Friday, October 29, 2021

7 Quick Takes about Couple Tattoos, First World Problems, and Good Old-Fashioned Procrastination

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

1


Have you seen cutesy matching couple tattoos? I'm talking about something like this:


Well, I realized this week that Phillip and I have them. We've got identical flesh wounds on our outer wrists, although mine is lighter because it's healing faster.

Well, that's sweet.

We got them in equally dumb ways, too! He got stabbed with a plastic fork sticking out of the garbage bag while taking out the trash, and I slipped and cut myself with a cheese slicer making a ham sandwich.

Say what you will, but it was a really economical way to get 'his and hers' tattoos.

2


Somehow I knew it was going to be a long time until we saw new kitchen counters, and I was right. After re-ordering the counters and playing phone tag with the installation company, we finally got a date scheduled for them to come take some measurements!

Only they didn't show up. I called to see what was going on, and they said the appointment had been rescheduled for the end of November.

So I'm on the phone, torn between not wanting to sound like a complete first-world whiner who can't deal with waiting four more weeks for a new countertop, but also really annoyed at whatever is going on here.

Especially since we'd already ripped off the backsplash so they could measure, so now our kitchen looks like this and it's stressing me out:

Even if the kitchen is clean, it still looks dirty because of the mess where the backsplash used to be.

3


It's an Evans tradition for the kids to choose what kind of cake they want for their birthday. They can pick anything, and we'll make it.

Recently, our kids have been requesting a "surprise cake," but we're running out of surprises. We've already done a piƱata cake where M&Ms spill out when you cut it, and a 6-layer rainbow cake that took all day and every dish in the house to make.

I was at a loss, until my teenager suggested that we create a real version of a made-up cake from a Mr. Demaio video the kids watch on YouTube: Mount Everest Apple Crumb Ganache Cake (2:27 below if you're interested.) 


We took her suggestion and ran with it. Phillip made the apple crumb cake and the ganache drizzle, and the 15-year-old and I cut it up and arranged the pieces into a vaguely mountain-like shape. 

I'm willing to bet this is the best-looking Mount Everest apple crumb ganache cake you've seen today.

I'm actually a little embarrassed to post this publicly on the Internet, because Mr. Demaio is a real person who could potentially be reading this and think we're crazy people stalking him. (This past summer, we even had a Mr. Demaio Day just for fun where we did dumb stuff from all his videos.) 

Let's just hope that if he ever read this blog, he'd feel flattered and smile instead of be alarmed and call the police.

4


My mom is here for a visit and picked the birthday girl up from school for a birthday surprise: taking her indoor skydiving. On the drive there she was giving her hints on where they were going (my favorite was, "It's going to be an uplifting experience.")

My daughter had a great time, but while she was in the high-velocity wind tunnel some wisps of her hair poked through the holes of her helmet and got all knotted up, and they had to cut it off with scissors so they could remove her helmet.

It wasn't enough hair to be noticeable, though. I wouldn't have even known if they hadn't told me, so it's not like she went back to school the next day looking like a shorn sheep.

5


It's been a crazy busy week, plus Grandma is here so the kids are even less motivated than usual to clean up or do their chores.

It was the 5-year-old's turn to clean the bathroom with me, and after some convincing I was able to get him in there.

"Eww, the toilet is really gross!" he said, wrinkling his nose as we started to clean. And then, after a brief silence, he added, "But this is still the cleanest room in the house."

6


In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we don't have a pastor who gives sermons every Sunday, but a series of lay people who are just asked to give talks. 

My 13-year-old was asked to speak this past Sunday, which was fine except that he must have forgotten or maybe he was waiting for me to tell him to get started (which I might have done, but I forgot, too.)

Church is at 9 AM and he chose 8:40 AM as the right time to ask, "Mom, was I supposed to be giving a talk or something today?"

Wow. Okay. Well, the youth talks are only supposed to be a few minutes long, so we can do this. He brainstormed in the car on the way to church, and then we ducked into a Sunday School classroom during the first 5 minutes so he could jot down some quick notes.

He delivered an awesome talk up at the podium and no one was the wiser, but the experience was so stressful for him I'm pretty sure he will never do that again!

7


Speaking of waiting until the last minute, the 17-year-old has been working overtime on her college application.

I thought she had a pretty good handle on things, but she appears to have spent too much time thinking about her essays rather than actually writing them. Now she's working her butt off, and probably will be until 11:59 PM on Monday because that's when it's all due.

On a scale of 1-10 ('1' being unaware she's even applying to college and '10' being doing the entire application for her,) I'd rate my involvement in the process at about a 3, and I'd like to keep it that way.

So I'll just have to take a deep breath and keep referring to the 'W' entry in this post. And my inner English major is going to just need to settle down because this essay deadline is hers, not mine.

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5 comments:

PurpleSlob said...

Wow! Coolier grandma gift!! I haven't said coolier in like 40 years! lol
I'm sure Mr. D would be flattered!
Matching tats!!! Since I have the one and only one I'll ever get!! DH better get a tiny strawberry if he ever wants to match!! lol Y'alls are at east original, and unique to you!! ;)

me said...

Or maybe your son has just convinced himself he can wait to the last minute and get away with it!

Unknown said...

Matching tats! Way to go! :)

I'm impressed your son managed to get it together. And thanks for the link to the alphabetical parenting advice. It's all getting a lot more, um timely, lately.

Chaun said...

So this is somewhat unrelated, but I’m really interested in how you teach your kids to do chores! I have 3 kids under 10. Have you written on your chore system??

Jenny Evans said...

Chaun: I did write a post about that, I hope it's useful!

https://www.unremarkablefiles.com/2018/02/secrets-to-raising-hard-working-kids.html