Adventure

”You must fashion a way to engage the world”

My creative writing teacher just gave an assignment to have an adventure! It has to be something I’ve never done before, and it has to be extremely interesting and boundary stretching. So the idea is to step out and do something stimulating and then write about it.

Examples:

Go trick-or-treating off-season
Bungee jump
Dress in drag
Take a road trip without a destination in mind
Spend a day blindfolded
Go someplace you’ve never been, and speak in an accent
Give a poetry reading at a senior center

It can be one of the examples or anything else, but it might as well be something fun and exciting! Matt wants to do the road trip without a destination with me, but I feel like it needs to be something more in order to keep us from just spending a day on the road having the same conversations we have all the time... laughing at the same jokes we tell all the time. I really want this to be mentally stimulating.

PLEASE TELL ME YOUR IDEAS FOR ME!

Too many injuries

        The kids are in an "injury phase".  It happens from time to time.  We can go months without any injuries and then have 5 in a single day.  A few weeks ago Jana burned her hands badly on a pellet stove.  Then about an hour later she did it again.  The burns immediately blistered on the backs of five fingers (some on each hand).  Jana was just swinging her arms around and happened to hit a really hot part of the stove somehow

        Jana still has noticeable scars from her burns, but they are going away.  Two days ago Jana was in the tub.  She didn't believe me when I told her how sharp my razor was to when I wasn't looking she ran her finger across it.  You know when you cut yourself with something super sharp and it cuts so clean that you don't immediately feel it?  That's what happened.  So she sat there with my sharp new 5 blade razor and ran it back and forth across her finger tip.  She completely ribboned the skin.  She only noticed it when it started to ooze blood.  By the time she started screaming she had already shaken her hand around and the whole tub and shower were spattered with blood like a crime scene.  Here is a pic of her finger the day after.

        So yesterday on the way to the school bus, Michael tripped on the front  stairs of our deck and landed on the concrete landing straight onto his knee.  Then on the way home from school as he got off the bus, an SUV (teenage driver) came out of nowhere and nearly hit him in the crosswalk.  He had to leap back at the last second.  I was across the street, and I was so scared I screamed at the top of my lungs.  Tonight, the kids were jumping around in their beds and managed to bonk heads really hard.  Here's Jana's fresh black eye.

     I am going to be embarrassed to take her anywhere!  She looks mangled!  I'm tired of explaining these bizarre injuries to her preschool teacher.

P.S. I just got off the phone with poison control because Jana decided to bite through her (reusable) ice pack and drink half the liquid.  Thank goodness Matt just came home from school.  I have had enough drama for one day.  Thank you.  Now where is the Chardonnay?

The Happiness Project

Early this month I read a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It's a bit of a self-help book, but still worth a look. Gretchen Rubin wrote this book as sort of a "New Year's Resolution Project". Each chapter in the book represents a particular month. So there are 12 chapters and for each chapter she worked on an idea for a whole month. In January she worked on being more energetic. In February she worked on relationships and so on. The book is long, but if you can find it at your library, it's worth a good skimming. Here is the book website:

http://www.happiness-project.com/

Also, one of my favorite quotes from the relationship section is:

"There is no love, there are only proofs of love" (Reverdy)

The idea is this... Matt can't EXPERIENCE my love for him unless I show it. If I have love for him in my heart, there will be proof of it. It's not always the love in our hearts that shows to our loved ones. They must experience the PROOFS of that love in order for them to feel and experience the love at all. So following Ms. Rubin's advice in her book, I've been practicing showing proofs of my love to Matt. For example: not nagging him, being pleasant to him, forgiving him for his faults instead of drawing attention to them, not giving him "job assignments" and telling him that I love him every chance I get. A good spouse is VERY hard to find. Don't let the passage of time cause you to forget to value your loved ones.

Kalamata Olive Butter

Olive Butter Recipe

Ingredients:
12 – 14 Medium Calamata Olives finely chopped

(black olives work but have less flavor)

1 stick of salted butter softened

3 T Italian (flat leaf) parsley chopped small

1 Clove garlic minced

Dash of garlic salt

Mix all together. Wrap in Saran wrap tube-style and refrigerate until it firms up. This can also be frozen.

This is like a tapenade and is great melting on a nice steak, as a top for good French bread, on baked or roasted potatoes. It might even be good on eggs.

(original 1/20/11) David Ferguson

I AM SO HUNGRY RIGHT NOW!

The Dryer

There you go Matt. Just hoist it right up there. I don't see what the big deal is. Nice undies.

Vintage Family Photo

Comments

I love comments because it lets me know someone is reading. If you'd like to comment, just click on the word "comments" found right under the blog post (under the picture and words).

Jose Cuervo

Is Jana trying to make a statement about alcohol consumption?

Frugivore

As a Flexitarian (vegetarian who sometimes eats meat), I have on occasion been criticized for my excessive consumption of produce. Right now I’m on a grapefruit kick; the kids are voracious orange eaters.

Frosted Hair

I think my hair turned out cute! What do you think? I haven't tried styling it yet.

Doughnuts

My trainer told me I needed to lose 10 pounds to reach my optimum heath. That made me feel depressed so I ate a doughnut... a creme filled chocolate doughnut.

I NEVER eat doughnuts. I told Matt that I ate a doughnut and he almost died from the shock. Usually he has to hide his doughnut bags from me so I don't find out he ate a doughnut.

Did you know there are almost 1000 calories in a fluff-filled chocolate long john? Jana thought she had died and went to heaven when we walked into that doughnut shop. She ordered one with "spwinkles".

I stopped liking doughnuts the day we went to an Asian doughnut shop, and my sister found a bloody tooth in her doughnut. She threw the whole doughnut out the window of our mini van. Can you believe that?

Hair

Matt and I tried out boxed hair color for the first time this week. Besides ruining a pillow sham, we did really well! My hair is now officially a very classic shade of medium brown. Tomorrow night I'm going to a "hair frosting party" so I really hope I don't screw it up!

Philosophy

Ok this blog is super old, but I'm back at it and I promise to post regularly!  For my first blog post in 6 years, I am going to start with a philosophy question that I'd love to hear feedback on:

What is more important... today... or tomorrow? And why?