What’s shrimpy, spicy, saucy, and sassy all over? The “spicy shrimp plate” at Bongos restaurant in the Phinney Ridge area near Seattle. It seriously slaps. I can’t get it off my mind, ever, and I’m determined to make it at home. This restaurant is within walking distance of the Woodland Park Zoo. It’s a bit… Continue reading Mystery Shrimp

Leprechauns have been getting grabby with the furniture on St. Patrick’s Day. If it’s not covered in green, they pinch it. How do we know? Late at night, it pops and cracks in such a way that I believe it’s saying, “quit pinching me.” So, from now on, any furniture in the house that is… Continue reading Just a Pinch of Green

Where are my keys? Where’s that whale I’m hoping to see? Who has the duct tape? All the answers to life’s burning questions are now in one spot: my scavenger hunt journal. I just open it up and find the things I’m usually missing. The idea for a scavenger hunt journal startled me in the… Continue reading Craft Alert: Scavenger Hunt Journal

Nutmeg is quite the hero of the spice drawer. You never know when you’re going to need it for a recipe—or why—but it’s always there, and the container is never empty. It’s not like you’ll ever go bonkers with nutmeg—stuffing it into a rotary cheese grater and taking it from table to table like they… Continue reading Nutmeg to the Rescue!

When the breakfast bars saw the key lime pie Alex baked, they did the only thing a breakfast bar could do in that situation: They flung themselves at the kids waiting for the school bus outside. Unfortunately, they only made it as far as the top of the organizing bin I put them in, before… Continue reading Slice Up Some Breakfast: Key Lime Pie

The front door wants us out—forever. This is how we know: it will not open when we stick the key in. We have to tug and pull and whisper secret words to get it to let us in. Any combination of the following steps might work in a different order on different days: 1) Stick… Continue reading Unlocking the Secrets of a Door that Won’t Budge

Sound the alarm—cupid’s coming in hot. But never fear. Before everything catches fire, I’ve created a decorative box to hold all the love in. It’s not a fire-proof box. It’s made of cardboard and bits of tape and hearts and hot pink paper and hopes and dreams—so it’s actually quite flammable. It’s a Valentine’s Day… Continue reading Craft Alert: Hearts on Fire in a Shoebox

Dangerous animals prowl the perimeters of thousands of houses each day and, according to a wildly alarming article on the This Old House website, “If you thought you were safe indoors from what lives outside, think again.” This article then lists snakes, rabid bats, alligators, brown bears, and other things that can tear through your… Continue reading Make Game Night a Scream

Turn the kitchen into a gin joint with a “Bee’s Knees” cocktail. Alex found the recipe online, and the article accompanying it said the drink originated from the 1920s. And, according to the first thing that popped up on the internet when I entered the words, “bee’s knees,” this idiomatic expression may have originated from… Continue reading The Bee’s Knees Cocktail

Haunted desks are hard to find these days, and I suspect the one that I just threw out (after ten years?) was mildly haunted/possessed. It was starting to slope in the middle, probably because it was not made of real wood, but rather some sort of plastic/cork mixture, and I thought the slope in the… Continue reading A Stand-Up Standing Desk