Carb loaders

 I regularly have crouton thieves whenever I make my salads. I say “my salads” in part because I’m the only one who eats them, and in part because I make huge ones. I figure if you’re going to get all that stuff out and chop it all up, might as well make it worth your while, right?

Anyway, Thing Three is pretty fast and he snags croutons straight out of my bowl before I get the dressing on.

“Croutons fill me with joy,” he claims.

***

I came down the stairs and past the Old Lady Room. The crinkling sound of snack wrappers brought my head up and I see Thing Two in the armchair with the entire bag of croutons in his still-pajama-clad lap. He was calmly eating them straight out of the bag until I busted him! I told him if he wanted croutons that he needed to start liking salad.

***

Thing One lamented to me last night with a fake pout, “I like toast and I can’t stop- I have no self control!” I told the child to have some of the delicious and humongous strawberries, left the kitchen, and came back in to yet another slice of sourdough bread toasting! These People that I live with!

Train wreck

 I thought I was doing well, but Damon beat the pants off me when we played Ticket to Ride. The trains are all tipped over to show that I’d counted them, in case anyone was wondering. He beat me like 176 to 95 or 99. So proud of his strategy!

*sigh* Ohio.

 

Spring has sprung

Back to school and on time today. Lovely sunrise!

Just yesterday I’d said I didn’t see any violets or Virginia springbeauties and look who shows up!

 I hate weeding; I think we’ve established that. I feel terrible about the earthworms I uproot and how scary it must be to be going about your business and then thinking, “huh, nobody told me it was moving day.” I apologize the whole time I’m out there. 

Today was even worse as I was chuffing last year’s leaves and this year’s early growth of Creeping Charlie out of the garden behind the garage; I uncovered a leafy mound with fluff in it and had just enough time to think, “uh oh” before a baby bunny squirted out of the hole and zigged left. I thought, “oh dear,” and another one made a beeline right. A third one hopped along the open garage door and I whispered, “don’t go in, oh, don’t go in!” Sure enough, I had to scoop that baby up from between shelving and buckets and, well, you have a garage so just use your imagination. Thankfully I probably smelled like fresh earth as I’d been in it so I took the sweet baby back to the hole, apologizing,  swearing that I meant no harm, and telling them that they’ll get used to me the whole time. I didn’t see the Mama anywhere but she probably watched me from the safety underneath the trailer or the playhouse. I hope that first one scuttles back before it starts raining again. I’m so sorry!

When life gives you fog

Today started off with a two hour fog delay which turned into a "the fog is still too bad so now it's a stay at home" day. I took advantage of the morning mist since I had to take the trash out anyway and got some dewy spring pictures.

I just love morning light. And strings of drops on spiderwebs. And dew on flowers. The birds were out, but the closest lovely blue jay was being camera shy and the cardinals were too far out of range to capture. We have two white squirrels, believe it or not, as well as many brown and gray ones. I didn't see any bunnies this morning, but they probably saw me and went the other way. Honey stared at me like I'd lost my mind as I tramped around in the damp with my phone. I'm looking forward to the Virginia spring beauty, the violets, the buttercups, and the irises. I did take a picture of what I discovered was hairy bittercress but I wasn't sure anyone but me really wanted to see it, haha. We also have common yarrow growing out back, which reminds me of tiny ferns. I've got to get our seeds started! Eek!

 

You can tell we like to eat!

Since I know better than to advertise when Dada is out of town and I'm holding down the fort, these all waited awhile to get posted. He spent almost two weeks in Bogota, Colombia as March turned to April. A handful of his coworkers went with him, one a native of Bogota with family there. Therefore, Dada got taken to great places to eat!

Sweet Angela, whom I'd gotten to meet when we went together before, sent two adorable tiny mugs and saucers, and coffee flavored chewy candies which are excellent, home with Dada. I squealed in delight, of course, and have been using them every day. Un mug petit!

Breakfast at his hotel. I asked what was in the mug because it looked like potatoes. He said, "soup." I asked what was in it and he said, "soupy stuff." Sorry folks, I got nothin'! 

Angela and her brother Alejo, some of our wonderful family in South America!

Bernardo's lovely mom, Yvonne, had the guys over after they'd been stuffed by his inlaws' side of the family. Never too full for dessert!

Dinner some different night. I made the mistake of asking what the squiggles were and was informed, "calamari, and it was delicious!" Guess there's really not a lot of things they could have been had I thought about it...

Shopping for souvenirs. Trying to gauge sizes for the kids.

I have no idea what Mike Wizowski is doing in Bogota, but I'm glad Dada got a picture of him!

The above chandelier is in a salt mine! Isn't that incredible!?

Sweet breads at Yvonne's

Liam likes my new tiny mugs. Apparently they're not going to work well for warming his huge hands.

And the treats he brought back! Those Copelia cookies are amazing. Imagine a stroopwaffel had a kid with a Girl Scout Samoa cookie and that's pretty close to how delicious they are. I'm having a hard time showing restraint! 

And he brought me back the tub of dulce de leche, yum! Now all I need is some vanilla ice cream to dump drizzle it onto.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for traveling mercies for him. Other than a delay in Atlanta on the way home, everything else went very well! He made it home at about ten to four in the morning on Friday so we were all glad for a weekend to catch up on some rest!

 

Aggravation

Don’t you hate it when you get a spinny circle of death in your force quit box? Who designs these things? How can that even happen?! Grrrr!

 

It's that time of year, folks

  Thing Three was already apprehensive about school today and when we walked outside to this, I got the reaction I'd been anticipating: "why isn't there a delay!?"

I informed Damon, "good news, I'll actually be here after school for you today."

He laments sadly, "there might be no after school for me. I might not make it. State testing."

I reassured him that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever died during state testing. I reminded him to do his best, to not make a huge mess with his snacks, we'd prayed over him...

Please lift up these days of testing when the poor kids are stress balls and the teachers can only help so much. I'm sure it's most people's least favorite time of year academically!

Coffee conundrum

 The saddest part of this story is that it happened yesterday and I didn't even have the built in excuse of, "oh, that's Monday." 

Yesterday I attempted to make coffee, something I do almost daily (though I confess to drinking my fair share of leftover coffee from the day before. I'm a mom. As long as it's hot, I don't care. That's why I often find my mug in the microwave, which has been beeping patiently at me, reminding me that my coffee is in there!)

First, I needed to reassemble my drip coffee maker with its grinder. No big deal, it's about six pieces in total. I slide the barrel into place that holds the filter and the bottom half of the grinder up top. I reach for my bag of beans from our local coffeeshop (which is excellent, by the way) and dump a spoonful into the barrel. 

"Waitaminute," I muse to myself. "I've done that before." When one attempts to grind coffee beans without a filter, one's kitchen is scented and sprayed with the delightful aroma and unbelievable mess of fine coffee grounds. Been there, done that, much to the kids' delighted mirth. They feel the same way about the story of my Pap Pap making popcorn on the stove but forgetting the lid, something none of us were alive for but a story we all find hilarious because my Pap Pap was just about the most organized and process-oriented man alive.

I dump the beans back out, add the all-important paper filter (I prefer the brown ones. I don't need bleached paper that's just going to turn brown anyway. Seems silly to me. Plus, they're cuter, like brown eggs and black sheep. I digress.) Then I poured the beans back into the exact same but now filter-lined spot. 

"Waitaminute," I sighed to myself. "Those are beans. They need ground first." Removing the beans again and redepositing them into the grinder where they belong, I try to make coffee for the third time. 

I finally get all the pieces assembled and pour in the rest of the beans and the water. I turn the thing on and ponder, "what does it mean when you need coffee in order to simply make coffee?" 

Third child

 Me: Keep that [miniature American flag] out of your mouth. You have no idea where that's been.

Third child: I know it's been in my mouth.

#DontYouSassMe, #ChildsGotSass

***

Third child and I discuss the various blankets we have around the house, of which there is no shortage. I ask him to bring the blue fuzzy one back up to the big leather chair in the library, as the chair is as old as Liam and looks considerably worse for wear. 

Me: where is the blue blanket?

Third child: it's in the basement on the couch. I like it down there because the other ones are scrudgy. 

Me: Scrudgy?

Third child: Yeah, scrudgy.

So we worked up a definition for our readers:

"Scrudgy- /skrud'-gee/ Adj. Prickly, uncomfortable;

see: wool blankets"