oh, happy day

Y'know, Happy Father's Day! And, Happy Solstice!

Pic and I gave Cardo his mugs today, but he kind of saw one of them yesterday. Oops. Pic also chose a card for him that says something like 'God must really love me for giving me a daddy like you.' I crossed out 'daddy' and wrote in 'papi.' I didn't cross out 'God' but I did find it funny that that's the card he ended up with. He loved the card and the mugs.

Also, I finally decided that we were going to make the sugar cookies today. First, Pic and I read this summer solstice book and then we made the cookies. They're actually really easy and they're the best sugar cookies I've ever had. They have lemon zest and almond extract and just the smell of them is tempting me to eat all of the rest of them tonight. Anyhow, I say, that they're 'actually really easy' because it took us about an hour to make them, and that's not counting baking time. I'm a seriously slow cook and baker and it slows me down even more when Pic helps out (but it does make the process much more fun). I kind of wanted to ice the cookies with nice vibrantly-colored icing, but I prefer them uniced (which is a really strange-looking word). Pic and I might ice some tomorrow.



We ended up with dogs, butterflies, music notes and suns (yes, suns...here's where the icing might help). The dough kept sticking to the cutting board so things are a bit squished, but I'm not making these to sell, so I really only care that they taste great.



Here's Pic waiting for the cookies to bake. She decided she'd rather have a popsicle than a cookie. We bought the popsicle molds today and poured in some pink lemonade. She was a vision in pink tonight.

happy solstice!

[Image from here.]

I'm not quite sure yet what I'm going to make for solstice. I'm thinking sugar cookies (the recipe I use has lemon, nice and summery). Or, I could make dark chocolate/orange cupcakes like I did two years ago. I'll figure it out and seek Pic's assistance.

Happy freezing summer to us all (really, it's cold right now...I had to close the windows and pull out the blankets).

10 years, no reunion

I'm not sure how I feel about not being able to make my 10-year high school reunion. The last time I posted about it, I was all for going. I was excited. However, it was strangely like I needed to write about it here to get it out of my system -- after I wrote about it, I wasn't so excited about it anymore (and, no, this does not at all mean that I did any growing up).

So, while I'm not as gung-ho about it as I was, I'm still disappointed that I won't be able to make it. There are people I would have liked to have caught up with. Why? I'm not sure. I still talk to a few people (although sometimes infrequently) and I'm not sure there'd be anything else for me there. Huh.

Anyhow, it's in October (my favorite month, by the way). So, those of you going, have a splash of cranberry juice for me. Take some pictures and take good notes and write about it. Please and thank you.

Now, I'm off to, um...sleep. Yeah, that'd probably be a good thing to do at 2:52 in the morning, right?


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Speaking of reunions (or, rather, remembrances) it's Juneteenth today.

Also, my parents are heading out to the K family reunion today. My mom's pretty excited about seeing aunts, uncles and cousins she hasn't seen in years (and, there'll probably be some family members she's never met before).

Also, also, in just one more month, Cardo and I will have been married for six years and our dearly beloved friends will have been married for one. More on all that later...or not.

blog sprint

Tuesday's One Minute Writer:

Tomorrow you get the mail, and in it you find the best letter you can imagine. What does it say?

Dear v,

You have worked pretty strenuously this last decade, so we've been thinking...how about you don't worry about paying back your student loans.

You're incredibly welcome,
The Loan Holders

from the mouth of the babe...

After jumping on the trampoline:

'My heart is bumping like an elephant pounding on the door to get in.'

biting my thumb...

...or thumbing my nose. I couldn't choose which I wanted to use, so there we go with both.

I was listening to NPR today and there was a segment on the 15-year-old winner of some text messaging contest. You can read a very brief bit on it here. I'm not a texter. It costs me $.20 each time I send or receive texts (even if I don't open the freaking things). I suck at text-ese (or whatever it's called) and I refuse to learn it. I really don't care to spend my time typing out messages on my phone, which doesn't have a qwerty keyboard, by the way.

However, should I really be shunning the practice? When there is a possibility of winning $50,000 for being superhumanly fast at it? Yes, that's right, Kate Moore won $50,000 for being the text messaging champion. It's a mad mad mad mad world, all right.

Oh, one more piece of texting information: In the 8 June Time, I read that 2,272 is the "Number of text messages sent and received by the average American teen every month, according to the Nielsen Co. -- almost 80 messages a day." I'm not looking forward to that. I'm pretty sure it will make me completely pazza if Pic is constantly on the phone, texting people. I'm wondering how long we're going to hold off in getting her a phone, period (we aren't even considering it yet, in case you were wondering).

interrupting cow

I should preface this by saying that I am calling NO ONE in the following a cow. There, now that’s out of the way.

So, are you familiar with the joke?

 Knock, Knock.
 Who’s there?
 Interrupting cow.
 Interrupting cow wh—
 MOO!!!

Okay, so I didn’t say it was a knee-slapper (althought I do think it's funny once in a while), but it has been on something of a constant replay in my head lately. Pic has a problem with interrupting. She just doesn’t really get the concept of waiting politely for a break in the conversation before she jumps in. She also doesn’t really get the whole saying, ‘Excuse me,’ to politely break in. I might be able to get her to say, ‘Excuse me,’ but she doesn’t then politely wait to be addressed, she just plows on.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘Hello, she’s four,’ but, really I’m trying to teach her somewhat decent manners and I REALLY don’t think that four is too early to teach her this. And, I don’t think that this would be too much of an issue for me, except…other people aren’t helping.

Here’s the thing: Whenever I’m talking with someone and Pic wants to interrupt and I tell her she has to say ‘Excuse me’ and then wait, almost always, the other person either turns to her or responds to her anyway. This is not helpful. I completely understand if the other person is trying not to be rude to her, but I’m never going to be able to teach her not to interrupt if this is how things continue.

Also, I’m really pretty sure that it’s not just other people. I probably do the same freaking thing, without realizing it. (Oh, sometimes it’s so much easier to notice flaws in others…sometimes.) However, I’ve really started concentrating on how I respond in these situations so that I won’t stop the conversation the second she starts talking.

So, a warning: If you and I are having a conversation and Pic suddenly wants to tell me about her wedding shoes or about her ladies, prepare yourself for a sidetracked lesson on interrupting and using our manners. ah, well, at some point in her life, I’ll have figured this out. They don’t just give out these Perfect Parent awards for nothing, you know.