Monday Miscellany

First off, I just need to reiterate that I love Mondays. Even when Max is home sick from school, even when all I do is laundry and cleaning and bake bread, I just love Mondays. It feels like a day of restoring order. Plus, I don't have a lot of commitments on Mondays, so it kind of feels like my day.

Okay, so I didn't just do laundry and clean and bake bread. I may have also spent a chunk of time indulging my obsession with tutus and tulle skirts by doing a lot of web-surfing. I also found a couple of new blogs to love, including Ruffles and Stuff. Eva may just end up with a lot of ruffly, twirly skirts one of these days.

I may have also spend another chunk of time loading photos to work on my very first photo book, so exciting!

This morning we were coloring, and then I looked over and saw this. It made me smile.

But not her. She was outraged that I got my camera out and took a picture of her crayon creations before she added "Mom" to her list of words. Well. For all I know, she was going to swipe them all off the table the next second, so I had to act quickly. And look at that A. You know that orange crayon is going to roll off lickety split. What's a mom to do?

And then I looked over and saw this. She had apparently read the color names and made herself a little key! When did she learn how to read these words??

A little later, I dropped her off at preschool. We saw a dad arriving on his motorcycle, with his daughter sitting in front of him, with a helmet. Eva took one look and announced that someday she's going to buy a motorcycle and ride it to work at the dinosaur museum when she's a paleontologist. Well. I figured today was not the day for me to tell her how frightened I am of motorcycles...

I saw some noodles like these on a cooking blog and that was it. I had to have them. My local grocery store had some -- for $7! Um, no thanks. But I found them at Target for $3. More than I usually spend for pasta, but, as I said, I had to have them. (They were fabulous.) p.s. it turns out I saw them on Smitten Kitchen!

We ate them with this sauce. I know it doesn't look like much, and it isn't. The thing is, it was really tasty. Especially when we ate it with this on the side:

Oh baby. I'll get this recipe up soon. Like, soon. Because you need to taste this.

Emily was wearing this necklace when she came over yesterday. Again, oh baby. Can you even stand it? We started brainstorming about how we could recreate it. Because I think I really need it. Also, we want to make all kinds of fabric flowers. Because they're adorable.

How do you like this fine bit of jerryrigging? Marie told us in our organizing class that we could hook up a cupcake wrapper container to soak the shower head in vinegar (you know, to get rid of the hard water residue). I couldn't figure out how to make it work Marie-style, so I got jiggy with some yarn. Hey, it worked, so mock not. (Well, go ahead, you can mock a little.)

I have to say, it was pretty satisfying. As soon as I poured in the vinegar, it started fizzing and looking like it was getting right down to work. I left it on there for five hours. While I wouldn't say the shower head looks new or anything, it is a huge improvement.

I also tried out the Old English Lemon Oil trick on the glass shower door (also for afore-mentioned hard water deposits). Again, they are not completely gone, but I wish I had taken a before/after shot, maybe with half of it treated and half the way it was before. Back when we were living like animals.

**Multiple people have suggested we put our kids in a bubble. You know, like The Boy in the Bubble for the 21st century. Evidently, that's what it's come to.