A month later, I reappear. Let's see, what's happened in that time?

First, we packed our boys into my mother's borrowed SUV and hied ourselves up to Yosemite for a semi-camping adventure. Semi in that there were no tents involved - we stayed at Housekeeping Camp. There was a massive wildfire nearby which rerouted us in and out of the park and cast a smokey haze most days, but all of us thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Smoke aside, we kind of hit a sweet spot, going mid-week just after school started back up. I very much want to go back again sometime.

Then we had our trio of September birthdays - Squiddle, Jazzy, and Wonderful Husband - happen, followed almost immediately by all three of them getting taken down by Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. Wonderful Husband (who has skin problems already) got it bad enough that he was admitted to the hospital for three days. Not fun for anyone! Fortunately for my sanity, my parents were able to have Squiddle stay with them one night. I didn't get it. Don't know why - my mother doesn't remember me having any previous exposure. Maybe it was just the universe being kind and saying "no, the mama can't get sick too."

But now everyone is recovered. Hooray! And this afternoon I took the boys to the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. Since we have an annual membership, why not? That, combined with Finding Dory, and the Octonauts and Finding Dory games Squiddle has for his LeapPad, seem to be fostering an interest. As I rocked him this evening, I got told all about how octopuses and jellies have "tentatles" (yes, that is how he pronounces it) and how sea stars have eyes at the ends of their arms. ^_^

Not much going on at chez Stonham since we've all fallen under the flu crud to varying degrees. Wonderful Husband took today as a sick day. And even Jazzy has a snotty nose and a nice chesty cough going! But none of it is worth a doctor's visit - fortunately Squiddle's fever broke Monday morning, otherwise we would've hauled him in for poking and prodding. And he was miserable enough as it was.

Unfortunately, however, the fact that we're all sick has meant no playgroups and classes for Squiddle this week! So he's been bouncing off the walls at times, which has drained me down further. Today, though, I'm hoping constitutes a turning point.

This afternoon, while both the boys were napping and Wonderful Husband was vidgaming, I did another session of "tame the kitchen garden." The dead bay tree was put in the brown bin for yard waste, as were the ginormous kale plants. The bin is FULL. No more yardwork until Tuesday, I guess. Though I need to examine the bottom of the pot the bay tree was in, since it died of drowning - the pot clearly needs more drainage holes before I use it again.

The hundred-and-seven popcorn plants just started peeping their heads up today, and the peas/spinach/radishes/beets/lettuce/carrots/whatnots in the one bed I've planted are all neatly sprouting. As are the onion sets at my parents' place that I thought wouldn't sprout, so goes to show what I know! Tomorrow we're due for more rain, which makes me happy, but... I'd kind of like a dry week so the back lawn and kitchen garden paths could get mowed. Ah well. Grass is always greener and all that.

I also did a 10% water change on the fish tank this afternoon and will probably add in a few more critters tomorrow. Likely either a couple African Dwarf Frogs or half a dozen ghost shrimp, depending on which one excites Squiddle more when we're at the store....

Sometimes Squiddle surfs onto Teletubbies episodes on Youtube. Sometimes this happens while Wonderful Husband is within earshot. The end of one such episode concluded that "Teletubbies love Tubby Custard. And Teletubbies love each other, very much."

Wonderful Husband: "Tubby Custard is Teletubbies!"

Me: "Well, that would explain why there isn't a pink Teletubby...."

Sometimes we are very disturbed people. :)

(And, no, this is not an April Fool's Day thing. I LOATHE April Fools' Day.)

Wonderful Husband is out getting a new car. His Corolla, which he's had since he came over to the USA 11+ years ago, has ticked rather high in mileage, so it's time.

Amusingly, he's getting the same model of car (Honda Fit) that I drive. Though in a darker blue. I've threatened to one night, in the dead of night, sneak out to the garage and switch their parking spots. :)

Squiddle is on the tail end of his nap; I'll probably go get him up after I finish this blog entry. During the quiet, I've been doing my writing class homework and wondering if Wonderful Husband will be home in time for me to go to the quilt guild meeting tonight, of if I'm taking Squiddle with me and going just long enough to drop off my charity blocks (and pick up more) and drop off my block exchange blocks (and pick up instructions for next month's). I've also been considering taking one of the guild's workshops, but having someone else watch the Squiddle for eight hours will be more pain than it's worth. And I have plenty of tops already in progress and finished that I need to quilt.

The garden is coming along in fits and starts. I've cleared about a third of the longest bed and dug compost into it. Five tomato plants are in, I need to put another six on the other side, then mulch it. And the dandelions and mint are busy trying to re-establish themselves in the bed in the front of the house, which finally (after five years) looks like civilized people live here. But that all may well wait until Thursday. Stuff to do tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday morning. Busy busy!

As many people who read my LJ may be aware, Wonderful Husband has a couple of food allergies. The big (read: DEADLY) ones are his allergies to both peanuts and all tree nuts. Which apparently is a conjunction that doesn't happen that often. Most people with one or the other only get that one or the other. But, lucky him, both are big big no-nos.

In my family, we're all lucky enough to not have any food allergies. So it was a big switch to have to suddenly start reading warning labels on everything. And there are a lot of places we simply can't go out to eat, because they cook things in peanut oil. For the sake of simplicity (and lack of cross-contamination), Wonderful Husband and I keep a nut-free home. (The only "nuts" allowed in the house are nutmeg, coconut, and us.)

But gosh darn it, sometimes I would really like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

One of our favorite bread recipes incorporates sunflower seeds. We've recently been doing a comparison of roasted vs. unroasted seeds. I ate a handful of the latter as a snack, and paused mid-chew.

The taste was a ringer for peanut butter.

So I did an internet search, and came up with SunButter. Which is totally safe for Wonderful Husband, and carried by Target! So today I picked some up, and tried it, and I could not tell that it was not peanut butter. Huzzah! I can have PBJs again! (SBJs?)

(Wonderful Husband, for the record, tried it, but couldn't get past his visceral ingrained reaction of it looking and tasting exactly like peanut butter. Which is fair enough. Spend a lifetime avoiding something that will kill you, and an identical substitute probably is still going to make you shudder. But I suppose I'm not buying it for him. I'm buying it for me. I can now have my PBJs and kiss my husband too.)

Yesterday was Wonderful Husband's birthday. I also had writing class last night. I was accordingly hyper-efficient and did up chicken cacciatore in the morning and put it in the crockpot, and stopped by Wonderful Husband's favorite bakery (Sensitive Sweets, an allergen-free bakery) on my way home and got him his requested birthday brownie and chocolate chip cookie. Had dinner, he opened his presents and cards, blew out the candle on his brownie, and I went off to class. Birthday celebrations shall continue in Las Vegas this weekend.

It says something about how long I've been taking the class that I tend to tune Maralys out when she starts a narrative anecdote. Either that or I'm a bad student, not hanging on my teacher's every word. Possibly a mix of these two.

But, wonder of wonders, she actually admitted in the class that those of us whose submissions are at the end of class tend to get short shrift! That's more self-consciousness than I'd've expected from her. Not sure if it's related, but amusingly, both Bridget (#4 of 5) and myself (#5 of 5) got near-perfects from the class. Well, except from one of the new students - he handed my ten pages back to me and it almost has more red ink than black! I suspect his writing style is very, very different from mine and that I will end up ignoring 95% of what he has to say. Flipping through his remarks, it seems that he wants me to remove all of what Maralys calls the "lyricality" out of my writing and make it read like a Grisham novel or something. I'm sure someone could do a decent fantasy novel written in that style. I am not that person.

I love my Wonderful Husband. He calls to make sure I'm keeping my blood sugar up on a day when I'm best described as "crunchy" or "fried." Lovelovelovezura....