Lovelihood

Last week we sat down with one of the Mr.'s old photo albums, the one with science fair ribbons and elementary-era soccer team photos and pro baseball ticket stubs. And it reminded me that when The Boy was born we'd picked up an archival quality blank album, some fancy silver foil embossed photo corners and a photo printer. The little printer has long since been in disfavor in the household. The still-blank book and sealed package of corners were found recently amongst decorative filler. As were some cheesy head-cocked, half-smiley school photos from Houston. So that's how this morning found us, in between breakfast and soccer class, cutting up sheets of wallet-sized photos and inserting them into tongue-moisted corners (The Boy's job, obviously). Added in soccer certificates and pirate coins and tickets to the museum, all that stuff we don't have in digital. And dreamed up more memories to tuck into those corners.

When we got the new camera last year, the Mr. charged me with the task of capturing the iconic kid portraiture. Still working on it. Kids tend to be squirmy or camera-grabby or green-snot sick or lunch-messy. Today it was all of the above.

I had expected, when moving back to the Northwest from a much warmer climate, that I'd be more of a wuss about the cold and the wet and the overall dank feeling I tend to get in my bones this time of year. Turns out it pretty well suits me. And as I stepped out to get some quick shots in the drizzle-gray morning, I actually thought to myself that it would have been nice if I could've fit a run in this cool day. But mostly, I wanted to get a closer look at the little globules of water hanging onto the tips of the bare branches, little crystalline bobbles that are pretty much permanent fixtures this season.

I'm a crossword puzzle elitist. I admit it. If it's not the NY Times, I turn my nose up at it. And until this year, I was also the kind of girl who'd scoff at the suggestion of doing it with anything other than ink. And that's why, while I'd gone paperless with pretty much everything else, I still sat down and printed out my puzzle every night to attach to a clipboard and fill out with my designated crossword puzzle pen. Until we went and got ourselves an iPad for Christmas. We paid how much so that I could keep doing something I was doing anyway?

Meet our newest friends, Monsieur Tofu and Mister Bacon, who came home with us from our little excursion yesterday. They were unboxed and formally introduced to the children today. I know, soy has a bit of a maligned reputation these days, what with hormonal effects looming and locavores crying foul and all. But what can I say? We love ourselves some tofu here. And bacon.

A couple times a year we make the hour-drive south to the ol' college town, have lunch at our favorite teriyaki hole, stock up at the local knickknack merchant, and have a look-see around campus. The CPJ is the school newspaper, and it's where the Mr. and I met. The "C" gave The Boy his middle name, and the town gave Bear her first. Does it bother anyone else that they seemed to have mucked with the font to make it all the same width? Just me?

The last of the jar cakes. We'd kept a handful of this year's batch of cranberry cakes (baked neatly into leeeetle jars), and have been picking them off one by one. These things are supposed to keep up to a year. I don't ever intend to test the upper limit of their shelf stability.