Five Friday Favorites

Who knew it would be so hard to get back into the rhythm of our lives after last week’s Superstorm Sandy? And we weren’t hit nearly as hard as some.

Maybe it’s just me. I’m pretty tired. Pretty worn out in a whole lot of ways.

I did manage to collect a few favorite items for this week along the way…

1. Favorite side dish I discovered quite by accident: Beer simmered beans. Yes, you read that right.  They sound so…un-classy, don’t they? I am telling you they are fabulous. I found them here at allrecipes.com.

Did I modify it? Of course, but only slightly. (As usual.) I used pintos and red beans rather than kidneys. I did not have any jalapenos on hand, so I chopped up a couple of pepperoncini just because they were the closest thing in the gleaming fridge to jalapenos. I ditched the stems and seeds and used the rest. It worked.  The beer options were the last bottle of La Fin du Monde or a pumpkin ale. The latter did not scream “I go with beans!” So La Fin du Monde it was.

They were delicious – different. End of story. Well, not quite – they were even better the next day for lunch in a salad with some feta cheese and cucumbers. Now it’s end of story. Try them – I promise they are surprisingly good and wicked fast.

2. Favorite punishment: Kidzilla gave me a timeout this week. For saying a bad word.

Z: Mom! Did you just say ass?

Oh. No.

Me: Um….yes. Yes I did. (What was I going to do? Lie?)

Z: You know ass is a bad word, right? Except when you’re talking about a donkey.

Me: I do. It is definitely not a nice word and I should not have said that.

Z: If you say a bad word, then you should have a timeout.

I quickly debated the wisdom of allowing the child to give the parent a timeout… What sort of horrifying precedent was I allowing here? But what kind of message do I send by not modeling proper use of language or not paying a consequence for doing something that was not really OK? I took a guess, closed my eyes, and jumped in…

Me: Well, you’re right. I probably should have a timeout for using a word that was not nice.

Z: OK, then please sit on the step.

Is she kidding? No. No, she’s not.

And so I proceeded to the bottom step in our hallway where Zilla takes her own timeouts. Most of the time, one minute per year of life will do the trick. I quickly turned to Fab Hub and said, “I am NOT sitting there for 42 minutes! No way!”

Zilla decided the timeout should be twelve minutes. Fab Hub set the timer and I was left on the step to think about proper use of the English language.

Most restful twelve minutes of my day…quiet, peaceful, reflective and completely devoid of anyone asking me to answer anything, pick up anything, decide anything, or wipe anything.

3. Favorite thing a Rotten Cat did this week: Cat Three is training for a job as an art curator. We have a framed image on our living room wall with a quote from Ecclesiastes 3:1 (To everything there is a season…). It is always crooked. I looked up from my laptop the other night to find Cat Three standing on the back of the couch on his hind legs, pulled up to full Cat Three height, both paws on the frame adjusting the darn thing! He was very serious about his work. He was relatively unsuccessful, however, given that the artwork in question outweighs him by twice his own weight. I tried desperately to move quickly enough to get a photo – it was hysterical – but alas he had moved on to other tasks by the time I had the camera in hand.

4. Favorite song that is stuck in my head that I can’t get rid of: “That’s How You Know” from the Disney movie Enchanted. This is Zilla’s favorite new movie. Check out the video…seriously. It’s worth it for what happens at 2:48. And honestly, I think there should be more movies where people randomly dance in public places wearing lederhosen.

Here you go…

OK. Now that you have that annoying little ditty in your head, I can make it worse. When it plays in my head, every time Princess Giselle sings “that’s how you knoooooooooooow” with the calypso rhythm underneath, my brain instantly switches to this:

Specifically, my brain cuts directly to 1:30 in that video.

So what I end up with is something that sounds like “that’s how you knoooooooooooow if he really loves me. I say a prayer with every heart beat….”

Endlessly. All day. All night.

5. Favorite moment that took my breath away: The other night on my ninth trip to Kidzilla’s room to check on her, cover her, watch her in one of her quieter moments, she rolled over and sleepily said, “I love you, Mamma.” Unh. SO worth the nine hundred replays of the Disney song.

What were your favorites this week? Leave ’em in the comments and have a great weekend!