It's Sunday morning, and you're going
down, Dad.
The old man should know better than to mess with a boy in Spiderman pyjamas.
I think that's what the dog was trying to tell him.
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I don't do asterisk posts. I wonder why? But I'm doing one today.
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The Pea Princess went to her first Guide Camp this weekend and - despite a major fit of nerves as she drove away with her dad, and only knowing the girls in this patrol for a few weeks, and not always being the greatest joiner-inner because,
hello! PEA Princess! - had a brilliant time.
I am so very very happy for her.
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Back home, we got to see what a two-child family felt like.
(Parents of two children, block your ears.)SO fucking easy.
(Parents of two children who didn't block your ears just then? Ok, you can gloat now because, yes, the two-child family may well be the crowning achievement of the 20th century. You win.)And quiet. Except for the incessant whining of two four-year-olds wanting someone to fill big sister's role as Head Prefect and Games Mistress.
Then I remembered the $10 Ikea tent that has saved my So-Not-The-Games-Mistress arse many times. It's still set up under our one tree, full of sleeping bags, barbies, cake crumbs and ants.
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We made pumpkin scones. They were almost perfect (I wasn't game to let the oven get too hot first time, so the first batch didn't rise quite as well as the second, but all would have passed muster at a Country Women's Association street stall).
The recipe was from my mum's precious family recipe book and, as usual, when I open it she starts talking to me again. It's still a bit overwhelming, to hear her so clearly in my head, and it's taken me a very long time to use the book at all because of this.
I loved
Badger's recent cookbook post and in fact have something similar in my draft folder about this cookbook packed with handwritten and typed recipes from my mum, nana, great aunts, great grandmother and her mother and so on... Problem is, while
Badger's post was delightful, mine is all dark and torn and angsty and since that is
never how I really feel about food and
only how I may feel about family, that post's not emerging from drafts until I, like the second batch of pumpkin scones, can rise a little higher.
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If I was really into world peace and shit I would go and find out once and for all what the difference is between American and English scones. But if the notion of pumpkin scones needing to rise is confusing to y'all, do your own damn googling!
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Kim tells me she has no intention of returning to the Evil Empire where we first met.
I can't tell you how relieved I am.
But I do wonder what kind of camping she is doing that she can check her blog comments on Saturday and text me her response...
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And finally, because this asterisking is boring me and may well be boring you and that's probably why I don't do it more often (being a Bear of Little Brain and Low Boredom Threshold), I have yet to mention the package waiting for me in the mail on Friday from our mortgage broker.
I can't name him, but I want to because he has a totally delectable Argentinian name. That, and with the miracles he pulled off to get us into this house without selling the other house, I should be flogging his business at every turn. But I ramble...
I can't name him but there was his name on the back of this heavy package. "Oh bugger," I thought, "It's probably our paperwork that I'll have to try and file." And so I let the Pea Princess open it while I hung out the clothes.
In fact, what she came racing out to me with was a copy of
Maggie's Table with a lovely inscription from the nameless Argentinian.
In the way of all great gifts, it was something I wanted, but not so desperately that I would have bought it for myself. I have been ogling it all weekend and planning my festive season around some of her wonderful big-quantity recipes.
As a result of this and other reading I was able to do sans the third child, I was inspired to add the
Library Thing to this blog and it was So.Simple that I urge you to try doing same (unless, like
Lazy Cow, you've already built one all by yourself!).
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Phew - done! The
current Root Shoot Marry Game is just below this post if you've not yet played this week. At least three RSM virgins joined this week and have made wonderful contributions to the world of the virtual drinking game.
Back to my blissfully noisy three-child house.
mtc
bec
