This is a Test

In preparation for our trip to San Francisco for Eleanor’s baby shower. Jane and I will be blogging text and pictures realtime and will be tweeting as well, if you want to follow me on Twitter (I’m wolfemc, if you’re a Twitterhead).

March 11 we’re in the air, March 12 is the shower and we’ll be sharing our trip with you.

Laura loses her hair...

For a good cause!

She came to me a few weeks ago and told me she wanted to cut her hair and donate it to Locks of Love (www.locksoflove.org), a wonderful organization that makes wigs for children suffering from cancer. I'm not sure where she even heard of it but she was very, very sure this was something she wanted to do. I'll admit, I had a bit of heartburn about it, maybe since I've never been able to grow long hair and I was a bit attached to hers. No matter, she was firm in her conviction and asked me about it repeatedly until we agreed that we would do it this week.

So yesterday we went to the Hair Cuttery in Charles Town and she very confidently told the stylist what she wanted. We marked off her hair with elastic bands then SNIP, off came 12 inches of her hair. Now she has a cute shoulder length do with side swept bangs and some child suffering from a horrible disease will be able to go to school and not have the other kids stare. I am so amazingly proud of her I can barely speak.

We're having a heat wave...

Seriously, last night when we got home from taking Sophie back to Cecily's even at 7:30 pm the temp at the bank was showing as 105 degrees! Thankfully the girls have found a great way to keep cool (Girl #3 is our friend, Wei Wei Poole, also adopted from China and JiaJia's best friend).

Without question this is the best $14.95 plus tax I've ever spent (and don't think Mom hasn't cooled her toes in the water a time or two.) Watching them enjoy themselves reminds what it was like when we were kids. The whole summer seemed to stretch out in front of you and you thought it would never end.

Nine Years Ago Today...

We became the parents of one perfect Chinese baby, our darling Laura. I've never experienced anything as wonderful and terrifying as the moment when the judge said to us, "She is your daughter. Take her home now."

Nine years later she is 10 going on 18, a tall, skinny little almost teenager, who is alternately sweet and annoying (like all children) but mostly just a very loving little girl.

I'm the luckiest mom on earth.

A totally delicious if completely messy treat

I'm desperate, I'll admit it, and it is only the second week of summer vacation. In a feeble attempt to buy some time to work today I decided to invite the girls to do something messy, specifically to dip pretzels in chocolate.

Amazingly, the kitchen didn't look like a crime scene when they were done.

And the pretzels were delicious.

Mom's Biscuits

I always think my mother was a slightly conflicted cook. As a child of some privilege she didn't grow up with the idea that the mother of the house was the cook but rather the person who gathered the family into the car so they could go have dinner at the club. I think she liked to eat but enjoying cooking was something she came to later in her life.

That being said, with her history, she started out as a very Piedmont Virginia cook. Biscuits, ham, eggs - these were the building blocks of many meals I remember from my early childhood. It wasn't until I was much older that Mom admitted to me that she taught herself to cook from a Betty Crocker cookbook she received as a wedding gift. Thankfully the biscuit recipe in that book was acceptable against the standards she brought from her childhood, most particularly the biscuits made by Mother Connie's cook Josephine. After Mom died I grilled Uncle Les about Josephine and he didn't have much to say except that these biscuits would have done her proud.

I think of both of these women every time I get up on a Sunday morning and cut butter into flour by hand then stir in buttermilk and turn the dough out onto a floured counter. I don't cut them with a drinking glass like Mom (and I'll bet Josephine) did but I channel them both as I place my biscuits carefully onto a baking sheet and ensure they end up golden brown before they get served to my family.

Today's Thought to Ponder

If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.
― Win Borden

That might explain some of the paralysis that affects so many of us so much of the time. When you look back at your life I expect you'll regret the things you didn't do as opposed to those you did that turned out badly.

I know I will.