Simple Sunday – Easter bouquet (with microscope)

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Shoes

The rounded purple flower was cut from our vegetable garden from our onion chive plant. I’m not sure what type of bush the other purple flowers hail from, but I rather like them.

The old microscope we found in Husband’s dad’s house as we were cleaning it out after his death. The pennies are Carter’s addition. Together, it works.

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When James Exercises

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Shoes

The other day I caught our orange cat, James, hanging on Husband’s robe. At the time of the robe hanging, the robe was itself hanging on the back of our bedroom door and, thankfully, not hanging on Husband.

I happened to mention James’ latest naughty behavior to Cody, who is a week shy of his fourteenth birthday. Cody responded in a way that made my heart swell with pride.

“So you are telling me that James was doing aerobic exercise?”

He didn’t even laugh at his own joke. Total deadpan.

Yup, he is going to do just fine.

Posted in Furry Feet (and fish), Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What is a Floor Towel, you ask?

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Shoes

Yesterday was my birthday. It was also Tuesday and so one with any sense would immediately join the two thoughts and put together a birthday Taco Tuesday. Which, of course, we did.

Before I get into the Taco Tuesday-ness of my birthday, I need to share with you the four items Husband surprised me with on my special day.

  1. Two embroidered floor towels. As you can see, we have hardwood floors. Apparently hardwood  floors and water don’t mix. In an effort to be a responsible hardwood floor owner, I have had a boring hand towel on the floor of my kitchen in between the sink and the refrigerator for years. This towel confuses guests who, in an effort to be helpful, pick it up and put it on the counter.  This is gross and so was born my brainchild  –   the  floor  towel.  Now no one will confuse it for a regular towel that has simply lost its way.  I am baffled that my floor towel idea has not taken off.
  2. A box of Fairytale Brownies.  Not only are these quite possibly the best brownies I have tasted, but the co-owners of this small business were kindergarten friends who loved brownies. What’s not to love?
  3. A third wooden-framed, small, round, mirror from Pier 1. I bought two of these cute mirrors from a Pier 1 store on a serious going out of business sale months ago, but bemoaned the fact that they did not have a third. Apparently I moaned about this long enough and loud enough for Husband to take note and track down a third.
  4. Last, but not least, a CD of a band from the 80’s that was never popular but whose music keeps popping into my head. Husband bought the CD, copied it to our Sonos library, and then randomly started playing it. It stopped me in my tracks. “Who in the world is playing Darling Cruel?” I exclaimed. If you have ever had the propensity towards 80’s hairbands and promise not to judge me, give it a go. If not, skip it.

Now, back to the Taco Tuesday part of my birthday…

We live in a cul-de-sac with possibly the best and coolest people you could ever hope to call your neighbors. We have deemed this time to be one of a Cul-De-Sac Quarantine. We are all like minded in regards to social distancing, only leaving the cul-de-sac for essentials, and borderline obsessive hand washing. We are a total of four houses, eleven people, including our family of four. We have decided to social distance together in our cul-de-sac, gathering outside to chat or sit around our fire pot. It helps with my sanity.

Yesterday we had a festive Taco Tuesday in honor of my birthday.

Carter playing cards with one of the two neighbor girls.

After the tacos were eaten, Husband got a fire going in our fire pot. Fireside reading, chatting, and Margarita-ing ensued.

The boys reading by the fire.

We watched as the International Space Station zipped by overhead and I tried but failed to capture the brilliance of the full moon.

I did not get to go out for a birthday dinner but I have to say that I think I rather enjoyed staying close and keeping it simple.

That being said, I can’t wait until the time when we can have company over so I can show off my elegant and sensical floor towels while subjecting them to Darling Cruel.

Posted in Food Glorious Food, The Virus | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

All Muddled Up

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Shoes

Many years ago, when we lived in Washington, I had a container garden that I lovingly called my Mojito Garden. It was a mint garden with three varieties from which I harvested mint to make delicious, refreshing mojitos. I used to muddle away, crushing the mint to release the aromatic smell and strong flavor hidden within the leaves.

Then we moved to Arizona and I, being of not green thumb, slowly, one by one, lost my mint plants to the relentless heat. (I also may have forgotten to water them a couple times.) With shame, I resigned my mojito muddler to the Tupperware container in our laundry room where I keep the other rarely used kitchen gadgets I refuse to get rid of.

Tonight I dusted off my muddler, calling it in as backup, to crush pita chips into a course powder that I added to my breadcrumbs to add texture and mystique to the breaded pork chops we will eat for dinner (In reality, I did not have the 1/3 cup of Corn Flakes the recipe called for). As I crushed those dried, colorless pita chips I could not help but feel as though I was letting my muddler down in some way and that perhaps I needed to redouble my efforts to regrow my Mojito Garden.

If not for me, then for my muddler.

Posted in Food Glorious Food | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Simple Sunday – Views from within our Quarantine Circle

Posted on April 5, 2020 by Shoes

Front yard, backyard. Pictures from within our safe space.

Why is it that “front yard” is two words, but “backyard” is one? I find it rather bothersome.

Posted in Simple Sunday, The Virus | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

It will be useful again, someday.

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Shoes

One day last week, to combat the boredom that comes with a pandemic quarantining, Carter decided to rearrange the furniture in his bedroom. He drew out a schematic of where he wanted his bed, dresser, bookcase. Without any thought to the piles of stuffed animal, dirty clothes, and other random bits and pieces of childhood that tend to shed from him and litter his bedroom floor, he declared himself ready for help with the furniture moving.

Deflated but not undefeated, upon hearing he actually had to clean his room before the move, he went back to his room. I went back to trying to work from home.

Awhile later he returned with an odd shaped plastic case clutched in his hand and a smile on his face. He had found the bag of dental goodies one gets from an orthodontist when one signs up to spend thousands of dollars on straightening your child’s teeth. Amidst the floss and tiny tubes of toothpaste, he had found a folding toothbrush complete with its own case. A travel toothbrush.

He popped open the case and unfolded the toothbrush with reverence, much as I would imagine a child would do upon being given their very own jackknife. It was in the middle of a sentence about packing his newly discovered teeth cleaning treasure the next time we  travel to visit grandma, that it dawned on him.

There would be no travel. No visits to grandma. No visits at all.

I have not seen his travel toothbrush since, but I am looking forward to the time when it can be used as it was meant to be used.

Stay home. Stay safe.

Take care of yourselves.

Posted in Random Thoughts, The Virus | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Watch out for that Ladyhole!

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Shoes

We were having dessert when one of the boys said a grossly improper sentence.  And by grossly improper, I mean by way of grammar.  (As a side note, if any of this post is “grossly improper by the way of grammar” it may be due to the glass (or two) of wine I consumed during dinner).

I gently corrected this said grossly improper grammatical sentence and, pushing my glasses higher on my nose, told them that, “Words matter.”  I went on to tell them about a high school teacher I had who was very forefront in gender neutral wordage.  She did not say “mailman” but “mail person” or “mail carrier”.  I gave a couple other examples that were stellar, I’m sure, but then I made a misstep.

Manhole.

Yup.  How do you go about making that one gender neutral?

Carter, who is now eleven, robustly and gleefully blurted out his attempt (not gender neutral at all).

Ladyhole.

Much laughter ensued.

As a teacher, and a mom, I instinctively tried to turn the tides.

“Words matter,” I tried again.

This time Husband piped up about words and our president and improper…

I may have said that Trump was a whole other type of hole (to which Carter – dang he is sharp – said, “Donkeyhole?”)

Oh, my.

Feeling cornered, I turned once again to the manhole.  Distraction can sometimes be your friend.  My solution to the non-gender neutral term for manhole was utility vault hole.

Utility vault hole.

Yes, utility vault hole, was my gender neutral answer to the manhole.

Husband immediately pointed out how smoothly “utility vault hole” rolls on the tongue.    I strongly suspect he was mocking me but chose to ignore it.

Dessert ended.

Dessert ended, without a single person bringing up the word “piehole”.  This makes me rather sad because pie was what was for dessert.

 

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A Glimpse Into Cody’s Breakfast Playlist

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Shoes
  • Cindi Lauper  – Girls Just Want to have Fun
  • Borgore & Sikdope –  Unicorn Zombie Apocalypse (quite a catchy tune that I find myself whistling more often that I like to admit)
  • Marshmello  – Here with Me
  • The HU – Wolf Totem (This is a Mongolia band that merges heavy metal with traditional Mongolian throat singing) Here is a sample of the lyrics for those of you fluent in Mongolian:                                                                                                                    рслан ирвээс алалдан уралдъя
    Барс ирвээс байлдан уралдъя
    Заан ирвээс жанчилдан уралдъя
  • The Beastie Boys – Fight for Your Right

Not a bad mix for making buttermilk pancakes and scrambled eggs on a lazy Saturday morning with your thirteen year old son.

 

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Nothing but Fur

Posted on May 6, 2019 by Shoes

The other day Carter asked me if he could go skinny dipping in our backyard pool.  Considering the time of day – it was daylight – and our location – the middle of one of the largest cities in the U.S. – I told him that, no, he could not but that he could swim in his underwear.  Our backyard is rather private so I felt that this was a decent compromise.

He looked at me strangely and told me he thought that swimming in your underwear was skinny dipping.  I explained what skinny dipping really was and then attempted to shock him by telling him that some people in our household had been known to skinny dip from time to time, back in the day.

He was not shocked at all.  He then proceeded to make me feel old and schoolmarmish by pointing out that it was probably poppa as “…you would never do that momma!”

“Sasha would do it,” he said “she goes fur dipping!”  He laughed under his breath as he headed out toward the pool, a trail of clothes already forming behind him.  Before he left the room I heard him say, “Nothing but fur.”

Fur dipping – nothing but fur!

Posted in Furry Feet (and fish), Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments