Not to get all competitive about mother-in-laws but mine? Has got to be hands-down cooler than most. This makeshift slip n' slide on her sloping front yard was her idea.
So was bombing down it right along with her grandbubs.
The woman is not afraid of a mess.
I think we can all agree my MIL wins.
Love you, Ummoni!
[showmyads]
I have a fairly high tolerance for messes when it comes to crafting. Messes involving toothpaste tubes left uncapped or Barbie clothes strewn everywhere? I'll pass. But crafting I do encourage with my children, especially when making gifts for someone else.
A recent craft I've been dreaming up was to make custom coasters using tiles and felt. I'd not done it but it seemed like I could do it cheaply enough to make a test-drive worthwhile.
Serendipity occurred upon my virgin voyage to the Southeastern Salvage which is a large emporium of a store here in the Southeast--think Home Depot meets Homegoods. I found mini-tiles for...wait for it...a nickel a piece. Bonanza!
Here's what we did.
1.) First, I cut up a garbage bag and laid it down on our tiled playroom floor so that the kids could get paint on everywhere BUT the garbage bag, including the rainbow rug and the door and themselves. Again, I am very tolerant of crafting messes. And my children enjoy the dog house where they are now sleep.
2.) The kiddies painted each mini tile with assorted acrylic paints which are a total pain to get out of their clothes, hence my son is not wearing any.
3.) After the tiles dried in the sun, I sprayed Krylon crystal clear acrylic in Satin on the tiles (to lock in the paint and keep it from chipping).
This is the moment when the cheerful hosts of Sesame Street would tell you to go get a grown-up to help you with this next part.
4.) I busted out the hot glue to seal the four mini-tiles together to form one coaster. I hot glued square pieces of felt onto the backs of each coaster to prevent scratching tables.
We gave ours to Eunis and Jeff, our bestest buddies and Tybee Island vacation pals. The coasters may or may not have gotten deep-sixed based on how flimsy and ugly they were, but we had fun making them regardless.
And that's the thing about anything worth doing. If you love the process, the outcome (sorta) doesn't matter.
[showmyads]
This is not my favorite question, the question of whether or not I cook Korean cuisine for my husband. After we were married, it was the #1 question asked of me as a new bridey mchousewife. No ethnicity, sex, gender, age was exempt among the askers of this particular interrogative. Do you cook Korean for your husband, asked the well-meaning people who were probably sincerely interested to know how my backyard burial of the fermented cabbage was going. Seriously, though. Oh. My. Kimchee. Did that question get old.
For starters, the obvious. Much as my beautiful black hair and almond shaped eyes and ivory skin betray me--you know I'm not the Korean one in this equation, right? Why would you not ask Loverpants if he cooks Korean for his Irish-Italian wife?
For seconds, really? That's what you ask a woman in the year 2000 and something? What kind of a short order cook for her man is she? I mean, women can vote and earn a PhD and buy stock but the first question out of the gate is what she's got on the stovetop these days?
For thirds, what if I --perish the thought--DON'T cook Korean food for Loverpants. What if I chef up every manner of Asian delicacy but Korean is just not in the repertoire OH SWEET MOTHER WHAT THEN!?!
Of course, the above responses were not seasoned with salt. Nary would they pass through my lips. Lord, have mercy on Thy servant and her fallen thoughts.
Still. Couldn't help but get annoyed from time to time....
*** Last night I stood in front of the stovetop stirring quinoa, excited to put it and some veggie medley into egg roll wraps and fry them up real nice and Korean mama like.
The plate was piled high with my clumsily filled egg roll invention.
I started to fry and samples one and two were perfect! Brought all the kids to the yard.
And then after the third one, they all started to unravel. Droplets of fry grease spattered the air and my arms and OW WHAHHH WHYYYYYY??
I asked my Korean mister where was the fault line in my egg roll construction?
He said, graciously, it was possibly the fact that I had stuffed my egg rolls like they were burritos. Or cannoli. Might be why they are busting at the seams.
So, not willing to pay my full penance for Not Cooking Korean for My Husband all these years, I did what every good ethnically Western European gal would do.
I took that quinoa egg roll smattering, threw it in a pyrex dish, topped it with swiss cheese, baked it at 375 for an hour and made quinoa egg roll lasagna casserole thing.
And it was good. Even my Korean husband said so.
