Nothing as lovely as a tree

We took in a stray tree a few days ago. We just found it on our apartment doorstep and couldn’t bare to send it back into the cold.

We weren’t sure about its breed, but we knew it was sick and hungry and that it needed our help.

We’ve never been parents, so we turned to one of the experts for help--Sam’s mom, Sue.

She suggested some disciplinary tactics...AKA pruning. Sam lovingly started working with our newly adopted child, clipping away and cleaning up the poor little tree. Although the mother in me kept saying, “You’re being too hard on him!”, Sam kept trimming and shaping the disheveled tree.



I know that it doesn’t look like much now, but at least no one can accuse us of being sissy parents.

We are working on nurturing this little guy back to health. Our apartment is not well lit and painfully small, but we hope to turn it into a positive environment for the tree so it can grow up healthy and strong.

-Meg

Ivy

I've had a little guest in my bathroom for quite some time now.

I don't mind it at all. It's like an indoor plant! But the repairman came and removed the ivy. I'm sad, but if we didn't do something I suppose it would have taken over the whole place.

-Meg

Salmon Cakes

I knew I there had to be a reason I stayed up late:

I call it the Matthew Chain.

Today was a good day, full of running, gardening, organizing, and taking over the world. But today also included cooking Salmon Cakes.

Not successful.

My mom will tell you they tasted wonderful, and maybe they did. She's probably just saying that because she's my mom and she has to.

The salmon cakes I had were drenched in cilantro dressing, so I couldn't taste them, not like I can taste much anyway. I opened the new bottle of dressing, and by accident I poured too much on.
This are they. Disgusting-looking, I know. My mom makes them much more beautifully.
This is the one that fell apart. Putting it on the Harry Potter plate slightly redeemed it.
The corn was boiling. This was at the height of my anxiety. I'm trying to make cakes out of mushed up salmon, mayo, and breadcrumbs, so my hands are messy and gloppy, and the water's boiling over the pot, and I'm trying to remember which cakes have been on the pan the longest and which ones need to be turned over... [I do not like cooking].

-just little old me(g)