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We’ll be spending the weekend balancing fun kid stuff with equity improving small maintenance projects on the house, but we might start off with some Teenage Mutant Ninja papercrafts.

There is an interesting article in Science Daily that I have to post because I’ve had trouble looking at that chocolate in my cabinet since reading it. Allegedly the more carbs we eat, the more appetite suppressing cells we kill. Increase in carbohydrate consumption over the years has also been correlated with increase in brain deterioration.

Enjoy your dessert!

Inspired by Angry Chicken’s Banh Mi we had our own variation this evening. Our recipe:

1 baguette sliced into sandwich size and split in half
1 carrot, shaved
1 bunch cilantro (can’t have enough)
1 daikon radish, shaved
1 jalapeno, sliced into thin strips
2 c cooked rice vermicelli
1 pkg flavored, smoked tofu OR regular firm tofu marinated in soy sauce and rubbed with Thai Red Curry sauce

For dressing:
We tried 2 tbs mayonaise, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 tsp dijon mustard, which we liked.
I also use 2 tsp sugar, 2 tbs rice wine vinegar sprinkled on the veggies.

Basically, make the dressings, slice the veggies, cook the noodles and then layer it all on your baguette. YUM!

No pictures. We were hungry and in a hurry to watch Bok Mama.

Our kids are a-political. But I believe it is never too early to teach them morals, how to treat others and who we look up to, so we’ve been teaching the kids about Barack Obama. Sylvie says “Bock Mama” and “Vote Bock Mama”. I think we need tshirts.

The Boston Globe has a great editorial for wordies in defense of English as user-modifiable technology.

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I’m vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I’ve ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that fetch is now the word I want to use to mean “cool.” By the same token, readers and listeners can decide to adopt or ignore any of these uses or forms.

So, please, leave off the “not a real word” apologia. A far better (and dare I say, funner) technique is to jump in with both feet and use whatever word strikes your fancy.

I’ve been wondering if there were a program out there for people with a fabric abuse problem. It seems like everyone is in on the game. I changed jobs in March, moving to an office that is 20 minutes from my home versus 1.5 hrs, but it is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Joanns. What I’m saving in gas, I’m spending in fabric. To make matters worse, they just installed a Joanns NEXT DOOR to my grocery store! And with the many great fabric stores online I can’t escape the temptation. I need help.

Inspired by the new sew tutus, I stopped in Joanns to pick up some tulle to make tutus for my nieces, and as usual, they were having a sale on something I couldn’t pass up. “Fabric is inexpensive, no?” Yes, in moderate quantities. But, an addict doesn’t know what a moderate quantity is. And the women who work at Joanns certainly aren’t going to cut you off when they see you teetering under the load of all of those bolts. They’ll just point you to a table where you can rest those bolts, and send you back for more.

The damage? Well, I’ve got the fabric to make matching outfits for the kids for everyday this winter. I think I’ll start with the Village Frock from Sugar City. Isn’t it great?

And because I’d like to have someone to sew with when I’m broke and my family has left me wallowing in my hoards of fabric, some inspiration for you:
Mood Fabrics
SewMamaSew
Purl Soho

I’m not exactly a foodie, but I like to cook and I like real food (vs the packaged stuff), so I subscribe to quite a few food blogs and spend many an evening searching google for dinner ideas. More often than I like to admit, I model our dinners after the food google is serving in their mountainview office that night. So, this is right up my alley – a food blog search.

We joined Dennis and his family at the Oakland Zoo in an effort to make our kids think we are as much fun as Grandpa Texas. They had a blast.

Will is usually too fast for pictures, unless he is clinging on for dear life:

Or torturing his sister:

So, we end up with a lot of pictures of the other one:

The grande finale:

In Sylvie’s defense, it was naptime and the attendant had just closed the gate on Sylvie’s finger.

Here are a few pictures from Ruby’s shower last weekend.
In Grandma’s arms:

On her new blankie:

We took Will to see Indiana Jones shortly after it came out. He has somehow, in the time since, acquired an extreme interest in Indiana Jones, and when inspired by the slightest thing, he hums the Indiana Jones theme song, replete with whip cracking sound effects. Whi-psch!

(Where did he learn that? Is that what the little boys do in the back of the classroom – perfect their sound effects?)