7 Quick Takes Friday

One.
I'll start by putting the humble out there. If you're ever feeling particularly bad about yourself just let me know. I'll let you come over to my house and get a good look at my kitchen. Guaranteed you'll be feeling better about yourself in no time! There's nothing like company coming to get the motivation to clean it up though and I have a friend and his new fiance coming Tuesday, so it should be better by then.

Two.
In the spirit of reciprocity, would you care to share a failed baking story to cheer me up? I used to think I liked baking, but my goodness I am terrible at the sport! I managed to turn award-winning cookies into the most mediocre things ever to boast chocolate chips. Clearly, I couldn't offer those to the new neighbors I had intended them for so I was forced to eat them all instead. I tried to make a chocolate pie that my friend from college recommended on facebook that he said was easy and perfect for summer. A broken pie crust later I have 2 soupy chocolate pies with melted whipped cream in my freezer. I can't go into anymore details on this because I have a lengthy post planned that's sure to contain lots of pictures and complaints that I may post some day. Breathe easy, my last post was in June. It's pretty likely Will will wake up from his nap before then and I'll scrap the idea.

What it was supposed to look like.

Three.
At what point does chocolate become sinful? How much would I have to eat to consider it a venial sin? Do I need to bring this to confession? Really, it bothers the heck out of me when desserts are titled "sinful" and cheese fries are "guilty."






Four.
Inspired by this pin  I taped off a square tile in the kitchen and taught Will to pick things up on the kitchen floor and put them in the square. He doesn't quite have the dexterity for sweeping yet, he drags the broom around and then yells when it gets stuck immediately. The problem is that taking stuff out of the square and spreading it back around the kitchen is just as much fun so I have to be pretty quick with the dust pan. Still it occupies him for about 6 minutes which is longer than any other toy except the bubble-blowing lawnmower that blew bubbles exactly once.

Five.
My kefir colony has gotten too big and cultures too quickly now. I need to divide it so I posted on my Crunchy Mama Meetup group offering some kefir grains to anyone interested in starting to make their own. Someone else is actually interested and is going to swap me some of her sourdough starter culture for them. How's that for crunchy? I think I'm officially past the baby steps stages now. I'm not sure I'm ready for another growing thing I have to take care of daily, but I tried making kefir bread and it was about as successful as my chocolate chip cookies. Maybe the sourdough will be more edible.

Six.
I've made my travel plans to go see Brian again in Yorktown, VA for the second and final time this summer. William and I will be flying into Richmond with him in his own seat! The 31 lb kicking lap baby routine was tired. We'll spend a few days there with Brian until he graduates then drive home to Texas, stopping on the way for him to run a 50K trail race. Sounds like a peaceful easy trip right? Maybe I'll consolidate both trips into one and post some pictures when we get back.

Seven.
William learned the sign for love and it melts my heart every time he does it for me, or the dogs, or his Baby Blue doll! He also knows more, all done, please, bath, bird, up, down, and help. We're working on thank you, sorry, and go the **** to sleep.

For more quick takes, head on over to Jen's place.

Can't I just have crackers instead?

This picture is not from today. I just wanted you to
see how cute he could be when he actually eats.

I love cooking, and I don't mind admitting that one of the big reasons that's so is the praise and appreciation I receive when I cook for others. Brian never fails to compliment the food and thank me for preparing it. It's awesome. With Brian gone all summer though, I'm cooking for just William and myself. The critiques I make in my head are still there, but the accolades are missing. So on a night like tonight, when William seems to be teething, (or something) and doesn't touch the healthy meal I've prepared him, I notice. I made a pretty simple, but tasty real food meal. We had marinated chicken breasts, sweet potato hashbrowns cooked in coconut oil, and celery stuffed with cucumber cream cheese dip. I get that it's not the very definition of toddler food, but it's not exactly liver and onions with brussels sprouts either. He hardly touched anything except to toss it on the floor despite my warnings! Alright, fine a momma can move on. But that's made a lot harder by this exchange following only 5 minutes after I washed his food down the drain and started on dishes.

     William brings me the box of Ritz crackers, looks at me with big eyes and says "egh?" Which means "please mom can I have a snack?" "No", I say, "you didn't eat your dinner, would you like some sweet potato instead?" In response to my very reasonable suggestion, he tosses himself to the floor, rubbing his face on the tile and offering a protest of "ahhh uh buh na na na" followed by whimpering and kicking. It's pitiful really, but I watch him and realize this is the 14 month old equivalent of "Ugh, mom, It's so unfair! I never get to have what I want, you never let me have anything good! Aiden's mom lets him have Ritz crackers for dinner. Aiden's mom wants him to be happy! You just want me to eat that yucky food that will probably make me sick." 

     Maybe practicing my patience with the complaints of a toddler will help me prepare for the day that nonsense is coming. All I can say for right now, is I can't wait for Brian to come home so that at least someone will appreciate the yummy food I take the trouble to make!

Bluebonnets of Texas

Bluebonnet season is fully upon us, and we ventured out into the mounds of pretty blue blooms to take some family pictures (mostly Willie of course) among them. We took a drive down one of the coolest roads in the Hill Country first, but found that while it has plenty of hill views, there aren't many bluebonnets there. So we ended up quite close to home where we found plenty. We started out on one side of the road where we were able to show some Texas hospitality to a group of ladies from Boston. Then ran over to the other side of the road where a landowner showed us some hospitality and lead us to a beautiful spot on his property where he welcomed us to take pictures. Here are some of my favorites. 

No-Sew Roman Shade

This was going to be my second time to participate in the Pinning it Down link up, but due to concerns about copyright material that link-up will no longer happen. I'm going to give some thought to how I use Pinterest to be sure it is lawful and following the intent of the creative people who make and post their material. I'd love for you to follow me on Pinterest, I have a link over there in the sidebar, and I'd like to see your boards too. So what follows is just an independent post about how I followed a wonderful tutorial from a blog I likely wouldn't have found without Pinterest.

When we ordered custom blinds for the entire rest of the house, I insisted that we leave the kitchen window empty. In part, I didn't want to lose my view of the back yard, the dogs, and the endless bird company we keep out there. Also, I wanted to hang my stained glass birdhouse in the window. It's going to go back up, it just had to come down temporarily. But mostly, because I knew I wanted to make something special for that window, I just didn't know quite yet what it would be. When my friend started pinning a series of roman shades, I suspected that's what it would be, then she successfully made this roman shade. The problem is, she has sewing talent and I do not.
Luckily, there's a pin for that. Do you use the words simple, or easy when you search for things sometimes, just to increase the odds that that's what you're going to get? I do. If you search easy no-sew roman shade, this is the one you get from the blog 365 Days to Simplicity. And it's perfect! Her instructions were so easy to follow that even I was able to complete this project in just 2 naps, with about 10 minutes of my husband's help the next morning to hang the blind.
Materials:
1 yard of fabric (more if your window is bigger than mine) $7.20 on clearance
cheap plastic mini-blinds $4.97
1 roll of Heat n Bond $1.72
A new roller cutter that came with a mat that I didn't need after all $14
Tacky Glue already owned

I bought a yard each of  2 different fabrics from Quilt Haus and thought I liked one of them best until I got them both inside and saw that the other has the exact same three colors I keep buying dishes, rugs, and even clothes in. These are my colors, I'm telling you. I think I'm going to stick with them as my Fiesta ware collection grows.
It's no-sew because you use Heat n Bond to hem the edges. I knew that stuff existed, but I'd never used it. I'll be looking for more uses immediately! The roman shade part comes from a cheapo mini-blind from Walmart that you remove all of the slats except a few. My curtain needed to be 35" long, so I did 5 7-inch pleats. Even math teachers like to work with easy numbers. Here it is all put together.

 And here it is hung. It makes me so happy now!

The York nest gets spruced up

We have owned our house for just over a year now and we've done a TON of projects to get the inside the way we want it. Brian did the lion's share of course. The outside remained pretty neglected as we put off any major landscaping for this Spring. Spring's here! Oh, not where you live? Well it's full-on here with temps pushing the 80s. So it was time to get started on the front yard.

This before picture is a before-before. We didn't own house, but it was the best one I could find. It looked a lot scragglier when we got started.

1. The dead plants were pulled out with the truck. 

2. The ugly chili pepper address plaque was replaced with this one.

3. The lava rocks and red scallops were eliminated, see.

 

 4. I weeded my fool head off and got a pile this size, but the lawn is still about 75% weeds.

5. Brian built a stone border. It looks great, and if you could refer to him as a stone mason in his earshot he would appreciate it.

6. Will sampled all the rocks, dirt, and weeds he could get his hands on. And by the number of pebbles that came out in the load of diapers I washed, he got quite a few down.

7. We trimmed up the yaupons and boxwoods and started to try to train them into a prettier shape.

8. We bought a bunch of plants and laid them out like this. We still have to plant them and we left space for a yaupon, a mountain laurel and some annuals.

It's still a work in progress, but I like it a lot better. Our next plan is to pain the front door and side lights aqua like the cover of this month's Southern Living.

I Heard the Voice of Jesus

We sang this at Mass this morning and it was just perfect!


Second verse:
I heard the voice of Jesus say, "Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one, stoop down, and drink, and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

Filed under Kids say the darndest things

It is a school rule here that students are not allowed to use electronics (cell phones, ipods) during class. I probably wouldn't care all that much as long at they're still doing their work, but I'd be in trouble if an administrator came in and a bunch of kids had ear buds in. I've gotten onto one girl just about every day for the last few weeks because not only is she using her ipod but she is connected to the girl across the aisle from her sharing one ear bud each. I even took up her ipod last class because she repeatedly had it out. So you'll imagine my surprise when that same girl comes up to me  during independent practice time with her ipod and the usb cord and asks to plug it into my laptop to charge it. Absolutely not, I tell her. I'm on you all the time to turn it off and put it away and you think I'm going to let you charge it on my computer? But it's going to die, she says. Let it die, then! I won't be attending the funeral.

Would you have asked your teacher to use her computer for any personal reason, let alone to charge the ipod you're not supposed to have?

These are not my students. They look nothing like my students. Image found here.