Seven letter word...

I was all set to rant about my coffee maker but first I must tell you that my husband just put down a seven letter word in Scrabble. Seventy-two points.

It hardly seems worth it to keep playing, but I must. Scrabble continues to be our balm in these stressful times, though a seventy-two point word put down by your spouse does put a bit of grit in that ointment.

Thank you for all of your get well wishes for Lily. I am cultivating a fun little theory about her illness. This theory will be part one in a series I like to call, "On Being An American Cliche".

Part One:

Maybe Lily has swine flu! No, she doesn't have a fever, but I've been doing some internet research. Using my best English Major skills and Google I learned that about 30% of people with swine flu do not have a fever. Her respiratory symptoms are consistent with the swine flu and her general crankiness and whininess are very high indeed.

Resolved: swine flu.

Part Two:

My coffee maker broke and I have no idea how to fix it. I have been loving my Keurig coffee maker for about six months. It's red, it's shiny and it brews a great cup of coffee every single time.

Except for now.

It stopped working today so I did the only thing to be done in this situation. I googled "fix broken keurig". And lo, many many people have had this problem and one person even solved it! Fixing it seemed simple enough. I immediately began taking it apart. I removed all 157 microscopic screws holding the metal bottom on. Then I started clipping all of the plastic fasteners so that I could get to the tube which I needed to clear. This is about when I realized that this project had ceased to be a repair mission and had become war.

Maybe if I'd had a blow torch or a small stick of dynamite I could have pried that thing open, but since I'm just an unarmed liberal I used words, lots of angry words, none of which worked.

So there you have it: I diagnosed my child using the internet, talked to a broken appliance and will surely lose to my husband at Scrabble. Again.

There had better be chocolate in the house.

Shiny Red Recipe and why I am going to hell Part 2...

It's nearly winter here in Boston. The car has been covered in frost the last few mornings and the dogs have been very quick to do their business.

You know that I love this weather and I especially love cooking some of my favorite comfort foods.

I needed some comfort food today because Lily has a cold that will not go away. It started Monday with a little cough. Each day the cough has gotten a little deeper and the nose a little drippier. She's still had plenty of energy until this morning when Lily's whining had reached a tenor that told me that she really wasn't feeling well.

Like most children, when Lily is sick she attaches herself to her mother and whines. Healing can only be achieved if a mother is driven to the brink of insanity.

If Lily follows her usual course of illness she will continue to malinger until Saturday morning when she will suddenly spike a fever and develop an ear infection which will require a special trip to the pediatrician on a weekend. Over the last ten years we have seen the pediatrician on countless Saturday's and Sunday's and at least three Christmas's.

Anyway, in an effort to provide some rich savory sustenance to my sick baby I made French Onion Soup.

It's very easy except for the part where you spend an hour caramelizing the onions.

Ingredients -

½ cup butter
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 loaf French bread
¼ cup parsley, finely chopped
½ cup melted butter
½ lb gruyere cheese, sliced
6 yellow onions, finely sliced

2 quarts beef broth

1/2 cup sherry

Preparation:

Sauté the onions in the butter until they are soft in a 6 quart soup pot over a medium high heat.

When all the steam is gone, the onions will begin to caramelize, so turn the heat down to low and keep stirring them often, until they are dark brown.

Add the parsley, bay leaf, thyme, sherry and broth. Simmer the soup for 45 minutes.

Slice the bread into rounds, which just fit inside your soup bowls, then toast them.

Divide the French onion soup between 6 soup bowls and put a slice of toasted bread and some cheese on top of each one.

Broil until the cheese is golden brown.

It was splendidly delicious. Except that Lily didn't like it and Rebecca would barely taste it.

Since my children refused to properly praise my efforts I decided to prepare some for David and Dan who were working late out in the office.

Remember Dan?

He is such a sweet boy. He's also Jewish and keeps kosher. When I brought out the soup he asked what was in the soup and I assured him that it was kosher.

Since there is no pork or shellfish in the soup I figured, no problem.

I am an idiot.

It was only after I took the bowls back in the house that the fact that the broth was beef and that the cheese was dairy crossed my mind.

I led that sweet boy into the land of unclean traife. The rule of not mixing meat and dairy had been broken and there was no going back.

I apologized and apologized and then apologized again.

Dan was gracious and understanding. He's probably used to shiksa's breaking the rules of the tribe.

So for those keeping track, in addition to swearing at a nun, I have fed traife to a sweet boy who keeps kosher.

I am so getting coal in my stocking this Christmas.

Magic, mayhem and Scrabble!

Have you ever noticed that in most families at least one child is the designated mischief maker?

I bet you can guess who that child is in our house.

I'll give you a hint. She likes the smell of her own farts and spent ten minutes last night running around the house, completely naked except for one of my bras while singing, "I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world! My boobs are plastic! It's fantastic!"

Rebecca would never behave like that. Last year in school the teacher sent a note home to let us know that Rebecca had been too chatty in class that day. David and I had a hard time getting angry, because it was the first time she had ever gotten into even the littlest bit of trouble. We were even a little proud. Our little girl was letting loose!

Like me, Rebecca was born 35. She will spend her childhood and adolescence worrying, planning and considering. She will be gentle with the feelings of her friends. Adults will love her for her enthusiasm and good judgement. Becoming an adult will be a relief- finally she will be old enough to be in the role for which she was born. I understand that sweet girl perfectly.

Lily, as you have probably figured out, is trouble. She's not mean or purposefully disobedient. She just lives in her own crazy little world where everything is funny and she's the star.

Today while Rebecca was busy making sure that all of her webkinz were fed and cared for and reading classics of literature, Lily was in the attic/playroom with her friend A.

I heard giggles and happy sounds so I ignored them.

Yes, I ignored them, which is why when Lily announced at dinner that she and A had put glitter glue in the hair of her American Girl doll I was not entirely surprised.



Luckily it was not actual glue, but glitter makeup so it will come out without too much trouble. Lily kept saying how great it looked and Reader? She had a point.

Meanwhile, Rebecca has been playing a little game called. "Messing with Lily's mind". It goes like this: Lily leaves her beloved Teddy Bear somewhere. Rebecca then moves Teddy to another location and will even set a scene wherein Teddy is engaged in some activity. Rebecca then breathlessly announces to Lily that Teddy is magic.

Lily has fallen for this completely and Rebecca is delighting in creating magic for Lily.


Notice the attention to detail? Teddy is both eating fake food and using glue. On the carpet.

David and I have been ignoring the children the past few evenings because we have become addicted to challenging each other to Scrabble games on our iphones. It's how we are coping with a rather gigantic heap of stress right now.

Some couples fight, some drink- we play Scrabble. Oddly enough, neither of us are particularly competitive about it. We play and focus on something small and concrete, allowing the anxiety of life to disappear.

We have each other, we have our kids and we have 100 letters to arrange and rearrange.

Sometimes it's enough.

Junk!

Now that we are homeschooling I don't get to junk as consistently as I used to.

My usual plan would be to hit the junk shops first thing in the morning before the other shoppers had a chance to come and crowd my space. Now I am shopping whenever the rare opportunity arises, which is how I found myself at Global Thrift on a Monday afternoon.

The girls had a joint playdate with their pals J and K so I dropped them off and headed into Waltham.

I don't know if it's because this economy is so lousy or what, but the junk store pickin's have been slim. I did manage to find a few things though.

This sweet little nightstand was 3.99.


It quickly found it's way into Lily's room.


I also found this daisy blanket. I bet someone's grandmother made this.


I think it will be very cheery on the back of my couch.

This little bowl was so hopeful that for .49 I just had to give it a new home.


In other news about the lousy economy, today I did my own acrylic nail fill. I've never done it myself before but it came out okay. Except for one thing. The deep red color that I picked out of clearance at Walgreens seems to be less "Dignified Russet" and more "Shameless Hussy".

There's nothing sadder than a housewife forced into do it yourself beauty. If you see me reaching for hair dye, please do an intervention.

Why we love Charlie...

Remember Charlie?



He's very cute.

Lily thinks that he is the bees knees.

He's one of our home school buddies. He and Rebecca were classmates before they became fifth grade drop outs.

On Friday, David took Rebecca and Lily to the Museum of Science and met up with Charlie and his mom Amy there.

After loads of fun, Lily rode back with Amy and Charlie.

Lily felt that this was the perfect opportunity to woo Charlie.

First she wore a dress. Lily never wears dresses.

Then she told him that she likes the smell of her own....well, you can guess. But it rhymes with parts.

I can only imagine that he was impressed.

Then she said, "Charlie? I need to tell you something about you."

Pause.

"I have a crush on you," she said.

And this, Reader, is why we love Charlie.

He did not make fake throw-up sounds.

Nor did he pretend to convulse on the floor.

He just accepted her love and said, "That's nice."

Thank you Charlie.

Not only are you are the coolest boy we know, you are also the kindest.

Sloth

Why am I always the parent who gets woken up with news that one of the dogs has had diarrhea in the crate and is covered in poop?

When David and I married, our ketubah contained many promises. Promises to love, respect, honor and cherish. Promises to protect and care for each other.

Nowhere was there anything about hosing down poop encrusted dogs at 7:00 on a Saturday morning.

So now you know how my day started.

Luckily what followed was mostly sloth. Pugsley inspired us.



Forgive the pug privates. He's indecent.

After David and I devoted several hours to playing Scrabble we all ate bacon. It seemed the right thing to do.

Then I tried felting. Guess what? It's kind of boring. It holds none of the thrill of painting a floor or a piece of furniture. You take a wad of wool and turn it into a wad of felt.

After all of that relaxing I started getting a little twitchy. My people have not evolved to relax for more than an hour at a time. The Catholic guilt starts weighing more and more heavily until the only thing that's left to be done is clean the attic.

After an hour amidst the dust, old quilts and a small fortunes worth of American Girl Doll finery my conscience was restored.

It fact, at that point I felt virtuous enough to challenge David to another game of Scrabble.

And reader, though my day began by cleaning dog poop, it ended with me kicking David's butt at Scrabble.

I think I'll move to Australia...

Readers, today was a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

The news was mostly, well, grim.

It wasn't all bad. But plenty was. I really can't talk about it here.

We are all fine and healthy. Our family is strong.

The girls got fresh haircuts and Lily got her ears pierced. Again.

Usually I am a rock.

Today I am a puddle.

I think I'll move to Australia.