It’s Friday. The house is quiet. I’ve got a mug of half and half earl grey. The weather’s lovely. I don’t have any classes to teach, just a few student-lead conferences. I’m making a chocolate panna cotta today.
Hope your day is shaping up nicely for you, as well, wherever you are.
And if you’re new here, this is the post I do weekly that showcases my week in cell phone pictures. Most of them are from instagram.
I’m linking up here:
Enjoy!
I snapped this last Friday morning before heading to work (on my bike. hate that. these desserts have caught up with me, along with my age. argh!). Increasingly, my days are leaning this way. I am in a “just say no to over-scheduling” phase.
You should try it sometime!
This was the view from our hotel balcony last Saturday evening at the Great Wolf Lodge. My in-laws heard us telling our kids time and again that we’d never go there because we are one and a half teachers, and it’s just too expensive for our budget, blah, blah, blah, and so they gave us all a birthday present together last year of one night at this place, which I now refer to as “Las Vegas for Children.” Ever been to one? Oh, my. It’s a kids’ shangri-la.
Anyway, we waited an entire year – until the girls had forgotten about the gift certificate and we had built up our courage- and surprised them last Saturday afternoon. We told them the bags in the back of the car were our old shoes, and we were going to drive to the Nike outlet to turn them in to be recycled into new shoes (Nike really does that, fyi, and it doesn’t matter what brand you bring in!), and “won’t that be fun?!” They knew they were each missing a birthday party last weekend for this “fun.” Teensy was especially mad, crying a lot of the way there about how she wanted to be at home, reading in her room. The complaints quickly turned to euphoria, however, once it finally sunk in that we were cooler than she’d thought.
I had sort of dreaded going, but it was totally a blast for the parents, too! Especially since both my girls loved the water slides (I love them!), and I even got my cautious Teensy to try every. single. ride. with me!
Hooray for growing your own friend!
It’s that time of year to break out the sidewalk chalk, which we seem to have in infinite quantities, in case you’re running short.
I found this upon walking to the back door of my garage last weekend. Teensy had drawn it. She’s the straight-haired one, and that’s Teensy-Weensy with the curls. I think it is the most adorable thing ever.
I love that she didn’t even draw it to show anyone.
Because my girls are four years apart, I had worried they would not be partners in crime. But they are getting there. I brings me great amounts of unexpected happiness to see them in cahoots together.
Across the street from our downtown library are….chickens. They are part of a green bed and breakfast, which is fabulous. On a sunny day, this makes going inside of a library much more appealing to my kids, just knowing that we’ll go across the street afterward.
Did you know we had chickens for one glorious year? I decided we’d get them and build our own coop (by “we” I mean my husband and his uncle) about three weeks after Teensy-Weensy was born. You know, because things were just so slow at our house. Ha.
Their names were Ruby (mine), Bernadette (Mr.’s), and Anita (Teensy’s). They were hilarious entertainment. They bullied our dog to no end, which I thought was hysterical.
Our current neighborhood does not allow poultry, which I hope to one day change.
The girls love playing on this sunken tractor that is across the sidewalk from the hens.
You can kind of see another kid behind the fence. She was one of those spritely things that appear out of no where and follow you around and try to get in your photos and leave you wondering where the heck her mom is.
It was teacher appreciation week this week! Yeah! Since high school kids don’t really ever buy you gifts, the higher powers that be keep us covered each year during this week. One day Jamba Juice brought us all a strawberry smoothie. Score!
I will leave you with my grand finale’, which is this…the best cake I think I have ever made. It’s my own interpretation of a Devil’s Food Cake. I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe and a recipe for funky frosting that uses flour, which is the best. I didn’t have enough, so I made it look all artisanal.
This was Teensy’s request for her seventh birthday, which was yesterday. What a glorious girl: pancakes for dinner, followed by cake!
When I asked her if she felt different, she actually had an answer for me, which surprised me, because no one ever really has an interesting answer to that question. She told me that she knows how to do more things than when she was six, so she has a lot more fun, but that the fun doesn’t seem to last as long as fun did before because it’s….so fun.
Okay.
Then she wanted to hear her birth story, which I think has guaranteed I will get no grandchildren from that one!
Happy Weekend! And Happy Mother’s Day! I cannot wait to do absolutely nothing that day. Enjoy your one day of heaven, mamas.
I’m going to spend it finishing a book and making a photo book. You?
