Sweet Relish

Once upon a time, I was overrun with cucumbers.  I had made enough dill pickles to last nine years, and I go into paroxysms at the thought of wasting food, so I had to decide what to do with these remaining bushels of cukes.  I've never even liked relish, but when I Googled "too many cucumbers" or something like that I found buttloads of recipes for relish.  So.
I like trying new recipes.  No, that's not really true.  I like the thought of trying new recipes.  I'd really just rather pile all my people in the living room and watch a Jeremy Renner movie with them and eat Reese's and then have Cheetos for dessert.  But that wouldn't solve my cucumber dilemma, and I finally settled on a recipe simple enough even I could manage it.
All I needed to start with was six cups of diced peeled cucumber, three cups of diced green and red bell pepper, and three cups of diced onion.  All that dicing only cost me like thirteen hours, ninety-eight muscle spasms, and half a bottle of ibuprofen.  The saving grace was that after chopping all these veggies, the recipe said to mix them in a big glass baking dish with a quarter of a cup of pickling salt, cover them with a towel, and let them sit for two hours.  I used those two hours for physical therapy and ice packs on my shoulder and knife-wielding arm.
At the end of two hours, the veggies were to be rinsed with cold water and drained.  While the veggies drained, I boiled three cups of sugar, two cups of apple cider vinegar, two and a half teaspoons each of celery seed and mustard seed, and a half teaspoon of turmeric, then added the drained veggies and let it all cook till it was nice and thick.  The recipe didn't warn me that the sugary-vinegar smell in the house could almost asphyxiate a person.  Note to self: Don't lean over the pan while you stir this stuff.
When the relish was finally the right thickness, I poured it into hot sterilized canning jars, squeezed their hot lids on, and water-bathed the jars for ten minutes.  I tried not to cry that after all that work, there were only three pint jars of relish.
But, oh, it was worth it.  I found out I liked relish after all.
Later I tried to cheat by using a food processor or blender or other kitchen witchery to chop the vegetables, but those produce a mix that's half too chunky and half too liquified.  Now I mainly use teenagers and that works pretty well.
It's cucumber season again, and when said teenagers are otherwise occupied, I'm on my own with the knife and the cutting board.  Sweet mother of relish, my shoulder hurts.

Starvation Is Imminent

Life's not fair, except for that one week in August, when life is, in fact, fair.  So that week while my life was the county fair with Hunneypunkin, Angel Doll, my Treasure, and the Besties, I grossly neglected the household until Friday at which point I got a "Houston, we have a problem" phone call from Pixie.
"There's NOTHING in the house to eat," Pixie told me.  "The boys just got back from work and we have NO food!"  I could actually hear Angel Boy,  Lefty, and The Precious perishing of deprivation in the background.
"Bake some bread,"  I said.
"I already started," Pixie told me, "but the dough is still rising and I have to eat NOW.  I'm dying here.  There's no protein!"
Lefty shouted, "Yeah, we're out of hot dogs!"
"All we have is a tiny bit of five-year-old Cream of Wheat," Pixie lamented, "which isn't enough for everybody and nobody likes it anyway except Angel Boy and it's probably poison because it's outdated.  There's no time to thaw a chicken because it's already past lunch time!"
"Listen," I said, "while the bread is rising, make biscuits.  That only takes a few minutes.  Then get some meat out of the freezer to thaw for tonight and tomorrow, and I'll buy groceries on Saturday."
That seemed to restore some hope to the galaxy.  "We DO have marshmallows," Pixie said brightly.  Even over the phone I could sense the pixie-dust settling a little.  It turned out there was also a stock of tortilla chips, but no salsa.  The Precious whipped together some ketchup, plain yogurt, and chopped onion as a substitute, and the boys did not die after all.  I'm so proud!  He has all the makings of a great bachelor.  Don't mock him.  Jeremy Renner is a long-time bachelor.  He's probably eaten his share of ketchup dip.
I did go shopping as promised.  I had to clean out the empty egg cartons from the fridge and move a big pot of kidney beans, another of chicken broth, several cartons of leftovers, two giant zucchini, and a bag of leaf lettuce out of the way so I could put the groceries in the refrigerator.  Next time I'll plan better, and make some meals ahead.
Now that the kitchen is full of groceries, there's no place to put all the produce that ripened in the garden while I was at the fair.

A Page From My Journal (Or, Disclaimer II)

My harsher critics either didn't read or didn't understand Disclaimer http://chevroletmama.blogspot.com/2013/06/disclaimer.html so I feel compelled to re-explain.
July 5, 1999
Put up the boys' bunk beds today.  They love them!  Also moved Angel Doll* into the toddler bed in the children's room.  Tomorrow I will take down the crib in our room and move in the cradle to be ready for the baby, and to make more space in our bedroom.  My Moon Shadow roses are blooming in my rose garden.  There are also three or four buds on my Taboo rose.  Have a lot to do this week, but we got a lot done today, too.
That was an actual entry from my actual journal.  It's so monotonous I tried to bite my own ear halfway through reading it just to relieve the tedium.  There wasn't even a hint of Jeremy Renner in there.
Random Unlimited is neither my journal nor an expression of my feelings.  (Indeed, a popular theory exists that I may not even have any feelings.  Even I don't know whether this premise holds any truth.)  Random Unlimited is exactly what it says it is.  If you find my random, unlimited thought processes difficult to follow, imagine what it's like to actually live in this head, and still be the positive, upstanding, productive, contributing, clean, sober, sometimes organized, and presumed normal member of society that I am.  Hint: You couldn't do it.
Feel free to leave hate mail in the comments section below, and if you choose to start your own "I Hate Chevrolet Mama" blog, please include links to Random Unlimited.  I'll return the favor.
*Names have been changed because I thought it was fun.

Back by Popular Demand

I'm taking a break from volunteer youth ministry.  Whomever takes my place is going to need to know that volunteer youth ministry is...
-jumping head first into a bunch of stuff you don’t know how to do, in front of a bunch of people who've never done it before, who therefore feel free to offer you a bunch of not-necessarily-credible advice.

-hours of praying and planning and preparing before attending a calendar meeting where every great idea you thought God gave you gets annihilated.

-talking to a room full of adolescents while they’re talking over the top of you so that six years later you can find out that most of them weren’t listening, but one of them was.

-phone calls and text messages from students and parents with questions you already answered in person, in emails, in text messages, in letters, in bulletins, and on Facebook.

-scrapping countless hours of lesson outlines because your students have no attention span tonight and they just need to decompress.

-fighting a not-very-Christian attitude toward adults who are gossiping in a not-very-Christian manner about your students.

-developing a fierce loyalty toward every other adult who joins the Crusade to Snatch Every Child We Possibly Can from the Jaws of Stupid Things that Ruin People's Lives.

-carrying several hundred dollars of students’ event cash in your own wallet for several weeks because the secretary is uncomfortable keeping it in the safe.

-teenagers talking smack about you because they thought they were getting away with crap but you called them on it.

-feeling helpless while watching a teenager make a series of poor life choices when you’ve told them, and told them, and told them.

-a choice between doing it all yourself, or taking a chance on volunteers who might make more work for you than doing it all yourself.

-people advising you to delegate, your delegates dropping the ball, parents complaining, and you taking the fall because you’re not going to blame your help.

-planning a fun event and being told you need to make it spiritual, and planning a spiritual event and being told you need to make it fun.

-trying to meet the current standards of awesomeness without a budget because even though you supposedly have one, nobody wants you to spend it.
-getting up early, staying up late, piles of papers, mountains of snacks, and incessant suggestions to do even more because whatever you're doing is never enough.
-well-meaning individuals advising you to get completely out of youth ministry because they think you're doing too much.
-wondering if anyone gets that you're a volunteer, that you don't get paid for this, and that it's not the only responsibility you have in your church, community, or life.
-wondering why in the world you're doing this, because you don't get paid for this, and that it's not the only responsibility you have in your church, community, or life.
-wondering which one would kill you the quickest: continuing in volunteer youth ministry, or not being involved in it.
-a room full of cutiepies who roll their eyes at you and may or may not acknowledge you in public but suddenly randomly hug you and call you their mom.  Which is really cool.  If you're not a guy.
-having your heart torn out of your chest and ripped into dozens of pieces every day and living to tell about it, while those pieces of your heart go roaming around town in skinny jeans and tennis shoes.
So Godspeed to my replacement.  And don't worry, I'll be back.  I already know that not being involved in youth ministry would kill me more quickly than continuing in it.  I'd trade my life-size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout for all those eye-rolling cutiepies.

Best Combination Ever

Salt and pepper.  Fruits and nuts.  Beef and beans.  Potatoes and gravy.  Steak and lobster.  Bacon and eggs.  Cheese and crackers.  Bread and butter.  Lemon and lime.  Corned beef and cabbage.  Ham and Swiss.  Applets and cotlets.  Peaches and cream.  Cream and sugar.  Sugar and spice.  Yes, I'm hungry right now but that's not the point.
The point is that the world is full of fabulous combinations.  Smith and Wesson.  Black and Decker.  Romeo and Juliet.  Barnes and Noble.  Lefty and The Precious.  Ben and Jerry.  Frodo and Sam.  Mickey and Minnie.  Brooks and Dunn.  Tarzan and Jane.  Johnson and Johnson.  Lady and the Tramp.  Heckler & Koch.  A&W.  Watson and Holmes.  War and Peace.  Batman and Robin.  Bonnie and Clyde.  Pride and Prejudice.  Ken and Barbie.  Petersen's 4-Wheel and Off-road.  Burt and Ernie.  Jason and the Argonauts.  Thelma and Louise.  Sears and Roebuck.  Calvin and Hobbes.  Popcorn and movies.  Treasure and Angel Boy.  Beauty and the Beast.  Guns and Ammo.  Pixie and Angel Doll.  Red, white, and blue.
Sonny and Cher.  (Just kidding!)
Chocolate and peanut butter.  (Reese, whoever you are, you are a genius and I love you.)
Hunneypunkin and Chevrolet Mama.  Music and dancing.  Work and play.  Night and day.  Renner and Wilson.  (You haven't heard?  Jeremy Renner for U.S. President 2016.  If he doesn't make it onto the ballot, I'm writing him in.)
One of my favorite combinations is butter and brown sugar.  Another of my favorite combinations is coffee and chocolate.  The very best combination ever is those two combinations combined.  Mmmmm...caramel mocha.  What's your favorite combo?

Summer 2014

It's hotter than John Cusack out there.
You thought I was going to say Jeremy Renner.