Apple what?

I'm working on this book about (practically) free things for families to do together, and one of the activities describes how to make homemade applesauce. At the end of the activity, I added "Bon appetit!" And then thought it would be clever to say "Or rather, bon apple-tit!" But when I saw it typed out, I realized that apple-tit doesn't sound very family friendly.

I'm so glad it's Friday.

Noteworthy Thursday #23

Okay, this is sort of amazing. And when I say that, keep in mind that my amazement standards are quite low. Last week in Noteworthy Thursday, we saw that Ginger had run out of paper. This week, she apparently had too much paper. (How does one really have too much paper, anyway? It boggles the mind.) Isn't that crazy?!

My favorite part is the summary. You'll love it, too, if you make it that far.

Another Shameless Plug

You may remember when I encouraged you to purchase the books wrote and edited for Valentine’s Day. I’m back with another product to push. Or actually, it’s sort of the same product. But different.

It’s another book, yes, and another gift book from Hallmark at that. And in fact, this is another book I wrote. And edited. But this time, my name is on the cover. Like a real published author! (I know!)

(And yes, I will sign your copy. But you have to buy it first.)

I actually have several books to showcase, but I’m going to spread the book love out over the next few weeks. One book at a time. If you just can’t wait any longer, all the books are available at your local Hallmark Gold Crown Store.

This book is called Me & You: The Search for a Best Friend. It’s about (duh) friendship, and it makes a lovely gift. Don’t you think your friends would appreciate receiving a book about how much they mean to you? I should think they would appreciate such a thoughtful gift. Go! Go buy it right now! (I’m not even getting any royalties, for this, I just think it’s cute!)

Pretty In Pink

Our cats are not declawed. They’re all-natural, baby. Andrew and I made the decision to not declaw them because after researching the topic, we just couldn’t do it. It’s not a very nice procedure. But—we knew that any furniture we had would suffer. These cats like to scratch on things, and their tiny brains can’t seem to grasp the difference between the scratching post and the edges of the furniture (or our guests’ faces).

To save the furniture (and our guests’ faces), we bought Soft Claws. They’re little nail covers for the cats. The covers are tiny rubber pieces that we basically superglue onto the cats’ nails. Needless to say, the cats LOVE this process and look forward to it Every. Single. Week. (The first time Andrew tried to glue the covers onto Gary he ended up throwing her down the stairs. It’s not a fun process. But I digress.)

The only kind of Soft Claws available at our local pet superstore were clear, but the packaging said the covers came in other colors. At first, we were all, “Colored Soft Claws would be stupid. We don’t want our cats to look stupid.” But after a few months, we realized that it was difficult to tell when the covers had fallen off when they were clear. And surprisingly, Gary and Zadie don’t love it when we inspect their paws.

So we looked online (I just love the interwebs, don’t you?) and bought some bright pink Soft Claws. And they are awesome. Our kitties look so stylish with their preshus manicures. And we can always tell when it’s time to apply more Soft Claws. (By the way, the packaging says we should only have to reapply every 4-8 weeks, when the nail naturally sheds, but it’s more like every 4-8 days. For real.) (But still totally worth it.)

My man and my cat . . .
showing off their pink (and their chest hair).

Noteworthy Thursday #22

1. I'm not going to explain the diapers reference.
2. We should totally bring back the phrase "who gives?"
3. What does "Eu-beri-boo" mean?

Pale-aholics Anonymous

I am Megan and I am pale.

If you either a) know me, or b) have ever seen a picture of me, then you are probably saying, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” But it is a fact—a fact that haunts me every spring.

Spring is the time of year when women break out the skirts and the strappy sandals and the sleeveless shirts. And somehow, it seems that nearly all of these women have lovely tans. Sigh. I will never be one of them. And while I have come to appreciate my freckles and complexion, I get self-conscious, you know, with such pale skin. Legs, mostly. I dread wearing skirts because I fear the reflection off my pasty white legs will blind someone. Okay, clearly that is an exaggeration. But the self-conscious part is not.

This year I gave in to the temptation and bought some of that gradual self-tanner lotion. The kind that you use just like any other lotion, and over a period of several days builds up a little tan. I’ve been using it for three or four days now, and today I wore a skirt. (A cute new skirt, by the way, and I must say I’m pretty pleased with it.) And wouldn’t you know it, the minute I step out of my car on my way into the office I see that my ankles and feet look a bit streaky. Streaky in a whoops-fake-tan-mistake kind of way. Great. What’s a girl to do? I suppose I must just wear skirts proudly and come to terms with it.

I am pale.

To Williams-Sonoma: Get a watch, please.

Last week I went to Williams-Sonoma to purchase a wedding gift for my cousin. I picked out a lovely set of mixing bowls from the registry, then went to the counter to check out. The salesperson forgot to scan the registry, so she voided the purchase then did it all over again so that the registry would show that the bowls had been purchased.

But it did not work. A week later, the registry still showed that the mixing bowl set was available. Sigh. I hate dealing with stuff like this. It should just work the way it’s supposed to, you know?

So yesterday I called Williams-Sonoma and told them what happened, then made vague threats about how I could purchase my several-hundred-dollar Le Creuset Dutch Oven and my 49-dollar-but-everyone-knows-that-really-means-50-dollar Molcajete someplace else even if you did give me a delicious sample of mango-margarita-flavored cheesecake, thankyouverymuch. And, seeing as how it was 4:55pm, the store was closing and the person on the phone told me that the store was closing and she would make a note to call me in the morning between 9:00 and 9:45. (But not before asking for the bride’s name, which I gave her, even though it was quite difficult to pronounce and even harder to spell, and having phone lady sound all put out when I told her the groom’s name was Sam Jones.)

Even though I assume the store was closing at 5:00 and NOT 4:55 like phone lady would make you think, she refused to take three minutes to deal with this registry issue right then. She took my phone number and asked me three times (THREE TIMES!) if that number was one she could reach me on in the morning, between 9:00 and 9:45. I assured her THREE TIMES that yes, I was reachable on that number.

And then phone lady called at 10:15, asked me what the item was, and took care of the whole deal in less than 30 seconds. Why, why couldn’t this have been dealt with yesterday evening? I have such a love-hate relationship with you, Williams-Sonoma, with your overpriced-but-lovely kitchenware and your appealing visual merchandising.

Noteworthy Thursday #21

This is yet another stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. Only two things to mention:

1. My favorite phrase is this note is "Ready set sew."
2. The daughter reference is too hard to explain, so I'll just say that it had something to do with a class project. The writer of the note was my mother and she was lucky enough to be married to the boy I had a big crush on and couldn't stop staring at on the school bus. And our friendship was never quite the same again.
   

Things I Did This Weekend

• Saw Tantrum perform at the Westport Coffeehouse
• Met someone who had actually heard of Yellow T-Shirt, Andrew's college band
• Found out that my in-laws bought a lake house
• Found out that my in-laws are going to bulldoze their new lake house
• Found out that my in-laws are going to build a new lake house
• Realized that Andrew and I will get no more help from my in-laws on our home-renovation projects
• Participated in EarthWalk
• Picked up two twig-like dogwood trees at the EarthFest
• Planted two twig-like dogwood trees
• Watched the first thirteen episodes of Arrested Development on Hulu
• Couldn't believe I spent that much time watching the first thirteen episodes of Arrested Development
  

Noteworthy Thursday #20

Things to note about this note:

1. It's written on pink paper! Pink recycled and/or recyclable paper!
2. This was sent to me while I was at camp. I still think it was fairly awesome that my friends sent me letters--nay, mailed me letters--when I was gone for a week.
3. Molly only passed along two main pieces of information, and one was that Claire's was having a "10 pairs of earrings for $5" sale and THAT is what she wished I were there for.
4. We really loved the phrase "have your people call my people." Also, "we'll do lunch."

Check out Adam Lambert's tight pants!

I'm pretty sure that Adam and Allison's duet was last so that Adam would have ample time to put on those pants. Those suckers were tight! Also: Adam and Allison are awesome. And it is time for Danny to GO HOME ALREADY.

Rain Barrel!

We recently attended a rain barrel workshop. We learned how to make them and went home with our very own rain barrel. And yesterday we installed this rain barrel. It's pretty ugly, right on the front corner of the house (though it is sort of hidden between some bushes). And I'm working on finding some kind of fence-like thing to wrap around it to hide the ugly. But it should be awesome to have. It's a small step, but I like that we will be using less tap water this summer.