How long ago was it that Jen mentioned people who always have themes for the SQT? Last week? Two weeks ago? Yes, that’s usually me. Trying to be organized, with all my loose ends tied up, at least here on the interweb. However this week I’ve been unable to maintain a train of though for longer than 4 minutes. And so I present my first random Seven Quick Takes! Yay insanity and disorder!
1. Unbeknownst to us, we hired a 76-year-old man (!) to finish all the drywall work related to our kitchen renovation project. We were ecstatic when he finished in one day more work than my father-in-law, husband and former contractor could complete in a couple of weeks. He’s originally from Austria, played professional soccer in Europe for 11 years, worked out at the same gym as Arnold Schwarzenegger and credited his vigor to drinking a glass of wine, plus a scotch on the rocks daily and hard work. This man is the stuff legends are made of; a veritable Paul Bunyan of drywalling. I almost fell prostrate at his feet when he was done.
2. My youngest, whose vocabulary consists of go, uh-oh, Nona and Mama (but only when necessary) and other various Wookie noises, will say Sponge Bob. “Do you want a drink?’ Nods head. “Nap time!” Shakes head no. “Can I read you this book?” Grunt. “Who’s this yellow guy?” Spa Ba!!! Good to know he’s got his priorities straight.
3. I survived a weekend home alone with only three kids. It was one part quiet, one part terror and a whole lot of “I feel like I got the short end of the stick.” My husband was insulted that I wrote in the event of a zombie apocalypse, he and the kids would be goners. As if playing Doom 3 on a nightly basis makes him a police sniper or something. After watching him play last night for a bit, I stand by my original assessment. We’re all zombie fodder unless we take up running and outfit Fulton’s powerchair with assorted weaponry.
4. My youngest daughter almost died from boredom during the same weekend, if I didn’t kill her first for saying “I’m bored” every two minutes. Thankfully once the older two got home it was business as usual.
5. I tried to take a self-portrait for the blog. FAIL. Better luck next time. And by next time I mean I’ll pay my oldest a dollar to draw my picture “really good” and we’ll leave it at that.
6. Because I’m having a hard time coping with the chaos that is my house during construction, I’ve decided to create a new chore system and method of punishments and rewards for the kids. Oh, and why not dust off my eight week schedule of menus too and revise them? Re-organizational therapy! Once we’ve reached utopia, I’ll let you know. Pinterest is making me feel really, really inadequate about everything but I can’t. stay. away. Oh, and I’m unstylish. Pinterest has taught me that too. Hooray for awakening adolescent self-esteem issues!
7. I made three jars of refrigerator jam out of our strawberries. We have a large patch out front that no likes picking from accept my kid’s friends. This was my first attempt at jam of any sort and I failed, but only partially. Seems I actually made a really good batch of strawberry syrup which goes great on pancakes. So, in the end, the kids think I’m awesome. Take that Pinterest!
All aboard! Next stop on the crazy train, the rest of the SQT submissions at Conversion Diary.
sooo funny!! just what i needed this morning! I especially like #7, my daughter just said to me yesterday…”Mom we should go to the Mantoan’s, they have the best pea pods…we need to go pick some ” 🙂
Great quick takes! I had the same strawberry jam issue. My mother in law told me that I need to ignore the directions to cook to whatever temp they said (which only took like 10 minutes) and just cook the crap out of it and it will thicken up. So I am trying to decide if it is a “live and learn moment” and now we have syrup or if once I open each jar I will recook it and thicken it up a bit. It will depend on how ambitious I am feeling that day I suppose.
Jamie, who is too lazy and lacking in creativity even to create 7 quick takes.
Looooove the last shot! Use that one for sure. There is nothing like Star Wars characters to spice up a self-portrait.
One of my daughter’s first words was Sponge Bob. “Say Mama.” “Pon Bah!”
I like the middle picture best. You don’t have to have a great picture, most people will only see it as a thumbnail anyways. The last picture was good too though. Did you take any pics with a miniature blue police box?
I love the jam one, I did the same last summer and chronicled it with a Facebook photo album from the beautiful black plums on the tree, through the jam making process right to the old fashioned jam jars of the finished product! A few weeks ago I furtively flushed the lot down the toilet…vile stuff that never set! I didn’t announce THAT on FB so don’t worry about those smug types on Pinterest, I’ll bet that food they make tastes horrible lol!!
I love any blog post that has great kids, Star Wars and “Spa Ba”.
Love the personality of the blog and all the fun cultural references; just a great post!
Thanks for sharing!
Mark L.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I’ve been battling a stomach bug for a few days but your comments have helped ease my nausea for sure.