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| this photo is unrelated to this post. i just think m + drawing=awesome. today she drew some butterflies in boats. |
1. an open letter to toyota, or a love letter to my car:
have you ever seen my car? it's sort of well, a little beat down looking to put it nicely. i bought it when i was 21 years old, fresh out of college, and needed a car to drive to my first big girl job in. that year was my hardest year of life to date (at the time), as a first year teacher. did you ever see the movie dangerous minds, starring michelle pfieffer, from the mid-nineties? um, that was essentially my classroom, except they were shorter. i somehow survived 180 days of school, and at the end of each day i would drive home in my brand new 1996 toyota corolla which i had named tortilla.
fast forward to last night...14 years later, and my little corolla hit 270,000 miles. TWO HUNDRED and SEVENTY THOUSAND. i love it. i know my car is old, and i will have to get a new one sometime soon, but to be honest i don't really look forward to that day. as the odometer flipped over to 270,000, i flashed back through the last 14 years & thought about how much i love my car.
and then, i thought about how my car is by far the most ghetto car in the parking lot at m's school. um, in most parking lots actually. and then i wondered how soon m and ruby would realize that and be embarrassed by their car. and then i thought of the bazillion ways i will likely embarrass my daughters in future years. that thought was too depressing, so i reverted to being thankful for tortilla, my first and only car so far.
2. have you had mini peanut butter cups from trader joe's? they are ridiculously good. and addictive.
3. does anyone have a good lentil recipe? i am about to give up on lentils because the recipes make are a waste of time, ingredients and energy. someone out there must have some way to master them?
4. ants have been attacking our house for at least 2 months. we are attempting (again) to attack them, and i have to admit it is so satisfying to watch thousands of little ants marching to their demise. i can't help it, they are nasty and into everything in our house. so. over. ants.
5. tomorrow is my father-in-law's birthday! among many other qualities, he is a great papa to our girls and a fabulous dad-in-law. he deserves a wonderful day celebrating & being reminded of the gift he is to so many people.
6. this morning i talked to a mom with an itty bitty deaf baby - wearing hearing aids but not yet with implants - and it just served as a reminder of how rich our journey has been over the last 2 years. i remember how hard it all was in the beginning- not just emotions, but the logistics of appointments and wrangling hearing aids and later implants onto m's ears. now it all feels so normal. after all, as my friend nicole would say, we all have our own normal. i am amazed at how much my daughter is talking and hearing. as i drove to do errands with the girls this afternoon m - my very deaf, yet very song-happy daughter- made up a very long song in the back seat, "we're gong on adventure, adventure, adventure, we're going on adventure, mommy, ruby, roro" (etc etc) which then morphed into a medley mashup of her favorite songs. we certainly are on an adventure (in a 1996 toyota corolla nonetheless)!
Long live Tortilla!
ReplyDelete#2. Have you ever been able to stop yourself from eating an entire box of these, justifying that all of their tininess must, logically, only = a couple of large ones?
Y'know, we're going to embarass our kids countless times no matter how hard we try to prevent it. And it's far better to embarass them over something of value, like a car that is still doing yeoman's work, that is a highly valued tool rather than a frivolous status symbol.
ReplyDeleteQuick easy lentil soup: Saute onions and carrots; add lentils and equal parts broth and water; cook at medium heat 20-25 minutes, until lentils are open and getting mushy. Add a good dose of salt and pepper at some point. Either serve as is, or mash with stick blender. Eat with big pieces of fresh crusty bread.
Slightly more complex and but still easy and absolutely delish lentil soup: http://www.yogurtland.com/category/soup/
(We use store-bought red pepper and eggplant paste, and we skip the mint because Neil doesn't like it.)
1.I love your Tortilla.
ReplyDelete2.We call those crack and they are not allowed in our house anymore because we can't be trusted with them (but they sure are good on an ice cream sundae).
3. I'll email you my top 3 lentil recipes. I LOVE lentils.
6. Thinking about M's song makes me smile.
xo
i didn't know you taught...i missed that somehow! thanks for squeezing me in on monday.
ReplyDeletelet's talk about lentils sometime. I have some ideas.
ReplyDeleteLentil Salad w/ Goat Cheese & Mint from Greens Everyday--delicious, flavorful & good leftover, too ... love it with feta instead of goat cheese--i'll send the details via email!
ReplyDeleteI also have a fantastic lentil soup recipe ... and then there's classic Indian dal made with red lentils.
my only problem is finding enough people in my family who will happily eat the lentils, however deliciously prepared they are (the soup, which includes bacon, goes over best)
For the lentils:
ReplyDeleteuse a ham bone (i get it from honeybaked ham store for $4!) It makes lentil soup soooo tasty.
Also, I made this super tasty lentils and kielbasa dish with an egg on top. It was from a friend's blog. yummy
http://thefreshdish.com/2009/12/08/healthy-comfort-food-recipe-stewed-red-lentils-with-kale-and-kielbasa/
nice writing. you should talk to kristy - her ideas are tasty.
ReplyDelete