The Man With the Spatula

Most people probably wouldn't look at Mark and automatically assume he's a cook. And he probably wouldn't call himself one, but I must proclaim to all the world that he has a gift. I think this gift involves spatulas. I'm telling you, anything he touches with a spatula turns to gold. Mark has been making pancakes with our kids on Saturdays mornings since they were old enough to stand on a stool. But it's his omelettes that have so impressed me over the years. I've been making my own omelettes since I was a kid, but once we'got married and Mark made me that first omelette years ago, I don't bother to make my own anymore. I don't know what he does to make them so perfect, and I think I've decided I don't want to know. I love cooking, but it's kind of fun that his are so much more yummo. The really cool thing is that he seems to have so much fun making them that he doesn't mind if I randomly ask for one. This weekend the spatula gift was confirmed. I was sick with a knock-me-over kind of cold and no food sounded good to me except for mild things like soup or english muffins. Mark made me the most delactable grilled cheese of my life. It wasn't anything fancy--plain white bread, one slice of american cheese--so I don't know why it tasted so good. I guess I'm just chalking it up to my husband's gift.

September, Here We Come!

Since having my kids and becoming a stay-at-home mom, my life has been very slow, for lack of a better word. I've had all the time in the world to do things. Once we moved to Columbus, it became slower than ever because of not knowing many people. I became involved more than ever in my online world, which involved numerous blogs I read, browsing for any and everything, and of course, facebook. Suddenly, life isn't like that anymore. For the past 6 or 7 months, we've been busy, but it seems since July, busier than ever. It's a good busy though--getting Jake started in school and all the meetings that go with that, starting with the Young Adult group at our church, doing a rediculous amount of fun area things with friends to get us through my most hated month of the year (swelteringly miserable August!). I guess all this is to say that I hate the fact that each blog entry seems farther apart than the last. As I go about my day, so many things pop into my head and my brain starts automatically writing my next entry, but then I don't get a chance to sit down and actually type it in, or when I do, I'm tired and I just want to vedge. It's frustating because this is such a fun outlet for me. Anyway, if you're still checking this silly but hopefully slightly interesting blog, I'm hoping things will even out sometime soon, maybe after my mom flies home next week and we're finally settled into a normal routine around here.

Here We Go Again

Just bear with me here, people, as it is time for my very annual lament about how summer is too long and it’s time for the magic of Fall.

I’m ready for jeans.
I’m ready for Ohio State football.
I’m ready for Jake to start school.
I’m ready for my brown sweater coat.
I’m ready for leaves to change color.
I’m ready for socks and sneakers and boots.
I’m ready for apple picking.
I’m ready for clean crisp air.
I’m ready for my green puffy vest.
I’m ready for pumpkins.
I’m ready for hay rides.
I’m ready to wear my first ever official OSU football jersey on Saturdays.
I’m ready for warm spicy candles.
I’m ready for pumpkin bread and apple crisp.
I’m ready to change my living room décor to autumn stuff.
I’m ready for a new TV season.
I’m ready for flannel pj pants and hooded sweatshirts.
I’m ready for homemade soups and stews.
I’m ready to wrap up in quilts in my cold house.
I’m ready to swap our American flag with our OSU flag for a few months.
I’m ready for the fact that once fall is here, the magic of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas closely follows, but with enough time in between to revel in each one.

So very much to enjoy...

I got to share the Lord's Supper last night with some girls in a very intimate setting. What a unique experience...to sit and take communion with a group of girls who I barely know yet, but who I feel close to because they are my sisters...

Little Things That Make Me Smile

"Don't you just love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address..."
--Tom Hanks in the movie You've Got Mail
I know I've used this before in a previous post, but it's honestly one of my favorite quotes of all time. And it's getting to be that time of year. Not fall yet, unfortunately, but since it's almost August, the stores are packed to overflowing with school supplies. As a kid, one of my favorite things in life was shopping for each year's supplies. I loved choosing a fun tissue box, a new pencil case sporting whatever I was obsessing over that year, and I still remember every trapper keeper I ever had. What's better than fresh pencils and crayons? Now that Jake is starting Kindergarten, once again I get to relive fun things through my kids. A few weeks ago he picked out a Batman backpack, and last week we got everything else on his supply list. I can't believe he's old enough that his existence now requires a batch of #2 pencils! So this is a fun new phase we're entering, but something I've been doing in August for years now is restocking our own personal house stash of crayons. You know how it goes...after a while you have a plastic shoebox size container of all broken crayon bits and pieces, complete with stray papers that have been ripped off the crayons along the way. Well, every August I stock up on 10 cent boxes of brand new Roseart crayons to last us another year. And hey, if you're feeling crazy, go for the 22 cent Crayolas!!

Reasons I Haven't Been Blogging Lately...

--3 week vacation to PA and Boston

--Picnics at the park

--Painting projects around the house

--Lots of kiddie pool time in the backyard

--Pool and ice coffee time at friends' houses

--Christmas shopping (that's right...have you seen the clearance toys out there? June and July are goldmines!!)

--Spending time with Mark before he started his summer job

--Painting polka dots on Rory's toenails

--Fun crafty projects with the kids

--Guitar Hero with Mark and quality Wii sports time with the kids

--Saturday morning farmer's market

--Library reading club

--Dinners with friends

--Quality time with ice cream cones

--Grilling outside instead of cooking inside

--Summer movies at ornate old theatres, in the park, and at the dollar theatre

I have to say, for someone who claims to "hate summer," I sure have been enjoying myself!

"Though inland far we be

our souls have sight of that immortal sea..."

--William Wordsworth

"Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us

think things we like to think."

--Robert Henri

"Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought

of which the sea would not be a part."

--Hermann Broch

"A person should go out on the water on a fine day to a small distance from a beautiful coast, if he would see nature really smile..."

--Augustus William Hare

"There is indeed, perhaps, no better way to hold communion with the sea than sitting in the sun on the veranda of a fisherman's cafe."

--Joseph W. Beach

I am very happy here in Columbus. I've fallen in love with the city itself, but I do have one complaint--it's inland. This has been a problem for me and probably always will be, no matter how at home I am here. I once read that if you're born near the ocean, your connection to water never goes away. I find this to be irrefutable...

Out!

So much happening, so little time to write. We're heading on our annual journey to the hills of Pennsylvania this Saturday. As usual, Mark will be working 3 weeks of basketball camps, and the kids and I will be off on adventures to Boston, the beach, visiting old friends, and many peaceful mornings on campus, feeding the psychotic geese, blowing bubbles, riding bikes and whatever other whim takes over us. I already checked my dozen books out of the library (I do a LOT of reading on this trip), bought all our fun vacation snacks, and have the kids little backpacks filled with all sorts of goodies and surprises.

Something a little extra exciting for me this time around is that as of tomorrow, I'm done with my babysitting job. I am so thankful it came along when it did because it was an absolute answer to prayer. It's been 4 months of Monday through Friday 7:00a.m. to 5:30p.m. And now, IT'S OVER!!!!!! I can't explain to you how thankful I am to be spending the rest of my summer with my own two kids. The older they get, the more fun I'm having, and I am psyched to be just us again, and to have the freedom to say yes to whatever comes along because I won't have 4 or 5 (depending on the time of day) in tow.

So we're ready to get our lives back, we're ready for a fun vacation, and we'll be really ready to come back to Columbus and jump right back in to the fun and contentment we've found here.

An Ice Cream Awakening

I guess every area I've lived in has their own local ice cream place from Richardson's in MA to Mannings in PA. I finally got a taste of Columbus' Graeter's. I'm a creature of habit and that habit usually goes for a coffee chocolate chunk (Starbucks Java Chip...the best there ever was) or mint chocolate chip. But my friend told me about Graeter's famous black raspberry chip and I don't know if it was the weather or my mood or Lydie's excitement, but I was convinced I had to try it. I don't know if I will ever get anything else at Graeter's. It was HEAVEN ON EARTH!!! Black Raspberry Chip melting out of my waffle cone is a great way to spend girls night out.

Take Time for Summer's Pleasures

That's the slogan for Country Time Lemonade. Doesn't the name Country Time Lemonade conjure up familiar images? Things like big yellow houses with porch swings, kids running through fields in summer, and lemonade stands on street corners with misspelled signs. I think Country Time's advertising department was successful since I'm pretty sure these images are memories of old tv commercials. Every summer of my life I've reconnected with this drink. Growing up my grandmother (who lived across the street) always had some in her fridge. As kids we always managed to mooch something off Gram at least once a day. In the summer for me it was the lemonade. It was mostly pink lemonade, but sometimes she went with the original. Grammie was a brand name kind of lady so there were no generic substitutions in her house. When it came to the lemonade, I was glad about that. Over the years in my own house I've tried to carry on this tradition of making sure there's always a pitcher of lemonade available during the summer. I've experimented here and there with cheaper brands, especially since I'm a faithful cheapo Aldi shopper but always end up coming back to Country Time because I don't like the koolaid-esque taste of the others. Don't get me wrong--I love Koolaid, but for the fruit punch and berry flavors. Lemonade is something you just don't mess with. I hit the jackpot today because a local store is having a Buy 1, Get 2 Free sale on Country Time. I bought 6 and calculated that they cost about 76 cents each! That should get us through at least the rest of this spring...

My Little Bro

My youngest brother Tommy turned 21 last week. Being 10 years apart with other siblings in between, it's almost like we grew up in 2 different families, but I think all 4 of us kids were always close back then. It's so hard to believe he's this old. In my mind he's still the 6 year old kid he was back when I left home for boarding school, dribbling the basketball like a pro, never without a baseball hat, dressing up like every movie character he ever saw, and taking his wagon around to all the neighbors yards pretending to be a landscaper. =) To this day he is still the coolest kid I've ever known. I think the majority of people who read this blog know Tommy's history. He needs Jesus. Keep praying.

Since they both love cartoons, Jake has always loved watching movies with Uncle Tommy. =)

Here's the Story...

I recently introduced my kids to an American Institution, but not purposefully. For my birthday I got The Brady Bunch Complete Series on DVD (I bought it myself, of course) and it's now one of the most fun things I own. It's a special collector's set and comes in a green shag case--SO COOL! The Brady Bunch, you may ask? Yes, the Brady Bunch. I have loved this show since I was a little kid and remember watching it almost everyday after school for years. Now whenever I catch it on TV Land, or whatever channel it's currently showing on, I realize how much I still love it. The music, the voices, the story lines...everything about it is rediculously familiar, and therefore, is just plain comforting. So I decided to take the plunge. Since I bought it, I've been watching a couple of episodes here and there for the past few months, and didn't realize that it would reel in my two preschool age kids. Only the earlier seasons seem to keep their attention, probably because the kids on the show are younger so the story lines are easier to follow. They know the words to the song, and seem to have a special interest in Bobby and Cindy. =) They especially like the classic camping episode when the tents fall down on them, the one where Bobby enters an ice cream eating contest, and also the one where Bobby and Cindy get lost in the grand canyon. I have to admit that I'm glad they like it and considering how things on TV have changed quite a bit over the years, I know it was money well spent.

Childhood Attachment

Meet Cinderella. She's been Rory's best friend since last September, when she received her birthday present from Grammie. Rory sleeps with her every night, plays with her everyday, and sometimes, is even allowed to take her in the car or to the store. Cinderella has been a great friend, and has taken quite a beating. She's already had a patch job on her rump and her gloves have needed restitching too. I firmly believe that the Disney Store puts out a quality product, but when a little girl's love is this deep, even Disney Store products need some fixing up. Cinderella's been getting dirtier by the month and finally today I decided she needed a bath. Rory handed her BFF over to me with a very serious and concerned look when I told her Cinderella needed a ride in the washing machine to get clean, but her look also said, "I trust you." I'm so not kidding. So here we sit, with baited breath, hoping the gentle cycle doesn't do too much damage.

Rory opening up her present

The first hug

A child's love...right before I took her for her first bath =)

Another Friday...Another Movie...

"Life is an occasion. Rise to it." --Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

"See that girl, watch that scene..."

Mark has always been somewhat picky about the music he listens to. He likes mostly the latest in Christian or worship music (your basics: Casting Crowns, Chris Tomlin, Jeremy Camp, David Crowder Band, Hillsong, etc.) He also, being an athlete, likes your basic Jock Rock--anything that gets you pumped up--a little Van Halen, a little Def Leppard, a little Eminem, a little House of Pain. You get the idea.

I have always liked pretty much anything and everything except for R&B. I love rock (harder rock, indie rock, folk rock, soft rock, classic rock, alternative rock...get the idea?!), oldies, country, eclectic, classical, showtunes, crooners...I don't claim to love hip hop, but even I have my weaknesses for certain songs.

So imagine my amusement this morning when I woke up to my big tough guy husband whistling and singing along to Abba's "Dancing Queen" (which was loudly playing on my clock radio) as he went about his morning. My groggy first words upon waking up to this brand new day were, "Wow, nobody can resist a little Abba."

Eat, Pray, Love

Disclaimer: This is not a Christian book.

Those who know me best know I don't read a lot of Christian authors. Mostly because I don't prefer Christian fiction, and I am by nature a novel lover. I have started reading a little more non-fiction by Christian authors, mostly because the older I get, the more I realize how clueless, helpless, (insert another synonym here), and lost I am when it comes to the fact that I am actually responsible for 2 human beings on this earth.

Anyway, I just finished reading this non-fiction piece of secular writing and I couldn't put it down. It was an adventure. It was eye-opening. It was a lot of crazy world views. Although there is so much I disagree with in this book, I have to say I agree whole heartedly with 2 major themes:

1 -- Food is divine (and I wish I could experience more)

2 -- Everyone should discover their purpose and their place in this lifetime

A Perfect Afternoon

We had a fabulous day last week. I haven't mentioned much about it here, but I've started babysitting my neighbors' kids fulltime, and because of that, I don't get out anymore. Having 5 kids everyday makes it impossible to be on the go the way I once was. But it's only temporary, so it's okay for now. Anyway, I had a day off last week because Jake had a Kindergarten visiting day. It was only a couple of hours, and since I had the entire afternoon off, my friend suggested we go to the park for a picnic and then over to Slate Run Historical Farm. I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my one free afternoon! We had the best day. First of all, it felt so good to be out in the fresh air, eating a picnic lunch, which the kids and I love to do. It was our first one of 2008 and I'm looking forward to lots more. Second, I've been hearing about Slate Run since I got to Columbus and we just hadn't made it there yet. It's the coolest place for my kids ages and they had a blast. I felt like the day was our kickoff for spring and summer this year.

Rowan (the little guy), Ella, Rory, Jake, Silas, and Quinn

These are our new friends. Their middle two kids are the same ages as Rory and Jake, so we have fun together. Jake and Quinn claim to be best friends, which is very cute.

Kid Conversation

Pretty much the only thing that could drag me from watching The Office last night was my kid losing his first tooth. This really snuck up on me. I've never even mentioned teeth falling out, tooth fairies, or anything else on this topic. It started yesterday afternoon during lunch when Jake was crying telling me his mouth hurt. We've had a house full of criers lately so I was pretty unsympathetic and told him to just keep drinking water to make it feel better. Then yesterday afternoon, Jake found me to tell me that his tooth "broke." HAHA! Meaning it was loose cuz he was showing me how he could move it around. And by the way, OOPS, about the unsympathetic lunch. So I acted like it was so cool and tried explaining how teeth fall out and then grow back when you're a little kid. Who knows how much of that he actually comprehends. The 6 yr. old I baby-sit everyday told Jake that if he put it under his pillow the Tooth Fairy would bring him "3 dollars or 4 dollars or 5 dollars or 6 dollars." Huh? Things sure have changed since I was a kid! So I told McKensie that I was pretty sure the Tooth Fairy was still working with coins, not dollars in the Chapman house. Anyway, last night Jake calls downstairs from bed and tells me he has something to show me so he comes running downstairs proudly carrying his tooth in his hand. Mark said we should put it under his pillow right then, but I, of course, needed to give this auspicious event its due, so said we'd hold off until tonight instead. I have a fun book to read called "The Night Before the Tooth Fairy" by Natasha Wing that I've been saving for this very occasion. And we need to make a big deal and have fun with it all day. Any chance I get I have to make some magic around here. So this morning Jake was all excited when he woke up and told Mark again that his tooth "fell off." It kills me what wording kids come up with on their own. So Mark mentioned putting it under his pillow tonight and asked if Jake knew what would happen. Jake said, "the tooth fairy will put my tooth back in!" Again, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

A New Day

I think spring has sprung here in Columbus, Ohio. We've had two gorgeous days and a couple more are on the way. There's also a ton of rain, which is fine with me because I like my surroundings green! My windows are wide open and fresher air I've never breathed. Maybe the germs we're fostering in here will be gone with the wind and all the crazy sicknesses we've been dealing with will leave with them.

With the spring comes the bi-annual task of sorting through kids clothes, finding what still fits, and of course, re-stocking flip flops. Since they're all my kids wear througout the spring and summer, we go through quite a few pair by the time fall comes around again, but it's okay with me because they're wonderfully cheap. And of course with flip flop weather comes toenail polish, so Rory and I took care of that paint job yesterday afternoon.

The other thing I'm especially thankful for today is my deck. We built it on at the end of last summer, so we barely used it before winter hit. I feel like we have another room on our house now that we're out there so much.

It's nice to know that tonight during the kids' soccer practice, instead of shivering on the bleachers for an hour, I'll actually enjoy it.

Mmmmm

I love Oreo Cakesters!