Brotherhood

Concentration

You know what they say… Hope springs eternal.

Make Mine Grilled

Small Fry had his first grilled cheese sandwich Friday.  He loved it.

Don’t worry, Small Fry.  There’s more where that one came from.

Happy McFrappe

I’ve always said that I don’t have an addictive personality, but I’m beginning to rethink that statement.

Oh, I’m not at all interested in liquor or the usual addictive substances.  Mine appear to be much worse.

Take television, for example.  I can quote more than the legal number of lines from Friends, Designing Women, and Will & Grace.  When those shows went off the air, I wept during each final episode.  I was practically in mourning when Friends left us, and I haven’t been faithful to a television cast since the show’s departure.  I just can’t take the pain of knowing it will end at some point.

Then there was last summer, when I stumbled upon the peach milkshakes from Chick-fil-A and thought I’d died an gone to heaven.  The bank called to tell me that a Chick-fil-A fan had stolen my debit card and was spending the contents of my checking account in very small increments.  I sort of lied and told them that the spender was me, but that my doctor ordered me to add more fruit to my diet.

As summer ended and the peach milkshakes went away, I went into severe withdrawal.  The good news was that I built up some reserves in my checking account just in time for the holidays.  That’s when Chick-fil-A brings out the peppermint milkshakes, and HO!HO!HO! Merry Christmas to me!  Once more, the bank called to tell me that my card had been confiscated, again, by the same Chick-fil-A bandit.  And, again, I had to tell them that all was well;  peppermint helps ease my nasty cough.

Of course, there’s always my dependence on diet coke, but I’m sure I’ve covered that one more than once.

My latest obsession must be the most delicious drink to pass these lips in decades, and it’s made by the McPeople at my new McFavorite McBeverage spot.  It’s the CARAMEL FRAPPE from McDonald’s.  D-I-V-I-N-E-O-M-I-T-E, people!  Why, today alone I’ve had three of them.  That’s right.  THREE!  And I’m not the least bit ashamed, because have I mentioned how D-I-V-I-N-E-O-M-I-T-E they are?  (I feel that I should add that I did not leave my house three times to get these drinks.  I was out and about all day, so getting one right after the other them throughout the day wasn’t hard.)

Fortunately for the McDonald’s Corporation, I have a long list of errands to run tomorrow, so I hope the city’s Mickey-D’s have stocked up on the frappe goods.  This new addiction has to carry me through ’til summer arrives and those peach milkshakes come in…

When All Else Fails, Show Pictures of the Taters

Tater Tot’s class was studying the letter E a few weeks ago, and his teacher made elephant headbands for the class.  Here are a couple of pictures whose quality isn’t the greatest, but I was using my phone, so bear with me, if you will.

Tater Tot models an elephant with its trunk raised.

Small Fry is one cracker-eating dude.

I can’t believe that he will be a year old in 7 weeks.  Can you imagine what he’ll do to his cake?

Slumping It

Once upon a time, I was a faithful blogger.  I stayed up late, well past everyone’s bedtime, to fill up a bunch of space with whatever ramblings were roaming around in this strange brain of mine.

And then, about three weeks ago, I hit a slump.  It was as though I’d lost my will to blog.  No blogworthy ideas (if there is such an animal) would come.

Things got really busy at school (translation:  grades were about to be due and I had a stack of papers as high as the roof to grade), Small Fry cut his bottom two teeth at the same time, we’ve been trying to adjust to life without Pearl, and Tater Tot still refuses to become fully potty-trained.

I’m not going to lie.  It hasn’t been pretty around here.

Plus, I think all the icky weather Memphis has seen in the last month did a number on my mood.

And did I mention all the grading I had to catch up on?  Because the sheer volume of it made me cry on more than one occasion.

The clouds seem to be lifting, because I’m feeling much like my old self again.  We’re on spring break this week.  GLORY!  Let me say that again.  WE ARE ON SPRING BREAK!  It looks like we’ll see a few days of rain, but by Thursday things should clear up and start looking like spring.  Now that we’ve all set our clocks ahead, things will look like spring for more hours of the day.

Maybe the slump is on its way out.

I still don’t have a ton of bloggy ideas, so feel free to suggest something.

I’ll just be here, unslumping.