This and That

1. How long do you think it'll take for Matt and me to eat this much basmati?

Damn you, Sam's Club!

2.  Mitch continues to be the cutest animal on the planet, and I continue to be obsessed with Ann's 50mm lens (which I am never giving back to her, FYI).  

Why so serious all the time, dog?

3.  Wouldn't be a post this week without another picture of the hydrangeas that I didn't kill.

4.  I hate mosquitoes.  

5.  I showed this picture of Grandpa B to one of my students a couple of days ago and she said, "Ooh!  Your grandpa was HOT!"  How do you like that, Grandpa?  (Grandpa is blushing right now, probably about to snap those red suspenders of his.  Careful, Grandpa.  Don't want to get the ladies all riled up.)

6.  You know what's delicious?  Sprees.  And the smaller ones are better because they're just a tiny bit softer.  And they're pretty.  And full of nutrition.  And they make you smarter.  (If by smarter you mean fatter.)

7.  Yesterday, during some really exciting EOCT prep with my ninth graders, we were discussing the difference between persuasive writing and expository writing.  One of the students had a very, very interesting question, which then led us into a discussion about the difference between expository and suppository.

8.  That little episode made me check out the calendar to see how many days of school are remaining this year.  Nineteen.  I can do it, I can do nineteen. . .  The countdown is ON, the internet!

9.  I don't think I ever want to live anywhere that doesn't have little lizards running around.  Not so much because I love the lizards (even though I do when they are: behind a window or screen or in one of my paper lanterns, or more than 3 feet away from me), but because I think I am lizard-like as far as my ideal climate goes.  Yep.  Now, if only I could train lizards to eat all of the mosquitoes, then I wouldn't seem like a dirty meth addict all the time while I scratch my one bajillion mosquito bites.  Hmmmmmm.

10.  Well, I've got to get going, because Shecky just called me to rave about her new pajama jeans.  No joke.

Oh, What a Wonderful Weekend.

Um, are you ready to see way too many pictures?  I AM!

Man oh man it's been a wonderful couple of days!

Really, it's been pretty great since we came back from our vacation.  Busy busy, but fantastic.

The only hiccup was that on Thursday night our heater tried to kill us when it switched from air conditioning to as-hot-as-it-could-possibly-go heat.  Seriously.  Hot.  Heat.  Pumping into our house for hours and hours before we figured out we'd have to cut it off at the power source if we didn't want to bake in our own home. (I might have screamed and cried.)  But it's fixed now and we're not dead and nothing in the house was scorched or otherwise ruined, so we're gee-tee-gee.

In other awesomepants awesome news.

My hydrangeas are blooming!  I didn't kill them after all.

Mitch went on a Mitch-venture.  (a.k.a., "His irresponsible parents forgot that they let him outside to roam the neighborhood.")

We went to see Toy Story 3 in Forsyth Park with our buds.  There were kids and babies and glo-bracelets.  And there was wine.  (Because we live in an awesome place that has no open container law.  And, yes, that is part of the reason we moved here.)

I made a delicious cake.  Make this cake.  Make it right now.

And I made another cake that seemed like it was going to be great at first, but ended up being, for a host of reasons, a little bit less successful.

 Mother F.

And we attended Opal's blue-themed birthday party.  And it was fun and delicious.  Like, really fun, and really delicious.

You still haven't made it?  What's wrong with you already?!

And there was Kan Jam, which is insanely fun.

And there were rasterbated pictures.  Sounds dirty.  It's not dirty.

And then there was a little more cake eating.

And there was beer drinking atop a Volvo.

And fancy flower arranging.

And scooting.

 And general adventuring.

And sister eating.

And mind-over-mattering. (Egg allergy be damned!)

I hope that you had as lovely couple of days.  What'd you do?  What'd you eat?



UPDATE:  Also, apparently Bin Laden is dead.  Shoot yeah!  I hated that guy.  Glad to be talking about him in the past tense.

Green Thumb?

Okay, so I'm pretty excited right now, and not just because Big Love ended in the way that I both predicted and wanted, and not just because my birthday is fast approaching, and not just because I have a new ice cream scoop, and not just because I had a full weekend of [mostly] completing some house projects.

I'm excited because I'm taking on something new: plants.

See, I really don't understand plants.  Like I just don't get them.  I mean, I'm not a complete moron; I understand that they need water and sunlight, and I understand photosynthesis* and all.  But when it gets into all of this bull jive** about shade plants and sun plants and different kinds of dirt and pruning and bees and feeding and all of that--well, I just don't know anything. 

Last summer I planted some hydrangeas, and aside from my brief foray with hydroponics, it was a huge failure.  I kept forgetting to water the little bushes, and the hot Savannah sun just made the plants shrivel into little pitiful piles of wilted sadness.

But then I went outside the other day, and wouldn't you know it?  Those hydrangeas are some resilient little suckers.

So, inspired by my very, very slight success with the hydrangeas, and inspired by Cassie (who is basically a plant genius), I'm trying to find some actual success with plants this year.

But since I'm still a plant idiot, I got this little greenhouse thing from Target.  And it's kind of awesome--so far, at least.

Because, see, you start with these weird little pellets.

And then you pour warm water over them, and they grow BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!

And then they kind of look like all kinds of things that you will want to make immature jokes about, but that you won't because you're about to turn 30 in a week.

And then you add some seeds.

And then you run out of seeds, but try to find some in the refrigerator.

Then you cover them with dirt (or so I remember from the third grade), and then you put in your little plant markers, and send out happy thoughts.

Wish us luck!

 These are for Caitie, who is newly obsessed with spaghetti squash.

And if this goes well, we'll tackle this next.  Eek!

Any plant tips you'd like to share, friends?


*When Matt and I first started dating, I wowed him while we were watching Jeopardy! by knowing what ATP stood for.  Adenosine triphosphate, for those of you who are wondering.  He was impressed, as he should have been.  I was impressed that that was actually the right answer. 


**My students taught me this term.  Also, it is awesome.

I'm Basically an Inca.

Back in, oh, I don't know, May, I planted three hydrangea bushes in the front of our house.  Because I'm so plant saavy (not) and delicate (double not), I found myself with some branches that just "fell off."  I took one of them and threw it in a mason jar with water, and some dead leaf that got in there when a ghost put it in there.

I never imagined that this would happen.

The little stem thing is even getting brown and stick-like.

(Which reminds me of a joke one of my coworkers told me that's so stupid that it's awesome.  Q: "What's brown and sticky?" A: "A stick!")

But here's the thing.  I don't know what to do with it now.  Any suggestions?

This and That

1. How is it that I'm twenty-nine years old and still manage to get shampoo in my eye at least once a week?
2. Stefan is my favorite Jeopardy! contestant in eight years.  There's nothing like the Tournament of Champions to make me feel like a complete idiot.  (Except for, maybe, getting shampoo in my eye time and time again.) 
3. Went to the beach on Sunday.  Wore sunscreen.  Still managed to burn my ass.  Time to break out the satin pajama pants. (Landed a plane on the beach.  Oh, wait. That was someone else.)
4. Have been having intense hydrangea envy while taking Mitch for walks through the neighborhood.  Decided to take action by buying and planting my very own bushes.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  If this doesn't work, I'm getting a ski mask and skulking around the neighborhood at night cutting blooms.
5. I love thunderstorms.  So do my new hydrangeas.  Mitch, however. . .not so much.
6. Thirteen more days of school, but who's counting?  Me, that's who.
7. Went to Gap and bought two more cardigans.  That's five, for the high price of $15. 
8. Mitch, still the cutest and most snuggly dog on the planet.
9. AND. . .Lost.  What the hell?  Why did I just waste six years of my life?  To be fair, I didn't care all that much.  Once I found out what the numbers meant, I was good.  But it's probably good that I didn't care that much, because I might have been heartbroken.  Every time I think of the ending I want to vomit in my mouth and spit it at Kate.  Lame.