Too Quick to Judge

One day you’re at the gym, laughing about the signs posted around the track:

Two days later you realize you’re on a walk with a diet coke and a handful of Girl Scout cookies. 

Strawbs

We recently had our first strawberry picking event of the spring.

We went with our friends who moved to Houston last summer from Minnesota, so picking strawberries in February was a novelty for all of us.  They’re accustomed to snow in February, we’re accustomed to waiting to pick berries until March. 

Holly completely understood what was happening.  She carried her bucket, did her best to pick the red strawberries, and as expected, shoved a fair amount into her mouth in the fields.

That was the moment when it went from fun! to heavy bucket, let’s eat lunch.

Strawberry (the beloved bear) did get momentarily discarded in favor of the real thing.

Every year, I imagine what we will do with all the strawberries; his year, I could almost taste a fat pink wedge of strawberry cake.  Then I tried to go to the bathroom by myself, which is code for locking myself in the bathroom for five seconds in order to check my email in peace.  When I returned to the children, I found this:

I think we ate 9 lbs of strawberries in three days.

Atlas

If you are a book preservationist, please close your ears.

Years ago I purchased an old atlas from a thrift store.  It totally falling apart and held together with rubber bands, so I bought it for a few dollars because I knew I could use it for something.  Over the years the covers became advent calendars and various pages were turned into cards.  Last week I decided to really get down to business and cut apart most of it to make a garland.

Holly, surveying the destruction

When I got to the page for Arctic and Antarctic regions, I noticed that Antarctica was not so much a charted continent as a white blob.  Upon further inspection, I noticed that Shackleton’s furthest south coordinates were marked near the pole which means that the atlas was published prior to Amundsen and Scott reaching the pole in 1911 and 1912, respectively.  I feel pretty sick about cutting apart the atlas now, but at least I saved that page to frame. 

I think the maps got Holly into exploration mode.  To infinity and beyond!

Yard Work

The best part of last Saturday was all of it.

Sunshine, beautiful weather, the family all together cleaning up the yard-

and getting blackberries into the ground-

and driving to Starbucks to get used coffee grounds for our compost pile and using the phrase “black gold” over and over as we spread compost around the plants.

Tate found this in the grass-

a piece of the hardtack Trent made a few weeks ago.  It tasted pretty much the way you would expect a fifteenth century sailor’s rations to taste, excluding the lack of saltwater pollution.  I think the squirrels are eating it; we did not.

A few years ago Trent and I found out a life changing fact from a neighbor:  you can make popcorn in the microwave by putting popcorn kernels into a brown bag and stapling the top.  We are both still amazed by this fabulous knowledge, but when we try to share it with other people, no one is interested.  Then there’s our collective favorite movie, The Prestige.  No one else wants to rave about The Prestige on a weekly basis?   Really?  Well, want to hear about us working in the yard?  Ha, you just did.

Doing the Impossible

Last weekend, I got in the car by myself on Saturday morning, drove to Austin, and went to Kate’s.

Is Kate’s THE place to be, the hottest spot in Austin, Texas, the entire USA, the world, the universe?  Possibly.  It was for me last weekend.  Pedicures, fancy coffee, talking books and games with her family, cheese trays, petting the sheep and chickens and dogs in her backyard, and meeting her friends for drinks AT EIGHT O’CLOCK AT NIGHT!  As in, it was 8 *PM* and we were wearing lipstick and drinking cocktails.  Looking around in amazement, anyone?  Yeah, we did that. 

  

Veering into sorority t-shirt friend quotes here, but my bff might know me better than I know myself in order to plan the perfect weekend to give us time together and to remind me that I’m still a person, however smudged the line between person and mother has become.

And next we all need to visit because it’s only fair that the rest of the family get the full experience.  Austin 2015!