blue

I've been feeling a little blue lately. Nothing major, just sensing summer's end, I think. No matter how ready I am for autumn, I grieve the passing of the lazy days and worry that we've wasted them some how. Just under two weeks until school starts up again. Callum doesn't want to be reminded. Time speeds up, doesn't it?

So we'll try to make the most of it and head to the pool and the beach and the amusement park and also gear up for birthdays and sixth grade, and I'll try not to get too sniffly over it all. I know I haven't been around much lately, and honestly, in these next weeks I can't promise much more. I'll get some photos downloaded, and we'll see how it goes. xo

five things, august 12 edition

1. I think it's good to be home. We took our lone trip of the summer deeper south to visit family last week and had a great time. Callum got to hang with his cousin and his grandparents; I got a spa day with my sister-in-law; and (miracle of miracles) Neel, Callum and I all got along famously. No arguments, no sniping, just a lot of fun. At two times during the trip I had to witness families get into crazy screaming matches near me, and it made me so grateful for my own family. Even given the bumps we've had this summer, we take care of each other. We're not screaming at each other in the middle of Centennial Park. We don't need to have security called on each other. We have fun.
2. I think this trip stirred up a lot of things for me however, that I'm going to need to spend some time processing. It feels tender, so I'm not sure I'm ready to do it here, but I probably will.
3. I think we need to go white water rafting again soon.
4. I think work is getting ready to kick in again for me in the near future, and I have a list of things I want to do before then. I'm wondering if I should post that list here.
5. I think my friend and neighbor Tyler has it right. Any time any of us in the 'hood goes away, he'll say, "Man, taking a trip is fun, but it sure is better to come back home." We'll be settling in today. All those lovely chores like the grocery store and laundry. It's all good. We're home.

five things, august 5 edition

1. I think it's pretty beautiful where I live.
2. I think this week has been hard. Lots of heat, lots of headaches, lots of parenting struggles and lots of worry in the world. I'm ready for a shift.
3. I think Neel got some pretty amazing news over the weekend. When my brain isn't so mushy, I'll spend some time here in praise of our country and the NIH.
4. I think I had some good stuff happen this week too. I like my job a lot.
5. I think I'm outta here for the next few days. I could use a break (still). Catch you sometime next Friday.

doldrums

I'm in a bit of a funk this week, I think. Nothing terrible. But my head hurts, and we're in a parenting rough patch, and it seems like there's a lot to do. And it's hot. Death by 1,000 paper cuts. August is hard every year, and this year is no different.

I have two card's full of pictures to download and a ton of others to edit. I should get cracking.

cooking with grandma

We started cleaning out our attic yesterday. Backbreaking work. You should have seen the place. And you will, pretty soonish. Before and afters. We have big plans for that room. We cranked the AC, and moved and sorted, and Neel used the shop-vac on the dirtiest bits. There were a lot of those. It was a perfect day to get into a project like that, gray and rainy, and cool in the deep dark of the house. We ordered in for lunch. There's still a lot to do, but when we got to a stopping place and looked around it was already five.

In my infinite wisdom, I decided that I wanted lettuce wraps and hot and sour soup for dinner. Why, oh why did I not just throw something on the grill? Why didn't we order out again? Why didn't we have breakfast for dinner, which I can make blindfolded and standing on my head? No. I wanted Asian and labor intensive. The soup takes a bajillion ingredients and a million steps. The lettuce wraps take 100,000 ingredients and 10,000 steps. All at once. What was I thinking? Boiling soup makes the kitchen hot. Boiling rice makes the kitchen hot. A hot wok makes the kitchen hot.

The funny thing, and I'm not sure why it's funny, is that the whole time I was cooking, I thought about my Grandma Mercedes. My mom's mom. I wrote about her here, a long time ago. As I mentioned then, Grandma was an amazing cook and baker, the kind of intuitive in the kitchen who could taste a dish and list its ingredients for you. She made simple foods, good basic cooking. Corn pudding. Hot chicken salad. Pie crust to die for. Even though she loved Chinese food, she didn't really make it, so it seemed funny to think about her while stirring my hot and sour soup. But when I tasted the special sauce for my lettuce wraps and I wasn't quite right, I thought about her. When I tasted the filling for the lettuce wraps and felt like they needed more...something, well, I thought about her then too. The soup was a surprise. I hadn't made it before, and while it wasn't quite what we'd order at Number Seven down the street, or even PF Changs, it was still hot and sour soup. I think she would have liked it.

We watched A Few Good Men (the clean TV version -  Callum's been in to courtroom drama since he hung out with the judge a few weeks back) while we ate dinner, and I was too tired to go find my camera to take a picture for this post. I just reached behind me for my phone where it sat on the sofa. That's all I could handle. We're all still tired today, but yesterday was good.