Hello and welcome to this, my most recent post of rambling thoughts! Enjoy!
decrepit bananas
We eat a lot of bananas. Steve (not his real name) likes them for breakfast drizzled with almond butter, we all enjoy daily smoothies, I squish them up in oatmeal and I bake with them in place of refined sugar. (I’m a bit of an immovable tyrant about sugar ... My kids love that about me. They might consider “bit” an inaccurate modifier.) Basically, I’m saying we eat a crap-ton of bananas around here. But all too often, when I go to the grocery store, all I find are green, underripe bananas. We do not want those. I drive from store to store looking for ripe bananas. What do I find? Green—they’re always green. For a while, I could find ripe ones at Target, so I had a source for nice, soft, spotty bananas, but then some other people must have figured it out and always go there and buy them up from under me! So now every time I go to Target, the bananas are stinkin’ green. Per chance, one fateful day, I stumbled upon a consistent motherload of brown, spotty, overripe bananas at a local gas station convenience store.
I cannot divulge the exact location. (I’m sure I don’t need to explain why.)
Are the bananas more expensive? Well, they don’t call it “convenience” without consequence. Are we consuming food from a gas station? Perhaps. Am I that weird woman who goes to the gas station not for gas or lottery or over-sugared treats (hell, no!) but instead for 8 overripe bananas at a time? I’ve been accused of worse. But does my family suffer green, tasteless bananas?
No.
We.
Do.
Not.
Chloe DeLorenzo
puppy
Ever since our dog died last June, the kids have been begging for a puppy. First we told them we needed to mourn for a while. Then we said we’d have to wait until after we moved. Then it was winter, so, you know, we had to wait. When it became clear that our children were not going to forget the existence of puppies, we said we would look for one after summer vacation. So, when on the car ride home they asked if we were going to the shelter the following day, we realized we were not going to get out of this. So we got a puppy! My only stipulation was that the dog be small. At least smallish. Small dog equals small poop. This is an adage I live by. Also, I don’t want a dog tall enough to come along and swipe food off my kitchen counter. Everyone acquiesced to my terms. Our puppy is named Chloe and she really is sweet and adorable. And small. My daughters are besotted. Even my son doesn’t mind cleaning up her poop. We were very curious about her mix, so we did a mail-away DNA test. Guess what? She’s half Great Dane.
Crap.
lunch bags
People say to me ALL the time, “I don’t know how you do it—I could never homeschool my kids. I don’t have the patience.” Or, “Being with my kids all day would drive me nuts.” Etc. On the more annoying days, I could easily be persuaded to agree that this is a really bad idea. But I’m here to testify, moms of kids in school, that you have it worse. Much, much worse. And there is a singular reason: lunch bags.
Dreadful.
Specifically, cleaning out lunch bags. This year, my kids are doing a wilderness class and a homeschool coop, both of which require bagged lunch. Oh, the horror. The sticky coating of yogurt all over the innards of the bag. On wilderness class days, the peppering of tree matter and dirt embedded in the sticky coating of yogurt. The smell of grade school cafeteria when I open it up at the end of the day. The flood of terrifying memories. Cleaning out the lunch bags is a solid-enough reason in and of itself to homeschool. Seriously, how do you moms endure it?
desktop screen organizer
Is there anything better than organizational tools? Okay, well, yes, probably. But aren’t organizational tools exciting? Perhaps “exciting” is an aggressive word. Unless you’re me because this desktop .jpg makes me all-caps EXCITED! You simply set it as your desktop background picture, then you can arrange your files and folders and pictures. Here’s a link to the blog In My Own Style where you can find it.
Look at it sitting there so pretty with everything arranged with utmost logic. So lively and vivacious! It’s not weird how much I like this. (It’s not.)
You know what else I'd really like? For you to go out and have a happy Friday!
Find my novels, THE MOSQUITO HOURS and TALKING UNDERWATER, online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And don’t forget your local independent bookstore! I’m curious about something: would you like to stay up-to-date on news about my books as well as have my latest blog posts conveniently delivered to your inbox? Then subscribe to my newsletter! Click on that little box right over there on the right. See how easy I made that for you? (You’re welcome.)