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Digging, Watching, Reading

What I'm Digging
I picked up a big box of Tasty Bite brand Madras Lentils from Costco a while back after having a very tasty sample. It's basically lentil soup in an airtight pouch that does not even need refrigeration – reheating is optional as well, though recommended. The ingredient list is short (and entirely pronounceable), the nutritional data is sound, it's filling and TASTY. I was super-excited when I noticed that there's over 20 varieties of Indian food for me to try. Excellent to have in my desk when the unexpected happens or at night when Matt's gone and I don't feel like cooking … though I doubt it will be replacing my beloved Yak & Yeti.

Remember the Milk (RTM) has become my go-to task list organizer. It has a component for the Vista sidebar as well as apps for other flavors of windows and Mac's OsX and also integrates with my Android phone using a program called Astrid. You can also add to your lists via email, which makes it very easy to keep up a honey-do list.

I just got a few new fun spring pieces at Old Navy and I've got my eye on a few more, plus some for Tabby and maybe Matt (Ben doesn't fit the Old Navy so well). I also just learned (a day too late, since a lot of the stuff I want is on clearance and probably won't have the right sizes if I wait) that every Tuesday, you get 10% off with your Old Navy card … you can also currently use “THANKYOU” to get $10 off and as usual, “MYCARD” for free shipping. Continue reading “Digging, Watching, Reading”

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What I've Been Up To

You may not even have noticed, because I don't think too many people read this anymore, but I've been a bit absent. My excuses in no particular order:

• Chasing my darling, sweet and sometimes infinitely challenging offspring.
• Training for that darned half-marathon.
• Perfecting the feathered flip (ala Farrah Fawcett).
• Not taking photographs.
• Watching Chuck (more about that tomorrow … ish).
• My freelance gig.
• Designing a new website (for me!) – have spent approximately 30 minutes on this.
• Playing sudoku.
• Wiping down the counters, paying the bills, picking up the house (the maintenance part of housekeeping).
• Keeping up with laundry. Seriously, I was reminiscing with Matt the other day about how BC (before children) – we'd only do like 2 loads of laundry per week. Now? At least 5.
• Planning, shopping for and preparing nutritious, delicious meals for the family.
• My day job and commuting to/from my day job.
• Daydreaming about summer whilst looking out the window and admiring our gorgeous weather.
• Not sleeping very much.
• Dodging calls from the super-pushy T*mobile sales lady.
• Neglecting our poor dog (he needs a bath and a walk, stat!).
• Contemplating planning Ben's b'day party.
• Taking Tabby and Ben to get “fish sticks” at GB Fish & Chips.
• Adding to my 4 page to-do list.
• Thinking “I should really blog!”

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Feelin' Good Links

I am in an excellent mood, despite the fact that I'm on hold with Sprint. Again. It's pretty much the end of my week and I have a good, busy day ahead, I have good plans for the evening (girls night out) and practically NO plans for the weekend. Anyhoo, while I am so indisposed, I will show you some of my fave links the past couple of weeks. The full compliment is (as usual) available here.

• I am *so* taking the Queen Mary 2 the next time I go to Europe (ha!)
• Note to self: no more Happy Meals (P.S. I can independently verify the staying power of the fries, or at least the space under my seats can).
• Did I mention I MUST make these Cheese Crackers??
• SOOO cute Super Hero Party (maybe when Ben turns 3)
• Cool free printables for Planning Your Garden
• Another awesome party idea (maybe for Ben's 1st b'day this year??), a Milk and Cookies party!!
• A lovely post from Ohdeedoh on ways to enjoy the family dinner table
• More food on a stick: Pizza Pops!
• When I get back to NYC, I'm going back to Pearl River Market
• As much as I love my CL Desktop, I cannot wait to check out the Etsy Browser
• $100 I probably don't need to spend, though Loki would probably love it
• A guide to Cheap Printing
• Hilarious letters from Little Billy
• I do lurve the Mad Men Barbies
• Some really cute kids cakes (wonder how hard they are??)
• Cute Etsy shop with great patterned party tubs
• Neat and different photo display with shutters.

Hope you find something you like!

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Ben … almost a year!

Well here we are; almost a year has passed since Ben arrived on the scene, cute, cuddly and hungry. The past month has been an interesting one. I have felt like is on the verge of walking for a month now and still, no dice. He is great at balance and can stand in the middle of the room unassisted and bend down and stretch up and clap his hands, but no walking. He can even get up from a crawl in the middle of the room! But no walking. Ah well, soon enough.

Not that not walking is slowing him down. He is lightning fast on all-fours and can get into trouble quicker than I ever thought possible. Tabby was “easy” in this way … you told her “no” once and she heard you loud and clear and would usually obey quickly. Ben hears you loud and clear (and then shakes his head and says “na na na!” back to us), but he goes back to whatever it is he’s doing a few seconds later. He LOVE the toilet and would happily splash around in there if we’d let him. He also loves to turn on the bath tub. Luckily he can only reach the cold so far, but we are trying to keep him away so he doesn’t get any big ideas. Trouble for sure!

He is saying Mama and Dada with definite purpose. Every once in a while you could swear he mimics another word, but it isn’t repeated. He gives kisses when asked and loves to snuggle, unless he wants to go go go. He will mimic the sign for milk now, though I have not seen him use it to ask for his bottle just yet.

There are days when he eats us out of house and home and days where he hardly wants anything but a bottle. Cheese tortellini and meatballs seem to be the perennial favorite and he loves berries, waffles and scrambled eggs as well. He will smear anything tasty all over himself, particularly in his hair. It’s as though he wants to add touch to his sensory eating experience.

He is heart-meltingly sweet and snuggly and I am ever-happy to be his mommy and I love to spend time with him.

Sizes: No idea on height/weight, though he seems to have slowed some. Hanging around 24 mos, though he wears some things on each side, size 6.5 shoes (extra wide).
Likes: playing in water, climbing things, snuggles, music, his piano, his blanky and doggie
Dislikes: being put back to sleep without being offered, having something (anything) taken away from him, sleeping in

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What's Cooking: Volume 8

So one of the projects for this weekend was to clean out the pantry and freezer (I do the fridge pretty much weekly). Matt and I were both amazed how quickly we can now accomplish this. Partly it was because the kids were out of the house, but mostly, I think, because we have gotten more of a system in place and we do it more frequently so it doesn't get quite so bad.

We also found far fewer things to use up, just things that we definitely don't need to buy more of (couscous, quinoa). We do, however, need to get a few things out of the freezer, so I planned our menu to use those up.

We will be making salmon with lemon relish (only had to buy a couple of lemons to accommodate this), taco salad (just an avocado), stirfry (nothing!), and tamale pie (also nothing!). It was a pretty cheap week grocery-wise. I also found an awesome recipe for cheez-it/goldfish style crackers that I'm itching to try. We also got a batch of not-so-awesome strawberries late last week and I think I will make these into some muffins, rather than waste them.

What's going on in your kitchen?

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Speed Limit 30 MPH

Yowsa. That was one busy weekend. The only downside (besides having to work my arse off to work 40 hours in 4 days) to having my Fridays off that I can see is that our life is a bit more like college than you'd imagine: weekends start on Thursday evenings.

Thursday: work all day, come home a tad bit early, run 3 miles, pick up kids from sitters, dinner @ Wahoo's because I cannot stand to clean the kitchen again, Matt's brother comes over to play with kids, bedtime is late
Friday: playdate in the AM, late lunch, late nap, late run interrupted by my cat-napper, wake up Tabby from nap, dinner with friends, holy crap it's 9:30!, home late
Saturday: gym, drop kids with mom, lunch out, home to work on this and that, dinner with mom, sister, kids, head home around 9:30 (again)
Sunday: gym, birthday party, swimming at birthday party, home for lunch, kids down for naps, I go grocery shopping, come home, make dinner, long walk, clean playroom (from playdate on Fri), kids to bed, freelance work, relax and watch Chuck until too late.

It was really nice. I probably wouldn't have cut out a single thing (except maybe some of the WORK I had to do), but man am I tired this morning!!

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What's Cooking: Volume 7

It's another funky week (wonder when it will be a normal one?). Owing to being out of town (and Matt going skiing on Monday instead of coming home with us) and not being able to do grocery shopping over the weekend, I did little or no meal-planning.

Monday night, exhausted from our trip and getting things back in order after it, I raided the freezer and pantry and fixed the kids some cheese tortellini and turkey meatballs. They both ate up huge portions in record time. I fixed myself some madras lentils which are about the tastiest prepared thing I've ever come across (and they have a very readable and short ingredient list).

Yesterday, we had a mad-dash to gather up dinner to take to a friend who had twins 6 wks ago. So I left work and did a quick dash to the store to gather just a couple of things and then I whipped up some BBQ Chicken burritos and a southwestern salad (corn, tomato, ranch mixed with salsa, avocado), with plenty left over for our family to have for dinner.

Today and Thursday will be leftovers from when we were out of town. I made large batches of Lamb Stew and Lemony Crab Pasta and they came home with us. A few days removed from the original meals and they are tasty all over again.

Planning on getting back on track next week!

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Lemony Crab Pasta

Ingredients
olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
14-16 oz lump crab meat
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup flat leaf (Italian parsley), finely chopped
12 oz spaghetti or linguine
chili oil and Parmesan to serve (optional)

Directions
Cook pasta according to package directions. While it is cooking, heat oil over medium high heat. Cook onions and garlic until translucent and beginning to become soft, about 5-7 minutes. Reduce heat. Add lemon zest, crab and heat through.

Toss pasta, crab mixture and parsley. Season with salt and pepper and lemon juice to taste. Serve with chili oil and Parmesan as desired.

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Checkin In

I am exhausted. We left right after work on Thursday and spent an amazing weekend in Vail. I really loved and appreciated the break. I have been working so hard and it was nice to do a few things with Matt and the kids and my family that weren't rushed. We loved skiing (gorgeous day on Friday) and watching movie and cooking and just goofing around. It was so nice just playing with the kids. They always surprise me.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. I stayed up too late last night doing some work that had to get done before today (which I put off until the last minute). And then I got up super early with the kids because Matt and my dad headed off to a remote resort for another day of skiing and I packed up and headed home with the kids. They played pretty well on their own while I got things put away, did laundry and picked up, but they were exhausted from our trip and had practically no naps, so it was early bedtime for them and now some relaxation time for moi.

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The Latest and Greatest

What I'm Digging
I am looking forward to summer!!! I get a catalog from Athleta or Title 9 on a weekly basis (or so it seems) and I'm drooling over the cute/sporty sundresses. The clothing aisles at Target are drool-worth too.

I am also perusing the Seed Savers catalog. I really doubt I'll have time to grow my own seedlings from seeds and will probably hit the nursery again for starters, but a girl can dream, right? Looks like it's time to pull out Animal Vegetable Miracle again!

What I'm Watching
We finished up Big Love Season 2 before it was due back at the library (w00t!). I really enjoyed the family dramas and the intrigue with the fundamentalists. The one thing that I think is pretty odd though is their secrecy within the family. Honestly, I would do a doubletake if I met someone with two wives (or husbands), but I wouldn't stop shopping at their stores or ostracize them. I think it would fascinate me. Am I in the minority on this? Polygamy itself doesn't offend me, it's the other terrible things that tend to go hand-in-hand with it (abuse and neglect, welfare fraud, etc.). Just sayin …

We also just picked up Samantha Who from the library and have watched about 4 episodes. It is cute and entertaining, though I am a bit skeptical that it can hold my interest long-term. Also got Season 2 of Chuck … as I have not yet watched Season 1, this is less useful that it might otherwise be.

My new favorite show for running is Biggest Loser. It's very motivating. If the 300+ lb. people on there can do these challenges, then surely I can finish my 6 mi. run without too much whining, right? But every time I watch it I am grateful for my Tivo. 2 hours long, tons of commercials and also break downs and interminable weigh-ins and discussions on who's getting kicked off. I can whittle the whole thing down to around 80 minutes. God Bless you, Tivo. Continue reading “The Latest and Greatest”