show us your books - march

Well since I've finally returned from falling off the face of the earth, I'm excited to share book posts with Steph and Jana again!

The first book I read was Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.  I've been on the waiting list for a long time and it was finally my turn.  I was hooked immediately and this was most definitely a page-turner, and extremely thought-provoking.  As a paralegal I find stories about trials and courtrooms fascinating, so I loved this book for that aspect as well.

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

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Next up was another library wait list book, Where the Crawdads Sing.  I think I'm the last person in the world to read it and I loved it just as much as I hoped it would.  Thanks to a snow day and a late night I read this one in 48 hours.  First of all, the writing was absolutely beautiful. It was almost poetic.  The descriptions of the back bays and marshes where the story is set were so vivid that it was almost like the setting was it's very own character in the story.  And the story was fantastic.  I had a few theories bout the ending but the actual ending threw me for a loop!  This book also also features a trial, which my legal mind loved.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.

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I also read The Woman in Cabin 10.  Sometimes I'm in the mood for a good thriller, and this hit the spot.  Although I went into it thinking it was going to be about a cabin in the woods, and it was about a cabin on a cruise ship, I still enjoyed it.  It didn't hold a candle to the writing in Crawdads, but it passed time on a rainy weekend just fine.  Again, I was SHOCKED at the ending.  I need to just stop trying to guess how books will end.

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

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And because the first three books I read were on the more intense side of things, I decided to even things out a bit with an Elin Hilderbrand.  If you're looking to read a fantastic book that will change your life, don't pick this up.  If you're looking to read a light novel set on Nantucket (of course) with several love stories, a wedding that almost isn't, a widower, a secret relationship, an affair, high school sweethearts, a perfect couple, and a groomsman going into anaphalctic shock at the rehearsal dinner from a previously undiscovered shellfish allergy (don't worry he's fine) then this is the book for you.

The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a happy occasion: a wedding that will unite their two families. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials. Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event -- but in reality, things are falling apart.

While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed. Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in Beautiful Day -- into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments.

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What did your read this month?  I'm always looking for suggestions to add to my library request list!

all i'm saying is, the dining room better be finished by august

For eight years, I've written hundreds of posts on this blog about absolutely nothing.  I thought maybe I'd finally run out of ways to make my mundane life seems humorous and worth writing and reading about, and that it might be time to hanging up the proverbial blogging hat.

And then things got interesting around here and I finally have some material again.

We are in the midst of another home renovation, this time the dining room.  The progress is, not fast.  Matt and I are one week away from our fifth wedding anniversary, and if we don't make it, it will be because of this dining room.

We have four baby chicks arriving on March 26th.

And oh yeah, I'm having a baby.

Oh baby Darling is set to arrive on or about August 17th.  I know you're not supposed to share your birthday wishes, but when I blew out my 30th birthday candles on August 18th, I wished this would be the year, and now I'm due the day before I turn 31.

So that's really been the main thing that been keeping me preoccupied and/or asleep for the last three months.  I'm easing back into this blogging thing, so instead of paragraphs and a narrative structure, let's go with bullet points:

- For the better part of December, and all of January, the smell, thought, or sight of most food made me nauseous.  I don't think I will ever eat the following foods again: chicken breast, fried onions, stir-fry, cranberry juice, and eggs.  Which is unfortunate because did you read that part above about how we are getting four new chickens?  The MVP of those weeks was toast with peanut butter and banana.  Sometimes it was the only thing I ate for days.  Since thinking about eating made me sick, I wouldn't eat, and then being hungry would make me feel sick.  Reading made me sick, showering made me sick, sewing made me sick, even driving sometimes made me sick and if a truck that smelled strongly of exhaust passed by me, FORGET IT.  There were lots of mornings that I got out of bed, showered, and got right back in bed thinking WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT A SECOND CHILD?

I think that part is beyond me now because with the exception of the aforementioned list, here is my current motto about food: BRING IT ON. 

Also, it's hard to believe that I only felt crummy for maybe two months tops, because it felt like years.  Longest two months of my life.  To women who are sick for nine whole months, I don't know how you survive.

- I still take a nap almost every evening.  This is how my Fitbit looks.

- I went to the doctor last week and she asked if I had any questions.  I had two, but I only asked one (which was how dangerous is lunch meat REALLY?).  I don't want her to think I am vain so I skipped my second question, which was, "When does the pregnancy glow arrive?" because I have never looked worse in my entire life.  One day my hair is coarse and wiry, and the next it looks like I've doused it with olive oil.  My lips are dry and cracking no matter how much water I drink and Aquaphor I use.  And my skin.  Oh Lord, my skin.  My complexion would never have won any awards, but it's never been worse than it has recently.  Last weekend my three year old niece asked me why I have so many boo boos on my face.  I've heard girls steal your beauty and if that's the case, this baby is a girl and she's going to be Miss America, because I look like nine miles of bad road.

- Is there an old wives tale about which gender steals your brain?  Because mine has teamed up with my beauty and taken a hike.  The other day I went to the Dunkin' Donuts drive thru, ordered my food, got to the window, and when the man told me my total I realized I had nothing with me.  No purse.  No wallet.  No change in my pockets.  All I had was my good looks and as I've mentioned, THOSE AREN'T SO GOOD ANYMORE.  Other things I've forgotten to do: turn of the gas stove burner, turn off the space heater, pay my Macy's bill, take my insurance card with me when I left the pharmacy, and turn my car off before I walk away from it.  More than once.

- I've also been slacking on the household chores, and God bless Matt for not even saying anything when I went to put away laundry and realized he had been fresh out of clean undies for who knows how long, and he said, "It's no problem, I just turned my old pairs inside out and wore them again."  I wish I could say that's the first time in our married life that's happened, but it's not.  But at least this time I have an excuse.

- The other day I googled "how do you care for a newborn?" because it occurred to me that's something we are going to have to do in a few months. Does someone tell you how often to feed them? And bathe them? And change them? And what temperature should their bedroom be?  And how you're supposed to leave the house amidst the whole feeding/napping schedule? I got overwhelmed with the results and figure I'll just call my mom.

- Matt's been googling too, but his searches are far more scientific and not really about things I want to spend lots of time discussing.  Don't talk to me about a water birth.  I want to be on a bed pumped up with as many drugs as they'll give me.  Matt also asks me questions as if I am a baby expert.  I immediately google the question and then nonchalantly respond like OF COURSE I have the knowledge stored in my head of when babies can start eating applesauce, and why they can breathe in fluid right now, but once they're born, can't breathe underwater.

- So far I'm still wearing all my normal clothes, but I'll be honest, I wrestled myself into a pair of dress pants today and I didn't think the buttons were going to hang on until 4:00, but they soldiered on.  Matt said he hoped the hydraulic pressure didn't affect the shape of the baby's head.  THANKS FOR GIVING ME SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT MATT.

- In all honesty, we don't feel that worried or anxious about this whole thing.  Which is unusual because normally, if there's something to worry about, I'll worry.  And even if there's not something to worry about, I'll worry.  We're just happy.  I read the baby's little ears can start to hear this week.  I am glad that what he or she has probably heard so far has been a lot of laughter.  I hope it makes him or her funny, because I love funny people.  And they've also heard some bad singing (I swear I sound just like Carrie Underwood in my head).  I'll just have to make sure that from now on, I whisper when I nag about the speed of the dining room progress.

i guess i shouldn't throw stones at goose flutes, since i'm sitting in a glass house wearing ankle suspenders

Well, hello.

Happy Friday.

I'm in my PJs, enjoying a fire, and listening to the melodic notes of a goose flute.

If you think that last part is a joke, you must be new around here.  

The Amazon truck pulled up around dinnertime.  I didn't know we were expecting a package until Matt said, "Oh awesome! I bet that's the goose flute I overnighted!"

On the off chance you're not currently in the market for a goose flute, the going price for one is about twenty dollars.  Since Amazon requires a $35 minimum for one day delivery, Matt needed to add an item to the order, so naturally he bought something else we really need.

A Canada Hammer goose call.

In case your husband doesn't spend Friday evenings practicing all manner of goose calls, let me tell you, they're not quiet.  In fact, Matt just said, "Do you think the neighbors can hear me?"

I think the Canadian goose IN CANADA can probably hear you.

There's nothing like hunting season.

Since our Friday night goings-on aren't all that exciting, I'll share a local weather report.  Yesterday, NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH, we got our first winter storm, which consisted of a few inches of snow, topped off by ice, all falling on untreated roadways which quickly transformed into skating rinks.

My office closed early and I got on the road at 1:30.  I live 14 miles from the office and it took me nearly 3 hours to get home.  I wasn't too happy about sitting in my car for that long,  but I'll admit that I sure was happy to be sitting in a new SUV with four wheel drive as opposed to Old Blue.  

I was also happy about the heated seats.  

The defroster, however, threw me for a loop.  About 45 minutes into the drive, or more appropriately, the sit, my windshield started fogging up.  I figured it was because I was releasing so much hot air between my singing and talking (I called everyone on my favorites list.  Some of them three times-sorry mom).  So I turned the defroster to cold and cranked the AC up, which only did a mediocre job of clearing the windshield, and I was freezing.  Finally I called home (again) and asked my dad what temp the defroster should be on.  "HOT!"  he said.  "You're trying to melt the snow!"

Sure enough, right he was.  As soon as I turned it to warm, the window cleared right up.  And I stopped shivering.

Today's commute was much better.  I made it home in 1/6 of the time it took yesterday, and I was smiling when I walked in the door and kicked off my snowy boots right inside the front door.  That's when Matt said, "WHAT are you wearing?!"

I fought the skinny jeans trend for a long time, because I hate when the ankles of my pants get pushed up as I slide my feet into tall boots.  So, I came up with  solution.  I wear normal ankle socks, and cover them with a pair of knee highs to secure my ankles in place.  Basically, I've created ankle suspenders.  Patent pending.

Anyway, that was the style that I wore today.   

I texted my mom and Emily about it because a few years ago, the three of us we were out and we unexpectedly went shoe shopping.  I tried on a pair of shoes and happened to be sporting my ankle suspenders (patent pending) in the middle of DSW.  If Emily could have chosen one moment in her life to disappear out of sheer embarrassment, I think it would have been then.

I wasn't going to let Matt's fashion judgment ruin a good day.  Not only was it a dream commute, but at work I went to an Adoption Day celebration. I don't share much about work on here because I believe in the separation of work and blog, but I work in the child protective services/foster care/adoption field and the truth is, the majority of days are filled with pretty sad stuff.  It can sometimes feel like weeks or months go by without seeing a happy ending to a case.  

But today, nine children were adopted from the foster care system by five families.  And those children aren't brand new, perfect tiny babies.  They're kids of all ages who have complicated histories and trauma and deep hurts and scars, but now they also have moms and dads and families.  Forever.  I'll never forget the first Adoption Day I went to several years ago, and an older boy was adopted.  He said his main reason for wanting to be adopted wasn't so that he could have a mom and a dad, but so that someday, his future children would have grandparents.

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  Not everyone is meant to adopt!  But there are over 100,000 kids in the US right now waiting to be adopted (and hundreds of thousands more in foster care), and if you have an extra case of diapers at home, I guarantee your local children and youth services agency could use them.  An extra few dollars could sign a child in foster care up for the soccer team.  Or buy them their very own brand new winter jacket.  Or a toy from their Christmas wish list.  And for kids who really do sometimes come into foster care with nothing but the clothes on their backs, what might seem like something small to you and me, can have a huge impact on their life.

Okay.  This got serious so I should share that November is also National Peanut Butter Lovers Month and National Fondue Month, so please celebrate those accordingly!

Finally, if November isn't National Pretty Sunset Month, it should be.  I saw this as I walked out of the office tonight.  It was a good ending to a good day.  

hi mom!

I was out with my mom this weekend and she said she faithfully clicks over to my blog every morning hoping to see a new post, and gets so sad when she sees the same old post that's been there since October 23rd.

But since I've got to keep my status as the favorite child, here I am!

A new store opened in our area a few weeks ago called Home Sense.  I'd heard that it was like "Home Goods on steroids" and I love nothing more than a huge store full of discount home decor, so we decided to make a trip out on Saturday.  For the last few years, my mom has done 99.9% of the driving when we go out together, but since I have a new reliable vehicle, I drove this weekend.

When my brother and I learned to drive we would always laugh because my mom used to press an imaginary brake pedal while she sat in the passenger seat, and would sometimes even hold onto the handle on the roof if we made a particularly hasty maneuver.  Oh, we were so wise and knowledgeable at sixteen.  Our silly mother!  Imagine!  Being nervous about a completely inexperienced child behind the wheel of a vehicle!

Of all the hypothetical future parenting tasks to worry about, here are my two biggest fears: teaching a child to ride a bike and drive a car.  I've already assigned those two jobs to Matt, along with any and all math homework.  Give me anything that can be done on solid ground and/or with a calculator.  If it has wheels or involves an equation with one or more variable, oh Laura Darling, OUT.

My dad was the one who taught me to ride a bike, which, from what I understand, was quite a challenge because I had a tendency to simply take my feet off of the pedals mid-ride.  My dad pretty much taught me to ride a bike with six words.  Those words were "KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE PEDALS!"

As it turns out, those words were good advice for me not only when it came to mastering a two-wheeler, but life in general.  When things look like they might go off track or what's coming from the other way is a little overwhelming, just keep your feet on the pedals.

I don't remember my dad teaching my brother to ride a bike, but I do remember being in the car while he taught Phil to drive a car.  And I remember he used three words for that, and said them three times in a row.  Those words were "Stop the car. Stop the car.  STOP THE CAR!!!"

It's almost like my dad gave the perfect advice that each of us would need for the rest of our lives.  To confirm this theory, I asked my sister what piece of dad's advice she remembered most, and she said "Easy --- Put a hat on, the barometer is falling." 

Theory confirmed.

But it certainly wasn't just my dad who gave advice. 

We didn't have a dishwasher at our house until I was in high school. 

Until then, we used disposable EVERYTHING.

Just kidding.  We hand washed. 

We also had side salads with dinner every single night in little wooden salad bowls that couldn't go in the dishwasher when we got one.  When my brother and I would do the dishes, my mom would motion with both hands and remind us, "Don't put the salad bowls in the dishwasher."

Eventually she would just do the hand motion and we would say "We know! Don't put the salad bowls in the dishwasher!"  

As time went on, the directive kind of took on a general meaning of do the right thing/act like I expect/don't let me down.  Now, years later, if mom does that hand motion or says "Don't put the salad bowls in the dishwasher," we all know exactly what she's really saying.

While it's not necessarily advice, another thing my mom always says is "There is always hope."  No matter the circumstances or situation, there is always hope.

Maybe that's what I was thinking when I kept taking my feet off the pedals and hoping for the best.

Or what my mom is thinking every morning when she opens my blog.

what do a car, a hunting trip, and minneapolis have in common? absolutely nothing.

1 - I have the day off tomorrow and I am joining Matt on an early morning pheasant hunting trip.  I'm not going to be hunting, just walking along, providing commentary, and hoping we stop for breakfast afterwards.  We just got our outfits (gear?  outerwear?) ready and while I don't have to wear camo (or as I call it, a leaf suit), tomorrow will be the day we find out if neon orange is my color.  I don't think Dick Cheney is in Pennsylvania right now, but I still don't want to be sadly mistaken by another hunter as a bird so whether or not neon orange is flattering, I'll be wearing it.

The game commission stocks pheasant sometime between Tuesday and Friday.  Tomorrow is Wednesday so there will either be 300 birds, or zero.  Tonight Matt said, "I hope they stocked today, or else it's just going to be a long, cold walk in the woods with you and my shotgun."

Which sounds like the beginning of a country song.

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2 - On Sunday afternoon I had a meal planning extravaganza and then I went to Aldi and filled my cart to the brim.  I got in line, loaded all of my food on the belt, and at the very moment the cashier told me the total, I realized I didn't have my wallet with me. Or my purse.  The only money I had was the quarter I had to pay to rent the cart. 

I panicked for a moment, and then told the cashier shamefully that I didn't have my wallet.  She thought I meant that I left it in the car, and said, "No problem, just run out to your car and get it."  And even though I knew full well it wasn't in my car, I SAID OKAY AND WENT ALONG WITH IT.

And I walked out to my car for what I knew would be a fruitless search, I figured I had two options.  I could either drive home, pretend it didn't happen, and never show my face at that Aldi again, or walk back in and admit that my wallet was in my purse.  

In my kitchen.  

In my house.

Ultimately I chose the latter because my future grocery budget depends on Aldi's low prices.  The cashier was so nice and when I returned home with my wallet 20 minutes later, she told me they had even put my cart in the cooler to keep my cheese and yogurt cold.

Three cheers for Aldi.

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3 - Every so often I offer to Matt that if he just says the word, I will happily become a stay at home wife.  I try to tempt him with promises of a spotless, tidy home and elaborate dinners and consistently clean laundry.  So far he hasn't taken me up on my offer, but he happens to be off this week and I am 

changing my tune about who should be the stay at home spouse.  

It's been amazing.  He has woken up early, made a huge pot of coffee, cooked bacon and eggs and homemade waffles for me before I leave for work.  This morning he did all of that AND spread fertilizer over the lawn AND talked to our neighbor Rob before I was even out of my pajamas.  He goes to the dry cleaner and runs errands and makes delicious dinners and I kid you not, I just sat down on the couch to write this blog post and he walked in with this freshly made brownie.

Life is good.

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4 - I got a new car. I have mixed feelings about this because if my life was a television show, Old Blue would win the Emmy for best supporting actress every year and it was sad to say goodbye.  There is no way I can tell this story in less than a thousand words so for now I'll just say my new car a Hyundai Santa Fe and I know there are tons of cars out there that are more luxurious and powerful and have all kinds of bells and whistles, but I happen to feel like the fanciest, luckiest lady in the world when I drive my new Hyundai.

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5 - I visited Emily in Minnesota last weekend.  We both flew into Minneapolis for the weekend and spent four days traversing the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, drinking all the coffee and talking non-stop.  This event also requires a post of its own but I'm proud to say I was still able to zip both my carry-on and my jeans after a weekend at the Mall of America.

And that's all for today, folks.  

i'm back and i'm just as mediocre as ever

I started writing a long post but then I read it back to myself and it was the most boring thing I've ever read.  And that's saying something because I used to read the St. David School directory every single night from about ages 8 through 13 while I ate a bowl of ice cream before bed.  I'm not kidding.  I had the names, parents' names, emergency contacts, and addresses for every kid in our school memorized.

Sometimes I would even take it up to my bedroom to study it.  And then my mom would need to call a parent from school and because it was 1998 she didn't have the phone numbers programmed in the home phone and I can hear her voice in my head right now saying "Laura! Where the directory?!"

Anyway, I deleted the whole post and decided to steal an idea from Michelle and share the last 5 photos on my phone:

-1-

 I got this text from Matt as I was leaving my mom and dad's house on Saturday afternoon.  A cut that he thought could be cured with some band-aids and Neosporin on Saturday afternoon ended up to be a trip to Urgent Care for four stitches in his wrist and a two week prescription for an antibiotic by Sunday. 

-2- 

We had to go to Virginia for a funeral on Tuesday night, and due to Matt's aforementioned wrist injury, I drove.  Here is a charming aspect of Matt's personality: he cannot keep his unsolicited comments (of which there are MANY) to himself when I am behind the wheel of my very own car with my very own driver's license that I have had for sixteen years with no issue.  I drive too fast.  I drive too slow.  I change lanes without looking long enough.  I look too long before I change lanes.  I spend too much time looking in my rear view mirror.  I stay next to other cars for too long.  I brake too hard. I don't brake hard enough. I ease up on the gas when I pass.  I don't give it enough gas when I pass.  By the time we got on I-95 I had HAD IT with the Goldilocks in my passenger seat.

We finally arrived (safely, I might add, my compliments to the driver) to our hotel at about 10:30.  I'll just put it out there, we had a reservation at the Hawthorn Suites in Sterling, Virginia.  Travelers beware.  I'm pretty sure we witnessed a drug deal while we were waiting to check in, and when we got to our room, the air conditioner didn't work.  It was also a non-smoking room which smelled like an ashtray and my face started itching the moment we walked in.  ANYWAY after a ton of back and forth with the manager, who told us we couldn't check out and he also couldn't give us our money back or fix the air conditioner or give us another room because they were sold out, we informed him we would be fighting the charge on our credit card and leaving.   

We might not have high standards, but we have SOME standards.  

Or maybe we don't, because as we walked back to the car, I said to Matt, "Well, I guess it's a good thing I've watched some YouTube videos lately on how to sleep in your car."

He just looked at me, and I knew, we would not be sleeping in the car tonight with Matt on the case.

Which is good because I probably would have done it wrong anyway JUST KIDDING.

There was a Hyatt Place right down the road, so Matt ran in to see if they had any rooms and they did!  Except they were sold out of king beds so we got a room with two doubles.  By then it was past 11:00 and neither of us were in great moods so separate beds were probably for the best. 

Although Matt could not have been more thrilled with the Hyatt Place.  It was like a thirty year old man's version of Eloise in the Plaza.  He drank the free lemon water in the lobby by the cupful.  He rode the elevator.  He took the stairs.  He used the front door and the side door, spent over an hour at the breakfast buffet, and even checked out the outdoor swimming pool facility even though it's been closed for the season.  He sat on the couch and at the desk and stuck a candy bar in the fridge to keep it cold.  We were there for 10 hours and Matt got every single penny's worth.

-3- 

Kohl's has been having great sales lately and I officially bought my first kimono.  I wore it today and felt just adorable.  I took this photo to send to my sister and then I totally forgot I took it until I opened my phone just now.  So, I hope you're reading this Emily! I got a kimono!  And there's my vacuum! I don't know why I look surprised!

-4- 

Admittedly this photo is from a few weeks ago but I love it.  I saw Annie and Jack again this weekend because they came to stay at my parents.  I hung out there for a while and we went to the food store, and I had a major change of heart about a topic I've felt strongly about in the past.  And that is those tiny kid sized carts at the grocery store, more specifically kids using them on the weekend when the store is crowded. 

It's always kind of bugged me in the past because it turns out small children are terrible cart drivers (takes one to know one) but Annie got one this weekend, and it will go down as one of my top ten moments of the year.  She had the TIME OF HER LIFE.  I don't know that I've ever seen her so happy.  And you better believe she got in some people's way, but who the heck cares?  A lot of parents grocery shop on the weekends, and why should their kids not use those little carts because of grumpy people like me?  So, long live happy kids and tiny shopping carts on Saturdays.

-5-

Matt's best friend turned thirty last weekend and we went to a surprise birthday brunch for him.  I had to laugh because the two of them talked about stocks and 401ks and mortgages and so much grown up stuff, and then Matt snuck up on Bob from behind and put a temporary tattoo of Bob's face right in the middle of his forehead.  Some things never change.  You can't make old friends.

mirty and mixty

Well, I had in my head that tomorrow was the second Tuesday of the month and therefore, Show Us Your Books day.  I was all set to write about what I have been reading, and even stayed up late last night trying to finish "Educated" so that I could share my thoughts.  I felt like I was cramming for a final.  

Unfortunately, it turns out tomorrow is actually the third Tuesday, not the second, so, whoops.  Meet you back here in September to talk books!

In other news, and in case anyone is wondering, (no one is wondering) Old Blue passed inspection on round two.  I picked her up and did the drive of shame back home the day she failed due to her front brakes and rotors being completely shot.   

Matt bought new brakes and rotors and headed outside bright and early the next morning to change them.  He had asked me if I had noticed any unusual noises while driving and I said no, but when he went out to change them, he pulled my car into the street and backed it into the driveway. He came back into the kitchen and said "Come outside, I will show you what bad brakes sound like so you know for the future."

He pulled the car forward in the driveway and when he applied the brakes he said, "Do you hear that noise?" as we listened to a sound I can only describe as slow, airy pressure.

"Oh that noise? Yeah," I said, "I've been hearing that for months."

Turns out this was a case of the boy who cried wolf, or the girl who cried strange car noise. 

And the husband who dismissed the complaint until said car failed inspection.

Anyway, Matt changed the brakes and rotors in my car.  And then he mowed the lawn, put some finished touches on a concrete step he poured himself, and then came inside and made a cheesecake from scratch for my mom's birthday dinner.  We had my parents and my uncle for dinner on Saturday night.  We kept it easy and just did cheese steaks (which Matt cooked because he is a SHOWOFF) and we had such a nice time.

I have been working on my mom's present for months and months.  I won't share her age but it rhymes with "mixty" so I thought I would make her a special gift.  I made her a cross stitch, and each stitch represents a day on her life, and the color corresponds to the high temperature that day.  For example, the nineties are red, the eighties are orange, the seventies are peach, etc.  I used the archives on the Weather Underground website to find the temperatures, and worked on a year at a time.  It took me eight months and I've been burning the midnight oil the last few weeks to finish it.  I considered quitting somewhere around 1981, but I stuck with it and I am so glad I did.


I think she loved it.

This past weekend was my birthday and Matt and I went to the beach.  We both left work at lunch on Friday so we were at the beach house by 3:30.  Matt decided to take a bike ride and I headed for the ocean.  I was all by myself in my beach chair with my feet in the sand, reading my book by 4:00 Friday afternoon.  I cannot even tell you the last time I felt so relaxed.  I was so happy I could have cried.



I won't share how old I turned either, but it rhymes with "mirty" and I had some mixed feelings about it if I'm being honest.  But, we went out to dinner on Saturday night and I ordered a pina colada and the waitress carded me.  When she saw my license she was shocked that it was my mirthieth birthday.  Or at least she pretended to be shocked.

 


Either way, she got a good tip.

And I got another jar of Olay Regenerist.

unfortunately this blog post took an unexpected turn

Well, I'm here to report that no car windows have broken this week, but my car Old Blue is currently at the mechanic for her annual inspection and I am about as nervous as I could be.  It's ridiculous really.  I just hope she passes.  I hope they are nice to her.  I parked on a hill so I hope they remember to release the parking brake before driving her into the garage.  I hope they know sometimes the turn signal skips a beat but it always gets back into rhythm after a few seconds.

It's that time of year when all of these moms are talking about dropping their kids off to school and how a little piece of their heart is walking away from them and through those school doors and I'm over here thinking 

(PAUSE.  HOLD PLEASE. THIS IS A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM.)

As I was typing the sentence above, my phone rang and it was the mechanic calling to tell me that Old Blue needs front brakes and rotors to pass inspection.  

I called Matt to give him the news.  He wondered aloud when he last changed my brakes.  Since I just so happened to have my blog open, I searched the word "brakes" and found that they were changed in March of 2013 because I had written a blog post about it.

Every cent I've made off of this blog is now worth it.

That would be zero cents.

(throwback photo!)

Anyway.  I dropped the car off after work yesterday.  I had to stop at the grocery store first and bought a few things, including a lemon. It had been a long day on top of a long week and when I got to the self-checkout and it was time to pay for my lemon, I clicked the "unpackaged produce button"  on the self-checkout screen, then the "vegetable" button, and then the "L-N" button. 

I couldn't believe it, but it seemed that they had forgotten to add lemon to the options for L vegetables.  I scrolled and scrolled, and not a lemon to be found.  

There were leeks.  Several varieties of lettuce.  Something called a loquat.

But no lemon.

I stared at the screen for so long that the supervising cashier came over to assist me, and when I told her there was no option for lemon, she said, "That's because you're in the vegetable section.  A lemon is a fruit."

Of course a lemon is a fruit.  I know that.  But here is my proposal for grocery stores far and wide.  Put all produce in the same category.  Just lump it all together.  By the time I get to the self-checkout screen, I usually don't have enough brain power left to remember what produce is a fruit, and what is a vegetable, and that some stores call sweet potatoes yams, and I don't know 47 varieties of onions, I know yellow and red.  I don't know the difference between white and yellow, or what constitutes a sweet onion, or a vidalia, and that a tomato is technically a fruit but is commonly accepted as a vegetable and is therefore in the vegetable category.

Let's get back to basics.

I got myself checked out so it all worked out in the end, and now the only lemon I have to worry about is my car.

Just kidding.  My car isn't a lemon, it's just getting old.  

But with all of these lemons in my life, maybe I should make lemonade as the old saying goes.  I certainly know where to find the sugar in the grocery store.

well nothing is set in stone, and it's all gone out the window

When we moved into this house, our back steps were covered in old, rotting wood.  We removed the wood when we moved in, and underneath were concrete steps that weren't perfect, but were fine.

Earlier this summer Matt noticed that the bottom step was separating from the rest of the stairs, and they were all sloped towards the house which meant that when it rained, water was seeping into the foundation.  We proceeded to have 4372 conversations about what to do about these steps, including many technical details about water flow and slope and the mechanics of stairs and many other things I don't necessarily understand.

All I know is that at one point Matt threw out the idea of removing the whole staircase, and then instead of putting in a new one, creating a "gently rolling hill" out the back door and down to the patio/lawn.  I told my mom that idea and she said, "Did you remind him that he has a mother-in-lawn, and she isn't going to be rolling out the door and down to the patio?"

So, back to the drawing board.

In the end Matt decided to caulk the cracks and just replace the bottom base step.  A few weeks ago he took a sledgehammer to it, and then meticulously built a base for the new bottom step while I said encouraging things like, "Don't you think we should just hire someone?"

You know how people say you never use math in real life?  They've never lived at our house.

Matt dubbed this weekend concrete weekend.  He watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials about how to pour concrete, and then hit Home Depot as it opened on Saturday and came home with a concrete mixer and the last of eighteen eighty pound bags of concrete.  He'd been buying it at little at time so he didn't overload the bed of his truck, because for those of you playing along with the math at home, that's 1440 pounds of concrete.

(I just said to Matt, "How much concrete did the step take? Eighty pounds?")

I knew there were eights involved.

Here's what you need to know about concrete mixing.  It is no easy task.  Especially when it is 85 degrees and 97% humidity and you have no shade, and oh, you've never done it before. 

After a few hours the base was poured.  The concrete mixer had to go back to Home Depot but the concrete needed to be "floated."  I drove the mixer back to HD in Matt's truck while he stayed back and floated.  Matt has an old F-150 and while I do love being up high, it is really large and much heavier than my tiny Ford Focus, which can stop on a dime.  

Especially when you're hauling a concrete mixer in the back.

Anyway I got it there and home and parked in the road because ain't nobody got time to park that big old boat in the driveway.  We were going to grill for dinner but decided at the last minute to go out.  We couldn't decided what restaurant to go to so we settled on my personal favorite, Bertucci's.  I have very sophisticated culinary taste.

As we pulled into the Bertucci's parking lot, I pressed the button to close my window and heard what can only be described as the terrible sound of glass falling and a loud crunch.  We parked and Matt inspected at the window and quickly determined that some sort of internal mechanism was busted.

That's a technical term.

We enjoyed our dinner along with added suspense of whether or not someone was going to steal our car, then drove home with the wind in our hair.

I asked Matt if he wanted to cover the window in plastic overnight but he said no.  I had a terrible coughing fit around 5:00 this morning and went downstairs to get a drink of water.  When I got back to bed Matt asked me if it was raining.  I said no, but I guess he didn't believe me because he peeked out the window, and then I could not believe what he said.  Matt does not curse, ever.  

If he is really, really, REALLY mad he says "rat's patootie."

But what came out of his mouth at 5:00 this morning would make a sailor blush.  He leaped out of bed only to return a minute later and report back that it wasn't raining, it was just condensation on the window.

He watched some more YouTube tutorials and then removed the door panel of his truck, only to discover the window regulator was all knotted.  Or something.  All I know is that it needed a new regulator and now it has one.

This weekend was brought to you by YouTube tutorials.

And math.

august is my birthday month, but i'm only turning 30, not 87

I talk to my friend Rose almost every weekday.  She is a stay at home mom with four kids, three of whom are under age 4, so we pretty much talk for ten or fifteen minutes here and there, and when we do she has to spell half of her words because she always has an audience with miniature, impressionable, and nosy ears.

We talked a few days ago while Rose was on her way to the podiatrist for her first appointment.  I've been to the podiatrist myself a time or twelve (shout-out to my orthotics!) so I told her what to expect and then to keep me posted on what the doctor said.

Rose called me twice yesterday and I missed her calls because I was with my niece and nephew in New Jersey, so I called her back this morning.  We caught up on the last few days and then hung up so I could get back to work and she could pick the kids up from story time.  About fifteen minutes later my phone rang again, and it was Rose.

I answered and she said, "I completely forgot to tell you how my podiatrist appointment went!"

So she filled me in, and then told me she had to go to the store after the appointment to get some new sneakers.  She went to a little local shoe store, and asked the woman working there for some recommendations on sturdy, sensible shoes, and the woman was no help at all!

And then she went to the produce market and put a ton of onions and apples and peppers and potatoes in her cart, and the guy at the checkout counter asked her if she wanted a bag.

OF COURSE SHE WANTED A BAG! IS SHE JUST SUPPOSED TO CARRY ALL OF THAT WITH HER TWO BARE HANDS?

We lamented that customer service just ain't what it used to be and then talked about the recipes she was going to make with all of the onions and peppers.

I told her I have a produce problem of my own, which is the fact that I have an overabundance of zucchini.  I mentioned I planned to make a recipe where you slice the zucchini into very thin strips, but it's tricky to do with a knife, but the vegetable peeler is too thin.  Rose said, "Oh you need one of those WIDE MOUTHED vegetable peelers" and we both burst out laughing.

Because we met when we were 22, we were both starting our new paralegal jobs at the same time and our desks were next to each other.  We were basically babies and knew nothing about anything, but we walked around that courthouse like we had been there for years.  We would also cover for one another in the courtroom periodically so that the other could go reapply her lip gloss.  We were very serious.

About makeup.

And I could never have predicted the day I met Rose, that together we would talk about our boyfriends who became our fiances who became our husbands, and go to each other's bachelorette parties and weddings and kids' birthday parties, and have our own birthday dinners and fall bonfires and "please tell me you can meet for coffee tomorrows" and talk to each other about the most mundane things in life, and also the really hard things that you can only talk to a best friend about.

My 22 year old, perfectly lip glossed self would not have predicted that that seven years later Rose and I would be having a serious conversation about vegetable peelers.

Anyway Rose laughed and said that when she was a little girl, she remembers sitting under her grandmother's kitchen table eavesdropping while her grandmother and her best friend sat at the table and talked.  One day she heard them discussing the best kind of strawberry for a particular recipe, and she vividly remembers saying to herself that she would never get so old that she would have conversations about produce.

And then in the span of 15 minutes, the two of us talked about the podiatrist, poor customer service, zucchini recipes, and vegetable peelers.

And we're only 29.

Imagine what we will talk about at 80.

Whatever it is, I can assure you we will be doing it wearing sturdy, sensible shoes.

the current view out my window is not nearly as beautiful

I took a bunch of photos when I was in Denver last week, so I thought I would put them here because I love to read old posts and look at old photos and I know I'll look back on these in the future. 

If I lived within view of the Rocky Mountains, I would never get anything done because I would always be staring out the window.

Also, my hotel room was directly across from this rooftop bar, which didn't open until the evening.  One afternoon when I got back from my conference I looked across to see a bunch of naked mannequins out there, that the staff then dressed in parkas and winter clothes.  The mannequins stayed out at the bar all night and were gone when I woke up in the morning.

I remain bewildered.

Anyway, on to the photos.