Not a Fan of Smores

1.) I bribed Jack into pooping on the potty with the promise of a marshmallow and he said, "Well. Ok. But don't graham it!"

2.) Sometimes when Jack is hugging and petting Lucy, he says to her, "Oh Darling."

3.) I used to assume drooling was something that one would grow out of. Is keeping saliva from spilling out of your mouth a skill that can be taught?

4.) Other skills we need to work on: The proper way to eat an ice cream cone.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Luke said, "Um, Mama? Jack is playing rock, paper, scissors with himself in the mirror."
I asked, "Who is winning?"
"Um. It's a tie. But I heard him say, "OK, next time, I be rock and you be scissor. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! NO! I told you to be scissors!""

Signs of the Apocolypse Part 2

Jack is really on a roll these days. I have been saying that he is at the peak of the terrible twos, and I can only pray that I am not kidding and/or jinxing myself.

Today he turned down homemade pancakes in favor of a piece of toast. Who does that?

Signs of the Apocalypse

At dinner, Luke said, "Guess who was at the Y today! Justin. I haven't seen him since kindergarten."

I said, "Who is Justin?"

Jack said, "Justin Bieber?"

I Played Softball Today

Yup. Oh darn, I just blew the whole punchline in the title. I remembered all the stuff my coach was always telling me (thanks Dad!) but it was still extremely hard not to close my eyes as I was swinging the bat. Two strike outs and two ground outs. But at least I made contact with the ball. And it was sort of fun! Luke said, "Mom, you were good, it's just that you don't play that often." He is very supportive.

Message in a Bottle

Have you ever had a year and a half or so where things did not go quite right, and sometimes went terribly wrong, and even things were OK for you, your friends had a bunch of awful stuff happen? Then you start wondering if bad things come in threes or is it nines? Or looking for signs that mean that bad summer, year, 15 months are over and now everything will be perfect and wonderful all the time?

So yeah, (quick back story) lately I have really been wanting to have puppy play dates with our neighbor across the street. It's something I have been thinking about a lot, suggesting, and planning puppy play date happy hours, and yet, it hasn't been happening. Seems like putting two naughty puppies together in the backyard for an hour a day would be a quick way to tire them into not being so naughty. So you can imagine how it was sort of like a dream come true today when our neighbors came over with their puppy and the puppies starting running around like crazy. Something I have been wanting to happen for MONTHS finally happened today. AND when I said, hey, we'd come get your dog every day at lunch time or something and let them run around together, and they said, Oh, and we could let your dog out in the winter when you were skiing, I practically heard angels singing in the heavens that there is a God and s/he wants me to be happy. AND THEN, they said, oh by the way, here's a case of beer we haven't gotten around to drinking, please take it.

And I thought: This. Is. The. Sign.

And I started composing my blog post about how awesome my life is now. My wishes have been granted, with a side of beer. It's the best, it could not be better. Puppy play dates and free beer. That's all I have been needing.

And then the neighbors left, and I grabbed some beer to put in the fridge and I noticed, hey, what? Is that...? Old Milwaukee Light? Whenever the nieghbors have brought over extra beer that they haven't been able to drink in the past, it's been obscure/weird/interesting microbrews. I had assumed that was the case this time too. But no, not this time.

I've been waiting for the universe to tell me that the bad stuff is over with and everything is going to be perfect, but I'm not sure that's the message in the bottle (of Old Milwaukee Light.) I think the message is, things are fine, have a beer and get over it. Bottoms up!

I'll Miss The Peaches... Oh, and you

Dave and I drove across a part of the South together on our first vacation about 16 years ago. We stopped at a roadside stand and bought a peach that I can't really describe. I mean, I could, but what I am going to do? Use a bunch of adjectives like sweet, juicy, sticky? Isn't it enough to say that I remember a specific peach from the summer of 1994?

That we both remember it.

Speaking of things that are really sweet, you can thank me for not going off on a "peach as metaphor for young love" tangent here. Instead, I will say that I could write a book about that trip, or a screen play for a road trip movie starring Ellen Page as the young MetaMegan and James Franco as Dave. (I know... I let Dave cast his character.) So the fact that we both remember that peach, ok, you get the point.

And the point is, we stopped in Palisade on our way home from our vacation and bought a half bushel of peaches. I had spent the entire vacation reading The Blah with the Dragon Blah and Little Bee so the magazines that I had been hoarding to read on vacation were untouched. On the drive home, I ripped out all the peach related recipes and we found some winners.

The first order of business was Roasted Pork Chops and Peaches from Real Simple. Yum.
Next up, Grilled Cornmeal Flatbread with Peaches, Serrano Ham (I used prosciutto) and Spicy Greens. So good. So so good. I may even start using the flatbread recipe as my go to pizza crust. I'll report back on that.

Then I also froze and "canned" some peaches, but that's a story for another post. What I wanted to share was that Luke and Jack were supposed to go to the RV with Grandmom and Grandad in the middle of this peachy time, and they were acting reluctant, and I was encouraging Dave to just go with them and leave me all alone. Dave thought about it for a full minute before he sighed and said, "I can't go. I'd miss the peaches."

The Unbearable Lightness of Being MetaMegan

Embarrassing things I have done or said at work:

This attempt to end my work related blog writers block is brought to you by my dad who says, "Laugh at yourself or spend your whole life crying."

1.) It was possibly my first meeting at a new job, and I hadn't met everyone on my team yet. One team member was giving a little presentation on some of the reports he had written to help us manage our databases. He meant to give a little background and then run the report to show the results, but he ran the report right away and said, "Oops, sorry. That report was prematurely generated." I laughed, looked around, realized no one else laughed, remembered that I am extremely immature, and tried to stop laughing, because it felt inappropriate. And what's funnier than extremely inappropriate laughter? Nothing. Well, aside from someone that can't stop laughing, but is trying to hide it. I spent the rest of the meeting silently weeping as I tried not to laugh. I don't work there anymore.

2.) OK, same job, some person even. I walked by the guy's new office, and there was giant coffee stain on the wall. I said, "Oh my God it looks like..." And then I realized that what I was about to say was, "you peed on your wall." Rorschach test much? Who thinks and then says something like that? So instead of coming up with something clever like, "It looks like... you should hang a poster over that stain." I just started laughing. Then crying. Then silently weeping at my desk because really - what was I going to say at that point? Once I gathered myself together enough to talk, how was I to explain what was so funny? I basically said, "It looks like you peed on your wall." And the crowd that had gathered just slowly backed away.

3.) Most facebook and other friends have probably already heard this one, but it needs to be told again. Have you ever worked in an office in the summer? And are you also a woman? Then you know that no matter what you wear, you are either going to melt outside, or freeze to death inside. So the day that it was 80 inside our office was probably the most pleasant office day I have every experienced. I was dressed for the weather I ridden my bike through to get to work. And I wasn't freezing as I discussed the weather at my friends desk. We both agreed the day was perfect. And just then, we were interrupted by another co-worker who came by to accuse Laura of messing with the thermostat and causing him to be terribly uncomfortable. "IT's so HOT!" he said. The gentleman in question was wearing khaki pants, a khaki shirt, and khaki hiking boots. Laura sent him to his desk with a thermometer so he could see that perhaps he was imagining the level of the office temperature. While he was gone, remarks were made that perhaps it was his desert storm themed ensemble that was to blame for his assessment of the temperature. I was annoyed. Way to much khaki for my delicate sensibilities. Plus, why should I be cold all the time?

He came back with the temperature and announced that it was in fact 80 degrees. And, "It's way too hot in here."

I replied, "THEN UNZIP YOUR PANTS!!!"

Because, you know, what is the f'ing point of khaki pants that zip into shorts if you are going to just wear pants and complain about the heat? I realized it was sort of awkward that I had said, "Unzip your pants" to a co-worker so I started to try to find a way to explain that I meant, unzip the part of your pants that will turn your pants into shorts without betraying that I find those kinds of pants horribly unfashionable and work inappropriate. But that line of thinking was rendered irrelevant when I realized he was not wearing pants that unzip into shorts. At all. Just regular khaki pants.

"I meant.." (commence laugh crying. Hysterical, horrified, laugh crying.) I sort of blacked out for a bit, but I know I made it back to my desk, and that I did actually sob a few times on the way there.

It was very cathartic. And I couldn't help thinking of Daniel Day Lewis saying, "Take off your clothes" in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and how I am nothing like that character at all, but it makes for a good blog post title.