- Last week of term! LAST! WEEK! And almost my last Maximonday (the new kindergarteners start only on Tuesday, all other kids on Monday, so I’ll have one more after the holiday). You see, Mondays have been my special day with just me and my boy – no big sister, no spielgruppe. And as much as I’m excited about getting more time to myself – VERY! EXCITED! – I know I’ll miss these quiet, cuddly mornings. (Incidentally, no 5 things next week, since I’ll be away and all…)
- I wanted to make July a no-buy month, and I failed by day five. Because stuff for kids (especially in anticipation of holiday boredom), and then the realisation that it wouldn’t be very much fun to go on holiday and refuse to buy anything (like, an ice cream or chips or anything), and then I just gave up. Next month, deal? Deal. (Does it worry me that going without unnecessary purchases for just one month is actually a challenge? Yes, yes it does.)
- I’m going to have to make a habit of going for a run, walk or bike ride first thing every day once kindergarten starts. I won’t want to. I resent spending the time. But otherwise it’ll be just too easy to stay inside, like, all the time, and I suspect I’ll really miss the spielgruppe drop-off – as short as it is. We live in a beautiful place, I need to get outside and enjoy it, even if just for 20 minutes a day.
- I find myself feeling lazy and very much in the mood for an actual summer break, but of course, the sad truth is that for parents, holiday ≠ break. I want to just curl up and read and knit and read and knit. The kids will want to go swimming all the time. Armin will want to go conquer all the mountains. And y’know mountains and swimming are perfectly nice, but they’re not hugely compatible with reading+knitting, and also both involve a fair amount of childcare, so “holiday” feels a lot like extra work. And then we’ll come home and try to figure out what friends are around to play with, and what we can do for fun that satisfies the 4yo AND the 8yo and doesn’t make my life a misery, and by the end of five weeks I’ll be wild-eyed and hissing at people.
- Just read this long piece on how climate change is so much worse than anybody’s actually ready for… actually no, I take that back, I haven’t read it. I skimmed it. Because I can’t deal. Nothing in it is actually news to me or surprising; I’m very very very pessimistic and terrified about the whole deal; and yeah, wouldn’t it be great if that meant I were living a perfectly responsible eco-conscious life? Instead of just making token gestures that don’t interfere too much with middle-class convenience? I guess the problem is with the scope being so vast, it feels impossible to really make a difference. We’re all doomed anyway, yada yada. The human mind can’t cope with the outlook, and human nature can’t cope with having to make sacrifices while knowing that those sacrifices can’t possibly be enough to change the outcome.
Nos 24 & 25 of #52recipes: zucchini panini, which are everything Deb promised, including a surefire way to get your children to complain incredibly loudly about how this is Not What They Wanted At All (and then take it back fairly instantly). And broccoli parmesan fritters, which in contrast are I think the first Smitten Kitchen recipe that hasn’t quite panned out for me. They weren’t exactly bad, just… not great. The quantities seemed off, it didn’t quite cook right, it was just a bit wrong. Three kids each refused more than a single bite (even with fried egg), and the adults weren’t convinced either. I think the explanation is partly user error (should have used more oil and a hotter pan?) and partly just the kids not liking those flavours.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic) 