My Friend Went to BlogHer Food and All I Got Was Some Floury Hair....

I'm not even making this up. Last night as I was about to walk out the door to pick up said friend, T2 started hollering about how we had no peanut butter and how he hates that nasty healthy other butter (almond- little weirdo). I was certain that I had a stash of peanut so I went into the pantry to look for it. And there it was! On the top shelf, behind something else and mostly being hidden/squashed by the self reproducing 5lb/18 cf bag of dried apples*.

So I- being the tallest person in my house- reach up to get the kid his peanut butter. In doing so, I bump another container to the right which sends a plastic canister containing 5 lbs of flour crashing down on my head. We all know the lid didn't hold..... So then I  had to vacuum up the flour and then I had to go take a shower and wash all the flour out of my hair. Twice because the minute it got wet, it turned into paste. Makes me think those no-grains people may have something of a point.

Once out the door, 15 minutes late, wet hair, socks that don't match, I zoomed over and picked her up in my awesome new retro ride and then we jetted into Anchorage for 'old lady painting'. No, I am not painting old ladies as either subject or canvas. I went to learn rosemaling, an art now practiced pretty much entirely by little old ladies. I was told to come empty handed and Laura tagged along for a ride to the airport after. I'd been to the place once before but I'd had children and a GPS with me and come in from another direction. Finding it was a touch spotty this time since I had no GPS and the road was closed & a giant backhoe sitting in front of the building.

"Old Lady Painting" was just that. Laura just barely prevented me from being the youngest person in the room by 20 years. If you discounted the one lady in her early 60s, I would put the average somewhere in the mid 70's. Was I any good? Yes! I did exactly what I was told and I was brilliant at it!!! A triumph, in fact. Unfortunately, what I was told was to sit and watch what she did. No brush entered my hand. Next week, I get to sniff the paints.

After watching intently, trying to avoid offensive political discussions, and giggling over Laura's shock at a septuagenarian casually dropping an F bomb, we popped over to the airport so that she could run away for a fantastic week in San Francisco at BlogHer Food. Great food, bags of swag, and she gets to speak on the panel about feeding children, stay in a hotel room without children, and go to fabulous cocktail parties and schmooze with Food Network stars. Yeah. I'm jealous.

By the time I stopped for bread and yogurt and got home, it was nearly midnight. Miss V was trying to be disgruntled but you could tell she was amused over the antics of her small brothers earlier: T1 chased her around the house, squirting her with water from what we refer to as "the snot sucker" to make it look like she wet her pants while she tried to talk to her boyfriend on the phone. Not wanting to be left out, T2 started just tossing water from a cup. I suspect the boyfriend was unfazed- he's one of 7 brothers.

Lessons learned yesterday:

1. Relocate the snot sucker to an undisclosed location
2. Do not keep flour on the top shelf of the pantry
3. I really want to go to BlogHer Food next year

* those apples: I bought a 5 lb bag of apples last march (dried apple rings). I've tried to use them but I swear they magically replace themselves. Every time I use some, the bag just returns to its previous size. I am never going to get through them all. Ever.