Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like someone should be personally congratulating you for not smacking one of your kids? I mean, I never, ever smack my kids, but some days it is much harder to maintain that solid streak.
Anyway, here are some random photos. Because I am cranky about many, many things, but I don’t have the brain power to do a full-on eloquent rant about anything. Instead, I will distract myself by knocking out this post with a bunch of photos that I’ve collected with the intention of writing something. They’ve been languishing in my draft posts for far too long.
First, I took this photo at Marshall’s at the beginning of the school year because we had a rather sudden pressing need for a lunch bag or two and I wanted the girls’ opinions. But also I just wanted to celebrate the trend of having super-adorable lunch bags available. Aren’t they cute? Many include coordinating containers and water bottles which are usually sub-standard, but at least they match.
. . . And here’s the rather dreadful reason why we had an unexpected need for lunch bags. . . how gross is this?
This is where, at my house, I say, “‘Yuck-o-rama,’ said Tulip and Fritz,” a quote from one of the girls’ favorite picture books, Yoko by Rosemary Wells. As you can guess, this bag was not sufficiently emptied of whatever last lunch occupied it before it was stuffed away somewhere–maybe one of their school backpacks?–for the summertime.
I also took this lovely picture from our first experience with Nothing Bundt Cakes.
These were not only adorable; they were delicious. I am very fussy about my baked goods, especially cakes. When there’s a party where everyone’s standing around how this cake from the supermarket bakery is absolutely delicious! and so much better than I expected it to be!, I am the person who is smiling and nodding and not saying a damn word. But these are moist and delicious. It if fortunate, too, because we ran across these at some fundraising food truck festival held in Niskayuna in which we coughed up some not-inconsiderable sum of money just to enter the area, only to discover that all but the very yuckiest food trucks had sold out. So we basically ate bundt cakes for dinner that evening.
I took this photo when J was trying to decide if she wanted a t-shirt from a volleyball tournament this fall. The thing that I find particularly irritating about tournament swag is that it is on sale from the beginning of the tournament, and usually, before the tournament’s over, much of the merchandise is sold out. Personally, I don’t want to buy a t-shirt unless I know how the tournament went. I mean, if the team ends up playing horribly or one of the players gets injured, do you really want to commemorate the event with a t-shirt? But then, if your team completely rocks the tournament and wins, guess what? The tournament is over. The concessions and t-shirt sales folks have all left. And even if they’re still packing up, chances are slim that there are any t-shirts left.
But not this time. On this auspicious day, the team won their bracket. Yes, okay, one mom was careful to clarify it was “only the silver bracket,” but I’ll take a win when they can get one, and really, they probably would have made gold if most of the team weren’t taking the PSAT that morning. Actually, it was because everyone was off testing that J was invited to play with the varsity team at all. Which meant that the day ended with a win and was the beginning of J’s varsity playing. Sounds to me like it’s worth commemorating with a t-shirt, amiright? And as luck would have it, as we headed out the door, there was one t-shirt left, and I nabbed it.
