Monday Mash Up, April 16

We had such a crazy weekend, that I can now bring you a 12 photo edition of Monday Mash Up. And I know I told you I'd try to take some photos to tell you about Cotillion. People. I took notes. It was a little stressful. There were so many rules (aside from making sure the kids were behaving we had to make sure they didn't go outside and the boys kept their shirts tucked in...stuff like that.), and we felt like we had to be vigilant the whole time. Vigilant while simultanelously trying to catch sight of Callum while not being seen catching site of Callum. Know what I mean? I must be getting old because the music was loud and the girls skirts were so freaking short. Seriously. I would not let my daughter leave the house in some of the dresses I saw. Mostly though, they were sweet boys and pretty girls. Trying so hard to be grown up. A couple times Neel and another dad had to cross the dance floor, parting the too-rowdy crowd. At one point a trio of wound-up boys started body-slamming each other right in front of me and falling to the floor. I really like nothing more than yelling at kids (Not really. It might be my third favorite thing.), but I just shook my head and they stopped. For a second at least. Before they moved to another part of the room and started doing the same thing. I watched another mom shake her head at them exactly the same way. And they stopped again. Beauty.

And at the beginning of the night one of the organizers asked that someone always stand in front of the light switch because the kids like to try to turn off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. Great. A little over halfway through the evening, I took over light switch duty and I was fine for awhile until I bumped against the wall and suddenly got afraid that I would accidentally shut off the lights. Like I needed another thing to worry about. Still it was a good vantage point, because as the girls walked past, they checked their hair. Over and over and over again. Sweet. The slow dances were sweet too, with super tall girls dancing with much shorter boys, although it was painful watching the boys scramble to find a girl to ask to dance. Really painful.

I finally decided that Cotillion is like a pre-teen epsiode of The West Wing. A lot of intense walking around and important, very important, conversations. Thank goodness we don't have to go again.

Neel and I put together our TV cabinet from Ikea and I love it! The dogs are less impressed. It's longer than our old TV cabinet and now there's no room for their bed in the family room with us. First we moved the bed outside to air it out, and that made them very nervous. Thea tried to sleep on it, but every time I looked at her, she got up. It was as if she was worried that if we thought she got too comfortable we'd keep the bed outside, you know, forever. With the bed in the dining room, it's barely two feet further away from where it used to be, but it's clearly requiring an adjustment. Violet was willing to try it, but she kept one paw in the old room. And, as you can see, Lucy kept her whole head in the old room. Gazing longingly at where the bed used to be.

We went to a wine tasting Saturday night. I'll tell you more about that later. Callum was tired and lonely after Cotillion and a sleepover, and those tally marks on my tasting notes are the number of times he called me. He was happy when we got home. He slept until 10:30 on Sunday.

10:30!

Gorgeous day though. Homework outside. Belly rubs in the grass (for the dogs). Catch in the front yard. Tomatoes, collards, beets in the ground. Not a shabby day at all. I cleaned off the island in the kitchen on Saturday with the thought of doing some kitchen photos. I feel like I've left so many comments on your blogs saying how much we love our kitchen...seems like a good place to start the house tour. I cleared off the island, bleached it and gently placed everything back, perfectly placed. Then Neel and Callum came home. Aaaaannnndddd....we're back to real life. Scattered and messy as it is.

How was your weekend, everybody? Anybody get to dance to Cotton Eyed Joe? Anybody sleep til 10:30? I got to have a lot of nice wine, and hey! No headache!

Monday Mash Up, April 9

What a weird weekend this was. Did everybody (who celebrates Easter, that is) have a nice Easter? I told you I thought we'd low-key it; I just didn't know quite how low key we'd get. Callum had Friday off from school, and while I worked he hung out. Saw some friends briefly, but kicked it around the house. We had an appointment for some baseball stuff at five and went for dinner afterward. (I could mention that I wasn't the biggest fan of the restaurant Neel suggested before we got there, but that's okay. He agrees with me now.) I noticed that Callum was looking a little glassy-eyed at the baseball stuff, but didn't think much of it, given all the allergies we've been dealing with. (And seriously, at one point this week, I thought about doing this as a Google search: Cold or allergies: who the hell cares?) Ah, but sure enough, around 10 Friday night, Cal's ear started hurting.

Why is it always at 10 on a Friday night?

He hasn't had an ear infection in years, people. But we remember. Poor guy was miserable. Restless and in pain. We tried to go to bed, but had to come downstairs and doze off to a ball game on ESPN. First thing Saturday morning we were off to Urgent Care insted of Ikea the way we planned. That was a huge bummer. And the kicker? Not just one ear infection, but TWO. And a likely sinus infection too. Lordy, boy.

Neel suggested that since we didn't have plans for dinner that night, we push our Easter meal forward a day and try for Ikea on Sunday (and like an Easter miracle they WERE open!). So we went even more low-key than we'd originally planned. All I can say is thank goodness for Neel. I pulled a potato recipe from the April Everyday Food magazine I'd just received (And what's up with that? Aren't they supposed to come mid-March?), tossed some boiled eggs on top of some steamed asparagus (and trust me, I have whole posts to write about asparagus), and threw the ham in the oven. We ate in front of Oceans 12. We were partway through the marathon. We dyed some eggs. We ate some cookies. We pushed on through.

Callum managed Ikea on Sunday. We all did. I felt lousy enough (Cold or allergies: who the hell cares? All I know is I'm coughing like a tuberculin patient on her last days in the sanatorium and I have no voice.) that I actually ordered TWO Dr. Peppers before we headed home. I don't ever, ever, ever drink soda so this was a BIG DEAL for me. They were so, so freaking awesome. All in all, it was a pretty successful day. 

Cal likes his new dresser, and I'm glad we were able to fit everything in the car (Which, Erin, is named Bernie Mac, by the way.). More important to my boy, perhaps, is that we let him hop on Instagram. He's @calhound and would love some followers. It's a social media gateway drug, I get that. But it's one I can get on board with and control. So we're fine with it.

Oh! Did you happen to see? We were on the news a lot on Friday. Not us personally, but our little community. When this happened. We'd actually anticipated it for awhile, but it was still pretty stunning. More stunning was that no one was killed. The actuall crash site is about 20 miles from our house, but it's in an area we used to frequent regularly. Callum's old school was blocks from where the crash happened. My doctor is down there, and I have friends who live and work down that way too. The jets fly low and are loud, and it's long been a concern for the community that the civilians bump so very closely to the movements of the military. It was very much a concern for us when Cal was in school down there. His school was and still is in the flight path. The noise from the jets is hard on little ears, and in the backs of our heads was always the worry about a crash just like what happened on Friday. Still, no matter those safety concerns, I've always been proud to be neighbors with these hard working men and women. That was as true Friday as any other day. You can read it in the article I linked to, but the pilot had to be cut down from the building they crashed into...they'd ejected at the last possible second. And then he apologized to the people who helped him for destroying their homes. Pretty impressive, that. We're so grateful that no one was killed or more gravely hurt.

How are you guys? Was your weekend better than mine? I'm banking on an uneventful week after all this. April feels booked solid and my birthday is coming up, so it had better be.