random rambles

sickness and health

today greg and i both woke up with colds.  after we'd both gone to bed feeling like we were going to wake up with them.

shifting gears

i'm learning to enjoy riding at william's pace on the way to and from their school.  sometimes we go so slow that we are going slower than the people walking on the sidewalk next to us.  maybe william's looking up at the sky, maybe he's trying to drive his tires through some mud.  maybe he's humming a song.  then suddenly he's racing ahead, kicking his legs out in the air in front of him yelling, 'woooohoooo!'

one family's yellowed hosta is another 10 snail families' home 

i cut back the hostas today, because as one commentator noted, they go from not-so-bad yellow to gray-brown mush. and in the process, learned that snails like hostas.  i put the spent leaves in the compost and i'm hoping my reader, martha, will tell me if that was a good idea or not.

the grass is always greener

in the summer.  hoping someone can tell me what to do with this tall grass in the background?  leave it be or cut it down?

salad. it is a winning cake. (not my quote, gertrude stein)

mark bittman told us to cook our lentils with parsnips, milk, and nutmeg and our cabbage in wine.  so that's what we did.

story time bed time

yesterday henry slept through the night.  not because we kept him up until 11:30 and counted 5 a.m. as morning, this time.  not after waking up three times before 11:30 p.m. either.  but genuinely slept from 8 something until 6 something, prompting us to check and make sure he was still breathing.  he was!

you say tomato, i say tuh-may-it

following up on a comment from yesterday i looked for evidence that danish is the most difficult language to learn (or at least in the top five) and found none, but i did find this article, which says danish has too many vowel sounds (40!) and children are lagging behind because of it.

The Danish Language's Irritable Vowel Syndrome

eek.  sorry william. sorry henry.