After two years of serious use, our digital camera is finally on its way out. Most of the buttons have stopped working, I can't turn off the flash anymore(thus the yucky quality of some of these pictures), and I have to rubber-band the latch that keeps the batteries in shut. It also sucks the life out of batteries immediately. As digital cameras age, they lose their ability to efficiently utilize energy. I put brand new batteries in and the second I turn it on the "low battery" light flashes. I snapped a few last pictures for this post before completely laying the camera to rest, as I'm not sure how long it will be until we can replace it.
You may have noticed the size of my coffee cup. Those who know me well may recall that I usually prefer small cups for coffee, reserving the magnum mugs for tea. I haven't been getting good sleep lately and consequently have become a Big Cup Convert; the little cups just aren't enough to get me out of bed in the morning.
This griddle rocks my world. I'd been asking for one for a while, and this Christmas my mother-in-law gave me this nice shiny one. I like making pancakes on the weekend, but it takes so long to make a reasonable quantity of them that I often end up darting between the table and the stove in a most unsociable manner. With this baby I can crank out six pancakes at a time and the whole thing wipes clean with a damp paper towel. It's a dream come true, and has revolutionized our weekend breakfasts.
And speaking of things that rock my world, um, yes. That tiny little girl perched contentedly on my husband's broad shoulders is Alessandra. I think we may need to borrow her. I always love seeing Aaron hold a tiny baby, but there is something particularly sweet about a big man holding a tiny
girl. Kind of whips the ovaries into a frenzy a little bit. Let's move on, lest I get pregnant just from looking at that picture too long.
And speaking of pregnancy and babies, here is my "baby" wearing the pajamas I bought for his big brother the day he was born. That is, I bought the pajamas for Jack on the day that Matteas was born. He was wearing the pants as well but declined to put them back on after I changed his morning diaper. My kids are oblivious to the fact that we're in the middle of winter; Jack is coloring(and singing) at the table in his underwear. It's not because I'm a negligent mother, it's just the way he likes to do things.
I'm excited to try this pasta. My trainer announced that she's going to turn all of her clients into hard-bodies by summer. To that end, she's asking everyone to make resolutions in the direction of working out more, making healthy additions to their diet and giving up any foods or habits that aren't conducive to achieving hard-body status. After thinking about the way I eat(lots and lots of vegetables, hardly any sugar, organic meats, brown rice instead of white) the only real offender I could come up with in my diet was white flour. Even then, I don't eat a lot of it. We have a whole-grain-only bread rule, but we do like our pasta. As luck would have it, this month's edition of Cook's Illustrated contains a taste-test review of whole grain pastas. PCC carries the brand that won(Bionaturae) and it's cheap. That big bag of fusilli was only $2.69. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm excited. My sneaky brother-in-law gives me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated every year for Christmas. He eats dinner at our house a lot, so anything he does to improve my culinary skills is of direct benefit to himself. It's a win-win situation because I love my Cook's Illustrated, and I've gotten so many great ideas/recipes/tips from their pages over the years. This year Tristan finally came clean, and on the card from Cook's Illustrated telling me I'd been given a gift subscription he wrote "Merry Christmas to me." It's a great gift actually, because it extends to just about anyone who's ever eaten dinner at my house. Way to be such a giver, Tristan.
On Monday nights, we have a tradition. Tristan and Trevor come over to watch Monday Night Football with Aaron, and I make soup. It's something that makes everyone happy because, while I'm not wild about football, I do love having a cozy dinner with friends. My Dad gave me a $100 gift certificate to JC Penny for Christmas, and I agonized over how to spend it. I really wanted to get something that I would use often and that would make me think fondly of my Dad, so after I wandered around the mall for a long time I was really pleased to find the perfect gift: a ginormous cauldron. You can't really tell from the above picture, but the thing takes up half of my stove. It has a 16 quart capacity. That's 4 gallons, y'all. Again, a gift that extends way beyond just me. I'm looking forward to steaming a lobster in it for our annual
Wedding Anniversary Dinner; the set up we rigged last year didn't work so well in our smaller pots.
The new bed we bought last week is lovely, but I'm afraid it hurts my neck. It could be coincidence, it could be the extra workouts I've been doing, it could be that hefting our old bed out and our new bed in caused my neck to go out of alignment; whatever the case, my neck has been in serious pain since the morning after I first slept in our new bed. This chaps my hide something fierce, because the bed is great for my lower back(the reason we got a new bed in the first place) and I didn't want to fix my back only to tax my neck. I went and saw my chiropractor yesterday who adjusted my neck and recommended this special, funky pillow. I'm not sure if it was one or the other that fixed the problem, but this morning my neck is feeling great. I think the pillow will take some getting used to, but the instant I put my head on it I felt my neck relax.
And just for fun, my new(temporary) profile picture on Facebook. It's
doppelganger week, and the look-alike gods finally decided to smile with favor on me; people have recently been telling me I look like Jennifer Garner instead of Molly Ringwald. Now, I'm sure Molly Ringwald is a lovely person, but I'd rather be compared to Jennifer Garner. The women in my family have this rule about our faces getting really, really round in adolescence, and my cheekbones were in hiding until I was about 23.
Aaron is off doing some much-deserved skiing, so I need to go tend my kids who are still running around without pants. I also need to reclaim my house from the clutches of all the toys and dirty dishes currently overrunning the place, and if I have any energy left after that it'll be Core Fusion time. Summer is just around the corner...
After two years of serious use, our digital camera is finally on its way out. Most of the buttons have stopped working, I can't turn off the flash anymore(thus the yucky quality of some of these pictures), and I have to rubber-band the latch that keeps the batteries in shut. It also sucks the life out of batteries immediately. As digital cameras age, they lose their ability to efficiently utilize energy. I put brand new batteries in and the second I turn it on the "low battery" light flashes. I snapped a few last pictures for this post before completely laying the camera to rest, as I'm not sure how long it will be until we can replace it.
You may have noticed the size of my coffee cup. Those who know me well may recall that I usually prefer small cups for coffee, reserving the magnum mugs for tea. I haven't been getting good sleep lately and consequently have become a Big Cup Convert; the little cups just aren't enough to get me out of bed in the morning.
This griddle rocks my world. I'd been asking for one for a while, and this Christmas my mother-in-law gave me this nice shiny one. I like making pancakes on the weekend, but it takes so long to make a reasonable quantity of them that I often end up darting between the table and the stove in a most unsociable manner. With this baby I can crank out six pancakes at a time and the whole thing wipes clean with a damp paper towel. It's a dream come true, and has revolutionized our weekend breakfasts.
And speaking of things that rock my world, um, yes. That tiny little girl perched contentedly on my husband's broad shoulders is Alessandra. I think we may need to borrow her. I always love seeing Aaron hold a tiny baby, but there is something particularly sweet about a big man holding a tiny girl. Kind of whips the ovaries into a frenzy a little bit. Let's move on, lest I get pregnant just from looking at that picture too long.
And speaking of pregnancy and babies, here is my "baby" wearing the pajamas I bought for his big brother the day he was born. That is, I bought the pajamas for Jack on the day that Matteas was born. He was wearing the pants as well but declined to put them back on after I changed his morning diaper. My kids are oblivious to the fact that we're in the middle of winter; Jack is coloring(and singing) at the table in his underwear. It's not because I'm a negligent mother, it's just the way he likes to do things.
I'm excited to try this pasta. My trainer announced that she's going to turn all of her clients into hard-bodies by summer. To that end, she's asking everyone to make resolutions in the direction of working out more, making healthy additions to their diet and giving up any foods or habits that aren't conducive to achieving hard-body status. After thinking about the way I eat(lots and lots of vegetables, hardly any sugar, organic meats, brown rice instead of white) the only real offender I could come up with in my diet was white flour. Even then, I don't eat a lot of it. We have a whole-grain-only bread rule, but we do like our pasta. As luck would have it, this month's edition of Cook's Illustrated contains a taste-test review of whole grain pastas. PCC carries the brand that won(Bionaturae) and it's cheap. That big bag of fusilli was only $2.69. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm excited. My sneaky brother-in-law gives me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated every year for Christmas. He eats dinner at our house a lot, so anything he does to improve my culinary skills is of direct benefit to himself. It's a win-win situation because I love my Cook's Illustrated, and I've gotten so many great ideas/recipes/tips from their pages over the years. This year Tristan finally came clean, and on the card from Cook's Illustrated telling me I'd been given a gift subscription he wrote "Merry Christmas to me." It's a great gift actually, because it extends to just about anyone who's ever eaten dinner at my house. Way to be such a giver, Tristan.
On Monday nights, we have a tradition. Tristan and Trevor come over to watch Monday Night Football with Aaron, and I make soup. It's something that makes everyone happy because, while I'm not wild about football, I do love having a cozy dinner with friends. My Dad gave me a $100 gift certificate to JC Penny for Christmas, and I agonized over how to spend it. I really wanted to get something that I would use often and that would make me think fondly of my Dad, so after I wandered around the mall for a long time I was really pleased to find the perfect gift: a ginormous cauldron. You can't really tell from the above picture, but the thing takes up half of my stove. It has a 16 quart capacity. That's 4 gallons, y'all. Again, a gift that extends way beyond just me. I'm looking forward to steaming a lobster in it for our annual Wedding Anniversary Dinner; the set up we rigged last year didn't work so well in our smaller pots.
The new bed we bought last week is lovely, but I'm afraid it hurts my neck. It could be coincidence, it could be the extra workouts I've been doing, it could be that hefting our old bed out and our new bed in caused my neck to go out of alignment; whatever the case, my neck has been in serious pain since the morning after I first slept in our new bed. This chaps my hide something fierce, because the bed is great for my lower back(the reason we got a new bed in the first place) and I didn't want to fix my back only to tax my neck. I went and saw my chiropractor yesterday who adjusted my neck and recommended this special, funky pillow. I'm not sure if it was one or the other that fixed the problem, but this morning my neck is feeling great. I think the pillow will take some getting used to, but the instant I put my head on it I felt my neck relax.
And just for fun, my new(temporary) profile picture on Facebook. It's doppelganger week, and the look-alike gods finally decided to smile with favor on me; people have recently been telling me I look like Jennifer Garner instead of Molly Ringwald. Now, I'm sure Molly Ringwald is a lovely person, but I'd rather be compared to Jennifer Garner. The women in my family have this rule about our faces getting really, really round in adolescence, and my cheekbones were in hiding until I was about 23.
Aaron is off doing some much-deserved skiing, so I need to go tend my kids who are still running around without pants. I also need to reclaim my house from the clutches of all the toys and dirty dishes currently overrunning the place, and if I have any energy left after that it'll be Core Fusion time. Summer is just around the corner...
2 comments:
My my, you've been talking a lot about pregnancy lately. I know there a lot of reasons NOT to get pregnant...but, I'm just sayin' :)
Honestly, I have pregnancy on the mind too. You can't blame me, you see, I just watched the season premiere of 19 Kids and Counting! It made me cry though, because of that tiny 1lb 6oz baby of theirs. But I love that family to death. Not that I think I could have that many (besides, I'm already way behind) :)
P.S.
I love that metal detail behind your stove. I want it!
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