Dec
23
Excepting a few short outings here and there, I’ve basically been holed up in my house since last Wednesday. That’s a long time to be stuck inside a less-than-2000-square-foot space with unlimited access to baking supplies. Totally unrelated piece of trivia, did you know that it’s possible to gain five pounds in a week?
I would have thought that being housebound this long with the kids would have made me Homer-Simpson-something-something crazy by now, but it’s been . . . well, I do so love to complain, but truthfully it’s been kind of nice. Really nice, actually. The boys seem to have reached some kind of awesome stage where they aren’t so enormously different in ages and abilities, and I keep catching them just sort of contentedly hanging out. I can’t quite describe how it makes me feel to see them playing together or listen to Riley’s happy chatter interwoven with Dylan’s babbling. There needs to be a whole new language for that sort of joyous, heart-expanding goodness; it eclipses all things.
Before this snowbound business I had been feeling kind of sad about Dylan, about how he’s growing so quickly and entering into the realm of knowing what he wants and not being afraid to complain about it, often at ear-splitting levels. Where did my good-natured little baby go, I kept wondering, but oh, he’s still here. It’s easier to see it when life isn’t so rushed, that’s all. When we don’t have to run around all crazy in the morning getting everyone out the door, when evenings aren’t a stressful mess of hurried meals and tired kids and exhausted parents.
My mother and aunt were going to come for an early Christmas last Saturday, but we had to take a snow check. Now it’s unclear whether JB’s parents will make it, they’re battling their way up I-5 but last we heard they were in Salem and going about 30 MPH. We may be on our own for the holiday, and while that’s a bummer, we’re certainly not the only ones — I have coworkers and friends all over the place here in town whose family plans have been completely derailed by the weather.
We remain optimistic about the possibility of hosting a big family meal, though, and have picked up our Giant Hunk O’ Ham. No matter what, we’re certainly not lacking for food around here (see also: five pounds). And thus it’s time for that classic holiday game played throughout many cultures this time of year . . . CAT OR HAM?
Which weighs more, our cat?
Or a bone-in ham?
The rules are simple: you place your guess in the comments, I’ll randomly pick a winner from the correct guesses, you win an Interesting Prize.
You should know that 1) we did get Cat to stand on the scale with her full weight, and 2) my scale only measures to the pound.
CAT?
OR HAM?
** Comments closed! CAT OR HAM data being compiled now . . .**
Dec
21
I took a shitload of mundane photos today in order to participate in this Flickr pool, which I was thinking would be kind of a nice distraction — a LARK! — and really, I mostly just ended up getting my camera wet, and then it took forever to resize and process the images, and THEN after submitting some of the photos to the Flickr thing I got an auto-rejection because the camera’s date was wrong, so I had to manually reset the date on everything, and jesus, anyway, here’s some BORING PHOTOS OF MY THRILLING DAY.
Waking up this morning. Another snow day! Hey, this stopped being exciting about, oh, 48 hours ago.
I remember when breakfast was really quiet and involved reading the whole paper. I guess I prefer the new version, though.
Ohhh. Mmm. Mmmmmm. What? Ufffffff, god, it’s not even right how much I love coffee these days.
Okay! *brisk clap* Time to tidy up around here. Dylan, you put away the knives.
Riley, you pick up your room. Dylan, you can help by trying your damnedest to locate any of the small, choking-hazard type toys.
I’ll pick up some of the many books cluttering my nightstand. Yes, that IS Gossip Girl, shut up, at least there’s some zombie stuff in there too.
All right, time to leave the house before we all kill each other! Here I am performing the Last Minute Um I Think the Baby Might Be Hungry maneuver.
Very glad JB put studded tires on the truck a couple weeks ago before his trip to Bend.
“Mom! Moommm! Take a picture of my BURRITO BLANKIE.”
Dude. This poor girl needs a burrito blankie of her own.
Now this guy? Just kind of a jackass. No sympathies for your likely discomfort, sir.
We went to Fred Meyer’s and it was nearly empty, which was profoundly eerie. That place is NEVER empty, and this weekend would normally be a complete madhouse. The tinkling, echoey holiday music made me think of post-apocalyptic movie scenes where corpses would be lining the aisles and the heroes would tiptoe gingerly around them in their search for non-perishable food items. (To be clear: no corpses today! Just poinsettias for 50% off!)
Obligatory Self Portrait in Truck Window.
We ate lunch at Ivar’s for the second day in a row. I know, fast food, blecch, but it’s close by and kind of loud and Dylan likes the clam chowder.
Also, there are crayons.
Frozen Lake Sammamish, taken in a nearby Fancypants We Have a Killer View and You Don’t neighborhood.
On our way home we saw a car stuck in a parking lot and JB stopped to talk with the driver. He offered to give him a tow, but dude was driving a lowered PT Cruiser (too low for tire chains) with a custom lowered bumper, so the tow chain couldn’t be hooked on. How you like your goofy too-low-for-speed-bumps ride NOW, hipster?
After naptime, it started snowing again. And snowing. And snowing. My god, I have never seen anything like this in the Northwest.
What to do but bake some more? Tonight I made a variation of this fantastic recipe without the chocolate and adding clove, cinnamon, nuts, and cranberries. Both versions are wonderful, but the original is the one you want to do for Christmas. SO GOOD OH MY GOD.
Dylan likes to hang out in the kitchen while we’re in there, gnawing on everything except teething toys.
Pre-bedtime snuggles.
Hee. Cuteness.
After we put the kids to bed, JB and I tromped outside a bit, and took this picture of our house. The snowbound saga continues, but we’re managing to stay pretty happy.
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