Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Dude. Otto proves to be a hard act to follow. I feel like I have to have something extremely MEANINGFUL and HEARTFELT to share after he hijacked the blog yesterday and was all “My love will go oooooooooon!” while he stood at the prow of the HMS Woulda, hair streaming back in the wind. (Sometimes I get him confused with a movie I once saw, but I’m pretty sure that’s very close to what happened.) And now I should be able to show up in a corseted ball gown and tell you how turning 40 changed my life, and I had a deep personal revelation yesterday about the nature of the human experience.

The truth is that I’m still in my pajamas, and while I felt very loved yesterday, the deepest epiphany I had ran along the lines of, “Yum, cake is delicious.”

Sometimes shallow is deeper than me, it’s true. (more…)

1) Watching Chickadee pack up for school and carefully loft the new pink flute case that Otto surprised her with “because I’m proud of how hard you’ve worked with the marching band.” I never knew how much I would enjoy watching two people trying to pretend they’re not totally smitten with one another.

2) Khan Academy, and the fact that Monkey cannot get enough of it.

3) Surrendering to unschooling, and realizing it’s going to be fine because Monkey disappeared for an hour and came back with the periodic table, several carefully-drawn atom diagrams, and a page of notes he took on alkali metals because “this is incredibly interesting.”

4) Spending an hour splashing in the pool with my kid this afternoon (“this totally counts as gym… or recess… or both!”), and watching the dog disappear and reappear with various leaves tangled in her ears.

5) The fact that while we frolicked inside our finally-done fence, Fence Guy remembered his offer and dropped off a couple of bottles of wine for us. Red for Otto and white for me. I grudgingly admit this was a very sweet gesture.

Hey, it’s almost like it’s Love Thursday, or something.

I do believe this summer will go down in family history as the Summer of the Tomatoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I do love me some tomatoes. But thanks to my husband’s plant selection and what must be a particularly optimal growing season (can you believe I haven’t seen a single tomato horn worm this year?) (knocking on wood; crossing myself; throwing salt over my shoulder; spitting twice), my tomato cup runneth over.

And so the course of my days has changed.

The weird thing is, I really kind of like it.

I used to get up, have coffee while dealing with email, and get right to work. I would work all day (minus fifteen interruptions from Monkey wanting to know what I was doing now, and did I want to play Wii with him instead, and was it time to go swimming yet?) (answers: still working, yes but no thank you, and just a few more minutes) and try to knock off early to swim with the kids and otherwise actually be present with my family, and then eventually it would be evening and then bedtime. (more…)

I always get a little twitchy when someone asks me for a recipe. I am not one of those “This is my secret recipe and if I tell you then I have to kill you” sorts, not by a long shot. I’m the person who brings a dish somewhere and if someone says, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing!” I’ve barely said “thank you” before I’m telling them how easy it is to make, let me tell you. So it’s not a secrecy thing.

It’s a… slob thing. I am not an exacting person when it comes to cooking. I love to cook; I love to eat; I can follow a recipe with no problem. But the reality is that once I’ve made something two or three times, I’ve internalized the nuts and bolts and then I cook it by feel. So when you wanted the veggie chili recipe, yesterday, it struck terror into my heart. Because… I’m pretty sure I had a recipe for it? Once upon a time? But now it’s just… whatever. I just make it. And it’s good.

But because I love you, I will attempt to give you the recipe, and also explain what food looks like around here. IT WILL BE THRILLING. (more…)