Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Guilt no more Dining

Fifi has sweet n sour "chicken" with an "egg roll."
Buster has barbeque "pork." Yum.
Sweetums has "turkey n gravy", while Truckster will "enjoy" Salisbury "steak."
Superguy has "Chicken Fried 'Pork' " (TM)
Messy Bessy is happy. No dishes!
Of course, it's all completely disgusting. But quick! Guilt no more! You too can be this happy.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Some thoughts about this state

We were JUST about to put away the boots, hats, scarves, and snowpants, when the rain/snowstorm hit two days ago. Previous to that it had been almost 80 degrees, the kids were begging to go outside barefoot, and the sunshine actually felt hot, as opposed to that wan kind in which there is a desperate desire to be warm while disappointing (sort of like Hillary Clinton).

Today we walked around Como Lake, seeing many different interesting dogs, as well as interesting birds, although the people were mostly like us -- wearing hats and gloves, smiling but with red noses.

We are getting a LITTLE BIT GRUMPY. Especially those of us trapped inside a house with frightening large children and not enough tranquilizer darts to go around. I may just use these remaining ones on myself...

Monday, April 21, 2008

Patriots Day



In the great state of Massachusetts, Patriots Day is taken a little more seriously. Today is officially Patriots Day, and the kids have school off and the postmen do not deliver the mail in observation of this great momentous day. Additionally, the men of our fair city of Lexington invest greatly (although, what don't they invest greatly in?) in period costumes of the British Redcoats, colonists (even a few Tories mixed in with the larger bunch), and of course the Royal Irish Artillery (who shoot giant cannons). These gentlemen engage in not just one, but several different battles along the famous Battle Road over the course of the weekend and it is quite remarkable. These guys are not kidding around with their revolutionary war history and neither are the folks in the crowd (I saw a nice couple get in a cussing match with a couple of liberal "Harvard types" because they told their 4 year old son that the red coats were the "bad guys" apparently Harvard hates Bush so much they blame him even for the revolutionary war, which was also for oil). Bad liberal types aside, the spectacle was quite enjoyable.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Some Photos to Make The Rest of You Feel Better

We have a system. It's called Stack It on the Desk.

Yes, they are cute. Now.



And this was only lunchtime.







Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Some of us obsess just a LITTLE too much about food....

OK> So today I spent literally 5 of the 8 hours of my work day looking at food blogs on the Internet. The bosses were all out of the office for most of the day and I had gotten pretty much all my work done (ok, so there is still a massive pile of papers to be shred, but I can't really leave the office when I'm the only one there!), so I had some free time on my hands. I don't even recall now how I hit upon this first food blog, SmittenKitchen, this morning (it's as if it was handed down to me from on high, as the perfect "Pease" woman time-waster!) but wow. It is just pages and pages of little articles with recipes and beautiful, glossy pictures! The first recipe on the page was a gorgeous glamour shot of a lemon blueberry bread. Scroll down, and you see pictures of the ingredients heaped in the bow, and then the beaters stirring them... I know I know, this is terrible and my more prudent and moderate and... less food obsessed female kin and mother (is a mother your kin?) will surely scorn the very notion, as well as the flagrant glamorization of something that they do very often and very well, but without the glossy photos. But, on a (formerly) grey day when you are cooped at your desk, and you know for a fact that you forgot to bake the potatoes you were going to use for tonight's dinner last night, and that you won't be home to your small kitchen to start anything until at least 6;30.... well what a nice escape! Look! If I could have a day off, and I could have some brilliantly sunny and bright kitchen filled with top quality ingredient, I too could turn out these glorious foods! Or maybe it's the other way around - if I could spend time making these recipes, I too would have the beautiful sun-kissed kitchen and top quality ingredients/kitchen tools that she seems to have! But, lest we think that the first food bloggress was some sort of minor food deity, let me correct you - no! She even has a whole archive section devoted to FAILED recipes! Well, that was what sealed the deal. I bookmarked the site, and here is the link for you all to enjoy: http://smittenkitchen.com/
And then, when I had "wasted" about 3.5 hours on that site, I innocently clicked on one (or about 14) of the links the site had, and I stepped out into the wide world of food blogs...

All in all, it was a pretty nice afternoon, although I had to be indoors... and now I feel hungry...

Monday, April 7, 2008

You didn't believe me





The inside isn't much better.

The neighbors must be thrilled!

Guilt no more lawn: we chose the "garbage dump" option when we ordered.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Guilt no more home, part uhnh

Mud.

There are few words to describe the back and side yards of the humble abode of Superguy, Messy Bessy, and their five growing children (Fifi, Champ, Sweetums, Truckster, and Kewpie).

The grass, which came to us five years ago already well on its way to becoming a guilt-no-more lawn, barely held on throughout last summer, and then received what just might have been its death warrant when we decided to park cars on it for the State Fair last August.

When the unseasonable, unreasonable and totally undeserved six inches of heavy wet snow we received on April 1 ("Fools' Day") melted, the children put on shorts and sandals (I kid you not; we're a guilt-no-more family) and went out.

The back hall looked like a joke, and the children were like little cartoon children, smudged and smeared, bare legs blackened, Hollywood guttersnipe faces glowing.

However, the backyard looked like a dump. The ground was soft enough for wonderful holes to be dug, which were dug. There was (and probably still is, I'm not going to go check) a broken wooden chair over by the tree, flattened cardboard boxes strewn around, milk jugs, garden tools, an old bike with training wheels, etc etc. Underneath which, the barely visible grass was swimming in gooey melting mud. The side yard was the same, except without any grass at all.

If I had a camera and knew how to post a photo, I'd do it, except that I'd be too embarrassed.

No one on this block has to worry. The guilt-no-more family lives here!