Thirty days has September. Hath September? One of those.
Ah, how I love lazy Sunday mornings. I went on a news website to be all worldly and informed and somehow ended up on YouTube watching "Smart Girls Ask Amy" episodes. Amy Poehler giving advice to people? THAT'S AWESOME.
So I still don't know what's going on in the world, but you know what? That's probably for the best because I end up yelling at my monitor a lot.
P.S. Abby had a sleepover Friday night. When you're a teenager and all your friends have iPod Touches, you can put out an APV at like 7 p.m. on Thursday and get a party going in no time flat. So we had a houseful of girls, is what I'm saying. Or four. Whatever. So Saturday morning I made Mickey Mouse waffles with the waffle maker my Aunt Jan gave me as a shower gift like 17 years ago for my "future children." I don't always make waffles, but when I do, they're Mickey Mouse.
THEN. It was National Coffee Day, and our Dutch Bros had all their medium drinks on sale for $1. So I piled everyone into my car and vanilla lattes for all! Decaf because I'm not going to stunt anyone's growth (right, Tim*?), and actually a strawberry smoothie for Johanna because my coffee fiend decided at the last minute that's what she wanted. Alrighty then.
Um, that was enough interaction with the children, so we came home and I tried to read on the deck but it got too hot (!!!) so I read inside instead.
Today: Grocery shopping, laundry, light cleaning. More reading? Perhaps some decluttering. Decluttering is fun.
P.P.S. Johanna is playing Mario Kart and just got first place. She's jacked. But my favorite quote this morning? "I'm solidly in second! I'm in solid secon... oh."
Pointless list time!
Books read:
You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap) by Tammy Strobel. Tammy writes the Rowdy Kittens blog, which I love and adore, so knew that this book would probably be awesome. And it is. Tammy and her husband Logan have chosen to live very simply. How simply? They live in a 128 square foot "tiny house." But it's not so much about that as it is about the research Tammy has done into happiness. What makes us happy in the long run are experiences, not stuff. I mean, yes, it's also about minimalism, but she presents it in a way that is the exact opposite of preachy. She says upfront that she's not an expert and that minimalism looks different to everyone. Plus she was the epitome of the Western Lifestyle less than ten years ago, so she has a great perspective on what it means to purposely choose to have less stuff. And also: It wasn't her idea, it was her husband's.
Highly recommend.
Gone, Hunger, Lies, and Plague--all books by Michael Grant that Abby insisted I needed to read because they are "so great" and I'd "love them." They're interesting, I'll give them that, but after reading four... and knowing there's still a fifth one to go, and a sixth to be published next year... I'm feeling a little burned out on the whole ordeal. I'm thinking Grant could have made a really great trilogy instead of a... whatever the word for six books is.
See, it's a bunch of kids under the age of 15 living in a dome. No access to the outside world. No grownups of any kind. And man, these kids have it tough. At first it's fine because no one knows what's going on and there's a lot of pop and chips, but life in the dome is far from normal, so you've got mutant creatures and a lack of food and no water and a growing tension between those who have developed powers and those who have not. And just when you think maybe these crazy kids have a handle on things, it gets WORSE. What's hunger and lies when you've got people dying from the plague? Unless they die from bugs hatching out of their skin, I guess. Anyway, I'm not sure I'm emotionally stable enough to handle Fear, the next in the series, let alone whatever else happens after that. Although I'll probably read them anyway because I'm OCD.
Great.
Movies watched:
The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Johanna REALLY wanted to watch this movie. Every time we saw a preview she was wondering when we could go.
My mother and Abby joined Johanna and I for an afternoon matinee. I'm not a crier, people, okay? But I had tears ROLLING down my face at the beginning and at the end. Holy crap. Jo also found it emotionally troubling. Mom and Abby were dry-eyed. Huh. It was a great movie, but I'm not sure I could watch it again. Craving a baby is something I am all too familiar with.
Garden update:
I actually picked some beans a week or so ago. Weird. Where'd they even come from? The zucchini seems to have given up, but the pumpkins look good. We dug up the last of the carrots this month.
And I am so over the tomatoes.
Canning/Freezing update:
Peach butter up the yang (like we're talking two dozen half pints). Lots o' tomato sauce and dried tomatoes. You know what? I need to roast some up. I keep forgetting about that option. Made some applesauce. Need to tackle pears and then I can put my big ol' canning pot away.
I'm over canning, too.
Things I learned:
I'm big. I'm a minimalist. I'm a minimalist who is, at this very moment, is letting Johanna, who has decided she's had enough of Mario Kart, put Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations up all over the house. The clutter is going to drive me insane. But. Johanna. That's the thing.
Also: Dystopian novels--series, even--are fine when they don't drag on forever; otherwise they give me a headache. Sunshine is nice. Hazy forest fire skies are not. You can bribe your children with licorice. Skilly weighs seven pounds.
*My brother Tim, as you may or may not remember/know, is 6'10" and used to drink Mom's coffee all the time when we were kids. We'll never know how tall he WOULD have been had he laid off the joe.
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