Pirate Control

This morning  I was walking downstairs to get ready for the day.  I looked up to see a giant cockroach moseying across the playroom floor.


Okay, so what do you do in that situation?


Because what I do is grab one of the kids' toyboxes and trap the (remarkably slow-moving) vermin.


Then I realize that, hey, I'm holding a (sluggish) cockroach in a tupperware box.* 


If I set it free, it'll go back into the house.  Right?


So it has to stay in the box.  But not in the box in the house.  Right?




So I put it on the back porch on the boys' play table.  Still in the box.  Which makes perfect sense.  Right?

Then I realized which toy box I had grabbed - the one that held the boys' pirate toys.


Which reminded me of this:



So, yeah, cockroach pirates -  Be Ye Warned.


(Okay, but seriously, what do I do with this cockroach?)
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*On a tangentially related note, this also happened to me in Philadelphia in 2003, except that cockroach was about twice this size and fast as lightning.  I killed him in a RAID assault from the stairs and then, inexplicably, entombed him in a ziploc baggie.  He stayed in there for a good couple weeks.  David named him Lenin, then threw him in the dumpster.  Good times.

My Frugality: Cheap Therapy*

Okay, so this "my frugality" post is going to be very short, and more than a little tongue-in-cheek.

In the past eleven weeks, our family has had a baby (via C-section), packed up a household, moved it to Kansas (KANSAS, people!) sold a house, moved into a new house, kept it clean, endured weeks on end with a colicky undiagnosed reflux-y newborn, undergone a dramatic lifestyle change (I used to *not* be a stay-at-home Ima and now, well....) AND hosted two rounds of guests, all while keeping three children (under the age of three) clean, fed, entertained, and reasonably well-behaved, AND eating nary a meal out. 

If you just nodded your head and murmured to your computer screen, "Hmm, that must have been stressful," congratulations.  You, my friend, have just made the understatement of the century.

Anyway.
About a week and a half ago, I was very flustered when David got home.  When he demanded urged pleaded for dear life suggested that I take some quiet time for myself lest the laser beams shooting from my eyeballs kill someone I feel too overwhelmed, I screeched, "But I have to finish baking these cookies!"

And then I realized it - I'd baked something nearly every day for the last three weeks.

It all started with the dirty chocolate chocolate chip cookies.


Continued with the Abba's Day peanut butter cookies.


Developed into various incarnations of the dirty chocolate chocolate chip cookies:


(with colored melting chips in the center)


(with coconut centers***)

and was peppered with baked goods "the children" "needed":


(Blueberry Oatmeal muffins)


(Whole wheat chocolate chip granola bars)


(banana chocolate chip muffins)


And, don't forget the babka and the cupcakes for Ashi's birthday:



Okay, so my desperate need to finish baking the cookies was not actually related to the need for baked goods at all.  But somehow, the cookies, muffins, and bars were helping me get through the day**.

And for the cost of a few several a bajillion pounds of butter, flour, and chocolate chips, pretty frugal to boot.  See? Cookies can make you feel better - Another truth about life that your Bubbe's been telling you all along.

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* I am in no way suggesting cookie-baking as a substitute for therapy for those who truly have a need - which, according to my understanding, is everyone.  But it certainly serves as a distraction, at least, and everyone could use that once in awhile as well.

**I'm doing okay, thanks for asking.  Still taking it day by day.

***OhmyGodyouguys these are seriously the most incredible cookies EVER.  I'll post the recipe soon.  Let's just say I'm OBSESSED.