Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve Still Got It

So I was sitting at the Southern Sun today, reading my Martha Stewart Living, and waiting for my family to arrive, and I ordered a beer.  I was so happy that the Jah Mon Ginger reappeared on the menu, and Martha had her newest egg decorating tips, and I had ridden my bike to the sun without falling on a patch of ice, and I just sighed and thought “Spring is almost here.”

And then I was carded.

And for one brief second life really was perfect.

And then I thought, “Why would they card someone who is here with her family at least once a week, if not more, for the past 6 years.  Am I, as I have feared in the past, invisible? Is it because Dave is the friendly one?”

And then I thought again.  “I’ve still got it.”

 

The Pancake Story

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You know when you volunteer to bring in food for a class party and you get there, and there is a ton of food and you know the kids are just going to take a bunch, eat some, and then a lot of it is going to go to waste?  And then you think, “ugh.  What a waste. And who brought donuts?  And can I silently judge that person and eat one of the donuts at the same time?” Then there all these moms standing around, and you know there is work to be done, but you can’t quite figure out what you are supposed to do?  Or all the easy jobs are taken and you don’t want to do the hard or complicated or boring ones?  NO? Is it just me?

Big redacted section on the reason for this particular breakfast and why I thought the idea wasn’t that great and why I volunteered to make whole wheat pancakes.

I volunteered to bring in pancakes for a class breakfast.  And in my mind, I  was one of many parents who would be bringing in pancakes or something.  I didn’t write down the date of the breakfast for some reason, so I was glad and horrified when I got the email saying to be at school on a certain day at 7:45am to start cooking so all the food would be ready for 60 kids by 8:05.   (Side note – there was one other mom cooking pancakes that day.) Between when I volunteered and when the day arrived, I found out I would have work to do between 8:00 and 8:30, so I asked if I needed to stay and help, which I am sure was expected, but I thought I could shirk it because there would be so so so many other volunteers, but at least I was planning ahead when I said, “I am going to make the pancakes at home, and how long exactly do I need to stay and help because Mondays are crazy at work…?”  I didn’t hear back.

Now, I would never complain about Dave, especially on my blog, so this next section is really about me, and how awesome I have become after 14.5 short years of marriage.

I tried to pawn the pancake helping duties off on Dave.  There was a miscommunication.

Monday morning, we had this conversation:

Me: Here are 80 pancakes.  I don’t know how long you’ll have to stay and help out.

Dave: I don’t have time to stay and help out.  I have to work.

Me:  But when we talked about it, I said, “I have to work Monday morning.  I can’t help out with the breakfast.” And you said, “Why don’t you let me handle everything?”

Dave: Yeah.  That’s what I said.  And then I said I was sure I could drop off the pancakes.  And then you said. “Well if all I had to do was drop them off, I could handle that.”

Me: Yeah.  That’s what I said.

And scene.

Well actually, then we argued about whether or not he should take a half full bottle of syrup “just in case.”

Then Dave left to drop off 80 pancakes and 2 kids.

I sat at home working.  And thinking.  I thought about how I was extremely worried about how 4 teachers could possibly manage to feed 60 kids pancakes.  What if there were no other parents to help?  WHO WOULD WIPE DOWN THE TABLES AFTERWARDS?  Of course, maybe the tables wouldn’t be sticky if there was no syrup? I started to imagine myself getting really mad at Dave, and then I thought, who cares?  A younger MegaMegan could have been angry for weeks about this.  But really.  Not worth it.  I have officially grown as a person.  When Dave got home, I found out which moms were there and I txted them my thanks for covering for me.  Those moms know what to do at class parties. I probably should buy them each a glass of wine.

So now that I am so mature that I can recover from a miscommunication/argument in less than an hour, the next step is to not be a freak show in the first place. But that would make for pretty boring blog posts.

 

Turns Out My Mom Isn’t Going Deaf After All

I like to talk to my mom on the phone about once a week.  We talk about her wonderful grandchildren, books we are reading, movies, current events, world politics, life etc.  But for the last few months, all our conversations have gone like this.

MetaMegan:And now I am going to tell you about why you are the best mom ever.

MetaMegansMom: Hello?

MetaMegan: I’m still here.  So, what I was saying was

MetaMegansMom: HELLO?  MEGAN?  HELLOOOOOOOO?  Hello?  HELLOOOOOO!!!!  Hello?

MetaMegan:  Ugh.  Mom.  I can hear you.

MetaMegansMom:  HELLLLOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

MetaMegan: Click.

So, now that I am forced to use my phone for work sometimes other people call me besides my mom.  (Yep.  I only talk to my mom and people from work.)  And now I know that the speaker on my phone just stops working halfway through a call.  Because now I have conversations where the person says stuff like this, “OK, I can’t hear you anymore so I am just going to tell you what I need to tell you and then hang up.”

I’ve been to the apple store once, the AT&T store once, and today I head back to the apple store.  Wish me luck!

Sorry Mom!

 

 

I Misunderstood

Jack and I had the following conversation this weekend.

Me: We sure are having a fun day.

Jack: What did we do?

Me: We painted, played play dough…

Jack: And now we are talking…

Me: And we are going to a playground.

Jack: I’m sorry, did you say we went to a playground?

Me: No, I said we were going to a playground, because we are on our way now.

Jack: Oh.  I’m sorry, I misunderstood.

Me: (thinking: big word for a 4 year old.)

Jack:  You know, misunderstood is pretty hard to say…. with a banana in your mouth.

End of January

I didn’t make any exercise related resolutions this year and that is because exercise resolutions are boring.  Right?  Who wants to hear, “blah blah blah, blah blah blah”?  Exactly.  I guess interest levels may rise, if people were getting hit in the face though, right?

For instance, I take a crazy “intervals” class at the gym, and on Monday, we did a crazy thing and then craziness ensued.  (That was my first attempt to explain the class. Now trying a second time.)  We were all standing on these exercise disks (to work your core as you try to balance) and we were in a circle, and every other person had a 4 pound medicine ball.  You had to throw it to the person on your left, then turn and catch one from the person on your right.  If anyone dropped the ball, the whole class had to do 8 push ups.  So how did that go?  Well, I threw my ball to the person on the left, and then turned to the right.  Did I catch it?  Yes!  After I was hit in the face, I caught it.  And I didn’t even fall off my my balance disk.  Did I die of embarrassment?  Yes!  This was in no way my fault, and the instructor and the person who threw a four pound ball into my nose were both horrified.  But I just had a strange feeling of, “This does not surprise me at all.”  Of course, this is the class where on my first day, I tripped, and tried to catch myself for almost the entire length of the room before I finally landed on the floor.

Hmm, what else?  There was a newspaper reporter at one of the classes I took, writing the “workout of the week” article.  And in the paper, there was a giant picture of the class.  I’m the one that looks like I am just standing there, confusedly.

And speaking of New Years Resolutions, remember my whole “10” thing?  Well I decided I would wear my pedometer for the month of February and make sure to get 10,000 steps a day.  So today, when the kids were in bed and I was ready to start watching Downton Abby, I saw that I had 2000 steps to go.  I almost blew it off and just laid down on the couch, but then I thought, you can’t give up on the very first day!  It’s the shortest month, how hard can it be to do something every day in February!  Come on!  So I got Lucy, and I put on my puffy coat and my hat and mittens, and we went for a walk.  During my walk I realized two things.  1.) It’s a leap year, which means I need to take 290,000 steps instead of 280,000.  2.) February doesn’t actually start till tomorrow.

New Years Resolution Status:
10 pies – 1 down (plum) 9 to go
10 science experiments – 4 down, 6 to go
10 blog posts per month – This makes 8, 2 to go.  I may have to make up for it next month
10 crafts – 0 crafts this month, 10 to go.

If It Looks Like a Duck and Walks Like a Duck…

Now that I work from home, and rarely leave the house, or interact with people in any way, I seem to be sort of out it in regards to the news as well.  So last night I enjoyed some NPR on my drive to Golden.  And in 25 minutes, I think I heard Mitt Romney say, ” If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.” about 6 times.   I thought, somebody has been watching old 90210 reruns!  Here is the story on NPR, and I was looking for video, but I couldn’t find it.

But if you want to get the gist of it, just watch this.

 

This post is dedicated to my sister.

Hearts

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Jack and I stayed home yesterday, while Dave and Luke braved the 45 mile an hour winds at Eldora.  Jack had me making a list of activities before I was even out of bed.  By about 10:00 am we had everything crossed off and I wanted to just sit for a minute.  Jack wanted to glue so I decided to work on my scrapbook while he made a collage.  The top two items in the recycling bin were the latest Anthropologie catalog and the Ohio University Alumni magazine.

Jack wanted to know – “If we glue the heart on top of these guys, will they come to life?”

We decided not to risk it, but just placed the hearts there for a second to take the photo.

My Flirtation With Warby Parker

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One of the ways I am becoming more awesome this year is to delete a lot of the home decor and fashion blogs I used to read.  I deleted them from my google reader, not from the internet.  I’m not that powerful.  I’m not some sort of Hollywood censor, people.  I’m not congress! (That’s a vague reference to SOPA, which I sort of know about since wikipedia couldn’t help me work yesterday.)

I liked knowing how all the cool kids are decorating, but it was sort of exhausting, and it would have been expensive if I had purchased even one item I had read about in the last year.  Where am I going with this?  For one thing, if you are a blogger to whom I subscribe, you should really be blogging a lot more often because my google reader is no longer being updated every 5 seconds with something new and shiny.

Secondly, the point of this post!  At some point I saw these beautiful pictures on this very pretty blog, and I thought, I could look like that!  (Could I have really thought that?) Regardless, I ordered some frames to try on from Warby Parker.   (You can only order online, so they ship you 5 pairs and you try them on and then send them back.  Then, presumably, you buy a pair.  That last sentence should be tweaked to include more exclamation points and love if I want free glasses for blogging about Warby Parker!  <— gratuitous exclamation point.)  They looked great on Jack, but they just didn’t work for me.  The problem is, I sort of love nerd-chic, and I’d like to go to the movies in glasses and actually be able to see the entire screen without my “cool” frames getting in the way.  But maybe they skewed more “actual nerd” than “nerd chic”.  Or maybe it’s just that my head is too small and one ear is higher that the other.  And even though I secretly loved the round ones, Dave hated them.  Possibly because I had that pair in high school.  And college.  And I still have them, but one of the lenses fell out.  Maybe it’s time to replace those lenses.

 

Cookie Status

Baked:

Chocolate Chip

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread

Chocolate Peanut Butter Suprise

Dough Made and Rolled Out:

Sugar Cookie

Other Sugar Cookie for Star Wars Cookie Cutters

To Be Made:

Spritz

Other

But here is the situation: The sugar cookie dough is too dry.  I wondered, WWLD?  What Would Laura Do?  Well, she would probably tell me to JFGI.  So I googled, but I can’t believe there was nothing for “my sugar cookie dough dried out in the fridge.  What should I do?”  And honestly, it was too dry before it even went in the fridge.  Not sure exactly what happened there.  But no hits on google, and no time to wait till tomorrow to find out WWLD.  So I just sort of smeared some melty butter over the dry areas and got the kids ready for bed.  When I came back to the dough it was a little easier to roll out.  It’s in the freezer now, so I’ll have to report back later as to how they turned out.

I have a totally different problem with the star wars cookie dough, but I fear there may be many more problems to come with that, so I might as well save that debacle for it’s own post.

However, the 3 recipes of cookies that have been baked already are really really good.  Some are frozen, so don’t worry readers.  You may get to try one or two yourself.