One of my kids had an IN-PERSON appointment today. I’m sitting in the waiting room looking at their artwork and wondering who thought it was a good idea to hang a very large picture of an angry man looking straight out of the canvas. I’m feeling very judged in my jeans with the hole in the knee! But too bad. I love these jeans and also, I’m very happy that we arrived early and freshly showered. One has to celebrate the little things.

As is the nature of home-ownership, as soon as I got the dishwasher humming along, the faucet in the kitchen decided that 10 years was long enough. I disagreed and disassembled it to see if there was something clogged. It’s one of those spray faucets, which look cool but aren’t super easy to disassemble. The internet suggested several options. I have now tried all of them, including soaking the spray head in vinegar overnight. None of my efforts have improved the situation. In fact, the faucet continues its campaign to retire and I am slowly coming to the realization that perseverance may not get me anything but very, very slow running water.

I’ve replaced faucets before so I suspect that it won’t be more than the normal amount of annoying. The worst part of faucet work is how tired my arms get as I lay under the sink, applying putty and tightening bolts … and occasionally feeling the water drip in my hair or on my forehead, running down into my ear. 

Last weekend, a light switch mysteriously stopped working. The light is now permanently on. Since it is not a bedroom light, it’s slightly less important than a non-working faucet but it’s definitely on the honey-do list. I’ve replaced light switches before (yay, two things I know how to do!) but since electricity scares the heck out of me, I have to turn off all the electricity to the house in order to do the work. That’s annoying and requires coordination with family members who don’t like it when I spontaneously (to them) shut off the electricity. Yes, I know there’s a better way but since I haven’t killed myself yet, this clearly works for me.

My daughter is in spring-cleaning mode and yesterday she pulled up the carpet in her closet. We have mostly hardwood floors in our house except for those darn carpeted stairs (see previous rants about vacuuming stairs!) and the floor of some closets. (I’m not really sure why people carpet closets and apparently neither is my daughter.) The good news is that she found a beautiful hardwood floor underneath a hideous green pile carpet of indeterminate age. 

It’s not that much of a surprise. The previous owner told us that he had covered the hardwood on the second floor with laminate (why would anyone do that?!) but we’ve never checked because, honestly, we’ve had other things to do. 

The bad news is that, now that I have confirmation that the original floor is intact, I have to fight my inner beast. She-who-roars (inside my head) wants to rip up all the laminate right now to expose the original flooring. We don’t need to do that now. We don’t need to do that now. We don’t need to do that now…. Any bets on whether the inner, impetuous problem-creator or the outer, sensible problem-solver will win this battle? 

I just finished reading a young adult new release (and NYT best seller!) called Wings of Ebony, by J. Elle. It’s about a powerful Black girl who discovers she has root magic. She is caught between her origins in Houston and her ORIGINS. There’s some graphic violence, a lot of grief, complex and sometimes hard to follow magic, and a good bit of anger over colonization. If you enjoy reading YA fiction with strong female leads, it’s worth your time, even with its problems (which I hope she is able to solve with book 2). 

Wings of Ebony is only one of a bunch of children’s books worth picking up. If you still think Dr Seuss is the epitome of children’s lit, you haven’t looked in the kids’ section of a book store in a long time. 

About Dr Seuss I will only say this: many of the people we admire are not wholly good. Geisel created racist imagery. That’s a fact. That fact doesn’t make The Cat in The Hat, for example, any less of a treasure but it does acknowledge that some of his books were and are hurtful. If you are having a panic attack about Geisel’s foundation stopping sales of material that is actively hurtful to huge portions of the population, it might be time for you to do some self-discovery. See also, Disney’s Song of the South ….

And that’s all I have to say about that.

As I was preparing the dough (recipe link below!) for tonight’s cast iron skillet pizza, I did a little mental math. We’ve used more than 80 pounds of flour since the start of the pandemic. That’s a lot of bread, pizza dough, (chicken pot) pie crusts, cookies! 

Skillet pizza is genius for us because we’re particular about our toppings. My daughter is from the school of you-can’t-have-enough-veggies. Ian prefers pepperoni and black olives. I like a meat-lover’s pizza, light on the crust, heavy on the cheese. I doubt that I’ll ever order pizza again, honestly, not when I can make it at home, exactly the way I like it.  We made three 10-inch pizzas and ate all but one slice. We even have enough dough left to make garlic knots to go with tomorrow’s “something and sauce” as a dear friend’s mom used to say. 

For those of you interested in a homeschooling update, Ian is about halfway through Earth Abides, a great post-pandemic story that, unfortunately, includes some painful stereotypes. We’ve had some great discussions about racism as Ian has questioned some of the language and descriptions in the book. 

We’ve started combining our current events discussions with some historical context. During the freeze in Texas, we spent quite a bit of time following the catastrophe, exploring their role in the Civil War, recent secession threats and how those align with their request for federal aid, as well as the history behind the devastating heating bills some of their citizens are now facing. (It takes a lot of after-hours research to make these conversations work!)  

Our first crocus bloomed — purple! — over the weekend. The sun was bright and warm against chilly March winds. It was cold again today but that’s just Winter’s final temper tantrum before it heads off to its room to sulk. Spring has arrived.

Here’s the recipe for our pizza dough. If you want the easy-peasy details for making skillet pizza, hit me up in the comments below.

Stay safe. Wear your mask. 

Much love.