Friday, August 4, 2017

7 Quick Takes about Extraterrestrial Martial Arts, Adventures in Cooking, and Why I Might Just Win a Trivia Game on Boring Stuff Now

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


Our family got invited to another barbecue for the second weekend in a row, and I learned that I am nothing if not super predictable.

After getting dressed it occurred to me that I was wearing the same thing I wore to the last BBQ, and that we were also bringing the same side dish.

It got even better when I looked at Phillip and said, "Wait, are you wearing the same clothes you wore to Kim's barbecue, too?"

To which he pointed out that things went pretty well at the last barbecue, and if it ain't broke don't fix it.

2


A city near us has a series of summer concerts and shows for kids. This week the schedule said "Taekwondo Show" so I took everyone, not knowing exactly what to expect but figuring it would be something interesting.

When my 5-year-old asked what a Taekwondo was, I told her, "It's a kind of martial arts."

Confused, she asked, "That Martians do?"

The show turned out to have a distinct lack of aliens, but we enjoyed it anyway. A local Taekwondo school performed a bunch of routines showcasing what they taught, and at the end my son got called up on stage to punch a board:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Translated, this says"the thinnest plywood you can possibly get."

 Also, I thought Taekwondo was Korean but the writing looks Japanese so now I'm confused again.

3


Before the Taekwondo show started, there were a few tables with crafts and activities to do.

My 5-year-old headed to the face painting booth with her big sister while I took the 3-year-old to the craft table to make a paper ninja puppet.

When we met up again, the 3-year-old was really excited to show me the smiley face she'd gotten, exclaiming, "Look at my emoji!"

I don't think I'm ready for the 21st century.

The kids' craft ninjas were also awesome and hilarious:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
You should see this puppet doing roundhouse kicks.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Looks like a ninja from a Cymbalta commercial.

The distraught ninja above was done by my 3-year-old, who is quite the introvert, and he was not a fan of all the people at this event. He actually had this exact same expression on his own face.

4


Phillip dropped his phone and it shattered into a billion pieces.

It hit the tile floor face-down with a loud crack, and then sounded like Rice Krispies for the next several seconds as it spread across the entire screen.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Oops.

Phillip and I have the same kind of phone but his is a few generations newer than mine, and I'm forever complaining that my phone camera is so terrible and how his is so superior to mine.

My 5-year-old, always looking for the silver lining, looked at Phillip's broken phone with eyes as wide as dinner plates and gasped, "Mom! Now Dad's phone is worser!"

5


Recently someone asked me what it's like having kids, and I think what I should have told her is, "You'll never have a normal cooking experience again."

Every time I go to make dinner, I can never find the mixing bowls because they are the toddler's new favorite toy:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Last time he filled up the colander with batteries and put it on the couch.

And when I pulled out the big pot on Tuesday to make chili I opened the lid and found this:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

You just never know what's going to happen next.

6


I finally finished!

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Ask me anything about the Hope Diamond now. Literally anything.

I've been carrying this book around for probably 9 months. It's not a real page-turner (seriously, page 304 is a list of everyone who's owned the Hope Diamond since 1668) so it was great to read when I wake up in the middle of the night until I get sleepy again.

I think I'm officially at the age where I need a boring book on my nightstand for that express purpose. Meaning I'm now in the market for a new one. Suggestions, anyone?

7


Phillip mowed the lawn! The fact that I even thought to include this in the most notable 7 moments of the week tells you everything you need to know about our yard.

The grass was so tall before that the toddler was getting lost in it. Our mower is the mulching kind that cuts the grass and spits it back out into the lawn, and now it kind of looks like we are making hay.

Some old acquaintances of ours were in town a few weeks ago; they said they drove by our house but didn't knock because "the place looked abandoned."

True. Because I can maintain the grass or the kids, but not both. I know my limits.

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12 comments:

Kathleen said...

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry is a good book to just pick up whenever you get a chance!!!

Rachel said...

Your lawncare habits sound like mine and Angel's. We're just not the type to care enough about lawn appearances. Angel often purposely mowed designs or messages in the lawn to amuse me since we could see them from the second story of our house. It's probably a good thing we haven't had a lawn in three years.
Because I'm an Asian languages nerd, I recognized "dao" on that broken board, the first character was familiar too, but I had to look up how to say it, "wu." But Chinese doesn't use those two characters together to make a word, so you're right, it's Japanese, "Bu do", way of war, or martial arts in general.

Audrey Louise said...

Good for you for getting through that book... I couldn't have. Ha.
Our grass is insane. The husband mows it and then two days later it needs it again. Summer is the worst. Hahahaha.
That ninja is 100% how I look at all social function. HA.

Jenny said...

My baby's favorite toy is the utensils. We find them all over except the utensil drawer. So if you ever come over to our house for dinner it's a find your own utensil kind of dinner.

Jenny Evans said...

Thank you! This is why I love the Internet. How would I have EVER found that out otherwise?

Jenny Evans said...

Same about the grass. It looks like we're totally incompetent, which may be a little true, but also it needs mowing so often that it hardly matters how hard we try!

Jenny Evans said...

Yeah, we have no spoons left either.

Jenny Evans said...

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Looks like a ninja from a Cymbalta commercial...I am dying. Why is that so incredibly funny to me?!? Oh well, I wanted to take this chance to tell you how much I love your quick takes. I am a loyal reader of lots of quick takes each Friday and yours is certainly among my favorites. Also, not that I am commenting I now feel the need to ramble. Since you are Mormon, I am curious if you have every been to or consider going to the Nauvoo Pageant. My daughters play string instruments each year in the country fair band. We are Catholic but their super wonderful strings teacher is Mormon, and wow do we love going to this every year. If you haven't been, you should go next year. Please let me know if you do, and I will be so happy to not act like too crazy of a fan.

Michelle said...

I found all my measuring spoons and mixing cups outside with the watering can the other day. My daughter needed them to "give Pooh Bear a bath." Today all the Tupperware containers went missing. You can guess where I found them.

Jenny Evans said...

We keep the kids' plastic bowls, spoons, and cups in a floor-level cabinet so they can get them by themselves. It's basically a halfway station on the way to their sandbox, I've decided.

Jenny Evans said...

I have, but it's been maybe 10 years. We used to live in Ohio which isn't too far of a drive from Nauvoo. I was in the presidency for the young women's organization (girls ages 12-17) and we took them on an overnight trip there to take a tour and also see the pageant.

I honestly have to say that as a convert, I had a hard time with all the Mormon pioneer stuff and maybe even thought it was a little weird, but understood it a lot better after my trip to Nauvoo and I did really enjoy the pageant.

The kids (and Phillip) have never been so we'll have to figure out how to get there sometime. Not so easy now that we live in New England, though! I will try to remember to let you know if we ever do figure it out so we can meet up.