weekly bits #33

advice from the 90 year old who used to own my house

A very happy Friday to you after a week I can, in this moment, hardly remember off the top of my head — good thing I took notes. I have a case of mashed potato brain due to a baby who doesn’t really want to take naps right now and multiple nights in a row of weirdly gory dreams. What’s happening with that? I shudder to evaluate.

*For anyone interested in upgrading their subscription…I’m offering 25% off annual subscriptions through the end of August in celebration of SIDEBAR’s return to form. Redeem that offer here if you’re so inclined!*

But enough on that…

1. As mentioned last week, Sam took part in a 24-hour theatre festival this past weekend. The audience was so alive! This is rare, I find, in most plays I attend. I think there was a lot of excitement for the inherently special nature of what we were about to witness given each play was written & staged within 24 hours. It was refreshingly unserious. Sam did an excellent job directing, and if I may say so myself, I did an excellent job of dropping off homemade cookies for his cast before showtime. Baby also did an excellent job sleeping in the car with my mother-in-law while I popped in to see Sam’s play. It takes a village!

2. I’m just loving the dishwasher magnet we got from this Etsy shop. We really cracked down on dish management the past few months after our daughter was born — it’s a tight ship around here now — and this little magnet delights me.

   

   Sumiko2 on Etsy

3. It feels like every other time I write these posts I’m writing about a major appliance breaking and needing replaced. Okay fine, this is only the third time, but it’s the third time in less than a year and I am tired. To be fair, we inherited all of our appliances from the previous owner of our house and had no clue how old they were, so who’s to say. Maybe they lived a long life. Just not with us. Anyway. Our dryer is a goner. This is a tragic tale when you have a baby. The door busted open in the middle of a cycle to reveal part of the lint catcher had melted and was sticking up in a weird pointy way, having caught a few pieces of clothing resulting in one ginormous knot of every item in the dryer. Honestly it was impressive, but it did ruin a good few pieces of clothing, and was a personal insult to me to untie. Adding this incident with the broken lint catcher to a dryer that has made constant, unnervingly loud sounds and is very bad at drying things, it is time for a new one. These are the hardest purchases to make — every review is part of some paid promotion and I feel like everything is a lie! If you have a dryer you love (that does not need an app) please drop the deets in the comments.

Below the paywall: the wild animals taking over our yard, the 2014 show that is my personal Roman empire, my favorite recipe I’ve made in months, the parting words from the woman who used to own our house and more…

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