Soup to Dutts

Welp, remember that cold I mentioned my daughter having last week? She passed it on to Tom over the weekend, and now it's my turn. My throat feels like it's covered with fire ants, and my nose is like a leaky faucet. Man...when's that motherly immunity going to kick in? When I was growing up, my mom almost never got sick. Everyone else in the house could have been coughing up a lung or sneezing their brains out, and Mom wouldn't even get the sniffles. Actually, come to think of it, now that I'm a mom myself, I wonder if she really did get sick but just never told anyone. That's kinda what I've been trying to do... Speaking of my mom, I've been thinking about her a lot since yesterday, when I first started feeling cold symptoms. She always did so much to take care of me when I wasn't feeling well. I especially remember the food and drink she'd give me; there were certain things I could always count on eating and drinking whenever I was si...

In honor of Tom's birthday, here's an A-to-Z list of things about him! Ambitious . He's not afraid to dream big and go after those dreams. Books. He loves to read and always has a long list of books in his reading queue. Cute. Well, he is. Disciplined. There is just no better word for someone who can juggle all of his responsibilities and do all of them as well as he does. The disciplined way in which he manages his time never ceases to amaze me. Eggs . I think he would agree that, between the two of us, I'm the cook in our home, but his scrambled eggs always turn out better than mine. Friend. He's a good friend to a lot of people, and he's still my best friend after all these years. Guinea pig. He's the fearless taste-tester of all of my crazy recipes. Hugs. He always gives me a hug when we wake up in the morning. And before he leaves for work. And after he gets home. And pretty much all the time. Integrity. H...

Earlier this week, we took a family day trip up to Cincinnati! We desperately needed to replace our sofa, so we went to IKEA. Every time I go there, I'm amazed at the simple but clever design of their products. It's like, forehead-smacking, "that-makes-so-much-sense," "how-come-no-one's-ever-thought-of-that-before" clever. The Swedish, man. They're geniuses. And today I want to rave about another amazing product that hails from Sweden: the NoseFrida. Just before I left my office job to become a full-time mommy, I was showered with tons of baby gifts, including a NoseFrida from my coworker, Stephanie. She gave it to me with the disclaimer that the concept might sound kinda gross, but that I would love it. See, it's an infant nasal aspirator that's designed to be more effective and sanitary than a bulb syringe when it comes to clearing stuffy noses. As you can see from the picture on the box, the pointy end of the blue tube goes in...

I've been on a bit of a lemon kick lately. I've been adding lemon essential oil to my drinking water, and yesterday I attempted to make lemon bars for the first time. I made them for my community group meeting which was later that evening, but the bars didn't get eaten because we all decided to meet up for dinner at Chick-fil-A instead. Knowing I wasn't going to get my lemon fix for the day in the way that I'd planned, I decided to finally try CFA's new frosted lemonade, a blend of their yummy lemonade and their also-yummy soft-serve (a.k.a. Icedream ® ). (image from  Chick-fil-A ) I've often thought that Icedream would be great mixed with some other beverage; it's a little more watery than other soft-serves, which made me think that it would blend more smoothly and make the finished product easier to drink. Well, I was right about that! It was fabulous, texture-wise...in other words, I didn't have to make a fish face to drink it through a ...