Vanessa Alter : random thoughts

We tried eating those purslane weeds that we have growing in our backyard. I didn’t think they were too bad. Nathan said they tasted “leafy”. I thought they tasted like one of the greens in that spring greens mix they sell pre-bagged, but a bit tangy. I liked them okay. Dunno if they’ll bcome a regular staple in our diets though. I put them on my salad and they mixed in well with the tangy Italian dressing.

Speaking of salads, When I went to Australia a while back, I had salads there that were topped with some kind of sprout. It wasn’t alfalfa sprouts that you can find here. It was more flavorful. I really liked them, but haven’t been able to find out what they were. Maybe I’ll Google “Australian sprouts” and see what comes up. I was hoping that the weed we have growing might be it, but I don’t think it is. And now, speaking of sprouts, here is the way to Sprout Wonderland. Who knew that some people loved sprouts THAT much?

Browsing some photographer’s wesite, i found this picture. Looks delicious! It was an exhibit in Santa Fe. I bet the art gallery smelled a little funny.

Nathan likes to pull weeds, but he limits his weed pulling to the “evil” kinds that grow stickers, such as goatheads. So our backyard is goathead free. But now, one of the “friendly” weeds has taken over after the abundant rains we’ve been having. I’ve finally identified it as the Common Purslane. It seems, we have lawn of the stuff now. Wikipedia says it’s edible. One of our friends from church saw it and he ate some. We may have to try a bite.

What do you get when you give a 2 year old a sugar laden coffee drink? Here’s what Nathan says. The saga continued, however, after Nathan got to go to bed. Sean was still up, even after we put him in his bed at 11:30. He came to our door and was just making weird noises… not really calling for us. I think he was immitating an owl. I got up to put him back in bed. I could tell he was having trouble getting to sleep. He couldn’t stop moving his legs. So we stayed up for a while longer. I had to sing “twinkle, twinkle, little star” about a bazillion times before he started to relax. Then he was up at 8:30 this morning. Now I could really use some coffee! It was funny though to watch him play last night. He was pretending to swim and fly, and doing flips on the carpet. At one point he also decided it would be fun to get off of the recliner head first and flip over. After he did it, however, he decided that was NOT fun.

I was browsing some of the Yahoo! fitness groups online this evening. This is the funniest one I’ve come across. It’s a fitness group that says they “Walk, run, hike, bike, blade, or swim” and they are “following the path of the hobbits in Middle Earth as they go to see the elves in Rivendell.” Hmmm, where do I sign up?

I wonder if their next challenge will be to do some sort of martial arts exercise for the duration of the Battle at Helm’s Deep. Taebo anyone?

Sean used the potty for the first time today. Previously, he’d only sat on it. I tried to get him to use it again this afternoon, but when nothing happened, he looked down, then said “not working”. I cracked up laughing! We were in the bathroom at Einstein’s Bagels, so I’m sure my laugh echoed through the restaurant.

We had the Italian Chicken Panini (my favorite thing there) with potato salad (my favorite potato salad anywhere. It tastes dilly)… it was sooooo tastey!

I had to take our car in to Best Buy this morning to have the stereo removed so we could send it back to Sony, and have it replaced, just because the little AUX plug went out. See here and here for more info. Now there is strange silence in the car and I must ask Sean to sing to me while I drive. Today, he was more than happy to oblige with his rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

There is a new building being built near our house. Ever since they broke ground, I’ve been excited to see what it will be. A cool new ethnic restaurant? A cool new shop? Well, it’s nearing completion and the sign outside says “Now Hiring – Golden Corale”. I couldn’t be more UNexcited! As Nathan says, “It’s just another trough”. Another place to stuff your guts with mediocre food.

It seems we have at least 1 mouse living around our backyard. I’ve seen one climb the wall to one of the neighbors yards and today we saw one climb the wall into our other neighbors yard. I hope that it doesn’t get into the house. And I wonder if it’s eating Cookie’s food.

This was a funny story. Why can’t that happen to me?