Such a Strange Topper

Do you remember my pic of this "new" thrift store coat for Miss C?  I had no idea until later when I finally got around to sorting a load of clean laundry (that had included the coat) that there was a BONUS accessory...and it is so bizarrely shaped:

 Speaking of finally getting around to it-- this pic was taken yesterday late afternoon when the kids and I finally "picked up" the mess downstairs from, if we're being honest, C's birthday party a month ago.  It was but one of the productive things from yesterday: the B-man stayed home with a cough and slight fever so I didn't leave the house and, thankfully, managed to get several projects underway.

Just put them both on the school bus so fingers crossed they each stay at school!!

Welcome Aboard!

I'm not exactly sure where the weekend went, but I don't really have anything to show for it.  The high Saturday was 72 degrees and then a storm/cold front came in and it was in the 40s yesterday.  I didn't watch any of the Oscars because I had procrastinated on some weekend work projects, so I was very surprised when the BG told me this morning about all the drama at the end!  (To clarify, he was asleep even before I was so it wasn't like he stayed up to watch it; he does watch the news during his early morning routine, however!  He totally scooped me!)

In other news, here's what we'd look like if we were a male/female flight attendant duo:

I'm not actually on snapchat but we do play around with the filters because they're just fun.  I think I make a rather handsome bearded man!  :-)

Friday Food Find

Have you seen these new see-through cans yet?  I am soooo taken with them! 

Those are actually the beans!  So you could, theoretically, keep it on your desk and periodically turn it upside down to watch the beans float around.  You know, as a calming device!  ;-)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Celebrating Scientific Inquiry

Last night was the elementary school STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) Fair, which is actually a PTA activity and a pretty major undertaking.  There's no requirement to participate but it's a great way to get kids interested in scientific exploration.  Volunteer judges who work in a STEM field are brought in to chat with each kid about his/her project, and then there was also a "hands-on" room where parents working in a STEM field did demonstrations.  The organizers also brought in a middle school robotics club and a high school science-y team of some sort, and then there was an Outdoor Ed representative with live animals!

B had never participated before but was "highly encouraged" by his parents to be involved this year.  He and his dad figured out a project to explore using the really cool Flybrix lego drone set that Big D gifted them.  I know the science teacher had a bit of an internal struggle in terms of "guiding versus doing" but, all in all, I think it was a quality learning experience for the student!

The funny thing is that Miss C, aka the kindergartner, participated as well!  One of her classroom besties is the daughter of an elementary teacher so that mom organized a whole experiment and guided the girls through it.  They were so cute (even if their project involved gross moldy bread!) and had a great time last night, too!

B talking to his judge:

And the girls with theirs:

The bad news is that the PTA volunteer who organized this great night told me immediately after that she is NOT doing it next year since it took so much time.  wah WAH!   :-(

April, er, I mean February

Listen, I have loved our warm, sunny days.  We had a beautiful weekend.  No problem with that. 

MY PROBLEM IS WITH THE LACK OF SNOW DAYS!  :-)

Indeed, as reported on Monday, we had a delightfully lazy weekend but did manage to step it up on Presidents' Day.  Not only did I get in a solid 6 hours of work, but we also got away to a local park for some enjoyment of the crazy weather:

The crocuses (croci?) were EVERYWHERE!

Also everywhere?  Turtles!  The pic I took didn't come out too well, but we counted something like ten turtles--many of which were teeny little things--sunning themselves or swimming around the pond.  Everybody loves the sunshine!

Happy (Big) Birthday to Grammie!

I was born the day before Lincoln and she was born the day before Washington.  Basically, we're one step ahead of some famous presidents!  :-)

I gathered a fun array of photos for a birthday tribute on Facebook today and planned to find some past blog posts honoring the birthday girl to feature here.  I was not excited by what I found in my historical archives so I thought I'd make you all giggle with a photo I came across in my weekend research that did NOT make the FB tribute post:

Between my "bianator" and her shades, we were so VERY 1989!!!

What's funny is that I'm 99% sure that pic had to be from 1989 because I recall that as the year we went to Disney World.  (Brother will correct me if I'm wrong.)   But, if I'm right, that means it was a VERY QUICK decline from the cuteness of my 1987 self:

The 'tween years, y'all.  They're no joke.

(Also-- how fun is it to realize that, when the photo above was taken at a friend's house before we moved from Texas to Corning, we had no idea that 14 years later, we'd be celebrating a wedding on that same Bastille Day?!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mumsie!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Thank you for being such a loyal blog (proof)reader and friend to all!! And, you know, for giving me life-- and so many wonderful hugs along the way!

Long Weekend Reality

This photo pretty much sums up our long weekend productivity so far:

Lots of lounging around, rest, and fun.   Very little task accomplishment.

Unfortunately, deadlines loom. Here's to grabbing this Monday by the proverbial horns and GETTIN' IT DONE.

Friday (F)ilosophy

I am not familiar with your work, Iris Murdoch (although a quick google suggests you're not a monster), but I like the way you think (er, thought).

HAPPY FRIDAY!  May your long weekend be full of continuous small treats!

PS: Macarons are a good first treat idea.

PPS: AKHG, do you recognize this art as the cover of one of my favorite kinds of cards? I think I bought my first one in Seattle!!

Dealing with Faux Winter

I know that there are parts of the country that have been blanketed with snow this winter. We are sad not to be one of those places.

While I realize that there's still plenty of "winter" time left for some potential snow, we're all pretty skeptical at this point that we'll even get one snow day let alone the four built into the school calendar.  Unlike in some other school districts, we don't get the snow days back.  I've been joking about the VERY IDEA of having four extra days of schoolin' :-), but a teacher friend pointed out recently that it's an interesting situation where employees could actually seen to be working on those four days for no pay.  They'd get paid for them if they stayed home during snow closings and didn't teach-- so teaching on those four days is actually extra work.

It will shock no one to hear that the BG would never even give that conundrum a second thought because he'd pretty much do his job for free!! [which, I think, is a sign of being in the proper profession so yay for a realized vocational calling!]

ANYWAY-- about the (lack of) snow: it's probably our fault because we went in with our neighbors this winter and bought a snowblower to share.  HA HA.  Joke is on us. 

You know what else hasn't really been necessary this winter because we've had so many "warm" days?  This fun coat:

(Bought at the thrift store for something liky $7, thankyouverymuch.)

Also, they're cute:

(Smiling through the disappointment of our faux winter!)

Reunion

It's a pretty amazing thing to get to ring in 38 with friends who were there for 19, 20, 21, and 22:

I just looked back through photos of all of those collegiate birthdays and the three of them were right in the middle of the festivities.  The best photographic summary of these friends, however, is this one:

I was supported on my wedding day by five bridesmaids: three from Baylor and two from Corning (shout-out to loyal reader AKHG on the right!).  Recognize the middle three?

Random fun fact about time marching on:  the six women pictured above in 2001 currently have 14 children among them!!!!!!!

2017 Valentines

I was really delinquent this year with getting the kids ready for their class V-day parties today.  That may be because I've been busy with preps for the Kindergarten class party for weeks so it seemed like I was on the ball with all things made-up-love-holiday...but hadn't actually done anything for the exchange.

So, before I left town, I pulled together some supplies for them.  A Facebook friend asked yesterday whether we are "Pinterest Moms" or "Amazon Prime Moms."  While I think Pinterest is an amazing repository of ideas, I really only end up there when a google search leads me; I'm DEFINITELY an "Amazon Prime" mom.  At the same time, Valentine's Day has been the one event through the years where I'm semi-creative: I like to wander through a party supply aisle to find some sort of trinket and then develop a card around that.  We've done "springs" and bears, gold coins, and some apparently photo-less plastic spinning "tops." I love making up little rhymes/sayings!

I decided the B-man was too old for that kind of effort ("the juice isn't worth the squeeze," so to speak-- I have been using that expression a lot lately!) so he said he wanted...shocker...Minecraft V-day cards.  Then I realized I didn't really want to roam all over town looking for them--and Amazon didn't have a good deal--so we went with free printables that I found online!  The file had 9 different Minecraft-themed designs so we had 3 color copies made at Staples and then bought candy to staple to the back.   For Miss C, I happened upon some donut stickers at Michaels that became the basis of her more creative card.  (And I figure I get some points for NOT contributing to the sugar overload that is this day-- ha ha!):

I won't be able to do much at the 3rd grade class party since I'm in charge of the K one, but I did find a suggestion online for a "Matchmaker" game where you make construction paper hearts, write a famous pair on them, and cut them in half for the kids to find their other "half."  Since I do love coming up with things like that, I offered to do it for the class....and then realized the frame of reference for "famous pairs" is very different for a 9-year old than for an adult!  I had to do some serious brainstorming to come up with age-appropriate pairs!

I found these great felt hearts at Michaels so I didn't have to construct my own-- and they even came in two colors so we could have two rounds of the game.  The red round is all people/characters and the pink round is all objects.  We'll see how it goes!

The Jaunt

I pulled in my garage at 12:35am earlier today (!!) after having pulled out at 4:35am Saturday.  In between, I got to spend 36 hours in Dallas celebrating Grammie's upcoming birthday!  The fact that the travel coincided with my own birthday was the proverbial icing on the cake...and, believe you me, there was also plenty of literal icing on the cake, too!

As you can imagine, I'm already a little behind this morning, having not been super interested in getting up early enough to get ahead.  So I'll start this tale at the end: since my flight didn't leave last night until 8:20, Sheils and I were able to enjoy dinner at our favorite local Thai spot:

That was actually going to be the extent of this blog post, as I formed it in my mind shortly before 7am, but then these two bounced in with quite the unveiling of birthday treats:

Apparently I have lots more literal cake icing to eat in the near future, as well as sparkly Miss C-selected earrings to wear, Starbucks bevvies to drink, and two more pieces of an admired stoneware collection to use for future recipes.  It's good to be home! 

Well, That's a Kick in the Pants

I received this card in the mail recently:

Hooray!  Free Stuff!

Except....here's what was inside:

Is there a mail carrier out there with my birthday coupon?!  What the what?

As if getting older weren't hard enough.  ;-)

Happy early birthday to my favorite twin and loyal reader, Carrie!  May everybody else reading this have extra fun weekends in honor of our births!

Smiling Through the Disappointment

(Okay, that's not really the correct timeline....but it works as a title!)

It's been close to 70 degrees this week which is REALLY bizarre for February.  I took advantage of the warm temps to spend some time at school taking pics during the recess periods.  [Have I mentioned I'm in charge of the yearbook?  Sigh.]  Had to get in there before today because the temps plunged 35 degrees last night and we were to wake up to heavy snow.

We didn't.

Shocker.

Off to school on time we go-- STILL NO SNOW DAY FOR THIS YEAR.

But hey, there were some cute smiles at recess:

Wednesday Wisdom

When perusing the racks at a thrift store and coming across two identical (as in, even the same size) articles of clothing, BUY THE ONE THAT IS A DOLLAR CHEAPER!  :-)

(pink tags were also 25% off so that made it an even better deal!)

As a general life update: I don't find myself at thrift stores as often as I did when the kids were little (toys aren't such a draw anymore and there are fewer clothes to be found for older children, especially boys) but wow do I still love the thrill of a bargain victory when there's one to be had!!  I mean,  I'm about to write a thank-you note to a school staff member on a note from an unopened package I found on the shelf for 99 cents! 

Another "TV" Rec (plus a podcast one, too!)

I'm already really far behind this morning and it's largely because I've fallen down the Sneaky Pete hole and am having trouble resisting finding out how the story ends.  "TV" is in quotes because it's on Amazon Prime so not a "regular" channel, but really fun storytelling.  It also starts the former Frank Buffay, Jr. so how can you go wrong??!

I actually just heard about Sneaky Pete through a mention on my favorite weekly pop culture podcast, The Popcast.  New episodes every Wednesday and they never fail to crack me up.  Give it a listen and we can chat!

Smiles to Start the Week

I share driving duties with another mom-of-a-kid-doing-the-weekly-Sunday-swim-lesson thing.  Yesterday was my week to drive but it turns out her son had another commitment so I didn't need to take him.  Aaaaaannnnnddd.....that change turned into a FAMILY CULINARY ADVENTURE pretty quickly, as I am wont to do!

So, after church, all four of us took B to swimming and then we made our way to a nearby "Latin Kitchen and Rum Bar" for a lunch treat.  As I had hoped (thanks to menu research), it turned out to be a great "nicer/more interesting than many spots but still casual enough for kids" kind of place.  We had a great (and tasty!) time, and then walked across the street to Whole Foods to get what the B-man has determined are mighty fine donuts.

I think I'll keep these kids around:

Oh, and also in classic Emily fashion, I put off all my work project tasks until last evening so, while I watched the first half of "the big game," I completely missed all the action of the second half.  Hear it was quite a contest! 

Friday Flashback

Well, this just makes me happy!  (and amazed that it's been NINE YEARS.)

Speaking of happy: HAPPY FRIDAY!

Surprise Delight!

I've been feeling like a good binge watch lately but didn't have the time/energy to devote to an hour-long show.  Based on a positive review I read somewhere, I decided to give a try to a Netflix reboot of a show that originally aired "before my time":

If you watched Six Feet Under, you'll recognize the lead actress since she played Vanessa for years on that show. They've filmed it with a laugh track, as a nod to the style of yesteryear, but I eventually got used to that.  I found myself genuinely wanting to know what was going to happen next with this family which is pretty much exactly what you want for a successful binge watch!

And, seriously, after you've watched for awhile, look up how old Rita Moreno is in real life.  WOW.

Cauli-Talk

Who out there is doing the "riced cauliflower" thing?

(Didn't think to snap a pic til after I dumped it out...oops.)

I bought this bag the other day after initially having bought some at Wegs when they were doing a cooking demonstration (psst-- I'm pretty sure it's cheaper at TJs).  I like the idea of using it to make rice-like dishes-- I've seen a "cauliflower fried rice" recipe floating around that looks pretty tasty.  What I went with yesterday, however, was this Roasted Cauliflower "Rice" (to which I added cilantro instead of parsley because parsley is dumb). It wasn't scream-from-the-rooftops amazing but I can see it being a tasty underpinning to some sort of flavorful meat or veggie topping.

Any recipes/techniques to share?