What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man

I remember the day that I saw this little boy picture of Henry. We weren't engaged yet; possibly not even seriously dating. I was in his room and somehow came across this charming little fellow in a red, marled turtleneck sweater. I think I almost cried just staring at it. Could any human child be so cherishable? I wanted to tuck it in my bag and keep it where I could look at him whenever I wanted to. Instead, I got to marry him for keeps... lucky, lucky me.

Happy birthday, Henry! Lucky for us that you came down from heaven forty years ago, on this 24th day of February. Who would have thought that this little face would become a hero to Maddi, Hillary, Little Henry and Hona. I love you very, very much! You are just as handsome and angelic today as you were in '73.

a place for everything and everything in its place

It's 12:16 am, do you know where your reciprocating saw is? Mr. Ihrig has it and he's rocking the home improvements at our place. My basement storage room is now really a storage room. He's gone and shelved floor to ceiling. No longer are my holiday wreaths strewn about hither and yon, but hanging out of the way, ready for next year. He's been nesting like an expectant mother for days! Don't even get me wrong, I am the luckiest girl I know! It's just that a moment ago, I took a break from writing to look for some lost pictures, (see three days from now,) I 'round the corner to continue my post, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a Mr. Ihrig on a ladder in the front hall with a paint roller in his hand. It's 1:17 am. He is micro-focused now. I don't even say a word, but "wow, shug!" He has been nonstop for days. At this rate, he could go all night. He hasn't even cracked open a diet coke. In fact, his zest for organizational chi has inspired me to change my blog palette. I'm going for minimalist, here. It reminds me of what Mr. Ihrig's dream home would look like:
I vetoed this look years ago because I could never visualize a baby in this setting, just sushi and adults. It's really beautiful, though. In fact, I need to give big ups to Henry's taste. He has always been the visionary in our relationship. Even now, I'm siding with him on the marble tile debate for our downstairs bathroom. Whatever is driving him, (turing 40 on Tuesday) I like it. He is constantly making me happy.

You're My Favorite Deputy

Henry just did this. I didn't even ask. I got home from the gym, and there they were, Forest and Little Forest all snugged up together reading about Buzz and Woody. I enjoyed eavesdropping for a few pages, and you know what? Shuggie never skipped a page. It's fun to hear the boys getting in their quality time.

Peas and Carrots

Hard Work

Hillary getting it done

T-minus five days and counting until the swim meet. This is a pretty significant event for both of the girls. For Hillary, it will be her first swimming competition... ever! She has been such a little trooper to agree to compete only 8 weeks into her swimming career. For Maddi, this will be her first competition since her spinal fusion surgery. She has waited patiently for seven months while her body has recovered. She looked strong today. She's our little technician in the water and I'm so glad she's back! When her doc gave her the green light to swim again, she got in the pool, swam half a length, stopped, and yelled up to me in the bleachers, "I'm home!" That was a good day.

Maddi working on the legs

Not Keeping Up With The Jones' Very Well

We live in at the end of a cul-de-sac among the loveliest of friends. They all own snow blowers and have zero percent slope to their driveways. We possess an ergonomic snow shovel and enjoy a driveway slope of.... I don't know, enough to prevent my Jeep from reaching the garage when there's the skiffiest skiff of snow on the ground. Irony?? You betcha. So often our sweet neighbor men-folk have come to bail us out of a doozy snowstorm and I am so grateful for that!

Just the other day, the snow came. Nobody wanted it to, but it showed up anyway. Along with it came some chilly nights to keep the snow right where it had fallen. After repeated comings and goings with the car, we incurred some gnarly ice pack accumulation. After school, I took my powerless shovel and made some futile attempts to chip away at the ice in the critical areas of the driveway.

Insert fun here: Little H man comes out and says, "Hey, where's the sled?" With sled in unmittened hands, Henry finds the silver lining in the driveway situation.


work with what you've got


and seize the day!

Take Me Back To *1983

What's the most desirable, coveted food choice that Lunch Lady could ever offer you? Yes, it would indeed be the peanut butter bar. What a fine school day it turned into after rounding the lunch line to see those gems laid out just beyond the mystery meat. Talk about a silver lining! Well, I had never successfully crafted them in my kitchen. But, yesterday I came across a real winner. And it's legit, too. It's written in the hand of our very own Knowlton Elementary Lunch Lady. She had to like, one-eighth the recipe to accommodate a non-industrial sized cookie sheet. Go ahead and make these and you'll recall a freer time; before peanut snacks were banned in schools because 9 out of 10 children had severe peanut allergies. FYI: I am certified in epi-pen administration. It's sitting right in my desk drawer and I'm not afraid to use it.

Anyway, the whole family loved them so here's the goods. Give them a try and don't you dare put canned frosting on them. And yep, I mixed it all up in my handy-dandy food processor.

Peanut Butter Bars

3/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 teas. salt

1/4 cup peanut butter + 1 cup for topping

3/4 teas. soda

1 teas. vanilla

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1 1/2 cups flour

Cream together butter, sugars, peanut butter, egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Press into ungreased jelly roll pan. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. Do not over bake. Spread on about 1 cup peanut butter over all while still warm. Cool and frost with chocolate frosting.

*This post would be so freakin awesome if I could get my play list up and running. You would hear John Mayer sing "83" to get you right in the groove of yesteryear. I'm working on it.

Lucky

I'd say that I've read at least one bedtime story every night to at least one of the litter for a solid twelve years running. If I'm being honest, I've grumbled about that responsibility more than a few times. It's a hoop that I must jump through each night in order to earn my own time. Admittedly, I designed the hoop, so I asked for it. And, after all is said and done, I wouldn't change a thing, either. Mr. Ihrig can and has taken on the mantle of reading to the youngins, when needed; when I just can't take another minute, but the kids say he skips pages to finish quicker.

So, tonight it was Lassie and the Deer Mystery. Henry assimilated the words "weapon" and "slingshot" into his vocabulary. It truly is amazing to watch a little person's mind work. There is no substitute for a book. It trumps almost any learning device you can put in a child's hands. The best part of tonight's book choice is that the title page is inscribed by my Great-Grandma Idaho to my big brother Tony on his 7th birthday, 1968. The price tag indicates she paid 29 cents for it. Sweet dreams, little man. Mommy loves you.

Where Have You Been All My Life?

Meet my new best friend. Fifteen plus years of marriage and I've been way overworking myself. This little dandy put the spring right back in my culinary step. You own this guy already? I've heard that most of you do. I'm embarrassed to say that Henry bought me one two years ago, but I took it back! I KNOW!! Crazy! So having read one too many recipes that state, "Place ingredients into food processor and pulse." I determined that I should wise up. A few days ago, Henry spotted a tiny little black and white sale advertisement in the newspaper and ripped it out and headed right over to Macy's, by himself to pick it up; no prodding from me, I know!! cute!

So, I'm not sure where this blog is headed, but I figured that I'd dedicate a fair amount of space to fooding. I like food, and lately, I've challenged myself to up my game a bit in the kitchen. Now that I have my new little gadget, I feel like shouting my ideas from the rooftop. So tonight I launch installment #1 of the "Cuisinart Monologues."

Bread Crumbs 101

Four slices bread, (dried out- unnecessary, mine were fluffy) Cut into small chunks and process 30 seconds. Done. End of story. No more stale, prepackaged, nasty old crumbs sitting in your pantry. Brown in skillet with 1 tablespoon butter to toast them up if you like. Today I used them as a substitute for pie crust. Just press into a greased pie plate.

ps. Henry actually found two surprises for me that day in the kitchen department at Macy's. The other was this fab new blender. Don't even get me started on the fun we're gonna have makin' smoothies. Stay tuned.

Today is February 2nd...

...and this is what is standing in my front room. This not-so-lovely artificial tree mocks me every time I round the corner to head upstairs. And yep, you can see it from the street. Now that's classy.
We took the ornaments off weeks ago, which was great, except I am not a closer. I tend to leave a lot of projects unfinished. Problem is, this baby is heavy! I would do it myself today if its tri-sectionedness wasn't nearly welded together. The bottom two thirds is a 2-person job for sure. Mr. Ihrig has all that beefy upper body strength that I lack and he's just not feelin it. So I'll wait.

Uncle!

I give in. Here is my blog. Pop culture, you win. I figure this was inevitable. I have been surfing the blogs of friends whom I know and love for the past year now. I guess after a while, I just felt like a bit of a moocher; like I hitched a ride for a semester and never offered any gas money. Now I just feel plain yucky about that. In no way am I saying this will fly at all; this is strictly a trial run. For legal reasons, a disclaimer follows:

• I may not be clever or funny, ever.
• My readership will be scant, at best.
• I will make egregious spelling and grammatical errors.
• I might accidentally offend you in my posts.
• I will never be offended by your comments.
• You may wonder if I plagiarized or ripped off from another, cuz I might have.
• If on any level, blogging is similar to scrap booking, I will fail.
• I may spend more time revising the color scheme of my template than blogging.

Now, let's begin.