Actual email I sent my husband today:
Dear Sir -
I have been wrangled into doctoring little boy foot-warts, I refuse to be in charge of making sure his poop has gone down the toilet drain right.
Yer Loving Wife
I send messages like that all day long.
Probably you wish I was your wife.
• Go back and wash your hands better than that.
• Lower your voice.
• Quit making that noise.
• BUTTON YOUR PANTS! YOU ARE SEVEN YEARS OLD!
• That one. THAT noise. QUIT MAKING IT.
• Lower your voice!
• People! Quit yammering and just EAT!
• OH MY GOSH PEOPLE! QUIT YELLING BEFORE I GO INSANE!
• People! Quit hopping around! Just sit on your butt and eat!
• Flush please.
• Did you flush?
• Go flush.
• People! Lunch does not need to take 45 minutes! JUST EAT!
• QUIT MAKING THAT NOISE.
• What, are you kidding me right now? You were only in there five seconds. Go wash your hands again.
** I call my kids People! and Dudes! when I address them collectively. When Jim and I are talking about them, we call them The People. Like, “how are The People today?”
It occurs to me that we are quite weird.
What do you call your kids?
If you call them “my lovely darling children” or “mummy’s preciousnessesssss” I will vomit.
• Last week I was cruising around the internet (shocker!), and I saw that Dooce and her husband were separated. This makes me inexplicably sad.
• On Tuesday afternoon I was harassing Big while he was trying to read - tickling his ear, tickling his neck, kissing his cheek, saying “Big.” “Big.” “BIG!” and so on.
You know. Fulfilling my God-given right to annoy my kids. And he was getting annoyed.
Finally, he swatted my hand away and said crossly, “I’m hungry. Go make me some dinner.”
If Jim hadn’t been laughing so hard he was in danger of peeing himself, he would have told Big not to talk to me that way.
I’m almost sure of it.
• Here’s something disgusting: The 15 Grossest Things You Are Eating. Click at your own risk.
• We drove to Mount Saint Helens on Saturday, where I presented my boy with his first real live volcano!
Amazing, yes? We were very lucky to get there at that exact moment. When we first pulled up to the observation area, the clouds were just starting to clear from the top of the mountain. We had about an hour to get a good look before the clouds covered her again.
Volcanos! Plate tectonics! It’s all just glorious, isn’t it?
• Happy Monday, peeps!
or
or
or
So yeah.
That happened.
The other day I had a not-too-bad hair day, and with some “you should have a picture of yourself on your blog!” advice ringing in my ears, decided not to let it go to waste. I slathered on the ol’ makeup and camped out in the bathroom.
Because who doesn’t want the bathroom door in their self-portrait?
Grainy!
It occurs to me that maybe I should look into under-eye concealer.
Or work a little harder to figure out Photshop’s editing features.
Black and White, that’s better.
How do people do this without it looking like a mug shot? I tried making faces at myself so I would laugh, but I was laughing out of pity because I looked like an idiot. Besides, who smiles coyly at themselves in the bathroom mirror?
Bloggers, that’s who.
I got distracted by my gray and started taking investigatory pictures.
Apparently the top of my head is striped.
Gray, Gray! Gray! Gray, Gray Gray!
Who needs highlights when nature is doing it for me?
I had a lot of help during all this, which was super helpful.
“Mom! What are you doing?”
“Mom! Why are you taking pictures in the bathroom?”
“Mom! Let me help!”
“Mom! When are you gonna come out of there?”
Maybe Natural Light is the key. Isn’t that what They always say?
Ick. NO.
Draw on a little more eye-liner, why don’t you? And would it kill you to make the bed once in a while? Pasty-skinned heathen.
Eventually, I had to go to the grocery store, which I took as a sign to take a picture of myself in the rear view mirror.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving.
I was holding up traffic at a stop sign and garnering a lot of dirty looks.
OR!
(Spoiler Alert!)
In Which I Wasted $2.29.
So I keep reading all about Kale Chips. Frankly, they sound vile. I envision it’s similar to what a dried lawn clipping would taste like.
I don’t even like mixed green salads because it tastes like something that came out of a lawnmower.
That’s right. I’m an iceberg girl. Sophisticated!
The last time I thought about kale, I was a waitress, putting it on plates as a garnish. So what do I know? Kale is healthy. It’s a superfood. And after reading Zakary carry on about her “kale-ritos,” I figured it behooved me to at least try it.
See that? Behooved. I’m fancy, y’all.
ANYway.
I bought some organic (organic!) kale at the grocery store yesterday, and set about washing and drying and tearing it all up.
The whole time I was rolling my eyes at myself, because it was a lot of work for something that would most likely go to waste.
When I was getting it ready to go in the oven, Big looked at the future kale chips doubtfully and said, “What kind of plant IS that anyway? It looks like a weed.”
I couldn’t really argue.
I sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, and taco seasoning, and cooked them at 350 for about 10 minutes, until they got sort of crispy.
The kids said they liked them, but I noticed that Big just ate the crunchy edges off and discarded the rest. Little kept saying, “this is my favorite part of dinner!” and “I LOVE KALE!” but only put them near her mouth and then back on the cookie sheet.
She did that with EVERY piece.
Mmmmm….. pre-moistened kale….
Jim had one or two and then apparently decided his time would be better served encouraging the kids.
I might try it with spinach. The kale was just so very fibrous.
Fibrous. That’s what it was. But at least it was unpleasant.
• As if Pinterest could get any better, you can now customize the main pin that shows up as the cover on your individual Pin Boards. I know, that sounds confusing. Read this. And then tell me your Pinterest username so I can follow you.
Note: I’m not a stalker. I just know my way around the internet.
• I have not, in spite of my best intentions, been making bread since we’ve been traveling. However, I remain commited to improving our eating habits and have been reading all the archives of a blog I just discovered called 100 Days of Real Food. I was SUPER HAPPY when I read that I can get bread made from freshly ground whole wheat – essentially what I make myself – from a bakery called Great Harvest Bread Company. They have locations nationwide, and they grind the wheat fresh every day for their Honey Whole Wheat bread. They even have a pretty big selection of GF breads (Tressa). It’s expensive – here we are paying $5.50 a loaf, but it’s worth it to me. The nutrition content of whole grains is staggering, and the uselessness of white flour is appalling.
• I really have nothing of importance or interest to talk about lately.
And now you’re all rolling your eyes and going “DUH, Deb. When do you ever?”
I have a few small snippets, but after I type them out and re-read them, I know they are boring. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for injuries when thousands of people hundreds of people four people fall asleep and bonk their heads on their desks.
Like for instance, in spite of my firm position that weird things found on little boy feet is Dad’s Department, I have been swindled into doctoring some new weirdness Big has on his foot. He bellyached about it for a week or so before I consulted Dr. Google and determined it to be a plantar wart. Gross. I actually wrote three whole paragraphs about The Great Wart War of 2012 before I snapped to my senses. “Deb. Get ahold of yourself. No one cares about this crap.”
• Actually, I’ve been feeling kind of melancholy and homesick lately. I don’t know why. I miss my best friend. I miss my knitting buddy. I miss being able to order stuff from Amazon without a second thought. We’ve been homeless for five months now. It’s wearing on me a bit, I think. Figuring out where we are going to live is the most stressful part. I mean, I am really looking forward to all the places we are still planning to visit. And I’m not ready to stop traveling. But I’m still adjusting to certain things that you take for granted when you live someplace like a normal human being. Like putting your toothbrush and laundry detergent and shoes away without adding to the mental list of things that need to be repacked. Obviously, a travel trailer or 5th wheel would solve that problem, but it’s just not feasible with Jim’s work-on-the-phone-all-day situation.
I find myself convinced that I can solve a lot of these problems with just the right bin or basket, though. The shopping continues!
• Hope you had a good weekend, peeps! Have a good week!
• I know it’s not Monday. I still have the plague, so things are behind. I managed a shower and cooked dinner yesterday, and deemed that sufficient.
• I’m sure everyone has seen this already, but it boggles my mind every time. To wit: Alicia Silverstone is a crackpot. Also, is pre-chewing food for your baby a thing now? Do celebrities really have nothing better to do than come up with new and innovative ways to be as weird as possible? Furthermore, that child is OLD ENOUGH TO DO HIS OWN CHEWING. How long is she going to keep this up? And I thought I was a dreaded helicopter parent.
I suppose it’s not such a leap from squeezable fruit in a bag to “hey, I can make that myself!” is it?
• Thanks to everyone who suggested places for us to visit. I really appreciate it. You all had so many good ideas! We have finally managed to schedule most of the year. Summer was the most stressful, as it is the High Season everywhere and I just don’t live in a universe where I can spend $1500 a week on housing. As such, we have found the only place where summer is NOT the high season in the entire country: Phoenix.
That’s right. We are spending the hottest part of the year in the hottest part of the country! Or Hell’s Waiting Room, as I’ve heard it described.
But! We will have a house with a PRIVATE POOL, which will hopefully make it bearable.
I generally start to wilt at temperatures above 85, and so am extremely a little nervous about this plan. Perhaps bathing suit shopping will make me feel better? Unlikely.
After that, we will head to the St. Louis area in August/September and then up to Michigan in October. November and December are still unplanned, but I would like to visit the Carolinas and maybe spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in Charleston or somewhere around there. We’ll see. Thoughts, internet?
• Have a good week, y’all!
