Archive for the ‘Photographs’ Category
Would you believe I got NO flowers after my surgery? I got plenty of get well wishes and even a few get well gifts but not even one bouquet of flowers – which actually would have been nice seeing that I was pretty much confined to one part of my house for a long while. Apparently I protested too well to folks: “No, no – don’t spend your money on me” and “Flowers just die in a couple of days anyway,” I said. Hmmph, won’t do that again.
The get well gifts were very thoughtful. Spa sets, a cheese basket (still puzzling over this one a bit but I LOVE the basket it came in – it was repurposed right away to hold Ava’s hairbows), and even a snack bouquet.
The snack bouquet was very cute but I think J enjoyed it even more than I did. I had to near fight him for the KitKat bar and he somehow managed to snag the oreos when I wasn’t looking. Although, in all seriousness, food wasn’t even the slightest bit interesting or appetizing at this point anyway (except for KitKat bars). I love the snack bouquet idea though and will definitely use this in the future. It looks pretty easy to make – sticks glued on to the backs of the packages and stuck into florist foam with a little bit of green cellophane arranged to look like grass.
But the best gift?
My visits with this little thing (especially once she decided she liked me again):
That’s the best medicine on Earth.
Clearly she has none.
When I asked her what on earth she was doing, she replied “Cleaning my toes, Mama.”
What could I do but laugh? She answered my question, didn’t she?
And then we had a chat about the appropriateness of putting our feet on the table…especially while eating. So far the message seems to have stuck, thank goodness.
We’re big BBQ fans around here but we pretty much mainly roll with the Carolina style – the more vinegar and hot sauce the better. None of this ketchup based stuff for us…with the exception of an occasional Pierce’s pulled pork sandwich and even then I’m usually grouching about how (too) sweet it is. My favorite local BBQ place is a family owned (near-literal) hole in the wall, complete with a plywood counter, where people line up outside to get food. They have to, considering it’s just about big enough for 3 customers inside at a time. It’s also in a not-so-good neighborhood yet you’ll see folks in business suits and driving $$$ German engineered vehicles standing alongside the blue collar and obviously unemployed people while waiting their turn. Yes, it’s that good.
Ava got her first taste of pulled pork and she quite liked it (despite it being store bought) once she got over that first unexpected tang.
She’s such a good eater. Not terribly picky and will try most anything even if it is spicy or heavily seasoned. Except lentils – she still won’t eat those (neither will I) and has literally thrown up every single time she’s ingested some (only twice).
After dinner and a bath, while getting ready for bed, she asked that she be allowed to sleep with Pooh and Mickey and Minnie. We knew this would be logistically impossible but we let her give it a shot.
While she had a blast with them, she ultimately decided on her own that they were space hogs and kicked them out.
But, sweet girl that she is, of course she kissed them goodnight first.
One thing Ava’s daycare does in spades are art projects. She brings home something almost daily, waving it proudly at us as we arrive to pick her up, before abandoning it in favor of the juice she knows we always have ready for the ride home.
So what’s a parent to do with all of this fine craftsmanship? Well, if you’re J then you let it pile up in your truck for a while and then toss it all into the recycle bin without a second thought once it threatens to take over the backseat. If you’re me then you obsessively hoard every single scribble, collage, or piece of glued on macaroni that Ava has (supposedly) created and justify this behavior by the fact that I was traumatized by only having one, yes only one, piece of my childhood artwork saved. My mom gave it to me when she was unloading her basement of all my crap (still haven’t brought those roller skates home yet) and injured me further by asking me why I had so many ‘m’s scribbled all over the sky. *Sigh.* Those were birds. Obviously my interpretation wasn’t clear which could explain that my mother foresaw that I would not be an ‘artiste’ and therefore didn’t bother to preserve my early efforts for posterity.
My dilemma now is what to do with all of this? I have plans. I really do – some involve scrapbooking, some involve scanning and importing into a photobook, and some involve ignoring them and continuing to pile them in the basket beside my desk…which is now overflowing. Clearly the third option is the one most likely to happen.
Ava spotted the basket, which wasn’t hard to do since it spilled over onto the floor and into her play area, and she was delighted to find a hat that she’d made a couple of months ago for Thanksgiving week. I suspect that she had a fair bit of assistance with this one since the feathers were pointing (sorta) in the right direction and they weren’t glued directly to her head.
At least this was one item that I could toss into the recycle bin with no regret since she wore it for ages and pretty much trashed it in the process.
One down, lots and lots and lots more to go…
My fears were well founded. As soon as I got to my parents for the New Year holiday it snowed. With some ice thrown on top for good measure.
I spent 25 years living where it snowed with some regularity. I have many memories of sledding down the very steep hill in front of our house, of the joy of unexpected snow days, of snow cream and hot chocolate, of cobbled-together snow suits, and of bread bags pulled over your feet to try and keep them somewhat dry while spending hours and hours outside no matter the weather. I mention these things because, despite the fond memories of those experiences, I would be very happy to never see snow again. I do not like it. It’s cold and wet and, now that I’m an adult, I’ll pass.
Ava doesn’t like it either. She didn’t like being in it when we were in China nor did she like it the one time it snowed here (maybe 2″ max) the first winter she was home. But really, I thought she might dig it now that she was a little older.
Nope.
We did a quick walk outside which she did fine with until she realized that this was real, live snow. Or maybe it was the lack of snow boots that did her in?
And nope, no bread bags either. Apparently my mom quit saving those once she was all out of kids at home. Up until then she had about a gazillion tucked away for our use.
So – now that I have an unhappy toddler what do you think I did? Well, I video recorded her, of course. I even tried to distract her by tossing a snowball at her (which I have on tape) at which point she collapsed sobbing on the ground while I felt like a heel. (I’ll try to update the post later to add the video. It’s in the car right now and I’m too lazy to walk outside to get it.)
My payback for our approximately six minutes outside in snow hell was a wrenched back when I had to pick her up and carry her back inside on the slippery snow.
So, I rang in the New Year with one of my dogs, a heating pad, Dick Clark, and my Kindle (and the characters from a certain vampire book series that won’t be named) while crashed out on my parent’s couch. I called and woke J up just before midnight before heading to bed at a shameful 12:10AM.
Not my most exciting New Year’s Eve ever – but not my worst by a long shot either!