As if Julia Child wasn't cool enough, she somehow manages to up the ante .

I bet Anthony Bourdain wishes he had been a spy. Or maybe he was...or is! *gasp* I'd better stop writing this entry now, I'm starting to fear for my safety.

Posted by Jenn at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the past, I haven't paid much attention to the Olympics, but every night I've found myself glued to the television, rooting for the men's swimming team. Not just the USA team, sometimes the italian team too. I should also note that my most vocal rooting occurs after the race during the slow motion recaps. Dave, because he's a very generous husband (who happens to really enjoy the women's gymnastics, particularly the floor routines), has started coming to get me whenever the men's swimming starts. He's the best.

Posted by Jenn at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

My dad's allergic to Flash. Or dust. Or Pennsylvania. Since he's coming to visit next week (and he's bringing my mom! What a guy!), it was time to hire someone to come and deep clean our rug and couch. Since we had our heating ducts suctioned clean this past Winter or Spring or whenever it was, I've been looking forward to having the rug and couch done too because hooray for clean and (mostly, hopefully) allergen free! It was hard waiting until just before my parents were due to arrive, especially since the last two months I've gotten sniffly while crashing out on the couch, but I somehow persevered. The guy doing the cleaning showed me the water after he finished the couch and it was *so* dirty. It made me giddy watching it all wash down the drain. So hopefully this'll help and my dad won't be extra-sniffly. See how much I love him?

I stumbled across a cake disaster website last week which my friend Mel happened to forward to me today which was enough of a reason for me to feel like posting it here. It's called cake wrecks. They're all...interesting. However, they're cake, so I'd still eat them. Except for the bound foot cake. That one was gross.

Through an entry on that site I found The "Blog" of "unnecessary" Quotation Marks which has some very funny stuff on it.

That's all the news from over here.

Posted by Jenn at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry worked a little math magic while we were visiting my parents.

Henry happens to know that a certain someone, we'll call him "Grandpa", hordes his beloved root beer popsicles so that he can share them with his grandson whenever said grandson comes to visit. This may not seem like a big deal, but it requires the consumption of blue raspberry and the ever-unappetizing banana flavors of popsicle, because you can't just buy root beer flavor alone, you have to buy the mixed bag. Life always requires a sacrifice of some sort, you know?

Anyway, Henry's Grammy made him spaghetti and meatballs for our first night back in Boston. Henry ate one or two bites, squirmed a lot, ate another one or two bites, then finally made a break for the freezer, which he tore open, quickly locating the bag of popsicles. We told him he couldn't have any until he ate more of his dinner, so he reluctantly returned to his chair where he sat sort of still but not really, all the while looking longingly at the freezer. After about a half an hour of trying to get him to eat, my mom told him he could have a popsicle if he had three more bites of meatball. She held up three fingers, which Henry studied very closely. Finally he got off his chair, pushed down two of her fingers (and her thumb, which was slightly sticking out; he didn't want there to be any confusion), and said "Henry have a popsicle after one more bite of meatball."

We agreed to his terms. What choice did we have? He used math against us!

Posted by Jenn at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After experiencing the bi-monthly angst that always accompanies paying our bills (this month being extra-angsty because of car insurance and municipal bills), I once again made a vow to cease and desist with the spending of money on things we don't need.

Then I went ahead and purchased the soundtrack for the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd. I could make an argument that I absolutely needed to buy this album, but it would be a weak one and you all would be shaking your heads and feeling a little embarrassed for me. You probably do that anyway, so why add fuel to the fire.

Fine. Since I'm making confessions, I may as well also confess that I bought "Balls of Fury" while at Target today. Terry Crews' pecs deserve an Oscar nomination for their work in that movie. What oh what will Dave and I do tonight to pass the time?

Posted by Jenn at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Henry and I are fast approaching the end of our week-long vacation. On Thursday, after his nap and while on the way to the bathroom, Henry suddenly stopped and asked "Where's Daddy?" It took him five days but he did eventually realize there was a gaping hole in his life that could only be filled by the presence of his Daddy.

We've been extremely busy, riding lots of trains, doing some toy shopping, running up to Salem, and riding more trains. Today I left Henry in the hands of his Grandparents so I could head off to do some shopping on my own. I bought some clothes, a book (the first book I've ever purchased based purely on the author's good looks), a chai latte, and a Hawaiian crêpe. I thoroughly enjoyed leisurely browsing through stores that I had noticed on previous trips but knew I couldn't fully appreciate with a toddler in tow.

We're heading back to the wilds of central Pennsylvania on Monday. Tomorrow we're going to try and squeeze in as much fun as can possibly be had on the last day of a vacation.

Dave, your days as a bachelor are almost up, so get in all the Doom you can, because we're coming home...

Posted by Jenn at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today I clogged Megan's Mom's toilet. Then I died of embarrassment. It's too bad I can never come here again because it's really, really nice.

Tomorrow Henry and I are getting dumped on the doorstep of dropped off at my parents' house. I waited until this evening to tell Henry we would be seeing them on this trip. He's now extra super duper incredibly excited. I think Leo's Grandpa Bill will be equally excited to see him go because this evening every three minutes Henry would drop what he was doing to go up to Grandpa Bill and say "Hey, hey! Whatcha doin' Bill? Hey! Whatcha doin'?" and he wouldn't stop until he would get an answer. I finally had to ban him from the room Bill was in but that didn't stop him from following him down the hall and into his bedroom.

I'm starting to get the distinct impression we're not fun guests to have in your house.

Also, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese crackers = Heaven in a box.

Posted by Jenn at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Megan and I are taking the kids and getting out of dodge for the week. We're heading up to New Hampshire for a few days and then Henry and I will go down to Boston on Tuesday to spend the rest of the week eating all of my parents' food and hopefully spending all of their money. I'm just kidding! About the spending all of their money part, that is. No, wait, I'm kidding about eating all of their food. No, wait, I'm not kidding about anything at all.

Henry's looking forward to stopping at his Great-Grandma Ethel's house on the way to NH tomorrow because she has not only a piano, but also an organ. It doesn't even matter that the organ doesn't work, it's just as awesome anyway because it has two whole rows of keys, plus a ton of pedals and levers. She also has a stream with lots of rocks and she always has cake ready for his consumption. We're going to have to pry his fingers from her doorjamb in order to get him to leave.

Henry's also looking forward to riding lots of escalators with his Grammy and Grandpa. In fact, on Thursday when we asked him what he did that day, he said "Rode the escalators with Grammy and Grandpa!" Poor confused kid. And yet, that's how much of an impression riding the escalators made.

Anyway, I don't know how much posting I'll be doing while I'm gone, not that I've been doing much at all anyway, but I will be taking lots of pictures with my brand-spanking new awesome camera, so there should be lots to see when I get back.

Posted by Jenn at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Way back in 2002 I ordered a pillow kit from Arts and Crafts Period Textiles. If I wasn't able to have an Arts and Crafts bungalow complete with ridiculously expensive Stickley pieces and an inglenook, I was at least going to have a pillow. I didn't know how to embroider but a good friend of my mom's did, so after a spending a very informative afternoon with her, I was on my way. A few weeks before we moved from Salem to Pennsylvania, I was up late one night madly embroidering away so my pillow would be done in time for a lesson in blocking fabric (I also learned how to make a killer guacamole because my mom's friend also happens to be an amazing cook), and when I left her house that day, all I had left to do was let the fabric dry, buy a pillow form, and sew that baby together.

And for the next five years that's still all I had to do. Two weeks ago I bought a pillow form and a zipper. A week ago I realized that although I put a zipper in my cart the week before, it never actually made it onto my receipt or into my bag, so I went back and really did buy a zipper. This afternoon I sat down and put the thing together:

I'm really happy with the results.

I'm not going to tell you how after I put in the zipper I went ahead and sewed the rest of the square shut because, hey, there's a zipper there. It wasn't until I cut the thread that I realized it probably would have been a good idea to unzip the zipper before sewing the rest of the pillow square shut. After some finagling I managed to get it open, but I felt incredibly silly the whole time I was messing with it. But, again, I'm not going to tell you about that.

Posted by Jenn at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While shopping at a toy store over the weekend, Dave and I came across this bargain:

A whole penny off the original price! WOW!!!

I'll give you one guess what Henry's getting for his birthday...

Posted by Jenn at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)