Sprouts!

I have sprouts in my little seed pots! The tomatoes are growing like crazy. Observe:

Saturday morning:


Sunday afternoon:


I'm going to have to buy bigger containers soon.

The cinnamon basil is also pushing above the soil, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the tomatoes.

Mmmm, Tomatoes

In the depths of winter I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and immediately wished I had a small farm where I could grow all my own food for a year too.* I've been itching to grow something - preferably something edible - ever since.

I had Friday off of work and ran some errands, including going to the Home Depot to get keys made. While they were making the keys, I wandered over to the gardening section to pick up a new pot for a plant I want to bring from home to work. I found a pretty red pot and as I was walking back to the key station I passed the many racks of seeds, which lured me over.

See, I've had this idea for awhile that since we don't even have a yard, maybe I could try indoor container gardening. We have a HUGE window in the dining room that faces north and is already starting to get full sunlight for the majority of the day.

So I grabbed some cinnamon basil seeds and some Roma tomato seeds. When I got home, I planted the basil in one little pot and the tomatoes in two little pots that we had hanging around for just such an occasion (thank you Target dollar bin). Now I'm anxiously waiting to see if I can get them to grow. Fingers crossed.

We also have this awesome thing called an AeroGrow that some friends gave us for a wedding present, which will ostensibly produce an entire herb garden with no muss or fuss. We were just waiting until after the holidays and our trip to India to set it up. Actually, we wanted to do it this weekend, but ran out of time. Maybe tonight.

Luckily Tiny shows no interest at all in my plants, unlike every other cat I've ever known. He likes to share the sun with the plants, but that's about it. So I don't have to worry about him nibbling any shoots that might pop up.


* Although I would probably be a little squeamish about killing the chickens and turkeys for food. Yes, I'm an omnivore and a hypocrite.

My Taste is Too Posh

Jason gave me the go ahead to buy these pretty blue sheets that I saw this weekend* because I really want some lighter bed linens for Spring and Summer and my former lighter linens went with my former bed, which is currently being used by Jason's sister.

I got the nice blue sheets. I would rather not just have the down comforter by itself on top of the sheets since it will get cat hair and such on it. What I would really like is a white or off-white mattelasse coverlet OR some white, off-white, blue and white or blue and off-white duvet cover. Something light, but removable that I can wash.

I went looking on the Crate and Barrel website and found this.

Brushing aside the whole floral thing, which Jason would probably not be too keen on, although he might be okay with it since it's subtle, the queen duvet cover is $279.

!!!!

So I will not be getting the pretty, pretty duvet cover.

This never fails. I can look at a whole catalog of stuff and without even looking, I will fall in love with the most expensive item. I really should have been an heiress.


* Downside of marriage they don't mention that much: having to, like, check with another person before making big purchases. Especially if those purchases involve something that the other person will be dining on, sleeping on, bathing with or cooking in. Total drag.

Sunday Dinner

Happy Easter everyone! A little late, but yesterday was very busy. Jason sang at the Saturday night service and 2 Sunday morning services up in Cambridge so we swapped houses on Saturday night with a friend who lives in Belmont, but had to sing Saturday night and Sunday morning down in Providence. It was nice to go back to Christ Church and I really love the Easter services. As I was leaving the 9 AM service on Sunday I saw the rector who married us and he gave me a kiss on the cheek and asked, "Off to more church?" I said, "Yep, I've still got a couple of more hours. But so do you." He said, "Yes, and then I'm taking a nap!"

So while Jason sang at the 11 AM service I went over to the singles ward down the street and caught up with several friends. I didn't realize how long it had been since I had talked with them since a couple of them didn't even know about my Providence job. I now have tentative dinner plans with 6 or 7 people on the days I'm working in Newton.

Jason picked me up right after he finished and we booked it down to Providence so I could start cooking. Jason took a little nap (Holy Week is busy for singers) and then tidied up the place before our guests showed up. We had 8 adults, 3 babies and a toddler. Jason said I did white people everywhere proud.

All of our friends' kids are awesome, but we get so worn out after just an evening with them. All the babies and us teaching in Primary is proving to be effective birth control. I said to Jason last night, "We're not doing that for awhile, right?" To which he replied, "Sounds good to me."

I made two hams yesterday, which was too much. But I wasn't sure if one would be enough, and at least now we have leftovers and sent leftovers home with people. I also made my famous sweet potatoes with the pecan topping. My mom actually invented them, but I've developed a reputation for them now since I make them at any opportunity.

Our guests brought spinach salad, quinoa salad, corn, cinnamon rolls, trifle (made with amazing Swedish cake that I really need the recipe for, Jessica), Jello with fruit and Italian cake. Everything was so good.

I glazed the hams with the following (measurements are for one 5-10 lb ham):
1/4 C. brown sugar
1 C. honey
2/3 C. unsalted butter
1/4 t. ground cloves

Warm all the ingredients over low heat, stirring frequently, until the butter has melted and everything is mixed together. Place the ham in a shallow baking dish lined with foil. Baste with about a third of the glaze mixture. Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes per pound, basting with the reserved glaze every 20 minutes (I turned the heat under the glaze off between bastings and then warmed briefly again before basting). After the final glaze basting, turn the heat up to 425 and bake for 8-10 minutes to harden the glaze.

The front couple pieces of ham got overglazed and a little burnt, which I'm not quite sure how to remedy. But we just peeled those off and the rest of it was fabulous.

I need to start taking pictures of the food I make.

Anyone have any good ham leftover recipes you want to share?

Happy Spring!

And in the spirit of renewal, last night I went downstairs to do a load of laundry (I try to space it out over the week so I don't have to do 6 loads on Saturday or something ridiculous like that) and there was another note from the neighbor at the bottom of my note.

He said, "I understand. But this time it was different. I had just put the clothes in.* It was my old roommate who used to leave the clothes down here all the time.** SORRY."

* Um, no, since as I pointed out I left for an hour and when I came back the clothes hadn't moved.
** The quiet roommate moved away a couple of months ago to make room for one of the noisy roommate's noisy friends. Way to pass the buck, though.

So I guess we got a sort of apology. I was laughing with Jason last night over how he underlined "this" and "different" as if we were supposed to know that this time was not like the others. Anyway, at least I'm not afraid he's going to key our cars. I call that a good day.

Grrr The Neighbors Grrr

So Jason and I have these upstairs neighbors. They’re punks. We try not to tick them off because we’d rather not have our cars keyed by them or a member of their hordes of friends who come over to party EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

We have had to go up a few times to tell them to turn down their bass. We have also had to go upstairs while one of us waits with the car so one of them or their friends can move their cars enough to allow us to park. There are 6 parking spaces and 4 tenant cars (2 of ours, 2 of theirs). However, since one of the neighbors habitually parks diagonally, that takes us down to 5 spaces. Then their friends come over to party and they take whatever is left. So imagine how annoying it is to come home to a 6 parking space lot, of which you’re supposed to have 2 spots, and realize you have nowhere to park. Never mind that their friends can park on the empty street just as well as in the lot. The neighbors always apologize and turn the bass down or move their cars, but apologies mean nothing when you KEEP DOING IT.

After a particularly raucous night several months ago, the screen on the back door had a large gash in it. Another time we came home to a drawing of a p*n*s and some profanities scrawled lovingly to one of the guys upstairs. They have friends running in and out of there constantly and they do not walk softly up and down those stairs. Or in the apartment for that matter. Actually, I’m kind of convinced that they rearrange their furniture regularly based on the noises coming through the ceiling.

Another fun thing they do is mess up the laundry area in the basement with piles and piles of their clothes for days at a time. Their clothes will be everywhere and in order for us to do laundry we have to move their clothes out of the washer and/or dryer. I have personally removed damp clothes from the washer that had been there so long they seriously smelled of mold. Our landlady recently replaced the free, but broken, washer and dryer with new coin-op machines. It’s only 75 cents per wash and dry and I would gladly pay that for working machines just downstairs from us.

The pay factor seemed to have thwarted the neighbors’ laundry efforts for awhile. I figured they had just stopped doing laundry and were living surrounded by their own filth. However, this past week, they’ve started doing laundry again and, yes, I’ve had to move their clothes again.

So that brings us to yesterday evening. I came home from work and got ready to go to the gym. I figured I would start a load of wash before I left since I would only be gone a little longer than the wash cycle. I went downstairs and true to form, pulled some wet clothes out of the washer and started mine. When I came home AN HOUR LATER, the wet clothes I pulled out were still piled on top of the dryer. So I moved my stuff out of the washer and into the dryer (oh and unloaded the neighbor’s stone cold dry clothes from the dryer in the process).

I went down about 45 minutes later to get the clothes out of the dryer and found my still wet clothes piled on the dryer with the neighbor’s clothes now inside the dryer, churning away. On top of my clothes was a note from the neighbor that started with the line, “Sorry, but I was here first.” He finished it by saying, “PS I put in my own 75 cents.” Well, good for you. But I put in 75 cents too and you wasted it.

I was livid. After all we have put up with, especially with the laundry!

I flipped his note over and left him a note of my own in which I said, “Yes, you were here first, but I left the house for an hour and when I came back your clothes were in the exact same place. There have been many times when your clothes have been left down here for days. I had no way of knowing when you would be back.

I set a timer to let me know when I need to get my clothes out of the washer or dryer. Let’s agree that you will do the same thing or else you will not touch our clothes. We are not going to wait around indefinitely for you to get around to doing your laundry.”

What I really wanted to do was go upstairs and give him a good swift kick to the head.

And here’s the kicker. The sanctimonious brat LEFT while his clothes were in the dryer. He was gone for several hours and I once again had to move his stuff out of the way to dry mine, thus proving my point exactly.

I was fuming! You can ask Jason. Little punks! Who do they think they are? See, I’m getting angry again. And that kid owes me 75 cents.

Jason and I love our apartment and really hope we can wait them out. They have to graduate at some point, right…? Supposedly they go to Providence College, to which I say, Why are you living near Brown?! Wishful thinking? Housing is cheaper near Providence College so it doesn’t make much sense. I seriously doubt their student status though since they party every night and never sleep.

Unfortunately the rental market is pretty stagnant and even though the landlady knows most of what goes on, she’s not about to get rid of paying tenants. And it’s not like they’ve done anything evictable. They’ve just done their best to be large pains in our behinds.

Crazy Kids

As I mentioned before, Jason and I are the new teachers of the 10 and 11 year olds in our Primary.* As I also mentioned before, this sort of scared me to death.

We have 5 boys and supposedly 2 girls. I say "supposedly" because I've only seen the girls once and that was the Sunday we were just helping out, not actually teaching. And, you know, it's great that ALL 5 BOYS have been coming to church, but that means we have ALL 5 BOYS in the class. 2 of them have ADD, I'm pretty sure a 3rd does as well and besides that, they're 10 and 11 year old boys.

A week ago was our first week. The lesson was on King Benjamin.** I had this bright idea to make a crown out of cardboard (a cut up Kleenex box) and aluminum foil, then have the kids come up and each play King Benjamin by wearing the crown and reading one of the king's teachings from the scriptures. Jason made a Power Point presentation with pictures that we showed at the end.

I figured the kids would either love the whole crown thing or think it was totally lame. Turns out, they loved it.

In concept, this was all orderly and nice, but in reality the kids would be quiet for oh, about 2 seconds, and we would only get through the first few words of the scripture before we would have to tell someone to be quiet or sit down or put his chair down on the floor. But they loved wearing the crown and being the king and saying things like, "Silence! The king is speaking!" before they started reading, which cracked me up.

I totally understand. They're kids and this is the 3rd hour of 3-hour church and they're about ready to jump out of their skin after having had to sit for 2 hours already. I mean, sometimes I find it hard to get through 3 whole hours of church.

This week Jason gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting*** so I planned the whole lesson. I was thinking that the best thing to do would be to get the kids out of their seats. This week the lesson was on Abinadi and King Noah. So I brought the crown back and 3 of the boys played King Noah, Abinadi and Alma. Then one of the other boys was a narrator. Right off the bat, one of the boys got really mad that I didn't pick him for King Noah. Whatever. Eventually he joined in when I told him he could be a guard and lead Abinadi to prison. He liked that.

I labeled parts of the room "Prison", "Wilderness" (where both Abinadi and Alma got to run to and hide, which they interpreted to mean huddle in the corner and cover themselves with coats. Ooookay.), and "Court", as in the King's Court. King Noah and Alma sat in the court area (Alma was wearing Mardi Gras beads to signify his riches and jewels obtained from King Noah's heavy taxation of the people). After running away and hiding, Abinadi came back in disguise (a ski cap and dark sunglasses). The boy playing Abinadi also identified himself as "Bob" because, see, he was in disguise. All the boys totally dug the fact that Abinadi and King Noah got burned alive and we had some dramatic death scenes (I taped construction paper flames on the wall).

I had a whole script written out, but I think we probably got through a third of it, maybe. We got the whole story out, but we skipped big segments of this nicely scripted stuff I had written. There is no script when you're surrounded by chaos.

And there was chaos. They all LOVED it, but they went a little nuts, running around and yelling. I figured it was better than trying to keep them quiet and seated, but it was definitely draining. I told them at the end that we need them to act good in order for us to do fun things like this. I don't know how much sunk in. We also had a member of the bishopric there to help and he gave them mini lectures periodically, which were fine, but I feel like it's giving the impression that he's the real authority because, as Jason noted afterwards, "They seem to listen to him more than us." Maybe we're just not commanding enough. Maybe it's the fact that he's in the bishopric. Or maybe it just signals to the kids that we're not really the ones in charge.

After class, the kids left and Jason went to go put the Books of Mormon away and I just sat in the classroom, reveling in the silence.

We have next week off, but we'll be back in 2 weeks. I really like doing creative lessons and getting these kids active, and they really like it too, but Jason and I apparently have no clue how to keep the chaos under some semblance of control. Any ideas?


* Mormon Sunday School
** We're studying the Book of Mormon stories right now so apologies to those who aren't Mormon and don't know these stories.
*** And it was great!

Sunday Night Dinner

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a few friends over last night for corned beef. Easy meal.

Put 3-4 lb. corned beef in 8 qt stockpot with 3 quarts of water and either the contents of the spice package that comes with it, or about 1 1/2 T. of pickling spice. Simmer for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Add 1 lb. carrots and 1 onion, sliced in half and then quartered. Simmer for 45 minutes. Add 2 lbs potatoes and 1 head of cabbage, cored and cut into wedges. Simmer for 45 minutes. Remove beef from pot and slice. Remove vegetables with slotted spoon into large bowl.

Our friends made chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Come Ooon!

I am big fan of winter and snow and such generally, but always about this time of year, I start itching for warmth again. I'm grateful that Boston is pretty sunny and keeps the Seasonal Affective Disorder at bay the majority of the time, as opposed to Chicago where I felt like it was cloudy for 9 months of the year and wanted to shoot myself by May. So the sun is great, but I'm getting irritated with putting on my big coat and getting smacked in the face with cold every day.

It's not like it's THAT cold either, I've just reached my limit for this year.

I want it to be warm and I want to wear sandals and cute skirts and tops and go skipping down the street with a basket of flowers. Or something.

I also want to start swimming laps again, but the idea of waking up early on a cold morning to go jump in a pool isn't appealing. Regardless, I think I'm going to try to swim laps at least once next week. If for no other reason than I'm getting a little tired of the elliptical.

What I would really like is if somewhere in New England there existed an outdoor lap pool. I miss outdoor pools. Indoor pools are just dank, but at least the one I go to now has a lot of windows so it doesn't feel quite as much like a chlorine-scented chamber of awfulness.

Anyway, my point is, weather, get warm. Oh and no more of this wind nonsense. I am so over wind chill.

Sunday Night Dinner

Edited to add a recipe.

Cranberry Orange Glazed Pork Chops - this was sort of experimental and it turned out really good.

• 8 pork chops, about 3/4-inch thick
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup cranberry juice
  
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons cranberry-orange marmalade (I got mine from a cranberry shop in Plymouth, but you could probably use orange marmalade, up the cranberry juice and decrease the orange juice a bit, throw in some chopped craisins and call it good)
  
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar

In a large, heavy skillet, brown pork chops on both sides in hot oil. Season pork chops with salt and pepper. Drain off excess fat.

In a bowl, combine orange juice, cranberry juice, brown sugar, marmalade and vinegar. Pour over the pork chops. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Uncover and continue simmering for 15 minutes, or until pork chops are tender and glazed. Turn off heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes, in an effort to thicken up the sauce (which didn't happen that well for me, but it still tasted good)

Remove pork chops to plate and spoon sauce over pork chops.

Serves 8, or 4 hungry people.
Adapted from this recipe

Braised Carrots
Baguette (from the store)

I am making some bread as we speak. It's rising.

Um, I'm making a LOT of bread, kind of inadvertently.

See, I wanted to make 3 loaves this time, only I got my wheat bread recipe confused with my pumpkin bread recipe. The pumpkin bread recipe makes 1 loaf. The wheat bread recipe makes 2. I tripled everything. So we're going to have 6 loaves of bread. I realized this after I had already started mixing everything. This time the Kitchen Aid mixer couldn't do all the work and I had to turn the dough out on my counter and actually knead by hand.* Kind of cathartic.

Currently our freezer is chock full of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches and Healthy Choice fudge bars**, so there's no room to freeze an extra loaf of bread or two. We're going to need to either eat a lot of bread or a lot of frozen treats in the next few days.

If anyone wants a recipe, let me know and I'll post it.

* For those of you who have seen the cat walking on the countertops, rest assured, I sanitize the counters before I cook ANYthing in there.
**Have you tried the Healthy Choice fudge bars. SO good. And 100 calories.

Bunny

I love me some lolcats. Even when they're lolbunnies.

Dismissed

The case against the old woman at church was dismissed yesterday. Yay! That is great news and unexpected at this point in the process.

Both my boss and Jason said, "Now she can sue!" Um, yeah, I think she just wants this behind her. My husband is litigation happy.