Lovelihood

It was a well-rounded day for Bear today. Sandwiched between working in the gardens at her brother's school and taking a few gleefilled spins down our sidewalk on her pedal-less bike, we fit in a spot of watercoloring. Bear's less interested in actually applying paint to paper than she is just running a wet paintbrush across the cakes, swirling and mixing, swizzling the brush in the water (which she inevitably spills), and abandoning the brush altotogether in favor of the more direct approach of finger-mixing the paints. So at the end of our session, it's really just my work set to paper. Her handiwork remains on the paint itself.

It is my birthday. But with the kids' day-long anticipation for this cake, a cake commisioned from the vegan bakery to accomodate a certain Boy's allergies, it's difficult to think of this as mine. Bear's "Happy Day, Momma!" mantra, on the other hand... that's all mine.

What's left over on Tuesday nights when I've got only one lunch to pack up into a frog-shaped bento box. Luckily, around here, everyone's willing to take a half peach of your hands for an impromptu snack.

My long-term goal: to complete a triathlon. And yes, it's a lofty goal, considering I haven't swum a lap or ridden a bike since high school. Really, I hatched this scheme as an ambitious path to cross-training (i.e., gym) avoidance. Step one? Purchase a bike. This one, an early birthday present (from The Mr., though it somehow ended up on my credit card), is super fancy with it's ram's horn handlebars and tires featuring absolutely no tread. It's also super fast, way more bike than I'm comfortable with, and, for someone who has never been at ease on two wheels, a terrifying thing to ride. All in a good way, of course.

Throughout summer, Sunday had been designated barbecue night, prepared by the Mr. and enjoyed on the back deck. Tonight was decidedly autumnal, and called for the first curry of the season. Like any other well-loved recipe, I could whip this up from muscle memory, sprinkling and dashing in spices and chopped-up components from pure instinct, incorporating recipe revisions made long ago but never formally documented. Today's process and ingredient list have strayed so far from what's listed that to follow the instructions would land me far off track from my intended result. But I rustle up the old recipe card anyway, if only to tally up its preparation with yet another splatter of sauce, another smear of a curry-imprinted thumb.

In two days my pajama situation went from shorts and tank tops to flannels and fuzzy socks. Summer seems to have come to an abrupt end. Still we're putting off on closing that window above the kitchen sink until we know for certain that it's over.

My love of the carabiner has been dormant of late, and therefore has been previously undocumented here. But while stopping off at Storables (an entire store dedicated to putting various genres of things into other things!) to purchase what can only be described as the world's sexiest kitchen drawer cutlery tray, I spotted this keyring set of 'biner and 'biner-spawn. And who am I to resist such temptation?