- Brian’s awesome snow sculptures. We had our first real snowfall Saturday night, and right after church Brian took the kids out to build. This is what they made, although the photo doesn’t do it justice:
See? It’s a backhoe made of snow! William is overjoyed to have his very own toddler-sized “digger.” He’s spent long hours sitting in that little seat on top, singing “Dig, dump, dig, dump” over and over again.
- My elbows don’t bend the other way. (Think about it.)
- The way numbered lists don’t reset themselves in Microsoft Word. (Geez, WordPress — what is your problem? This should be #3!)
- Reading Lists — better even than CPR for keeping dead authors alive
- Fluffy pillows bobbing about on white sheets, like pats of butter in fresh cream
- Red candles in crystal candlesticks
- The “Thanksgiving” wreath that I procrastinated putting up until today, which means it will get a whopping 6 days on the door until we haul the Christmas decorations out this weekend.
- Butter pecan cookies. I’m making them tonight for William’s preschool “harvest feast” tomorrow. (You gotta love a Lutheran preschool. They know how to feast.)
- The way Jeffrey strutted around Great Clips after getting his haircut on Saturday. He was thrilled because the stylist put a palmful of gel in his hair to “spike” it.
- How, on regular days, Jeffrey has bedhead that cannot be put down by any amount of gel
- Mitochondria. They are completely separate organisms, yet they live in our cells and help them make energy. And in Madeline L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, they are also hyperintelligent creatures who can TALK to GALAXIES.
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — currently my favorite book, but this is always subject to change
- The way William and Jeffrey have gotten into the habit of “offering me their arm” whenever we walk through a parking lot, like miniature 19th-century gentlemen
- The Salt Lake Public Library basement book sale
- Eleanor’s awesome skip-spin-jump, a dance move she’s created that could probably take down a moose
- Canyonlands National Park — especially the Island in the Sky district
- Knitting. As a woman in one of my knitting classes once told me, “Knitting is the new yoga!”
- People who think that knitting could be the “new” anything . . .
- . . . or yoga, for that matter
- Mini meatloaf and rosemary-roasted new potatoes, served with salad on the side (our dinner tonight)
- Jeffrey just lost his two front teeth. I’m teaching him the “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” song, and it is more adorable than I can say.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Rubber-bottomed slippers from Land’s End. They are indestructible — and I can wear them to pick the newspaper off the front porch
- Getting teary-eyed during commercials for Disneyland, realizing that the emotional swing is owing to pregnancy hormones, and pinching my leg to stop the vicious cycle
- Fuzzy newborn-sized sleepers with yellow duckies on the tummy
- How, in her bedtime prayers, Eleanor prays “that there will be turkey and mashed potatoes and peas for Thanksgiving”
- Jeffrey’s current obsession with Roman soldiers. They were paid with silver coins called denarii. What? YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!?
- My apparent inability to understand the rules of football. This saves me the trouble of pretending to care about football
- Squeezing still-warm chocolate ganache directly into my mouth — a level of culinary excess that must be experienced to be truly appreciated
- Digging up movies on Netflix, and the pleasure of knowing that I’ll never have to go inside a video store again
- Hot spiced cider, peppermint-flavored hot chocolate, and an endless supply of graham crackers
- Jeffrey just told me that we are “this close” (holding up fingers to demonstrate) to Christmas, so we should start buying more Nutcrackers
- These four amazing, crazy people that I live with
Casa Camisas 