Just add one tablespoon of molasses to one cup of sugar, mix until molasses is fully assimilated (just like we hopefully will be when robots take over the world), and then carry on your merry little way. I swear, I'm never going to buy brown sugar again. The added benefit is that you get to immerse yourself in the redolent bouquet of the molasses, a scent that invokes gingerbread and autumn and always makes me sigh contentedly.

Since you can repin other people's pins, some things take on a life of their own. One of the kid crafts that spread like wild-fire, hopping from board to board, were glitter jars. Their purported purpose was to be used as time-out jars: sit your kid in the corner, shake the jar, and tell them they can come off of time-out when all of the glitter has resettled to the bottom. The idea is watching the glitter settle is meditative, like watching fish swim, and when your ornery three-year old rejoins the fun, he/she will have a whole new outlook on life. Some people don't believe in time-out, but they do believe in the jars, so while these glitter jars have taken on less negative titles and names, the hoped-for end result is the same: calmer kids.

A couple of weeks ago, Dave left us for the weekend to fly down to the Fort Worth/Dallas area for a conference on leadership. (Poor Dave. It was, apparently, as boring as it sounds.) I had a whole weekend to fill, which was a fairly daunting prospect because once the weekend hits, I get to kick back a bit because I have a full-time partner in parenting crime by my side, which I totally appreciate and enjoy and look forward to. I remembered the glitter jar craft and thought Henry and Holly might get a kick out of it. They really enjoyed putting them together. (Here are the directions we used.) Holly put the blue food coloring in hers all by herself, which explains how dark it is, but which works really well with the different shades of blue glitter, and Henry's is entirely his own creation. It was inspired by tornadoes. Or volcanoes. Or maybe both.

Since then, they haven't play with them much. I, however, think they're awesome. I shake them all the time. They're on the shelf above our sink so I can watch them while I'm doing dishes. Actually, this might explain why Henry and Holly never play with them; I've moved them completely out of their reach. Hmmmm...

After the flurry of activity of getting Henry off to school and Dave off to work subsided, it quickly became clear that what we had was a house full of girls who were completely willing to fly off the emotional handle at a moment's notice. Everyone was yawning, and hitting or being hit, and crying or gleefully making the other cry. There was even hair pulling. It was madness. I figured out early on that I couldn't leave Holly and her friend alone because as soon as I was gone, all hell would break loose. In the end, we assuaged our troubled souls with snacks, breakfast, more snacks, and finally, after trying for a while to play nice with each other, settled on the couch for some Cat in the Hat. Then more snacks, more trying to play nicely, then back to the couch for Shaun the Sheep. There may have even been bowls full of whipped cream, eaten plain, with spoons.

I guess some days are just like that.

The other morning I noticed (again) that, in an attempt to accomplish four different tasks, I was running from room to room doing a little of each but accomplishing nothing except getting a little sweaty and a lot crazed. I forced myself to slow down, pick one thing and stick with it until the end. I can't believe that I've gotten to the point where I have to make a conscious effort to not only take the laundry out of the dryer but to also then fold the clothes. Or to not get completely side-tracked from the living room by a quick jaunt to the kitchen to put something away. Plus, you know those jokes about going into a room to get something only to have forgotten what it was you went in for? I can take that one step further: I've gone into a room to get something, then forgotten that I went there with anything specific in mind, only to remember half an hour later. It's a bit of a frightening feeling.

So, I've decided that I'm going to relearn the skill of focusing by forcing myself to really be present and conscious with everything I'm doing and hopefully it will once again become second nature. I think I'm going to need a schedule.

packing
cleaning
wrapping

Three little words, and yet they're big, seemingly insurmountable jobs, especially when it's 10:11 at night and you're leaving first(ish) thing in the AM.

Today was a big day full of excitement and baking and oil changes and manic ends-weaving (which I still haven't finished). It was so much that my battery completely died at 5:30 (that metaphor was for you, Jocelyn) and while I crawled up the stairs and into bed to catch a second wind, Dave wrangled the kids into the car and took them out to eat. He even brought me dinner. I didn't think I slept but I missed two calls and three texts and my phone was right next to me on my nightstand.

Tomorrow morning we point the car in a southerly direction and head to Virginia for Christmas where I will probably be doing the above-mentioned wrapping. My dear friend's parents are going to make use of our house while we're gone, which is great. I often feel sad that we deck the house and the tree out for Christmas, but we've never actually had a chance to plug the lights in on the big day itself. It'll be nice to know our new pad won't be lonesome on the big day. Silly, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I hope you have a very cozy, and very Merry Christmas, wherever you are...

Meanwhile, I've been wrestling with a cough for the last two weeks and finally decided to go see a doctor about it this morning. I left his office with a prescription for antibiotics. I later told Dave that once I had the validation that I am actually sick, I finally admitted to myself that for the past two weeks I really haven't been feeling all that great, that in fact, I've been maybe feeling sort of lousy but have been powering through it. Denial is my gift. I have a better understanding of what Dave does to survive the semester and why he gets sick as soon as classes end. Oh, and, he's crazy. I'm not though, I'm hopped up on antibiotics! Woohoo!

Would someone like to come over and give my dog a bath? She stinks.

The kids handled the upheaval pretty well. Holly seemingly couldn't have cared less. Henry was a bit concerned about the whole venture, sometimes asking why, if we liked our old house so much, we were bothering to move in the first place. The Friday of the closing, we dropped our keys off at the old house before bringing Henry to school and when I happened to look in the rearview mirror at him, he was silently crying. It made Dave and I pause for a moment to really realize the momentousness of the occasion for all of us. We'd been running the whole week on adrenalin and we managed to forget we were leaving behind a house we really loved and that was perfect for us for a certain time in our lives. We said a more proper good-bye and headed off to our future.

So, fast forward a few weeks and here we are, settled in for the most part. Dave's parents are coming tonight to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, and next Monday we'll be moving everything on the second floor into storage so that an old carpet can be removed and all of the floors can be refinished. We're looking forward to that because then we can really set up our bedrooms and be done with the "moving in" process.

Meanwhile, I can say with great certainty that this is the perfect house for us. I love the way we live in it. It feels really good.

This week is an exciting week involving lots of packing and loading and eventually culminating in a big move to a new house on Friday (unless everything falls apart over the next five or so days which is always a worry because I'm a bit of a fatalist). As if that wasn't exciting enough, Friday also heralds in the arrival of a long-awaited addition to a good friend's family. To sum up, as far as days go, Friday is a big one, so while I can't wait for it to get here, I'm also planning on enjoying the anticipation as much as I can.

Yesterday I baked bread again for the first time since the end of school last June. Summer quickly developed a rhythm all its own, and bread baking was not a part of it at all. Looking back (and down at my waistline) I can see that pie took its place. Pie is summer, bread is fall, winter, and spring.

My pulling out the container that holds our yeast packets was precipitated by a few things. The first is that we decided we really wanted to have grilled cheese for dinner last night and we didn't have a lot of bread left. The second is that it was three days before payday and we're even more broke than usual because in two and a half weeks we're moving to a new house. The endless flow of cash that occurs during the house-buying/selling process is not for the faint of heart, and Dave and I are very faint-hearted when it comes to cash. At least when it's flowing away from us. If it's coming *to* us, well, that's a different story. So out came the flour, and the salt, and the other bits and pieces that go into a good loaf of bread. The day had turned gloomy by the time the two loaves were in the oven and the scent was exactly what was needed to cheer up this cynical girl's heart.

Henry got off the bus, I pulled the loaves out of the oven and onto a cooling rack, then we headed off to have the young man's hair trimmed in preparation for school pictures on Friday. While we were there, a friend texted and invited us over for apple dumplings, which eventually turned into an invite to just come over for dinner. We ran home so I could grab a loaf of still-warm bread. It pleased me greatly that not only were we having an impromptu evening spent with friends, but that we could contribute something to the table as well. It's not often that everything comes together so easily, so I really appreciate it when it does.

I've probably posted a link to it before, but here's the bread recipe I use. It's a great sandwich bread and makes even better toast. Next time I make it, I'm going to try making cinnamon raisin bread with one of the loaves.

Dave's having a very rough day. I'm worried for him. If ever a guy needed a beer...

Holly: "No like-a diaper change...no like-a diaper change...no like-a boo-boo butt...no like-a boo-boo butt...no like-a powder...no like-a powder...no like-a powder! No like-a diaper...no like-a diaper...*sniffle*...NO LIKE-A RAINBOW PANTS! NO LIKE-A MINNIE MOUSE GOWN! NO LIKE-A MINNIE MOUSE GOWN!!!!"

By the end I was trying so hard not to laugh because it was super-cute. Of course, despite the endless stream of complaints, as soon as she popped up from her changing pad, she was thrilled as can be with her bedtime couture and was prancing around the room with glee. She's all girl.

Holly turned two while we were in Boston last week. Two! She got lots of cool presents and a delicious cake, but the thing that has spoken most to her heart is the doll stroller my Aunt got her. She fusses with it all the time, walks Baby to the park, and now knows (far before her time) how frustrating it is to push a stroller on our town's uneven sidewalks. She's a happy little momma.

We're gearing up for Henry's birthday next. On Saturday Dave and his mom will be taking Henry to NYC to go up the Empire State Building, followed by a matinee of Stomp!. Dave's just as excited about it as Henry is. Meanwhile, Henry's actual birthday is the day before school starts, something he tells everyone, but fortunately the import of it doesn't yet bum him out. I expect lots of complaining about it one day, but hopefully we're good for a few more years.

We've had an excellent summer. It's sad to see playgroup talk go from trips to the pool and vacations to dread of the quiet (and for a surprising number of us, depression-inducing) 'burg winters. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to making the most of the rest of the summer and my personal favorite: apple season!