kcobweb

* I am sick. This sucks. The first symptom was general malaise and total brain-dead-ness. I've been staring off into space a lot. Now it's mostly a terrible sore throat.

* The timing is particularly bad, because classes just ended and my brain left just before everything was due. Fortunately, I'd done the bulk of the work already, so most of my final review process consisted of "well, these all seem to be complete sentences, so I guess I'm probably good to go." ::click submit::

* I am now done with my first quarter! Vacation!

* galagan left today to go to Las Vegas with boylawyer and his lovely wife and elklad and a few other somebodies? I don't begrudge him the trip at all, but I'm really not in the right frame of mind to be fulltime single parenting. See above re: sick. I have about a thimbleful of patience right now, and it's being continuously overturned by a whiny child. So to speak.

* I am making a beef stew, because I was randomly craving something like that last week, and the departure of the house vegetarian means it's time to cook meat! I never cook meat, so I feel like such a clueless idiot whenever I do. Wait, is this right? Is that? Aaaagh. So far, it smells lovely though, so I'm calling it good.

I'm sure there are other insightful and pithy comments I could make or updates I could update on, but my brain is at the dribblin' down da brain level, so I'll wrap it up. Back to watching bad TV and playing silly games.

For dinner, I made a Phyllo-Crusted Goat Cheese and Lentil Pie which was fabulous. There is now an apple crisp in the oven. And I'm snacking on almonds covered in toffee and dark chocolate. My life, she is yummy today.

muliebrity has asked for my aloo gobi recipe, so you all get to see one of our favorite dinners ( under the cut. )

(muliebrity (or anyone else, too), if this version is too spicy, I have another version somewhere, which is sweeter. I think it has apple juice. Let me know.)

* I am clearly in a cooking *mood*. Last night I was craving some sort of grain salad, and couldn't find a recipe that fit what I was imagining, so I made up a recipe from thin air, which I practically never do. I am usually tied to the words written down on paper. Anyway, it is bulgur, canned white beans, steamed green beans, bell pepper, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and lots of lemon zest and is super-tasty. And now I am bringing a brine to a boil, which will then cool overnight, and tomorrow will be put into jars with dill and garlic cloves and cucumbers: Cold Brine Dill Pickles! Yay!

* I did a bit of practice for the icky GRE writing section. It did not totally suck. I just need to remember how to write coherent grammatical statements, yo.

* Mmmm, how did it get to be the end of June already? That's just crazy talk.

* I also realized that I haven't done an Elena post in a while, so the rest goes ( behind a cut )

* Beautiful fabulous weather out there. Yeah. I've been out there pulling dandelions and weeds, and planting seeds, and brutally clipping back the nasty bushes I hate.

* We are making the effort to be more organized with our weekly menu planning (as in, actually doing so) and thus we're actually cooking every night (instead of making shit up at the last minute) and have uncovered some new recipes. This week I just dug in my recipe box for some new ideas and pulled out a whole stack. Tonight's was a fabulously yummy Shrimp and Chickpea Pasta, which we all loved. Yum.

* Elena has started playing a new game: she runs into our bedroom and gets up on the bed and pulls the blankets over her head. Then she pops out. Over and over. We call her name, or we poke her and say "What's this lump?" or we tickle her.... But the best part of it is the name - she calls it "going to Texas". Sometimes "I am going to Texas on vacation." (We're really not sure why.) This leads to many amusing conversations and statements, like "You may only go to Texas two more times, and then we need to put your pajamas on."

* For the locals: I am singing in a concert on Sunday, and you should come hear it. Very small chorus: there are only 10 of us altogether. Thompson Chapel, 2 p.m., Haydn's Missa Brevis de St. Johannis and a couple of fabulous dark and broody Bruckner motets. It should be gorgeous.

* I'm sure I had another bullet point, but I guess I'll have to save it for another day.

I have a Big Girl here, did I tell you? After months of discussion, recitation of key bits of the video Potty Power (on her part), realizing that some of her cool friends were doing it (rivka, your Alex's visit was timed very well), etc. etc., Elena has voluntarily peed in her potty several times. Even without prompting, today!! We are by no means out of the woods, but I can tell that there is a path, and we'll get there.

Also, she has a Big Girl Bed!! Mattress and box spring on the floor - just the perfect height for her to climb up on. She slept in it 2 nights now (and one nap - working on Nap #2 as we speak), and it's been fine. No problem. She's still so excited about it that every time we walk into her room, she yells "I have a Big Girl Bed!"

I've started putting her hair in a single ponytail on the back of her head - she requests it as her "special new hairstyle", and it makes her look older (and her hair look like 8 feet longer).

All her peers are starting to turn 3 years old. Wow.

And she'll come out with the most interesting things to say. She saw some rope in the garage, and started talking about jump-rope. Where'd she get that from? (It occurs to me now, while typing, that Sesame Street has shown jump-rope snippets a time or two. That must be it.)

..... So, what should I make for dinner tonight? Mushroom barley soup, or this?
ETA: galagan voted for the soup, and his is the vote that really counts, so I guess we'll have nummy tofu-and-brussels-sprouts tomorrow.

--I looooove food catalogs. I love browsing through them, in a window-shopping kind of way. I never buy anything from them. We had a Harry & David catalog the other day; today's mail brought a Wolferman's catalog. I used to be on Dean and Deluca's mailing list - all those cured meats and fancy cheeses! Yum, food porn. I find myself especially drawn to the basket o' varied goodies that these places do. Those things just look like yummy fun.

--I am having great difficulties with automated systems this week, but I think I finally got everything straightened out. I hope.

--I am recuperating from my admittedly minor cold, but everyone else in the house is coughing a lot now. Elena is majorly crabby. galagan is running a *marathon* in less than a week, and needs his health and his full lung capacity, please.

--Yes, a marathon. A full bloody 26 miles. In Seattle on Sunday. Is he crazy? You decide.

--I am finally learning how to knit, and am doing enough to make it stick in my brain. I like to learn by doing, and I have to figure it out myself (who's stubborn? whatever do you mean?). Because I'm stoopid, I'm using sub-par yarn with too-big needles, but I like the way it looks, and so I'll tell everyone that I meant for that to happen. :) Sub-par yarn is because it's recycled from an ugly child's sweater vest that I didn't want to put on Elena - so I unraveled it. Because it's unraveled, the plies are all coming untwisted and all that. Whatever. Like I said, I like the way it looks, so that's okay. And I'm just making a simple scarf, because I figured that if I knitted a million rows over and over that would be good practice for the general form. I've got knitting down, but haven't figured out how to hold the needles and the yarn and do everything at once while I'm purling, without a handy-dandy third hand. I can never hold things the way books tell you to. :)

--I have cubes of bread drying in the kitchen. I'm making stuffing from *scratch* this year! Woohoo!

--I will also be making green bean casserole, because that is our do-or-die Thanksgiving dish here. Tomorrow happens to be the.... 11th anniversary of our first date, which in 1996 was a Friday. Thanksgiving was the following Thursday, and galagan showed up at our door with a green bean casserole. He and I have had it every year since. :)

We were out for a little while this evening, and when we came home, there was a whole bag full of tomatoes and peppers hanging on the doorknob. Presumably from our neighbor who we got veggies from yesterday. I'm going to make gazpacho tomorrow - yum - but what can I do to thank her? I was thinking about making some cookies to take to her. All I know is that she's an older woman, and married, and has a garden to keep herself busy (that's what she told me the one time I met her). Cookies? Or something else?

Meanwhile - gazpacho!!!!

( It's been a lovely weekend. )

And now I'm *still* trying to decide what to make for dinner. Any suggestions? Must be veggie-friendly. Major points if it's made from ingredients that are already in our possession. *grin*
ETA: It's gonna be Chickpea Stew. Why o why do I always have such difficulty deciding what to make? I'm a looooooser.

Everyone's a-twitter about Potterdammerung spoilers, so I availed myself of the opportunity and peeked. Don't worry - I have no interest in spoiling anyone. Each to her own, I say. I found, with Book 6, that spoiling myself on the Big Stuff meant that I could actually read individual pages of the book and enjoy it, instead of hurling myself headlong through, skipping most of, well, everything. After peeking, I realized that even if what I saw was a fake, it doesn't matter, because now I *think* I know, and therefore, I can read more calmly. *shrug* I won't even be getting a book on Saturday (because I own most of them in paperback, so I'd prefer to wait till that's issued) - though I did put a hold on a library copy. We'll see how long that takes / how far down the list I am.

I made peach cobbler this afternoon, which is all allthatjazmyne's fault. It was a bit of a comedy of errors with the topping: the Bisquick had bugs in it; found the Joy of Cooking, which says you should use half a recipe of biscuit dough; had plenty of trouble cutting the butter into the flour, and then when I was done with that step, paused to wonder if I halved the butter, or put in the full amount? Either way - the topping seemed fine (a little extra butter never hurt anyone, right?), and I just tasted it and it is yummy. I kept thinking that my grandmother (whose cobbler recipe it is) would be *laughing* at me: silly girl, can't even make biscuits??