7 Quick Takes about Reading with Pandas, Losing a Family Friend, and 1950s Budgeting Tips for Married Men

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Phillip returned from two back-to-back work trips and I'm glad to have him home. Some nights required advanced logistical wizardry to get all 4 kids to work, school, and their activities (and back home afterward!) with only one licensed driver in the house. 

One of his trips was to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a trade show where entrepreneurs are showing off their newest products and technologies. He always sees cool stuff and brought home some cute metal bookmarks from one of the booths:

Put the temple in your book and the panda on a chain hangs out to mark your page.

I admired the cute little panda on the end and then paused. "Wait a minute. Does that panda have... a butthole?"

Yes. Yes, it does.

"The world is full of mysteries, Jenny," Phillip answered sagely.

—2—

The kids were outside playing in the snow on Saturday, and when they came in they asked for hot chocolate.

"Eehhhhmmm... not this time," I answered. "We're already having dessert tonight, and since it's not super-cold outside you guys probably aren't freezing enough to justify the extra sugar."

My 13-year-old said she knew I was going to say that, and confessed that when she was younger, she used to dunk her face in the snow before coming in to increase her odds of getting hot chocolate. Apparently it's not worth it anymore, but I admire the commitment. That's like an actor gaining 40 lbs or learning to play the cello for a movie role. Except with ice on your face.

—3—

This has felt like a long week, not only because Phillip was out of town but because my elderly friend Bev passed away unexpectedly. On Tuesday I got a call from her neighbor, who knows I'm over there often helping Bev with things around the house and wanted me to know. 

It wasn't completely out of the blue because Bev was 82 years old with a heart condition, but it was a shock anyway. She'd been slowing down a little, but last Thursday when I helped her do her shopping there was no indication that I wouldn't be seeing her again. 

—4—

We first met Bev four years ago, when we volunteered through the Rotary Community Corps to shovel an elderly couple's driveway for the winter. I only met her husband a few times before he went to live in a nursing home, and as I'm writing this I'm realizing that maybe God arranged us to meet Bev at that exact time so she didn't feel all alone when he left. 

She lived far away from her kids and as she came to depend on us, and I started to think of her as my friend. She was fun to talk to. We raked her yard in the fall, mowed her lawn in the summer, and helped her fix things around the house. She called us for help putting on her new mattress pad or getting rid of her old TV. Sometimes, she'd call me just to chat. After she had a bad fall at CVS, she'd ask me to come with her to do errands once a month and then take me out to lunch afterward. She never needed to repay us, but the kids knew that whenever they saw juice or popsicles in the fridge, it was Bev's way of saying thank you. Sometimes she wanted to pay us and we'd try to say no, but she'd shove the money in our hands and say "Take the kids to McDonald's, then! I don't care!"

Bev was stubborn and loved animals and was as sharp as a tack (I only wish I could pull a witty comeback out of thin air like she could). She was my friend and a wonderful force in our lives. She gave my kids constant opportunities for doing meaningful service for others and helped them feel good about themselves when they did. I don't know if they'll ever fully understand what a formative experience that was for them. I'll miss that, and I'll miss her.

—5—

After school, I pick up my daughter at the middle school first and then we go to pick up her brother at the high school. 

There are two possible places for pickup and I used to text him which place we're at each day, but now I ask my daughter to do it and she's starting to get creative.

Here was from another another day:

—6—

The other day my 5th grader asked me for help with his math homework. For those of you who are still new parents, I want you to know that for average people without a math background (i.e: you don't use math beyond balancing your checkbook and figuring out the cost of items with a "30% off" sticker), the age at which you can no longer help your kids with math homework is 4th grade. 

I'm sorry, it sounds wrong but it's true.

So I groaned inwardly as I went to go help him, thinking that this was not going to go well. But happy day, I was able to understand and help him solve the problem! I felt pretty good about that.

Later that day I also gave my teenager a tip on pouring liquid into a Thermos without spilling it, and I thought, "Look at me: helping my 5th grader with math and my 16-year-old with soup. Yep, I'm brilliant."

—7—

The other day I mentioned to Phillip, "Isn't that funny how housewives in the '50s used to stash away a little money, so they could spend it without having to explain it to their husbands?" 

I just couldn't imagine doing something like that now, not being able to make purchases without the express permission of my husband. I was not, however, prepared for his answer:

"Yeah, it's the other way around now," he said. "If I get change in cash for something, I'm like 'I can get whatever I want and Jenny will never know!'" 

I guess that's fair. I do scold him when I see on the credit card statement that he bought lunch at work instead of bringing it from home.

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7 Quick Takes about Ways Not to Serve Soup, a War Zone but with Gingerbread, and Making Peace with My Large Print and Reading Glasses

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Phillip was on a work trip until last night, and I never seem to make good decisions regarding bedtime when he's out of town. I've been so tired I've been doing the dumbest things.

The other morning I meant to pack two Thermoses of soup in my boys' lunch boxes, and I don't even know how I did it but I somehow dumped my 10-year-old's soup in the sink and sent him to school with a Thermos full of water. 

—2—

We made the most of our weekend before the 20- and 18-year-old went back to college, including making gingerbread men cookies.

The cookies turned out a little crumbly, though, so when they came out of the oven the cookie cooling rack looked like an army field hospital.

But the girls worked with it.

Arr, matey.

—2—

For Christmas a few weeks ago, Phillip got me a new phone. Before, I used to complain constantly because my previous phone was a big phablet, with a heavy battery and a screen so huge it was inconvenient to even try to use with one hand because my thumb wasn't long enough to reach across the gigantor screen. So Phillip looked high and low until he found me a small one.

And you guys, I was in for a rude surprise. My eyesight has gotten worse in the last five years, and I actually needed that big old phone to read. However, I didn't want to accept it so I kept pretending it was fine squinting at the teeny-tiny little screen and not really being able to read more than a paragraph at a time without getting a headache.

But I came around after a few days. The tipping point was when I was chatting with an older guy at church and he pulled out his phone to look up something we were discussing, and I felt legitimate jealousy over his device's text magnification settings.

The next morning, I woke up, sent the kids to school, and figured out how to unlock geriatric mode on my phone, too. And it is so much better.

—3—

On Saturday, my 8-year-old competed in his first gymnastics meet. My daughter, husband, and I were there cheering him on. His team took first place and my son scored second on pommel horse and fifth all-around (full disclosure, there were only 15 boys in his division so they probably should've stopped giving awards at third place). I made everyone personally admire the cleanliness of the bleachers, because I'd come the day before and spent an hour and a half vacuuming chalk dust off of every inch of them in exchange for credit on next year's meet fees.

The rest of my son's team had already finished their first meet of the season, but unfortunately it had been a few weeks earlier on a Sunday, and my son doesn't compete on Sunday because that's our Sabbath. (See Chariots of Fire or here if you're confused.) I had actually been sitting in church when my phone started vibrating, the gym parents' group text filling up with smiling pictures of the boys' team posing together before their first meet... without my son. I felt a pang of sadness, but only until I looked down the pew at my son sitting between his dad and sister in his white shirt and tie, singing from the hymnbook in his lap. My job as a mom is to help him be in the places that will be best for his life in the long run, and I couldn't think of a better one right now.

—4—

My oldest two children's flight back to college meant driving right during rush hour going downtown, but there was a surprise I didn't know about: recently they started allowing people to drive in the breakdown lane of the freeway during rush hour to ease traffic congestion.

Do you know how fun it is to cross over that solid white line, and then just continuing to ignore all the other lines for the on-ramps and off-ramps as you nonchalantly off-road it to the airport at 70 MPH? It was like the Wild West out there.

—5—

Later that same day Phillip left on work trip, only he didn't get to drive on the shoulder because rush hour was over. Too bad.

He went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Usually he comes home excited about all the cool things he's seen, but this time he didn't have a very positive experience. 

On his first night there, someone walked into his room at midnight (apparently the other guy was just as startled to see him, because the front desk had given this guy a key and told him that it was his room!) so it got off to a weird start, at least.

—6—

We've had our pet parakeet Pringles for almost two years now, and slowly but surely she's actually growing to like us. That's impressive if you knew how much she actively hated us all for her first year here. 

The other day Pringles was having some free time outside of her cage, and with no prompting she came over, hopped onto my shoulder, and then started walking all around checking out my neck and hair. 

I took a picture, but laughed when I saw that my camera's flash effect made it look like the poster for a horror movie.

The Birds 2.

But as much as Pringles likes to land on our shoulders and generally be with us, she still hates human hands, including ours. She will try to peck your finger off if you put it out for her to perch on. Instead you have to offer her your forearm, and then she'll get on it and you can carry her around like the world's lamest falconer. 

—7—

I'm starting to see a light waaaaaayyyy off in the distance at the end the tunnel when it comes to Spanish. That shouldn't surprise me since I've been learning for four years, but it's always felt so overwhelming that I seriously doubted I'd ever feel that way. 

Recently I picked up Spanish copies of a few YA books that I'd read years ago, and the difference was amazing. The first time, each page had taken half an hour to decode because I had to stop and look up so many words and grammatical structures. Now there are only a few things per page that I don't understand, and I can mostly work those out from context.

In the children's room at our public library, there's a sign telling kids about the "five finger rule." If they open up a book and there are more than 5 words on the page that they don't understand, the book is too hard. Do you understand what I'm saying? The books that I once barely slogged through are now passing the five-finger test for me. I AM LEARNING SOMETHING.

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7 Quick Takes about Gingerbread, Why Last-Minute Invitations to Introverts Don't Work, and Doomed Planning Sessions

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Last week I promised pictures of the gingerbread houses we made. They're actually graham cracker houses but I think they still count. 

The 8-year-old was all business. Before he started, he drew up a little blueprint in a notebook, but he soon realized that what he really wanted to focus on was the candy and his design emphasis shifted dramatically at that point.

The 16-year-old decided to build a replica of Stark Tower from The Avengers. If it wasn't obvious, he's currently working through as many of the Marvel movies with his sisters as they can get in before the older ones go back to college.

The gummy bears lined up in Avengers colors are what sells it for me.

The 10-year-old created a jail. Some nice touches that I appreciated: the peppermint support pillar and the Santa Claus gummy bear with a sack full of toys coming out of the chimney.

Felons deserve a merry Christmas, too.

The 20-year-old made a creepy abandoned castle. It looked a little less creepy after the addition of the colorful candy.

Here's the 13-year-old's vision come to life. I loved the use of frosting to delineate the floors of the house and also the sawed-off ice cream cone "wishing well" in the yard (it's full of blue Mike and Ikes.)

The 18-year-old made this post-apocalyptic lighthouse. I love the vines.

Appropriately enough, she says that this lighthouse was inspired by a book she read called Annihilation. 

Because that's what we plan to do, whack them into tiny pieces with a meat mallet to ring in the new year. We usually do it on New Year's Day but we're having trouble finding a time when we're all home simultaneously, so it will probably have to wait until this Sunday.

—2—

We've actually spent a lot of family time together, but most of it has been out of the house as we tried to cram all 6 of our Christmas experience gifts into one week.

The first thing we did was visit a planetarium, and explored the science and art museums connected to it.  I visited this museum one other time, when the youngest hadn't been born yet and the other five kids were 12 and under. By the time we got halfway through the art museum, all the kids except the oldest were literally rolling around on the floor crying of boredom, and their grandpa took them outside to run around while the 12-year-old and I finished looking around.

Ironically, this visit went about the same. I'm not sure, but we may have even been at the exact same spot in the art museum when everyone got whiny, bored, and started begging to go home... everyone except for me and my oldest daughter, who's now 20.

—3—

Our neighbors threw an impromptu New Year's Eve party and texted us an invitation while we were eating dinner. I read it out loud, looked at the seven introverted grimaces around the table, and wrote back "Sorry, we're super-lame and are going to stay in tonight."

(As a general rule, introverts require 3-4 business days to mentally prepare for attending social events, but we appreciated the invitation.)

We were also really tired. We counted down to 8:30 and had sparkling cider, and the teenagers stayed up doing who knows what while Phillip and I put the little kids down and went to bed at 10:30.

—4—

On New Year's Day, we spent the morning at an indoor rock climbing place. It was great for everyone, but if I'm honest, the person I was most proud of was me. 

On my first attempt I got stuck about 4 feet off the ground, too scared to keep going up (I was afraid of falling, even though I was wearing a harness) and too scared to jump backward and let the harness lower me down (because what if it didn't work??)

But I kept trying, and by the end I'd made it about three-quarters of the way up three different rock faces. It was actually — and I can't believe I'm saying this — kind of fun.

I couldn't do the "bouldering" area, though. That's what they called the free climbing area: no ropes or harnesses used. My elementary schoolers were scrambling all over it, demonstrating how to tuck and roll when you fell off saying, "See, Mom? You just flop down like this and it's no big deal!" 

Okay, but I'm 42 and I know lots of people my age who've "just flopped down" from falls a lot lower than that and shattered ankles or wrists, so it felt like a higher-stakes situation for me than them.

 

—5—

As another experience gift, my girls made their own candles at a candlemaking bar. When they came in, they were handed clipboards and directed to a giant wall of scents, and instructed to pick as many as they wanted to combine into their own custom scented candle.

I liked almost all the scents except for baked bread.

They mixed up the scents and wax, poured it in jars, and named their finished product. The 13-year-old mixed 'field of flowers' and 'apple orchard' to make "Spring Orchard." The 20-year-old mixed like 6 different citrus scents and named it "Nothing Rhymes with Orange." And the 18-year-old combined peppermint and sugar cookies and called it "Mariah Carey in a Jar."

—6—

On another day, we took an intro class on making bowls with a pottery wheel, which is a lot harder than YouTube shorts would lead you to believe. The only pottery my girls had ever done before was making clay pinch pots in 5th grade art, and these required significantly more technique.

I can't guarantee that the finished products will become treasured family heirlooms, but it was fun to try once, and my older two daughters enjoyed petting the owner's hugely fat and fluffy cat when it came wandering into the studio at the end of the class.

—7—

Phillip and I went out for brunch and a planning session to outline our family goals for 2025, and it was not very successful. 

We got through the first quarter of the year before we started getting mad at each other over the little quirks that respectively make us difficult people to work with on accomplishing goals, and it was not a great day after that.

However, I'm trying to keep in mind that the last time we sat down in January to plan out our year, it was 2020 and we ended up not completing a single thing in our plan because a worldwide pandemic hit two months later. So it still went better than last time.

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7 Quick Takes about Online Shopping Fails, Christmas Scavenger Hunts, and Unusual Laundry Tips

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

I woke up on the morning of Christmas Eve wondering, where are the stocking stuffers I ordered from Amazon several days ago? That's when I checked my cart, and realized they were still sitting in it. Apparently I'd forgotten to click the final button.

I flew out of bed and charged into the living room, muttering at my phone. The 8-year-old looked up from reading on the couch and asked what happened.

"I forgot to order some stuff for Christmas and now it won't be here in time," I told him.

Clearly remembering a talk at church about how one family's particular penniless, giftless Christmas turned out to be a wonderful time being together and honoring Jesus, he smiled and replied, "It's going to be the best Christmas ever, then." 

In the end, of course, he was right. The kids didn't die from getting IOUs in their stockings, and actually it drew out the fun to get little trinkets in the mail through the 30^th. My 13-year-old won't remember that her hair clips arrived late, but she did randomly share with me that she loves how we read Luke 2 together before going downstairs to check out the goodies Santa brought us, so I know that Christmas doesn't depend on Amazon Prime shipping.

But seriously, next time remind me to double-check the online shopping cart.

—2—

I was feeling overwhelmed at the idea of making our usual Christmas cookie plates to deliver to friends and neighbors, but good thing the kids are older now because they came to the rescue.

Gingerbread, jam strips, Russian teacakes, and sugar cookies ready to assemble onto mixed plates and deliver.

It's a beautiful thing when you can walk in the kitchen to steal a bite of cookie dough that you had no part in making and just walk right back out again. You don't think it will ever happen when your kids are little, but it will.

—3—

On Christmas day, we opened some gifts from the grandparents and then revealed our experience gifts for the kids. Phillip used AI to design a scavenger hunt through the woods for code words that would allow AI to tell them what their experience gift was. 

It took a fair bit of tinkering beforehand to make sure the AI didn't go rogue and start making stuff up, as it tends to do without explicit instructions to stick to the script.

Two of the code words.

Gathered around the phone to get their next set of coordinates.

For our experience gifts this year, we're making candles at a local art store, doing a pottery wheel workshop, watching a show at the planetarium, going indoor rock climbing, having a Marvel movie marathon, and going to a Brazilian steakhouse with an all-you-can-eat-option. I'll let you guess which one is for the 16-year-old boy.

—4—

The space-loving 10-year-old is delighted with a new computer game called Universe Sandbox that he got from his grandparents, and started playing it right away on Christmas morning. It lets you create and alter universes, add planets and asteroids, change their orbits, give planets a bunch of extra moons, and basically play around however you want to see what happens. 

"How's the game?" I called from the living room after he'd been playing on it for a little while. "What are you doing?"

"Crashing Kepler-10b into Earth," he responded sweetly.

—5—

We watched a cute new Christmas movie called 8-Bit Christmas. It was a loose retelling of A Christmas Story, but set in a different decade and way better. I won't spoil it for you, but if you ever loved a Nintendo when you were younger, you'll probably like it.

An unexpected bonus was that the ending really made the kids excited to build a treehouse with their dad. Once upon a time, we thought about building a platform in the trees as an extension of the kids' playset in the backyard, but the idea never got enough momentum to go anywhere. 

I think if the kids are into it, though, it can happen this spring. (Is it too much to hope that it might also motivate us to finish the basement so we can move on to a treehouse?)

—6—

One of my favorite new Christmas gifts is my Supercloth. It's a rinse-and-reuse microfiber cloth that apparently cleans with just water. 

My in-laws videocalled and could see me in the background trying it out on the dining room windows. "Are you making the maid work on Christmas??" they were teasing. (For reference, we don't have a maid on Christmas or on the other 364 days of the year, unless you count me.)

The only thing that gives me pause about the Supercloth is this oddly specific care instruction.

So far my favorite use is for washing windows. I also used it to clean the stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and it took ⅓ the time it usually does to wipe them down with Turtle Wax and bring back the shine. Do you guys have one of these? What do you use it for?

—7—

Every Christmastime, the kids make "gingerbread" houses. We started out with the premade kits but as they got older we started getting boxes of graham crackers and clearing out the candy section of the grocery store instead.

They create (1) the hugest mess that anyone has ever seen and (2) some really cool houses, which I'll post pictures of next week. For now, here's a picture of the table when they were done. Please pray for us.

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7 Quick Takes about Fixing the Garage Door Opener, Holiday Recitals, and Post-Shower Injuries

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

You know how I talked about closing all the open loops in the house every morning?

Well, forget it. There are 5 days until Christmas. There are an infinite number of loops. I'm saying "Oh, crap!" because I remember something important that I forgot to do every 7 and a half minutes. The house is a disaster and the kids are feral. I have given up closing the loops. The loops win.

—2—

I ordered Christmas cards almost a month ago, but since I hadn't yet written the family newsletter I send along with them, I tucked the Christmas cards away for safekeeping. 

I think you know where this is going.

Long story short, I wasn't even mad when I finished the newsletter and realized I had no idea where I'd stashed the cards. Honestly, I even felt a little relieved at the prospect of not having to address and stuff all the envelopes. "I either want to find them tonight, or not at all," I told Phillip. "They'd just better not turn up in February."

Anyway, we found them after 20 minutes of tearing the house apart so I did have to address and stuff them, after all, but the kids helped with that part so it wasn't that bad.

—3—

My two oldest daughters are home from college for their Christmas break. Everyone is loving having them here. 

In fact, just last night the 20-year-old was giving the 8- and 10-year-olds a double piggyback ride, with the other kids laughing at the sight of their triple rear ends from behind and calling them "the three buttsketeers." 

I don't exactly create memories like that as a parent, so needless to say the kids are having the best time.

—4—

Phillip and I had been hoping to surprise the girls with more progress toward finishing the basement, but then the garage door opener broke and we had to fix that instead. 

Our basement trim might not be installed, but at least the 10-year-old learned something about garage door openers.

I guess that's the problem with doing home improvement projects yourself. Whenever you try to work on it, you've got to pause and take care of something critical that stops working — the dishwasher, the dryer, the kids' toilet. It never ends.

—5—

My 16-year-old wants to get contacts instead of glasses, so they scheduled him for a "contacts lesson." They showed him a video about how to insert and remove contacts, and then set him up with a mirror so he could try doing it a few times while they watched and gave helpful hints. Apparently there's a steep learning curve because it took forever.

My son stayed patient, but I was eager to get out of there. If you've never sat in on a contacts lesson, let me tell you that watching someone clumsily poke at their own eyeballs for 25 minutes is not pleasant.

—6—

Both the 8- and 13-year-old had separate holiday recitals on Saturday. When you take the actual 4 hours of recital time plus the required early arrival for each performer (and me, too, since they can't drive), I felt like the music school should consider setting up accommodations for live-in parents like myself. 

Both recitals were a lot of fun. My son played "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker on the piano, and for his first recital it went really well. My daughter is getting over a cold so her voice was a little husky for her singing recital, but it actually worked with her song "Snowman" by Sia and people probably thought it was on purpose.

—7—

I hurt my neck over the weekend. After almost a week it's getting better, but for the first few days I was practically unable to move it at all and I was pretty miserable. 

Do you know what crazy thing I was doing to mess up my neck so badly? I reached up too fast to dry my hair with a towel. Getting older is wild.

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7 Quick Takes about Choosing a Christmas Tree, Solving Local Mysteries, and When the Nutcracker Doesn't Go the Way You Want It To

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

We went to a pick-your-own farm to get our Christmas tree. (Actually, we went to two but the first one weren't letting customers cut down any more trees until next year.) 

The teenagers helped cut down the tree and load it onto the cart while the younger kids threw snowballs at each other and were generally oblivious to what was going on.

At least they stopped complaining for a few minutes about being bored, cold, or thirsty.

There were so many cute little kids at the farm. We saw one dad with a hacksaw headed toward the trees and his preschooler toddling after him to help with the plastic toy chainsaw he was carrying. In the parking lot, a couple was pushing their little girl in a Cozy Coupe with a little 2' tree tied to the roof. It was an overwhelming amount of cuteness in a relatively small geographical area.

—2—

On the way home from the Christmas tree farm, Phillip commented, "You know, our selection process is the same every time we do this."

"We wander around randomly?" one of the kids guessed.

"Yes, but we wander around randomly with everyone pointing out ones we like, until finally we get to a tree where Mom says 'How about this one?' and that's the one we end up bringing home."

"Hmm," I said noncommitally, unwilling to admit that I'm bossy and probably hard to live with sometimes. "So you're saying that without me, we'd never pick a Christmas tree? You're welcome, guys!" 

—3—

Sometimes, we see this car driving around town with a personalized license plate that says 'CORN.' The kids and I have wondered what it means and speculated whether it's an inside joke, or if they really like 1990s alternative metal music but 'KOЯN' was already taken, or what.

But the other day I noticed the car parked near the barn of a small farm in our town, and I realized: the guy is literally a corn farmer. I love it.

—4—

My daughter comes home telling me the most ridiculous things. She says that "gyat" is new slang for "a big butt."

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day slang words at least followed a loose logic. They were short for something like "dis" for "disrepect," or they combined two words like "chillax." In some fashion, your mind could connect the dots without a lot of context.

But 'gyat'? It's just a bunch of random letters. Even the kids in middle school who are saying it will admit that they don't know why it means that.

Probably the etymology of 'gyat.'

—5—

I was sitting in a waiting room at my medical lab, and saw the best mom come in holding the hand of her disabled adult son. She spoke with so much kindness in her voice and took her time to talk with him about everything instead of just doing it herself.

When he needed to use the bathroom she suggested "Let's knock to make sure no one's in there first" and then waited outside in case he needed help. When he came out, she asked kindly, "Did you wash your hands?" and then when he wouldn't stop playing with the water she complimented him on doing a good job rinsing and guided him back out into the waiting room. 

She just did it all with such patience and love, like she probably had been doing every day for the last 30 years. It really warmed my heart to see. 

—6—

Some contingent of our family goes to see The Nutcracker ballet almost every Deceember, but this year I was super-excited because my 8-year-old is playing "Waltz of the Flowers" in a piano recital on Saturday. I wanted to see his reaction to hearing (and seeing) it live.

Working on memorizing his piece.

This year I splurged a little on Nutcracker tickets, picking a higher-end ballet that we ordinarily can't afford because (1) fewer of us were going this year, and (2) a few performances of the performances were offering half-price admission for kids.

So wouldn't it be sad if traffic the entire way from our house to the theater was so terrible that it took us over twice as long to get there as I'd planned, and we missed the first 30 minutes of the show?

—7—

Well, that's exactly what happened. I'm not going to say that I wasn't stressed out of my mind sitting in stop-and-go-traffic watching the ETA on the GPS creep later and later and later for the entire trip. I also won't say that the kids and I weren't disappointed to miss the first half-hour which included the entire Christmas party at Clara's house. But it turned out okay in the end.

I honestly felt a little better when we joined a dozen other people in the lobby who'd apparently had just as disastrous a journey and were waiting to get in late, and by the time they let us in and got to our seats we were just in time to see the Mouse King (my boys' favorite) and the dancing snowflakes (my favorite). 

Amazing costumes, amazing set.

It actually turned out to be a lovely evening with my 3 youngest kids. They enjoyed the show and during intermission we got up and checked out the pit orchestra, where my daughter found a few stray pieces of confetti "snow" and took them home for souvenirs and I got a laugh out of the trombones all watching a football game during their break.

When the orchestra started playing Waltz of the Flowers in the second act, the 8-year-old flashed me a huge grin and thumbs-up... so even after the horrendous drive and the frustration of missing ¼ of the expensive show, I was still glad we'd come.

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7 Quick Takes about Claustrophobia, the Art of the Backhanded Compliment, and Adventures in Cosmetics

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Well, I finished reading Parenting with Love and Logic. I may not have loved everything about the book (see my full review on Goodreads), but it definitely made me realize it's time to deal with a few chronic issues in the house.

One of them is being on time to church. Well, anywhere, really, but church is a good place to start. To my kids, "leaving at 11:30" means "start thinking about where on earth you left your coat at 11:30" and that's not really the same thing. So I decided to apply Love and Logic to the problem.

I informed the kids that this Sunday, the van would be exiting the driveway at exactly 11:20. Whoever was in it would get a ride to church, and whoever didn't would be walking there. Generously, I gave them copious warnings:

"The time is now 10:40. Be ready to go in 40 minutes!"

"Leaving in 20 minutes!"

"Ten minutes until departure: that means 5 minutes to finish up what you're doing and 5 minutes to put your shoes on and get in the car!"

"I'm going out to the car now, it will be driving away in 5 minutes!"

In the end, I drove away with only one of the four kids. And do you know what the 10-year-old said when he finally showed up at church, face flushed from walking 10 minutes in the cold? "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?"

We'll see if his hearing is as selective next week when we do the same thing.

—2—

I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring since the swelling incident a few weeks ago. Not physically unable, but mentally. I've slipped the ring on my finger a few times, but each time I start to hyperventilate at how it feels a little snug going over my knuckle and then I yank it off in claustrophobic panic.

A few days ago I started reading Michael J. Fox's memoir No Time Like the Future, and I kid you not, on page 47 he falls and injures his ring finger, which swells until it necessitates an emergency visit to the hospital, by which time it's cut off his circulation so much they almost have to amputate his entire finger.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE DOING?! I'm already freaked out, there's no need to keep beating me over the head with this. Also, in a double irony, I was reading the book before bed but instead of getting sleepy I got an adrenaline rush with a side of impending doom.

—3—

The kids took down a framed picture on the wall, took off the back, and found this 15-year-old photo of Phillip and I hidden behind the one on display:  

My daughter gasped and said, "Mommy, you used to be so pretty!"

If she had more self-awareness, she would've looked at how exhausted and crabby I am now after a decade of dealing with her shenangians and drawled like Steve Urkel: "Did I do that?"

He gets it.

—4—

You know that product Poo-Pourri? You spray it in the toilet before you use the bathroom. Well, apparently the flowery bottles and logos only speak to women, and the company figured out how to make it for boys, too: you put it in a toolbox.

It's all in the marketing.

It's still going to be all women buying this product, but now they can get the "throw a monkey wrench into bathroom stench" version for their husbands or dads. 

Because I can't see any man buying himself a toolbox that says "Master Crapsman" on it.

—5—

For the last several years, I've gone through phases where I do go running for exercise regularly, but I've never been able to call myself a runner with a straight face. I don't even know if I want to, because that comes with all kinds of expectations like that I will run a 5K with you and I don't want to live under that kind of pressure. 

Whenever someone asks me if I run, I usually hesitate and say, "Well, I jog... but I don't like it." But I've been realizing that I think I can claim being a runner, if I want to. I run 2.5 miles a couple of times per week. I even did it earlier this week in 25° weather when it would've been way easier to stay inside.

I still don't know if I want to adopt this identity. I'm only saying that I technically could. I want to be enough of a runner to stay in shape and feel energetic, but not so much that I have an embarrassing poop story like most of the distance runners I know.

—6—

We got our first real snow of the season. Of course, Phillip had stuck the shovels in the loft over the garage at the end of last winter, and since he'd already left for work it was my job to get them down.

Which sounds way easier than it actually was, because:

1. He'd put them up over the rafters where no normal-height person (including me) could reach them, and
2. Directly beneath the shovels was a gaping hole with a one-story drop to the concrete garage floor, from temporarily removing the pull-down stairs to fix them (although that happened years ago so it's becoming more permanent than temporary, but I digress.)

Anyway, here is the text I sent him at work that day: 

Sadly, his plot to commit life insurance fraud failed, and I retrieved a shovel and cleared the driveway without incident. He'll have to try harder than that.

—7—

Makeup question: how in the world does any woman find the right foundation color? I've always used the "guess and hope" method of holding random bottles up next to my face in CVS and trying to match my skin color, but it never works well. I always think I picked a good one, until I take it home and try it on and I look like a mime. (Sometimes like an oompa loompa, depending.)

After my last failed expedition to the cosmetics aisle, I decided to get little more methodical for next time. I needed to arrive with better data. 

I took a selfie, uploaded it to a vector graphics program, and used the color matching tool to get a sense for my actual skin tone. Pixels don't lie, and I realized that my skin is pinker than I thought it was. Which makes my past failures make more sense because I was consciously steering away from pink-leaning foundation, thinking that wasn't me.

Am I closer to finding my foundation color? Probably not by much. But I feel like I learned something, at least.

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