The incredible true story of a Walker Thursday night

Here’s what I walked in on when I came home Thursday night from work:

  • Johanna was in the kitchen, elbow high in flour and an hour in to a cake experiment. (Art knows no bounds.)
  • Bear caught a mouse — or maybe Pearl caught it and he just found it — and brought it into the house, and was playing with it right there in the living room.
  • The door was open and the cool air was leaking inside.
  • Abby was talking about the sub she’d had for an after school snack.
  • Eric was playing Scrabble on Facebook.

I probably should have been more alarmed at any or all of these things, but mostly I just wanted to sit down, eat dinner — leftover homemade pizza — and read a new eBook.

But then I was like, huh, this is kind of an example of zero waste on a family scale:

  • Johanna decided she wanted to make frosting but we were out of powdered sugar. So I made some for her in the blender. To properly finish this part of the story: The cake is terrible and she’s depressed and even apologized for wasting ingredients. Hey, it’s all an experiment, and how else do you learn? The birds will be thrilled to see that on the compost heap.
  • Mice are vermin and I hate them even if they’re technically small and adorable. They can be small and adorable OUTSIDE my house. But hey, good job Bear/Pearl, that’s zero waste rodent control!
  • Um, not sure how to spin the door being wide open when it’s less than 60º out and the thermostat is prone to kicking on without anyone noticing … Basically just a fail.
  • Scrabble on Facebook means there’s no board game on my table. That’s not really zero waste so much as it is minimalism. Although, fun fact, Eric and I used to play a heck of a lot of Scrabble. That was the first board game we ever bought together.
  • And leftover homemade pizza is a gift straight from the heavens. We thought Abby and a friend of hers were going to be home for dinner last night so we took out two balls of naan from the freezer. Instead they got fed at the high school, where they were doing stuff for eighth grade step up day. By the time we found out they weren’t eating with us, it was too late. Yay leftovers! So I warmed up a couple of pieces — Eric put it all together, by the way, he is a gem — and fired up the ol’ Kindle. I love reading books that don’t actually exist.

Um … that’s honestly all I’ve got at the moment. Our editor is on vacation this week, so our four person staff is down to three. But hey, I plan to lay low all weekend, so I’m sure the words will build themselves back up for Monday’s post.

Have a good weekend, friends.


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