Lost Days

Wednesday has typically been a lost day for us. We are scheduled to the max, largely as a result of years of Gymnastics Training. The gym schedule was such that Wednesday was the boys’ only day off during the week, so things like Piano, doctor’s visits, and the like usually fell on Wednesday.

Even without gymnastics, that schedule hasn’t seemed to change, and for summer sports, an unexpectedly large number of scheduled days seem to fall on Wednesday.

Here’s what a typical Wednesday looks like this summer:

9:00 a.m. 13 has soccer. It’s an informal pick-up type game, but it’s run by the varsity coach at the high school, and 13’s getting play with varsity players as well as incoming freshmen, so it’s good thing.

10:30 a.m. it’s a good thing the soccer is informal because 13 had band practice. There is a local resident turning 100 on Friday, and the band teacher is having some of his students put a presentation together. While 13 is at practice, I pay bills and 9 plays with Legos, in the closet.

11:45 a.m. 13 stumbles in from band practice, STARVING. Apparently, being out of gym for months has allowed him to forget how hungry he gets when he works out. It has also allowed me to forget, so I don’t have lunch ready. We decide to eat out on our way to the video game store to pick up our extra Wii Rock Band Guitar, which has finally come in.

Noon: pass Husband on his way home for lunch. Turn around, go back home. Unfortunately, I’ve been so busy, I’ve had no time to get to the grocery store in several days, so the food pickin’s are slim, to say the least.

12:45, after an odd lunch of left-overs, peanut butter and apricot/pineapple jelly sandwiches (the apricot/pineapple was supposed to be for an “orange” chicken type meal–gotta put it on the grocery list again), and fruit, we finally head out to video game store (Wii Rock Band Guitar), sports store (soccer cleats, shin guards, socks), grocery store (well, food). Need to hit post office and library, but am too tired and there’s only a half hour left until piano teacher arrives for lesson. Look at gas gauge. Nearly pass out at amount of fuel expended to run errands.

2:25, return home. Good, a breather before piano teacher arrives at 3.

2:27, piano teacher calls. She’s finished up her classes early and is near our house, is it okay if she comes by now instead of waiting until 3? Of course I say yes, since I can’t really do anything while the lesson is going on, including starting dinner (dang open-floor plan house), so the extra half hour before dinner will be nice.

2:29, holler at 9 to get set up for piano teacher. 9 whines (grrrr) that it’s not 3 o’clock yet and why does he have to set up now? When I explain she’s arriving early, he grudgingly sets up for teacher and then returns to closet to play with Legos.

2:35, piano teacher rings doorbell. Dog goes nuts. 9 puts Indy in kennel, then there is some scrabbling between the boys on who goes first. 9 loses, goes first.

3:45, piano lesson over. 13 works on a worksheet for Scouts. They’re going to the rifle range tonight and he has to have all the questions answered.

4:10, friends who are taking our Parallel Bars (yay) call to let us know they’re 30 minutes away from arriving.

4:13, Husband walks through door. Give him the head’s-up on the imminent departure of P-bars. Change clothes and start removing all things stored on P-bars: winter coats, umbrellas, a couple of chairs, Rock Band boxes….finish up just as friends arrive.

5:01, 13 realizes he’s leaving in 20 minutes and is STARVING. I haven’t had time to put dinner together, so it’s a “choose” night…more sandwiches.

5:20, P-Bars go bye-bye.

5:30, 13 Leaves for rifle range while the rest of us spend some more time straightening in the garage. It’s a bit like rearranging deck chairs on Titanic, but we do it anyway.

6:00, Hot, sweaty, exhausted. Looking forward to evening of Rock Band, Wii Play and some time lounging in yard.

6:11, Dog pukes on carpet.

8:30, 13 returns from rifle range, STARVING, and with bruise shoulder from the gun’s kick.

And the evening just sort of rolled along from there. We finally get to bed. House is quiet. About 2 a.m. the thunderstorms start. Dog goes nuts. Had to move kennel to garage. The house is hot and humid because of all the moisture in the air. Did not sleep well.

BUT: today is shaping up to be much calmer. Pool sand arrives at lunch time, there are no appointments pressing down on me, though I do need to make an appointment with the Genius Bar at the apple store because there is something funky going on with my MacBook, and we should have a nice, relaxing day in which I can get a bunch of work done. Don’t plan on getting much done tomorrow. There will be 3 units of sand to move to the back yard, kids to entertain, potato salad to make and other Fourth of July stuff to do.

How is your last day before the holiday shaping up?

Husband’s Awesome Potato Salad

What would a 4th of July weekend be without Potato Salad?

What You Need:

5# red potatoes
10 hard-boiled eggs
1 red onion
oil
vinegar
water

What You Do:

Boil the eggs. There’s a trick to boiling eggs perfectly, and I’m going to share it with you. First, put the eggs into a pot deep enough to hold the eggs plus at least 4 inches. Fill the pan with cold water until it is about one knuckle above the eggs. Turn on medium heat. Leave pot uncovered until water begins to boil. Turn off heat, put on pot lid, set timer for 10 minutes. Wait. When timer goes off, drain eggs and run under cold water to cool a bit.

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Once the eggs are done, boil the potatoes. Leave the skins on, you’ll take them off later. Fill a large pot with water, bring to a boil. Add potatoes. Reduce heat to a low boil/heavy simmer. Wait. You’ll know the potatoes are done when you can stick a knife into a potato and the spud slides right off the blade when you try to lift it. When that happens, drain the potatoes.

*

While the potatoes are cooling, dice the onion.

Mix the water and vinegar in a 1:1 solution. Start with 1/2 cup of each.  You can always mix more if you need it, but if you mix too much, it just goes to waste.

Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, but still warm, you’ll begin to assemble the salad.

Assemble the salad:

You’re going to build this in layers until you run out potatoes. You might not use all the eggs or onion, but you should use all the potatoes. Each layer is built the same way, so repeat the steps until the salad is built. You will NOT mix anything until the end. Our bowl gets significantly wider at the top, so a single layer near the top of the bowl will use MORE potatoes/egg/onion than the lower layer. Assess your bowl to see how the quantity of ingredients will parse out as you go.

Peel one or more potatoes. Slice into a bowl.

The bottom layer of potatoes should cover the bottom of the bowl.

Add some onion.
Peel and dice one or two (or more) eggs and add it to the bowl.

Drizzle some water-vinegar on the warm potato/onion/egg
Drizzle some oil on the warm potato/onion/egg mixture.

The finished layer should look something like this:

Repeat until you run out of potatoes (that will start the last layer). You might have an egg or two left over. You might have some onion left over. Or,  you might not.

Now you’re going to mix it all together. You’ll use a couple of spoons and a “folding” motion, where you pull stuff up from the bottom and then sort of cut it into the salad.  You’ll be chopping up potatoes and eggs and mushing it all together. The end result should be chunky, but you don’t want too many pieces that are larger than bite-size.

Doesn’t that look good?

I can eat this as a meal in itself, if no one is around to stop me. Enjoy!

I Swear, I Didn’t Even Blink

How did we get from this

To this?

How Is It Possible

That this guy

Is now doing this?