the problem with juice boxes and other thoughts

1. The problem with juice boxes is that they are 6.75 ounces. I need a good 12 or more ounces to quench my thirst. Alas!! The only non-water beverages we have currently are juice boxes. I guess I could drink three.

update: I had a dream last night in which I enjoyed a juice box the size of a cereal box. if only...

2. Did I ever mention here that my parents moved to Romania? Yes? Okay. Well, I miss them. Christmas decorations are out and that makes me all nostalgic for the Christmases of yore with my Mom and Dad, aka Mommala and DaddyO.

3. Speaking of Christmas, when do you get a tree (if you get a live one). We've cut one down for the last three years, and I'm getting super excited to do this again. I'm thinking we might have to get one kinda early this year. Do you think it will last? Do you have any great tricks to keep your tree alive??

4. Let this be a warning to you.

Never loan me a book. This stack here is OPERATION BOOK RETURN. seriously. (But, Meg, I'm keeping Future Grace for a bit because I'm actually reading that one right now. Oh...and Jenny, this reminds me! I keep meaning to bring you Planet Earth!!) Of all these books, I've read only THREE from cover to cover. Can you guess which ones??

5. Jillian saw this picture in a Target ad.

The one on the left? "This one is my DADDY!!!" The one on the right? "This one is like MOMMY!" wha?? Okay, I'll take it. At least she thought of me at all!

6. What's up with all the Mormon propaganda? Have you noticed this? What's particularly noteable in my opinion is that there is no message of hope. It's totally like, "Hey, all KINDS of people is Mormons, yo. Artists, surfers, businessmen. So like, you could be one too if you wanted. I'm sure you were just hung up on the fact that you thought we were weird. So, yeah. Be cool. Be Mormon." psh.

7. I'm in one of the biggest cooking slumps of my life. It started in the summer when I had no time to cook between having all the kids home and carting them to baseball and soccer pretty much during the dinner hour. And then when I tried to cook, it was fail-time. I totally lost my touch. The kids would say things like, "This doesn't taste like your cooking" or "This is yucky." Brent would say, "It's alright" or "Not your best." And I could hardly disagree with them. I stopped improvising any recipes because I just couldn't trust my instincts. That helped. But now I just dread menu planning and cooking. Please tell me this slump will end soon.

8. If you can't promise me that the cooking slump will end soon, can you please send gift cards for restaurants? I'm kidding. I'm done. WAIT. No. Speaking of restaurants, I recently left my credit card at a Chili's. I got it back and all seemed fine until we got a little call-e-o from the fraud department of Visa. And do you want to know what some pork-knucker ordered with our stolen credit card information? A subscription to World of Warcraft magazine. People are dumb.

9. Uh-oh. I think this calls for a little Antoine Dodson! Fuh ree-ahl.