Thanks, day eighteen

My man was in Europe this morning, and now he's home! Smelling all smoky and stuff because tobacco is alive and well inside public buildings where he was. (I'm wondering if he read my post about my secret feelings on the smell of cigarettes?) So that's nice that he's home. We are all back together again. Of course he pretty much went straight to sleep since he had been up for a bajillion hours traveling. But bubba was so excited to see daddy he couldn't sit still, immediately got his appetite back and could not stop giggling.

My feelings about our reunion aside, allow me to repeat, he was in Europe this morning! How wild is that, how quickly we can travel? I love those travel days where your mind isn't caught up with your body yet since your body travels so darn fast. Being the self-absorbed American that I am, I have a tendency to think that other places in the world stop moving when I'm not looking at them. And having my man blow in all full of stories abut baguettes and jingling coins from other currencies reminds me that this is not true in the least.

Yay! Homecoming! Yay! Europe! Yay! Airplanes!

Thanks, day seventeen

I think today I shall be thankful for my neighborhood. I live in a small house in a cute 1920s neighborhood. It may actually be the smallest house in the neighborhood. We moved here as newlyweds, wanting to make a small carbon footprint, live within our means, all that. Now that bubba is here and we have transformed into consumers--plastic! Yay!--we are busting out of our little bungalow and moving is a recurring topic of dinner conversation. I don't know that we could swing a bigger house in this neighborhood, and leaving makes me sad.

Living in a mild climate in a walkable neighborhood has made a large difference in my ability to be a sane new mother. Any time I wish, there is is a whole world right outside our door to help me not feel alone and to provide learning material for bub. Bus! Flower! Tree! Dog! Cat! Cat! Cat! A few things I appreciate about my neighborhood:

Sidewalks. The better for walking and strolling and (as you can see) cat stalking. There are a million cats in this neighborhood and I chase them all, needily looking for a cat snuggle. Some of them love it, others (like this one) run away because they are smart enough to know that I am a Crazy Cat Lady. But seriously. I love knowing that we can go for a walk and be reasonably safe.

Dis crazy chik evn tak pitcher uz mah eskaping butt
Ther goz nayburhud

So cute! My house doesn't look like this. My house was probably a servant's house for people who lived in the bigger houses. But I get to walk by them, and they are cute, and it makes me happy.


A park! Nice for the bubbas. Big kids playing soccer, swings, wading pool in summer. Love it.


Nice views too, that's the Space Needle there.


I took these photos on a recent afternoon when I was tired of being cooped up inside. I am lucky indeed.

Thanks, day sixteen

Today I am participating in a party over at Derfwad Manor and telling yall about my favorite things. This is also my thankfulness for the day, because of course I'm thankful for my favorite things...

(Leaving people and animals off this list, by the way)

-Just about any combination of bread and cheese. Haven't really found one I don't like yet.
-My kitchen
-Autumn leaves of any sort
-Most things that have anything to do with autumn, really. Hot chocolate, football games (I don't even know the rules, just like the feeling of game day), rain, scarves, down vests
-No, my down vest gets its own bullet
-The rolling hills of Pennsylvania
-Our piano
-My collection of trashy chick-lit novels
-Mount Rainier
-Lake Tahoe
-My wedding ring
-Our Tempurpedic bed
-Taking cab rides in Manhattan
-Getting a surprise upgrade to business class on a flight to Europe
-Fresh blueberries in summer
-The weather in Northern California
-The redwood forests in Northern California
-The wine country in Northern California
-The wine in Northern California
-Having money in the bank
-Fire in the fireplace on a winter night (we don't have a working fireplace)
-Christmas lights all year round
-The theme song from Titanic
-Naps, especially if they involve snuggling
-PG Tips tea, with milk of course
-My laptop
-My photos
-Photos of me that make me look good
-My blog
-Kindness of strangers
-My Netflix subscription
-Scones, no nuts
-Caramel
-Finding a parking spot close to the cart return at the grocery store

Wow, you don't have to read that, it's too long. But that should give a taste. Thanks, Mrs. G!

Thanks, day fifteen

I've been tagged! Thanks, Mac and Cheese! This is all very exciting, not least because I hadn't thought up an idea for today's post. Here are the rules:

Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

OK, so here are my seven random things:

1. I am 5'11" and have been since I was, like, twelve. I got talked into playing basketball because of my height and I hated it. Hated it, being singled out because of my appearance and then not living up to expectations that I was some great athlete when I was not. It took from then until maybe two years ago to learn to like my height.

2. I work in public health and cancer prevention and I know that tobacco is bad, bad, bad. But the first guy I kissed was a smoker, and he was a bad boy, and he was hot. Ever since, secretly I think the smell of cigarette smoke is sexy.

3. An embarrassing number of random things that are popping into my head involve my shady past with weird ex-boyfriends. I guess random times of life make random memories.

4. I pass out easily. During a pap smear, on a hot day, at the thought of a needle, at menstrual cramps, during a tough workout. Just randomly. It's a little better with age, but not much. I spent part of each of our birth classes in the hallway so I wouldn't keel over from all the talk about pain and needles and "here let me pass around the thing they use to break the bag of waters so you know what to expect" and such.

5. My husband snores sometimes, and I'm really sensitive to noise so I can't stand it. He's a deep sleeper, so sometimes I push him, hold his nose shut, pinch him, anything to make him change positions and give me some peace and quiet. He's caught me a few times, but I think mostly he doesn't know what I do to him.

6. I'm scared of swimming in the ocean. When we were kids and on vacation in North Carolina my brothers talked me into going swimming during a tropical storm. I got all flipped around and lost my footing and really thought I was getting swept away. Ever since I am happy to look at the ocean instead.

7. I am a closet patriot. I think the US is great, and that our constitution is one of the most beautiful documents ever written. Every July4th I get all choked up at the fireworks and national anthem.

OK, since I just tagged some folks a few days ago, tags to truly random people who I don't know from the "30 days of thanks" group:

Susan
Punkin Pockets
The Lisa Show
Fiddlemama

Thanks, day fourteen

Today I'm thankful for Blogger, because it has been telling me I'm doing a good job in big lovely letters for 14 days in a row. I still get a little rush every time I see it, like a gold star on my homework in second grade. This is what I see every time I hit "publish":

Your blog post published successfully!

How awesome is that? Big letters, an exclamation point! I! Published! A! Post! This must be a major accomplishment or the letters wouldn't be so large, surely.

I have to take what I can get, some days...

And, another image from my cookbook collection, this one from "Twenty Lessons in Domestic Science," published 1916. This book belonged to my great grandmother.


I'm tempted to be all, housewife? ha! Less fortunate sisters? ha! How far we have come! Our worth as women isn't all about the quality of your cooking anymore, thank heavens. Then I see this headline on the cover of the latest issue of Sunset magazine: "recipes your friends will beg for."


Yup, at least some of our worth is still tied up in the quality of our cooking. And that's okay with me even though most would consider me their "less fortunate sister" in the cake department.

Thanks, day thirteen

Today I had a job interview! I think they liked me, even. Thankfulness everywhere! I have been interested in this job for awhile, but had concerns that they would only be interested in making me a 100% FTE offer. I was waiting to bring up working part time until I saw if I liked it, and if they wanted to make me an offer, etc, but felt terrible about the whole thing. But when I met with the director he basically offered part time work as an option. Needless to say, that made the whole thing much more attractive. So I may actually have gainful employment next year, imagine! I am not, however, ready to abandon my plans to open a bakery just yet.

I'm also thankful for Pennsylvania. In photographing all my cookbooks, I found a few Pennsylvania Dutch ones that I inherited from my mom when they were moving house. My home state. Now that I live far away from there I get frequent homesickness, especially for a lot of the local cuisine. Much of it is an acquired taste, but now that I can't get it easily I miss it so. You've probably heard of pretzels and sticky buns. But scrapple? Any other fans? If there are, you know what I mean. Yum yum. I found this recipe in my book, best not to read it too closely. But again fantasies of being a Pennsylvania Dutch farm wife pop into my head.


(I'm totally going to lose my Seattle passport for this, meat is not always trendy in the circles I run in, except for the occasional white-meat chicken on top of organic local greens. But who cares? If you know scrapple you know what I mean. And really, it's halfway through this daily-posting madness so I think I can do whatever I want.)

Thanks, day twelve

So today I am thankful for the veterans. I don't actually know too many myself, but both Jeff and my grandpas were in WWII. My grandfather signed up to be a math teacher, I think, something bookish since he was a teacher in real life. They did the ol' switcheroo and instead he got to be commander of one of those landing boats that took the soldiers from the big ship onto shore. You know, the ones from the old footage where the front flattened down to let the soldiers out and often the first few rows of guys were just sacrificed to enemy fire. So my grandfather wasn't really the same after that, came back kind of wacky they say. He died soon after I was born, and I think I (and more importantly, my mom and grandma) lost him long before that, on that boat somewhere. But the country got his service, so we all could be safe.


And today I am thankful that bubba is in one piece. Today we were waiting at a crosswalk and one car stopped for us to cross but the car behind him didn't and rear-ended him going at quite a clip. Both cars skidded and came within a few feet of the stroller. I think bubba was all like, Cars! Cool! But my heart stopped. That thing where you'd throw yourself in front of a moving train for your bubba? Yup, I'd do that.