It's What's For Dinner

Blackberry Chicken. It's got cumin and paprika and garlic and thyme and fresh blackberries! What more could you want?
Recipe from Taste of Home.

Here's Julianna's finished dress and Julianna being silly:


Ever have those times when you just can't find your groove? I have so much coming up in the next several days. Posts are sure to be long and overly informative when I get around to them....probably next week. Where was I? Oh yes. I have a lot coming up and I'm just not in a good groove...I'm not getting things done. I can't even find the right music to nudge me along in my tasks.
I mean, nothing's wrong. I just, well, I'd rather be napping.
I can't even get into a good knitting groove. This is dangerous because my monthly knitting night is coming up on Friday.
Dishwashing groove? As if! I tried Hum. I tried Magnet. I tried Aqualung. I settled on Radiohead. It still wasn't quite right....though I do love that old Hum song "Stars." It's good for short-hair shakin' and booty-shakin'. It's also old enough that it's on a Cadillac commercial now. I never imagined I would be in the target market for Cadillac, but their use of that song did make me want to buy a new Caddy.
See what I mean? This post doesn't even have a groove.

DAILY BLISS: Chick-fil-a unsweetened iced tea, just when I needed it.

Storing Up Treasure

I'm holding on to this one. From what I hear, I will soon need to remember that it actually happened.
Drew: Dear God, thanks for the best mom in the whole entire universe. And thanks that she makes such great food. (gives me a big, neck-squishing squeeze) I love you mom.

DAILY BLISS: Finishing a dress (maybe I'm a seamstress after all!)

What Did You Do With Your Vacation Day?

Here's what I did:

My crazy, bee-keeping neighbor invited us over for a little honey harvesting. Remember a few weeks ago when he gave me a big jar of honey? And we (mostly I) ate it within a week or two? He laughed and said he'd have us over and show the kids how it's done. I guess he used to do this for the school board too. We had to sign waivers.
We also had to wear long-sleeved, light-colored clothing which made things a little sweaty, but none of us got stung, so that's good. That's also why we look so funny. Mostly what we could find that was long-sleeved or legged at this time of year was pajamas. Oh - and bee bonnets. We got to wear those netted hats.
Drew got burned straightaway on the smoke pot:



















Here he is sulking, with his thumb stuck inside his bonnet:

Not to minimize the injury. He got burned pretty badly. It hampered his participation in things. But not Emma - she went in whole hog:

Crazy Neighbor Guy even poured a handful of happy bees out for Chris to hold. The smoke makes them hum really loud and it mellows them out, and you can just scrape them off the hive into your hand. It's pretty funny stuff!

We got to scrape it off the frames into a strainer. The darker honey is from earlier in the year when, according to Randy, they were gathering holly pollen. The lighter is from the orange blossom season. Let me tell you, that orange blossom honey is wonderful stuff. We were just grabbing chunks of it out of the strainer and chewing on the comb, with the gold, sweet honey just bursting into our mouths. Sticketty sticketty, drippety drip:



I felt a little bit like Winnie the Pooh when we ambled back to our house, my belly full of honey. But we got to bring home a prize. A quart-sized jar of honey that we harvested! Here's the beautiful bounty, held up against my kitchen light so you can see all the pretty air bubbles and bits of wax:

Gorgeous! And yummy too.
Oh, and, know what else? I have a macro lens! Here's my first test shot. It can get much, much closer. I will get more brave about it with time.

I think my life already looks cooler throught he lens of this new camera....


DAILY BLISS: slicing fresh tomatoes with a really sharp knife

Sharing

We shared a wonderful experience with the kids tonight. Mostly with Andrew. Emma didn't really get it.
We joined him as he partook of his first UHF viewing. Some of you know about this, some of you don't. This is an old Weird Al Yankovic movie that, sadly, defined my teen years. I say sadly because it defined me as a total dweeb. But I still liked it a lot. Enough to have watched it over and over and over, which is saying a lot because I don't do that with movies.
Andrew got all the jokes and laughed and recognized lines from the film (I use "film" loosely) that have made it into the family vernacular.
It's one of those things. It definitely doesn't appeal to everyone's sense of humor. But I am proud to say that my almost-middle-schooler got it. Hear that, Kelso? My boy got it. I feel like I just found the marble in the oatmeal. Do I get to drink from the fire hose now?

DAILY BLISS: granny smith apples in my oatmeal and shoe shopping (!)

It's Here!

Photo taken as it came out of the box by my son with his newly inherited 4mp point-and-shoot camera. Ain't it purty?
Also, I spent most of today making a dress and making our summer schedule. I have saved one week's worth of schedule in a format that I can upload here. It will be blurry, but I just wanted you to know. Actually, I picked a bad week to post up here...this one is a little out of routine, but I'm not cutting and pasting any more tonight. Suffice it to say that there's generally a bit more filling the 2:00-4:00 time slot - chess games, 15-minute bedroom pickups, quiet time in their rooms - and that each day of the week has something special assigned to it - Movie Monday, Tuesday Surprise Fun, Wednesday fast food lunch & Library, etc.



Click on it if you want to actually read it. This is a scheduling feat of mammoth proportions, folks. I have organized camps of varying interest for both kids and interesting activities to occupy portions of their days and combat boredom and a nice afternoon routine that settles them back in. I have devised all of this based on the route of least gas-usage possible (i.e., they will have $1 to spend at the dollar store when their camps end in the middle of town and money for the fruit stand when their camps end on the south end of town). I have taken my own route to work into account, as well as Denise's routes around town (she will be with my babies this summer, thank God! Given this summer's schedule, though, I bet she won't do it again...). Whimper. I have no brains left. This took all I had.

DAILY BLISS: My camera and finishing up Julianna's pay-it-forward dress! Hooray!

Big

When did this happen? When did my kid get all big? Drew had his final elementary school piano recital tonight. He played a piece that I remember playing when I was a kid. I'm so proud and sad all at once. I think I've been so worried about the start of middle school (!) next year that I've completely forgotten about the end of elementary school. I know that those seem like they're the same thing, but they're not at all really. One is bittersweet and the other is terrifying, you see. The piano teacher at their school only teaches 2nd-5th grades, so that's it for him, though Em should be starting next year. I don't know how we'll continue music for him, as they cut the school's band program. We have him in a guitar camp this summer. We'll see if he takes to it. Whichever instrument he chooses to continue with, though, be assured that he will continue. Music was such a defining thing for me in school. It gave me an identity and a group of (mostly) good kids to hang out with (not-good-ones? you know who you are). There's something comforting about providing an identifying group for your baby as they enter the time in life when you can so easily lose yourself in the very effort to find out who you are. I guess I could go on and get sappy and sentimental and emotional, but how about a picture instead? I'm too tired to cry today. Also, I'm sure it's obvious that my new camera did not come today. And here's a little video so you can all be floored by my offspring's incredible talent that he obviously inherited from his mother. Problem is, I did the dorkiest thing ever. I've seen so many people fall victim to this - I held my little camera portrait-style instead of landscape-style and you can't rotate video. So, if you want to press play and do some impressive acrobatics, you can watch it right-side-up. If not, you could always watch it sideways. It's dark and the video doesn't matter as much as the sound anyway.



DAILY BLISS: Iced Grande Decaf Caffe Americano - no sweetener, please.

IMHO

You should go see Prince Caspian. Now, if it's possible. I know Becky already said that last week, but I thought I'd drive the point home.
It was really well done and stayed very true to the book, which is nice. There's a little added romance, but with a prince that pretty, how could Susan resist a longing glance or two and a one-liner or two?
I also thought the creatures were much better this time around. Can I say that I was disappointed with them in the first movie? I know most people gasp when I say that. They wonder what I was thinking. I mean, Tumnus looked great and Aslan looked pretty good. But it was obvious which creatures they spent money on. Much better now. Trufflehunter was fabulous. And Reepicheep. My dear Reepicheep. Dashing.
That gallant little mouse is a favorite in our house. I've always found his character particularly charming. It must show through in my readings of the stories (which I've done out loud twice now - for my kids and not at all for my own enjoyment) because they were both very disappointed that he didn't have a squeaky little high English voice like mine. What can I say? I should have been a cartoon voice artist or whatever they call 'em. Or maybe I just have a multiple personality problem. It could be that.
These stories are buried so deep in my heart, though. I loved them as a child and I still love them. I love what I can learn from them as an adult, whether Lewis really intended all of that or not. Through the whole movie, tears burned at the corners of my eyes and I kept thinking "this is even better than I imagined!" Especially the dryads. Considering how often I have imagined Narnia, that's saying something. Admittedly, my reaction there has much more to do with my emotional attachment to the characters than the brilliance of the adaptation.
Well, I didn't intend for this to be a movie-review post. Apologies. It seems there was more to say today, but it has all escaped me.

DAILY BLISS: a night out with the fam

Solutions

We have had a few solutions and conclusions come about in the last few days that I thought I'd share.
1) My job situation is going to stay the same. When you crunch the numbers, my commute is maybe 1/3 of my gas expenditure. Not really enough to justify finding another job that may or may not be much closer. I'd pretty much just have to work at the school to save money, since I'm driving there anyway. And they're not hiring. I may look at a four-day work week and make the days a each a little longer. That will be temporary and not an effort to conserve gas. It's mostly an effort to conserve sanity. I may have to get a second part-time something down the road. We shall see.
2)We looked at whether we should replace our car with something that gets better mileage, cause hey - I drive a big green boat. It's not exactly efficient. But it's a free big green boat. And there's no way that it could cut my gas expenses enough to leave room for a car payment. So. Here we are. And we're staying right here.
3) I think the hobby I'm going to drop will be the Kiki's Suds stuff (I hear that groan of disappointment, Amy). Maybe not totally, but I'm not going to actually pursue it. I just don't have time. I do like making my own lotion and I do hope to try my hand at soap this year, so I'll do it for myself and for gifts. I think I'll keep my Etsy shop open and just list stuff when I get around to making it, just for fun. But I'm not going to look into product development and any more-professional packaging and marketing and stuff.
4) Economic stimulus package arrived. I ordered a new camera. It's a Fuji Finepix S8000FD. That sounds fancy, huh? I did a lot of research, most of which was just empty words since I'm not actually a photographer. And strings of numbers and acronyms make my head hurt. That's why I could never join the military. Or be a scientist. FStop? Aperture? ISO? What? Anyway, I'm really excited. It looks like this will be a fun camera with some manual controls that I can learn about and ease into with more time. There is a newer model of this camera with more megapixels, but the opinion on several forums and reviews seems to be that more pixels on the same-sized processor is a bad thing. So, I saved me some money and went with the older model. Photography on this blog? Oh yes. There will be even more. Lots more of my amateur crap photography. But I don't do this for your enjoyment.
5)Monday exercise time was just a fluke. I feel maybe just a little bit guilty about it. But not much. I have come up with a solution, though. I am now doing the dishes after supper. What's that? Dishes are not exercise? I beg to differ. For one thing, we don't have a dishwasher. And Chris has heretofore been our dishes and laundry man. But before all of you ladies get all breathless and wonder if he has eligible relatives, you must know that this has always been kind of a contentious thing between us. He does those chores because he doesn't like how I do them. But I would rather him do yard chores or household honey-do stuff and let me do the dishes. But he doesn't trust (for whatever weird, totally random, inexplicable reason) that I will get them done. So. After 14 years of this, we have come up with a new solution, wherein he promises not to freak out if I want to sit on the sofa for, say, 30 minutes after supper before I start the dishes and I promise to actually get them done before bed. Also, he does little man-chores around the house instead. So, the iPod helps me multitask with this and I am happy. IPod + Dishwashing = Exercise. Seldom have you seen booty-shaking and suds coexist in such a way. To top it all off, I get to shut out the kid noise, which by 6:30 or so is rather unbearable, for half an hour and I feel so much better after that.
So many solutions. I'm on a roll. World peace, anyone? I think we can do this.

DAILY BLISS: rain. lots of rain.

Weekend Rundown

We did manage to survive the Saturday From Hell. I think it's because we started the day off with a new tradition. I asked for (and got) a waffle iron for Mothers' Day. It makes little heart-shaped waffles.
I figure that, as our kids are getting older, we need to define times of the week that are "special" or incorporate routines to keep us together on a regular basis. Having been a teenager myself, I happen to know that food is a key element when it comes to planning these special times.
So, Waffle Saturday is born.

I found an egg-free recipe that produced decent results, albeit a little bit chewy. I may end up just making those for me and my special needs and treating my family to some egg-ful-licious waffles instead. I would like to state that these also were made with whole wheat flour. But even chewy, wheat-y waffles are good if you smother them with enough syrup.
We really enjoyed church this morning - it was really relaxed and nice. We always have good conversation, and though this week wasn't particularly compelling, there is comfort in sharing your lives with others who support you and pray for you and grow with you. House churches grow those kinds of intimate friendships that are just hard to come by elsewhere. We have theories about why and all that.....but....you know, maybe I should start a different blog for that kind of stuff.
Ha! Like I need another hobby!
My afternoon was whiled away in thwarted crafting. I am making Julianna a dress as her pay-it-forward object. She taught me to knit, so she can make her own shawls if she wants them. We shall see how this turns out. Apparently, she trusts me a lot. Her trust may be misplaced, though, as I bent my sewing machine's needle this morning while putting a little bit of shirring on part of the dress. I do have another one, but....you know how sometimes you just decide that it's time to put something down before you get angry with it? Yeah. That's what happened. So I decided I'd start knitting up a little something called Mary's gifty. I have searched and searched for just the right something. I thought I knew what it would be and I ordered some yummy yarn. It came in the mail last week and I have been really looking forward to playing with it. But when it found out what it was going to be, it let me know that it would rather be something else. So I started researching and looking and came up empty, except for this one thing. This one thing that called for all sorts of skills I don't yet have. Why must I always be drawn to challenges? Why don't I ever take the simple way?
So, as much as I wanted to find something else that I already knew how to do, I could not ignore that this one was "it." So, I would just have to learn some stuff today. So, here's what I looked at for most of my afternoon:

See my laptop? While I was learning how to do a crochet/provisional cast-on, I was also researching cameras. I think that's how I'm going to stimulate the economy with my little monies that I got. I mean, most of it will go for very sensible things (if I could only decide which ones are the most pressing), but I love to take pictures, and my camera is pretty outdated and doesn't take nice photos inside. I think I do okay with it, all things considered, but...well, I don't have to sell you on it, do I? I only have to sell my husband on it. I'm almost there.
Anyway, I learned the crochet chain and how to pick up and knit my stitches into it. I knit my 3 garter ridges and decided to try the picot edging now, just in case I couldn't do it. You're supposed to wait until the whole thing is done, go back and undo the crochet, and pick up the live stitches to knit the border outward. So, I even learned how to do that today! And I did it all quite perfectly. Feeling confident, I decided to go straightaway into the body of the pattern. And that's where things got ugly. Apparently, I cannot add. See that little note there that says "109??" It should say 112. Actually, it originally said 60, but being the crazy kamikaze crafter that I am, I decided to modify it. That's how I roll. "Do I know how to do this craft? Not really. But since we're learning and this will be hard, how about we change it completely? That should be fun."

I found that mistake pretty fast. But I fixed it and went on and three rows in, found that I had dropped a couple of stitches. Dropping stitches is NBD when you're just knitting and purling, but with yarnovers and purl-two-togethers, it gets a little tricky.
So now, I put that project down too.
And it's too late to try and redeem either craft today. So much for instant craftification.

DAILY BLISS: talking home renovation with my daddy and six balls of new, soft yarn to play with

Humbling

So, I'm running errands and I have Emma with me. We are ambling about and telling each other sweet, tender things and she's snuggling on me and starts kissing my arm ever so sweetly and I asked, "What are you doing, sweetie?"
"I'm kissing you right on the jiggles," she says, lovingly.
Hm.

Ugh.

Tomorrow = 3 birthday parties and a wedding.

DAILY BLISS: talking with my birdie (mostly involves kissy noises)

A Little Help?

So, the big 60th anniversary party for my grandparents is coming up soon and I have reluctantly volunteered to do a couple of songs with a cousin of mine during the entertainment portion of the party. What's that you say? Entertainment? But of course. My mom's family is full of pastors and other people who like to be on stages. Just kidding, Nana.
Anyway, the idea is to pick a few easy love songs that can be simply done with piano and possibly a guitar. The problem? Love ballads aren't exactly my thing. I like them alright, I suppose, but apparently not enough to remember any of them! So, it's not that I'm accusing you all of enjoying the schmoopy love songs or anything, it's just that I'm hoping you all have better recall than I do and can drop a few suggestions in the comments.
Anonymous suggestions are welcome, too. I know there are several regular readers out there who never drop a comment.....so, you know, you don't have to leave your name or anything. Can you tell I'm desperate?

DAILY BLISS: An hour to myself on a Thursday! Uncle Jon took the kids out for ice cream after school. What did I do? Nothing. Meadered around the house, read inconsequential amounts of a book, played a couple of songs on the piano....and just sat around a bit.

A Little Dirty

We did something today that we don't usually do.
We played in the yard with dirt and flowers.
I bought some little hydrangeas to put in pots as a decoration for my mom & Mindy's birthdays back in February. The deal is, I suck at taking care of plants. I usually kill them straightaway. I figured these guys would be no different and might last a week or two. These hydranges, though, seemed to like me. The flowers were soon spent and I could see no option but to snip them off. But they kept shooting out little hopeful green buds:

But their leaves were so awful and crispy and brown. So I looked them up and found that the direct sunlight fries their leaves. And I thought, with all this hopeful greenness and whatnot, I really should give these guys a chance instead of just chucking them in favor of some colorful annuals. But it's not something I have gotten around to. And I always think they're going to just die one of these days and I'll just pull them out and feel just a wee bit less guilty because they didn't hold up their end of our bargain long enough for me to put them in the ground.
Well the church I work for had red Gerbera Daisies (they're actually not Gerber Daisies) for Pentecost to decorate the altar and they had a few leftovers...so....free plants! Free plants for my pots! Which meant that the hydrangeas were going to be moved. No more procrastinating. Which meant that my husband had to do more work to make my plans come together. Here he is wondering why he ever asked me to marry him:

Not that I didn't do some work too....I grabbed a dainty little shovel and gently lifted the hydrangeas out of the porch pots, admonishing them not to gulp too much air into their exposed root systems. And I smashed the daisies into the pots and watered them down and thought that since they were annuals, I wouldn't feel too bad if they died in the pots. Meanwhile, Chris had to pull cement blocks out of the ground and uproot seven thousand and fifty two ferns that were living in the very spot the hydrangeas wanted to be. Ferns don't matter. They're expendable.
So, my hands enjoyed the dirt and my watering can enjoyed spending time with me.




DAILY BLISS: blow-drying Emma's hair this morning and laughing with my hubby

Dress #2

This is my other Mothers' Day dress. It's all black and has a pretty little Peter Pan-ish collar:

And pretty lace at the hem:

It was a super bargain because it was missing its belt, so I just fished a bit of grosgrain ribbon through the belt loops and tied a pretty bow at my waist. And felt perky all day. Maybe it was the shoes....I can't be sure.
I also re-made the Almost Skirt that will now be known as the Duvet Skirt because now it has all been cut up and made into something other than what it became, due to almost being something and then not quite making it. See? Pictures forthcoming. It's in the wash right now.
It seems there was actual news to report today, but there is a bar of Starbucks Dark Chocolate (thankyoumindy) calling my name and a new episode of Bones to catch online, so.....I'm off!

DAILY BLISS: a whole pint of blueberries to myself and a nice, cool morning

Anybody Seen My Bootstraps?

I need to find them so I can pull myself up.
Eh, well. That sounded dramatic.
I still don't know what to do about my job, but we have summer almost handled. Just two more places to register for camps and then I get to schedule the easy stuff - like 15 minutes a day of piano practice or ballet practice and at least one game of chess between the siblings. I like to make checklists, even if my kids don't like what happens when I make them.
But I spent my Monday hour (I only have two more Monday hours before Chess Club is over for the school year) enjoying my Mothers' Day presents and I even took a bath. Afternoon baths are the best - the light is so nice in the bathroom.
So, among other things, I got a straw cowboy hat to go with all my sundresses:

And I got a couple of new dresses. I think I'm now prepared for No Pants Summer. Here's my favorite dress:


My new dress and I sat on the porch with Jose Gonzalez.

Jose, the dress and I felt the breeze and drank iced tea. And I put my feet up on the table:

It was very nice.


DAILY BLISS: Mothers' Day chocolate. Good thing I've given up jeans for now.....

Can We Still Be Friends?

Hello, Blog. I've missed you. I know we haven't talked lately, but I think about you every day. It's just that I, well.....I'm busy ignoring my problems right now. I have to make decisions about my job that I don't want to make and I have to straighten out a schedule for the kids for this summer that's coming all-too-fast. And we know what happens when I don't make a schedule - this school year would be a good example. We just never have gotten rolling on the right track. Rising gas and food prices are pinching me in the wallet and affecting so many aspects of my life. There's more stuff, but you get the idea. Sometimes it's all too much, you see.
I know I can always turn to you to work out my issues, Blog. I just don't want to work them out right now. They make me tired. I'd rather play some games and stuff every quiet moment full of mindless crafting. That makes me tired in a different way, but in an inconsequential way, you see. Too-much-sewing-and-knitting tired doesn't change where anybody goes to school next year and it doesn't change where I work.
So, it's not you. It's me.
I'll start narrating my story again soon. Heck, I might even feel like it tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have photos to post after the holiday festivities. But I just wanted you to know that it isn't goodbye-forever or anything like that. We're just taking a break.

DAILY BLISS: errand-running with my kids - the bliss? no complaining! that's a mothers' day gift if i've ever seen one!

Item Number Two

Here's Pay-It-Forward gifty #2, a wrap for my Becky Jayne with a pretty flower pin to keep it shut:

It's a pattern of my own devising, based on the idea of a prayer shawl and the Basket Stitch in Karen Hemingway's Super Stitches Knitting. It has a five-inch garter stitch border at each end and a five-stitch garter stitch border on either side. The rest is self-explanatory, I guess. You just repeat the pattern for as wide and as long as you want the wrap to be!
On another fun cooking note, I made Mindy's Honey Pecan chicken for supper tonight - yum! And easy too. I served it with a little salad topped with feta cheese and chopped pecans. Double yum!
On a sadder note, my Julianna has taken a call to serve at a church in Chicago. Julianna is my work friend. Now it will be just me and ol' Pastor. That, coupled with the ever-steepening gas prices (gas is running me about $80 a week, which is not as bad as it is for some, I'm sure, but too much for me) have me thinking about a job change. That isn't an easy thing to consider when you work in a small environment. Particularly in one as intimate as a church setting. The level of personal responsibility to each other is just....well....higher, I guess. I may see if he'd be willing to do a three-day work week for me, but even though I'd save gas money, I'd have to pay for after school care for the kids, so I can't see how that'll help.
But I have time. Chris and I are going to commit this to prayer and discussion and see what pops up. I was ready to go and have been, um, disenchanted with my job lately anyway, but the pastor seems pretty shaken up about Julianna's departure. When we talked about it Monday, I was moved to pity and felt like I should at least give him some time to get that staff issue settled before I take things too far. We shall see.
Summer is approaching, though. I have my wonderful Denise to help me with my kids. She's wonderful and I know she loves them. They had a great summer with her last year and she's inexplicably signed on for another go 'round with my young 'uns, but still. It isn't me. I'm not with them and I want to be.
I want to go to the beach with them.
I want to take them to Sea World.
I want to watch them at swimming lessons and pick them up from all the day camps they'll be in.
I want to take them to the fruit stand to pick out an afternoon snack.
I want to read books to them during our afternoon thunderstorms.
Me, me, me.
I guess this can't all be about me, though. Which sucks sometimes.

DAILY BLISS: a cup of fair-trade, organic, french-toast-flavored coffee and brushing my sweet girl's shower-fresh hair

Not Really Mine to Share.....

But I did ask permission.
My friend Darla, who heads up a GED program that meets at the church I work for, has baby bluebirds in her yard! With all the talk of baby birds that has been going on here lately, I thought it would be nice to share the photos she took of her babies. Apparently, it's important to actually handle the babies, take them out of their nests and make sure they're clean! How great! So, here are her sweeties:



I've been getting daily reports from her because I'm a big nerd. The only nerd bigger than a nerd who is obsessive about their baby birds is the one who has never met the birds and is equally obsessed.
We spent a slothful, decadent weekend, mostly in our pajamas. There is probably more that I should confess to assuage my guilt. Most of it has to do with Tyler's Ultimate Enchiladas. But I think I will leave it at that.

Snippet

Leaving the grocery store yesterday afternoon, trotting toward the car:

Emma: Hey Mom? Remember that whale and dolphin show at Sea World?

Me: Yes.

Andrew: Yeah - but some of those costumes were really ugly!

Emma: (little offended noises)

Me: Now, Andrew, is that really something subjective or objective?

Andrew: (defensive) I'm just sharing what I thought! I know it's my opinion.

Me: You should probably preface a statement like that, then, with "I think" the costumes were ugly. You can't unequivocally state that they were ugly. (no wonder my kids are a mess - I use words like unequivocally when I talk to them!)

Andrew: I know. (translation: "whatever")

Emma: Well, I think that they were all beautiful!