Last Monday the kids had no school. (This Monday they didn’t have school either but I am behind talking about that.) Joon spent the day with her mom and Bug stayed home with me. I snuck a few pictures of our day together.

Taking pictures of teens is tricky these days because now they have their own social media presence and they don’t see why I need to document anything since they are doing a perfectly good job of it themselves. They have a good point but personally, I think I need to document more than ever because as I peruse the last thirteen years of this blog and all the many many posts of every little thing Bug did, I miss the daily updates! It’s not like nothing is happening anymore! And it’s not like I can refer to their social media outlets because they delete and rearrange them constantly.  So let’s just cross our fingers and hope she never takes the time to find this until it’s much much later when she is thankful I was such a good documenter.

In the morning we took the dogs on a walk through the nature trail. We both love the nature trail and the dogs and early winter mornings so this is always a very pleasant. I usually plug my headphones in and listen to a book or a podcast but if I can have company instead I am happy to stash those headphones. Book club deadlines to the wind!

Bug has a new instant camera and has been trying unsuccessfully to find her “aesthetic” with it. Invariably she uses the wrong setting and ends up with blown-out images or completely black film.  I don’t mind supporting her expensive new hobby too terribly much though since I feel a bit nostalgic for those days of film myself. It’s fun while it lasts.

After our walk and a few errands, we finally headed off to adventure through thrift stores and consignment shops. I had the great idea to look for a vintage outfit for Bug for the Valentine formal coming up. She thought that was a terrible idea but was all for looking anyway. Of course I found a zillion perfect vintage outfits for her and she didn’t like any of them. I wish I had taken photos of them. Taffeta, polka dots, pink tulle…she thought it was all awful. 

By four in the afternoon we had worked up an appetite so we did our second favorite thing: go out to eat! We can get in so much trouble when it’s just the two of us.

I had a deep-fat fried slab of mozzarella cheese on a bun with a giant grilled portobello mushroom. It was delicious and about 5000 calories. Eating vegan vegetarian does not always mean eating healthy. I felt terrible afterwards.

Then more shopping. Of course finding nothing, which is really fine by me since I didn’t really want to spend money anyway.

I get just as much pleasure out of collecting pictures as I would actually buying things. It’s like a treasure hunt that is free. I tried to get Bug to take photos of me but this is what happens: She pretends to take pictures of me while she is secretly taking photos of herself.  It’s amusing and annoying. Though I will agree with her. I do take better photos when I’m not trying so hard.

Bug never has to try. Every photo of her turns out adorable. But then I guess I’m the mom. My mom probably thinks every photo of me is adorable too.

We did eventually find Bug a dress for the formal. It wasn’t vintage or even very formal, just a pretty floral sundress (and yes, it’s winter but these arguments are lost on her). I was just glad we found something so she didn’t wear jeans and a hoodie to the dance.

Side Bar: Turns out she could have. Half the kids showed up to the dance wearing casual clothes. Parents too (it was a bring-your-parents-to-the-dance kind of event). Which figures because I dressed up to the nines in my I’m-going-to-New-York-to-see-a-Broadway-play outfit. I’m glad I had another chance to wear that dress because I love it so much but I did kind of feel funny standing around with the other parents  wearing yoga pants and raincoats. 

Whatever. You can’t say I’m not fun!

But back to our day. It actually ended up being really fun because we bonded over the garden section of one of my favorite consignment stores. We both love plants and exploring the ramshackle secret garden in the back is the best. It had just rained so everything was damp and bright green. We wandered through the maze of wet rusty treasures and admired the whimsical etherealness of it all. We even started plotting what we are going to do with the atrium outside Bug and Joon’s bedrooms. We are going to make it into a secret garden too! We bought some pretty yellow-y-green viney plants and a wire hanger and headed back home with A Plan! 

Sadly, nothing has come of that great plan because Payam informed us that we need to paint the atrium first before we go screwing bolts into the wall and we can’t paint it until the stucco dries from all the rains lately. So that plan is benched. But we can dream!