Events from the past two weeks:

10 year anniversary! Hot dog I am a blessed and lucky lady. I married one fine man. We got our first night away together, just the two of us since Frank was born. It was a perfect 24 hours.

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Ford: Well, after a mini-momma meltdown concerning his disinterest in making eye contact, I have decided that he is awesome and perfect and that I am crazy....certifiably. I put waaay to much energy in worrying about these boys. I worry constantly. I am showing them enough love? Am I too hard on Frank? Do I play enough with Ford? Maybe I should be teaching them more? Am I too lenient with Frank? Maybe I should have a plan for Frank's school by now? Maybe we should throw out the television? Do I feed them healthy enough meals? Should Frank know how to hold a crayon by now? How can I protect them from every possible disease? How can I convince them to love the outdoors and become farmers so that I can one day retire on a farm and finally fullifill my dreams? I am trying to embrace and memorize: Matthew 6: 34

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

but this one does not come easy to me. Ford, of course is perfectly made. He has started to sit up on his own. He can get about a minute or so in before he falls over. He is raking and grabbing everything he can. He is even getting up on his knees and launching himself to get at the toys he wants. LaLa gave him his first rice cereal last week. Sadly, now he has not pooped in 12 days - we are hoping for some sort of atomic bomb sized poop any second now. As Poppee put it: "holding him is like playing hot potato."

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I switched Angus to diet dog food because he is much too fat. He has thrown up the past 3 days.

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Frank has now passed his Guppy level swimming lessons and has graduated to become a Goldfish. Let me just summarize here: The Houston Swim Club rocks. I have never seen anything like it. My son, who has hated water in his face and eyes and ears for 3 1/2 years - now jumps in, goes under water to retrieve rings, floats on his back and puts his face in and under the water repeatedly. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. And praise the Lord, i never even had to put a swimsuit on!

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I have started showering less. Just can't get it into the schedule everyday.

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As I write this, I have been worrying a bit about Ford again. He has begun sticking his tongue out and chewing it on the right side repeatedly. It makes him look a bit "special." Back to Matthew 6.

back again

just wanted to say that i have not forgotten about you.
Between the visit with the parents and the daily swimming lessons, I just haven't had a chance to sit and update the blog in my usual fashion.

so here is a quick frank story to make it up to you:

Yesterday, we had a man out to give us an estimate on insulating the attic. Frank did not know what an attic was or where it was. After explaining what it was, we watched the man go up the tiny ladder in our utility closet. Frank decided he did not want to go in the attic.

As the man was writing out his quote in the living room, Frank was sitting on the floor with his various firemen and their tools. Talking to himself, as he always does, he says:
"I'm going to ax you."
"No...I'm going to ax you"
"I told you, if you said that one more time, I'm going to ax you!"

He proceeded to ax each of the men on the ground, while the attic man was standing nearby filling out his papers.

I quietly walked over and said, "Frank, you know that axes are for rescuing people, why are you attacking the firemen with them?"
He says, "he axed me first. So I had to ax him back."

Now slightly embarrassed by what this insulation man must think of my parenting, I have come to a realization boys must come genetically pre-programed to fight and destroy. I have no evidence of this, but the most violent thing Frank has ever seen is a light saber battle in Star Wars, yet he is drawn to guns and swords, killing slugs and taking down robbers. I promise that I do not teach these things. I am all about love and flowers, but he is a boy and I guess I will have to learn about cowboys and robbers.

On the flip side...today Frank wanted to paint my toenails with the new nailpolish he helped me pick out. It is a pretty lavender and he thinks it is beautiful.

Frank's first baseball game

In a bit of a hurry today

I
I lied about cooking. I have been doing it. Mostly because I would rather cook than clean. And I would rather write this blog than clean. I would rather do just about anything than clean. But yet I won't hire anyone to help me clean. I am too stubborn and I secretly want to be a farm wife, and women who live on farms are supposed to be able to keep their homes clean, the cows milked, and have 3 meals on the table.

mint juleps... I love them. We planted some mint finally so that we can have mint juleps all summer long. But we won't have too many....don't worry.

Yam Pepita Quesadillas. I have mentioned them before, but I can't get enough. I wish I would remember to take my own pictures of them. Here is the website they come from: http://cumicori.blogspot.com/ do yourself a favor and make them. Soon.

Here is another favorite tortilla idea: whole wheat tortilla, sharp cheddar, ham, and granny smith apples sliced thinly - cooked in the oven until the cheese melts. It is my most favorite lunch food.

Too much to do today and going to the Astros game tonight. LaLa and Poppee get here tomorrow!

Summertime rolls

boys playing together. (note to self: the pile of laundry behind them is now three times that size.)



our summer lanterns



We planted our flower garden seeds yesterday. Very late. Extremely late. But we'll give it a shot. You never know what will grow here in the swamp.


okay, so i am feeling guilty about a love poem to coffee. it was a particularly tired kind of morning. I am at the point where I don't know what happens in the middle of the night anymore. I had to ask michael if i got up once or twice last night to go to the baby. It is all just a sleepy blur these days....and that was some exceptionally good coffee this morning.

In the future, i hope to write poems about Jesus or Michael or my children. but that is all so deep and introspective. An obsession with coffee is just surfacey enough that i could crank out a poem before church.

I am not cooking meals this week. so don't expect photos of enviable food from me (in fact, don't ever expect that). We had some V8 soup in a box last night for dinner after a 2 hour trip to IKEA. Michael said he would be happy if we ate like that every night. Feeling a little wounded, I am going to let him eat like that all week. I think we will have bean burritos, cereal, and soup until my parents get here.

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The main reason for no cooking though, is that Frank starts swimming lessons today. Lord help us please. We are all excited. The 30 minute online/audio introduction last night told us that sometimes there are negative things that occur such as: vomiting and crying. As Frank is excellent at both of those, and has had an awesome (note sarcasm) experience with swimming in the past - I am going to hope for the best, but expect the worst. I don't tell him that, though. I have told him: He will get his face wet! He will blow bubbles! and He will learn to float on his back!
and then he asked:

"Will they teach me not to drown-ed?"

I said, yes! that is why we are going! and he said:

"yea! I want to learn not to drowned!"

****

now I gotta go fold that laundry before grows and eats Ford.

A Love Poem

You are strong.
You are black.
But I would love you if you were tan.
You make my nerves come alive.
I can't sleep at night because of you.
When I leave the house, I think about you.
How can I get to you? Where can I find you?
When visitors come,
I hope that they bring you along.
I don't want to love you.
You are not good for me.
I have tried others like you,
but there is no substitute.


you are coffee, and you are mine.

So all morning long, I have been repeating the phrase, "waxing rhapsodic" in my head. I have been thinking, what does this mean? Why does it sound like a poem, in and of itself? How do you use it in a sentence without sounding snooty? I have said things that sounded too snooty before and I don't want to be accused of that again. (Like when I was in sixth grade and said that someone's party was going to be an extravaganza. Jill and Daria never let me live that down. and I have tried never to use that word again)

So in my mind, I was going to write today about what waxing rhapsodic means and other phrases that get stuck in your head. So I googled it, and do you know what the third or fourth website with that phrase is: the Pioneer Woman blog. Are you kidding? and then, I go look, and she spends a whole blog on the phrase and how she uses it but isn't sure what it means.

I feel so weird about this. Like on project runway when that 50's loving girl who had the tugboat captain for a dad kept making dresses that looked like other current designers dresses, and she thought they were her own original ideas...I sort of feel like I need to read people's blogs more thoroughly so I am not accused of plagirism.

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I still need smoothie and popsicle recipes.

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Exciting news from my herb garden: we have 7 new caterpillers on the dill!

Yes, I grow dill for the caterpillers. It is huge and grows taller than me when I forget to trim it. I think I have cooked with it once. But we have already had 2 coccons hatch this year, and now, maybe we'll get some more. We have lots of black swallowtail caterpillars, and now, some new one that may be a tiger swallowtail... still working on identifying it....and I just now realized how boring this post is today. I will stop now as I have fully exposed my inner-nerdom.

Strawberry pie

I woke up this morning thinking, this is it. the pinnacle of my pie-making career is today: strawberry pie. Homemade chocolate cookies - ground into a double chocolate cookie crust. 6 cups of strawberries. 3 tablespoons of Grand Marinier. 2 tablespoons of my best balsamic vinegar. Sugar, corn starch, orange zest. What's not to like?

I'll tell you what is not to like - is how long this stupid pie took. Let me tell you, cinnamon rolls look like a box cake in comparison. I started at 9:30 and give or take some breaks for the baby - including a couple hours to get to and from Ford's PT- I did not finish until 6:00pm. Now I know I am not the best cook. I am not fast. I am not organized. and I certainly don't read directions well, but this just took way too long for what I got.

Here is my day in a nutshell. I will give it to you play by play because there is nothing else to discuss other than pie:

First, it calls for a chocolate cookie crust. No problem, except that you have to make the chocolate cookies. I planned on starting that last night, but found weavels in the new bag of flour.

So after my trip to the store this morning, I make dough, then I start hulling and separating strawberries. Firm/small ones for the pie, smooshy ones for the glaze, mediocre ones to be frozen. Bake cookies. Allow cookies to dry out for a few hours. Go to therapy. Start making glaze. (glaze is awesome) Keep hulling and sorting strawberries. Cool glaze so it doesn't melt the strawberries. Crap, the refrigerator is taking too long and the pie needs 2 hours to cool before serving. Put it in the freezer. 15 minutes later- check the glaze. Find pool of sticky red strawberry goo all over the bottom of freezer. kick ass.

Well...after cleaning goo off of Michael's fish, the ice, bananas, and some mango pulp... and after scooping some carefully back into the bowl, the pie is finally complete. just in time to make dinner and clean up for our LOST watchers who are coming over. I praise God for a family that is satisfied with cereal for dinner.

And I didn't even take a picture of the finished product.

hunting and gathering

Day 10 of the LoveDare: do something unexpected for your spouse.

Michael was on a "work" fishing trip on Monday. He calls and says, "you are going to be excited. I am going to get you something that is the best of its kind."

I went strawberry picking on Monday. The strawberry farm also had a farmer's/meat market. I tell michael, "I think you are going to be really excited about what I got you today - and it isn't just strawberries."

Michael comes home and gives me three paper wrapped tubes of turkey jerky. I, in exchange, hand him a 16 inch long tube of summer sausage. Apparently, the salted-cured meat is our love language. Now we have a freezer and refrigerator full of fish, strawberries and salted meat. Let me know if you need any.

By the way, I do so love your comments. thanks for leaving them or emailing them to me - all 11 of you.

more on family life

Happy Mother's Day to all you great moms. I learn so much from all of you. What a blessing to know so many awesomely smart people.

Here is something I do not recommend doing on mother's day: watching the movie Changeling. We were not familiar with this movie or what it was really about. I'm just gonna say that I couldn't sleep afterward. I was lying in bed questioning how thoroughly I have taught Frank about strangers and how to never ever go near them. It was gut-wrenching to me. I have found since having the boys, that any tv show or movie about kids who are hurt, sick or dying just sends me over the edge. I recently started casually watching Grey's Anatomy whenever Michael is at band practice. They have these pitiful side stories of dying children almost every episode. It seems like everytime he comes home and says, "what are you watching?," I am just sitting there - crying. If I see a little kid looking pale in a hospital bed, I'm a goner.

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I do want to take a moment and recommend the "LoveDare" book for all the married people I know. Is it a book written in response to a cheesy Christian movie? Yes it is. But it is good.

Basically, the gist of it is this: In the movie, Fireproof, there is a married couple on the brink of divorce. The dad asks the son to give the marriage 40 days, and gives him this book that has "dares" on how to love his wife for each of the 40 days. As you can guess, the book transforms the son (played by Kirk Cameron). So for example, the first day's dare is to say nothing negative to your spouse. Day 2 is to say nothing negative and do one unexpected act of kindness for your spouse. We missed a few days, but we are basically on day 10 now. Many at our church are doing this with us, and I just wanted to give the whole thing a big thumbs up. Each woman I've talked to who is participating is really grateful for such an easy, good tool to remind us how to love our husbands better. And who can't use a little help in loving their spouse better? Thank you to the Taylors for getting this started.

back to the family

just sitting - telling stories

Frank clearly enjoying his homemade Moo Shu Pork

My sister has introduced me to many good things in life. Christ, being the very best of all. Michael being a near second. The rest are decidedly less important, but beneficial in this life none the less. When I was in middle school, she taught me to wear my dad's clothes. When I was in high school, she helped me learn how to drive a stick. She has taught me the importance of using hair product and how to make my hair curly. She introduced me to Grey Goose and has a perfect pizza dough recipe. But one of the more recent things she has shown me that has rocked my world is the Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes. Maybe you already knew about them. But I just want you to know that these little cans have transformed the flavor of every soup, chili, pizza sauce, and lasagna that I have made. Thanks Kelly, you rock. and yes, if you came to Houston for an extended period of time, we'd throw you a party, too.

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Yesterday, in the car we were singing as we often do:"sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie..." then frank says, "No,No,No: "then the king had a knife and he cut the blackbird's wing off..." yikes. I said, "but Frank, how can the bird fly without his wing?" He says, "no. he doesn't fly. he drove his blackbird car."

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Ford and I attended a Mommy and Me exercise class today. Not much to say, other than you bench press your baby, do squats with your baby, and then use your baby's body for bicsep curls. I felt a little awkward in that biscep thing, but all in all - a pretty good workout. One of the other ladies had sons named Lars and Thor. (they live in Norway most of the time). Can you imagine being in middle school saying to your friends, "I think Thor is soooo cute." For some reason, whenever I hear interesting names of children, I always imagine middle school romances. The boy I "went with" - in middle school (i.e. we talked on the phone once, and stood next to each other at a sporting event, then we broke up) asked me to be his friend on facebook recently. I ignored the request, I don't need that kind of drama in my life.

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I need some good popsicle and smoothie recipes...if you have any favorites, please pass on. Summer is here in Houston, and i am trying to embrace it...Begrudgingly.

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Frank was cleaning up his "activities" tonight. I noticed that he had cut up a sheet of his sparkley stickers and it was in shreds all over the floor. I said, "Frank, why did you cut up your stickers?"
He looks around, and says, "That's a good question."

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Frank wanted to eat a cinnamon stick today.... So I let him.

Happy Birthday LaLa!

You are so very loved

Good things about the modern world

So after my ranting about the demise of our modern society, I got to thinking. What are good things that have happened in the last 10 years because of technology? I choose 10 years because this month marks our 10 year anniversary. 10 years in houston, 10 years of marriage, 10 years almost at our church. it is CRAZY how time has flown by.
Do you remember that tv show 30 something? I can remember like it was yesterday, how I thought that show was about old people with kids. I remember looking at some blond woman on the tv with a crying baby in her arms, on the phone, cooking, with a messy house in the background. Her hair was all disheveled and I can perfectly remember thinking as a little girl: "how boring"

But here I am: disheveled and blond. Am I boring? well, I leave that for others to decide. I certainly don't feel bored, not ever. Anyway, back to my list. Top 10 good things that technology has brought to my life in the past 10 years.

1. recipe blogs (let's just get this one out of the way): Joy the Baker, Smitten Kitchen, Pioneer Woman, BuffChickpea, 101 Cookbooks - all these people are teaching me to love cooking via the internet

2. cell phones - not to sound like this is a brand new invention, but I didn't have a cell phone ten years ago. And when we drove my Chevy Cavalier straight over an 18 wheeler tire in the middle of the highway - in the dark, in Louisiana, in the winter - well, I wished that we had had a cell phone that night. Not to mention how great it is when grocery shopping and you forget what you have at home or what you need. I love that about cell phones. Plus: do you remember paying you long-distance bill?

3. digital cameras? well, the jury is still out on this one for me. I miss the drama and anticipation of getting your film developed. I miss the way film photos look. but realistically, I do love seeing other people's pictures and none of that would happen without digital cameras

4. The Ipod/ITunes. again- ups and downs. I miss listening to a CD over and over and over in my car until I knew every single part of the song. It has put StreetSide out of business, and that pains me, but, my stars I thank God not to have to carry my gianormous CD case around anymore. and I really like playlists. That period between the mixed tape and the playlist was a dark one for me.

5. Online bill pay. I love it. Bill paying was never personal anyway, just involved lots of paper cuts (sorry amy) and paper mess. I do not miss standing in long lines to buy stamps all the time either. Everyone else is always doing important post office business that takes a long time, and I was always just standing in line to buy stamps. Yes, of course you could use the vending machine, but you have to stand in line to get the cool ones like Gerald Ford and Alfred Hitchcock.

6. email. no, it isn't new in the last 10 years. but I can safely say that email has helped me to stay close to friends that I haven't lived near in a long time. I never could have maintained these friendships with only letter writing. I would have had to make too many trips to the post office.

7. flat irons. I don't have a chi, but a knock off one. and it has become important to me. I finally have a way to fight the humid swamp land that is my home

8. podcasts. you can hear sermons and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - anytime. I like that.

9. Requesting library books and renewing online. while I don't use this enough these days, I think it is pretty cool

10. Google. we take it for granted. and yes, I miss encyclopedias, but come on, a whole wealth of knowledge in seconds- it's cool. This photo of my dad's aunt, Sister Henrietta was found by googling my last name, amazing.

Coming up: mint juleps and the lemonade stand.

We had a great weekend with Papa and GoGo. As always I just wished it could last longer. And yes, the cinnamon rolls did get eaten by Sunday. And yes, I did eat more of them than Michael.

I have been thinking a lot about being a mom in this present age versus being a parent in the country say - 70 years ago. That book I keep going on and on about by Wendell Berry has me thinking about how I wish I lived on a farm, in a time where I grew my own food, baked my own bread, milked my own cow. I feel like I was meant to live in a place and time when people knew the people who lived around them, when evenings were passed sitting on your porch talking or playing games - rather than laying like a slug watching a blue screen for 2 hours at night. I wish I lived when life was more about necessity than about consumerism.

And then I think about what it must have been like to be a mom back then. No jogging strollers, no excer-saucers, no disposable diapers. No carseats, no swaddlers, no bouncy seats. No noisy trucks, no tv, no dvds, no computers. I start to think that life must have been so much harder, but then I think that it is really hard now.

Think of how much time we spend just trying to get from one place to the next. Back then, if you wanted your kids to socialize, you probably opened the door and told them to be in by dinnertime. Now, you have to plan a play date, pack your kids in the car, drive - sometimes across town, stay for one to two hours, then rush back home so you can try to get some stuff done before evening comes.

All the modern fast conviences I have just seem to cost me more time and energy. My car has taken away all the exercise that walking from one part of town to another might have given me then. So, now, I have to dress for the gym, weigh the cost/benefits of putting my children in the childcare, go stand on an eliptical machine or run around the neighborhood for an hour, just so my body gets moving a little. I spend hours upon hours thinking about where to send my sons to school. Back then, you probably got the choice of one school or none.

I go to at least 3 different stores in different parts of town each week to find good deals on the necessities of life - like organic milk, laundry detergent and wipes. I have a hair budget. I feel totally overwhelmed by the number of cool recipes I want to try, projects I'd like to do with frank, places I want to see, and things I'd like to learn about, but there just isn't ever enough time. I wish my life was smaller sometimes.

Anyway.

So here's my idea for the blog. Cause now I think there are like 10 of you who read it. If you have any ideas on how to make life simpler and better, post it in a comment. If you find a delicious recipe, share it so we can all enjoy. I have so much that I can learn from all of you cool people, y'all are way cooler and smarter than me.

(first idea, how do i make captions for photos? the one above with frank and the mixing bowls was him doing a "cooking" demonstration for Papa and GoGo. He's great that boy.)