We suffer from a chronic case of good intentions but no follow through around here. So many plans, so little actually going places and doing things. But one of the nice things about having memberships at Mystic Seaport and Mystic Aquarium is we can go whenever and stay for however long we want. Baby having a fit? Time to go! Weather gets bad? We’ll come back some other day! Crap-ton of people who don’t understand how to not stand around yapping in the middle of the walkway and make me want to scrape out my own eyeballs with an ice pick? The walkway will still be there on a weekday! I can keep my eyes! Which is good, because they are usefully to me!

So on Saturday we celebrated yet another day of nice weather by taking Little Evan to see the boats. BOAT BOAT BOAT BOAT BOAT BOAT. The Seaport is a really nice place – especially on days like yesterday when it was practically deserted – but it is definitely a TWO PARENT ACTIVITY. There’s nothing like hundreds and hundreds of feet of open, non-guard-railed waterfront with a 6 or 7 foot drop into the river to keep you on your toes, especially with a toddler who wants to be AS CLOSE TO THE BOATS as possible.

You have seen boats advertised on television and on the Internet, but can’t find a legitimate platform to search for a boat ?  Try searching at Zeboats it features lots of boats currently for sale on the market in your area. Good tip, do  some research before purchasing a boat. You can find out everything you need to know by visiting their website.. They are always open to questions and will be glad to discuss the details of their product with you. So if you are ready to buy a boat, go ahead and check it out.

Including the boats that do not actually belong to the Seaport but are just docked there by people who own giant boats and probably wouldn’t appreciate a 2 year old showing up in their cabins shouting “HAI! HAI! BOAT! MAMA! DADA!” in their faces. So it takes both E and myself to watch him and still remain an appropriately responsible distance from the stroller so no one reports us for child abandonment.

And hey, we were in public! So everyone wore clothes.

On Little Evan:

Shirt – Gymboree, last season
Pants – Gymboree, this season
Sandals – Old Navy

On Mama:

Shirt – Goodwill, tag says ELLE
Jeans – Target
Sweater – Gap, purchased on clearance in 1998
Earrings – Gift from my sister, purchased in Costa Rica
Giant sticker on my boob – Member entrance sticker for the Seaport. Classy.

Shoes – Target, 50% off! I’ve been eying these for MONTHS, trying to decide if they were worth $20 or if I should wait for them to go on sale, as all Target shoes do. I waited. Now I’m just sorry I didn’t buy them in the other colors.

Also, if you look closely you can see my totally gross toenail on my left foot. Little Evan threw a bottle of carpet cleaner at me in the store and it landed right on my nail. It bled for hours and now it’s all blue and gray and black and it’s totally going to fall off. AREN’T YOU GLAD I POINTED THAT OUT TO YOU?

On Caroline:

Romper – Gift, tag says Hartstrings
Leggings – BabyLegs
Socks – Who the hell knows, hand-me-downs

More pictures from our fun day:

These swans are building a nest right on the main waterfront. They’re going to be really sorry when the seaport gets busy in a few weeks. But it was super cool to watch!

Little Evan steering the Amistad. Yeah, the one from the movie.

Hanging toddlers over the edge of giant scaffolding! Good times!!

I think Caroline might be interested in starting solids sooner rather than later. And for the record, NOT PEPSI. Lemonade.

Why yes, I DID dress my baby in a nautical themed outfit for the Seaport. Also, the amber teething necklace is once again working like a CHAMP, as evidenced by the happy, silly baby.

Dreaming of the day he can finally escape his horrible, mean parents for a life at sea.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Sticks. Trash. Should be thrown away or at the very most turned into mulch.

I was out in the garden this week, cutting back a stupid useless vine of some sort that keeps trying to grow up the side of our house and stuffing it into a trash can to haul out to the dump. I looked at the bendy, twiggy vine all curled up in the can and thought “hey, it looks kind of like a wreath.” And then instead of doing the TOTALLY NORMAL PERSON THING and throwing it away I cut a few more branches, dragged them inside, trimmed them up and made a damn wreath.

I started with some long ones and just twisted them together. I used an extra thin twig to tie the ends.

By hand. With sticks. Sitting on the floor of my living room. When I could have been doing something useful like knitting or blogging or picking my toenails.

Then I twisted different sized twigs around and tucked in the ends until it was wreath-sized.

Oh but I didn’t stop there. I dragged out my craft box and glue gun and the felt flowers I made last year and decorated that bitch right up.

Junk I keep in a box for moments like this where I lose my mind.

I started with some ribbon and tulle and yarn, because those look nice on a wreath, right?

I really half-assed it on the bow

Then I used the glue gun to attach some felt leaves and flowers.

Hot glue: the lazy crafter's best tool

And because, hey, naptime lasts forever right? I’ve got all the time in the world to waste! I stitched up couple of little buds to fill in the gaps.

Just makin' it up as I go

A little more hot glue, a loop of ribbon for a hanger and BOOM. My front door has been spring-ified for exactly zero dollars.

Too bad I made a brown wreath for a brown door. Stupid.

Take your $6 stick wreath and SHOVE IT, craft store. Ain't got nothin' on me.

And that’s the end of today’s craft project. I’ll be in the kitchen, drinking wine straight from a bottle and wondering when my life became so boring this is what I do for fun.

I’m going to join my friend Audrey for her new inspired-by linky today with a recipe for scones that I made up slash adapted. I’m never sure with recipes how much you have to change before you can call it YOUR recipe. I mean, all baking is just science and math with proportions of wet to dry ingredients, so no matter how original your recipe for bread or cake or cookies or whatever is, there’s a good chance someone else has a nearly identical recipe somewhere.

I was inspired by these Cheddar-Chive Scones I found on Epicurious. (Sidenote: I am OBSESSED with Epicurious.) Wait, no, scratch that. I started with these Jalapeno-Cheddar scones from smitten kitchen my friend Sarah suggested more than a year ago. I made them, I ate them, I was underwhelmed. But in my MIND they were totally delicious and I’ve been thinking about finding a new scone recipe ever since. Scones sound fancy and you can put almost anything into them – sweet, savory, salty, cheesy, fruit, herbs, vegetables, whatever. I wanted to make the Cheddar Chive scones from Epicurious to bring to Easter dinner but I didn’t have any chives (and am too lazy to go to the store). So I replaced the chives with rosemary, the cheddar with Parmesan and added a little lemon peel to make them spring-like. Then I adjusted the rest of the ingredients to make it work (tm Tim Gunn).

Brunchy Lemon Rosemary Parmesan Scones

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon peel, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy cream plus extra to brush on top

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except for cream. Add in the cream 1 cup at a time, making sure to stir up everything from the bottom until you have a sticky dough. (You could use a mixer if you want but I did it with a spatula and it was easy.) Turn out dough onto a floured surface and kneed approximated 10 times. Divide dough in half, roll out each half, flatten into a long rectangle and cut into wedges.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, brush the top of each scone with a little heavy cream and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Delicious warm but travel well.

Notes:
1. I used the cheap Kraft cheese in the green container because I didn’t have any real Parmesan and *I* thought they turned out a little on the salty side. None of my taste testers were bothered by it, but you could probably use half as much salt.
2. I actually ran out of regular flour and used whole wheat for the last 1/2 cup. You couldn’t tell at all, so if you wanted to use more whole wheat – say 1 1/2 cups – I don’t think anyone would know, PLUS you could call them healthy! Just don’t mention the cream.

Happy Baking!