Food on the brain

I have been planting flowers in the front yard for the past two summers that we've been in the house, but this year, we are trying something different: SEEDING.

Some are seeds that I ordered, others are seeds we took from the plants in the fall. My goal is to keep it under a hundred bucks this year, instead of the few hundred I have spent on the past summers. And it has been keeping us busy!

There is one flower bed in the front that I have never planted... in the fall we ripped out the yucky plants and transplanted the good ones. We now have an 18x11 foot bed to plant veggies in this year! We are doing beans, tomatoes, cukes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, watermelon, pumpkin. Not all of it is going into the bed, but we are anticipating a lot of potted veggies and some failures, so it will be a fine summer regardless. We have done a lot of planning for planting.

We finished edging the bed tonight, and in the next few weeks we will build a wall out of all the river rock we dredged from the dirt. There's a lot of it, so much that I need to build the wall soon to get the pile of rocks out the garden-to-be.

The garden bled into the yard a little, so we had to pull up some grass, which was happily transplanted to bald spots in the back yard. Here, Zoe helps with the effort:

While Zoe's new thing is gardening, that should last only a few more weeks until all the neighbor kids are out again on a regular basis. Jacob's new thing is cooking with Mom. He loves to help, watch, eat, make a mess. Here's a shot of him on my laptop, which wouldn't happen under circumstances where I didn't have three burners and an oven on all at once:


I can't wait until summer. CAN'T WAIT. But I'm glad spring is here, and I'll take what I can get!

It's snowing

IT'S SNOWING.

I should say something witty here, but I really didn't believe that nasally weather guy.

My favorite fried rice

We were sitting at Benihana tonight, and the first thing I noticed was the woman to my left. I noticed mostly because she kept stepping on my foot and bumping into me, asking me to move my plate over and nearly grabbing my glass to drink from. But she seemed to spend most of the meal observing me. It was more unusual than awkward or annoying. Every time I had her in my peripheral vision, I could catch her watching me or glancing at me. I thought maybe it was because her dining partner was on the phone the entire time, so she was bored, and possibly had poor vision and couldn't see much beyond a few feet??

When I got home, I realized I hadn't rubbed in all the foundation on my left cheek.

I was walking around like that all day.

NOW I think she was talking about the blood of Christ...

Liam was telling me the other day about his experiences with his newfound love for Mass.

He was using words like "sermon" and "communion" and "the God, Jesus, Holy Spirity thing."

It's been a long time since I've been inside a house of God (and I'll capitalize God just so some political faction doesn't come after me next time I run for president), so he had to re-explain to me the Abraham story. The name rung a bell, but in case you don't follow, God asked him to sacrifice his son for blah blah blah blah. I'm not sure why Abraham agreed to it, but he did.

Liam asks, "What if God was drunk when he asked that, and the next day he woke up, and thought, SHIT, I didn't think he would actually do it!!"

We were drinking and playing pool at the time, so I'm not sure if Liam was looking for me to really answer that question.

Which is good, because as soon as he began this whole conversation with, "When I was at church," I was immediately focused on trying to re-repress memories of Sister Mary Marie Maria, and how I made up excuses to go to the nurse just to get out of class. Among other things, she used to tell our fifth-grade class to drink Pepto or milk while having a little wine.

Even in my younger years, the thought gagged me. Now, I wonder, why waste the money on booze if you're going to snuff out the undeniable wonderful effects in exchange for a belly that doesn't know which end is up?

I'm sure Sister MMM is long gone, but I'd like to think she would still be advising fifth-graders to think before they drink. And I'm here to pass that message along.

Overheard on late night TV

Jay Leno: Mr. President, I must say, this has been one of the best nights of my life.

Blog-free zone

I have been a little worried about my health lately. For the past couple of weeks or more, I have had some pretty serious fatigue. I blamed it on my meds, the time change, the kids.... nothing has really changed in life except the time, and the fact that I have more light after work completely thrills me. The kids and I take full advantage of the later sunset.

There is not a whole lot weighing on me that wasn't weighing on me a week ago... so I don't know what's going on. Being awake is torture to me at times.

???

I always have news to post, but it seems I can't stay awake long enough to....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm worried about Zoe too... she has passed her heart evaluations, but she still has the symptoms of racing heartbeat. I fear we are turning into a couple of hypochondriacs. I want to be proactive, but I've been so damn tired.

It's hard to be a hypochondriac with no energy.

I have a physical scheduled. Hopefully they'll just find something they can lop off and make me normal again.

Thank. You. Mother. Nature.

The bulbs are coming up. Spring is here.

We spent the day outside riding bikes and getting our spring on!

I warned the kids that this would not last. I had a hard time convincing them that after 70 degree weather, we would probably still see snow before spring.

Still, Jacob got his pink on:

Overheard waiting outside family court

"I've been stabbed before. I can handle this."

Build-A-Freakin-Bear

The Build-A Bear Workshop is not something I would ever think about indulging my kids in. Sure, it sounds like great fun for a kid, but who can afford that (and I've been dying to say this and really mean it:) IN THIS DAY AND AGE.

I have a cousin who makes six figures and got Zoe in the grab bag at Christmas. I almost tacked "luckily" to the beginning of that sentence, but then I thought about the precedent I'm setting allowing Zoe to indulge in things that I couldn't otherwise afford.

She knew all about the Build-A-Bear philosophy when we went into the store. Apparently kids can pick out a heart for the "bear" -- in Zoe's case, a Hello Kitty -- and then it is promptly mixed in with the stuffing. As I'm watching this, I'm thinking.... I PAID A DOLLAR FOR YOU TO THROW SOME FABRIC IN WITH THAT STUFFING????

Everything about Build-A-Bear is to get you to buy all the extras, so I'm sure that is where they make their money. You want a sound? Of course your kid does!






We were probably in and out of the store in 45 minutes. Most of that time was spent talking Zoe down on buying every outfit and accessory, since I made her bring her own money knowing the gift certificate wouldn't cover everything.

I think Build-A-Bear is a great shop, don't get me wrong. But when you have to spend more than $50 to get just exactly right the stuffed creature you want, with the incentive to come back for more shit for it, I think you're paying way more for the experience than the materials. And before I got outside of the mall, I was wondering if there were any Build-A-Bear knock-off stores around the same time Zoe was wondering aloud when she would be able to come back for more outfits for her new friend.

She crooned about how all her friends had a Build-A-Bear, and Now She Does Too! And then asked for a cell phone because.... well... all her friends have one too. All her 7-year-old friends. Have cell phones.

A few days later, I caught Jacob trying to do in the new Hello Kitty.


I didn't try to stop him.