Inside, the house was clean and free of the usual toys and clutter.  On the kitchen counter sat a crystal vase that held wonderfully fragrant calla lilies.  The oven light revealed a rotisserie chicken and sweet potatoes, warmed and ready to be eaten.  After dinner, Tate dished us up chocolate chunk brownies that he had baked himself.

The dirty laundry had been washed and placed in drawers and closets.  The towels and sheets were fresh.  Groceries for the upcoming week had already been purchased and were even put away in the pantry and refrigerator.

It’s just a wild guess, but I think Tate might have missed us while we were gone.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

{snicker} Kum & Go. Seriously. Could there be a more ridiculous name for a gas station? The answer to that question is, “I think not.”

****************

We were watching an episode of the Duggar’s show, 17 or 18 Kids and Counting on TLC. (I really love this show, but I forget how many they have, can you blame me?!)

During commercial break, the first ad was for the Nuva Ring.

{hee, hee!}

****************

While visiting my family this weekend, my brother and his wife stayed at a hotel. Snickering, my brother told me that there was a sign where you put your key card in that said, “Pull out slowly.”

{HA!}

He’s obviously not a blogger or he’d have taken a picture. I blame him for ruining this blog post.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“He was wearing a suit, that’s what I first noticed,” she explained as I asked question after question about their courtship.

“You fell hard and fast, huh Mom?” my brother asked as my Mom smiled and nodded her head in agreement.

“This was even before I bought the Corvette,” my dad adds.

Shocked, I asked, “Even before you bought her a ring!?”

My Mom and Dad met in April and married seven months later on November 28, 1969. As my brother and I quiz them, wanting to know every detail of how their love came to be, I notice that they look at each other when answering the questions and finish each other’s sentences.

My parents recalled their first date, forgetting most of the details except that at some point they went to Dairy Queen. Most of the questions we ask, their answers are fuzzy. They do remember that there wasn’t an official get-down-on-your-knee proposal.

My mom did recall one funny detail, “Your Aunt Jeanie heard that we were going to go pick out a ring and showed up at my parent’s house wanting to see the ring.” The whole idea of marriage apparently was a surprise to my grandmother.

“When I got home Mother said, ‘well, show me the ring.’ My dad was on a business trip, I think. He called and Mother handed me the phone and said, ‘here, you tell him.”

“Well, what did your parents think, Dad?” my brother and I pressed for the details.

“I don’t think they’d met her yet,” my dad explained.

“You know, don’t you,” I asserted, “that this was completely crazy, right?”

And it was crazy. Meeting in April, marrying just a few months later, both of them so young, not even really knowing one another’s families. But crazy became 40 years, 2 children, and a mostly great life together.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. Here’s to 40 years, and to many, many more.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I drove away from him with tears in my eyes.  Instead of spending Thanksgiving together as a family, Tate had to stay behind and work.  Hours were spent strategizing, trying to figure out a way for him to come with us, but with the weight of responsibility sitting firmly on his shoulders we knew that he had to stay behind.

It wasn’t the same eating and celebrating Thanksgiving without him.  We talked on the phone a few times during the day, but I missed his silliness, his love of Redi-Whip on pumpkin pie, arguing about the edibility of pecan pie, and him.

I woke up to his picture this morning, taken from high atop his deer stand, catching a few hours for himself before going back into work.   It made me miss him even more.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I just wanted to wish you balls all a very Happy balls Thanksgiving! I hope your turkey is moist balls, your family is balls well, and that your Thanksgiving centerpiece doesn’t remind you of anything balls.

Happy Turkey Balls Day!

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Though I still find it incredibly thrilling to see that I have a new comment, nothing really compares to the very first comments you receive. In the early days it was so amazing that someone actually read something that you wrote (and it wasn’t your mom or your English professor.)

I’d first like to give thanks to Heather, Queen of Shake-Shake, before she was actually the Queen of Shake-Shake. She was just a friend of mine I met in a playgroup. She was the very first person to comment on my blog. It was a comment she left on this beautifully written masterpiece, Finagling.

However, no offense to Heather, but since she’s a friend of mine, I feel like I actually should give some credit to my very comment from a stranger. Let’s all bow our heads and give thanks to Mommiebear2, from Who Cries Over Spilled Milk who also left a comment on the same post.

The comment she left:

“Like said above, a double stroller is awesome! My daughter was about 1 1/2 when my son was born (premature at that – 25 weeks) but somehow I managed, and you will too. ”

True words, Mommiebear2, true words. Thanks for the smiley face, too.

I remember sitting at my desk in our office, staring in amazement at my computer screen. I couldn’t fathom how she’d found my blog, but immediately felt like we’d be close friends forever. Unfortunately, we lost touch several years ago. I’m glad Neil had this idea, giving me the nudge to look her up.

So Mommiebear2 (and Heather), thanks for my very first comments!

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

So anyway, this post isn’t supposed to be a downer.  I’ve either made you really sad or you’re thinking that I’m a bit off my rocker.   I really just wanted to talk about the dolls you played with growing up.  First I’ll tell you about mine, then you can tell me about yours!  And then we’ll brush each other’s hair and paint our nails with sparkly pink polish!  Won’t this be fun!

I had a giant basket full of Barbies, hitting pay dirt when I got a bunch of hand-me-down Barbies.  One of the inherited Barbies was actually not a Mattel Barbie, but an off-brand Barbie with swivel scalp.  One side was blond and with a simple twist of her scalp you could make her a brunette.  YES, TOTALLY CREEPY.  I always pretended she was evil and trying to steal Barbie’s husband (or boyfriend, depending on that day’s storyline).

Speaking of Barbie’s husband/boyfriend,  I never did have a hunky Ken, I had one with a crazy mess of black hair and Miami Vice like white suit.  He did drive a pretty rad purple Corvette and a giant yellow RV.  So he had that going for him, I can see Barbie’s attraction.

One of my favorite Barbies had to be Skipper, mine even had TAN LINES under her teal bikini!  Hello inappropriate!   I also loved my cowgirl Barbie who wore blue eyeshadow and winked if you pushed a button on her back.  She had a droopy eyelid because of her winking, but I thought it  made her look mysterious.   She looked so beautiful in her fringed black and white cowgirl pantsuit and cowboy boots, with her perfectly feathered bangs.  Really classy!

I used to love giving my Barbies names like Lisa, Tracy, Belinda, or Sonja with a “j”.  They were always taking turns  kissing and laying under the covers with Ken and then getting pregnant.  On a possibly related note, I watched a lot of General Hospital growing up.

As much as I loved Barbie and all her (s)e(x)scapades with Ken and Skipper and the evil lady with two-tone hair, I also loved my Cabbage Patch Kids.  I’m pretty sure that neither of my CPKs were acquired after a long wait in an elbow stabby line or for an inflated price.  Their names were Deidre Aggie and Karin Dodi.  I never changed their names because it just seemed wrong to me since that what was written on their birth certificates.  The claim that you could change their names and get a new birth certificate by notifying Xavier Roberts or one of his minions at the Cabbage Patch Hospital seemed like a shady deal.  I didn’t want to risk a name change for my girls and then have no PROOF of their actual name.  (My loathing and mistrust of red tape and bureaucracies obviously started at an early age.)   Also, Deidre and Karin were actually pretty good names considering some of the atrocious names given to my friends’ CPKs.

I really loved the whole romanticism behind CPKs and how they came from a “real” hospital and that you “really” adopted them.  Children from a cabbage patch!  So that’s where babies come from!

I do still keep in touch with one of my dolls.  Technically Lillian is a Puffalump.  She sat on my bed until I got married.  Now Lillian lives in Ella’s room where I like to think of her as the Woody of Ella’s toys.

I could never put her in a donation box and abandon her!

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I know that conventional wisdom would dictate that if I’m going to post a recipe on the Monday before Thanksgiving, that the recipe would be Thanksgiving-ish.  Well I’m going to buck conventional wisdom and pour some hoisin sauce down her gullet.

So this is a recipe for great beef stew.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t really like beef stew.   Actually I didn’t really like beef stew until I met Mahogany Beef Stew and we began a torrid love affair.  He’s so meaty and hearty, there’s plenty of him to share.

This would be a perfect thing to fix, say, today or tomorrow, then reheat and serve on Saturday when you’re really sick of turkey or have already run out.

Let’s put on our aprons.

(Recipe adapted from Bon Appétit) (Fancy!  I know!)

4 tablespoons olive oil
3 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed, cut into 2 1/2-inch pieces (or pre-cut stew meat)
1 medium-large onion, chopped
2 cups red wine (pinot noir, cabernet, zinfandel…whatever you like)
1 can reduced-sodium beef broth
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with Italian herbs, undrained
1/2 cup hoisin sauce (can be found in the Asian aisle)
2 bay leaves
1 pound carrots, peeled, cut diagonally into 1-inch lengths
1 package of baby portabella or white button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 1/2 cups of peas (frozen or canned)
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over high heat. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Add meat to pot; sauté until brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove meat from the pot and place on a plate to add back later. Allow the pot to cool or the onions will burn.  Once cooled, set the heat to medium-low; add 2 tablespoons oil to pot. Add onions; sauté until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add carrots and mushrooms.  Cook for 7-8 minutes.  Mix meat into vegetables. Add 1 cup wine, beef broth, peas, tomatoes with juices, hoisin sauce, and bay leaves. Bring to boil.

Reduce heat to low, cover pot and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the remaining cup of wine. Cover; simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover, increase heat to high; boil until sauce is slightly thickened, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes longer. Reduce heat to medium, add cornstarch mixture and simmer until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Season stew with salt and pepper.  Serve sprinkled with parsley.

Head on over to Rachel’s place for more recipes!

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Ella loves to hear her mommy sing. from Playgroupie on Vimeo.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Thank goodness that’s chocolate icing and, uh, not something else.

©2010 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.