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I’m so ready for fall

Pumpkins. The color palette of red, yellow & orange as the backdrop of our days.

The falling leaves, and leaf piles for diving into and driving through.

Crispness in the air. Baked apple crisp. Wood-burning fireplace smoke.

Halloween. Decorating. Fun, themed festivities.

I took this picture yesterday evening. The colors are so gorgeous. It may have been 80 degrees at the time, but I  looked at this tree and I imagined Fall arriving and settling in all around me.

The tree is indicative of Summer at the top and Fall at the bottom; blue skies & greenery evolving to rich golds & reds. We’re in transition and so is this tree.

Pretty soon we’ll have to close our windows. We haven’t run the A/C in weeks. It’s been so nice. Such a confusing time of year for dressing. Hoodies or sweaters in the morning and shorts and t-shirts in the afternoon.

We need to start preparing for winter. We need to buy some firewood for our outdoor firepit and our indoor wood-burning stove. My car needs new tires so I’ll have good grip on the slippery, icy, snowy roads this winter.

We should pull out the winter coats and see who needs a new one.

Last Saturday was my birthday and every year it heralds the beginning of my favorite time of year.

My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Love, merriment, gaiety, joy, thankfulness and gift-giving.

Yes.

Welcome to Fall.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 2 Comments

A dinner inspired by Feta

Have I mentioned that I love cheese? LOVE it.

Sometimes I want a certain kind of cheese and it inspires the entire meal. One night last week it was feta cheese.

I HEART FETA CHEESE.

I try to keep feta on-hand for feta emergencies. (What? It could totally happen.)

I like it plain. I like it in salads. I like it in pasta dishes. Now I even like it with sauteed chicken.

This is not my picture. I borrowed it. I promise I will give it back. Eventually.

Sometimes I buy it in blocks like this pic – often from the Ballard Cheese people (No, I don’t know them – I just love their cheese). Other times I just buy whatever is convenient – like the pre-crumbled Athenos brand that most grocery stores carry.

So last week I decided to make chicken with feta and basil from our garden. So stinkin’ simple.

Here’s the quick & dirty:

I simply sauteed frozen, unbreaded chicken tenders (we always keep a bag of  unbreaded chicken tenders in our freezer. They are much more versatile than frozen breasts!)  in butter & olive oil and added some garlic, salt & pepper, and minced up basil leaves.

I sauteed at medium heat with a covered lid – to keep it juicy – and then for the last 10 minutes or so left the lid off and added some Greek vinaigrette marinade/dressing to the pan. Once it was cooked I crumbled feta over the top and then put the lid back on and let it rest a bit while we finished the rest of the food prep.

My husband, Eric, has been on a white bean dip streak. He made hummus the previous week but felt the consistency was very thick and the garbanzo beans are harder to work through the food processor. This time he tried plain white beans called Cannellini beans. He mixed the beans, olive oil, minced garlic (real garlic cloves he cut up. Gotta keep fresh garlic on hand.), lemon juice and minced basil to a yummy deliciousness in the food processor. (Try to get most of the lumps out!) Eric thought the consistency was a little too runny, but I thought it was fine and the taste was fab.

Then he warmed some pita bread on the stove and cut it into triangles for dipping.

But we also wanted more. Just . . .  more.

And we realized that our little bubba, our pickiest eater, wouldn’t eat either of the things we made. So we whipped up a boxed Parmesan couscous. He loves couscous more than I can possibly explain to you and it couldn’t be easier to make. (Especially out of the box, but I’m sure on it’s own it would be just as delish and easy too. And maybe better than the boxed variety. Hmm, I should try that.)

Then we realized we had a baguette we needed to use. It was the crusty, thin kind – just the absolute best for making crostini. So I sliced a bunch of thin ovals and covered them with butter. Generally speaking, I like to use a spray bottle of olive oil for this purpose – but our bottle is on the fritz and, honestly, the butter gives a better flavor than the olive oil. Maybe the olive oil is better health-wise than the butter, but in flavor YOU CAN’T BEAT BUTTER. Then I arranged the bread rounds on a cookie sheet and threw them under the broiler until they were a golden brown.

Tastefully Simple Spinach & Herb Dip Mix

I had pulled out some cream cheese to soften so I just took this Spinach & Herb dip mix I had on hand and mixed a whole bunch of it into the cream cheese to top the Crostini.

NOTE:  In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I just signed up to be a consultant for Tastefully Simple  – where I got this Spinach & Herb dip mix – but I also want to be clear that I’ve been using this stuff for about a year so this is not a fly by night, promoting my new product, kind of thing. My bottle of the Spinach & Herb mix is almost empty due to repeated use. I use it in cream cheese for Crostini (as I’m discussing here), on/in scrambled eggs, in dip mixes with sour cream, or mayo and sour cream, or mayo and Greek plain yogurt, or in seasoning steamed, buttered veggies. It’s one of the more versatile seasonings in my spice cupboard.

Then I spread the spinach herb cream cheese mix on the golden brown Crostini and DONE. Incidentally, I also served this exact same Crostini as an appetizer for a dinner we hosted a couple weeks ago and everyone just loved it.

So here was the end result of our meal. In hindsight, a salad or some steamed zucchini or broccoli would have been fabulous to offset the starchiness –  but at the time we didn’t have those on hand.  It was soooooo good though. Yummy. I had never made chicken with feta before but I see us doing that again sometime soon.

Happy cooking!

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The Bloggess makes me pee my pants

Be forewarned: All the links contained in this post lead to a site that is rife with cussing, dark humor and lovely sarcastic wit.

I have a confession: I’m in love with The Bloggess.

No, I’m not in love love (I’m curious but not THAT curious) but I’m definitely into some hardcore admiration. She’s so delightfully witty and clever and random and oddball and naughty. Yes. All those things.

And she’s still called a mom blogger? She’s more of an antidote to the stereotypical mom blogger.  She is a mom, and she is a blogger, and I guess she does post some parenting type stuff . . . but I like it best when she’s just posting about random crap. Like giant metal chickens named Beyonce. HELLO.

I don’t want to turn this into a post about a blogger I’m jealous of because that’s NOT the case here. (I was, and am, jealous of Joni still – that girl has mad skills that I totally envy). But with The Bloggess I’m not jealous, per se. Or maybe jealous isn’t the right word. Admiration is all I can think of that fits. The girl’s got balls, man. Her mind twists and turns more than a corn maze.

Okay, I may be a tad bit jealous of her ability to turn a completely inane subject into something inexplicably, gut-wrenchingly, I’m-going-to-get-fired-for-laughing-too-much-at-my-desk-funny. Or maybe her ability to delight in and enlighten the masses on any morbid subject she has a fascination with and make it all seem palatable.

The Bloggess: “Well, now I’m all curious. I can’t smell my own eyeballs, dude. This exactly is why I got married.”

But really, most of all, I love the way she takes some random prose and slices and dices it to her bidding. The way she can say something so simple but so uber-effective. She’s succinct and goes straight for the jugular. She has a dry, sarcastic humor that really resonates with me.

Side note: My husband says my humor is really dry as well – which is why he gets mad at me sometimes and I have to yell, “DUDE I WAS KIDDING. HAVE YOU MET ME?”

So I read about Beyonce (the chicken, not the singer) a couple months ago and nearly had an asthma attack getting through the post. Later that night I read it out loud to my husband. I had to stop multiple times to take a breath, or potty break (and panty change), from all the laughing. He just looked at me like my my laughter was a foreign language. Though, at parts, he did smirk a little, but mostly he was like, “huh?”

The Bloggess: “Then I yelled through his door, “It’s an anniversary gift for you, a-hole.  Two whole weeks early.  15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.””

I’ve been sharing more of her posts with him recently and I think he’s really starting to appreciate her humor. Like last week, for example, I sent him this little convo between The Bloggess and her husband, Victor.  He (my husband, not Victor) wrote me back fairly quickly (SEE? He actually read it without me having to nag – that’s something right there.) and his response was, “oh dear god.”

So I totally think he’s getting it.

Then when I got home he leaned in and sniffed my eyeballs. He determined they were odorless. That’s a win for me on both counts.

I think we all work a lot and life is hard and if The Bloggess can write about random crap and make me laugh then I’ll take it. Levity? Yes, please.

But, deeper than the humor, she reflects a relationship with her husband that I think a lot of wives (and husbands, judging by the comments) can really understand. Marriage is really freaking hard sometimes and spouses are not meant to be clones of each other. Two people, one mind? No, thank you.

I like my husband the best when he’s doing something I can’t do. I also like it a lot when he admires a trait I have that he doesn’t. The Bloggess’s husband is the straight man to her schtick.  I counter-balance my husband’s act all the time – HELLO, he’s an actor – but at home we can switch those roles pretty easily. Being able to counter-balance each other is what makes it all work together.

Excerpt from The Bloggess:

Victor:  What?  I’ve never wanted a monkey.

EVERYONE WANTS A MONKEY.

Victor:  Not me.

 Well…that’s what’s wrong with you.

Victor:  I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU PAID $7 FOR THAT.

 I KNOW, RIGHT?!

(We were both yelling, but for two entirely different reasons.)

If you’ve never read The Bloggess I would start with Beyonce. Then go change your pants and come back and read some more. You won’t believe it until you read it.

Oh, and this:

IS GENIUS.

-Stef

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The best BLT+C ever ever ever

This summer we spent several Saturday mornings at the Capital City Farmer’s Market in downtown Boise. I love it. (I’ve posted about it before, here).

One of my favorite things about the market is the cheese booth. It’s actually the Ballard family cheese booth and they make all their cheeses here in Idaho. Then they sell them to people like ME who love cheese. Yum.

One day in late July we were at the market and I made my usual beeline for the cheese booth. I had a few samples, swoon, and then I realized the dude behind the booth was grilling cheese. Yes, grilling. No bread. He added some spice and grilled it in a skillet. Then he handed me a piece and I said, “I’ll take it!”

Turns out it’s Halloumi cheese. Halloumi is a Greek cheese with a high melting point so it can actually be grilled, and slightly browned, without melting.

I immediately started thinking – what can I do with this?

I started looking around my kitchen. Okay, I had half of a baguette (because I love a good baguette and try to keep one on hand most of the time) so I immediately thought sandwich. Then I rummaged in the fridge and found bacon, grape tomatoes, and a spring salad mix. And thus the best BLT+C was born.

Toast or grill the buns.
Season the Halloumi to your preference and grill it.
Bacon. Sometimes I bake it. Doesn't matter. Cook it however you normally do.
Grape tomatoes. Any tomatoes will do. This is just what I had on hand. On hand. See? Get it. Ha ha.
Start assembling. Mayo first, then I pulled the arugula out of the spring salad mix, and then I trimmed off all the fat and just use the meaty bacon parts.
Add the sliced up tomato bits.
Fini!

I made 4 of these sandwiches and wrapped them up for a picnic. A few hours later when we pulled them out to eat they were just perfect. Crunchy, salty, cheesy, bacony. So yum. Try it.

-Stef

 

UPDATE:  My husband asked for these again this weekend and I made a couple tweaks that I wanted to share with you. I think this batch was even better than the first!

  • We used ciabatta rolls and I grilled them in about 2 tblsp butter in a big skillet on the stove at medium heat until they were deliciously browned. (Buttered the rolls and the pan).
  • For my Mayo spread I combined Mayo, Sweet Hot Mustard & Habanero Mustard. It was YUM. Mostly mayo and just a dollop or two each of the other depending on how you like it.
  • I grilled the Halloumi in the bacon grease. First I drained almost all the grease out of the pan but then I grilled the cheese on low-medium heat in the same pan. I also sprinkled the cheese with seasoned salt. It was good, but you can omit this step if you want to cut back on the salt.
  •  We used heirloom tomatoe slices fresh out of a friend’s garden.
  • We used a handful of baby arugula that we had bought in a package. We don’t eat a ton of arugula, but we can share it with our tortoise, Bob. (The arugula, not the sandwich).

End result was deliciousness. The tomato and mayo spread just oozed up into the airy ciabatta bun making the sandwich messy and good. The Halloumi was squeaky and tasty. Just a perfect sandwich. My husband told me no less than 5 TIMES how much he enjoyed it.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 1 Comment

Cap’n Tightpants

So you may not know this about me (because I seem so calm, cool, and collected, right?) but I have to let the truth be known: I have some geeky qualities. It’s true.

Shocking I know.

Here it is, the confession: I have a deep, abiding love for Firefly.

Not the glowing bugs. (Though, hey, glowing bugs are cool).

Not the Owl City song. (But I like that as well)

Firefly. The much-beloved though short-lived Joss Whedon show that was only on broadcast tv for one season, but was so loved that is often played in marathon style on the Sci-Fi channels AND was able to get a movie as a follow-up to the series.

You know it, right? RIGHT?

THIS is Captain Malcolm Reynolds:

I aim to misbehave

Yummy. Just yummy.

You may recognize the actor, Nathan Fillion, from the show Castle. Or, if you’re a Whedonite, from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog as Captain Hammer. By the way, if you don’t know what I’m talking about then please, please, get thee to Netflix streaming, or elsewhere online, and watch it. (Because the hammer is his penis. But not really. There’s no nudity. Just watch it).

Whenever I’m feeling a little low all I have to do is look to Firefly to get a dose of Cap’n Tightpants. The actor, the character and the story. It just WORKS.

But I shouldn’t dwell on Mal. I mean, he’s the star and he’s really fabulous, but the other actors and characters are all equally intriguing. Kayleigh with her naivete and charm. Inara with her smoldering beauty and hidden love for Mal.  Simon and the nerdy hotness. River and her quirkiness. Walsh’s comic relief. Jayne and his douchery. Shepherd Book and his suspicious background. And, duh, Zoe with ass-kicking-tough-as nails-ness.

If you are completely mystified here and think I’m utterly nuts then I only have one thing to say to you: embrace your inner geek and fall in love with Firefly. It will make you a happier person.

You may thank me later.

Happy Friday,

Stef

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Thankful Thursday – The Greatest Gift

The greatest thing I’ve ever done is have my children. They are everything to me in a way that nothing else is.

I love my husband, but he’s a grown man and I didn’t make him. His momma did and I’m quite sure she feels about him the same way I feel about my little dudes.

I love them both so much. They are so unique. Clever. Sassy.

Oy, with the sass. (At least they come by it quite naturally).

My 9 yo is so complex. He’s smart. He’s bossy. He’s introverted. He’s extroverted. He’s sweet. He’s sour. He’s gives great hugs. He’s shy. He’s just SO LAYERED. Which, I think, is pretty normal. (Whatever that means).

These days he prefers to play with Legos by himself in his room with the door closed. I’m attributing this to the first rumblings of Tween angsty-ness. He’s good at understanding nuances in other people’s words, tone or facial expression. (He says “SARCASM” whenever we are sarcastic – which is a lot).

He’s good at turning on the charm. Can be very Eddie Haskell-ish. He has a fake smile, but when he’s not thinking about it sometimes we see his real smile  and it’s to die for.

My little dude, my 7 yo, on the other hand is absolutely without artifice. Nothing fake here, people.

I read a comment in another blog about a gal’s Autistic son that really resonated with me. She said he’s just absolutely PURE. In his reactions and expressions. I absolutely feel the same way about my little bubba. He’s pure. If he’s happy then he’s unabashedly happy. If he’s mad then he’s all thunderous brows and angry eyes. It’s one of the two. No sulkiness. No manipulations. Just pure emotion. Pure love.

Having both of them is absolutely the best thing I have ever done. I am more than “just” a mother – I’m a wife and a daughter and a business professional – but nothing I do in my life will ever be more important than conceiving, birthing and raising these two wondrous creatures.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this gift. This gift of BOYS.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 7 Comments

I’m an escape artist

I don’t know about you, but I find life to be quite overwhelming at times. Like so overwhelming I just want to bury my head in the sand until it all goes away. Or go to sleep. But I can’t do either of those things long-term so I cope by using various methods of escape.

TV

Shows like the Bachelor/ette/pad are perfect for this. Or other shows where I totally love the characters and storylines – like Bones. Because at the end of the day I’ve had it. No more thinking. No more problems. No more reasoning required. Just entertain me, please.

But I don’t watch a ton of TV. It’s just not our habit to sit for hours and hours every day or watch all the new shows that come on every season. I could do that – don’t get me wrong – but it screws up our life too much. Prime-time tv starts at 7 PM here and usually I’m just getting home from work then and cleaning the kitchen or making dinner. So we Tivo the shows we love and watch them later. At our leisure. When I’m ready for my escape.

BUT – there are 4 of us in this house and really only one tv that we use most of the time. So occasionally the boys (including my husband) want to watch Phineas & Ferb or some other cartoonish show or movie that I’m not down with watching. So I go barricade myself in my woman-cave (as my hubby calls it) and get online.

The Internets

Now, obviously I have a lot of legitimate reasons to be online. I work online all day long. That’s my business. But I also get all my news online, I shop online, and it’s my first choice for communication these days. (And my iPhone feeds this habit swimmingly).

But, man, what a time suck! I love getting caught up on blogs that I’ve been ignoring, but I can literally sit there for HOURS and not get up-to-date on my Twitter feed, my blog reading and Facebook stuff. Not to mention getting around to writing something on my OWN blog. (oh hai!).

iPhone, baby

Speaking of my iPhone it has got to rank pretty high here. I use it so often and for so many different reasons that it’s hard to justify calling it an escape but it totally is – at certain times. Last night, for example, we decided to all watch the Johnny Depp Alice in Wonderland movie. We’ve seen it before – like 3 times – so there was nothing NEW to see. So I pulled out my phone and was following my Twitter feed and responding to a few things. The hubby was all ‘what are you doing’ and ‘it would be nice if you watched a movie with us.’ *SIGH* So, yeah, I get busted when I do that. But, HELLO, if I only have a marginal interest in the show then my brain is only engaged about 15%. What do I do with the rest?? (I’d like to point out that he fell asleep 10 minutes later and I actually saw more of the movie than he did. Hmphf.)

Books

When I’ve had my fill of technology I rely on my old-standby – a bath & a book. Actually, to be honest, if I’m reading a really good book it often takes precedence over all my other escape routes. Good books do that. I neglect everything in the sweet storylines and wonderfully slow-building anticipation of a good, must-read book. I haven’t felt that I-can’t-put-this-down-until-I-know-what-happens kind of pull in a while though – probably not since I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. (So, any good recommendations?)

Working-out

Okay, all of that to say – I’m trying to change my escapist tendencies. Oh, I’m not silly enough to think that I’ll stop procrastinating and dodging life a bit – I’ll totally still do that as long as life is hard (and it is, like, too hard) – but I’m trying to channel my escapes into something more productive. Something that will make my life better rather than perpetuate the cycle.

I started doing this in July when I began working-out regularly. I was doing really well. It pains me to admit this, but I fell off the wagon a bit. I went on a business trip a few weeks ago and then I wasn’t feeling too hot for a few days the next week and – BOOM – momentum and motivation down the tubes.

BUT that’s about to change. I just registered for my first 5k walk. It’s 2 weeks from today (coincidentally, or not, the day I turn 36). There’s another I’m going to do in mid-October as well. I’m determined to make my escapism work for ME.

By the way, 36 is going to ROCK. I’m sure of it.

So what are your escapist habits? And are they good or bad or somewhere in between? Did you overcome them? And where do you find motivation?? Help me. HELP ME. I need all the commiseration, encouragement and we’re-in-it-togetherness that I can possibly get right now.

Now I’m off to make Mexican 5 layer dip and contemplate doing 3 miles tonight tomorrow.

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The Spirit of Boise Classic

Last year I heard about the Spirit of Boise hot air balloon classic. It’s a yearly “festival” of sorts, where for 5 days they launch air balloons every morning at dawn. One night they have a “night glow” where they light up the balloons after the sun goes down but they don’t launch. And then they have a competition launch. During the one evening event they have a stage and band setup, they have food vendors, and it’s generally a very festive, fun, family-oriented atmosphere.

So last year I took my 2 boys to the night glow. I wasn’t prepared for the crowds, the dogs that people bring, and I wasn’t aware that they were doing the Mickey Mouse balloon early so it ended up being a rough night for us. My little Autistic guy had a meltdown when he realized we had missed Mickey. He had another meltdown later due to all the dogs and people. It was very difficult for me to do it on my own (my husband had another commitment that night). This year I was determined that the whole family should go, and that they should love it.

So they did! And the loved it. We should have taken jackets to the night glow, but otherwise it was perfect. We got there early. We were prepared with a blanket to sit on and a picnic. We had glow bracelets – very important for the kids at night events. The kids had so much fun they begged to come back for one of the morning launches – which we did this morning. We got up at 6 AM, before sunrise, to head downtown to the park where this event occurs and it was great. The balloons are just so majestic and awe-inspiring with their size, grace and beauty. I really want to go up sometime.

So here’s some pics from both events:

Boise State University Broncos won their first game of the season last night. The balloon had to represent this morning:

On the road before sunrise this morning! The sun is hiding behind those mountains:

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What kind of week has it been?

Well, my friends, it has been quite a WEEK. I tried to slack-off, I really did. Despite my best efforts I actually earned my pay this week. In fact, I may have kicked some well-needed booty too. (I’m being cheeky – just go with it).

No, but really, work is killing me. Like, to death. I have worked 10-12 hour days entirely too much this week. Early meetings with the Brits and late evenings playing catch up. I don’t typically talk about work here – and I’m not going to start now – but because of the horrendous week I seriously need a pick me up and OH MY GAWD thank goodness it’s Friday. Friday before a 3-day weekend no less – bonus!

So let’s look at some of the good stuff that has happened over the past 6(ish) days:

On Saturday we got our 7 year old a big boy bike and, oh my goodness, he’s actually a BIG BOY now. But he’s my baby too. Tear. He and his brother spent the weekend riding bikes together. Look at them on bikes together. Just LOOK. It was just YESTERDAY when they were babies, right?

On Sunday I went crazy and got on a cooking trend that still hasn’t let up. Every day this week I’ve made something new. It’s my goal to eventually get the recipes up here, and the pictorials as well – for the ones I actually did pictorials on – but I can’t guarantee how quickly that will happen. In the meantime here’s a few things I made:

Because I knew I had a heinous week ahead at work and with my little one starting school this week I decided to make breakfast burritos in advance.

Here’s the ingredients:

And apparently I made 12. Aren’t these pretty? 45 seconds in the microwave and I have a portable, protein-rich breakfast meal. Yum.

Monday night I made fried rice for the first time. No pictures. I was in the zone. It turned out well. I said YUM and so did the hubby.

Tuesday I made pesto for the first time ever. Seriously! And with basil from my own garden. It was so, so good. And then I cooked some chicken, baked some pizza dough and threw it all together with zucchini and tomato for a yummylicious pizza. Like whoa.

And I’ve been obsessed with fruit this week. Pineapples and strawberries are manna straight from heaven. (I didn’t really cook anything here, except some whipped cream. I just had to include the picture because of the YUM factor).

It’s a good thing I’ve munched on so much fruit because tonight I decided to make sweet potato tempura. Deep fried (oh the horror) with a Greek yogurt and garlic dip. I ate it too quickly to take pictures. Nom nom.

I’ve also managed to work-out a couple times this week so far. Last night I really wanted dessert but I put my work-out clothes on and GOT ON THE ELLIPTICAL INSTEAD. Gasp. I can hardly believe it myself. I must have been a rainbow sherbetty blur on the elliptical in my pink yoga pants, orange tank and teal blue sports bra. Stylish, I am. (Thank goodness my husband loves me).

But do you want to know the best thing I did this week? The very best?

I was a mom to my boys. I squeezed them and kissed them and tucked them in at night. I sang a lullaby to them every night before bed. I got them up in the morning and picked out their clothes and helped them get ready for school. I fed them. I cuddled them. I loved them.

I made this one giggle and smile naturally. He doesn’t do that much; he’s usually all about the cheesy fake smile when the camera comes out.

And I got this one off on his first day of 2nd grade at a new school. I was so nervous, and we had some hitches from, as my mother-in-law put it, the “ineptitude of the adults around him” (not meaning us, but school & district officials) and he, my little dude, just breezed through and he’s adjusting wonderfully.

And that, my friends, has been my week. I guess it was pretty awesome after all.