Don't Cry....

I am a simple woman with simple needs.  I don't consider myself high-maintenance (or maybe I'm fooling myself like in Harry Met Sally), and I don't ask for much out of life.  When Friday rolls around, I'm happy that the working week has come to a close (even if the concept of sleeping in on a Saturday has been missing 'round these parts for, oh, about 9 years), and ask for very little - an easy-to-prepare dinner, some English comedies on PBS, maybe a tasty dessert.

What I don't enjoy on a Friday night is a really odd sound coming from the direction of my kitchen followed by a slightly hysterical, "Help!" called out in the tones that only a nine-year-old with a big problem can muster.

Now, when I'm in the center of my apartment, I'm only about 10 or 20 feet from the opposite end, and The Professor and I made the short trip from the comparative serenity of the living room to the kitchen in record time.

The scene which confronted us was distinctly unexpected and horrifying - my kitchen is pretty much all white (cabinets, tile floor, appliances), but it had attained an extra veneer of shiny whiteness because of the FULL GALLON of milk that was currently streaming quickly across my tiles in a race to get under all the appliances where it could stay in milky goodness and produce a smell that would surely force us to leave our home after 2 hot days.

Leaping into action (as opposed to Miss Serious, who stood in the center of this puddle holding the now-empty and exploded milk container as if transfixed by the beauty of the stream surrounding her), we grabbed all the bath towels we have and threw them down on the milk, jumping up and down on them in some sort of maniacal tribal dance so they could absorb for all they were worth.  Tobie helped out on the hardwood floor in the hallway, and took care of the overflow....

The floor, having been towel-dried, steam-cleaned, and wiped down with cleaner on hands and knees is now dry and no longer sticky.  The towels were taken to the basement and washed, and Miss Serious seems to have recovered.  The Professor and I treated ourselves to a beer and called it a night.

This is one of the things no one ever tells you about parenting - that some night, when you least expect it, your kid is going to drop an entire gallon of milk on the kitchen floor, and since you're the grown-up, you have to fix it.  Just like scraped knees, high fevers, and questions about why that woman in Costco has so many kids - no one will be taking care of it for you.

Luckily the fix was quick, we seems to have caught the milk before it went under the stove, and this particular gallon of milk happened to be a cheap gallon from Costco as opposed to the frighteningly expensive organic stuff.

See - simple needs.  Now if only I had some milk for my coffee....

Back to Reality

Well, we're back from Cape Cod, and I think I've recuperated from vacation.  It always seems like it will be restful, but by the end of the week, I'm always pretty zapped (as everyone else seemed to be, as well).  Now we've been home a couple of days, washed all the clothes, brushed the sand off the suitcases, and tucked them away.  I caught up on some sleep, and even though it was rather a shock to come back to the heat (REALLY tired of this, by the way), I'm starting to get my bearings again.

As usual, a lovely time was had by all; the kids were more interested in water this year, so we spent a little more time at the beach and pond.  We did get to the Sandwich Glass Museum and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, both of which were interesting (although we did have an orthodontic emergency at the Museum of Natural History - Miss Serious popped off a bottom brace, leading to a hanging wire - luckily the staff was able to dig up a wire cutter for us, the wire was clipped, and they even gave her a turtle magnet for bravery).  We even hit the yarn store and picked up some lovely yarn for hats and socks - just what I want to think of when it's 95 degrees outside....

Tying Up Loose Ends....

As we will be leaving for Cape Cod tomorrow at the crack of dawn (NOT my most favorite time of the day), I've been packing all the necessaries and sundries for our vacation (you know - snacks, wine...) and trying to make sure everything that needs to get done (i.e. paying the mortgage) gets finished before we drive off into the sunrise. 

We've been going to the Cape for a few years now, and learned a valuable lesson about departure times on our first trip.  We left our home at a decent hour, drove blissfully up the highway towards our lovely destination, and landed smack-dab into some of the stinkiest traffic I have ever experienced (and as I'm from Long Island, that's saying something).  Turns out there are only two skinny little bridges that lead to Cape Cod, and everyone who is renting a cottage (pretty much all of the cars on the road) rent from Saturday to Saturday, thus requiring everyone in the world to proceed over those two little bridges at the exact same time.  We reckoned we learned from our mistake, and vowed to leave really early next year.

What didn't occur to us (and The Professor and I have a FRIGHTENING amount of schooling under our belts....) was that everyone would also be leaving Cape Cod at the exact same time on the following Saturday.  This become horrifyingly apparent as we sat in the traffic going the other direction in our attempt to leave - and this time around I had definitely lost my sense of humor.  At the time, Big Trouble was just a toddler, and Miss Serious was probably 3.  After spending a week in a small cabin trapped with these little people, I was yearning for some quiet time.  Unfortunately, Miss Serious took this opportunity to talk the entire way home.  If there's a way to make lots of traffic and a long drive even more unpleasant, that would be it.  I think when we got home I went in my room and forbid everyone to talk to me for an hour, but that just may have been wishful thinking...

I have taken a little break from the sock yarn blanket, as it has just been too hot to have it draped across my lap, but I did finish the perfect article for a hot July - wool socks - don't hit the beach without them!  They're made with Adirondack Bearfoot Mountain colors, and are wonderfully soft. 

And, because it's not warm enough in here and I thought heating the place up with the oven would be a good idea (totally worth it though), I made some lime squares (just a lemon square recipe, but I had some limes, and thought they would be good - they were REALLY good), and a coffee cake. 

The coffee cake recipe is from Martha Stewart and uses an obscene amount of butter and sugar in the crumbs, but the resulting ratio of crumbs to cake (about 2:1) is truly genius. 

If only I could figure out why my shorts have been feeling snug?  I must be retaining water because of the heat....

Summer is Rolling Along

We're almost at the end of July, and I am, as usual, stunned and amazed how fast the summer goes.  As soon as the kids get out of school, it seems like there's all the time in the world, and then next thing you know it's August, and the time starts ticking in earnest.  We have to get out school supply lists (I passed on buying the pre-packaged school supplies from the PTA this year - it was going to end up costing around $60, and as I'm pretty sure the pencils aren't made out of gold, that seems a tad excessive).

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Boston - we met some friends there (who are actually from here); they unfortunately had a sick child and had to leave early, but we really enjoyed our time with them while we could. We went to the Museum of Science (so awesome - I can't recommend it enough - there is absolutely something for everyone there), walked A LOT of The Freedom Trail (and it was hot, so it definitely seemed like more), and went to the Harvard Natural History Museum.

A quick trip, but we squeezed in a lot, and now are all pretty zapped and needing a quiet day to recover (or at least I am - the kids are bouncing around pretty good).  We go to Cape Cod on Saturday, so I guess we also need to wash some clothes, unless I could talk everyone into wearing their bathing suits for a week....

Not Dead...

but I have been uncharacteristically quiet.  I've been doing lots of professional development at MY NEW SCHOOL (still awfully exciting!!), and my brain has been unable to focus when I'm home because the heat turned me into a soggy puddle of stupidity.  This last couple of weeks have just about done me in, and I was ready to grab an air conditioner (or three!), but The Professor stayed strong and we are still air conditioner free.  It is rather distressing and disheartening, however, that we're trying so hard to be green by not using a tiny window air conditioner while every day the news greets me with how many days bajillions of gallons of oil have been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico...

Despite the heat, we've been busy and enjoying the summer.  We visited some family in PA and had a lovely time - we hit Longwood Gardens which is just too beautiful for words - this is Big Trouble and me kicking back and enjoying the peaceful gorgeousness of it all.

I've been working on my blanket (even finished another sock), and trying to read all my math books.  I got to see the classroom I'll be in, which was really neat.  It's such a change to work for a wealthy district - when I taught upstate, I had to buy tons of supplies myself, including a rug for my classroom (which a fifth grader promptly vomited on). 

During our writing training this week, a couple of books were mentioned which would be good resources.  I promptly wrote them down in my little notebook to check out from the library, but then the principal asked who wanted them, and will order sets for each of us.  A far cry from me having to give lessons to my fourth graders on how to properly use tissues so as not to waste the small supply we had of them.....

Well, there wasn't wine...

but there were lots of happy third graders.   And tons of food, sprinklers, games, hula-hoops, and t-shirt decorating.  It was a lovely afternoon, and the weather decided to cooperate.  The potato salad got all eaten up, so I guess it was a hit.  The kids got t-shirts with the school name to decorate using fabric markers.  Some kids started having the others sign their t-shirts, and next thing you know, they were all running around collecting everyone's names.  All except Miss Serious.  That girl definitely has her own drummer, and is amazingly confident to follow her own way.  She created a very careful design, and worked diligently to make it as neat and symmetrical as humanly possible, until another child unwittingly wrote his name on her pristine shirt, assuming that she was collecting signatures like everyone else.  She managed to contain the scream of horror that I saw flash across her eyes, and was able to disguise the signature with a stripe (which she matched on the other side, of course).  Crisis averted.

I've been continuing to knit on the sock yarn blanket, although it's really not a great summer project - having a wool blanket covering your lap while working is not exactly geared to 90 degree weather.  I think I might have to go back to socks (and then I'll have more yarn to knit on the blanket......).

The kids have some birthday parties coming up, so I also put together a couple of cards.  I got a cartridge for my Cricut with some really cute designs, so thought I'd try out a few.  It helps that I'm trying to avoid working on teaching stuff - my job is now official, so I have started digging through some math books.  Although it seems far away, it will be the first day of school before I know it, so I need to hit the books.  It's time to play are you smarter than a fifth grader for real....

Summertime...

and the living is busy!  Even though the calendar says it's not yet summer, the thermometer begs to differ.  Especially last week, when we all sweated through some frighteningly hot & humid days.  Being on the fourth (and top) floor, we tend to get pretty toasty up here, and there are times when I definitely regret our green resolve in giving away our air conditioners.  However, the really awful days are very few, and we know if we kept the air conditioners, we would definitely be tempted to use them on a more regular basis.  Not good for the environment, and not good for our electric bill! 

We also decided to try to make some more inroads in both these areas by investing in a new refrigerator.  We had planned to do this a while back, but like many projects we start here at Chez Necessity, we lost some of our mojo partway through the researching process, and it languished.   However, our old fridge is now rusting and dripping, so we decided to get moving.

Unfortunately, like many things, this was easier said than done. NY State is offering a rebate program if you replace an existing appliance with an Energy Star product.  This rebate goes up if you can prove that it was recycled.  The recycling bit was the difficult part, because Home Depot told us that they simply crush the appliance they remove rather than recycling it.  So, we dug a little deeper, tracked down some local appliance stores, and for just a little more money were able to get the refrigerator we wanted and have our old one recycled, allowing us to get the full rebate.  When The Professor dug up the serial number on the old fridge for the application, we discovered that it was from 1987 - a good run, I think, but as it seems to run all the time and the top gets really hot, we should hopefully be seeing a lower electric bill in a month or two.  Now we have a couple of days to dig out all the collected nonsense that has managed to find a home in my fridge and freezer (I'm always amazed what I find when I start digging). 

Miss Serious is having her class picnic today (and sadly it's a bit gloomy outside, but third graders don't seem to care), and I've been assigned potato salad.  I never liked potato salad until I found this recipe (I think it's from my mother's neighbor), and even The Professor (who firmly dislikes potato salad) will eat it.  And, it's easy.  The recipe is:

Red Potatoes
Red Onion (about 1/4 - 1/2, finely chopped)
Chopped Parsley
Mayonnaise
Salt and Pepper

Cook the red potatoes until tender (not too soft, or you get mashed potatoes - ask me how I know!), and cool.  Cut them up, leaving on the skins.  Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix.  I find it's even better the second day, but it's pretty tasty right away, too!  Now it's off to the third grade picnic - including sprinklers, t-shirt decorating, and a large group of loud, excited 9 year olds.  Do you think there's any possibility of wine being served.........?