Our Family Web Log

Almost certainly Selena will post this to her face book, but I'm going to beat her this time and post it here for the few that visit here first! It's Michael Pollan talking about his new book, which is (or contains at least in part) a collection of "wisdom", folk and otherwise, about food. Here's some favorite quotes from me...

"If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're probably not hungry."

"The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead!"



Another interesting one:

"Sweeten your food yourself" (He observes that in most cases it'd be better for kids to give unsweetened cereal and tell them to put on all the sugar they want, because they can put many many spoons of sugar on the cereal and still have less sugar then many sugary cereals. Maybe not so applicable around here... but still an interesting observation. Ditto for making ice tea or lemonade... no sane person would themselves put in as much sugar as is found in popular commercial drinks of that sort.)

Probably a year, at least, since Anne expressed interest in getting rid of her elliptical trainer, and Selena expressed interest in acquiring it, and many close calls of almost getting it, against all odds Anne still had it, and Sandro and I managed managed to extract it and get it to our place. And, almost miraculously, we found a corner space to shove the monstrous thing in. So, finally, Istra can get some exercise....


Emeth, on the other hand, has decided to stick with vigorous lolly popping as his exercise of choice.

(Sorry about the video being so dark. You know how it is...)

Gramma took the kids for a few days again, so Selena could get some quality studying time in before her final exam next week. But it looks like all this freedom has once again gone to her head, and off she goes, hitting the streets and rallying against the prorogued government. Well, what can do when the Samba Squad calls?

An irony of the kids being away is that I have at least a tiny bit of time to post things here. But, without the kids, what to post here?

So I've pulled up this photo shoot I did with Istra on Dec 14. I call it a photo shoot, but... the situation actually was I was sitting at my desk in my office and Istra showed up in the doorway pushing her toy stroller (with Eeyore the donkey and Tessa the pink puppy strapped in). I wanted to do a lighting (flash) test with my camera, so I grabbed it and took the top-left picture. As soon as the flash goes off, Istra goes off with the faces. So i keep shooting. She keeps making faces. I try to stop, but she wants me to take a few more, to show her what she looks like. Really, it only took about 3 minutes for all of those faces to materialize. (I was going to organize the heads into a neat block of squares, like last time... but then I noticed that the chaos and jumble much better captured the feel of the experience...)

In the interest of fairness I figure I'll go give Emeth a chance also. You may remember the head mosaic I did of Istra when she was only around 1 and a half years old (did another when she was even younger, standing in her crib, but can't find it at the moment). She was already making faces. Lets see what Emeth will do at two and a half...



I find Emeth in his room, sitting on the floor by himself looking at a book. He didn't say anything to me that I can remember. But I think if the heads spoke, the words may have gone something like this:

1) What? Oh, it's you. 2) Ah! What was that?!! Flash?? What are you doing?!!! Ugh. 3) I'm going back to reading my book. 4) Are you still here? Do not offend my dignity. Thanks for coming by. You are free to leave, any time you want.

Ha ha. Emeth is funny in his own way.

Well, everyone missed a fantastic New Year's Eve party here at our place. Yes, it was awesome. It was awesome that you missed it, I mean. I mean, it's awesome you were somewhere else that is not here. So, I just want to extend a heart felt thanks to all who did not participate. Thank you. And Happy New Year, also.

Besides us not having to take you on an delightful evening walk around the neighbourhood through the rain/snow (including the icy and unlit Wytchwood Park hill --- whee!), under our big umbrella, it also meant we didn't have to share our crisped-to-perfection traditional home-made new year's egg rolls with you. Horray! Selena also whipped up some hot and sour soup, which turned out quite nice (though a lot more of the hot than the sour).

Conscience is starting to suggest my tone may be coming across a wee bit on the selfish side? Furthermore, I'm just starting to feel terribly sorry for all you poor unfortunates that were not here for such an awesomeness (the likes of which you can probably not even imagine). But, this was the first holiday evening of any kind that Selena and I have gotten to enjoy just by ourselves since... since I can't even remember. It was too nice. It was too good. So I hope you can somehow forgive us for ignoring your knocks (we may have been out) and rejecting your rings (our phone line must have been down)?

There are a few egg rolls and soup left over. But you better get over here fast if you want some, because they won't last long! And the kids will be back soon...