I have to throw away my flat-iron.

You see, I have three curly-haired daughters and when they come to me (well, two of them anyway) in tears because their hair won’t “lay down flat” I wonder what I’m teaching them by having that thing out on the bathroom counter.

I want them to be confident and proud of their hair.

 Lucky for me, unique is “in” these days. But I still want to set a good example.

They’re beautiful – inside and out and I want them to always feel that way.

So for me, it’s out with the straight, flat hair and in with the curls.

Something tells me that these three girls will be teaching me a lot throughout the next few years.

I wanted to pick pears the other night – I had some time and the pears were getting ripe. I was sort of dreading it though because I knew it would take forever to pick this tree (it was LOADED) and that caring for Peanut would make the chore even longer. When I got home from the grocery store, the Cotton Husband was at home and one of his buddies had dropped by as well. They’d had a little to drink (Water, you guys. What did you think I meant?) and decided they were going to go with me to pick pears because the tree belongs to man who is a bachelor (Gasp!).

Hey – whatever makes the work lighter for me, right?

Like I said, the pears were getting really ripe (check out the expression on CH’s face and yes – he totally would have smeared that on his buddy. Jack’s no dummy, he was getting out of the way).

They were very efficient about picking.

I won’t lie. I practically did nothing except take pictures for y’all and take care of Peanut.

She loves, loves, loves being outside. She’ll be crying and fussy and then just – stop – as soon as we step out of the door.

They even carried the pears to the car for me. There were maybe six or seven grocery bags full. And thanks to the good old-fashioned male competitive spirit that tree was practically bare in 15 minutes flat.

One of the guys did a little less work than the others though. I’ll give you three guesses.

“Hey there Sugar. What’re you doing?”

“Me? I’m just standing here. Innocently. Not doing anything.”

“Not!”

“Hahahahahahaha!! Gotcha!”

Gee. Like I didn’t see that one coming. The man would wither up and die if he couldn’t play around like a little kid. I’m convinced of it.

I’m up to my elbows in pears.

Pear baby food, pear sauce…

Pear preserves… wait, I’m starting to sound like that guy on Forrest Gump.

More to come on the making of all that and also how I came to have allllllll these pears in the first place.

(Hint: This guy had something to do with it)

But first let me get these pears under control. This could take awhile.