Cumin Popcorn & Other LIfe Lessons from the Prairie Princess

I promised early on to use this blog as a forum to educate and inform you, my readers, on the matters of life. Tonight I will do just that. May your lives be enriched by what you're about to read.

1) Never leave your boys' first wrestling tournament BEFORE medals are given out because you ASSUMED that they would not be receiving one since they only won one match each. And then thinking you're a fantastic mom because you spared them the disapointment of not having their name called during the awards ceremony and the whole pep talk you gave them on the way home about how proud you were of them and how with some more practice you KNOW they can win medals SOMEDAY. Umm yeah, turns out both boys placed 3rd in their brackets and received medals, which their coach gave them tonight at practice, since their horrible mother DRAGGED them away from the medals ceremony because she thought she was doing them a favor. Add it to the Worst Mother of the Year nomination.

2) Never turn your cell phone to SILENT and then hide it in a secret place. Wherever I hid it is a darn good hiding place because after hours, now days (or 1 day) of searching I still can't find it. Not sure how sympathetic Verizon is going to be given that I've threatened to lose it under the tires of my truck, on one of the 17 times I was in there exchanging it for one that actually worked. In the now 24 hours I've been without my friend, my phone, I've come to realize that I MUST have it in my life, I may die without it. But just know if you've tried to call or text me and are getting irritated with me for not responding it's not by choice. I'm still alive, but just barely since I'm without my cell phone.

3) NEVER EVER accidentally substitute cumin for cinnamon when making cinnamon popcorn. I had come across a recipe on www.tastykitchen.com for cinnamon popcorn that sounded delicious so I thought I'd make a batch for the family tonight. You know since we're not going to be eating hardly at all this week. (Yeah right.) The recipe says to put butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl to melt it in the microwave. I put the butter and the sugar in the bowl and then grabbed the brown bottle (not THAT kind of brown bottle although one would think given what happened next) out of my spice cupboard. I glanced at it, saw the Ground C on the front, and was satisfied that it was indeed the cinnamon. I poured 1 1/2 t. in with the butter and sugar and set it on 1 min to melt. As I stirred it, I thought it smelled a little weird but I thought it was the leftover supper in the crockpot down the counter from me. It wasn't until I had dumped it over some of the popcorn and grabbed a kernel to test, that I realized it was NOT in fact cinnamon and was actually THE WORST THING I'VE EVER TASTED (besides peas and tomatoes). Gag me. And then I cried big crocodile tears because at the seemingly young age of 31 I'm misreading labels like a 95 year old. Bring on the bifocals and the cataract surgery. On the bright side, when I made the cinnamon popcorn and actually used CINNAMON it was delicous and made the house smell wonderful and not like a taco joint. Weird.

4) When printing the design for your Black Friday Discount Divas shirt read the directions for the transfer paper carefully and only print it reversed if the instructions tell you to do so. First of all, YES I'm one of those Black Friday shoppers, Black Friday IS my favorite day of the year. And secondly, YES we have shirts and they are awesome. Or will be once I get the transfers printed correctly so you don't have to stand in a mirror to tell what they say. Oops. I'll post a picture of the finished Discount Diva shirt AFTER Black Friday, you know for copyright reasons and such. Or maybe you'll see them on the 6 o'clock news on Friday when they interview us Discount Divas about our record breaking 15 hour shopping day or the deals we've gotten or our too cool shirts that no one else thought of.

There are lots more life lessons I could teach you my dears, but we'll take it slow. I've given you a lot to think about. Take your time, digest it, share it with a friend, learn from it, put it to use. Don't make the same mistakes I have. And whatever you do, keep your sugar FAR, FAR away from the cumin.