Insta Tuesday: Me, Myself and Zoology

What a week! But I made it, and now I'm one week closer to bidding this semester farewell. A winter break is much needed. The three day weekend was lovely, but a mandatory Saturday field trip for one of my classes cut into it a bit. Let's just say their was a vintage school bus involved. You'll see. Husband is in France...so Kiddo and I are holding down the fort. 

No sleeping in this past Saturday. Instead, I was meeting my class at 8a to take this beauty down to Boston to visit the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. It's actually a really cool place (they have some of Darwin's original specimens!), but we had a 14-page assignment to complete...so I didn't get to enjoy it the way I normally would. We are definitely going back one of these days!

1. The color exhibit was extraordinary! 2. Some of the exhibits were a bit, um, vintage. This monkey looked like he went through the wash a few too many times. Kiddo and I got a laugh out of the weird taxidermy smile and bald tail. 3. Bessie got us there and back in one piece...and my motion sickness didn't get the best of me. 4. Remember these weird seat patches? There were patches on top on patches in this bad boy.

5. Kiddo will put anything on a toaster waffle. Yesterday he created this tasty treat. Yum... 6. It's official. My cat can read. 7. It's totally normal to have a random chicken chase your car through a parking lot...right? 8. Sometimes ramen noodles hit the spot. This was the only thing that satisfied my grouchy stomach on Sunday. 

Happy Tuesday!

Insta Tuesday: Me, Myself and Zoology

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Insta Tuesday: Me Myself and Sandy

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.

Sidney Poitier

Last week was a crazy, disorganized, routine-distrupting kind of week. So when Thursday rolled around and I started to recreate some level of normalcy, I realized that I hadn't participated in Insta Tuesday. Bummer!

I'm back! In all my random glory! And between Halloween and Sandy, it's definitely random.

1) A belated birthday blanket from my lovely aunt showed up in the mail! I actually like it when gifts trickle in because I'm a firm believer in birthmonth celebrations. It is beyond cozy and smells like lavender. I don't ever want to wash it!
2) I've just discovered "Bursting Bobas." I'm not sure what they are exactly, but they are to froyo what roe is to sushi. Only they burst with fruity deliciousness. I've just created a disturbing mental image, I'm sure.
3) There was a whole lot of wandmaking going on in my house. The boys took the spindles off the back of an old chair, hollowed them out, stained them, and made proper wands. I did catch Kiddo cutting a lock of hair off the cat for the core of his wand...which made me wonder if, at the age of 12, we are not truly past the "hide the scissors" phase.
4) Husband's big boy wine cup. Which contained Three Buck Chuck. He's a classy fellow.
5) I demonstrated my domestic prowess by burning spaghetti. Who knew that was even possible?!
6) Tots (for breakfast) really do make everything better.
7) Target on Monday evening, right before Sandy hit New England. I've never seen it this empty...five minutes before closing there are more people than this.
8) New infinity scarf from Target! Wahoo! I talked about it the other day, but I love it so much that it bears repeating. Oh, and I realized that I may wear this headband too often since I was photographed wearing it twice in one week. It was a CVS bargain and I love it so. They had a BOGO sale, so I bought it in black, too.

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Get out there and VOTE!

Insta Tuesday: Me Myself and Sandy

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Insta-gating

Upon compiling my pics for this week's Insta Tuesday, I realized it is a bit of a hodge-podge. My week kinda felt that way, too. Here's the past week...in moments of time.

These were all taken on Saturday: Pumpkin Festival!

Clockwise from top left:

1. Every year our town celebrates Pumpkin Fest, where we vie for the World Record for most lit jack o' lanterns at one time. The town last won in 2003 but have since lost the title. This year we had over 29,000. It is so fun to walk up and down Main Street after dark and look at all the cool carved pumpkins glittering in the night.
2. The giant scaffolding they put up in center square every year. It's topped off with a giant jack 'o lantern.
3. This little beauty was sitting on my trunk after lunch with Husband. Isn't it lovely...especially against the stark silver background?
4. My son started at a charter school this year. Charter for us means amazing, but also underfunded. Underfunded means TONS of fundraising. Every year they do a food tent at Pumpkin Fest. My husband and I helped make and bake 40 of these roasting pans full of apple crisp on Friday night. Yeah, we have a rocking social life.

1. This is what the last week has looked like for the most part. It seems like I coast by for a few days, start feeling pretty together, and the boom drops. Welcome to this week. I was feeling frisky that particular day and ordered a decaf soy coffee light frappuccino. Whoa, Nelly!
2. My husband picked me up between classes for a quick lunch date. When I looked down, I noticed he had folded his socks over. "I couldn't find any ankle socks!" was his reasoning. He was just a scrunchy shy of 1992.
3. Kiddo dinked around all evening and ran short on time. We have him pack his own lunch most days since he's getting older and needs to learn some independence. This is what he came up with. I can't decided if he's resourceful or just lazy.
4. Making a weird face in Costco. I got a few rare hours to myself and decided made the one hour drive to Costco, Trader Joe's and Sephora. I couldn't let my free birthday lip duo go uncollected! Costco was on fire with the samples that day, too. I was almost able to ignore all the people who stopped in the middle of crowded aisles and abandoned their carts for said samples; leaving the rest of us trapped behind them. P.S. After seeing this picture blown up, I'm regretting the fact that I didn't load up on more eye cream. Holy bags, Batman!

Insta-gating

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Birthday Insta-llment

It's Insta Tuesday already? The week didn't feel this fast when I was going through it!

Last Wednesday was my birthday. I had classes back-to-back from 8-4, then we picked Kiddo up from school and headed to my favorite diner about an hour away. It was a fun, lovely evening. My cup runneth over. So far, thirty-two feels pretty good. In honor of aging with pride, here's my birthday inta-llment of Insta Tuesday.

Beautiful foliage abounds! I had two flower arrangements waiting for me when I got home Wednesday evening. The roses are from my sister, and the lovely fall arrangement is from my good friend, Molly. I pulled over and got out of the car to take pictures of this "burning bush" on the Rec Center lawn. You can actually see individual leaves turning from green to red in places. I've always wanted one of these, and I need to figure out what they are so my lawn can have one next fall, too. Aren't they cool? It's amazing what nature can produce.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Because my birthday fell on a week night and I'm not a huge cake person, I opted instead to have dinner at a favorite diner. The meals are like home-cooked, and the desserts are amazing. If you are ever in NH, you must visit a Red Arrow Diner. 
2. Instead of having a cake sitting around all week (and even longer on my thighs), I enjoyed a slice of coconut chocolate cream pie. So. Good.
3. My first birthday gift came in the form of a returned exam. My first of the semester, and I'd been waiting two weeks to find out what I got on it. Not a bad way to start, if I do say so myself. I did, however, get my worst grade ever yesterday. But the gods waited a week after my birthday to spring that one on me. P.S. I got the point for writing my name.
4. Guess what Kiddo got me? The lamb(?) hat! It's mine! I'm not sure how often it will make a public appearance, but I wore it around the house the other night and I'd swear it made me smarter. The thoughtfulness is what made it the best gift.

My Pyrex collection increased tenfold. Holy moly did hubs hook me up! He is amazing that way. These are just a few of the many I got for my birfday. In fact, we're running out of places to display them. I may have to pack away a couple of the larger pieces until we have a kitchen with more cabinet space. We did a little shuffling/reorganizing/weeding of our cookbook shelf and pie cabinet, and were able to make room for most of them. We needed to do that anyway, so I figure my Pyrex collection has already improved our quality of life. I can really spin it, no?

Clockwise from top left:

1. Husband was looking for something in the "gooseberry" print I like and ended up arranging to buy this one from the shop owner's personal collection. He is SO likeable, I'm not at all surprised she hooked him up. I love the vibrant yellow color.
2. This is one of my absolute favorite prints. It's bright and fun, and now I can look at it every day.
3. This is without a doubt the most unique piece I own. I love, love, love the turquoise color and funky fruit print. It was a special edition...can you see the hidden baby?
4. A nesting set of the classic flower print. It has a way of making you feel happy.

Birthday Insta-llment

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

In an Insta-nt

Let's look at my week, shall we? I am such a riveting subject. Yeah, notsomuch. Aside from setting the World Record in number of tissues used in one weekend, things were pretty stagnant around here. But I took a lot of pictures. Somehow Instagram makes my life seem so much more interesting than it actually is. Has anyone else noticed that?  The first set of photos is an indulgent collection of landscape photos. Then we get to the good stuff. I can really spin it, no?

Oh, it's definitely fall in New England. Can you tell? My yard looks like it's on fire. I'm thankful, too, because the weather has been positively dreary the last few days. The sky is still blue, right? And how about these little nuggets that grew on my lawn? They appeared overnight and disappeared just as quickly. I love a fungi...which is why I married my husband. Sorry. I couldn't resist. All that was missing was a garden gnome.

Clockwise from top left:

1. The newest addition to my collection. We had a little extra time before our movie started on Saturday, so we stopped by a couple thrift stores in search of pieces for my son's Halloween costume. From across the room our eyes met. It had to be mine. The man working offered to hold it while I shopped, and the whole time I was paranoid that someone else would get their dirty Pyrex-loving mitts on it. Four bones later it was mine. Shazam.
2. The little girl in me wanted to buy this hat/scarf combo. So. Bad. But the mom in me would never humiliate my son in public like that. Admittedly, I'm a much cooler mom than my mom was, but sporting a lamb hat in the pickup line after school might be pushing it. Maybe I could just wear it around the house?
3. Am I crazy for wanting to make out with my husband in this bad boy? Then we could drive off into the sunset in our very own sunset orange Mystery Machine. Jeepers, Scoob.
4. My love muffin. He sleeps on his back, which in my experience is unusual for a cat. With his mouth open. I want to squeeze him every minute of every day. I'm not a huge pet person, but I think I have been waiting my whole life to be friends with this little dude.

Happy Tuesday, friends!

In an Insta-nt

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Insta-ntaneous

 

I'm beginning to realize that I just don't take enough Instagram photos. Shame on me. Still, I love the idea of posting my week in pictures...which is why I keep coming back for more. Shall we begin?

Clockwise from top left:

1. My body went "Get your butt back on the elliptical!" and I listened. I wish that happened more often. I hadn't had a good workout since June or July so it was looong overdue. I didn't wimp out, either. Five plus miles and the first episode of Homeland. Done.
2.  If a single photo could sum up a whole week, this would be it. Studying, studying, and more studying.
3. Always keep your carbs handy. The bakery down the street from us closed this week (boo!), and my son had to have just one more baguette. He stuck it there and it looked so funny...like a second edible shifter.
4. I am pretty sure my cat can read.

1. My riveting dinner companions.
2. Kiddo is going to be walking to the library a couple blocks from his school a few days this semester. We wanted him to be able to call us and let us know he got there safely, but didn't want to pay a fortune for a phone he would only use a couple times a month. We opted for this old school prepay phone. It's perfect for him. To set it up, I had to tap into my flip phone skills from 2004.
3. My studious husband. He's such a hard worker. 
4. Saturday morning reading session. It takes real talent to read with a cat on your head.

I'm so glad this is a four day week for me. I don't know who decided there should be a fall break day at the college, but I could kiss them. I've been up to my eyeballs in papers, exam prep, and resume building. Nothing leaves a mom/college student feeling more inadequate than trying to build an impressive grad school resume. PTO counts as community service, right?

Happy Tuesday!

Insta-ntaneous

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Insta-resting

Insta Tuesday...take two! I didn't take as many Instagram photos as usual because we did not have much in the way of weekend adventures. Instead, we worked the yard sale at kiddo's new school and I did homework. Still, I have something to show for this past week.

Clockwise from top left:

• We drank the Kool-aid coffee and bought a Keurig! I love it. This is actually the second machine we had this weekend. The middle size just wasn't big enough (i.e. it didn't have a cup size that would fill my travel mug), so we exchanged it for this bad boy. I have saved $4 on take-out coffee already. Shazam.
• My "I'm sorry I was such a grouchy button-pusher this morning" lipgloss from Kiddo. It has a lovely strawberry scent. Except you scoop it out of the owl's hind end. Still, I love it and all is forgiven.
• "Mom, I'd like to start drinking coffee. It will get me going in the morning and start my day off right." The recipe? One tablespoon of decaff in one cup of milk. He means business.
• My burgeoning Pyrex collection! The weekend before last we took a drive around middle New England and I stopped at almost every antique store we passed. Nothing. Guess where I found these? Within 3 miles of my house. And they were reasonably priced. Go figure.

 

Until next week...Happy Tuesday!

Insta-resting

Tuesday, September 25, 2012