Late Season Goods

I saw some light frost on Saturday morning, so who knows if any of this is true anymore, I haven't been down there this weekend.

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I was down in what's left of our garden last week, picking some of the last of our orange tomatoes – the red ones were all pretty much rotted to heck already –, and I thought all our tomatillo "lanterns" were such a charming sight. Our one plant had set lanterns earlier in the growing season, but no fruit. The lady across the street observed that honeybees have been really scarce this year and that she took pollinating her plants into her own hands instead. But ours is finally having its second-coming after Drew hacked it back midsummer, maybe too much, in order that the plant might concentrate on the very few branches of fruit. I gave a couple of these new lanterns a peek, and there appears to be small tomatillos inside. I just don't know if they'll mature fast enough for us to harvest before they freeze.

And here was a surprise: I had forgotten that we had bought an end-of-season plant (kind?) to replace the green zebra that died. Who knows if we'll get to eat this one, or the four other smaller ones, either. (Isn't the rest of the garden looking rather bare and glum?)

Bell Peppers and Vanity

We were having a three-color bell pepper stir-fry, an AhPoh creation, for dinner, and AhPoh was telling G how the various colors would be good for her body and skin. (G doesn't like her vegetables, but you can appeal to her vanity.) As we prodded BB to eat some vegetables, which her dinner was sabotaged by a too-big snack before swimming lessons, G told her, matter-of-factly, "If you don't eat the orange and yellow colors, you won't have pretty skin and a clean body." After a couple of thoughtful bites of rice, BB retorted, just as matter-of-factly, "沒辦法 (mei ban fa)," which can be translated, It's not going to happen, or, It can't be helped.

BabyLegs Knockoffs

With cold weather already on and only five pairs of legwarmers to our name, I thought I'd better get cracking on my BabyLegs knockoffs. For those of you that don't know, BabyLegs are a brand of baby legwarmers: they're super soft and expensive (about $12 a pair). Two years ago, I bought some legwarmers off Etsy – four pairs for $20 – and was not so pleased with the quality of the material. Though they've taken a lot of abuse from G and BB and they've held together admirably, they're not terribly soft or elastic. Not something I want babying my baby in any case.

So last spring, I bought a three-pack of end-of-season knee-high socks, making sure they were soft, for about $4, and these are the first. This is not the tutorial that I used, but it's almost the same: the one difference being that I made the bottom cuff narrower so that if fits more snugly around Z's ankle. This is also my first time sewing with knitted material, and may I just say, aaagh! ...Anyway as I was describing this project to a friend, she asked me, If it's an adult's sock, wouldn't it be too loose and fall down? (You may be wondering the same thing.) The verdict after several days in the same pair? They stay put better than either our name brand BabyLegs, a gift mind you, or our Etsy leg warmers.

BB and G are modeling the remaining two pairs.

You've Got Mail

I've been told that I need a comments section, but I rebel. So I'm going to try a contact box, which you might have noticed in the sidebar. If you feel the urge, send me an email!

Yarn Pumpkins and Sensory Bag

Somewhere, someone referenced these yarn apples to make yarn pumpkins – so we did too. My plan is to make a few more for her classmates for Halloween treats. (G set this picture up herself using that lid from our Cinderella tea set.)

Afterward I had her do a similar sensory shape exercise using our wooden beads and matching them by feel, thinking in the back of my mind that it'd be too easy for her, and it was. So I added a string and had her thread the beads inside the bag, i.e. without looking. Still a bit too easy for her: I think the activity would be perfectly suited to BB.

G's Skewers

I had G do the same skewer activity some days after BB, and without giving any direction, I was interested to see that she decided to sort the beads by their various colors and shapes. As you can see, we're missing quite a number of the orange ones and a few others: confound it.

Funny Ha-Ha

My mom brought her latest of issue of Reader's Digest with her, and just about the first thing I did was skim through the joke pages. One highlight was this entry:

English is tough to learn, as these attempts from classes in English as a second language prove: (Source: innocentenglish.com)

• "Do you like this food? I made it from scratching." (my favorite)
• "I never liked mushrooms, but now they are beginning to grow in me."
• "Do you like your coffee cremated?"
• "I usually worm up my food before I eat it."

I prefer Engrish.com for my funny English quotes though.

But I must also tell you about one of the funniest blogs I've come across in a long while: Cake Wrecks. I laugh just about every time I read her blog. I had intended to join the throngs at her book signing stop in Kansas City on Monday, but it seems her husband came down with pneumonia – and a staph infection. Guess I'll have to settle for her book.

Z's Loves

The vacuum: It blows air in her face, the front light is rather mesmerizing, and it moves in strange unpredictable ways. Z's always impeding work by crawling in the way, trying to get a better look.

Play-Doh.

The paci: I recently reintroduced the plug to Z – she didn't care much for it in her infancy – after she showed an interest in BB's, and coupled with weaning, it's become her semi-constant companion. Unlike BB, it's not always in her mouth, and though she won't go searching for it, she does get excited when I offer it to her. At dinner, if it's within view, it becomes her after-dinner "cigarette". Mostly, I like it because it buys everyone an extra hour or more of sleep when Z wakes up too early.

Just to Get Him in Trouble

Over the weekend, Drew and I went on a date – the last time was in July – to Benton's, finally using up the gift certificate that we won at auction. Benton's is located atop the Weston Crown Center Hotel, so we had a great view of downtown Kansas City, which unfortunately isn't much to look at. We ordered a bottle of wine and positively stuffed ourselves with something off every page of the menu: I had a crab cake appetizer, which was paired really well with this cucumber and roasted pineapple salad; corn bisque; the center cut tenderloin with an herbed potato and yam (both thinly sliced) cheese stack; and banana's foster, which they made table-side, with a glass of muscato. (We thought we were ordering a dark muscat wine, but ended up with a very sweet chardonnay.) Looking back on the picture, I chided Drew for not holding my hand. (But I'm not slouching, Megan.) He swore up and down that his right pinky was touching my hand, but there's where he was foiled by technology: my new camera has an excellent zoom capability, which verified that all five of his fingers were firmly wrapped around his other hand. For shame!

In other weekend news, we participated in our church's annual life chain, which is quietly holding signs for an hour along the nearby intersection. We weren't able to attend last year, I can't remember why, but a friend was telling me that this year's was the largest group: about a hundred people, not all from our parish. Though there were a few very rude gestures and one guy who pulled up at the intersection to yell obscenities – two years ago, it rained during the life chain and my friend said one car intentionally splashed her –, we had generally positive responses from passersby with (polite) honks and waves.

AhPoh in a Corner

For some reason the girls were chasing AhPoh (in slow motion) around the living room, and pinned her to the corner like they were going to keep her there.