This Week: A List

This week we

• Went to the local public garden, where the kids ran around,

and I took pictures of plants I've decided I can no longer live without,

Ornamental millet, you complete me.

and the kids ran around,

and I took more pictures of plants I can't live without.

They had all kinds of water plants in containers throughout the garden.  Why has this never occurred to me?  Fill something with water, then grow water lilies on top!  Brilliant!

And a direct result of all that running, not to mention half the reason we go:

• Won a golf tournament.  Well, Derek won a golf tournament, but I'm counting it as a family victory.  I don't have a picture of that, but I do have a picture of him winning at Chinese checkers.

Derek is one of those people who somehow wins all manner of things.  This is infuriating to Adelaide.  If an impassioned rant is what your life is missing right now, you should ask her about it.

• Played with legos.

Okay, so the boys played with legos, Derek won a golf tournament, and I'm reading this book right now:

It's, like, mondo good.

Adelaide is reading this:

She claims that hers, too, is mondo good.

Seriously, though, those are all container water gardens!

Things That Were Said To Me Yesterday

• "Doesn't take after Mom, does he? *chortle chortle chortle*"  Said by the doctor after calculating the percentile rank for Atticus's height at his yearly well-child appointment.  My son is tall.  I am not.  I get it.  

I desperately wanted to respond with a hearty, fake "HAHAHAHAHAHA," but the key to the faux guffaw is cutting it off abruptly with a stony glare, and anytime I do a big fake laugh I get about three "Ha"s in before I start to laugh for real.  So instead of communicating sarcastic chastisement I'd end up looking completely psychotic, and I generally try to avoid that when in the vicinity of medical professionals evaluating our children.

Of course all this was running through my head immediately after his little joke (Should I try the "HAHAHA"?  Am I finally ready to pull it off?  Or do I really want to risk having my children taken away today?), so I totally missed everything the nurse was saying at that point.  Something about developmental milestones. Probably not important.  (If you're reading this, Derek, don't worry.  I'm sure our son is completely normal.  AS AM I.)

• "Congratulations!  What are you going to do with it first?"  This was from the lady at the Des Moines Public Library Foundation when I was picking up the Kindle I won.  (Yay!)  My answer was something like, "Thank you so much!" and then I purposely avoided answering her question, because I figured it would just come to me when I had a chance to mess around with my prize.  

I got it home, opened up the box, stared at it for a few minutes... and then closed the box again.  I still don't know what to do with it.  I feel like all my books are looking at me all accusingly, like I'm some kind of traitor.  I've never really felt the need for an e-reader; don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have won the drawing (which I entered by filling out a survey after attending a talk by the author Amy Tan, who, by the way, is immensely entertaining to listen to- if you ever get a chance to hear her speak or to go to one of her readings, definitely, definitely go), but I'm very much an ink-and-paper kind of person.  Books make me happy.  I redecorate my house by rearranging my books.  True, I've had Fahrenheit 451-esque nightmares before (literally), but still... I don't know.  So now I have this lovely prize sitting in my house, and I don't know what to do with it.  Help!  ( I can't help but think this is nothing like the time I won that one awesome prize- I absolutely knew what to do with that.  First I made cookies.  Then I made more cookies.  After that I went a little wild and made cookies again.)

• "Woman, are you crazy?!"  This was from Adelaide when I informed her we were having popcorn for supper.  Our family eats enough that anymore it's actually somehow less work to just cook a regular meal every night, but we're scraping the bottom of the food barrel and my sister and I decided via text that popcorn is an excellent source of fiber and therefore healthy.  (Don't bother disabusing me of this notion.  It's called willful denial, friends, and it's oodles of fun.)  I'm sure it was especially healthy after I added melted butter and garlic salt.  Supper of Champions.  (And people with high cholesterol.)

Have You Ever Played This Game?

You know, the one where you see a super-close-up shot of an object, and you have to guess what it is?

Yes?  No?  Well, either way, that's what we're going to be playing today.  Get your game faces on!


Last week, I entered a little online contest.  I'm one of those people who never wins anything, unless it's one of those contests where everybody wins.  Because I've never really won anything, I keep entering, thinking that statistically speaking, it's going to happen one of these days:  I'm going to win.

Well, last week, I finally won something.

So yesterday morning, the boys and I came home from a friend's house, and this was waiting on our front porch.  My prize!  I squealed in delight, then heaved it inside.

Go ahead and make an early-stage guess.


How about now?

Any guesses?

I'll give you a hint:  It's red, and it's shiny, and it's beautiful.

I'm sure by now you've guessed what it is...

That's right:  A Kitchenaid Mixer!


One of the blogs I read on a regular basis is Confections of a Foodie Bride.  It's a blog that features delicious recipes and lovely food photography, and they also have giveaways every so often.  I entered the most recent one.  There were nearly 1300 entries.

And we WON!  


Thank you, thank you, thank you to Shawnda, the Foodie Bride!

Oh, and by the way, you should check out her...

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte

Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Bread

Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cupcakes

...just to name a few of the delicious creations that have come of her kitchen.

You can also always find her link down on the bottom left of this page under Blogs We Read.


Yay!