vegetable soup with frys

It snowed several inches here today.

If you are an internet stalker determined to discover the location of KWTFrys, I just narrowed it down for you.

In other news, today I made homemade banana bread with mini chocolate chips.

I also made homemade vegetable soup.  I thought I had a partial bag of frozen corn.  Turns out, it was a bag of crinkle cut french fries.  Ketchupwiththefrys is now vegetablesoupwiththefrys.

photo fail

My sister came to visit yesterday.

We decided to try and get a cute fall photo of our children together.

Easy, right?

This is the best shot we got:

The look on the baby's face says it all....."This is not fun!  Leave us alone!"

So we did.  And we got zero good pictures.  However, we did laugh at the plethora of bad ones that we got. 

I just used the word plethora in a sentence. 

I think everyone should use the word plethora at least once per day.

Anyway, that picture is as good as it got on this particular day.

It's a lot like life.

Sometimes you try for something and it just doesn't turn out that way.

Which reminds me of a one-liner my sister thinks is the funniest one she's ever heard:

4 out of 5 people suffer from diarrhea....so that means 1 person enjoys it.

Aren't you glad you read KWTFrys?  The plethora of information you get here is unmatched.

Twitter

Twitter.

Tweet.

Twit.

Twat.

Tuh-what?

I try to like Twitter.  I really do.

However, I just don't like it very much. 

Here's why:

1.  I have a generic phone.  I have to hit the number 2 three times to get a letter c.  More than 2 times if I accidently hit it the wrong number of times and then I have to keep pressing it to get back around to the c.  Annoying.

2.  I have a generic phone.  I do not have internet access, so I am not constantly beeping with updates for facebook or emails.  By the time I get home, I forget about what I wanted to tweet and then it's like 4 hour old news.

3.  Did I mention I have a generic phone from 1983?  It has a bag that you can velcro to the carpet of your floorboard.

4.  When I read tweets online, they don't make sense to me.  All of that @# crap makes my eyes hurt.  It makes me feel like I'm trying to read some kind of secret code.  I'm not that smart and so Twitter makes me realize that and I don't like admitting the truth of my stupidity. 

I have only tweeted a couple of times.  I might have to just get rid of it.  It's too much pressure.  I like to ramble.  KWTFrys lets me ramble so I like it better.

The only redeeming thing about Twitter is that I followed Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, and she (or someone who does her internet stuff for her while she is busy being herself) followed me back.  I'm pretty sure she follows everybody who follows her, but it did kind of make me laugh a little and make me wish I could think of something clever to tweet. 

Ugh. 

Even saying the word "tweet" makes me feel like kind of a twit.

Maybe I should feel like a twit b/c I follow a person I've never met and actually got kind of excited when I saw that she followed me back. 
Darn you, JamietheVWM! 

By the way, VWM sounds like some kind of disease that can spread from animals to people.  It also reminds me of VBAC, which kind of makes me a little squeamish.  Not that I don't support people who choose it, but anyway......see?  I told you I like to ramble. 

Random

So yesterday I was serious.

Now we're back to the regularly scheduled programming that is called KWTF. (Ketchupwiththefrys) Yes, it does have an unfortunate acronym.

Yesterday, Superfrykid and I made a Halloween house.  Kind of like a gingerbread house you make at Christmastime.  Only with orange icing and candy in the shape of bats.

Today we had a photoshoot with Day by Day Photography and it was a great time.  Superfrykid is not the most cooperative person.   However, Day by Day did a great job working with her and making it a pleasant experience with no tears, which is quite an accomplishment.  Can't wait to see the pics!

Today is

Today is the day our first child was born.

She lived 102 days.  They were wonderful days....probably the happiest days of my entire life.

She would be 9 years old today.

I wonder what she would have looked like at age 9.
I wonder what kind of cake she would have asked for.
I wonder what she would have wished for when she blew out her candles.

Her birthday still makes me sad after all these years.  But it also makes me thankful. 

I am thankful that we were able to enjoy and love her for the days that she was here.
I am thankful that we held her almost every waking moment and even when she was sleeping.
I am thankful that we were blessed to be her parents.
I am thankful that she has a little sister who brings us joy and happiness every day.

I hope that those lucky few who got to meet her will remember Mady today and smile.

the cat that was buried alive

This is a true story. 

It happened shortly after we were married and moved into our house, in 1994. 

Our house has the big metal doors that open up to stairs going down into our basement.  Underneath the doors, the ground had settled quite a bit and left a pretty big hole, so Superfrydad, being the handyman he is, filled in the hole with dirt.  Actually, he wasn't Superfrydad then because we didn't have any kids.  So I guess I should refer to him as Superfryhubby.

Like I said, we didn't have any kids then.  But we did have 2 cats.  Outside cats, of course.  (Someday I will blog about my extreme distate for indoor pets, but let's leave that for another time, shall we?)

Unbeknownst to Superfryhubby, one of the cats was in the hole when he filled it in with dirt.

He buried our cat alive.

Not on purpose, of course.  We didn't know the cat was in the hole, but we did notice it was missing.  The other cat started acting funny.  It meowed really loud and since we don't speak cat, we didn't know what was wrong.

Long story short, a couple days later we heard a weird meowing, it was raining really hard, Superfrydad saw something moving underneath the concrete steps and we discovered the poor cat.  It was soaking wet, covered in mud and it was starving.

We brought the cat inside, dried it off, fed it and put it back outside.

It ran away shortly thereafter.

We named our next cat Lazarus in his honor.

The end.

loving a bargain

I love a bargain.

I love the extreme couponing show.  I'm not that crazy  organized, but I wish I could be.

I like when I buy something on clearance at the end of a season, put it away and then discover it at the appropriate season.

I found some Halloween items I bought on clearance last year at Target.  For some reason, these few items have been a small source of joy to me this year. 

Here's what I found: (because I know you want to know)
1.  Pumpkin string lights
2.  2 Big Pumpkins that light up and are smiley, not scary
3.  A Haunted Halloween Gingerbread House Kit.  Like the ones you make at Christmas, only with candy corn instead of peppermint candy.
4.  Sticky Hands
5.  Puzzles to hand out to tricker treaters
6.  A Baby's First Halloween Bib
7.  A Pair of Orange and Black Striped Tights
8.  A Bale of Fake Hay (this was from Michael's, but I only paid like $1 or something for it - I refuse to pay $10 for fake hay)

The Best Thing I Found That I Forgot I Had:
A sound system that plays 4 preprogrammed Halloween songs (like the Addams family theme song), or it will play from an mp3 player.  You can plug lights into it and it flickers the lights to the beat of the song.  It was originally like $80 or $100, but I paid like $10 for it after Halloween last year.  There is no way this thing is worth what the original price was.  But since I got it cheap, it makes me happy.

I'm hoping that by posting this, it will make me feel like less of a hoarder.  Because I'm not a hoarder.  I'm an extreme clearance shopper.

barts

Warning:  once again, I feel like I must warn those who do not like potty humor.  Just move on to another blog if you don't like gross things.  Also, if you know me in real life, please do not hold this against me.  If you don't know me in real life, consider yourself warned in case we ever do meet.

A friend sent me this quote:
"A hug is like a strangle you haven't finished yet."

I must admit, I giggled.  Especially since this friend is not a hugger.

Not sure why, but that quote made me think of this one:
"A burp is like a fart that comes out of your mouth."

This is kind of true, really.  I mean, there are burps that are really stinky and gross. 

Case in point:  Last night we had spaghetti and cheesy bread.  The bread had garlic in it, which, by the way, makes me mad.  If I wanted garlic bread, that's what I would buy.  I buy cheesy bread b/c I don't like garlic bread.  Actually, it's not that I don't like garlic bread, it's just that garlic anything does not like me.

Anyway, we had cheesy bread that was actually garlic bread.  Then later I ate a bowl of Lucky Charms.  Have you ever noticed that Lucky Charms kind of stink?  They have this gross smell when you open them and then after you eat them, they kind of leave a yucky taste in your mouth.  Maybe it's just me.

So as I was getting in bed, I burped.

No lie, this was the grossest burp ever.  It was closer to a fart, only it didn't make it that far and it came up instead.  It should be called a bart.  (burp+fart=bart)  It was a combination of garlic and Lucky Charms.  Not ladylike.  Not subtle.  Not nice. 

The only combination that I can think of that would be worse than garlic and Lucky Charms is Long John Silvers plus anything.

LJS + anything = grossest bart ever

You can go now.  After reading this, you probably feel the need to go and brush your teeth.  I understand completely. 

So gross.  Yet so true.  It's what you've come to expect from KWTF, right?  I really have been trying to think of some family stuff to share, but we are kind of boring.   Barts are about as interesting as we get this week. 

I realize I may lose some followers for posting dumb stuff like this, but at this point, what do I have to lose?  I have 19 official followers, and one of the 19 is myself.  One friend has a double follower-ship, so really I have 17.  But who's counting, right? 

stink bug gravy

I hate stink bugs.  You hate stink bugs. 

I think it's pretty much widely accepted that there is not a person on the face of the earth who likes stink bugs.  Except maybe the guy who makes those $20 stink bug traps out of an old 2 liter soda bottle and an LED light from the Dollar Tree.  He's making money, so it's possible that he tolerates stink bugs merely for their ability to create profit for him.

Today I made roast beef in the crockpot.  I even made gravy.  I didn't use all of the broth from the meat, so when I was cleaning up from dinner, I poured out the small amount that was left in the crockpot.  I noticed something that didn't quite look right.

It was a stink bug. 

There are 2 options here:
1.  The stink bug flew into the pot AFTER I poured out the broth to make the gravy.
2.  The stink bug cooked all day in the crockpot along with the meat.

I prefer to believe that option #1 is the truth. 

I just can't bring myself to admit that I may have served stink bug gravy to my family. 

Ugh.  I'm off to buy a 2 liter of Coke to chug so I can make my own trap.