Sunday, September 23, 2012

Pantry thoughts

Canned goods are way better for stacking and lining up than blocks.

What do you get if you combine coconut milk and an Andy Warhol edition of tomato soup? A tiny can of diced Hatch green chile, of course.

"Here's the daddy can, here's the mommy can, and here's the Meggie can!" Meg

Now you know.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Parental wisdom

"Stop! Do not rock forward. You will fall over and I will be too far away to catch you, and it will hurt and be embarrassing at the same time." Jonathan

Thursday, September 20, 2012

A confusing quote

Also, the other day Meg was chattering to herself in the back of the car when we hear these words coming out of her mouth: "To be or not to be, that is the question."

I swear, I have no idea where that came from. That is, it must have come from a live person she hears, since the VeggieTales version is in the context of playing Battleship and goes "2B?" "Not 2B." But I don't... quote Hamlet. That often. At least I didn't think I did.

Clearly it must be the nursery volunteers at church.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Quote

About half an hour after bedtime, we heard a little voice.

"Mommy? Mommy?"

"What is it?"

"Umm...." We waited. "I didn't do anything."

"Glad to hear it. Can you go to sleep?"

"I am asleep already."

"I love you, darling. Sleep well."

A minute later: "You're pretty funny, Mommy."

Sunday, September 16, 2012

We looked at some more houses

Yesterday we did some more house-hunting. It was a gorgeous, cool, sunny Saturday, and pretty much perfect weather for driving around Western Loudoun.

The first was a townhouse. All we had to do was drive down the street and we were like, "Can't live here." It was one of those really crowded and kind of old developments. Just... no.

The next was a foreclosure fully half an hour out of town, on an acre and a half with a pond. The house itself is a renovated log-and-stone cabin from the early 1800s. We didn't have accurate square footage for it or much to work with, but peeking in through windows it looked pretty small. Apparently there wasn't central air conditioning. It did have a sunporch and a couple of out-buildings with electric lights, though. The land actually smelled a little like Scotland, very fresh and sweet.

The third was a "cupcake" of a duplex right in town. It had quite a nice yard, bigger than any townhouse, and it had been exquisitely maintained and upgraded. We got to go inside this one. Full wood floors, three bedrooms, everything very clean and freshly painted and just beautifully laid out. The owners had very sensible ideas about storage and fixtures appropriate in size to their space. I actually liked the kitchen, which I never do, and the bathroom had really cool original black-and-white tile.

So. I'll give you one guess which one we fell in love with.

Yup. The foreclosure!

There are times I think perhaps I'm not a very practical person.

Friday, September 14, 2012

We certainly wouldn't want an uncongenial habitat

"The cathedral was supposed to be a setting in which humans could glimpse heaven, thereby experiencing a taste of the hereafter. It served to draw people toward heaven. Durkheim's ideas about the sacred, however, suggest a different, almost opposite view of the cathedral's purpose -- in which the cathedral is a place designed to draw the divine down among people. We might say this is done by creating a congenial habitat for the divine."

The Gothic Enterprise by Robert A Scott, pg 153


I'm thoroughly enjoying this book on Gothic cathedrals and highly recommend it. Scott is working with a lot of the same ideas as Lewis' Discarded Image and is very interested in the connection between politics, medieval theology, and cathedrals. He gets into Scholasticism and Bishop Suger and all kinds of interesting stuff. For all that, I laughed really hard when he described cathedrals as a habitat for the divine. It's so... contemporary. He makes it sound like they were building hamster cages.

Also, he's kind of off-kilter due to not coming from an informed Christian philosophy himself. I would argue that one could, actually, describe the Tabernacle and the Temple as a "habitat for the divine" (if you dared!), but not so much churches anymore. The veil was torn in two, and now the Lord is building a new house out of living stones, which are His people. For that matter, the cathedral builders were off-kilter themselves on occasion.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Quote

We put her in her crib for a time out, and sternly forbade a number of things, including climbing out. At the end of it:

"I'll just jump in my crib if that's okay, parents, Mommy and Daddy?" Meg

I love the way she addresses us as "parents." And asks permission to jump on her bed.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I know he does wills and trusts, but....

Tonight as Jonathan walked in the door:

"Welcome home, Daddy! Welcome back to the land of the living!" Meg

Ouch

Meg: "Do you have an off button?"
Me: "An off button? I don't think I have one."
Meg: "I think you do. I'll push your off button and you'll stop singing."

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Fall!

Today is a red-letter day. I might even write it in red pen on my calendar.

It finally got cool!

It's been so hot for so long. We didn't really have much winter or spring here, and it started getting up into the 80s in March. It's been in the upper nineties or hundreds most days all summer, and suitably humid. Jenny takes pity on us and we go melt by her wading pool. I really do like summer, usually, but this year I am just done.

But today, as I was mentioning, it was clear and sunny and actually felt cool, and I was glad I took a blazer to church with me. We had the windows open all afternoon. Meg napped well.

I celebrated by making a very nice risotto for dinner. I put in sweet onions and sage and some cooked butternut squash. We had butternut squash risotto in Scotland, so it feels special. I made lots, since if you're going to stand and stir something for an hour there better be leftovers!

YAY FALL!

Thursday, September 06, 2012

The new Pippi, again

It's really weird to go back and watch movies you knew well as a kid. Right now Meg is seeing "The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking" for the first time. It was one of the ones I could recite pretty much word-for-word, but somehow it doesn't sound like it did back then. More eighties music, for one thing. And suddenly the camerapeople seem to have stopped using a tripod. It's still pretty fun, though, and I still want a pair of scrub brushes with foot straps!