All signs point to a lonely Friday night

Contents of the basket of the woman behind me in the supermarket check out line: one pint mint chocolate chip ice cream, one bottle wine, one individual-sized frozen chicken pot pie.

Distractions

We've finally finished the last cake made from a mix here at the A&R Household. Last, uh, spring we made a boxed carrot cake, and the carrot-flavored pieces drove us to swear off cake mixes. As I was making a batch of cookies this morning, I pondered the popularity of cake mixes. Cakes aren't any harder to make than cookies, but cake mixes are clearly much more popular (just look at the aisle space devoted to them). My mom would never have thought to use a cookie mix, but we never made cakes from scratch at home. R was able to make a cake from scratch when I was too busy dealing with a fussy baby, and he is inexperienced (but competent) in the kitchen, so clearly there is just a collective mental block against making cakes.

I just realized that, while I mentioned that my writing energy of late has been going towards writing articles, I never provided a link. Mind you, they're aimed at a slightly less technically-savvy crowd (unless you want to compare calendar applications. That article is... thorough), so the articles may seem a little basic to those of you here reading this. Still, people need to know. People like my mom. Actually, these articles are probably a bit above her computer skill level. Anyway, here:

"Cooking and the web"
"Game playing on Facebook"
"Calendars for everyday use"
"Steaming media on a home network"
"Putting your videos on YouTube"
"Building your own YouTube channel"

Of bikes and diapers

Recently got to go mountain biking for the first time in... oh, about a year and a half. The ascent totally kicked my ass, as I haven't done anything more vigorous than a brisk walk since my last bike ride, but the ride was so much fun! From the top of the hill we could see the ocean to the west and various hills to the southeast (some of which we've also ridden to the top of). The descent was long and rolling, which is definitely the best kind. Makes all the work to get to the top seem worth it when you've got a fun descent.

We followed that ride up with a second the following weekend. With all the gear we had to pack, for ourselves and for the baby, it was probably inevitable that we would forget something. This time, it was the diaper bag. D'oh! A quick run over to the grocery store for disposables solved that problem.

I think I felt slightly less silly buying the diapers since, just recently, we switched to disposables at night. We'd only used cloth since using up the initial pack of diapers the hospital gave us. It was amazing how the smell of the disposables brought back memories of that time. Back then, she was such a teeny little thing, a tiny baby burrito, who just ate and slept. Now she's this mobile, babbling creature. Who just removed two of my earrings.

Wha?

Had an odd inversion of the parent-child dynamic today. I was on the phone with my mom and she casually mentioned that she's been packing and getting her house ready to rent. Apparently she's moving in with her boyfriend. Though I didn't voice my sentiments, I'm sure I was mentally echoing the parents of adult children everywhere in thinking, I know it's her decision, but it would have been nice if she's told me she was planning on doing this.

Of course, for an even more hilarious role reversal, I'll need to call her up in about 6 months and ask her why she isn't just getting married.