shorts

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Fives for Friday

Let’s hop back on the blogging bandwagon with some random bullets organized by alliteration.

5 Food Fixations

The Best Brownies: Usually I am happy to make brownies from a boxed mix, but I didn’t have a boxed mix in my pantry and I needed some brownies. So I googled “best easy brownies” and ended up following this recipe. The brownies were so good. Rich and fudgy and not overly sweet. (Comments about the recipe mentioned that the original was on the sweet side; the recipe creator even included a note about how to reduce the sugar level, so I felt fine about leaving out the powdered sugar. The brownies were not too sweet.) Alas, the brownies are now gone. 

Starbucks Favorite at Home: One of my go-to summer drinks at Starbucks is a green tea lemonade. But I honestly despise going to Starbucks. Well, maybe that’s putting it a little too strongly. How’s this: I hate going to Starbucks as often as my family likes to. For my particular personality and for my particular child, treats are both more enjoyable and more appreciated when they are truly treats – out of the ordinary, once in a while – rather than regular features of our week. I have implemented a once-a-month rule with Carla, and that works just fine for us. But recently I realized I could make green tea lemonade at home. I just brew a big jug of green tea, and then pair it with some lemonade. Just as satisfying and much more cost effective. It’s been such a hit that I even bought a special pitcher just for my green tea. 

Cherry Crisp: My parents and I took a day trip to a region that specializes in cherries, and my mom bought a couple of bags for us to enjoy back at her house. One night she made a cherry crisp with some of the cherries (which she painstakingly pitted, chopped, and froze for future devouring by my daughter). It was delicious. I have been thinking about it ever since. In fact, I tried to make my own cherry crisp for my husband and in-laws, following the same recipe my mom used. I don’t know if I made an error while adding the ingredients, or if I cooked the cherries too long, or if the cherries our grocery store sold me are simply subpar, but it couldn’t hold a candle to my mom’s. I guess I’ll have to wait until next summer, and hope she recreates the magic. 

Posh Chocolate: I cannot remember who told me about this little boutique chocolate shop, but I needed to mail some thank-you gifts and these fit the bill. Then I wanted to have a little “welcome to my house” gift for my in-laws while they visited, so I had a box of truffles sent here… and added a box of the huckleberry bonbons for myself, my husband, and Carla to enjoy. They are delicious and beautiful, and very reasonably priced for artisan chocolate. Also, I ordered all four boxes during the height of the heat wave, and they all arrived intact and unaffected. (I did pay $7.99 for cool packaging, as per their warm weather shipping notice.)

These are SO delicious. High quality chocolate, and the huckleberry flavor is distinct and very natural rather than artificial.

Chipotle Chicken & Black Bean Soup: After endless oppressive heat, we’ve been having a spate of cooler weather. So I made a big pot of my favorite soup and I’ve been eating it for lunch. So yummy. 

5 Frets & Frustrations

Kitty Surgery: My little kitten is at the vet’s today, getting neutered. I have been extremely anxious about him being sedated, even though I’m aware this is a common and fairly simple procedure. The kind vet tech listened to my anxious babbling and answered all my questions and handed me a printout about what to expect that assured me I am not the only high-strung pet parent they’ve ever dealt with. I bought him special newspaper pellet litter (which is supposed to be less likely to stick to his incision) and moved some carpet squares, his milk carton bed, a litter box, and his water fountain into a downstairs bathroom so he won’t be tempted to run and leap around. It was weird coming home to an empty house; I have very quickly become accustomed to his little kitty pitter patter on the floors as soon as I walk through the door. I did take the opportunity to run the robot vacuum, who I am sure will appreciate doing its job unencumbered. (Leo’s attitude toward Rocky is either suspicious watchfulness or all-out attack mode, and requires a lot of supervision and “leave Rocky alone” repetition.) Anyway, I’m sure my sweet kitty will be fine, but I’m fretting about him anyway. I really wish my mind didn’t always leap immediately to the worst case scenario.

Blog Backlog: It has been a long while since I’ve posted… and a long while since I’ve read or commented on posts. I’m sorry! I am keenly aware of being a bad blog friend. And now I’m fretting about how I am possibly going to go back and read all of your posts that I’ve missed. My Feedly was so overwhelming I simply marked all as read (and I don’t even follow all of my favorite bloggers on Feedly! ack!), but I dislike missing out on what’s going on around the blog community. Well. I will figure it out somehow. 

Health Concerns: I have a couple of dear people in my life who are dealing with some health uncertainty right now. One is facing surgery, which will confirm or refute the presence of cancer; and then there will be recovery from the surgery and possible additional therapies. Another is facing a chronic diagnosis and adjusting to what that means and how to keep on top of things. I can’t DO anything, except offer support, so I’m sitting over here fretting. 

Freezer Leak: We suddenly have water appearing beneath the door of the freezer each time we open it. I can see a buildup of ice on the bottom of the freezer, so one possibility is that it melts and then pours out when we need ice or whatever. Another possibility is that the filter is clogged. We had similar leaking from the fridge side when we first moved into this house, and the fridge service person told me that the filter had never been cleaned and was FULL of pet hair. (Hork.) But… we’ve only had a cat for three months and we have the filter cleaned annually, so… who knows. The fridge service person is coming out in early September. I always love when the scheduler reminds me that he charges $75 per quarter hour, on top of the $159 fee just to show up. So let’s all hope this is an easy filter cleanout and not something requiring multiple quarter hours of his time. 

CPAP Tryout: My primary care physician and my sleep specialist agree that I should at least try a CPAP machine to see if it helps me sleep better. I have mild sleep apnea (which, I learned, means that I was observed having 10 sleep apnea events per hour; “mild sleep apnea” is 5-15 such events, according to whatever criteria my sleep specialist follows.) so CPAP isn’t even really indicated, but they think it could help and so… I guess I will try it. I am unconvinced that it will do anything except cost additional money and further prevent me from sleeping. A couple of friends think I should really be pursuing the “this is perimenopause” path, but I haven’t gotten any traction from my gynecologist, pcp, or sleep specialist on that idea… and I feel too weary of all the appointments and all the money to reach out to a menopause specialist. Yet. 

5 Frivolous Fripperies 

Sunroom Sundries: One of my husband’s wish list items when we were looking for a house was a sunroom. This house indeed has a sunroom, or, more accurately, a screened-in porch, but for the majority of the time we’ve been here, all we’ve used it for is storing various outdoor cushions and pool floaties. This summer, we made a plan to turn it into a usable space. Now, we have furniture (although we are still waiting on a coffee table, which is backordered until November) and a rug and throw pillows. I really wanted to have some big leafy plants in there and after looking around exhaustively I finally found two on-sale palms that are non-toxic to cats and don’t require direct sunlight. Finding the right plants was very challenging, but Then all I needed were some decorative planters and some plant stands, both so they look nice in the sunroom (and don’t leak all over the floor) and so they look nice in our house when I move them inside over winter. Listen, I tried so hard to shop locally for these things. I went to six local, independently-owned garden centers and two separate Home Depots and a Target to try to find planters I liked that weren’t a billion dollars, and could not, so I ended up ordering them from that online place. The planters, despite being enormous and ceramic, arrived completely undamaged and I like them and the plant stands quite a lot. I am sitting in the sunroom as I type, and it’s breezy and I am surrounded by greenery and zero bugs and I love it very much. Leo, incidentally, adores coming out here. He likes to pretend he’s a jungle cat and keeps a close eye on the bees pollinating the hydrangeas.

Shorts: It’s been a hot summer and if there’s one thing I hate more than wearing shorts, it’s being uncomfortably hot. So I ordered a few more pairs of exercise shorts so I can walk outside without wanting to die. I got these ones in black and navy after admiring the pair that my friend was wearing. And then I got a pair of longish yoga shorts I can wear for walking or for doing workouts in my basement. I like them all very much. All of them have pockets, which is useful, and all of them are long enough to prevent thigh chafing. 

More Shorts: Somehow the exercise shorts purchase set off a little shorts-buying spree, and I ended up getting two pairs of non-exercise shorts as well. These green ones and these khaki ones. I like the way they fit, and love the green ones wholeheartedly. I’m not completely sold on the khaki color, though – it’s a little darker than I thought it would be. Perhaps I will return that pair. And then I thought, I’ve got exercise and public clothing options covered, what about lounging around the house options? So I got a little T-shirt and shorts set that I adore. I feel more put together than I do when I’m wearing pajamas and the material is a nice weight and very breathable. 

Pill Keeper: This is a very silly purchase and it makes me feel a million years old, but I love it so very much. My husband bought it for me because I kept complaining that I couldn’t remember which of my 85 supplements and medications I’d taken already. And then I had to go out of town for two weeks and I didn’t want to take all the bottles with me. So he bought me this pill keeper, which has containers labeled for each day of the week, and each day’s container has a little compartment for day and for night. I dislike having to fill each compartment every Sunday, but I love not having to hassle with bottles or concentrate on whether I’ve already taken my allergy pill.

Planner Plans: Okay, I am trying again to be the Planner Person I want to be. I got this undated daily planner – undated in case I try it for a week and then give up on/forget about it for a few months and want to try again. It’s nice and big, it has lots of room to write. I am going to start September with schedules and plans and a work strategy. LFG.

5 Full-Out Flops

Still No Zucchini: My zucchini plant, which is flourishing in terms of size and number of flowers, still has yet to produce a single viable fruit. My very inexpert guess at why it hasn’t produced is that a) there is a dearth of female flowers and b) the male and female flowers never seem to open at the same time, which seems like poor planning from a reproduction standpoint. I am happy to try, if slightly creeped out by, hand fertilization. But I have never seen a single female flower. UNTIL TODAY. Of course, the male flowers were all closed. But I pulled one off its stem, tore off the petals, and tried to use the male stamen to fertilize the female one. We’ll see how it goes. 

Scratching Post(s): We have purchased four scratching posts and pads in the three months we’ve had a cat. They are a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials. We also have a bunch of carpet square samples from when we were choosing a living room rug. And yet the cat by FAR prefers to sharpen his claws on the new furniture, any and all rugs (except the carpet square), and the carpeted stairs. We clip his nails weekly. We redirect him to preferred surfaces when he scratches the wrong things. We have scratchers ALL OVER THE PLACE. And yet. Sigh. I realize this is just him Being A Cat, and there’s not really anything we can do, but it’s still disheartening.

Tidiness Maintenance: Earlier this summer, Carla and I fully cleaned her room, her bathroom, her craft room, and her closet. She bought organizers for her bathroom drawers, she culled her clothing to only the things she supposedly likes and wears, she allowed me to stow all her Barbies, LEGOs, and other toys in bins. We tidied and sorted and shelved and vacuumed. We discussed doing a nightly five-minute tidy. We discussed ensuring that everything has a home. We discussed putting things away when you are ready to move to the next thing. We discussed not starting a new project until you are done with the current project. And now we are at the end of the summer and everything is once again buried under a litter of clothing and craft supplies and trash. Part of me feels like, okay, my kid is in a messy phase; I was a pretty messy kid, too. And a mess won’t kill anyone. Shut the door and ignore. But the other part of me feels like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Laid-Back Summer Schedule: This failure was at least instructive. Carla was adamant this year that she didn’t want her summer to be full of long-term camps. Knowing that my child prefers to be active and that I prefer to have copious time to myself, I set up several short-term camps for her. But we did have long stretches of days and weeks where she had nothing to do. Instead of filling those days with time in the pool, time with dogs, time with friends, Carla spent a lot of time Velcroed to me, feeling bored and unmoored. This, despite its high points, made for a less-than-ideal summer. I asked her which camps she liked the most, and she enjoyed the two camps that had her occupied ALL DAY. So now we know for next year. More camps. Maybe more travel (our time at my parents’ summer home was phenomenal). Much less unstructured time. 

Gift-Giving Stalls: As usual, I have been completely overthinking and under-delivering on gift giving. Case in point: I had been researching ideas for my sister-in-law’s birthday gift all summer, and then when I realized I was running out of time to ship it to her, I panic-bought her some jewelry (which I think she will like). The gift has been sitting on my desk serving as a cat toy ever since and now her birthday is next week and I have yet to ship it. Also, my mother-in-law’s birthday is coming up in September and then my husband, sister-in-law, and brother have birthdays shortly after that, and I have not a single idea of what to get any of them. 

5 Feline Photos

Here are some photos of my sweet kitten. The vet called and said he did great during surgery and I can come get him soon. She also said she thinks he will top out at ten pounds, which is HALF the size that the breeder anticipated. Who will be right????

What’s more comfy than some wrapping supplies and a stack of Post-It Notes?
Post ten-minute chase-the-feather-wand-toy session.
If a human is in the gym, the cat is in the gym, investigating EVERYTHING. Or staring at you with pity while silently critiquing your form.
Those bees look very busy but they could decide to invade at any time so it’s crucial to be alert.
Not sure if he was sick of listening to my workout video or if he wanted to try out the treadmill.
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Six for Sunday

The other day, a parenting-advice account I follow on Instagram served me a post about things parents of teenagers have to accept. You know, like, “teens will make dumb decisions” and “you and your teen will experience conflict.” Stuff like that. 

One of the things was “you will be driving them all over the place.” Somehow, while agonizing over my miles-long list of concerns about parenting when my husband and I were making the wild decision to procreate, I did not consider the driving. Please chalk this up to complete obliviousness when I myself was a teen, because obviously my parents drove ME all over creation. But I do not feel prepared in any way. The Driving was not on my radar. I had no idea. No. Idea. There is so much driving. 

One of my friends has two very active, involved boys. She was telling me the other day that there is one night a week when the kids have simultaneous dropoffs at separate locations. Separate pickups from those activities. Then separate dropoffs at separate locations for the next activities. And then simultaneous pickups. At separate locations. My brain is broken just thinking about it, and she is LIVING IT.

Carla has a friend who is one of five. The kids attend three separate schools. The older four are all in (different) sports. At least one of them is in multiple sports. Is the mom ever NOT in the car? I feel like I am in the car a lot and I only have the one child! 

It has been hard for me to grasp the reality of the situation. I am trying to come to terms with the disheartening fact that I am simply Going To Be In The Car. From now until Carla graduates, presumably. Or until she gets a license of her own, which terrifies me beyond reason so let’s not think about that at this time.

But I guess what I want to say to anyone who might be reading this and considering having children: FACTOR IN THE DRIVING. 

Obviously, I would not trade Carla for anything in the universe… and yet it would have been nice if any of the parenting or child-planning books I consulted had mentioned the driving. 

Okay, that’s a whole post on its own but let’s also have some bullets.

My irises are stalwartly peeking through the April snowfall.

Easter Baskets: We are not celebrating Passover this year, because we are lazy and I am a terrible steward of my child’s religious heritage/education. Fortunately, I am still able to order crap from crappy places in order to participate in the completely secular aspect of the next upcoming religious holiday. My husband and I are total opposites when it comes to Easter baskets. He thinks they should contain mainly (only?) candy. I think my child has fully mastered the art of manifesting sugar in her life, and doesn’t need any a lot of additional sugar from us. Listen, I am not necessarily into the glorious excess that I am now accustomed to seeing on social media. (Some of it grosses me out, but at the same time, I understand the impulse.) However, I do like her to have SOMETHING in her Easter basket. This year, I am going for Practical Slash Fun. She needs a little jewelry container she can clip to her backpack, so she can safely stow her earrings and bracelets while she’s Doing Sports. She needs a new pair of sunglasses and carrying case. She has a couple of long bus rides in her near future, so I wanted to get her this bus-friendly folding puzzle. Or maybe this fun questions-and-answers card deck, to play with friends? There is a new Rosanne Parry book out, so I will definitely add that to her Easter Basket. (She adores Rosanne Parry books.) On the completely IMpractical side, no one needs emotional support pickles, but Carla would LOVE THEM. She has also been obsessed with the idea of getting our future cat a bow tie. My big problem is that none of these things fit into a plastic Easter egg, and Carla has expressly requested that we hide Easter eggs this year. Well, there’s always money. Or candy. Or a monster easter egg.

Cupcake Plans: While I’m on the topic of Easter, we might as well discuss cupcakes. My parents have invited us over for dinner and have requested that I bring dessert. Specifically, cupcakes. More specifically, cupcakes with adorable Easter décor. (My mother knows me so well.) My husband and mother enjoy carrot cake, so I’m thinking maybe these? Plus, I love the little coconut birds’ nests with Cadbury eggs. This recipe has less oil and HALF the eggs. Do you have a go-to carrot cake recipe? I cannot believe that I am about to type this (Engie – look away), but the recipe can and in fact should include raisins; my husband has expressly requested golden raisins in the carrot cake. (I cannot abide raisins in any form.) Because I am raisin-averse, and because Carla straight up refuses to eat carrot cake, I will also make a batch of lemon cupcakes with lemon-curd filling. Those are my go-to and Carla loves them, too. (By the way, all the recipes I linked to include frosting recipes, but I will probably make an extra big batch of plain old cream cheese buttercream and use it for both varieties.) To top the lemon cupcakes, I am thinking of trying this adorable chick frosting. If you are worrying that two batches of cupcakes is too much cupcake for a group of five, I plan to send a bunch of them in to my husband’s office on Monday. 

Cupcakes of Easter past.

Reading Incentives. I don’t know that I’ve ever needed an incentive to read; being able to snuggle up on a couch and escape into a completely different set of circumstances is reward enough. But I think Carla might need a little push. She enjoys reading when she’s doing it, but she doesn’t seek it out. This fills me with anxiety because there are so many good books she’s not reading! And I’m afraid she’s going to miss the window for feeling that they are “age appropriate.” Over the winter holidays, she got started on the Black Stallion series. She devoured the first book, leapt excitedly into the second book, and then once school resumed, she kind of tapered off. Over spring break, we of course went into nearly every bookstore we could find that sold English books, and Carla found multiple books she HAD to have. But… she hasn’t made much progress in any of them since we returned from vacation. I’ve been having fun “restocking” her bookshelves with more age-appropriate books, and there are SO MANY BOOKS I am dying for her to read… but we’ll never get to half of them if she isn’t into it, you know? In the past, my husband and I have tried various methods to spur her into reading, from adding it to her to-do list for the day, to paying her to read books. Maybe I need to give her a financial incentive again? What prompted you to read, when you were a kid? (The Pizza Hut Book It! program was definitely a bonus for me in elementary school. I love pizza. Pizza and books make for a magical combination.) If you have children, what prompted your kids to read? Carla and I have begun listening to audiobooks on our drives to school, which helps a little… but I still want her to do more reading. 

Shorts Weather. Even though there is still frost on the ground, I know shorts weather is around the corner. It has me trolling through the internet, looking for shorts that won’t make me hate everyone and everything. (And pretty dresses, natch.) Shorts and I have a fraught relationship. One of the big problems is that I am self-conscious about my legs and prefer to keep them hidden. (Am I seriously considering this “magic” cellulite solution, that has so many reviews about how it makes people feel like their legs are on fire?) (I admit I am partly just curious about whether the on-fire feeling is as severe as people say. But curious enough to set my own legs on fire????) My legs are what they are, and I get too hot in summer to wear jeans or pants all the time, so I return to The Shorts Search once again. I’ve had good luck with Madewell shorts, and these have potential. As long as I’m considering denim, maybe I need a pair of these Levi’s shorts? I am always drawn to Boden’s beautiful colors and fabrics, but the description of most of their shorts includes this little kicker: “slim through waist, hip and hem” which is not the loose flowy style I prefer, so I might have to simply enjoy thinking about their shorts. I keep wanting to try Quince, and these shorts are cute. Ugh. Just thinking about shorts makes me want to avoid them altogether and stick to dresses.

Non-Shorts Signs of Spring. Despite the persistence of snow and mid-thirties temps, we do have a few signs of spring here and there. Daffodils are abundant in my neighborhood. My irises are stretching their little leafy arms up through the earth, testing to see whether they should show their faces. The lilac tree is beginning to bud. All the maples (I think?) in our neighborhood are a blur of pale red. The magnolia tree of one of my friends already bloomed; I was jealous until the frost returned and all the blooms dropped off her tree. There’s a forsythia shrub in the backyard that is producing its own sunshine. I cannot wait for flowers everywhere. 

They don’t look like much YET.

That’s all I’ve got, Internet. What are you thinking about today?

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Summer Uniform

If you recall, last summer I went through a shorts renaissance. That cannot be the word I mean, and yet that is the word I am sticking with. 

Anyway, I found a new pair of shorts this summer – after trying on many, many, MANY pairs. It fits my specific requirements: high rise, roomy leg openings, and free shipping. This year I also added “not too short” to my list of Shorts Musts, and these adhere to that criterion as well.

Madewell Relaxed Mid-Length Denim Shorts (image from nordstrom.com)

They are a leeeeetle too ripped for my taste, but not terribly so. They are very flattening (not to be confused with flattering, which they are not) in the buttular region, which takes a lot of doing when it comes to my particular rear. Fortunately, I have reached the phase of life where a) no one is looking at my rear and b) I don’t really care what anyone thinks about my rear anyway. Also, if, like me, you happen to have a thigh/hip to waist ratio that deviates from what American Fashion considers to be “normal,” they may be a leeeetle bit loose in the waist area. I have been addressing the issue with the other aspect of my Summer Uniform, which is a long, loose tank top.

I have this in white and grey:

Madewell Whisper Shout Cotton V-Neck Tank (image from nordstrom.com)

And this, in black and red:

Caslon Muscle Tank (image from nordstrom.com)

This is what I plan to wear every day this summer, unless it is cool, in which case I will wear the Caslon track-style linen pants I now own in green and grey, or unless something fancy is called for, in which case I will wear my scoop neck tiered flare dress from Ann Taylor.