Picnic Lunch

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Christopher had a Riley appointment on Wednesday, just therapy, but still the stress of them frazzles me. Though I'm not the only one. So I had packed a lunch for us, just in case Chris was hungry when we left, then instead of taking him to school in time for lunch there, we could have lunch together. We opted to go to the Zoo and White River Gardens for our picnic lunch.





The hyacinths and daffodils were in bloom!



We also got to see a few ducks.



Tell me you find the three ducks by the three duck statues as funny as I did. So did the boys. ;)



Sweetboys in the gardens. :)



I think I try every year to get a family picture of the us. Sometimes I have good luck, and sometimes not.



This one looks familiar. ;)





2 crazy picnic boys on the steps.



They decided they needed "Recess".



For a bit they ran around the 'shady garden' which isn't really that shady when the trees don't have leaves on them.



They didn't care.



They were having a wonderful time climbing up and down the small cement walls.






They weren't so much with letting me take tons of flower pictures, but they let me get a few ones. Honestly, my favorite things in this world to photograph are Sweetboys and Flowers. Combining the two brings me Great Joy.

My Favorite:

Transition of a day

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We woke up to a crazy fog on Tuesday morning. We couldn't see far, but still had to get moving. Weather doesn't stop our day!



So onward we drove, around Eagle Creek park, to take Sam to school. So eerie.



But once we got around the park, we could see a little further.



We watched as the sun burned the fog off the area. By the time I finished my Starbucks beverage, the fog was gone. ;)



My friend Kathleen's sweetgum tree still had some pods on it, as it was beginning to bloom.



And as the sun set, these fellas were telling us all about themselves in the tree in our backyard.



Very cool day.

Mine

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Well, it's official. Sam is My Son. I sat down to lunch today, and after my sandwich I needed a little somesing extra. Sam was doing his traditional lunch of a tub of cottage cheese and a spoon. I peeked into the fridge, and saw an open tub of my homemade red hot applesauce. The applesauce is so sweet and scrumptious a little goes a long way, so it's actually perfect when paired with cottage cheese. The perfect bite, if you will is cottage cheese and applesauce. Just like cottage cheese and pineapple, or cottage cheese and peaches, cottage cheese and homemade strawberry jam. I'm fairly serious about pairing things with my cottage cheese. And Eric laughs at me. Chris won't go near cottage cheese with a 20 foot pole. And Sam, well, he likes his cottage cheese straight up. So he was most intrigued when I dug in with him. So he wanted to try some.

He liked.

A lot!

So I broke out the camera for a self portrait to capture this joyous moment of cottage cheese and applesauce. Clearly I need a bit more self-portrait practice. Still a happy day.

Getting ready

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Hello Daylight Savings Time. Not sure I like you yet or not. I like it being light out at 7, but not in the summer when it's light out at 10. We flipped the clocks forward this morning which felt great as Chris slept in until the new 8:30. He said he was sick, too tired to stay for church this morning, willing to go home and take a nap. That was a sign, he Must be sick. Alas, once home, he had no interest in sleeping. And avoiding naps is a healthy sign for him. So I have no idea if he is sick or not. Though I am feeling better, I went so far as to bathe and get dressed today. Woohoo! Don't you love being able to take a hot shower after being sick, and it's like the Best Shower Ever. This was one of those, top 10 maybe, the top places are the showers after I come home from the hospital. Now THAT'S a great time to take a hot shower! Consequently, we're mostly mousy over here today, we didn't do much. I did make it outside to take this:



Anyway, the weather is signaling spring. Things are a changing. And this pic is the couple flowers out front, tulips I'm fairly sure, that I snapped a few weeks ago as my cover pic. They are growing. They're getting ready. So am I.

How I've spent my day

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The sun is going down lighting up all the windows in the house, and this day is a crazy blur. It started yesterday, I woke up to the sound of the school bus outside my door. I was halfway outside waving to Chris before I realized how sore I was, and my throat was getting annoyingly sore again. How rude. So I started a pot of tea. Tea is the answer to everything when you have a sore throat, right? Right. I drank the whole thing in the next 2 hours. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, but couldn't sleep, I'd started the humidifier in the boys' room, and Chris woke a couple times saying the Music was funny, but it wasn't the music, as I found out this morning, it was the "humanifier". I got chills and hot in the middle of the night.
I suspected the strep was/is coming back. I took my temp upon waking, 99.5. Why is it that you feel most like ass at 99.5? I would gladly trade the ignorant bliss of a nice high fever for the achy pain and crap feeling. I can't even pinpoint the pain. I think the first digit of my pinky fingers is the only place that doesn't hurt right now.
But I postponed drugging up, for a while anyway, in my mind, if I was going to the doctor, I want to be symptomatic. Maybe I do get stupid at 99. Eric has been wonderful. He took the boys to a church meeting this morning, and they were good, only upending the entire nursery. Then he took them to Emily's birthday party. I think that's what makes me saddest of all, that I can't go to her party. As an honorary family member, we've gone to every one. I take pictures. It's my job.
But today, the only pictures I'm taking are from the view of my couch, as I snuggle up with my bitty boxer and polish off a second pot of tea of the day.
I did start new drugs. So I started them today, hopefully it will knock out the remaining cooties that last weeks Omnicef didn't kill. Dr. Z called me in a Z-pack. That just sounds funny, I guess that's part of the punchy side of getting sick again. I'm really sick and tired of being sick and tired. Didn't we JUST do this last week? Why yes, yes we did. OK, enough pity partying, it's been 10 whole minutes, time for more tea and Grey's Anatomy.

Crazy Hat Day

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Christopher's school is doing this great thing, fundraising for a paraplegic former student. And for the entire month of March, for a minimum donation of $.50 you get to dress up for school. Last week it was Jammie day, he wore his Lego Batman jammies, the day before was dressup as your favorite book character, he was Cat in the Hat, appropriate for a Seussian week. Today, he wore the Sam I Am hat... the one that Sam borrowed for his Sam I Am costume. Originally it was Uncle Karl's, who had quite the extensive hat collection in his teen years, and we have inherited. But my boy loves to dress up. And he's so adorable doing so. $.50 is a bargain for that sort of Joy.

Banana Buns

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My sister is a bloody genius. I had 4 rotting bananas on my counter, so I asked her for a good banana bread recipe. The last one I tried was utter mush in the middle. Now SOME people love mushy banana bread, but not me. So she suggested muffins.
But she didn't do banana bread. She recommended using this Amazing Recipe.



I subbed bananas for apples and didn't use any spices. And they turned out Good. So Good, Sam had a huge meltdown as we fought over the 'biscuits' at lunch today.