Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

Visiting hours have begun for our furnace, whose flame is about to be extinguished. To send it off in style, Nate has called a number of contractors to traipse through our house, rattle the walls, and tell us how much they’d charge to replace it. Two contractors showed up yesterday, and they both said the… Continue reading Another Hole in the Wall

The shopping cart and I went off the rails this morning when I rounded the corner and found the Jell-O Lemon Meringue snack. I wondered if a mass-produced gelatin product would taste like the real thing. Would I save myself the “mistake” of going through the trouble of making a lemon meringue pie, just to… Continue reading Deviating from the Shopping List: Lemon Meringue Snack

An evergreen bushy thing insists on draping its back end over our fence, but we’re cool with it because it’s pretty much covered in birds—now. I say “now” because when we first moved here six years ago, we thought it was strange that we weren’t awakened at three in the morning by tweets and chirps.… Continue reading Birding in the Backyard

Spikey little pineapple tops have moved into pots in our backyard, waving their little fronds in the air, like they just don’t care. Nate and Alex are obsessed with growing them, so when I asked what I should make for dessert, the answer was in front of us. Not one of those plants has produced… Continue reading Don’t Sweat it: Easy Pineapple Dessert

The craft alarm sounded like a soft tinkling of wind chimes when I passed by the value craft section at the store. For under $5, I could buy a clear plastic tropical bird-shaped suncatcher that included three plastic pots of paint and a brush. That sounded like the perfect project for me: just color the… Continue reading Craft Alert: Suncatcher in a Kit

Our laundry bag has seen things. It speaks of horrors of the tomato-lined entrails of jeans pockets, shaken loose just a little too late. Or that piece of chewed-up gum that fell out of someone’s mouth in the car—and no one found it—but somehow the laundry bag did. Now it appears that our laundry bag… Continue reading Scrub-A-Dub Those Scrubs

Bikini Bottom, hold tight! The Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks Team is coming at you with a pineapple cake for Alex’s 21st birthday! Why pineapple? Alex is into pineapple mocktails and cocktails—and he was a ginormous fan of SpongeBob SquarePants as a child. We used to watch lots of episodes together, so I couldn’t resist taking… Continue reading Pineapple Cake Under the Sea

If luxuriating in a pink bubble bath the size of Texas has been hampered by the fact that you don’t own a Texas-sized bathing vessel, relax. Just sip on a “Cute Rose” next to the kiddie pool and let your imagination wrangle up one rodeo of a bubble-bath dream. Better yet, have Alex make the… Continue reading Pink Drink

A Waffle-on-a-Stick sounds like a lot of fun, until you feel yourself becoming one, baking in a sun-filled car. Not even a yummy one. One that’s melting into its pre-waffle state, the stick sliding down the seat and disappearing into wherever coins and parking stickers go. The long line of cars ahead hadn’t moved for… Continue reading A Walk in the Park: Mount Rainier

My shaving habits will destroy the shower. Nate tells me this after 24 years of marriage. When he does, naturally, I’m confused. What am I doing that’s threatening the very existence of our shower? How powerful are my legs? Nate must be a very lucky man. I picture him in public, saying things like, “Yes,… Continue reading Looking Sharp