My shadow ... and her shadow

Since you don't seem to have a problem with iPhone photos, I thought I'd share a few more with you today.

Of course, they all look about the same. Because I have One Little Lady glued to my side at all times.

And when we're at home and it's not a rainy weekend day or weeknight, SHE has One Little Canine Lady glued to HER side.

When I say my phone is "full" of pictures like that, I'm not kidding. I probably have more than 500 pictures of Amelia and Bayla (our neighbor's dog) together. When Bayla is over, Amelia wants pictures of them together.

(Also, as much as I would love to post a picture of Amelia with clothes on, ever since her head injury, she won't wear clothes unless we're leaving the house -- because she's still traumatized by pulling anything over her head. So. I just have to crop every picture I post very carefully.)

Bayla loves to play with us, but she also just loves to "be." She's the most patient creature of all time. She will cuddle but she will also let Amelia lay on her, pile blankets on her, wrap her up, completely cover her ... whatever she wants to do.  #imelt

 Last Saturday Grayson and Nathaniel were on a camping trip and I worked on and off all day, mostly from the couch. This was my view.

Not bad.

A mini-makeover

I know you all think I've fallen off the face of the Earth.

What I've really fallen off the face of, however, is just any semblance of likability or sanity.

I don't blog about work and I don't say much about work here, and that's by design. What I will say here, now, about this specific point in my worklife, is that we are in the middle of a transition that has me feeling more exhausted, more defeated, than I've ever felt at work.

So that's why I've been here less often over the past month. I just haven't had the energy or the time. I know it will pass, so just be patient with me.

Oh! And guess what else. I still haven't posted about Christmas because my hard drive is out of space and I need to buy another external hard drive before I can move any pictures to my desktop to post to the blog. As in, my computer won't even let me copy 25 pictures from iPhoto to my desktop to write a Christmas post because there's no room at the inn.

I know you're jealous of my life.

Let's talk about something happy! Punctuated by pictures from my phone, since that's all you're going to get until I can buy another external hard drive.

I needed to pick up some Clinique makeup while they were having a bonus last weekend, and of course My Adorable Shadow wanted to go with me.

While I was placing my order with the clinician, Amelia noticed a woman having her makeup done in a chair, and she squealed, "MOMMY! CAN I DO THAT?"

Well. I mean. We were just out at Clinique and then going straight home, so why not?

After they packed up my order, the lady couldn't WAIT to put Amelia up in that chair. And Amelia (in a Santa shirt in late February, no less) was a total pro, closing her eyes and puckering her lips like she'd been doing it her entire life.

ALL the ladies wanted to take turns putting a little makeup on "cute little Amelia!" So three women split the job.

NEVER MIND THAT IT WAS THE SATURDAY OF PRESIDENT'S DAY WEEKEND DURING CLINIQUE BONUS AND THERE WAS A LINE OF WOMEN WAITING TO BUY MAKEUP.

Apparently playing dress-up with a little girl is MUCH more fun than catering to 50-year-old women's whims.

Who knew you could get a 4-year-old to sit still enough to apply mascara?

All you could really see was her bright pink lip gloss, which was totally fine by Amelia. She loved it!

Of course everything rubbed off within a couple of hours, but boy did she love feeling like a grown-up from 2 to 4.

It ended up being a fun, cheap date for the two of us. Oh, and sorry if you were one of those women who had to wait an extra five minutes to buy your makeup ...

I made Peppered Glazed Pecans like Plain Chicken's!

Pecans are my favorite nut.

(This is why you come here, right? For ledes like that.)

I used to love cashews the most, but I'm back to pecans. I LOVE it when restaurants add candied pecans or walnuts to their salads, and when I make salads at home for company, I always pick up some of those candied pecans you can buy at the grocery store to add to them.

But.

They're pricey. And not only that, but I recently got a hankering for some pecans, and not rinky-dink pecan BITS, but pecan HALVES. Preferably salted and with other good stuff stuck to them.

So of course I went to my go-to recipe source, my friend Stephanie's website, Plain Chicken.

She had more than one option waiting for me there, but the Peppered Glazed Pecans were everything I was looking for, especially since I already had everything the recipe called for in my pantry. (I was as surprised as you are that I already had corn syrup in there. Apparently it's good for like 10 years.)

I'm not even lying when I tell you that from the time I gathered the ingredients to the time I spread them out on the wax paper to cool off, it may have been 10 minutes. This was BLISSFULLY QUICK!

Luckily I guessed correctly and doubled the recipe right out of the gate, which I would suggest you do if you make these. As a matter of fact, next time I might quadruple it, because guess how long these lasted at our house.

Sixteen hours. AS IN LESS THAN 24.

Peppered Glazed Pecans (original list of ingredients, not doubled)

• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp butter
• 2 tsp light corn syrup
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup pecan halves

Combine brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, pepper and salt in small sauté pan. Stir over medium heat until butter is melted.
Add pecans and cook 5-7 minutes, stirring constantly.
Spread pecans in a single layer on parchment paper. [I have no idea what that is. I used wax paper.] Cool completely.

 

If these look like they might be too sweet for you (I'll never understand you), you might want to try Steph's Sweet & Spicy Pecans.

By the way, I think it goes without saying, but this post wasn't sponsored in any way, and Stephanie certainly didn't give me any of these pecans ALTHOUGH I'D CERTAINLY TAKE THEM IF SHE MADE THEM FOR ME. She is my real-life friend and my go-to source for any recipe I lack, and I just like to share with you when I find something I like as much as I looooooove these pecans.

The last songs I downloaded

Please don't come looking for indie, highbrow or otherwise obscure music finds. I THINK WE ALL KNOW ME BETTER THAN THAT.

For better or worse, here's the last batch of songs I went to download and any songs I downloaded off the same albums while I was there:

1. The Script, Superheroes

2. Adele, When We Were Young and All I Ask

3. Carrie Underwood, Heartbeat

4. Meghan Trainor & John Legend, Like I'm Gonna Lose You

5. Chris Young, I'm Comin' Over 

6. David Dunn, Ready to be Myself

7. Justin Bieber, Sorry and Love Yourself

 
8. Ed Sheeran, Photograph

9. Thomas Rhett, Crash and Burn and Die a Happy Man

10. One Direction, Perfect and History

11. Zac Brown Band, Beautiful Drug

12. The Oh Hellos, I Have Made Mistakes (recommended by Knox & Jamie)

13. Sara Bareilles, Basket Case (recommended by Knox & Jamie)

14. Andrew Peterson, Be Kind to Yourself

For the record, I'm not disappointed in a single one of them. RECOMMEND.

Uncomfortable truths, vol. 66

1. I've never visited Reddit. Nope, not once. Not even during Serial. I'm not even sure I understand what it is.

2. I think the speakers in my minivan are blown out. From listening primarily to One Direction and Taylor Swift songs too loudly. Alone. Without my children in the van.

3. I think the reason Carrie Underwood's single "Smoke Break" didn't do as well as her other hits is that she rhymed "drink" with "drink." I will never buy a song in which you don't try harder than that.

4. Grayson and I watched The Intern last weekend. AND LIKED IT. (Everyone will tell you this is because I am destined to only ever like mediocre movies, because of my Foolproof Movie Recommendation Formula.) (I just applied my formula, and The Intern received a whopping 135. AND I DON'T EVEN LIKE ANNE HATHAWAY.) (I would give it a B on a report card. It was cute.)

5. I was playing 7 Little Words last night and was down to the final two clues. I tried SOPRA, AMPHO, AMPRA and -- worst of all -- SOPAE, before finally whispering "Ohhh, Aesop" to myself.

If you'd like to read more Uncomfortable Truths, click here to read them all. But be forewarned: There are 80 previous posts.

But I'm all for doing away with pennies

I signed the boys out of Extended Day recently at the exact same time that another mom did. I happened to glance over as I signed my name and wrote "5:32" and noticed that she'd written "5:30."

I'M SORRY, WHAT?

When is that even an option? When I sign in at a doctor's office, I note the exact minute of my arrival. Is 1:33 the same as 1:35? IT IS NOT.

Whose brain works that way? Does YOUR brain operate that way? "Oh I just glanced at the clock and it said 12:11 so Ima put 12:15 on this form BECAUSE TIME HAS NO MEANING."

Does her entire life operate in that kind of chaos? Is she early to everything? Or late to everything?

Does she obey traffic signals? Or do they not apply to her, either?

My world has been sincerely rocked. Am I the rule or the exception here?

I honestly do not know.