State of the Union.

Oh, this poor blog.

Oh, you phenomenal, loyal and kind readers...

My sweet Two Pretzels has been lacking a luster lately and don't think I haven't been cognizant of it. I'm sorry.

This has always been my happy place and sharing and writing and communicating with all of you makes me feel connected and part of something worthwhile... but as of late I haven't been able to devote as much energy to blogging as I'd like.  Life is a series of changes and seasons and I'm hoping that I'm able to get back to what I love a little more intently soon.

2012 brought with it a lot of transition and change in mi vida and things are just now starting to settle down. Just one of those little changes was that my company was purchased and with our new ownership I've had new bosses since March. With that comes... a lot*... Much of my time and energy has gone into my job and what's left goes to my ladies and my best friend... and cooking. (Tee hee. As if.)

...sometime it's all I can do to write a post, let alone a good post. So many "to do's" have been thrown by the way side non-deliberately... quite frankly, out of necessity. I've got to protect my sanity.

There's been a lot of Lila and Vivi posts lately because in the midst of this chaos I've need to continue archiving my memories because these ladies are growing up far too quickly and before I know it they're going to be 11 and 12.

So, all that said - thank you for being patient with me. I think things are on the upswing and I'm starting to catch my breath again. I think...

xo,
ky

*I won't talk about work on this blog. Call me. I'll tell you all about it. ;)


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I like to EAT food. Not make it.

So it was dinner time last night. Dinner time is about 8 p.m. in our house -- after the ladies go to sleep and after the sun goes down. It's hot here.

I decided that I was going to make some pesto, add some shrimp and throw it over a bit of pasta. I look up a pesto recipe on Pam the iPad and found, "How to make pesto like an Italian Grandmother." SCORE.

I had everything I need: basil, olive oil, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and garlic.

This is my mini-leaf basil plant that apparently has a VERY pungent taste when eaten in mass quantities.

I do like the recipe says, I chop the basil and scrape and add more and chop and scrape... blah, blah, blah. I add the garlic - I add everything. It's GORGEOUS and smells as it should: garlicy and lovely.

Then I taste it.

AHHH! My tongue. Holy hotness, my tongue. The garlic and lemon-y basil SEARED my tongue. It was on fire. (I actually added less garlic than the Italian Grandmother called for...)

Oh wow.

(It's been an hour and a half and as I type this I can still taste the garlic.)

I tried diluting the pesto with more olive oil. That was a no-go. I looked up, "How to fix too much garlic in pesto" and everything pretty much said, "Don't put so much garlic in there to begin with." Thanks, jerk.

I came to terms. I yelled to Craig, "It appears as if this pesto didn't work out. I'll figure something else out."

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So now the water's boiling and the pasta's almost done. I decide to saute the shrimp in a bit of olive oil and add some sun dried tomatoes and a teeny bit of my uber-potent, flame-wielding pesto mixture. I'm thinking that it'll give it some nice flavor.

I then promptly forget about it and start to do something else in the kitchen.

Oops.

Maybe Craig won't notice.

Me: "Time to eat. Come and get it. This is definitely not my most gorgeous meal... in fact, the more I look at it, you don't even have to eat it. I mean, really. It's really ugly. It looks... really unappetizing."

Craig: "Nah, it'll be fine... I'll try it..." [He's walking into the kitchen. He hasn't yet SEEN the shrimp/sundried tomatoes combo yet.]

He looks in the pot.

Craig: "...What is that?"

I'm totally thinking about going into food photography.

Me: [Smiling. I mean, how can you not? I just made the single-most unappetizing meal EVER.] "Those are sundried tomatoes... with shrimp... and pine nuts... in some sort of dirt-colored broth."

Him: "Oh. Ok. Wow. [Calm. Optimistic.] Sometimes things that don't look so good are awesome."

Me: [Bless his heart. THAT is why I married him.] "Yeah, I don't think that's true in this case."

At this point I hadn't tried it. Quite frankly, who would WANT to eat that? It was brown and thin and those "sun dried tomato halves" didn't look like they should be eaten.

I swear to you, it looked like shrimp tea.

So Craig sits down with his bowl of shrimp tea and pasta and takes a [wary] bite:

"Oh. Um... [incredulously] I can't even eat this shrimp. I mean, I can't even bite it. It's like gum. Wow!"

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He gets 10,029 points just for trying it.

I mean, shrimp tea. Who would want to eat shrimp tea?

I clearly don't shine in the cooking stadium..

I can, however, pour an upstanding glass or two of wine.

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Meet: our dinner.

Sometimes when Plans A & B don't work out, you need to settle on Plan C.

It was a Plan C kind of night.


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Ladies Lunes: Oh, those ladies.

First off, my first born will be THREE years old in 17 days. Three. I remember when I got pregnant and I had friends with three-year-olds - I was like, "Whoa. My child will never be that old."

...and here we are.

The ladies are doing just fine and this week was great. Their Mimi left on Wednesday and Lila was very, very sad. She requested that I hug her because she was sad and told me over and over again, "I sad. I sad, Mommy. I sad because my Mimi go to her house."

:(

Vivienne is still Vivi. Climbing all over the place, giving dirty looks and starting to finally call me "Mama." (She's been calling Craig and I "Dada" for months.)

On to the photos.

This photo makes me laugh. Lila took a quick face dive into the ball bin before school.

Because they both cannot ever be happy at the same time.

My baby.

So we got a slip and slide.

Rivers of tears.

Watched this tonight and cried for the duration of the video. In a good way.

Why? Because it's nice seeing Junior High students encouraging one another.




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The creepiest thing you'll see today.

I amazon-ed "Disney Princess toddler swimsuit" and ran across this suit. Which Lila would like.

It's just that...

... I can't get past that mannequin.

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