#!/usr/bin/mom

Dream Meeting

So last night I had one of those "meeting other bloggers" dreams. I don't have many of them; in fact I can't remember ever having one before. It's possible that this is my first!

I dreamt that Mark and I went down into the central part of the city (you know, the whole Montrose, West U., Bellaire, etc. area.) to get some really good sandwiches from a particular deli. While there, we ran into my Papa (who was apparently still alive in this dream) and we found out that a local church was sponsoring Anna of Domestic Felicity to come visit the U.S. And, of course, she was staying with my grandparents.

In case you don't know, everyone and everything in the world somehow comes back to my grandparents. My sometimes-cranky next-door neighbor worked with Granny at Bayou Bend. The owners of one of the bars Mark likes played football for Papa at Lamar. Even my 9th grade U.S. History teacher was the son of friends of theirs, and on the first day of school told me he first met me shortly after I was born, and I told him I knew his mother. The point is, I live in a city of 2 million people, and it seems like a small town where everyone knows everyone else -- because they all know my grandparents.

Anyway, I went over to Granny and Papa's house to see Anna. When I got there I was upset because I wanted to stay a few days, but I'd forgotten to pack a bag of clothes. Then I explained to Anna that all of my clothes were actually at Granny and Papa's, but I'd packed three or four outfits to go back to my house, and left them there. Which apparently meant that the only outfit I actually liked that I had with me was what I was wearing. I also explained that most of my clothes had been given to me, but interestingly, instead of being embarrassed about the ingratitude of refusing to wear a closet-full of clothes I'd been given, I was embarrassed that I hadn't yet gone through them to get rid of anything immodest!

And that's about when Mark woke me to go grab his clean shirts from the dryer and set up the ironing board for him.

posted @ 07:29 am -- comments (1)

Project (20/365): Aisling & Seamus

posted @ 12:00 am -- comments (3)

Funny Baby

Aisling is so funny. She and I were just playing "Mama. What?" That's where she says, "Mama," and then I say "What?" Then she says, "Mama," and I say "What?" And so on until she gets frustrated at me. Finally I turned my desk chair towards her, and she climbed up into my lap. Then she said "Yay yay yay!" and slid down again.

She did that a couple of times, and then decided to feed me my necklace. Unfortunately (fortunately) the chain is not long enough for that. And after I sternly stopped her from eating my necklace herself (she was using her teeth!), she decided to eat my cheeks. There's something extremely amusing about a one year old trying to put your cheeks in her mouth.

I know, not the most thrilling blog post ever, but in a couple of years I'll read it again and be happy.

posted @ 06:42 pm -- comments (2)

Project (19/365): Guess What I Shot

Here's a game; guess what these photos are.





These are two completely different and unrelated objects. Both were found in my home. The second was converted to black and white, although the original colors were fairly monochrome to begin with.

posted @ 12:00 am -- comments (14)

Project (18/365): Goodnight Kisses

See more at Wordless Wednesday and 5minutesformom.

posted @ 12:47 pm -- comments (8)

What Happened To Project (16/365)?

Posted out of order because I wanted to get in my entry for Tackle It Tuesday. This is a chair in my Granny's backyard.





And a couple of cute photos of Aisling.

posted @ 12:51 pm -- comments (1)

Project (17/365): Tackle It Tuesday

We were getting kind of behind on the dishes because Anna, who normally washes the dishes, spent a week at her cousins' house, and the rest of us kind of slacked off. Well, Mark decided that since Anna hadn't been doing a great job on the dishes anyway, he was going to get them all done "right," and then turn it over to me*. By "all," he meant all -- he pulled out every dish in the cupboards that he didn't feel was clean enough and piled it all up on the counter beside the sink.

* I'm meant to have Anna watch me do the dishes for a while, and then watch her do them so I can be sure she does them right.

At first he was working on this huge pile of dishes himself. Then, when Anna came home, he had her do it with strict oversight. Well, Anna's been home for a week, and while there has been progress with dishes washed every single day, and the dishes that have been done have been done right -- even if they had to be done twice -- we haven't actually had all the dishes done at any given point in the last two weeks. I was starting to get unhappy.

So today I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically, since I got lots of summer maternity clothes for my birthday!) and finished the job. I suppose I worked for about three hours, and now every single dish in the house, including pots and pans, is clean. The counters are all wiped down, and the sink is shined. (At least, as shiny as brushed metal gets.) Tomorrow I plan to clean out the fridge and pantry, wipe down the walls, and give the floor a good scrubbing.

I had Anna watch me do the dishes, and I pointed out some things I do differently than she does, like how I keep the towel (on which I set clean dishes), my apron, and the floor from getting soaking wet while I wash. I showed her how I had one pan with some particularly stubborn cooked-on eggs, and how even though I had to soak it multiple times and scrub in between, I didn't give up, and eventually got it clean. I taught her the word "perseverance." Then I taught her that every one makes mistakes when Aoghdan dried the pan and scraped off a little bit more egg.

Then I showed Aoghdan what clean counters actually look like, since wiping them down is his job. Tomorrow he'll see what a clean floor looks like! LOL.

posted @ 12:00 am -- comments (1)