Tag Archives: sisters

Alaska here we come!

Does it seem to anyone else that we’re flying towards September at breakneck speed? And once September arrives, well, we’re headed straight towards Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Wait! I don’t know what our Thanksgiving plans are! And I haven’t even figured out what I’m getting everyone for Christmas!

Yes, that is how my mind works–at least when I let it run rampant. Note to self: continue to discipline the wild horse that is my mind in order to fully enjoy the present and not worry about tomorrow. Amen and amen.

Everyone pause to make a wild horse noise.

Really get into it. Shake your hair about and give it a loud whinny.

It helps to dilate your nostrils and furrow your brow quite deeply during this process. I speak from experience.

Thank you. Now we can move on.

While I’m looking forward to the cooler, crisper weather and the reduction of sweating (that has a directly proportional relationship with the volume of my laundry piles), I feel like I need to really hang on to these next few weeks. Force time to slow down a little. Squeeze every bit of relaxation out for my husband before he faces his comprehensive exams this fall and winter. And where better to do that than Alaska!

Fairbanks, Alaska is the residence of a certain gorgeous ballerina . . .

. . . and this little squooshy-cheeked man.

And together they rule the galaxy.

Heidi’s husband is deployed, in case you were wondering–with still a few months to go. I don’t know how they do it. Or rather, I do–by the grace of God alone.

By the way, now is probably a good time to break some news to all of you: if I ever have a little one, I plan on nicknaming him or her Fatty Lumpkin. I can’t even say that name without working myself into an ecstasy of cuddliness. Yes, I want a fat baby with ooshy-gooshy little rolls on their legs. Fat babies are the cutest, and the most . . . *mom-ism alert beep beep beep* . . . munchable. I will only call them that when they’re quite small and unable to be scarred or embarrassed–I think.

Anyway, we fly out tomorrow morning, and after a cruel and unusual 3-flight journey, we will arrive in the land of crazy temperatures, weird sunlight patterns, and Santa Claus himself. Our Alaskan activity list goes as follows:

-Take as many pictures of Heidi and James as I possibly can.

-Schmooch baby James on an hourly basis. No, not ‘smooch’–‘schmooch.’ Two very different things.

-Visit the town of North Pole, home of the aforesaid Santa Claus.

-Bathe in the hot springs?

-Eat salmon. Or something. Possibly on a dinner boat experience.

-Do this excursion thingy that involves panning for gold.

-Become a gold-panning millionaire and share my largesse with you by inviting you to my new Gourmet Spa Space Station on Pluto.

-Hike around the National Park of Denali.

-Cook up a storm.

-Spend two nights in Anchorage with my man, which entails a 6 hour drive through an incredibly beautiful part of the country.

-Are you ready? Not blog.

-Yes, I’m taking a vacation from blogging while I’m gone.

-Am I allowed?

-I think so.

-I’m glad you agree.

I’ll be back after Labor Day, so don’t go thinkin’ that you can get rid of my that easily! Plus, they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I haven’t really been absent for a while. Using that correlation, that means that fondness may perhaps be at an all time low. I understand–I wouldn’t me jabbering in my own face every morning! So this is really a kindness to you, eh? Eh.

I will have obscene amounts of pictures to share upon my return, I’m sure. Pictures of the Alaskan scenery. Pictures of Those Cheeks. Recipes from Heidi’s kitchen. Who knows what else–besides the whole ‘getting rich panning gold’ thing that I have planned, of course.

I’ll try not to miss you too much . . .

. . . okay, I’m going to miss you. Kitchen Witch‘s beautiful and poignant stories . . . the city and farm tales of my beautiful semi-relatives the Sweet Ridge Sisters . . . Veronica‘s optimism, her Thankful Thursdays and almost daily recipes . . . Joanne‘s insane penchant for running marathons and combining bizarre ingredients to make something unexpectedly delicious . . . you guys have become such a part of my life!

Next week I have delegated a couple posts to a certain ‘friend’ of mine to keep you all entertained. All I’m saying is: she wears a helmet. Or her head is a helmet. Stay tuned, and see you all after Labor Day!

Sisters on the Magnificent Mile

I love this girl.

She always calls me when she’s shopping. I’ll be at work, or chilling out on the couch, and the phone will ring. “Hey! I’m in the dressing room at Target,” she’ll announce.

“So I’m trying to decide between two shirts. There’s this blue one . . . it’s kind of a sky blue with a little ruffle around the bottom. But I’m just worried that the ruffle is hitting me at the wrong spot. You know what I’m talking about? But the neckline is so pretty.”

“Tell me about the other shirt,” I’ll interject.

And then it’s my duty as the older sister in residence to help her come to a decision. Which really means that I say: “Man . . . I don’t know . . . you know what? I think you should just get both. You can always return one if you decide that you hate it once you get home.”

My solution is always to get both.

And that’s why I should not be allowed to shop frequently.

Though I love talking to Erica as she graces the distant Kentucky dressing rooms of Target or Victoria’s Secret and browses through Land’s End’s bathing suit selection, what I really love is shopping with her in person. We don’t have to tread on eggshells when trying to communicate to each other that a particular item isn’t very flattering. “The color looks like puke,” Erica may say. There’s no hemming and hawing with “well, um, maybe, like, that color . . . I don’t know . . . I mean, whaddyou think?” This makes for Greater Shopping Efficiency.

This particular trip on a sunny Tuesday afternoon involved a coffee break at Starbucks, where coffee was promptly spilled.

The store was completely out of napkins, so dishrags were brought forth.

My coffee was too bitter and Erica’s too sweet, so we paused at a convenient ledge and mixed the two.

“I’ll take pictures and you mix,” I suggested (this was a convenient way to ensure that any further spillage–and the resulting sticky hands–would not befall me).

That’s more like it.

During our meanderings, we stopped in a certain shoe store. In my experience, retail establishments aren’t too keen on customers taking pictures inside the store, but the urge welling up within me to snap some shots was simply irresistible. Thankfully, there are so many tourists out and about on the Magnificent Mile that the camera hanging from my shoulder didn’t raise any alarms or gain any special scrutiny from the staff. Feeling like a spy in some kind of thriller, I used my super-secret method to take pictures: with the camera hanging from my shoulder, I aimed from the hip and simply started pressing the shutter release button.

It was wildly entertaining.

Of course, the sheer brilliance of my super-spy technique caused me to go into fits of giggles.

I probably laugh more–and harder–with my sisters than with anyone else on earth.

Come back soon, Erica!