Today's not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . feeling really, really tired.
. . . Daniel stepping out of our van and sinking up to his ankles in a mud puddle.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . hearing The Lark Ascending on the radio. Unfortunately, five seconds after I turned it on my toddler demanded that I turn the music off. Being the accommodating mother that I am . . . I turned the music up super loud until she shouted for me to turn it down. After that, we were both happy - I got to listen to beautiful, soothing music, and my toddler got the satisfaction of having one of her requests granted.
. . . celebrating Pi Day with some geeky friends, a couple of pies, and vanilla ice cream. I am totally on board with any holiday tradition that involves yummy food.
. . . watching our kids and our friends' kids have an absolute blast tossing a balloon around the front room.
. . . husband hugs.
And another thing . . .
. . . I found this quote in an Amazon.com book review recently, and I rather like it: "I am often told, "It is cheaper to buy fruits and vegetables than to raise them." I have nothing to say in reply. There are many cheap things we can have. Experience has proved that one of the best things we can have is a garden, either to work in or to visit daily when the season permits. We have but one life to live here, and to get the cheapest things out of it is rather poor ambition." (E.P. Roe)
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Free Pie and Chess with Lando
Today's not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . my two-year-old having a meltdown in the car because she wanted me to drive the opposite direction I was going.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . winning an apple pie. We had a pie-making class at tonight's Relief Society activity, and at the end of the activity they raffled off the unbaked pies. It was a timely acquisition since tomorrow (3/14) is Pi Day. Ironically, on the way to the activity I had already bought three baskets of strawberries to make a fresh strawberry pie for tomorrow. Guess we'll just have to invite some geeky friends over to observe Pi Day with us.
. . . working through my storyteller's block to make up a new story for Joy. Every week when I drive her to her piano lesson, she asks me to tell her a Star Wars story. Lately she keeps asking me to make up a tale (usually about one of the bad guys), or repeat one I made up previously. It's been an interesting mental exercise to fill in some of the gaps in the Star Wars films (e.g. how did Darth Maul find his way through that huge palace to the Naboo aircraft hanger, and how did the Rebels catch all those tauntauns on Hoth?). This time I pondered what Darth Vader did in Cloud City while he was waiting to capture Han and Leia. I had him play a quick game of chess with Lando Calrissian, and learn something interesting about Lando's character. It wasn't one of my more humorous or action-packed stories, so we'll see if Joy asks me to repeat it. She asked me to recount Darth Vader's foiled efforts to obtain a strawberry smoothie at least four times (changing the fruit every time).
. . . my two-year-old having a meltdown in the car because she wanted me to drive the opposite direction I was going.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . winning an apple pie. We had a pie-making class at tonight's Relief Society activity, and at the end of the activity they raffled off the unbaked pies. It was a timely acquisition since tomorrow (3/14) is Pi Day. Ironically, on the way to the activity I had already bought three baskets of strawberries to make a fresh strawberry pie for tomorrow. Guess we'll just have to invite some geeky friends over to observe Pi Day with us.
. . . working through my storyteller's block to make up a new story for Joy. Every week when I drive her to her piano lesson, she asks me to tell her a Star Wars story. Lately she keeps asking me to make up a tale (usually about one of the bad guys), or repeat one I made up previously. It's been an interesting mental exercise to fill in some of the gaps in the Star Wars films (e.g. how did Darth Maul find his way through that huge palace to the Naboo aircraft hanger, and how did the Rebels catch all those tauntauns on Hoth?). This time I pondered what Darth Vader did in Cloud City while he was waiting to capture Han and Leia. I had him play a quick game of chess with Lando Calrissian, and learn something interesting about Lando's character. It wasn't one of my more humorous or action-packed stories, so we'll see if Joy asks me to repeat it. She asked me to recount Darth Vader's foiled efforts to obtain a strawberry smoothie at least four times (changing the fruit every time).
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Fame and Gum Drops
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . daydreaming with Joy about what to plant in our future yard. Joy wants a raised bed of her own, and a dwarf apple tree to tend (so she can have first dibs on the apples).
. . . building structures out of toothpicks and gumdrops for our home evening activity tonight. Phillip the engineer made some cool geometric shapes. Anna and I collaborated--she chose what colors to use and where to stick them, and I added extra toothpicks so the building didn't fall down. Daniel and Joy built big, rambling structures that eventually collapsed under their own weight. Joy then recruited Daddy as her architectural consultant on a second project, while Daniel just decided the collapse was a good excuse to start eating gum drops.
And another thing . . .
. . . about a year ago, I bought a vinyl jump rope and couldn't figure out how to get the kinks out of it. I asked my friend Google for advice, but had trouble finding any clear instructions about what to do. After a lot of searching and a few failed experiments, I finally found an obscure comment on some blog that suggested boiling the rope. It worked! I was thrilled, and when I wrote about my success that night I tried to make the post search engine friendly so that anyone else with that problem wouldn't have to do all the searching that I did to find a solution.
Apparently I was successful, because when I glanced at my blog stats this evening, I noticed that the rope straightening post is far and away my most popular. If I read the stats right, it has gotten 33 views in the last week--as many views as the next four posts combined. One random stranger even left a grateful comment back in October.
Just for kicks and giggles this evening, I Googled "how to straighten a vinyl jump rope," and my little ol' blog post is the first result. If you just Google "how to straighten a jump rope," my post comes up fifth on the list.
I know, I know--it's not like I won a Nobel prize or anything, but it's still kinda nifty, and I'm glad the post has (presumably) been helpful for many people.
. . . daydreaming with Joy about what to plant in our future yard. Joy wants a raised bed of her own, and a dwarf apple tree to tend (so she can have first dibs on the apples).
. . . building structures out of toothpicks and gumdrops for our home evening activity tonight. Phillip the engineer made some cool geometric shapes. Anna and I collaborated--she chose what colors to use and where to stick them, and I added extra toothpicks so the building didn't fall down. Daniel and Joy built big, rambling structures that eventually collapsed under their own weight. Joy then recruited Daddy as her architectural consultant on a second project, while Daniel just decided the collapse was a good excuse to start eating gum drops.
And another thing . . .
. . . about a year ago, I bought a vinyl jump rope and couldn't figure out how to get the kinks out of it. I asked my friend Google for advice, but had trouble finding any clear instructions about what to do. After a lot of searching and a few failed experiments, I finally found an obscure comment on some blog that suggested boiling the rope. It worked! I was thrilled, and when I wrote about my success that night I tried to make the post search engine friendly so that anyone else with that problem wouldn't have to do all the searching that I did to find a solution.
Apparently I was successful, because when I glanced at my blog stats this evening, I noticed that the rope straightening post is far and away my most popular. If I read the stats right, it has gotten 33 views in the last week--as many views as the next four posts combined. One random stranger even left a grateful comment back in October.
Just for kicks and giggles this evening, I Googled "how to straighten a vinyl jump rope," and my little ol' blog post is the first result. If you just Google "how to straighten a jump rope," my post comes up fifth on the list.
I know, I know--it's not like I won a Nobel prize or anything, but it's still kinda nifty, and I'm glad the post has (presumably) been helpful for many people.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Nicknames and Spillage
Today's not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . struggling to adjust to Daylight Savings Time. Grrr.
. . . spilling something everywhere while I tried to cook wearing my baby in a sling.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . baby smiles and husband hugs.
. . . taking a really long nap this afternoon.
And another thing . . .
. . . some bloggers use cute nicknames when they write about their kids. I don't, but if I did, the names would probably be Bean Pole, Bam Bam, Pixie, and Snuggles.
. . . struggling to adjust to Daylight Savings Time. Grrr.
. . . spilling something everywhere while I tried to cook wearing my baby in a sling.
Today's favorite moments included . . .
. . . baby smiles and husband hugs.
. . . taking a really long nap this afternoon.
And another thing . . .
. . . some bloggers use cute nicknames when they write about their kids. I don't, but if I did, the names would probably be Bean Pole, Bam Bam, Pixie, and Snuggles.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Stormtroopers, a Duet, and Glue
Lately . . .
. . . my not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . uttering the words, "Please never use glue on the couch again."
. . . calling 8 or 9 people to ask for help with something at church tomorrow, and having no one answer their phones. Perhaps a satellite is out???
. . . always feeling really, really tired. Ask me how I feel about losing yet another hour of sleep to Daylight Savings Time tonight. Or what I think about Daylight Savings Time in general. On second thought, don't.
. . . my favorite moments included . . .
. . . seeing lots of cherry tomatoes on my plant outside. What can I say? It's been a warm winter here.
. . . Anna saying, "Good job!" every time I correctly identified a letter of the alphabet.
. . . playing a little piano duet with my daughter Joy today. We messed up a bunch, but it was still fun.
. . . snuggling my sweet baby.
. . . finally finding an answer to that burning question: "Why were the stormtroopers on the Death Star so miserably incompetent?"
. . . my not-so-favorite moments included . . .
. . . uttering the words, "Please never use glue on the couch again."
. . . calling 8 or 9 people to ask for help with something at church tomorrow, and having no one answer their phones. Perhaps a satellite is out???
. . . always feeling really, really tired. Ask me how I feel about losing yet another hour of sleep to Daylight Savings Time tonight. Or what I think about Daylight Savings Time in general. On second thought, don't.
. . . my favorite moments included . . .
. . . seeing lots of cherry tomatoes on my plant outside. What can I say? It's been a warm winter here.
. . . Anna saying, "Good job!" every time I correctly identified a letter of the alphabet.
. . . playing a little piano duet with my daughter Joy today. We messed up a bunch, but it was still fun.
. . . snuggling my sweet baby.
. . . finally finding an answer to that burning question: "Why were the stormtroopers on the Death Star so miserably incompetent?"
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