As I missed doing my “7 Quick Takes Friday” and my “Monday Morning Miscellany” last week, today I find myself overflowing with tidbits to share with you good people. I may even have to split them into a couple of posts, because too much miscellany is just… silly. We’ll see.

— 1 —

Brennan and I attended a wedding on Friday evening, which was held at the same waterfront location as our own wedding reception. It was so much fun to be back to the place where, four years ago, we had our first dance and our first meal as a married couple, and where we enjoyed the company of our family and friends on that momentous day.

This go-round was much more relaxing, I’ll have you know. It was great to get to enjoy the view and the delicious food (Lobster bisque served in martini glasses! Woo-hoo!) and laughs with friends, minus all the logistics swirling around in my brain. I love hosting, but sometimes it’s really nice to just be a guest.

— 2 —

Aren’t new babies the absolute sweetest? Yesterday we visited my best friend Catey and her crew to meet their newest addition. My almost-two-year-old threw a rather impressive meltdown and reacted with wild cries of “No baby!” when I held the tiny bundle. And my three-year-old made enough noise to make Catey’s downstairs neighbors likely want to evict her. But other than that, the visit was great.

— 3 —

Oh, just one more thing about the new-baby visit. As per custom and the bonds of friendship and Auntie Leila’s advice, I brought with me a dinner for Catey’s family. It was a homemade lasagna, which I lovingly prepared at my place the night before and assembled at Catey’s. It’s a delicious recipe, if I do say so myself. (Not that I can take credit for the recipe, which is “Hearty Meat Lasagna” from “The New Best Recipe” from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.) Anyway, normally I hand it over and smile and say, “Enjoy!” But this time I had to temper my “Enjoy!” with, “But please look carefully at each bite you’re taking because it might contain bits of plastic.”

When I was preparing the lasagna the night before, I made a double batch so we could have one at my house too. As my husband eagerly dug into it at dinnertime, he found two small pieces of plastic. And then when I was eating leftovers on Sunday night, I found a third. They resemble the plastic that covered the meat or the ricotta containers, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how that could have made it into the lasagna. I’m stumped! And I worry for all of our digestive systems! (But not so much that I’ve considered throwing the lasagna out. It’s way too good for that.) My only comfort is that, so far, Catey reports that their lasagna has been plastic-free.

— 4 —

Warning: This is one that probably no one will care about but myself. Nobody wants to read about other people’s aches and pains, right? So feel free to skip right over. I only include it because I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about this problem. So, on the blog it goes!

While lying in bed the other night, trying to get comfortable, I had an idea for an invention that would improve my life dramatically. You see, I have these two stupid, stubborn physical flaws/defects/problems/whatever that get in my way:

On the one hand (literally), I have this pinched nerve in my neck, which travels all the way down my arm to my hand. When I lie on my right side, or trap my right arm under myself in any way, or even hold my arm in anything but the one most ideal, relaxing position for it, my hand falls asleep. And if I don’t catch it in time, my whole arm falls asleep. Which is really painful. The only way I can avoid this is to lie on my left side, with my right arm stretched out just right.

But on the other hand, I have this stupid hip thing. The joint at the base of my spine, between my hips, is very easily put out of whack. Which is also really painful. During the day (per my old physical therapist’s instructions), I put a lot of effort into protecting the joint by moving around in a very deliberate, balanced way. (Which makes me look rather geriatric, I’m sure.)

The sleeping on the left side thing, however, is messing up my hips! The pressure from sleeping on that one side, all night, every night, is affecting the joint in such a way that I have difficulty walking when I wake up. And I have pain. Not from doing something irresponsible with my back, mind you – but from sleeping. It’s maddening! I suppose I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

That’s where the invention (the out-there, weirdo invention) comes in. What if I could sleep in some device that supported me in a cushion of air? What if I could program it with the exact position I wanted to sleep in, and then it could – seemingly like magic – keep me there, without causing undue pressure on my arms or my hips, etc.? I have no real idea as to how such a thing would actually be accomplished, but I do know that if it were, my body would be supremely grateful. Wouldn’t it be amazing to not be woken every night by the pain of my arm and hand falling asleep – and also to be able to walk without pain every morning? A girl can dream…

— 5 —

That was long. Here’s a cute picture from last night to make up for it. They’re giving each other rides on top of the cooler.

— 6 —

Speaking of “damned” (it’s up there toward the end of #4), we went to visit my parents a week ago and took an alternate route to get to them. It involved driving over a dam, so I explained to the boys what a dam was and told them to look out for the different levels of water on each side of it. Our three-year-old was fascinated. He loved it. And he went on to talk about it (on and on and on) as “that dam bwidge.” Days later it was still popping up in his conversation, innocent little mentions of “that dam bwidge” at random times. I won’t deny giggling every time he said it.

— 7 —

And speaking of inventions (also in #4), I have one more idea to share with you. I’ve been thinking about this one for a long time. You know how nice-ish housing developments (at least in this part of the country) seem to always have some kind of unnecessary room on their floor plans, which look great on paper, but nobody seems to use (at least not for their intended purpose)? Maybe it’s a breakfast room when there’s already an eat-in kitchen; maybe it’s a sun room; maybe it’s a sitting room in the master bedroom; maybe it’s a home theater. Maybe it’s as simple as the formal living room or dining room. Whatever it is, the designated purpose for the room is rather unnecessary and the room often gets left by the wayside.

You know what would be so much better for families with children, at least? A padded room. A padded, bouncy room where mom can send the kids at 5pm while she’s making dinner. Or where the kiddos can go for exercise when it’s too rainy/snowy/cold to send them outside. A place for the children to just go and be as wild and crazy as they like, with minimal chances of hurting themselves or the contents of the house. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I’ve spent an obscene amount of time fantasizing about it.

And the padded/bouncy room wouldn’t just have to be for new construction homes. You know those commercials where companies advertise their ability to add a sunroom to your house in a ridiculously short period of time, for not much money? Let’s start seeing the ads for padded/bouncy rooms! They can’t be too difficult to construct, can they? Air the ads every ten minutes during the witching hour – you’ll have parents racing to the phone to sign up.

— 8 —

Our big guy starts preschool tomorrow! Here’s what he looked like when he woke up at ten minutes before ten this morning. Yep, we’ve done a really good job of adjusting our schedule in advance of the big first day.

— 9 —

Believe it or not, I still have more miscellany to share. But I’ll save it for another post. I think we’ve passed the point of silly. Happy Labor Day to you all! Have a great (and hopefully short) work-week!