Wednesday Musings

• We’re moving this weekend. In theory, I’m ready – or we’re ready, I should say, though my husband will gladly tell you I have done 98% the packing while he makes sure the rest of our house runs as it should in the meantime. I kind of like packing and do not trust him to not just put things randomly in a box and call it good. That kind of packing is only allowed the day before the move when you resort to just throwing all things left out into boxes and taping them shut. This is also when you abandon labeling boxes so you end up with 20 boxes that you have to search through for that Very Important thing that you had to wait until the last minute to pack (in our case it will be Vegamite, toothbrushes and/or power cords for the Kindle/iPad).
• I made a Facebook event out of our move so maybe it won’t seem like we are asking too much of our friends because it’s: FUN and we will feed you and give you drinks of whatever variety you would like. Win-win, right? Unless you pull a muscle lifting a box, in which case, I can give you an Advil Liqui-Gel, a heating pad and my sincere apologies.
• Swim lessons went fabulously last week – both boys learned to swim and swam the required distances across the pool after either jumping in or being tossed in by their beloved mother. This week’s lessons have not gone as fabulously… well, for 50% of my children. Jack happily does whatever Miss Julie asks of him and hasn’t once protested or cried this week; Liam is another story. He has suddenly developed a FEAR of the deep end and whenever he is taken there to swim because he will NOT stop touching in the shallow when he is not supposed to, he FREAKS out. It is not pretty. And it makes no sense because he is actually quite a good swimmer and can swim across the pool, no problem. It’s all in his head and it’s like a switch gets flipped and he WILL NOT be reasoned with. I am at a loss. Tonight is the last night, I’m hopeful he will remain calm as he did finish up well last night and without a total freak out for three laps across the pool.
• I made these Nutella Mocha No-Bake Cookies as first recommended by my friend, Keri… they are awesome and you should make them. The End. Recipe at the end of the post.
• We had a family reunion last weekend – it was quite a lot of fun to catch up with people I don’t see often and also makes me sad I didn’t grow up along with my cousins being that the closest in age cousin to me is still 9 years older. Ever the baby of the family. Alas. But at least I can hang out with them now that we are all adults and hopefully we will make the reunion an annual or bi-annual thing! I’m totally up for hosting next time – though we might elect Bill and Paula every time because they were pretty awesome hosts!

• Because we will be getting rid of our DVR next week, I have let the children record whatever shows they would like in the past couple weeks. So now we have 15 episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and at least a dozen of Kung-Fu Panda Legends of Awesome and Monsters vs. Aliens. [Spell check offered “Lung-Fu” as an alternative option for Kung-Fu up there – really?]
• Sandy’s little baby L has finally warmed up to me and will let me hold her without crying. This does wonders for my confidence since last week I made her cry the big tears after I looked at her. She probably knows I am the mother of boys.
• I wish bandages solved all the worlds problems like they do for my kids. Jack will demand a bandage for a nearly invisible ouchie he has been crying over for a large amount of time and when I give it to him he is suddenly “all better.”
• We also close on our current house tomorrow, which will be awesome to no longer own two homes. Sadly we didn’t close on it sooner because yesterday Simon tossed a bread knife in our sink and it poked a hole in it so today we had to put in a brand new sink. Awesome.
• I feel I shouldn’t put this here, but I have a wrinkle on the outside surface of my eyeball (yes, even imagining that makes me squeamish and it’s MY eye) that I’m just ignoring until after the move. It feels like I have an eyelash in my eye but does not seem to be affecting my vision. And yes, I will get it checked out but I cannot be wearing glasses right now since I have not actually worn glasses since freshman year of college and that one time I did, I fell down some stairs because my depth perception was WAY off. Does anyone else ignore health issues because they don’t want to deal with them at the moment? I know I’m not alone on that one.
• And happiest of birthdays to my sister-in-law, Joan! I think she’s pretty awesome! May you all be so lucky to have a relative like her!

Nutella Mocha No-Bake Cookies
In double boiler, melt: 1/2 c. butter
1 3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp instant coffee granules (I used 5 packets of Starbucks VIA instant coffee)
Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of Nutella until melted. Stir in 3-4 cups of quick oats (original recipe called for 3 cups, I used 4 because mine seemed too runny and I also used Old-Fashioned Oats, use your judgement). Scoop onto wax paper and cool in fridge.