Adorkable Grrl

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Light Painting With A Roomba

Bits of Kate: Grandma’s piroges

I wanted to take a second to talk about my Grandma Helen.

It’s not a really widely broadcast fact, but my Dad, aka “Sparky,” is actually my stepfather. He and my Mom have been together for most of my life, since I was about four or five years old. And, to be quite frank, he’s been the go-to guy in my life for as long as I can remember - taught me to ride a bike, soothed my wounds the first time I had my heart broken, walked me down the aisle when I got married, helped me move when I got divorced and has been present for all the major successes (and more than a few failures) of my life. The only thing he HASN’T had to do for me over the years is bail me out of jail (because, despite my protestations I’m a good girl, let’s just face it).

My Grandma Helen is my Dad’s Mom. And, though she and my Grandpa Ed (who died when I was nine) are/were very, very, very Catholic and do not believe in divorce — and, surely raised their eyebrows when their eldest son took up with a Protestant divorcee with two children — never in the 30+ years my parents have been together have either my brother M or I ever felt Helen thought of either of us as anything other than a cherished grandchild.

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2011 Harvey Award Nominations

Bullet Points of Life: My vacation highlight reel

Vacation is over on Tuesday, I’ll be winging back to the Windy City and resuming life per normal… sigh… Here are the highlights of my trip:

• KNITTING! Last week the weather was pretty crappy, so we didn’t get to do much outside stuff - so, while stuck indoors, I managed to knock out four pieces of my Christmas knitting. I’m super far ahead of the gift making game now and it’s only July, yay!
• COOKING! One of the biggest joys of coming home to hang with the fam is that I can cook big meals. Being a singleton, myself, I rarely have cause to cook -say- a whole chicken just for myself. So a couple of times during this vacation I’ve made desert (berries and homemade whipped cream,) side dishes (new potatoes w/rosemary and olive oil, spinach salad, cooked spinach with butter/lemon/bacon) AND one night I coordinated the roasting of two lemon and rosemary chickens and all the fixin’s… I <3 to cook, so this was an extremely fun evening for me.
• KAYAKING! The first afternoon after I arrived at my parent’s house, my Mom and I went kayaking - it was fun and very relaxing.
• FEEDING DUCKS! My parents seem to have collected this family of a Mama Duck, a Daddy Duck and 10 duck babies. They show up by our pier or in the backyard at least once per day to be fed stale bread. I suspend my hatred of birds for this Duck Family, b/c they’re so damn cute!
• HANGING WITH FRIENDS! Saw a couple of people on this trip — most importantly, I got to spend some QT with my bffs Tony and Kendra and their two year old daughter (aka, my Minion.) No matter where I go in life, it’s completely reassuring to me that T&K are consistently among the dearest, most awesome friends I have. There are very few people who are in that category. And, the Minion cracks me up - she’s a little spitfire.
• HANGING WITH THE FAM! Week one and my Aunt B, cousin Annie and her friend Alee were at the lake with us. Week two and my sis-in-law, my nephews and my Grandma are here. Plus the extended fam came down for a pre-Fourth of July party on Saturday. I’m soakin’ in the family goodness.
• QT WITH DA MOMMASHIP! If you haven’t figured it out, I’m a Momma’s girl… I love my Mommie (because she’s just plain old awesomesauce) and I don’t get to see her enough. So having two weeks to hang with my Mom has done me well in terms of my own mental health.
• A SECRET I CANNOT REVEAL RIGHT NOW! It’s seriously cool stuff, over vacation the details of this secret I cannot reveal became far more solidified than they were before I left on vacation. I’m STUPIDLY excited about this secret, I cannot wait to tell people what it is. :)
• THE KENNEDYS! I watched the Kennedy’s mini-series. It was good and educational.

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