Dinner with the fru-fru family

Had dinner at a local casual restaurant last night. Casual as in they supply crayons and a kid’s menu with word puzzles. It could have been fast food and I would’ve been thrilled. Let’s hear an Amen for no cooking, no dishes to wash. The trade off is a public outing with the kids and since we were basicly housebound all day – except for the ten minutes they ran in the pouring rain – the kids were indoors lazy all day.Lots of pent up energy waiting to come out.

Great time to go to a sit down restaurant with no Play Place, right?

So all the energy started coming out in the car. The four and seven year old leading the charge. It came out in the restaurant over boneless chicken nibblets that we’re not spicy enough (boo).  And it continued to cause me mild embarassment throughout their chicken fingers and ice cream dessert.

I had the Cowboy Burger, thanks for asking. Why does the bottom of the bun always fall apart? Had to finish it with knife and fork. How un-cowboyish. My British grandfather used to eat pizza with utentils. Odd, those proper British.

We sat in the bar area. I always feel a bit strange sitting four feet from all the bottles of alcohol and the folks drinking it, since we don’t drink (booze: no, various forms of caffeine drinks: yes). New flat screen TVs in the bar area too. Lots of ESPN. Monster trucks on one screen. Bike race on the set behind me. Baseball highlights on the TV over the bar. Some guy pitched a perfect game. Doc and I discussed what entails a “perfect game.” I said no hits, no man on base, foul balls are okay. Hubs said all strike outs. Uh, no. Love you, babe. Love your muscles, but it’s just wrong that I know more baseball than you do (thanks, Dad! thanks, big bro John!)

We survived dinner next to the bar without spilled drinks, no loud cries of “He punched me!” We are improving. Only had to tell the preschooler not to jump on the seat half dozen times.

Then in the car on the way home the fru-fru started. Or is it spelled froo-froo? I started with the first fru-fru comment. A huge house with a brick half wall, shrubbery, and decorations at the end of the driveway. Too much fuss. Too much fru-fru. Well, the Doc and the kids thought it hilarous. The rest of the drive home everything was fru-fru.

The fru-fru trees. Fru-fru church. Fru-fru deer. Fru-fru pond. And so it went.

I’m thinking it was the fru-fru sugar and fru-fru restaurant that sent us into the fru-fru laughter. But what do I know? I’m not even sure how to spell fru-fru.

Team Brand: we work well together (which is convenient since we’re married)

What began as a lame Saturday, even with me writing a whiny journal entry, turned into a really, really good day. Really! A ton of work accomplished on the back porch and yard, stuff I didn’t think would get done, because of the way the day started. It was a happy Saturday surprise.

Are you like me? I love to see a large section of work accomplished. Dramatic “before” and “after” photos. I’ve noticed I’m totally that way with homeschooling too. I have a stack of papers from when Susan was nine. Why I still have those papers, when we don’t need to document here in New Jersey (thank you, Lord! it makes life easier) is a matter of me keeping memories in a box.

I look at that stack, weigh it in my hands. “Look at what she did.”

Same feeling today. I look at my improved porch, yard, and have that satisfied, happy sigh. “Look at what we did.”

Yes, I’ve learned nothing new regarding finding contentment. Some days are better than others; I’m still looking outward at the physical. But we won’t harp on the negative. Let’s review all Doc and I did today:

  • Gutted the back porch of all the junk that was dumped there.
  • Swept same back porch of dirt and rabbit poop (we let the bunnies run free there for a day while the hutch was under construction.)
  • Moved all good wood scraps into basement for future use (I suspect most of it will be confiscated by A Boy for his own schemings.)
  • Moved various other tools and whatnots into basement too (now the basement is more of a disaster, but at least I don’t have to look at it from my house.)
  • Removed junk that had accumulated in yard just beyond back porch (antique Singer sewing machine, paint brushes, rollers, toys. Gah. Am I really admitting this on the web?)

All of that plus we took a few iced tea breaks. We work well together, Doc and I. Glad we can do that – I know some couples can’t. There might have been a couple of times when we didn’t and I think those all involved the car and a new GPS system, so that doesn’t count. Married couple + car + new technology = it doesn’t count on my blog.

A day like today – us with a pick-up truck and elbow grease – yeah, we’re good.

So sorry there are no pictures. Will someone please invent solar powered camera batteries? Actually, I’m kind of glad I have no pictures of our trash and evil pile of accumulated junk. It’s one thing to describe all of this in words, but do I really want to share the photo evidence too?

Yeah, I love all this web confessional stuff, so I probably would.

I think this is the sexiest bunny hutch ever

Because my man built it. Power tools were involved. Lots of noise, muscles flexed – tool belts are sexy. You gotta love a man who easily wields an electric saw.

power tools are sexy

Oh, and by the way, we adopted two floppy eared rabbits over the weekend. But that’s not the point of this post, is it?