Miscellany

–noun, plural -nies.
1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items.

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One of our favorite hobbies in this family is homemade raisins. Have you ever heard of anyone else who makes homemade raisins? Well, it is really easy. First, you give your six-year old daughter grapes to eat in the living room. She will eat some of those grapes and then casually drop a few on the floor. They will roll just under the edge of your couches or under your coffee table. The next step is the important one. You must not look under or clean under any furniture for a few weeks. This will ensure that your homemade raisins age properly.

Here is a picture of a grape in the early stages of raisin development. While still large and relatively un-wrinkled, you will notice it is beginning to lose its full, plump appearance. In just a few short weeks, it will be ready for eating. Yum, yum!

Ignore that unidentifiable chunk near the raisin-in-process; it is part of a top secret research and development project we are working on.


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Em over at three times three reminded me to recount the Sonic Drive In commercial that had me laughing out loud.

For those of you don't know, Sonic is an old-fashioned drive up burger place. You park you car and order your meal through a speaker box contraption and then a server brings you your food and you eat in your car. Anyway, they have these commercials where two people are sitting in their car at Sonic eating or drinking something. The camera is facing the two people in the car. In this particular commercial, a man is drinking a strawberry shortcake shake.

He makes yummy noises and says something to the effect of "This is good. The readers of my blog are going to want to hear about this."

The wife in the other seat shoots him a look, pauses and then says something like, "You mean your mother?" See, I'm already chuckling as I type this.

Finally, he looks sheepishly at her and says, "Well, she was going to tell her friend about it."

I love this commercial because I was completely surprised by the blog reference in an ordinary television commercial. I guess blogging has definitely arrived. Also, I am always self-conscious about blogging and concerned that it not be a self-indulgent exercise for me and I prefer to laugh at my blogging self. That way, perhaps, I won't notice if others are laughing AT me!

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Metro Mama asked me to talk about what I am reading. In one of those interesting coincidences, I am reading two books at the same time: March by Geraldine Brooks and The March by E.L. Doctorow. Both books are about the Civil War. March follows Mr. March, the father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, through the war. The March is about that infamous march General Sherman took his troops on through the South. I'm not quite sure how I ended up reading both of these books at the same time but it is really fascinating and so far both are great reads.

New to my queue are two books my friend sent me as an early birthday present. After reading about my adventures in personality typing my daughter, she came across two books she thought I would find interesting: Parenting from the Inside Out and The Developing Mind both by Daniel J. Siegel. I'm looking forward to finding time for both these books in the next few weeks.

I've said it a few times but it bears repeating: blogging has increased my reading. Although I love reading, it is easy for life to get in the way. If I'm too tired, I'll just turn on the television instead of picking up a book. Reading on blogs all the delicious books other people are reading spurs me on to more reading and, at times, more complex reading. Yeah, blog'verse! Thanks for the inspiration.

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This just in: My son is watching some entertainment show that profiling J.J. Abrams right now. They just mentioned the show Felicity and my son starts waxing sarcastic about how much he loved Felicity (italics denote his sarcasm.) I start laughing a little and say that the show reminds me of my Kymmy. Kym moved in with us when she was just barely turned 18 and lived with us for a couple of years. Felicity was our show to watch together. Colin's next statement is to say that the Felicity years were the years of going to bed hungry. I asked him why and he said that it came on at his bed time--he was six when it began airing--and he always wanted a snack but I was too busy watching the show and wouldn't get him one. I'm sure this is an exaggeration--but just barely!

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Finally, if my name were Earl, I would say that karma owes me a good turn after this weekend. We've been watching some friends' kids while said friends are cavorting around New York city. It actually hasn't been that bad but today was tiring! We went from church to lunch to Flushed Away (cute movie) to home. They got to play for about an hour before we did baths, then dinner, then America's Funniest Home Videos to bed. Whew! Four kids including Marley. (I don't count Colin because he takes care of himself and helps me take care of the noisy horde. Tomorrow, the challenge of getting 5 people to 3 different schools on time. Wish me luck!

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Until tomorrow,

Mary

5 down, 25 to go