nine on the ninth

I don't have 9 pictures for today.
Monday is not my finest day.
I've got 9 thoughts instead.
Those are hard to come by sometimes.
Consider yourself lucky.

one
I tended the nephews today.
I got Cate and Ray Ray settled to watch a movie.
Charlie Brown Christmas.
I walked away to get a drink.
I came back to peek on them.
That's how they looked.
Adorable.
It lasted a whole 30 seconds at least.
Ray Ray can't sit still.
And Cate can't seem to be quiet.
They are a lovely combination.
I'm tired.

two
Dan starts swimming lessons tonight.
I usually go to the gym at night.
Not tonight.
I'm going in the morning this week instead.
Early in the morning.
I haven't gone anywhere in the cold,
dark morning for a very long time.
I'm not the only person with the bright idea
to go to the gym in the cold, dark morning.
The parking lot was full.
My StairMaster was taken.
So were almost all the elliptical machines.
All except my favorite one.
Yes, I have a favorite.

three
I was thinking about my grandma today.
It's been 10 years since the Olympics came to Utah.
10 years.
It seems like a long time.
Grandma passed away a year and a half earlier.
I remember laying on the front room floor
watching the opening ceremonies and crying
because of how much I knew Grandma would have
loved it that the Olympics were in Utah.
She would have sat in her special chair
in the kitchen watching every single event
on the little t.v.
She might even have moved into the front room
in the evenings to watch the ice skating.
That was her favorite.
I remember just wishing she could have been
there to watch with us.

four
I think about chocolate every day.
If I don't have some, I want some.
If I do have some, I want some more.
That's why I go to the gym.
See, I'm thinking about chocolate again.

five
We played chutes and ladders after dinner tonight.
And candy land.
Danny is very competitive.
Cate is observant and quiet.
I think we need to play more games with her.
It's the quietest she's been all day.
Either that or get a puppy.
Those seem to make her quiet too.

six
I made breakfast for dinner tonight.
Pancakes.
Scrambled eggs.
Bacon.
Pears.
I call it pretend dinner.
That's what my mom used to call dinner
that she didn't put much thought into.
Not that we cared.
Pretend dinner tasted just as good as the real stuff.
Other pretend dinners that are my specialties:
grilled cheese sandwiches and soup
any other variation of breakfast for dinner
dinner involving meat that I didn't have to remember to thaw
(because it probably didn't involve meat at all)

seven
It's cold today.
I let the two little ones play outside this afternoon.
They didn't seem to mind.
I sat bundled up in a blanket on the front bench to watch them.
I wondered if all the cars that drove by
thought I was a horrible mom for letting
the kids play outside in the cold.
At least they had coats on.

eight
It's Kaycee's birthday today.
She's one of the young women at church.
She's 17.
And she has a blog.
I wish I had a blog when I was 17.
Wouldn't that be fun to look back and read 20 years later?
Sure, I had journals and I took pictures.
That's like a blog.
But not quite the same.
I didn't even have a computer when I was 17.
I know Kaycee looks at this blog sometimes so
Happy birthday, Kaycee!
I hope you made yourself a cute little
balloon bouquet at work.

nine
Today in my perusing the internet time
(while Ray Ray was napping and Cate was
confined to the downstairs bedroom for quiet time)
I learned
how to avoid ruining hard boiled eggs.
That's a good one for me.
I usually end up with that gray stuff around the yolk.
Yuck.
(The trick is heat slowly, cool quickly! Who knew?)


That is all.
Good night.