I attempted to make light spaghetti pie* for dinner tonight. Except when I went to go pull out the whole wheat spaghetti, I found out that a child had previously dumped it all over the floor and it was no longer available for consumption. So, I decided to move on and used Zitti noodles instead...because they are so similar -- NOT. As I poured in my chunky pasta sauce that I had made last month and frozen for future use on top of the cubed Canadian bacon, I realized they probably meant a MARINARA sauce not a meat sauce on top of the Canadian bacon. I had no black olives and only seasoned bread crumbs. This all took about 20 or so minutes longer than normal because for some odd reason, Noemi decided she needed to clean my bathroom instead of watch the twins (yes, it had been awhile, but it wasn't THAT bad and would have been nice if she would have asked instead of just disappearing) which involved every few minutes stopping to wash my hands and fetch N off the top of the kitchen table. So, it all got in the oven much later than anticipated...in a regular pie plate instead of caste iron pan because I don't have one. By then Noemi was finished with the bathroom cleaning...and I rushed off to pick up Max from school (not having time to get back to my work and get something done I needed) asking Noemi to take it out and turn off the oven when the timer went off. I come home to find out that she had turned off the timer, but left both the oven on and the dish IN the oven which was on its way to burning. Not to be mean, but sometimes I wonder what she is thinking or not thinking and if she is really just that stupid or is being passive aggressive. Anyway, in spite of all that, the kids loved it. They all ate generous portions and seemed to love it. Go figure.

One of the other things I accomplished today was to sort through the mounds of paper work in various places around the house to find this parking ticket that came in the mail from this summer that I quickly glanced at months ago then misplaced and followed up to the extent that I mentioned it to my cousin/her husband who had borrowed my car while they were moving until their cars arrived with all their worldly possessions. I had minor fears of the fine tripling and getting pulled over (with the kids in the car) and hauled into jail (putting them into temporary state custody) because a warrant was out for my arrest because it had not been dealt with it in a timely manner. While being slighty irritated that this even had to take up space in my brain to remember and occassionally think I must really deal with this after helping someone out and then when feeling slightly irritated also remember that the car came back missing one of the hub caps and some jerk put a piece of gum up against one of the exposed bolts. Anyway, finally, I decided today was the day and this really truly needed to be resolved. I planned on just paying whatever the amount was and then email my cousin the amount for her to pay back or not at some point in the future. I read the fine print and found a web page I could find the total amount due and pay on-line and when I got there, I found out that it had been paid on 9/1/09 two days before the fine would have doubled. Good to know. Once less thing to worry about/deal with and yes it would have been nice to know this months ago.

Just life.