love (or not) letters

Dear Bertolli olive oil,
While I appreciate the feel of a nice glass bottle (and even thought so today when I picked you up), it may be time to jump on the bandwagon and convert to plastic bottles. My dark Karo for pecan pie was even in a plastic bottle.

Dear self,
The new #1 unloading priority has changed from cold items to breakable items until further notice, effective immediately.

Dear Jonah,
Please, no more throwing olive oil bottles. Next time, let it be something mild like walnuts or raisins.

hot chocolate

I used to make big pots of homemade hot chocolate in high school (the recipe is on the Hershey's baking chocolate box). It is so delicious! ...and then I married a man who doesn't drink hot chocolate more than once a winter and it starting feeling a bit ridiculous.

The solution? I now have the single serving recipe memorized. 1T. sugar + 1T. chocolate + 1c. milk = heaven in a cup. The only thing that would make it better would be a milk steamer in my kitchen (you know, the kind in the coffee shop that makes it all foamy).

oh for some time alone

Emily often links Baby Blues comics that seem to be inspired by her life, which then prompts me to spend hours reading the online archive and chuckling. Here's my favorite (for today):

Not only is this so very accurate, but yesterday Josh took Jonah to class with him so I could have some time alone. I danced around jamming out and cleaning the kitchen and then I started to miss them, so I sat down and looked at pictures of my boys on the computer.

my life is complete

H&M is now open in Scottsdale.

I wonder if Jonah wants to go shopping tomorrow...

calling all pumpkin eaters

Ros and I need some help. We're both looking for something to do with half a can of pumpkin that isn't a bread, pie, cookie, muffin...you get the idea. Something without a lot of sugar and oil in it. I have seen some tasty curries with pumpkin, but that's pumpkin chunks. I need a way to use my pumpkin puree left over from pumpkin bread (which has so much oil and sugar we might as well call it pumpkin cake). Any help out there?

P.S. I'm doing the turkey this year. I've had wild success with Alton Brown's turkey, but due to the number of people, I was thinking of doing 2 smaller birds instead of a 30lb monster. Should I do something different for the second one? What sounds good? Barbecue?

sesame street, part deux

Poor Rosalyn gets a daily commentary on Sesame Street. Well, let me tell you, they have me quite put out. In fact, we may stop watching it. I have already expressed my distaste at the disproportionate amount of screen time Elmo gets. Well, not only that, but for the last 3 days there has been 15 minutes of Abby's Flying Fairy School which is a) dumb, b) animated and c) not connected to Sesame Street at all (other than Abby is a new character). I want more time on the street! Or at the very least, more of those cute videos where the people all in yellow spell out letters and numbers. Boo. Which one of us is this show catering too, anyway?

The Hunger Games

Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Rating: 5 stars

It took me months to get this book from the library because there are so many pending requests. I've had it for two weeks and it's due tonight. For some reason, despite all the good things I've heard about it, I just never wanted to read it. I mean, I did in general, but when evening came and I considered what to pick up, I was just too tired from the day to read another version of "The Lottery". I read that in school and although the implications were profound, there is a reason I read mostly YA literature. I like happy endings. I appreciate a difficult situation when I read it, but most of the books I read for the Tournament of Books last year were depressing and dark for no good reason. I like books that celebrate human nature or at the very least have some magic powers or a little romance. I did not matter that every review I read of The Hunger Games said, after the plot description, that it was not as heavy as it sounded and was a fabulous read.

Well, last night, I decided I should just read the first chapter so I would know if I should take it back in the morning or try to finish by the library's closing time. I read half of it last night until I absolutely had to go to sleep and just finished the rest while Jonah naps. It was every bit as fabulous as I hoped. Instead of talk about what happens and how it's better than it sounds, especially since some people who read this blog have already read it, let me just tell you why it was so great:

1. She shows instead of tells. There are very few wasted words and the author is able to capture the essence of a person in just a few lines. This added depth to even the most minor characters and prevented the story from getting bogged down in details.
2. It takes place in a dark place different from our own, but it is not about that world. Not only does she not dwell unnecessarily on depressing us, but she does not spend too much time describing this future civilization to us, even though I'm sure she has a pretty clear picture of it in her mind. I don't need (nor want) every book to be Tolkien, after all, especially because I kind of despise apocalyptic novels.
3. I laughed out loud and cried, both at unexpected times. For those of you that have read it, District 11's bread is what turned on the faucets for me. I had to keep reassuring Jonah I was fine (since he was eating breakfast while I cried over that).

That about covers it, I think. At it's roots, it's an epic struggle between a single person and a great evil. Up one step, it's about a horrible competition and the surrounding hype. What I enjoyed most, though, were the characters. One of my writing teachers told us that chick flicks are about characters, man movies are about action, and the best (be they romance, action, or something else) do both. I'm very glad I decided to go ahead and read it, even if I'm blurry-eyed tired today.

P.S. The mutts might give me nightmares, though. I don't even want to think about the implications of their...resemblances. Was that cryptic enough for anyone who hasn't read it? I hope so.

family history

I just found out that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a mentor named Benjamin Mays. Between Uncle Willie and Uncle Benny, our name is getting more and more prestigious the more I learn.

(Except we aren't actually related to either...)

gilbert riparian

We went to the Gilbert Riparian again last night to go birding. We've been to this same park I'd say 15-20 times. Well, guess who found a stream we've never seen before? I'll give you a clue. It wasn't me.
By the time I arrived on the scene (I was id'ing a hummingbird, thank you very much), his shoes, socks, and pants were soaked and he would not be removed from the stream. Only these two boys could, in 32.3 seconds, find a mystery stream and jump in.

mmmm, milk

We finished off the milk yesterday afternoon. When his cup was empty, Jonah handed it to me and ran to the kitchen. Once he (with help) got the fridge open, he looked around on the bottom shelf, carefully touching everything, looking for his milk. "It's gone, baby," I said. Then he found the Coscto bottle of Frank's hot sauce, which looks like a half-gallon container of (red) milk. He looked at me, pointed to the bottle, and "said", "mmmm?"

I'm still laughing. Any distress he felt at not being allowed to sample the hot sauce was forgotten this morning when he found the milk fairy had replenished his supply in the night.