Odd Happenings on Long Drives

Matt and I set out early this afternoon to drive to his parents house.  Tomorrow is a family reunion in West Virginia (more on that tomorrow!), so we're spending the weekend here.

We've driven down to visit his parents many times since we got married last June.  It's about a 4 hour drive and we usually end up chatting and dialing through radio channels.  We have radically different musical tastes (for the most part), so sometimes we have to suffer through songs that the other one likes.  I usually have to suffer through things like the Beatles, the Who, Genesis (*gag*), or *shiver* RUSH (*double gag*).  He usually has to suffer through dance/club/disco music or cheesy pop music.  Now, just to be clear, I certainly have wider (and more eclectic) musical tastes, but when I'm in the car on a long drive, I want something upbeat to keep me alert at the wheel.  I also enjoy dancing in the passenger seat.  Never dancing in the driver seat, though.  I would never do that...

Anyway, on these drives down to visit his parents, and through our channel surfing, it seems like we always, always, always end up on a channel playing a certain song.  I happen to love this song and promptly turn it up, start dancing and laughing, and generally enjoy Matt's misery and the amazing coincidence that we are hearing this song again!!!  Seriously, there's maybe been one or two times in over a dozen drives that we've not heard this song.  Each time we hear it, the coincidence is more and more hilarious (in my opinion).  In his opinion, it gets more and more annoying (but I think secretly he's starting to see the funny side).

So, are you just dying to know what this song is?

Are you?

Well, here ya go:

 

 

So, did you enjoy it?  Or are you like Matt and rolled your eyes and sighed loudly?

Dishes

I have a beautiful pattern on my dishes.

Isn't it lovely?


My grandma had the pattern first.  Then one of my aunts loved it so much, she bought her own set.  Then mom decided she liked it and bought some, too.  After awhile, my aunt wanted something new, so she gave me her set when I first moved off campus in college.  Now, 4 years and only two broken dishes later, my set is still going strong.  It's good stuff.


The only problem with my dishes is that after you use them, you have to clean them.  Of all the household chores there are to do, I think doing the dishes is my least favorite.  It's not like laundry or vacuuming where you can do it once a week (or less).  Dish washing has to be done every day.  Often, multiple times.  And since our dishwasher is probably as old as me, you essentially have to wash the dishes before putting them in it. 

So I wash and scrub and get poked with a knife and pick at stuff that's gotten hardened.  And after awhile, I have a full dishwasher and a nice pile of clean non-dishwasherable stuff on the stove (because that's where you stack dishes to dry when you have a small apartment).

But no matter how many times I do dishes, there's almost always something in the sink.  A pot.  A pan.  A glass.  Or, usually, a pot, a pan, a glass, some plates, and some utensils.

I would totally invest in one of those giant dishwashing things they have in restaurants, where you stack everything under a huge cover, push a button and it does this high powered wash on everything in about 5 minutes.  Like this:

[courtesy of http://www.indiamart.com]

So if you have one of those lying around, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.  

In the end, though, I'm glad to have dishes.  Then I can bake things in the oven:

Things like this:

Which turn into this after about 7 hours:

Yummy pulled pork!

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dishes to attend to...

Shrinky Dinks

How many of you have made a shrinky dink in your life?

Remember, the things where you draw on special paper, cut it out, put it in the oven, then watch it magically shrink into a cute piece of colored-on plastic?

The thing that middle schoolers typically play with?

Matt and I decided to be middle schoolers last night and make shrinky dinks.  Matt had never made one (*gasp!*) so I showed him the wonder that is shrinky dinks.

We sharpened our colored pencils.

We colored super careful.

And cut oh-so slowly to make sure they would look awesome.

We put them on a cookie sheet...

...and slid them in the oven.

And waited.  Soon, they started to curl up.

And when they had flattened back out again, they were so cute and shrunken!!

It was so fun, Matt even made two.  Can you guess which two are his and which one is mine?  ;-)

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

...How does your garden grow?

Well, up until the last week, it didn't grow very well.  Or rather, it was growing lots of leaves, but no veggies.  And really, the point of a garden is to have something to eat after a few months.

We began our little deck garden in April.  I found these cute little pots that came with seeds and dirt for only a dollar at Target!  They had tomatoes, different types of herbs, peppers, and various flowers.  I bought one for each of the kids in my class (we were studying seeds and plants) and then I thought, "They're a buck.  What the heck...I'll buy some for us, too!"  So I bought tomatoes, peppers, parsley, oregano, and strawberries.  Matt and I had visions of feasting on fresh fruit and veggies throughout the late summer months and saving money at the grocery store.

They started out very small and tiny.

And after several weeks, they grew...

and grew...

and grew!

We were so excited that our plants were growing and not dying!  We bought bigger pots for them to grow in and eventually set them outside on our deck.

They continued growing...but after several months, we still had no indication that any actual veggies or fruits were growing.  August rolled around and I had given up hope that we would ever see any type of return for all our work (and money). 

...until earlier this week.  What did we spy, but a tiny tomato flower!  And on the peppers, what looked to be the beginnings of peppers!  At this point, I'll be happy with just about anything.  We still have awhile to wait before anything is ready to be picked, but it's fun watching things grow.  Especially for me--I could kill a cactus or any other easily-kept-alive plants.

These are the peppers--the buds are right in the center.  I apologize for my lack of a macro lens.  If you'd like, you can buy one for me and then I can take better pictures!  Just leave a comment and I'll send you my address so you can ship it to me.  Thanks!

This is the tomato flower.  It's the star-like pointy thing right in the center.  Again, send me a macro lens and I'll take better pictures.

I'll keep you updated on our gardening endeavors!

[And in case you're wondering what macro lens would be acceptable for you to buy for me, check this one out.  Thanks!]

The Perks of Being Married

I married an awesome guy.

He helps with dishes.  He likes to vacuum.  He's super nice and fun to be with.

Also, he's kind of a good artist.  He can draw stuff like dolphins and geometric designs and make them look super cool.

The other week, we bought a plain white terra-cotta-ish decorative pitcher at my new favorite store, Home Goods.  It was cute and I thought it would go good in our bedroom on the table we bought for the empty corner (also from Home Goods).  The table was white, so I didn't want a white pitcher on a white table against an off-white wall.  I had some blue spray paint, so I decided to spray paint it.

I sprayed and sprayed and got paint on my fingers and probably some in my lungs.  When I was finished, it looked....okay.  Not awesome.  Not terrible.  Just okay.  I decided it would be fine and put it on the table in the bedroom.  Matt looks at it and says, "Why don't we paint a design or something on it?"

Has he ever seen my illustrations?  Does he know that I can't draw much more than a circle or square??  I can't paint on a decorative pitcher to save my life!  I have the drawing skills of a 5 year old. 

Then he says, "No, let me think of something and I can paint it.  Okay?"

Fine.  He sketches something out on paper (it's like 500 billion times better than what I could do already) and starts painting.

He's really careful.

And by the end of the day it looks so much better than just plain blue!!

Then he says, "But it's not finished yet.  I'll do more tomorrow."

The next day he paints while I'm away babysitting.  When I came home, this was waiting for me in the bedroom:

Pretty stars.

It.  Looks. AWESOME!!!

And that's why you should make sure your spouse has better skills than you.  At least in some things.

Playing Goldfish

As I've mentioned before, I've been babysitting this summer for two sweet twin boys about 3 days a week.  This morning, they were digging around for something to do.  First, they found some homemade light sabers and had a light saber battle:

It got intense.

Next, they happened upon a small cardboard box with Spongebob on it.  One of them exclaimed, "Goldfish!!"  I thought he had found a box of (who knows how old) goldfish crackers and told him to put them away for later (hoping he would forget about them).  He said, "No!  Let's play goldfish!"  Now I was confused.  You want to play with old goldfish crackers?  Right then he opened the box to reveal some sort of playing cards with Spongebob characters on them.  He quickly dealt them between himself and his brother and started playing:

Brother 1:  "Ok.  Umm...do you have any...Spongebobs?"

Brother 2:  "No...goldfish!"

Brother 1:  *draws card*

Brother 2:  "Do you have any Squids?"

Brother 1:  "Nope!  Goldfish!"

I'm assuming you now understand "Goldfish" to be "Go Fish."  But in their cuteness, they didn't realize the difference.  I tried to explain that it was, in fact, "go fish," but they continued saying "goldfish" through approximately 50 rounds of the game throughout the day.

I love 7 year olds.  They're great.

I Never Imagined...

...that I would be cleaning up stuff like this:

...before I had children.

But when your husband works at the Lego store and discovers his inner child, this is what happens.  A small set there, a box of pieces there, and it all adds up.  There's more than just this, of course...scattered throughout the apartment.