Wolfpeople: February Joys & Favorites

Joys!

Though we don't really do Valentine's Day big, Wolfman never fails to bring me home some chocolates. Considerate and a cute butt? How'd I get so lucky?

We made a brief day-trip to Pittsboro, and it was a lovely way to spend a gloomy day.

It snowed! (A couple times, actually).

Favorites!

Favorite Shops: Rocket Fizz and Duck Donuts. Rocket Fizz is a candy and soda pop store franchise out of California. Our Rocket Fizz was recommended to us by our friends the Wiests, and once we visited for the first time I realized Santa Claus did a lot of our stocking stuffer shopping at Rocket Fizz as well. This place is just plain fun. Our first visit, we spent a little over $30 on candy and specialty sodas (a bacon chocolate soda for Wolfman and maple soda for me--which tasted exactly like carbonated maple syrup). No regrets.

The Rocket Fizz Knight

Duck Donuts is a North Carolina franchise, hailing from the Outer Banks (Woot!). My grandma happened to see it from the passenger seat of her car as she rode home from a doctor's appointment with my grandpa and demanded at once, "Turn the car around!" We take donuts seriously in this family, and "cake donuts made to order" are words I have been waiting to hear my entire life.

Favorite Treats: Marich Chocolates coconut curry cashews and Welch's PB&J snacks. Wolfman found the Marich cashews for me at our first trip to Rocket Fizz (and I have since been back expressly for just them) and the PB&J snacks we came across at the Family Dollar next to our Laundromat. They're a perfect laundry day treat.

If you can't tell, most of the PB&J snacks were gone by the time I thought to snap this photo.

Favorite Beverage: Benjamin Vineyards Scuppernong Grape Juice. Ingredients: scuppernong grape juice.

Favorite Acquisitions: Early in the month, and completely unexpectedly, Wolfman gave me this little sketch of our family drawn by a regular customer at the café, Pete "The Greek" Galifianakis (uncle to Zach). It's based upon a picture of the three of us taken way back when Mads was still so new, which Wolfman carries with him.

Also, I bought myself a yellow Valentine's Day dress (Wolfman loves me in the color yellow) for $8 from the Butterfly Exchange at BeYOUtiful Butterfly in Cary as well as a couple pairs of funky leggings on sale (two for one!) from the boutique.

Favorite Movie: Death Proof. After watching Double Dare a couple years ago (because I am such a hardcore Xena fan), I, like Quentin Tarantino, fell madly, deeply in love with Zoe Bell. There are a lot of reasons I love this movie (like Kurt Russell's busted face), but lets just simplify it to Zoe Bell and her insane car stunt for the sake of keeping this blog post short. Honorable Mentions: Pumping Iron and Starship Troopers. (Unlike last month, this was a good one for movie watching.)

Favorite Music: Uriah Heep. When Wolfman picked up that Camel album I was listening to on repeat last month, he also picked up Uriah Heep's greatest hits on vinyl. Every November, Wolfman and I attend the Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville, which ushers in a time of fancy and fantasy for me--we build fires in our hearth, put stews and soups to bubble in our crockpot, fill out flasks with brown liquor, and I read the next installments of my big, fat, epic fantasy sagas. Uriah Heep is one of the bands that fits perfectly with this theme for me. I think Matrim Cauthon and Zeddicus Z'ul Zorander would dig Uriah Heep.

Favorite Television: Grounded for Life. Easily one of the most underrated sitcoms ever, it's now streaming on Netflix! Watching Grounded for Life is like drinking a red slushee and eating an order of French fries with mustard--that's what comfort food was for me in 2001, when this show first aired. We also spent the month of February re-watching a lot of Bob's Burgers and The Cleveland Show, two favorites; laughter is the best medicine for the February doldrums.

Wolfman's Favorites!

Favorite Television: Danger 5. It makes sense that Wolfman would be so fond of this Australian, pulp-inspired, cartoonish World War II spoof; watching this show is a little like what being dropped inside his head might feel like.

Favorite Internet Thing: Lars Andersen's archery. After he came across this video, he excitedly showed this to everyone he knows. This video reinvigorated Wolfman's love of archery.

Martigan's Favorites!

First time: Mads drove a coin-operated car at the mall for the first time this month. Truly, he would've been satisfied just sitting in the thing.

Note the black eye. Our little bruiser.

Favorite Food: Whole bananas! I don't know why it took me so long to give this boy a whole banana (as opposed to slicing one up for him), but he loves it!

Favorite Books: Martigan has really been loving the baby's first words kind of books in our collection, including The Baby's Catalogue by Janet and Allen Ahlberg, which I enjoyed when I was a wee one (our copy has crayon scribbles all over it, contributed by yours truly back in the 80's). I have to admit these are not always my favorite books to read him--they can be a little tedious, especially upon repeating. But, I try never to refuse to read a book to him--he's always loved books, and I want that to be a lifelong love.