Friday bits

- This week it has been so hard to get out of bed in the morning. Bed! So comfortable! I feel like this in the mornings:

I’m hoping for a couple good nights of sleep, ideally of going to bed earlier so I can catch up the right way instead of training myself to sleep later than I am normally able. I have another 4am wakeup for a flight on Wednesday and I have to be able to get my butt out of bed.

- It’s been very rainy this week, which means that we grill like this:

It works out though – we grilled twice this week, once hot dogs and last night we did grilled chicken and grilled Caesar salad (where you grilled the romaine lettuce and the onions too). I think I’m not a big fan of grilled lettuce – it was too limp for me. However, I bought a Caesar vinaigrette by Kraft (which is always BOGO at our grocery) and by golly, it was delicious. I was hesitant because I don’t like Greek dressing – really is Roman general dressing that much different? Yum.

- I go through phases with my work music. For a long time it was 90s, and 80s, and then for a while the Broadway channel got me through the day

But I’m currently obsessed with the Love channel. Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Bread, Poco, Bette Midler … while I’m unfortunately unlikely to hear a break through Warrant Cherry Pie, it’s very soothing and singable for my workday.

- I feel like I’m channeling Kori with all these gifs. For the sleep gif I was looking more for a sloth/chunk one, but this I feel is more Kori:

(new meaning to "Friday bits", yes?)

- I’m thinking of doing a shrimp boil next week a la Heather. We did one when we backyard camped and it was very successful. Although really we just needed the shrimp and sausage because the kids don’t eat potatoes and if there’s shrimp and sausage they’re unlikely to eat corn too. Anything else we can boil that they might eat? I’m also thinking of picking up a bag of clams and steaming them on the grill, which makes me excited but I have no idea if they will eat them. Maybe if I tout them as shrimp relatives?

- I did the baby feet thing, and I’m here to tell you two things: it really works, and if you have eczema it won’t work QUITE as well as it does on other people and will be pretty itchy at first but still. So much better. I just greased up the eczema spots to try to get rid of those so I’m not giving you a picture but I swear. Excellent. If you do it, make sure you soak your feet every night to help the peeling, and rub the dead skin off while it’s in the water. Amazing.

- Spencer is learning how to play chess, and he’s very interested. Daddy’s way of teaching appears to be by creaming him while telling him how he’s creaming him (seriously, who castles on their first game with their six year old?) but Spencer actually took it fairly in stride. He wants to play me next, since I’m not as good. It’s a fairer fight.

- This thing is amazing. My mom bought me one months ago but I thought it was a cheesy gadget and didn’t even take it out of the box until I saw someone else had spiraled a cucumber and I thought “hey, I should try that.” Enter fantastic lunch for this week. This has spiraled zucchini, avocado, garbanzos, feta, Kalamata olives, cilantro, olive oil and lemon juice. It was phenomenal, really. Highly recommend.

- Obligatory photo of the second born – from this morning. Obviously we need to get him bigger pjs, they’re all crops at this point.