JUNE Coffee Date!
Woohoo! It’s June! June feels like such a hopeful month- maybe because of all the sunlight. Since it’s the first Friday of the month, it’s time to join Coco and Deborah for our monthly coffee date. I’ll be drinking my earl grey tea, as usual. If we were having coffee (tea) together… I would tell you how much I’m enjoying having both my kids home for the summer. My daughter will be doing one week of sleep away camp, but other than that, they’ll both be here until the beginning of August when my son returns to college for his junior year. If I let myself think about it too much, I get a little sad- one of the reasons my son came home for the whole summer is that next summer he may not be home at all. And after that… who knows what will happen, but he probably won’t be coming back here for extended periods. I’m trying to appreciate every moment of this (possibly last) summer with everyone home. The only thing that could mar my pleasure is all the extra cooking this entails. But we’ve come up with a very reasonable plan- I’ll cook two dinners a week, my son will cook twice, my husband will cook twice, and the seventh night will be takeout. I can handle two dinners a week! Furthermore, my son and I have decided to branch out and try new dishes. He made a spicy Thai stir fry, and tonight I made a new Indian recipe. We really enjoyed both those dishes. My husband hasn’t quite embraced his two nights of cooking yet… so far he’s made pasta, and pasta. To be fair, he’s still busy with end-of-the-year school things. I’m sure he’ll join in our cooking adventures more as the summer goes on. Moving right along! My daughter has somehow convinced me that we should get two pet rats. This won’t be happening right away, because first I’ve been elected to help her build a cage for them. Ahem. I did build the cage for our guinea pigs, and we have leftover materials that could be used. HOWEVER… Guinea pigs are very humble, unambitious animals. Our cage doesn’t even have a lid, because they would never in a million years try to climb out. They’re happy to meander slowly around the cage, dozing and munching on hay. Rats, on the other hand, are VERY smart and will escape from a poorly-made cage in an instant. And we have two cats! We can’t have rats wandering around the house. I’m all for pet rats. I had rats when I was younger and I loved them- they really can be smart and affectionate, much more so than other rodents. But this cage-building scheme is stressing me out a little. I like my daughter’s DIY spirit (after all, she cut and colored her own hair) but I’m not sure it’ll work in this case. I’m been secretly searching Amazon for rat cages. That’s about it! How do you feel about pet rats? – Rats get a bad rap. They really do make great pets! Do you have a full house this summer? If so, who’s handling the dinner duties?