101 10 minute summer recipes

First of all, I hate hackers. What is wrong with them, don't they have any consciences - or anything better to do with their time then to dork with perfectly nice people's web sites? I know you don't care. But I just had to get that off my chest. The bastards! OK I'm really done now.

Now on to the good part. SUMMER RECIPES! Check this out people: 101 super quickie summer recipes that take 10 minutes or less. I've printed this out and clipped it to my fridge, and it's pretty much what we've been living on these days. I am all about the EASY. Thanks to the fact that I have no extra time because of those no good lazy bastard hackers.

Image from New York Times

mama said there'd be days like this

This morning we were running behind - which is hard to believe since we start our day at 5AM, but we had to get Clara to an early doctor's appointment before daycare. And these days, showering is no easy task for me because I can't contain Clara in anything anymore - she's too busy for that nonsense. So I have to just be super quick and hope for the best (I may never shave my legs again).

So first thing, I went through to close all the bedroom doors before showering, to reduce the amount of trouble she could get into. And the girls' bedroom doorknob came off into my hand - meaning I couldn't get back into their room to get Clara's clothes to get her dressed. Then as I showered, she just kept pulling back the curtain and closing her little eyes as the water ricocheted onto her face, so that she was as soaked as me after the shower.

::sigh:: Mama said there'd be days like this.

that half hour

I am actually sort of settling into the single life these days. And not in a superficial "just say it and smile" sort of a way. I really am starting to enjoy just being our little nuclear family in a lot of ways. Now that Clara is one year old, we've established a bit of a groove. Patterns to our daily life that hadn't been there during the upheaval of babyhood survival mode. And they occasionally include (thanks to our support network of friends and family) mommy-time for showers, walks and squeezing in extra work. Life is good in the girl house!

But the time I often find myself wishing I had a partner in all of this is that half hour at the very end of the day. After it's all over - the morning rush of getting everybody up, getting ready, making lunches, drop-offs - the day of work and client management and meetings and issues - the doctor and dentist appointments - the pickups - the dinner rush - bathtime, pajamas, reading, bedtime... I wish I had someone to laugh or cry about it all, laying in bed for that last half hour. "Can you BELIEVE how badly I burned that chicken tonight?"

but what about my needs

My therapist - the therapist I have been seeing on and off since my marriage dissolved over four years ago - has left her practice. She became a CPS social worker. AS IF needy children need her more than me. OK maybe they do, but still. At least she could have occasional lunches with me or something? I mean of course I would BUY, jeesh.

photo booth fun

Since Joy was 3 years old, we've made it a yearly ritual to get our pictures together in the mall photo booth. This week, all three of us squeezed in there for our silliness - and the hideous food court dinner to follow it up.

first days stink

Joy is painfully shy - and first days are always the hardest. Aren't they for all of us? Day camp started this week, and I thought I did an OK job of preparation. We had a new "cool" bag, a new swimsuit, a new towel. Her name was written in everything. Lunch was all ready to go, with cheetos no less. We'd discussed where camp was going to be, who would be there, what the itinerary would be like... the more she knows ahead of time, the easier the transitions are.

We got there early Monday morning and sat on a bench so we could watch the kids and counselors while we scoped out the situation. Rock climbers over there. Wild boys over there. Oh, a group of shy looking girls hula hooping over there -- we eventually decided to introduce ourselves.

Everything seemed to be going OK, but then... I picked her up too early at the end of the day. The kids were all in the woods playing a hide-and-seek game, so a rowdy counselor had to call her name on the BULLHORN. Which basically describes Joy's worst nightmare. Then this morning, we were ONE MINUTE LATE getting to camp, and all the kids were sitting on the outdoor bleachers waiting for the morning skits to start. Facing us. As we were walking toward them. Which is actually probably worse than any nightmare she had thought of before, but she was too busy getting her little 7-year-old bottom into the bleachers to tell me what she thought of my scheduling abilities.

teaching good values

How do you talk to your kids about tough topics like homelessness and charity?

We often pass people in our car who are holding cardboard signs, asking for change or jobs or food. For several years now, Joy has asked about this - and I honestly am at a bit of a loss when dealing with it. I really want her to become a giving and loving and charitable person. I want her to have empathy - but also to know when to have appropriate boundaries.

When she was five, we talked about people who don't have homes, and she asked why they don't just move in with us? It's a hard question to answer... why can't they live with us? Why aren't I trying harder to help people who are less fortunate than us? It's a damn good question, and one I wish I asked myself more often. I wish I had some better answers for us both.