Tag: daughters

Mirror Mirror

by Karen, posted in family, friends, local fun, movies

I took my daughter and her friend to see Mirror Mirror today. I have to admit that I was disappointed that Julia Roberts was in the movie. I have a love-hate relationship with Julia: I love the movies she is in but I hate her. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it, but you get the idea.

I put this aside because I love the story of Snow White. Lily Collins (who is my new girl crush) plays Snow and she is perfect in this role. She makes Snow into a strong female who takes no crap from anyone. She learns how to defend herself. She doesn’t fall for the Prince’s lines. She gets him on her own terms. Just like in Tangled,  this is a woman who saves her man. And herself. And her dad. And her kingdom.

The dwarves are a riot, like a peanut gallery. Or a Greek Chorus. They have a running dialogue that sometimes is off camera but hey, pay attention to their comments because they are hysterical.

The only thing I didn’t like was the sequence at the beginning. While Julia narrates the back story, a series of animated characters are shown that look like mannequins. I thought they were kind of creepy and could have done without them.

When the movie ends, stay put. There is a musical number at the end sung bySnow White: I believe (In Love)’. It’s worth watching.  Full disclosure: I liked it so much that I found it on YouTube and watched it about a hundred more times after I got home.

Sometimes I get obsessed when I really like something.

After the fall

by Karen, posted in family, friends, Karen's Kitchen, Midlife Crisis, the beach

I had a disaster in my kitchen today. I was lifting down some big Pyrex mixing bowls from a shelf, something I’ve done dozens and dozens of times. Something I do almost every day. I was lifting them down to put one back in the stack. As I brought the stack down to the counter, suddenly I heard a crash. I think I heard it before I realized what happened. One moment I was lowering the bowls to the counter, then next moment I had no bowls in my hands and there were millions of pieces of glass covering every inch of my kitchen counter, floor, and my feet.

I was shaking, so I just stood there for a minute while I took stock and tried to breathe. I know that cuts don’t hurt at first, so I was looking for blood to see how bad the damage was. Unbelievably, all of the cuts, and they were few, were superficial.

The damage to the Pyrex was worse: My 2 favorites bowls were broken: the large yellow and the large Amish.

I told my daughter and her friend to stay in her room. I realized my son was home so I called him. “I need help.” He said, “Give me a minute,” then came up, looked around, asked me if I was okay, then got to work. I would like to say that he helped me clean it up, but really, he cleaned it all up while I picked up shards of glass then put them back down again, still too shaken up to do much at all.

I thought of all that while I was walking on the beach later on this morning. I looked at the ocean and thought: The ocean makes everything better.

I was wrong though. After a few moments, I realized this: Family and friends make everything better.  I lost nothing. I have everything.

Easter

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends, Holidays, Midlife Crisis, the beach

How do you celebrate Easter? Even though my kids are older now, and the Bunny has been found out, we still celebrate the holiday in much the same way we did when they were little. I make Easter Baskets of some sort for them. I hide eggs for them to find in an Easter Egg Hunt.

Tip: to keep your older kids interested, instead of candy or colored eggs, hide plastic ones with cash in them.

We have dinner with family and friends. I over-bake when I am entrusted with bringing the dessert course and then over-eat everything put in front of me. I always make “Church Window” cookies in honor of my grandmother. She always made them for me growing up because I loved them and she loved me. I still do the Easter Egg Hunt because my father loved to do that for us when we were little and so now I do it for my kids, but also to honor my dad.

I went for a walk on the beach this morning and was thinking about how Easter was my father’s favorite holiday (I think) and St. Patrick’s Day was my mother’s favorite. I wondered what my kids think my favorite holiday is?

Expand your horizons

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends, local fun, movies, quest for the best, tweens

Looking for something fun to do with your kids this weekend? How about a movie and a cupcake? That’s what my daughter and I did today and we had a great afternoon.

What to see? That was tricky. There is a dearth of family movies to choose from at the moment.

Do you like movies about nature? Do you like movies about animals? Do you like National Geographic-type programs?  

I don’t, actually. Not much. I usually avoid them at all costs.

Big Miracle is a such a movie, but because it was the only option (and because we missed Glow Bowling) I decided to take my daughter to see it anyway. I brought my knitting, so the afternoon wouldn’t be a total loss. Well, the surprise is this: the movie was great. I loved it, and so did she. It’s a love story, but on many different levels. There was, of course, the usual man-woman relationship love, but also:

  1. The whale parents’ love for their child
  2. A grandfather’s love for his grandson
  3. Everyone’s (eventual) love for the whales

I liked it so much that I was motivated to write this, to persuade you to go see it.

After that, I was in such a good mood that we went to get a cupcake from Somethin’ Sweet. Jen mentioned that she was working on a new cupcake: Peach Cobbler. Hello? It was totally a day for breaking out of my rut, because I almost always will choose a cupcake that has chocolate of some sort  in it, but this time I went with the Peach.

It was a good decision. 🙂

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So, see a movie that you wouldn’t normally see. Eat a cupcake that isn’t chocolate. Better yet, share both with your tween!

Losing my mind

by Karen, posted in Midlife Crisis, my one word

Here is just a small sampling of the fruits of my distraction over the past couple of weeks.

  1. Went to my hair appointment, got out of the car, looked for my pocketbook, realized I’d left it at home. I could clearly see it in my mind’s eye hanging over the back of the kitchen chair. I was sure I’d taken it off the chair and brought it with me to the car. I had not.
  2. Got up early, got dressed in my gym clothes, got to Planet Fitness, got out of the car…and realized that I was wearing my winter boots and had not brought my sneakers. Fail.
  3. Ran the dryer for 45 minutes, went to remove the clothes, and discovered that they weren’t in there. I’d never taken them out of the washer and put them in the dryer in the first place. Even though (once again) I clearly remember doing so.
  4. Told my daughter, “Go get the rest of the bags out of the trash,” after I returned from food shopping. Oh, didn’t I say “trunk”? I was sure I’d said “trunk”…

And these are just the things that I remember. Needless to say, I’m not making great progress with “my one word” for 2012.

Scary.

First pair of glasses, part 1

by Karen, posted in family, health, no fear, tweens
My first pair of glasses

I got my first pair of (many, many) glasses when I was twelve years old.  I was playing tag in my grandmother’s yard (with a friend-who-was-a-boy) and so of course not only was I running around like a nut, I was also distracted.  So first I was chasing Scotty, trying to tag him, and the next thing I knew I was on my butt in the grass, holding my mouth, bleeding.

I said, “Oh, crap!”

Scotty said, “Oh, bye!”

He left quickly.

What the hell happened? I had somehow managed to smash my mouth into the front of my father’s car, which was parked on the grass where we were playing. To my horror, as I went into the house to tell my mother what happened, I realized that I had shards of…what, tooth? Tooth! Shards of tooth were in my mouth! Not only had I gotten a fat lip from my “car crash”, but I’d also broken my front tooth.

My parents were more annoyed than sympathetic (this was gonna cost them). We didn’t have dental insurance so the fix was minimal (“I’ll just file it down so the sharp point from the tooth doesn’t puncture her tongue,” the dentist offered cheerfully). Worse than this was that the cause of the crash. I hadn’t crashed into the car because I was clumsy (well, not just because of that), as was first thought, but because I couldn’t see how close I was to it. 

I was nearsighted.

The state provided my glasses. I had no choice about which frame I got since there was only one option: the lovely cat’s eyes that you see pictured above. Although my dad tried to be upbeat about it, there was really not one bit of excitement involved.

So,  I’d lost half a tooth, but hey, I gained a pair of glasses soon thereafter.

Yay.

Wicked good? Not!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, health, local fun, no fear, restaurants, Someone's gotta say it, tweens
Ew. Just...ew.

I recently visited a popular restaurant in Wells, one that I go to frequently. Usually I go with my husband but this time I was with  my daughter. We went there on Saturday. My twelve-year-old picked the restaurant and was excited to be going out for lunch with her mom.

My preference is always to sit in a booth, but they were all filled, so we agreed to take one of three small, two-seater tables in the center aisle. Before we ordered a booth opened up to our right, and we asked our server if we could move there. “Sure, if it’s not spoken for already,” she said. “I’ll go check.” We watched her talk to a woman in a Wicked Good! sweatshirt who was making the judgment calls at the door in terms of who sat where.

After a few moments, our waitress returned, apologetic. “A larger party is waiting to sit there,” she said. Really? There was no one at the door.  This is an establishment that does not take reservations. I say again, “Really?”

Okay, so we stay put. We order. The table sits vacant. Two more parties of two (women) come in, ask for the booth, and are given the same story by the girl at the door in the Wicked Good! sweatshirt. They take small tables like my daughter and I did.

But then….a party of two (wait for it….) men come in. At first, the Wicked Good! girl gives them the same story that the rest of us (women) got…but then she says, “Well, all right,” to them, and proceeds to sit this party of two (men) in the booth that my daughter and I couldn’t have (not to mention the other 4 women that asked for it).

Did I mention that it was two men who got the booth? I guess the Wicked Good! girl can’t do math. Hello? A party of two is not larger than a party of two.

To add insult to injury, when my fried seafood came, it was on a dirty plate.

Not wasting my vacation

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, movies, restaurants, shopping, tweens, yoga

I think that it’s very important to get out of your rut–I mean, routine–on your vacation week. This is especially challenging, of course, if you are taking (yet another) staycation. Having part of your time off fall during the holidays can make it a little easier to break out…as in the  “Hel-lo? What day is it?” situation in which I found myself just after Christmas. Still, the gym on Tuesday and Thursday, food shopping on Saturday line up could definitely stand some tweaking.

Sunday: Christmas. ‘Nuf said.

Monday: Clean up the house, rest up from the holiday, dinner at Olive Garden. Happily, I found the $4 off dinner coupon prior to paying and then remembered to use it.

Tuesday: Friends came over to make home-made, authentic egg rolls. Last time we made chicken and shrimp. This year, to change it up some (hey, it is vacation!) we made a third version: spicy pork, which ended up being a hit.

Wednesday: Pirates game (a present for the fam) after dinner at Binga’s Wingas (a present for Dad).

Thursday: Friends day. Lunch with former colleague for our rescheduled gift exchange, then scrapbooking for the first time in a year and a half, with more friends. The understanding kind that are not shocked that, despite your good intentions, you did not remember to organize your stuff and print out the Christmas pictures to use that day. Hey, it’s all about friends, right? UPDATE: This event did not actually happen and will be rescheduled. Instead, I went to Kohl’s and bought some cute things on clearance. Yay!

Friday: Shopping at the mall with my tween with her gift cards. Got an $89.50 fur-lined hoodie at Aeropostle for $10!!!  This was followed by eating w/reckless disregard for the future at the Buffet of Gorging and Obscene Excess at the mall. Then we saw We Bought a Zoo at the movies. May I just say: Go. See. It. It was excellent. We both loved it. Movie watching was accompanied by popcorn and Peanut M+Ms (aka “the devil”).

Saturday: New Year’s Eve. Chinese buffet at East and Just Dance 3 on the Wii to work (some of ) it off. Yoga first thing in the morning.

Sunday: New Year’s Day: Pajama day! Read stack of books and magazines that have been piling up. Went for a walk. More Wii. And…let the healthy eating begin!!!! Egg whites, soup, salad were on the menu. Really.

One of the best vacations ever. 🙂

Angels dropping a dime

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief

I dreamed about my mother last night. We were in the house she grew up in and ultimately died in. We were standing together on the back porch, looking out at the snow-covered street. It was very sunny and bright, and we were watching a plow making its way through the snow drifts, clearing a path in the street. We didn’t talk, but I felt happy.

I woke up from this dream Christmas morning, and had a clear thought: thanks for letting me know that you’re with me today, Ma.

I was at my brother’s house for dinner later in the day for dinner. At one point, I stood up from the table to get a drink and we could hear something hit the floor. My sister-in-law picked it up and said, “Did you drop a dime?” so I said yes, and put it back in my pocket, not giving it much thought.

A little while later, after I had just finished telling my brother about the dream, another coin hit the floor. It was another dime. My sister-in-law said, “What’s with the dimes today?!”  I said, “It must be the angels letting us know they’re here.”  Another guest (who did not know about the dream) said, “It’s your mother!”

And so it was.

Making Gingerbread Houses

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, tweens

I admit it: prior to yesterday I was a Gingerbread House Virgin. Through twenty-plus years of motherhood, I’d managed to avoid ever baking, never mind decorating, a gingerbread house. The desire just was not there. I couldn’t have been less interested.

Then something incredible happened: I wanted to make one.  Something shifted inside me and I really wanted to do it…and then…

I got lucky.

🙂

Tip: do it for the first time with someone who knows what they are doing!

Okay, enough double entendre. My friend Kristen (see her blog here) is a fabulous baker and she invited my daughter and me to be part of her (tenth, I think) annual ritual of baking and decorating a Gingerbread House with her son, something I’d never done with my own son in his childhood (but hey, we did make dozens—dozens!–of Christmas cookies over the years! Just sayin’.).

Our jobs were to bring something flat to put the house on the day prior, and to buy some candy to contribute to the stash of building supplies.
Oh, and to show up. 🙂

The end result? Amazing. The ideas the kids came up with were so creative–it was just wonderful to watch their minds working. Plus, my friend and I got to chat virtually uninterrupted for at least an hour.

This is definitely an activity I would like to do again next year.

The irony? My son was making his first Gingerbread House at the same time at his girlfriend’s house with her family. Go figure.

Watch the slideshow that follows to see what we used for materials. 🙂

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