thanks

Good times, good times. We spent the Thanksgiving weekend with my (Lindsay's) family in Omaha this year, and we had a great time. What's not to love? Family, turkey, Husker football, the holiday lights festival, Cory and Dad's annual wet-dish-towel-snapping war, more turkey, Nyquil, mincemeat pie, giving Dad the flu (sorry!), Rhys on the (third generation!) Wonder Horse, and avoiding Black Friday. Here's evidence:

laze

Is it just me, or does the thought of going home to Mom and Dad's for Thanksgiving make anybody else want to slack off on their own household chores? My bathtub needs cleaning, needs cleaning bad. Rhys' toys are all over the living room. There's laundry in the washing machine AND dryer. But I'd rather make my Christmas list. Or eat these little mint-chocolate clusters in the pantry. Or watch some previously recorded program. Or read "The Sound And The Fury" (which I started last night at 11:00, which is way too late to begin a Faulker novel, I quickly discovered).

Oh, and by the way, grammar lovers, the phrase is "needs cleaning". Not "needs cleaned", as I keep seeing people write or hear them say around here. That makes no sense. It's either "needs cleaning" or "needs TO BE cleaned". Just thought I'd clear that up. If you want to say it in past tense, I think you can afford the two extra words--or are we really that busy that we can't stop to say it correctly? Maybe this is indicative of a larger problem...but I digress. Now I'm so paranoid about my grammar that I'm re-reading this post to make sure it all works. Oh no.

Okay, my OCD is kicking in - I can't stand all of these toys on my coffee table any longer. I've no place to kick my feet up when I'm blogging. The grammar might not be correct, but the coffee table WILL be clean.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

niche

I was in the kitchen yesterday, doing the dishes, when it dawned on me that a) I would like a vintage apron, and b) that I feel most domestic when I'm in the kitchen. So I thought I'd share a picture or two of my favorite corner in the house. Smell that fresh bread and the tuscan pasta in the crockpot? Oh yeah.

I realized that I'd like a vintage apron for several reasons (just let me wax nostalgic for a moment!)...I feel connected to generations of women who served their families by cooking, baking cookies, cutting hair, or chatting with friends while doing any of the above in their kitchens. I remember Thanksgiving mornings when I was young...my mom, grandma, and great-grandma all in their aprons (Mom in one of Grandma's), all in my mom's kitchen doing their thing: Grandma putting the relish tray together; Great-Grandma rolling out piecrust (from scratch - it was the 8th Wonder of the World); Mom basting the turkey, and me getting underfoot. It was warm and happy in there, those mornings. Everybody with a task, everybody gabbing, and my Grandma and Great-Grandma bantering with each other. I think I want to tie on an apron to connect myself to a simpler time, a happier time - a time when bread rose and baked all day, when kids played outside til dark and the beep of a cell phone was alien to our ears. I want an apron because it ties me to the task at hand, with joy. Like Mister Rogers shedding the sportcoat for the sweater, this is my domain - welcome to my kitchen. Sure, Michael might shuffle to and from the fridge, and Rhys is the one who now gets underfoot, but it's me who knows where every spice is. Me who knows how to bake the bread that Michael will rave over later. Me who feeds my family. It feels good to be domestic, those times.

Where's your favorite place in your home?

and since we've no place to go

let it SNOW!


it's our first snowfall today. mmm, mmm, good.

if i could write the songs the whole world sings...

...then I would write one entitled, "The Obsessive-Compulsive Street Sweeper". Seriously, how awful would that job be if you suffered from OCD? Let's consider his plight for just a moment. It's not a knock on people who do have OCD (my P.C. friends), so just think about it for a second. I just watched the street sweeper cover our block three times, and he still missed a bunch of leaves, especially at the top of the hill. If you're like me, when you sweep you want EVERY LAST LEAF up and out of there - how do you deal with that in a street-sweeper? Would you feel like you hadn't done your job if there was still debris on your route? I bet the most maddening time to be street sweeping would be a windy fall day, where you just-can't-get-ahead of those blowing leaves! Or kids kicking leaves into the street behind you. Or the taxi driver in front of you flicking his cigarette out of his window. I'm getting worked up just thinking about it.

So, my musical friends, you've got your work cut out for you. Maybe I'll try a musicless poem, just for laughs.