'd apparently "disrespected", and even one distraught male escort from the football team. (We can't have a distraught football player, now can we.) It seems I had single handedly ruined Homecoming with Aubrey's 'different' dress and she demanded to come inspect the dress because her dress wasn't acceptable 'sight unseen.' (Oh the irony.)

A little back story on me here. I have a long history with a controlling narcissist in my life. My role was to 'fight' and I lived up to my role. The narcissist loves a good fight and thrives on conflict and the role of victim they get to play after the very fight they started in the first place. I've spent the past 3 years enmeshed in Beth Moore workbooks making changes in my behavior and subsequently learning how to handle narcissists. I'm practically a professional at this point. The lesson:  Don't fight and the narcissist eventually loses interest and goes away. Mark my words. It works.

So it took me about 5 minutes for my 'narcissist red flag' to raise in my head and I knew what I was dealing with and I adjusted my responses accordingly. I struggled with my 'fighting seeds' as they desperately tried to push to the surface. I could have (and would have loved to) rip this woman to shreds and leave her weeping in my wake. But this wasn't about me. This wasn't about the queen. This wasn't even about this woman. This was about my daughter. So I fought the good fight. I went against my very nature and I fought the fight of patience and grace and I took one for the team. Not because I had to, or because I wanted to, but because of a love that is greater than the need to be 'right.'
I endured five phone calls in the span of one afternoon. I stayed as quiet as I could and let the narcissist do all the talking. (They love that.) I even kept from laughing aloud when she told me that other women resent her because she's so attractive. (Wow. Classic narcissist. They're either 'too attractive, too smart, too holy, or too victimized' to see that they actually crave the conflict.) Between rantings about the dress, slight bits of the truth began to emerge, and pretty soon it became clear that the only person upset about this was the narcissist herself, and I can totally live with that.

Last night was the big game. Aubrey looked beautiful. She had a cheering section full of extended family. All the girls matched and all the moms were friendly and happy...except for one. After the game, one of the other court mothers approached me and seemed a little perturbed as she leaned in to tell me something. In an angry whisper she said, "I wish we'd ordered the $66 dollar dress too!!"

Dumplings, Cobblers and Pies, oh my!

We're extremely blessed to have two giant apple trees in our backyard. They were already here and well established when we moved in, which is the only reason they're still alive. The first year we were here, we got to experience the wonderful benefit of having our very own source of fruit at our fingertips, so we decided to take things a step further and planted grapevines, strawberry bushes, a cherry tree, and a peach tree. I weedwacked the grapevines in a moment of weedwacker rage, (see earlier post for my history with the freaking weedwacker). Our strawberry bushes produced a giant crop one year, but under our not-so-watchful eye, C ate them all. Eventually they were overtaken by weeds and ended up under our freshly poured concrete patio. Bye bye strawberry plants. Japanese Beatles devoured our cherry tree. Our peach tree, on the other hand, seems to be thriving and produced a whopping crop of four peaches this year.....C ate three of them. Hers likes her fruits.

But every other year, like clockwork, we get a bumper crop of delicious and beautiful apples. This was our year. During a cookout we hosted back in July, a friend asked me what we do with all of those apples and I told him that I spend several weeks picking, peeling, coring, and freezing them to make yummy apple desserts all through the winter. He asked me why it took several weeks and when I explained that I use a potato peeler he looked at me like I'd just sprouted an apple tree out of the top of my head. "You don't use the apple machine?!?" he asked. (What the heck is an apple machine?) Well, I was about to find out.....

When my apples were ready to pick, we wasted no time in tracking down this miracle apple machine and found one at Meijer for $9.99. Awesome. That Sunday afternoon I asked my husband to please pick me as many apples as he could. Apparently what he heard me say was "Duct tape empty trash bags into the trees, climb them like a monkey, and shake the limbs as hard as you can so that the apples fall into the bags." PS. That doesn't work and he was taken off 'picking' detail which was probably his intent.

The kids and I picked several bags of apples and excitedly attempted our apple machine. By the end of the evening, Z had sliced open three of his fingers, the thing wouldn't suction to the counter as promised, one of the prongs broke off in an apple, (I assume we'll find that in our next cobbler), and I only ended up with two freezer bags of apples because that stupid apple machine took the inside of the apple right along with the skin of the apple and I was left with tiny curly ques of apple nubs by the time it was done. This thing is supposed to save time, not cause more work and mame my only son and all I wanted to do was beat it against the floor and throw it out the freakin window. (I have rage issues.)

So I'm going to pretend that you've asked me to rate this machine for your future reference. I give it a D+. But if you're in the market for high blood pressure, bloody fingers, and a foul mouth, you too should get the apple machine. It'd be perfect.

Just for fun, here's a recipe for my easy Apple Cobbler:
1. Peel, core, and section 10-12 apples and place them in a 9 x 13 pan sprayed with non-stick spray
2. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon
3. Combine 3/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of oats and sprinkle over the top
4. Pour 1/2 a box of dry white cake mix over the top and stir it all together.
5. Place several pats of butter all over the top and bake uncovered @ 350 until the top is browned, then stir and cover with foil and continue baking until the apples are tender. (About an hour cooking time total.)
6. Added walnuts are delicious, but optional. I only add those when I want to witness my husband throw a dramatic temper tantrum....because that's kind of fun.
Enjoy!!