Canvas clogs from Darling Shoes. I’d ordered one pair for each othe the big kids for just this purpose, but they hosed us and only sent G’s. G never liked them so now they fit N, who does like them.
While it is an established Montessori task to polish one’s shoes, I am not sure it is supposed to include the bottom of the boot…..
And for preface to this sweet little video, click here:
Today P-daddy stayed home with the kidlets while I roamed into Tacoma. I desperately needed some alone, productive alone time. I did the Costco run, drove down to Pacific and had some fantastic lunch in a place I’d never take the children, and picked up some homeschool supplies on stupid sale at The Learning Sprout. Alone. And I even drank wine. No one whined, pulled on me, screeched or otherwise behaved inhumanely. I always found a parking place and it was just …..nice. Lunch was divine.
With our pitiful (compared to cheffin’ years past) rebate from Costco, I bought a pressure cooker there that is just like the Brazilian Goddess’ . I was totally sold on it the day we had dinner at her house…. beans and rice… and thebeans took 40 minutes, dried to cooked. FORTY MINUTES. Meet our new baby:
Did I mention bag to table in 40 minutes? Yes. 40 minutes.
Anyway, while he stayed home, P-daddy baked three loaves of bread:
And when I got home, G threw some pottery on her new wheel. I love how her hands are shaped in these pictures:
Nice homey day. I even took Paul’s black car through the car wash… turns out it’s WHITE!
I have it on excellent authority that I am the bestest cookie maker in the world.
Ahem.
And that I make the house smell good with my perfume.
Stick that in your cookie-makin’ bonnet!
They’re far ahead of me. While I have only planted two fruit trees, they have cultivated their individual garden plots, planted some vegetables AND planted ornamental pansies around them. They have nice, neat little garden areas around their play house– which they have used all year only to store their gardening tools– and now G wants more land to plant MORE STUFF!
I
love
this.
G even paid for her own starts. She had some money burning a hole in her pocket. I was quite leary of giving into her dipping into her piggy bank, but she said “MOM! You KNOW how much I love to garden. I neeeeeeeeed a plant!” When we went to home depot and told her what the pansies cost, she brought home six of them. Hog. Heaven.
memed from Jubilant Tulip
What does your drawing say about YOU?
The results of my analysis say:
Your friends and associates should generally find you a dependable and trustworthy person.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition
Costco has Annie’s! I am so happy. I had the misfortune of discovering how delicious Annie’s actually is when we moved to Washington and discovered that the disgusting Kraft mac n cheese my dh subjected my happily obliging children to was no longer “inexpensive.” I am deep-fried Southern, and macaroni and cheese is a melty, oozing casserole you slather on your teeming plates every Sunday. NOT the crap in the box. Kraft offended me on many levels. With Annie’s, P-daddy had boxed convenience, the kids had “bunny butts” and I had fast food that didn’t make me want to hurl. Win-win-win.
Anyway, back to Washington state, where the Costco in Federal Way was always so packed that I well, gave up on Costco altogether. For those who knew me in Charleston, it was a blow to hear me say “Costco sucks,” because I clearly meant it. In Charleston, I was a personal chef with an executive membership, and I never paid for a membership renewal until 2006. When Costco launched Charleston, they gave everyone a free year’s membership. I paid for the upgrade, but given the nature of my business, the Costco reward I received every year paid for the next year’s membership. Sweet!
It was Christmastime and I was heavily pregnant, in a dark Washington winter for the first three weeks we lived in WA state. We needed food. We needed to restock everything we’d left behind to move across country. For me, that meant Costco. Every day, all day, the Federal Way Costco is a quagmire of rude, mentally stunted people who don’t know how to park or yield. The parking lot itself was a steep hill, so the grade made it difficult-to-dangerous for a pregnant woman and two toddlers to navigate with an atomic-butt-ton of food and supplies for an empty house. It was like the Charleston Costco on Saturday noon, but here it was every hour of every day. On a steep grade.
After a few of these escapades, I forsook Costco. I found delicious specialty stores and a warehouse called Winco, which basically is run like a groceries-only Costco. Between the two of these, life regained some rhthym, just without including Costco.
Move forward again to moving into the house we purchased. Here, we get our milk, eggs, honey, vegetables and meat from farms and butchers, but I still need staples like coffee, pasta, rice, canned items and cleaning supplies. Now, I am 45 minutes away from the closest Winco, but only 25 minutes from the two closest Costcos, 30 from the Business Costco we discovered in Fife. I have had to retrain my eye to my Costco love, but at least these are normal stores. Still busy, but nothing cracked out like the Federal Way store. While I miss my specialty cheese, and Costco doesn’t really give me that, it does afford me the luxury of avoiding grocery stores altogether, which is worthwhile.
Removed from Winco, one of the only things I have been crabbing about (and this is in my head mostly because it is embarassing) has been missing Annie’s. I prefer my own casserole dish, but the kids liek the boxed stuff and I simply won’t buy the Kraft. Can’t do it. But now I pay something like 1.79 for a box, IF I find it on sale. At Winco, it’s regularly .99 to 1.29 depending on the variety. I felt sort of bad buying the giant Costco box, because at .58 there would be NO competition for the specialty grocers who carry Annie’s. I proactively regretted the lack of the delicious varieties the company offers, because surely no one would buy them now that this was available.
Holy Hell.
Annie’s is good. Real good.
The “blue box,” they’re calling it, as a direct competitor to Kraft. It is organic, but it tastes just like Kraft. Oh spelunk-yuck. I mean, really. Foulness. The kids, of course, love it, but I of course, think it is foul.
So in a stroke of marketing genius, Annie’s has reached for the palate of and successfully sold to the masses with their blue box: organic on the cheap. Meanwhile, they have protected their specialty market labels and ensured that people like me will continue to pay the 1.79 per box. Unless it’s not on sale.
