Longtime readers know that one of the joys of summer, for me, is my little backyard garden. What started years ago with a few containers on the deck has steadily expanded into a series of boxes where I spend half my July wrestling with vines that need to go UP THE TRELLIS, dammit, UP. Some plants I grow from seeds. Zucchini, for example, is perfectly happy when you stick a seed in the soil and then completely ignore it for the next two months. Provided you do anything less traumatic than run it over with a car, zucchini will happily flourish until you have zucchini muffins coming out of your...
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...
6:00 a.m. Wake up. Look at clock. Remember it's Sunday. Go back to sleep. 7:30 a.m. Wake up when Otto gets up. Go back to sleep. 8:30 a.m. Hear Otto making coffee. Get up. 8:35 a.m. COOOOOOOFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. 8:45 a.m. Put turkey breast in crock pot. 8:50 a.m. Field Chickadee's inquisition; she is certainly not eating any of that GROSS ANIMAL in the crock for dinner, so what is she having? Is that cranberry sauce on the turkey? Did I save her any? Because she is NOT EATING CRANBERRY SAUCE THAT TOUCHED TURKEY, MOM. 8:55 a.m. I give up my sanguine replies about how I have unfailingly...
After nearly a week with everyone at home, it was with many yawns and heavy hearts that most of the family headed back to work and school today. I was sorry to see them go; this was, for me, one of our best holiday breaks ever. We didn't do anything. Seriously, it was a festival of sloth and all-day pajamas, most of the time. I was working through it, but that was fine. The kids relaxed. Monkey unwound a little. Chickadee worked on various school projects and slept late and chatted with her friends online. There was pie for breakfast, several times. For a few days I forgot that I was...
Today I'm grateful for writing, even on days like today, when I don't want to, I'm not "feeling" it, and I would rather be in bed with the covers over my head. And I'm grateful for all of the people who encouraged me along the way. This is the (very worn) back cover of my 6th grade yearbook. (Thank you, Mrs. Simons---it took me a while to get around to it, but you can rest easy knowing you were right after all.) And thank you to every single one of you who stops by my little corner of the 'net, too.
Look; you already know that I'm basically sort of lazy. (At least when it comes to physical stuff. My mind is sort of like a hamster on crack on a giant wheel, running for broke. It doesn't often GET anywhere, but at least it's going.) So I preface this story with the acknowledgment that what I consider an incredibly productive weekend may, indeed, be your idea of an uneventful hour. I understand that. Still, FOR ME, it was something of a masterpiece of productivity, and you'll just have to allow me a few moments of bragging about it. Besides, we all know there's a moment at the end where I...
I took my last Prednisone pill this morning, and am eagerly looking forward to returning to sanity in the nearish future. I hope. Also, Otto reports that I ground my teeth so loudly last night I actually woke him up, so I guess the continued pain in my jaw isn't much of a mystery. One of these days I'm going to be all, "OH EM GEE, YOU GUYS, I WOKE UP WITH A MOUTHFUL OF BUSTED TEETH TODAY!" And you'll think I'm exaggerating, like I always do, only it will be true because WHY LEARN TO COPE WITH STRESS when you can simply destroy your sanity and smile in one fell swoop? The funny (not...
Tomorrow we leave on our last camping trip of the summer, and I want you to know that because I am a paragon of planning and efficiency, I have not done one single thing to prepare. NOT ONE. I mean, I wanted to. I PLANNED to. And yet... yeah. Nothing. Remember back when I was all "Oh, this summer is going to be so relaxing! I can't wait!"? While I am not actually admitting to smoking crack, let's just say I'm not sure I was entirely WITH myself when I said that. I simply don't DO relaxing, because it takes a lot of energy to consistently be this disorganized. Take yesterday, for example. We...
I am becoming a damn hippie in my old age. One of the things I like best about working from home is that it gives me the flexibility to do lots of things I could never do when I spent the majority of my day out of the house. Things like cooking and baking stuff that requires a lot of time between steps (even if not a lot of actual effort). Really, I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of hippiedom when I started making my own granola on a regular basis. Because... CRUNCHY GRANOLA HIPPIE, right? But I was wrong. That was just the tip of the hippie iceberg. In the spirit of this month's Get Your...
