Here We Go! Again.

I wrote the following post approximately 12 weeks ago, but due to the red tape at my place of employment, I could not share it. Why would this matter, you ask? Does she work for the CIA? Is she an undercover officer? A double agent? You'll never know. But here is a spoiler alert: a lovely couple did buy our unlisted house, we did find a place to live in our new city, we LOVE our new church and community, the dog has not eaten anyone's face off, and our belongings made it, too. They can be found in various boxes strewn about the house, as I am boycotting unpacking. But that's for another post...

We're moving. Again. In the last 10 years, Ryan and I have each moved 8 times. Sixteen moves in 10 years. You'd think that we would be a lot better at it by now.

Ryan recently accepted a job at a new church about 75 miles away, and while we are SO excited, if I'm totally honest, I'm completely overwhelmed. The church we're leaving holds a very special place in our hearts (we met there, we said our vows there, and we started our life together there), and the people have been wonderful to us, so it is very bittersweet.

Additionally, on our 16th collective move, we took the plunge and bought a house. Well, technically, the bank bought it and allows us to live here so long as we continue to pay them. So unlike our previous moves, we can't just tell the landlord what day we're leaving. Being that we have only "owned" our house for 22 months, we would owe a licensed real estate professional more than twice the amount of equity we have built.

So, we're selling it ourselves. How hard could it be? I mean, realtors just go to a specialized school, know all of the laws, and have years of experience....pssshhht, easy peasy! Is there a pro bono program for realtors? If so, we'd like to apply. We're young and poor and desperate and exceptionally nice!

After explaining all of the above to people when they give us the look of dismay after finding out that we think we can sell a house by ourselves, the next question is always, "Do you have a place to live in your new city?" Ummm, no. No, we do not. Buying is not all that it is cracked up to be, so we would like to rent a house with a 60 pound dog. Landlords aren't exactly forming a line outside of our door hoping that we'll choose them.

Also, stop asking me if our dog is coming with us. Yes, she is coming with us. I know this analogy irritates people with kids, so I apologize in advance, but she is our child. I get that humans and animals are not the same. And I also get that once we have tiny humans, our dog will move to second place. But for now, she is our child, and for always, she will be a part of our family. Short of actually eating someone's face off, the dog stays. And to any future landlords who may be reading this, she is also young and exceptionally nice, so she wouldn't eat the face of any nice human being. A murderer, though? She would totally eat a murderer for lunch. Think of the money you will save on security systems!

I am a planner, and like to have all my little duckies in a row. In addition to being in the busiest 3 months of my full time job, Ryan is currently commuting 75 miles each way every day, and we are spending most of our free time gathering up those figurative ducklings and putting them back in place. I have an excel sheet detailing the contents of every box, the room it will be moved from, the room it will be moved to, and its respective number. I have moving expenses (house updates, listing fee, closing fee, movers, etc.) budgeted for each coming month. We are ready to go.

Except that we haven't listed our house yet (budgeted for the next round of paychecks/winning lottery ticket - whichever comes first), nobody has bought our unlisted house yet, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to pack when we don't know how long we will or will not be living in this house the bank is renting to us.

You don't realize how much stuff you use on a weekly basis until your choices are to pack it up, keep it out and accessible for an undetermined amount of time, or donate it. We've been subscribing to the latter two options lately...Goodwill sees us every day. To date, I have exactly one box packed - comprised of a punch bowl, two muffin tins, and a cheese tray. Everything else we own will come standard with the purchase of our home.

The Great Gravy Cook Off

Without trying to toot our own horns, we're pretty decent cooks at our house. We eat very different things; Ryan is a carnivore, and I am a vegetarian carbivore , unified only by our love of potatoes and our disdain for onions. While we pretty much have who cooks what down to a science, there has been one sticking point: biscuits & gravy. Technically, it's just the gravy, as we enlist the help of Grands for the biscuits.

We have very different backgrounds - I am a liberal youngest of 5 children from the west coast, and he is a conservative only child from the south. We actually do have a lot in common, except our accents, some of our politics, and the hardest of all beliefs to merge: gravy. I firmly believe that breakfast gravy should be of the creamy, white, peppered variety. Ryan objects that a breakfast gravy should be a greasy, yellow, salty treat. Two and a half years into our marriage, we have learned that this is one topic that neither of us will totally budge on. When with his family, we have yellow gravy, and when with my family, we have white gravy.

 

A few days ago, we both had a craving for some biscuits & gravy, and decided that we would both attempt to make our respective mothers' recipe. As with anything in our house, we made it into a competition. The winner would receive bragging rights and be named the 'Sloan Gravy Maker' from here on forward.

We gathered our utensils (We only own 1 wisk, so I was given the immediate disadvantage of making scratch gravy with the beater from a hand mixer) and mentally prepared for the task ahead:

 

One of us equipped with a traditional tool and one of us having to make due with a beater, and our moms' recipes in mind, we set out to duplicate their famous gravy. Then we stirred, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred some more. Next came more stirring. And then a little more stirring for good measure. Meanwhile, our biscuits were golden brown and ready to be covered in our gravy creations. Biscuits are a lesser fought battle at the Sloan household - I am a fan of a flaky biscuit, while Ryan prefers a solid biscuit. Because I am a good wife, I conceded to a hearty solid biscuit.

 

 

Back to the star of the show, we were still stirring the gravy, neither of us 100% happy with our pans when we decided to call time and let the judging begin. Pan #1 was mine, and while I feel that I nailed the color and consistency, it was mostly because I added waaaaay too much flour, and that's all it tasted like. Pan #2 was Ryan's, and his also closely matched his mom's color of gravy, though it was due to the gravy being overdone.

 

 

 

 

All in all, we tied...in the 'we both lost and made bad gravy' way. Again, we're decent cooks, so we did the only logical thing and mixed the two batches together - it was better that way, but well short of the moms' legacies.

 

Not ones to give up easily, the next day presented us with another craving for biscuits & gravy (pretty much an every day occurrence), and another opportunity to perfect the recipe. We whole heartedly believe that one of the keys to a happy marriage is compromise, so we popped the flaky biscuits in the oven, started a pan of scrambled eggs, and combined our cooking expertise to try to make one good pan of gravy instead of two sub-par pans.

 

Since Ryan was the head chef on this endeavor, we aimed for a yellowish gravy, and figured if all else failed, eggs and biscuits weren't a terrible plan b. The two of us, the help of both moms, half the originally used flour, medium-high heat, and a few prayers later, we had more than edible biscuits and gravy, ladies and gentlemen!!

 

We have a new recipe in our repertoire, full bellies, and a whole new appreciation for our moms' cooking talents!



 







Things I Never Thought I Would Say: Dog Edition

Though we do not have any human babies yet, our lives have definitely been taken over by one sweet, adorable, stubborn baby of the four legged variety. If you have somehow managed to miss our barrage of social media posts over the last year pertaining to our dog, you have obviously been living under a rock and/or in a coma.

 

Mia Jane is our beautiful 3 year old boxer, who tips the scales at a whopping 60 pounds. The first 2 questions that everyone asks about her are 1.) Is she part great dane?, and when we tell them she is purebred boxer the next question/comment is always, 2.) Is she big for a boxer? She seems big for a boxer. As Ryan lovingly says, "She's a big, fine girl!"

 

While Mia is many things, the brightest crayon in the box she is not. I once remember my sister Tammy saying to her then 4 year old, "Jeremy, please don't put the dog's tail in your mouth.", and then immediately saying to me, "I have a whole list of things I never thought I'd say before I became a parent." While having nieces and nephews has partially prepared me for the list of things I will one day utter to my children, I was not prepared to verbalize any of the following commands to my aforementioned (sweet, but not particularly sharp) dog:

 

* It's just a leaf, Mia, not a murderer.

 

* No, no - we don't lick mom's eyeball.

 

* Mia, please don't eat the dirt I just piled with the broom.

 

* It's just a reflection, Mia, not a murderer.

 

* You have 3 water bowls - please stop drinking out of my glass.

 

* If I see that bone in my plant/clean laundry/shoe one more time, it's mine!

 

* You have 2 beds and 6 blankets - please stop pulling my blanket off of me at 3am.

 

* (As she is literally choking on her food): Take a breath!

 

* It's just a balloon, Mia, not a murderer.

 

* And my personal favorite: Ladies don't lick their own butts, Mia Girl.

 

It's a good thing she's pretty!!

        



A Cashier, A Theologian, And A Nutritionist

Iowa is currently under a foot of snow, so more specifically, our driveway and sidewalks are under a foot of snow. While we did make a rookie mistake buying a corner lot, we did pretty well in the 'neighbors across the street' lottery. The gentleman across the street has cleared our driveway and sidewalks for us at least once every single winter. Because of the way my mother raised me, I make cookies for him every year as a thank you. Because I am not my mother, I don't always have the staple ingredients on hand, so I had to venture to the store to pick up several things necessary for cookie baking.

After trekking all over the entire store to get the ingredients and cute bags to deliver the finished product in, I searched each of the 22 checkout lanes in the hopes of finding an open one besides the express lane.

Of the four open lanes, ONE of them had less than seven people in line. Willing my blood pressure numbers to stay below that of the gross national debt, I forced a smile onto my face and began a 15 minute wait behind five other patrons.

When I finally reached the conveyor belt and began placing my items upon it, I was greeted by the cashier. Something that I feel is important to the ensuing event is that I have an unbelievable knack for being held conversationally hostage by employees of the businesses that I frequent. Like the waiter at Red Robin who told me, in detail, all about his online dating show (true story), or the host at Buffalo Wild Wings who insists on telling me about his girlfriend and his cat every single time that he seats us (also a true story). Ryan has perfected the head down/no eye contact move so that these people leave him alone, but I must look too inviting, because I was roped into another uncomfortable and uncomfortably long conversation today (another true story):

As Judgmental Janet (like a Chatty Cathy, except a jerk) (and name has been changed so I don't get sued) greeted me, she didn't opt for the traditional small talk 'hello' that most cashiers go for. Her first words to me were 'Did you see how much wine that couple in front of you just bought?!' I uttered out a 'No' as I was tensely hoping this was the beginning of a math problem (literally the ONLY time you will ever hear me hope for this). Without missing a beat, Judgmental Janet went on with 'They SAID they were using them for cooking, but I bet they are drinking some of them, too!'

At this point, I'm trying to direct one eye to the couple who had just left with the reported plethora of wine (without trying to be rude, they looked plenty old enough to legally purchase whatever kind of alcohol they desire), and one eye to the conveyor belt, praying that my items were close to bagged so that I could flee. Then I remembered that I wasn't in the express lane - I was in the take my time and gossip about the customers who just left line.

Trying to find a way out of this conversation, I casually mention that a lot of great cooks use wine when preparing sauces and other tasty dishes. Instead of finding an exit from this lovely little chat, Janet took my comment as an invitation to a sermon. I'll spare you the details, but from my lips to God's ears, the CASHIER at a store then said to me, 'The Bible says that Jesus turned water into wine, so if you're not Jesus, you shouldn't be allowed to drink wine.' The smart aleck in me wanted so badly to ask her where she went to seminary, but instead, I just looked at her completely dumbfounded. "Oh you're not a Christian?' she asked. Again, my sarcastic side was dying to come out, but my completely mortified side won out and I sharply said, 'No, I am a Christian. I just don't believe drinking is a sin'.

 

I kid you not, this woman then IMMEDIATELY picked up the bag of m&ms I bought for the cookies and said 'Are you preparing early for Valentine's day? There sure is a lot of sugar in your cart.' So she's a cashier, a theologian, and a nutritionist - my lucky day! I mumbled something about thanking a neighbor, but she was just glaring at me with those judgey eyes. The irony of this whole incident is that plan A was to buy our neighbor wine as a thank you, but we don't know him well enough to know if he prefers red or white, so we went with cookies. I can only imagine what ol' Janet would have to say about wine AND cookies!

 

Sunday Funday?

Life as a pastor's wife has some unique challenges all year long, but I find it to be particularly challenging during the winter. There's the added pressure to not fall on ice and accidentally flash members of the congregation as they walk into the building (I so wish I was making this up!), there's setting an extra alarm to make sure that neither of us sleep in too late even though it is SO hard to get out from under the covers before the sun comes up, and perhaps worst of all, there's the magnetic force field that attracts snow to our area on Saturday night.

 

It doesn't snow every Saturday night in winter, but rest assured that if Eastern Iowa is going to get a heaping dose of snow, it will be on a Saturday night. In my previous life, this wouldn't have been a problem for two reasons; 1.) I rented, so I had a landlord to do the shoveling, and 2.) If it was too nasty outside, skipping church was always an option. Before you write me a scathing comment, I'm going to politely remind you that I grew up in Arizona and after four winters in Iowa, I can barely drive in inclement weather - me staying off the road from November - April is a public service gesture. And also, you're not the boss of me.

 

Now that I am a first lady (I heard once that some churches refer to pastors' wives as 'First Lady', and now I refuse to let my fantasy of being Michelle Obama go until someone, anyone, starts addressing me as such), my Sundays have gone from a peaceful morning off to a mad dash to get everyone showered, fed, dressed, and out the door/in the kennel. In the winter, there's an added desire to help my husband shovel a driveway, walkway, and two sidewalks before anything else can happen. And it's currently just two adults and a dog in our house! I'm certain that once we have tiny humans living here, we'll either constantly be late, be forced to forego breakfast, or put the wrong wild animal/child in the kennel. Sidenote: I'm sure you are brilliant and have already thought of this, but just in case, let me take this opportunity to urge you to NEVER buy a corner lot (two sidewalks) in a place that it snows. Also, don't buy a property with a fire hydrant on it - the firefighters of the world get a little pissy if they are trying to save your neighbor's house from burning down, but they are delayed because they have to dig out the hydrant first. The solution to this problem? Make the homeowners whose property the hydrant resides on dig it out, and if they don't within the allotted time, fine them. The city of Cedar Rapids has that tied up in a nice little bow! 

 

Just when I thought that I finally have this chaotic Sunday morning scene down to a manageable science, we turned on one of our favorite shows, and my #1 Pastor's Wife blue ribbon was torn to shreds. We love watching 'Pioneer Woman' at our house - it's a cooking show hosted by Ree Drummond; married mother of four who homeschools her kids, helps her husband run a cattle ranch, and has her own tv show. This specific episode was titled 'Sunday Brunch', and she effortlessly made a ham, eggs inside of homemade hashbrown cups (like, she took the time to boil and shred potatoes into hashbrowns and then formed them into the shape of a cup), scratch biscuits and gravy, and a fruit salad. Ree managed to make said feast, set the table, make centerpieces from hand picked flowers, get four kids out the door, attend church, and serve brunch. She made a freaking ham, people. And decorative cups made out of freshly shredded potatoes to hold each person's eggs. It's a pretty big deal in our house if I make time to brown some hamburger and throw a bunch of canned ingredients into the crockpot before I leave for church. Most Sundays, Ryan gets a drive through meal.

 

I didn't use to be this way. I once had time to color code my Tupperware drawer. And I used to make biscuits and gravy for myself every Sunday morning. And I used to eat them slowly, enjoying every bite, before I leisurely started to get ready for church. Once ready to leave, I would stroll through my apartment making sure everything was turned off and that every hair on my head was perfectly as it should be.

 

These days, I'm typically shoving vitamins and a banana in my mouth as I run out the door an hour before the service I attend even starts, dragging a purse stuffed with extra batteries for Ryan's guitar, and stealing a quick glance back at the crockpot to make sure that I actually plugged it in.

As much as I long to be the well put together, never frazzled, picture perfect pastor's wife (ahem, First Lady), I'm more often the lady running through the hall with a hole in her leggings because she fell face first into the door of the church, holding a completely bent bible that I just dug out from underneath the pile of junk in my backseat, searching frantically for my husband to tell him I will be late for duties 6 through 9 because I am up to my eyeballs running my own subsect of ministry that I signed up for during all of my free time. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, I wouldn't complain about having it with cute little hashbrown cups holding my eggs.