Add It To The List.

I noticed this on our condo’s refrigerator last night. Apparently, S7 has made a list of the things we are supposed to do today.

So far we are on track. My BIL brought over Baby Joe (my nephew) this morning bright and early* and we have been playing with him all morning. He had a bit of a rough start due to some minor jet lag/travel overstimulation/tiredness/unknown baby issues, but BIL got him settled while the girls and I went for a dip in the pool. By the time we got back for lunch, JJ was up and at ‘em, playing some peek a boo and rolling his ball with the girls.

Yesterday (which did not have a list, but was still important) we picked DH up in Tampa. While Tampa does not collectively refer to itself by its airport code (TPA), it does have a kickass airport. And unlike PIT(tsburgh), which makes people who are there to pick up arriving passengers orbit around the airport in their cars instead of offering them a place to park and wait, TPA absolutely rocks the hospitality with a huge cellphone lot- complete with restrooms, a large arrivals board visible from space, and FREE WIFI. You just don’t get much better than that, unless perhaps you have folks on rollerskates bringing milkshakes to you car window while you wait.

TPA is about an hour from our hotel in Orlando, so we decided to hang out there for the afternoon and see the Florida Aquarium. It was a great day for it, because it rained most of the afternoon and was fairly chilly for Florida. It was far more interesting to wander around the Aquarium than to hang out at our condo and be sad about the weather (which is still 1,000,000 times better than Ohio’s).

The Florida Aquarium was pretty nice. We saw some really great exhibits on Florida coastal life, including some close-up views of alligators and river otters. The river otters put on quite a show by doing a never ending series of backflips right in front of the girls. Since their enclosure is clear acrylic, you can see them both above and below the water, which is infinitely fun. The girls really got a kick out of that.

More importantly, we saw real, live Florida Gators. I particularly liked the fact that they were also behind very clear, very thick acrylic.

We also saw lots of birds in the wetlands exhibit. But while interesting, we really didn’t come to the Aquarium to see birds. However, you would not know that from the number of photos of birds I happened to take while we were there.

After all the birds, we walked through an exhibit on aquarium design.

I liked that exhibit a lot, particularly the very modern Glass Themed Aquarium.

Even the fish were glassy.

My favorite were the vintage aquarium bubblers.

Finally, we got to the cool stuff: sharks. There is a really big viewing tank in a dimly lit room that gives you lots of shark-gazing. They are amazing animals, those sharks. I could have watched them all day, if it hadn’t been for the small people at my side starting to whine about wanting to go on to the next exhibit.

We saw jellyfish, sea dragons, and sting rays. They had a touch tank with star fish and sea anemonae that you could brush your fingers against. DH and I thought those were really cool.

The girls were more interested in the giant ceramic hermit crab shells that you could climb into. Something for everyone at the Florida Aquarium.

The rest of the Aquarium had various random fish in beautiful exhibits. It was very pleasant just to walk through and take it all in. It helped immensely that the exhibits are very kid-friendly.

Well, mostly.

Finally, it was time to head back to Orlando. We dodged a few lingering rain drops, found our van, and got on the road. The end.

*Bright and early is, of course, a relative term.

Hi.

Well, we made it to Florida. The kids were real troopers in the car. We brought a cooler with drinks and some food and only stopped for gas and a couple potty (read: coffee) breaks over the whole 16 hour trip.

I suppose I should be happy to note that absolutely nothing of note happened on our drive down. We left Pittsburgh right after the girls’ Paleontology class ended at 2:30, and headed down in a light rain through southwest Pennsylvania and into West Virginia. The roads were fine but the mountains and rain made me a little nervous, so I lost a little bit of time through there. Once we hit Virginia, though, the skies cleared (just in time for it to be dark) and we got to Rock Hill, SC by 11:30 pm.

We stayed in Rock Hill overnight. That’s a nice place to stop southbound because, not only are you half way between my house and my mom’s, you are just past Charlotte, NC. Charlotte, NC is a very large city with a very large amount of traffic. It’s not bad to drive through at night, but if you are heading out in the morning during rush hour, you will be very glad you drove the extra 20 minutes the night before to get to Rock Hill and out of the snarl of commuters.

The girls had a quick breakfast of Froot Loops (I’m glad they spell it “froot” and not “fruit”, since I’m fairly sure there’s no actual Fruit in Froot Loops) and juice and shared a bagel. I had a slightly-better-than-mediocre coffee and some yogurt. We were on the road by 8:45 AM and enjoyed the lovely sunshine as we headed south through SC. There were an inordinate number of police on the highway so I kept my speed in check. Georgia was much the same way- sunshine, open road, and cops. But in Florida the traffic sped up and I had to go surprisingly fast to keep up with the flow.

Since the girls had been so cooperative, I stopped for treats just outside of Jacksonville, which is locally referred to as JAX. (I love when cities refer to themselves by their airport code. PDX is another fine example of an airport-minded city.) We found, happy of happys, a Dunkin-Donuts-Baskin-Robbins, which meant that I could get a nice coffee and the kids could get ice cream cones. Everyone was happy and the weather was warm enough that we could actually sit outside and enjoy our refreshments. Imagine! Ice cream outside in February!!

It only took a bit over two hours to get to Orlando from JAX. We did run into a bit of traffic in Orlando itself, which was inconvenient since we had to travel all the way through it to the southwest part of town during rush hour. But we managed, and got in just after 5:30. The girls rushed up to find our hotel room, where Nana was waiting.

And here we are in lovely Orlando. Orlando has an unfortunate airport code: MCO. So I can’t really blame them for not adopting that as the city nickname. And if they did use a nickname, it would probably be something like DIZ because everywhere you look there is a Disney-branded something-or-other. We are alarmingly close to the Empire of the Mouse. But I have no plans to venture there this trip. We have too many other things to do, like seeing manatees and going to the space center. Yay!

Bye.

Ha, I’m not really going anywhere. Well, I am, but it’s got nothing to do with my blog (although really, as far as the blog is concerned, I probably ought to re-introduce myself since I never seem to post anything here). No, the girls and I are leaving for Florida tomorrow. And we are driving. And this should be interesting. Hopefully it will be interesting in a good way, and not that euphemistic “ah… interesting” way people say when they don’t want to come right out and say “damn, that sucks.”

So in planning this trip, which is almost exactly 1000 miles from my doorstep to our destination, I debated a long time about the best mode of travel. I considered flying, which I enjoy about as much as my cat enjoys taking medicine. And I pretty much [and enthusiastically, I might add] eliminated flying right off, because (1) the times were inconvenient, (2) the price was very inconvenient, and (3) I simply am not allowed to check the amount of luggage I need to take. We are staying a week in a condo-style hotel, and I will need a coffee pot and lots of knitting and my big, floppy hat. All of those things are bulky and heavy and would be really really hard to take on an airplane. That would be, uh… interesting.

Plus, we need a car when we get there. I could rent one, but the cost to rent a comparable mini van for ten days was hundreds of dollars. It seemed much better to have my own lovely mini van and just pay for the gas.

Next, I considered the auto train. We did the auto train two years ago and it was fabulous. Unfortunately, lots of other people also seem to think it’s fabulous. Not only was it a lot more expensive on the dates we wanted to travel, it was sold out. Drat.

So we are left with driving or taking the bus. And since taking the bus will not accomplish the goal of having a vehicle down in FL to gallavant around in (and pick people up at airports and such in, which will be occurring at least twice), we are driving.

I am driving, since my children are not quite tall enough to do so yet.

I like to drive, so this is not a big deal. I have driven to FL twice before, once with DH and the kids and once with my mom and the kids. I did about half the driving with DH and all of the driving with my mom. So I am an expert driver. No, really, I am. I have a commercial driver’s license with passenger endorsement. I might give that license up this year when I need to renew and fill out some new form that the state is requiring, though. But fortunately, a commercial driver’s license with or without passenger endorsement is not necessary to operate a mini van, so we should be okay with just a regular old driver’s license.

The situation that I am currently facing is the Mother’s Corollary to Parkinson’s Law, which pretty much states that

The amount of luggage/toys/clothing required for a trip expands to fill the amount of space available in one’s mini van.

I am really trying not to overpack. And in the way of clothing and toiletries, I have done a marvelous job. But I also have a large box of kitchen items, because I can’t bear the thought of not having a good knife or a good cook pot or- heaven forbid- a decent coffee pot for an entire week. And if you have those things, then you must have accessories, like spices and a vegetable peeler. It’s a downward spiral into kitchen insanity if you really start anticipating all the things you might need and all the things that the hotel’s kitchen probably won’t have. I’m trying hard to breathe deeply and focus on the fact that all we are likely to eat at our hotel is cold cereal for breakfast and salads for lunch, but it’s hard not to add the food processor and stand mixer to the packing pile.

Happily, though, we have audio books ready to listen to and maps to follow and lots of munchies (healthy, of course) to eat along the way, so as long as the suitcase with my contact lenses makes it into the van, we can probably replace just about anything else we happen to forget. So I’m not going to worry much more about it, other than to cross off the things on my to-do list.

It’s something of a long list, but that’s another blog post. Bye!

It’s Going To Be A Good Day

I love a prophetic breakfast.

Random Dream Sequence

Last night I had the strangest dream (and yes, I do believe those are song lyrics.) I rode my bike to my grandmother’s house. Already you know this is a dream because my grandma lives on the west side of town, and there’s no way in hell I could ride my bike all the way over there. In fact, this dream conveniently began with me pulling into grandma’s driveway, so even when unconscious, I know my limitations. I parked my bike against the hose reel in front of her house. Some vague dream-like things happened, most of which I can’t remember now, but what really stood out this morning as I lifted my head groggily from a drool-soaked pillow was looking for soccer shirts and my missing son (I do not have a son, by the way), who was still alone at the mall at 6:10 pm on a Sunday. He was 4 and wanted to be independent so I gave him two uncashed checks and sent him on his way, thinking he would chicken out and come back. He called my bluff, though, and spent the afternoon wandering around the arcade and a glasswares sale at Macy’s. Now it’s become a nightmare, because I really have nothing good to say about Macy’s, yet I had to spend a considerable part of my sleeping hours walking through a dream version of the store looking for my nonexistent child. During a glasswares sale, nonetheless.

At some point, my husband showed up to grandma’s in a tiny scooter that looked like a toy truck, and wanted us to drive that over to the mall to find the boy. I asked him how on earth he thought we would fit a child in the back of this scooter, let alone our big butts. Subconsciously (how can it be subconscious in a dream? Is there a sub-subconscious?) I think I felt he was being pessimistic about our chances of finding “Austin”. I’m sure claustrophobia never entered into the picture.

The police had found Austin, fortunately, though he was charged with check fraud since I forgot to sign the checks over to him and he got some kind lady to do it instead so he could get fries. Then I was back at grandma’s, where my bike was still hanging on the hose reel but it had been completely stripped by some neighborhood hoodlums (probably led by my son).

I then panicked, realizing the girls were supposed to be at a soccer game, and started hunting for their uniforms. They eventually turned up in a strange mini-refrigerator in my grandma’s bedroom. O4 didn’t want to wear hers because it was frozen stiff and she couldn’t move in it.

I have no idea what all of this means.  All I can say is, Austin, you’d better get mommy’s money back.

Randomness and Pudding

It’s the Ides of March, but forget all that blather about being wary today: winter’s finally ebbing.  It’s hanging on, but steadily losing steam.  Now that our 2+ feet of snow has melted, there are perky springy buds all over the place, and zillions of daffodil shoots poking up everywhere    My neighbor claims she planted over 700 bulbs in her garden last fall.  That will be a brilliant display, and you can bet there will be me and every other person in the neighborhood with a camera standing in the street taking photos once they finally bloom.

I made rice pudding today.  Been craving it since last week, when a friend and I went to some cute dinky diner for supper.  Rice pudding was on the menu, but they were sold out.  Damn.  I hadn’t particularly wanted any til they said it was all gone, and now it’s all I can do not to eat the entire pot here at one sitting.

I’ve been knitting like a fiend, sometimes working on socks but mostly doing a shawl that I decided, last-minute, would be nice to have for an early April wedding.  I want to finish it while the motivation lasts.  That window of opportunity is dangerously small.  Fortunately, so is the amount of knitting left to go on it.

Our garden seeds arrived over the weekend, and S-almost-6 and I spent a lovely afternoon planting some of them in peat pots.  We sorted the seed packets into piles of “start inside weeks early” and “sow directly after all danger of frost has passed”.  There’s one small pile for peas, because those get sown outside but early.  They’re rebels, those peas.

Finally, my husband had a job interview in another state.  I have no freaking clue what is going to happen with that.  The interview went very well, they called back a few days later to ask him some followup questions about salary, and then… nothing.  Two weeks have now passed. He’s adopted the “just forget about it and act as if we’re going to die here” attitude.  I’m not that placid, unfortunately.  I just want to know, one way or the other, what the hell is going on.

Guess I’ll just have some more rice pudding while we wait.

Creamy Rice Pudding

• 1 1/2 cups cooked white rice
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups milk, divided
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 3/4 – 1 cup raisins
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 T butter

Combine cooked rice, sugar, salt and 1 1/2 cups of the milk in a saucepan.  Heat on medium flame until thick and creamy, about 15-20 minutes.  Stir regularly to prevent milk from scorching.  Combine 1/2 cup milk, egg, and raisins and pour into rice mixture.  Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and butter, and let cool slightly.  Pudding will thicken as it cools.  Serve while still warm.

and buds and green all over the place.

On Being Cold

It’s cold here. I mean cold. Okay so if you are reading this from northern Canada, or possibly the South Pole, you might look at my measly 21 degrees F (-5 C) with something of a sneer.  But really, when I tell you it’s cold I know what I’m talking about.  It’s freezing.  Below freezing, even.  This sucks. And it’s not going to get better anytime soon.

Mobile Weather Information | En Español Last Update: 1:03 pm EST Jan 4, 2010 Forecast Valid: 3pm EST Jan 4, 2010-6pm EST Jan 10, 2010

This Afternoon Snow Hi 23 °F

Tonight Snow Lo 16 °F

Tuesday Snow Hi 25 °F

Tuesday Night Chance Snow Lo 17 °F

Wednesday Slight Chc Snow Hi 27 °F

Wednesday Night Mostly Cloudy Lo 14 °F

Thursday Chance Snow Hi 22 °F

Thursday Night Snow Likely Lo 12 °F

Friday Chance Snow Hi 22 °F

I’m not sure why the cold has started bothering me the last few years. Winter has always been one of my favorite times of the year. I get to wear baggy clothes, drink lots of hot beverages and hide in my house for days on end. This is my kind of thing.  But maybe I’m venturing into that stage of life where cold is no longer fun. I’m starting to see the reason the snowbirds flee to Florida and points south when the flakes start to fly.

At least the days are getting longer. Summer, maybe you are not my enemy after all.

The Beginning-Again Ritual

Yep, it’s a new year.  I was in the grocery store today and, while the candy aisle was noticeably empty, I could barely get through the produce department’s enormous shopping-cart traffic jam.  Everyone had cases of diet soda, fresh vegetables, “lite” commercial products, and cartons of yogurt in their buggies.  At the checkout, I noticed very few cookies or chips, but saw lots of healthy and pseudo-healthy things being rung up.   There were coupons everywhere for diet, low-fat, fat-free, sugar-free and whole-grain products.  I think several people were wearing track suits.

Now I am not going to be snide here, because I’ll freely admit that my own shopping cart – which usually carries pretty healthy products anyway – was loaded up with some ambitious quantities of fresh produce.   I have enough spinach and romaine to make salads for a week (which is about how long this conscious-eating effort will likely last).   I also parked at the end of the parking lot so I’d have to walk some extra steps.

Why do we find the new year so inspirational for trying new things, making healthy improvements to our lifestyle and just generally ‘starting over’?  What is it about a fresh calendar year that motivates us to do things we ought to be doing all along?

And most importantly, why does the honeymoon end so quickly?

Advent Calendar Day 1

We started using our Advent Calendar today and the girls just loved it.  S5 read a little poem I wrote, and O3 placed the star on today’s pocket.  Here’s what she read:

It’s the first of December!

Time to count down

to the day when old Santa

rolls into town.

Each number you see

represents one more day

closer to Christmas

and the big holiday!

So place the gold star

on pocket Number One.

Look inside for a treat,

then the countdown’s begun!

There were two little chocolates in the pocket, which the girls devoured.  They are really excited about tomorrow already.  I may have created a monster here!  How will I come up with 23 more bits of verse?  Better get working…

 

CSA Week 10

Here is the CSA box for this week:

As you can see, it includes:

• 4 ears of corn
• 2 small tomatoes
• a large white onion
• a large red onion
• a summer squash
• a head of cabbage
• a bunch of kale
• a green pepper
• two hot peppers

So far, I have used up everything from last week’s box except the celery, which I put in a freezer bag with other veggie bits for stock. Oh, and there is one potato left. But I’m going to cook it up with my own recent harvest, and we’ll have them with dinner tonight.