Tales of a Shoebox Princess

It rained last night, so both the garden and lawn have had a good, thorough watering. Matt's homemade rain gauge registered over two inches of water just overnight. In other garden news, I have baby purple beans on some of the plants! So the record: With Kate, EJ, and Paul gone, Hayley away at girls' camp and Matt at a friend's house for an overnighter last night, this marks the first time EVER in the Evans household that a batch of chocolate chip cookies, make by Jim on Sunday evening, has lasted until TUESDAY evening--and there are still cookies left! Cookies! Cookies for dinner!

Did you know I have two 6-packs of Hershey bars in my sewing room? They are right out in the open and in easy reach. I know they are there too. This isn't like last time when I forgot I had them. I bought these two 6-packs to make oatmeal cookies for Christmas, but I ran out of time (besides Dave said he'd bring them to the dinner we had on Christmas). So now the Hershey bars are just...sitting there. I'm amazed at my will power. I've only eaten two bars, one a day yesterday and the day before. This newfound fortitude and resistance deserves a celebration. Break out the Hershey bars! (Also: OJ starts college in less than a week. We leave in two days to take him out there. To quote a niece of mine, this is mind-bottling.)

First of all, happy anniversary to me. And to Jim. Being back in CA sort of erases the 22 years of marriage. We spent yesterday in the town (San Luis Obispo) where we spent our first and second anniversary, and where we welcomed our first child. We visited the two apartments we lived in--not much has changed so I felt almost like my 21-year-old self again while we walked around. We checked out Pismo Beach and Morro Bay while we were down on the central coast. Not much has changed in either place. The ocean still looks the same, and is just as wet. And it has the same clarifying effect on my brain. I walked down to the beach in Pismo and felt instantly calmed by the white noise of the waves. I rolled up my pant legs and waded in a few feet. The water was chilly, but not as cold as I thought it would have been for a November day. I could see surfers in their wetsuits by the pier and an old man with his metal detector digging in the sand. I wanted to stay there for hours. Maybe ev...

An assortment of pictures from Mom's annual Saturday Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt (in which there are always WAY too many candy-filled plastic eggs) The table decor: Mike shows me a new pair of pants. Jake made great food. Poached eggs on hash was the main feature. Some boys get ready to dig in. But Vi prefers apron strings. The kids' table Vi and Grandma Owen had fun with a new toy he found. Annie found some dried flowers Mimi climbs the railing. And the egg hunt is on! Annie finds one to add to her already full bucket. Maya looks for eggs. Owen finds an egg

That's what we called the mint M&Ms that I put on people's plates last night for St. Patty's day. See? We also have mint Hershey's Kisses and Rolos for the treasure. Corny and silly, but the kids enjoyed it. So did I. See Paul's face? Click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see the expression in more detail. He's never been photogenic. He always has a scowl on. Notice how he is stacking his Rolos. He built a little fort out of candy as we were getting ready to eat. Hayley is jiggling the jello and wishing she could dive right in. This is a better vantage for full food viewing. I'm not any sort of Martha Stewart; my table settings are usually haphazard and messy. But if I were to go all out and make everything look just right, I'd be spending several hours placing things in just the right spaces and then it would take the kids mere nanoseconds to destroy the fine table and they wouldn't have noticed how nice it was in the first ...

Why is it that I'll tear apart a room to find a stray M&M, but I can have 15 pounds of chocolate chips in the pantry (it's true--I weighed them) and not eat a single one of them? And I know they are there. I see them every day. The trick with chocolate chips is keeping the rest of the family out of them so we can save them for brownies and cookies, both of which I love with all my heart and stomach, and can (and will) eat whole pallets-full. But not an unprocessed chocolate chip. Plain chocolate chips=meh.

Valentine's day is over--whew! Those treasure hunts are taxing, and I made my family late for church. I said I wasn't going to give out the treasure hunt quiz before church, but I guess I lied to myself. I couldn't resist starting the kids on the treasure hunt. Then I wrenched my back and I didn't go to church and everyone else was late. Next year I think I will start recycling treasure hunt puzzles from years past. I hope it will save some time and reduce the craziness that I suffer through just to give the kids each about $3 worth of chocolate. And next year, perhaps the number of children participating will be whittled down to three. Hopefully Other Jim will be at college. It was fun to watch the kids puzzle over the quiz questions. The quotes from their early years had them laughing and guessing completely wrong! (and I'm a bit sad that no one tried to guess who said what in my post from Sunday. Oh well, I'll eat the chocolate myself! That will surely c...

I've been listening to Pierre Lunaire while reading excerpts of Kafka, Eliot, and Joyce. I feel like a cubist painting: disjointed, disturbed, and distanced (I'm "dis"ed). Don't try this at home; only trained professional Humanities experts can handle this type of sensory psych-out. It's a non-drug user's acid trip. I think the only thing that saved my brain through that experience was that I was eating good, wholesome, American chocolate, which kept me grounded in the non-surreal world of my dining room. Having children around helps too, but the house was empty save for me and the two cats (who were no help at all); everyone else was at church. So I had no one around to break the brain-binding spell of modernist literature and unworldly music by hollering, "Mom, I need help making Paul Bunyan's dental floss!"* ~floats away on clouds of gray German poetry, giant bugs, and Hollow Men~ Freakout. *More on that in a future post, provided I ...

I've been having a somewhat wretched day (in comparison to days that I've had before. Not in comparison to, say, the people who live in Haiti. Must remember to count my blessings and pray that some of my blessings be redistributed among the Haitians, maybe even some of my monetary good fortune too). While moping about the house with frowns and tears threatening to tattoo themselves to my face, I had to check on some grocery supplies to compile my list for shopping. I noticed I had small marshmallows. Those will be good for a craft for fake child tomorrow. I peered further into the recesses of the marshmallow shelf and noticed a brown package. Hershey bars. 2 6-packs. !!! (squeal and dance of joy!) I don't remember buying them and I don't remember hiding them from myself. They are precious as gold today when I needed a pick-me-up and the other sources of good cheer in the house had neglected their duty. I nearly cried. Thank you, parallel universe me who hid the ch...

Yesterday Paul was supposed to run at a cross country meet at his school. Many of the parents were volunteering as guides to help the kids stay on the course and I was one of them. I had fake child for the afternoon too so she was going to sit with me and provide guidance as well. However, the weather chose not to cooperate. It rained all day and the wind blew and the temperature dropped below the 50 degree mark. I got out the long underwear and bought a new umbrella (ours have disappeared. I think they've caught the socks in the laundry syndrome). I fixed hot cocoa and filled the thermos--nearly jumping with joy--I was looking forward to sitting outside in the October chill with a goodly supply of a hot beverage. But we got there right as a lightning bolt electrified the sky and the meet was canceled. They would have let the kids run in the rain, but if there is one lick of lightning, it's off. So I didn't get to see Paul run. But we sat at home drinking hot cocoa ...

So I was tagged by Bessie and I'm supposed to list 6 quirks. But how do I know if what I do is a quirk? Aren't quirks actions or behaviors that the quirkee thinks is normal but other people find different (maybe even annoying)? All's I'm sayin' is that my list of my own personal quirks might be quite different than what those around me would say are my quirks. OK, so keep in mind I don't find these things that I do weird at all, I just find that the majority of other people don't do them. 1. Ruffle the pages of books I'm reading. I am told that this is weird and irritating. And it wrecks the book. Sorry, but I can't help it. 2. Playing with my wedding ring and engagement ring. I take them off and put them on other fingers (this is why I can't have my rings be tight on my fingers). Sometimes I put the wedding band on the tip of my nose. I get bored easily and my rings are my toys. 3. Do rituals count? Rituals like eating M & Ms ...

The sewing room gets emptier and emptier. I needed to detach the shelf from the wall--it's a tipsy shelf and so we had to secure it with a few screws. I mentioned that some unscrewing had to be done and Jim was down there in a flash with his screwdriver before I had time to say, "Where do you keep the screwdrivers so I can do this myself?" Now I can see all the crud and junk on the floor of the sewing room. I want a giant vacuum attachment that will suck all the detritus, big and small, directly into a garbage so I don't have to injure my back by bending over for half an hour while I pick scraps of paper and fabric, canned chicken labels, and CHOCOLATE CHIPS up off the floor. Notice that I typed CHOCOLATE CHIPS in all caps. I do not eat raw chocolate chips. I repeat, I do not eat raw chocolate chips. I prefer them in a cookie dough. Even then, I prefer the raw cookie dough. SOME PEOPLE in my house have been invading the choc chip bags in my food storage and le...

Did most of it. I baked the cake, which is now in the freezer. Jimmy was a big help--he mixed up two of the cake mixes (I used three total). Here is a picture of him making a mix. Katie was also a big help. She made 48 chocolate cupcakes. 48 white cupcakes still need to be made. I'll probably do those tomorrow morning. I spent the rest of the day hunting down Katie's school pictures. That is WAY harder than it sounds. I didn't get really organized about keeping pictures and labeling pictures until she was probably in 4th grade. Anyway, most of the pictures were where I thought they'd be, but a few had gone "walkabout" and didn't seem to want to be found. One is still AWOL--her kindergarten picture. I have a small one in her baby book, so if I'm in dire need, I will use that. OH, I didn't spend ALL my time looking for pictures! I forgot--while the cake was baking, I played Froggy Farkle with Katie, Jimmy and Paul. I know you want to see...

We've adopted! Meet "Little Red Rider in the Hood": This is what Jim went to California for. It's a little truck with a stick shift (which means I will not be driving it. Me 'n stick shifts do not get along. Stick shifts talk crazy talk) and a topper on the bed, which means we will NOT be moving your piano. The "boys" arrived yesterday about 1 p.m. Jim Sr. immediately unpacked the traditional gift of See's chocolates, which I was waiting for with ants in my pants. He always brings See's chocolate and butterscotch lollypops (spelled like that on the box) for the kids and so they've been walking around with paper sticks hanging out of their mouths looking like they are wannabe smokers. But I guess suckers are "hip" right now. Or in today's lingo, "tight." Jim took lots o' pictures and I have to go through them all and decide which ones to post here. Aren't you all so lucky? Vacation slides! Jim never cot...

1. Have I done "Ten Things" recently? What do I mean by recent? This blog is fairly recent in its beginning, so anything in it could be considered recent, really. So the question is moot. It has been done "recently" but I'm going to do another "Ten Things" post. 2. Oooh, debating the meaning of "recent" took up the first spot. Now really, it's only "Nine Things." Ummm...or even "Eight Things" since I've used up the #2 slot whining about using up one of the slots on something utterly meaningless (or two of the slots). 3. Jimmy has a job interview at a sandwich place. He's very excited. 4. Paul came in tied-for-second in the mile run at his track meet yesterday. He can't remember how many participated, but he said there were at least 5 schools represented. And the top three in the mile were all from his school. His friend, MD, came in "way first" by half a minute. Apparently MD is wick...

I got a hug from Stephenie Meyer! I was the only one out of the WHOLE crowd who got a hug! And she shook hands with Katie and Jimmy! That too was out of the ordinary! The reason I got a hug was because Stephenie and I actually knew of each other's existence before she published her book, although we had never met in person. I thank the interweb for making acquaintance without face-to-face meetings possible! When I told her who I was, she got up and came around the table for the hug. I was totally surprised by that and so forgot to give her the NCCTs* I brought. Sorry, Stephenie! Anyway, on to a few pictures. Maybe even a video in a later post!!! Q and A session--She was personable, funny, and at ease; and she seemed to connect with the crowd. She was gracious to everyone who came to see her. Her hair, by the way, is AWESOME. Katie (in the green shirt) and Jimmy (behind katie in the blue baseball cap with yellow piping) meeting Stephenie. *Nestle's Creamy Caramel Chocol...

Because sometimes, during an intense craving for chocolate, you just might find a couple of stray Nestle's Creamy Caramel Treasures that must have dropped out of the last bag you bought two weeks ago into the pile of mostly clean clothes by the bed for you to find later. If the room had been CLEAN, you would have eaten them immediately after they dropped onto the floor. This way, they were hidden until such time as you might have needed a pick-me-up but didn't have time to go to the store. Two lost Treasures were enough to tide you for the moment!