Wasting time productively…?

 

So 50 bajillion things to do… seems like a good time to organize the Tupperware cabinet! My discard pile above, and my keep pile below. No wisecracks about the apparent KFC bowl addiction or the amount of goat cheese crumbles we go through, please. I give it two days before it’s totally wrecked again. Sooner if anyone besides me puts the hand washed dishes away. And yes, I realize our youngest is 2/3 done with middle school and that it is indeed an Elmo sandwich container, but I’ve offered to not send it with him and he was offended! He says he likes using it and making his table laugh, so Elmo stays. One spring cleaning thing done.

Cause and effect

 I forget what exactly we were talking about... perhaps my students at the school where I sub. I do a lot of preschool and first grade, some lunch monitoring, etc. I think I mentioned how my students are so small and cute. 

Dada: I am small and cute.

Me: You ARE cute. You do NOT count as small.

Dada pouts: I need cookies to console myself.

Beautiful things

 

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I hope you had a lovely day and a peaceful weekend with food you didn't have to cook or clean up from, lots of phone calls or visits or hugs and kisses from your kids, and that you know how appreciated you are. Pretty sure the world would grind to a very sudden halt without you. Not to mention nobody would go to the doctor or the dentist or the vet. So thank you all for all the blood, sweat, and tears, as well as the booboos kissed and encouraging words and vast amounts of patience involved in getting all of us to where we are. Or "where we're at" if you're from certain parts of the country. Thanks, n'at! Are my Pittsburgh roots showing?

Anyway, just some lovely things for you to look at from my rambling walk this weekend. I'm happy to share!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

 I have a praise and a complaint, which is generally how life goes if we are all being honest. We have to take the bad with the good because nobody gets all good and while there are folks out there who seem to get dumped on more than the rest of us, even they'd be likely to say it's not ALL bad.

I went to my 6 month oncology appointment which actually turned into a 7 month appointment, but that's okay, too. My Doc said all my numbers are perfect- platelets, white blood cells, red blood cells, everybody. She wanted to know if I had any pain. Nope. Appetite, sleep, energy levels are all decently good. Yes, I have that end-of-the-school-year tired that everyone else is dragging themselves through. Yes, I just want it to be summer schedule so we can stay up late and get up whenever and be outside in the sunshine and I can get the garden going and and and... 

Yes, everything looks good. She was very pleased. Then she told me that I am her target. She herself, my outstanding oncologist, has been diagnosed with the exact same thing I had. She is halfway through chemo and said it is kicking her butt. She is losing patches of hair and that woman has HAIR. If she'd ever, even once, been cold/standoffish/treating me like I was just a chart, I would say that "well, at least now she can better empathize with her patients" but this woman has been incredible from the get go. Part of why I like going to the appointments despite the bloodwork is because of the family feel the entire staff displays. They tease each other and the patients, they carry on, they laugh a lot. For her to have dedicated her life to eradicating cancer in her patients and then end up with it herself... you bet I'm complaining. I call BS! Not fair. So all of you have an assignment: offer up thanks that I am doing so well here at the 5 years since diagnosis mark, and use that energy you poured into me to lift up my superhero Doc!

"I'm going on an adventure!"

Thing One and I did a whirlwind to PA trip over a weekend last month. We stayed with my parents and met up with my lifelong bestie. Or tried to. We thought we'd come to her, and she thought she'd come to us, but we finally met up in the same place!

Me waiting for her, above.

Below, all together now!

And these two are just dangerous together!

The next morning we headed to Panera to meet up with some more friends and celebrate one of their birthdays, so that worked out amazingly well timewise! Happy birthday, Rick!

Always a good time with the many variations of this Tribe of mine. They are amazing and Thing One wants to steal them all. You can't steal all my friends! Make your own!

Then it was off to the wedding of some of our camp friends. More Shenanigans ensued:

The cute black and white creation with the hair on the left of the photo below is one of the rarest creatures you'll encounter. It's an Oreo Pegasus made by our friend Clarissa. Years ago when we all worked at camp together, we used a verse in Acts about the Areopagus in Greece. Of course many of the campers gave up trying to pronounce it and we christened it the Oreo Pegasus, which is close enough for government work as well as something they'd remember because it was silly. It turned into our mascot my last summer at camp and even was painted on the staff lounge wall of fame. To be gifted one was a complete surprise and delight! I LOVE it!

Some of you will recognize Tino, Thing One's steadfast stuffy. He's been everywhere and is the reason that Dada has a Tiny Traveling Tino himself. The bride had been Thing One's camp counselor back in the day and had been contacted when Tino went missing. He was found safely, so we wanted to make sure he got to come to the wedding, too!

We had a wonderful weekend, got close to probably 50 hugs in under two full days, and made it safely home again. Thank you to everyone who squeezed us into your schedules!

 

Adios to Barcelona

 Dada got to spend two weeks in Barcelona last month. You're only hearing about it now because I forget that I have a blog. Also, I generally don't post about trips until after the traveler is home safely. He came bearing gifts:

I'm sure they did do some work, but most of I got were food pictures. 

He tried to convince me that he was having "salad."

His flight home was via Paris, so some other goodies came home as well.

And cake. 

He and his coworkers got to go to Monserrat for mass. He was even there during St. Jordi day, or St. George (and the dragon) so it was extra meaningful to be able to have this picture, too. Apparently St. Jordi day traditionally was celebrated by giving roses to women and presenting men with books, so out in the city were stalls of flower vendors and books out on tables. Sounds exactly like it would become one of my favorite holidays! Why don't we give books and flowers to each other!?

And more food. 

Dada was absolutely delighted that they had time to sign up for a how to cook paella class. He said the pan below served twelve, and he told me there were people in the class from all over the world. He had a ball!

He'd mentioned tapas for dinner on more than one occasion. Then I receive the above picture. 

"You keep using that word. I don't think that's what the word means." - Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride"

Nor does it count for the photo below! A coworker ordered this, so at least he's off the hook for that one.

Walking off the "tapas" and seeing some sights...

In his defense, he was there for two weeks and there were lots of things to try and places to check out!

More paella. My friend Mar eats the eyes off of the smiley Eat N Park cookies first so they can't see her eating them... I wonder what she'd say to having the creepy crawlies staring at her in this dish. *shudder*

They even attended a soccer match and enjoyed all that high energy. I'm so glad they weren't stuck in the hotel the whole time they were there. Trips are so much better when you can get out and do real life!

Macrons from the Paris airport. I guess I'm too American and am used to sugar in everything, but they didn't really do much for me. They're lovely to look at and would be fun to make, but I don't particularly care for cookies that taste like lily of the valley. We're afraid to try the blue one- Marie Antionette tea! Some of the fruity ones were not bad. They're just not my thing, I guess. They weren't tapas. ;)

Somethings beautiful

Beauty may indeed be in the eye of the beholder, but I had to share these beautiful things with you all. Dandelions will forever be flowers to me, never weeds, and here they are in some of their glory.

Most of my favorite flowers are perennials who require nothing from me. They know when it's time to show up and do their thing, they do the thing with panache and then they go on their way. I love hostas, violets, the aforementioned dandelions, lilies, the irises that are just budding along the side of the house. My parents had a handful of crocuses at their old house that made me smile. There's even butterweed out back, which is a tallish, cute plant with yellow blossoms apparently attractive to bees. My garden is full of wild garlic mustard which I didn't plant, but I'm enjoying the white blossoms anyway. Below is a closeup of Virginia Springbeauties.

My poor tulips have been nibbled off and lost their petals by now. I have one bold one hanging on but it looks rather wretched. They were just glorious in their prime!

We've started the "oh, let's go look at seedlings for sale" game and came home with two flats of various things yesterday to join my flat of marigolds waiting patiently to be tucked into the garden. We haven't had a chance yet to till up the garden; Dada mowed last Friday, left the mower out to cool off, and the darn thing wouldn't start back up. One new battery later it's made it back into the shed, but is going to be called up for duty pretty soon again, methinks! Looks like today and tomorrow of sun and then rain on Friday so we better get crackin'!