Glory Days (and New Word Wednesday)

Yesterday my friend Christy and I took a road trip to our alma mater to relive our glory days. Or our glory afternoon, as the case may be. Notice that all my pictures involve food.

This thing of beauty is brought to you by one of my favorite college delis, City Bites. It's the California Club on Tomato Bread. This sandwich alone got me through three years of college. Not really, but I ate a lot of them and it's WAY better than it looks in the pic.




The highlight of the trip for Christy was a stop at Classic Fifties. (It's pretty much a Sonic, but if you tell Christy I said so, I'll deny it.) She assured me this was our favorite place to go for half price slushies. I don't really remember it, so I had to ask her what my favorite thing here was. It was not the Sprittle, it just sounded so interesting I couldn't pass it up: Sprite + Skittles = Sprittle.

It is just as it sounds: a cup of icy cold Sprite with Skittles dumped in it. Have you ever heard of bubble tea? It's super hip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea

I think Sprittle is redneck bubble tea. It's super gross.

As we sat at Classic Fifties, I couldn't help but glance at the car to my right. I wish the photo was better, so you could really see what this is, but my window wouldn't roll down. There is a pile of already chewed gum on the dashboard with a dinosaur skeleton perched on top.

What do you wanna bet she ordered a Sprittle?

I know it's Wednesday and I don't want to let Melanie down. So the word of the day is inspired by yesterday's road trip. The word is:

Bonhomie (bah nuh mee) It's a noun meaning good-natured geniality; an atmosphere of good cheer. The bonhomie on our road trip made me wish Christy and I didn't live so far apart. (FYI: Once in college I made Christy laugh so hard she threw up. That's how much fun we have together.)

Enlightenment

Gee, it looks like I took the weekend off! I guess I've been busy. I spent most of this weekend getting together with old friends who were in town for Christmas. Like we all go back to the 4th and 6th grades, that's the kind of old friends I'm talking about. Several of them I hadn't seen since high school graduation FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. That's almost HALF MY LIFE. Seriously, that's a long time. Also seriously, no one has changed a bit.

Friday night I had a long talk with my friend Bil about Matt's death. It just may have been one of my favorite conversations since The Accident. During the conversation, Bil said that I seem enlightened since Matt died. Not a compliment a girl hears everyday, ya know? That comment, plus the approaching new year and thinking about doing some new things with my life, got my wondering about something:

If we compare how we see ourselves with how others see us, how different would we be? For instance, I am currently exploring what I want to be when I grow up. I think I know, but it's something I think I would enjoy and be good at based on how I see myself. So I'm wondering what YOU think I should be when I grow up, based on how you see me.

Satisfy my curiosity: post a comment. Even you blog voyeurs who don't like me to know you're there. (It's nothing to feel bad about, I do it too. But indulge me this once, would ya?)

Christmas Quilts

Many of you who knew I was working on special projects for Christmas have asked several times for pictures. Now that Christmas has come and gone and the packages have been opened I can post some. I started out cutting up Matt's shirts to make a quilt for the boys and me, and I just decided one day that each of the families on Matt's side should have one too. So between Thanksgiving and the week before Christmas I made four: one for each of Matt's two brothers and their families, his mom, and his dad and his family.


It's not an intricate design, it's just about the shirts.



My favorite squares are the ones that still look like shirts, with the buttons and the pockets intact.

I wanted the packages to be really pretty by themselves. Presentation is everything, Matt often said.

Just a close-up of the tags I made for each quilt.

Though it was labor intensive to do that many quilts in that amount of time, I am happy with the way they turned out. I can look at each one of the squares and remember what Matt looked like wearing each of those shirts. I hope those who received them enjoy them and that they remind them of our happy times together.

10th thru 12th Days of Christmas

It's been a full day. As I was getting closer to going to bed a few minutes ago, I started thinking about posting pictures of my Christmas projects tomorrow. Then I thought that if I'm doing that in tomorrow's post, today I'd better wrap up the 12 Days of Christmas.

10 Lords a Leaping (cookies with 10 frogs on them)

11 Pipers Piping (whistle pops--Brigham and Hunter thought these were among the coolest things EVER, the grown-ups...not so much)

12 Drummers drumming (a Christmas tree with 12 tiny drum ornaments on it)

We completely enjoyed and appreciated our 12 Days of Christmas. It was nice to have something to look forward to every evening. Thank you to our little elves. And to everyone:

Merry Christmas!

New Word Wednesday

It's Christmas Eve, but it's also my brother Chris' 37th birthday. So we have been at his house all afternoon partying like it's 1999. Happy Birthday Chris!

Today's new word, like last week's, was again inspired by Hunter. I'll admit pretty readily that I can be bought. Offer me diamonds and I'll do just about anything. Just about. But not Hunter. There is no amount of ANYTHING that can persuade Hunter to do what he does not want to do. Someday this will be an incredible strength to him. Right now, though, it's annoying. Oh well. It's hardly the worst affliction I'll encounter in my life. On to the word of the day:

Obdurate (ahb duhr uht) It's an adjective meaning hardened in feeling; resistant to persuasion. Hunter is completely obdurate on the issue of potty training. Synonyms include inflexible, recalcitrant and unyielding.

Life

Brigham is the little thinker of the family. His brain processes everything well beyond his years. A few days ago we were in the car and he told me a gay joke. I knew he had no clue what being gay meant, so I took the opportunity to discuss two things with him: what being gay means, and that we don't make fun of other people just because they are different from us (except rednecks, we still make fun of them). Fast forward to yesterday.




Brigham and Hunter took out the game of Life. They chose their cars and were looking confused at the blue and pink plastic pegs. I explained that those were supposed to be people, so they should put in a blue one to represent themselves, then they would add more if they landed on spaces that told them to get married or have a kid. Brigham the thinker replied, "We'd add pink ones, right? Because we're not gay."

photo courtesy of Maggie Holmes Photography

4th through 9th Days of Christmas

Okay, I got a little behind on the days of Christmas. With just a couple remaining I thought I better catch up.

4 Calling Birds (address/phone book with birds on it)

5 Gold Rings (napkin rings)

6 Geese A Laying (six geese on a wreath w/ chocolate covered pretzels)

7 Swans a Swimming (This one got the biggest laugh of the week. Can you figure it out without me elaborating?)

8 Maids a Milking

9 Ladies Dancing

These cookies were among the best cookies I have ever eaten. They were so good I let Brigham have one for breakfast the morning after they were delivered because I didn't know if I'd be able to refrain from eating them all if I made him wait until a more reasonable cookie eating time of day. He said, "Are these from the mall? They taste just like the cookies from the mall." Oh yeah, that's good.