Neurotic Kitty

I wish that we had some single friend in Providence who wouldn't mind house- and cat-sitting whenever we go out of town. And it would really be less of a house-sit than a cat-sit. I used to dog- and cat-sit for my aunt and uncle when I was in high school and college and it was fun, although I'm really good at scaring myself and being 17 and alone in a big empty house off in the desert is kind of intimidating. Thankfully, I had a mutt named Josie to protect me* and a cat named Sophie to sleep on my head and keep me company.

So the last time we went out of town for a few days Tiny started going into the litter box a lot and we were concerned and took him to the vet. They said he has crystals in his urine and now he eats a special food that's more acidic and is supposed to dissolve the crystals. After this bag is empty, we're going to get him checked again to make sure it's working.

Well, since then he's had a couple more episodes ranging from 3-5 days of darting in and out of the litter box every 45 seconds or so. Here's why I'm starting to think it's not about the crystals. For one, if we distract him, he forgets about it. Like if he falls asleep on one of us, he'll stay there for hours and not even think about going to the bathroom.

Two, there seem to be certain things that trigger these events. Cleaning the litter box, for instance. If he sees us changing the litter he bounces around until we get the box put back together and then immediately uses it. And then uses it again. And again. So Saturday when I cleaned it, I put him in the guest room, did my work, and let him out. He could have cared less and I thought we were off the hook.

Only then we were gone from 9:45 AM until 10:00 PM yesterday and when we got home, he ate his dinner and then started doing the in and out of the litter box again. He didn't do it until we got home because when he goes in and out like that, a pile of litter starts to accumulate on the floor surrounding the litter box, so we can tell if he's had a bad day. Then he started roaming around the house caterwauling, but wouldn't come to us when we called him. It wasn't until I got down on the floor with him and petted and talked to him, and Jason picked him up and cuddled him for awhile** that he stopped moaning.

So I've come to a conclusion. Tiny isn't sick, he's just neurotic.

Yeah, sure, he MIGHT have crystals in his urine, but I think his OCD litter box behavior is more related to him not liking things to change. We can be gone all day during the week, but on the weekend, we're supposed to be home, with him! Especially on lazy Sunday afternoons! I understand he's not capable of that much thought, but I think it's more that he knows something is off intuitively.

I really want to figure out a way to keep him content because the whole litter box thing is, well, annoying, but also disgusting, because he proceeds to get litter EVERYwhere. I can sweep it all up one day, but by the next there's more litter all over the place. It just makes me nervous for the next time we go out of town. We have a friend who will come feed him, but I think the companionship is more important to Tiny.


* Which she did. She decided she did NOT like one of my friends and whenever he would come over to hang out, she would plant herself in front of me and growl if he tried to come near. No idea why, he was a very nice guy.
** Can you say SPOILED KITTEN?

Sometimes It Pays to Pay More

The other day I bought two chickens because I thought doing faux rotisserie chicken in the crock pot would take care of a few meals easily. The store had two types of chickens on sale. One was the name brand (which I've bought before) at $1.29 a pound. The other was the generic brand at $.99 a pound*.

Trying to be a fiscally responsible cook, I bought the cheaper ones. Last night, I skinned one of them and realized why I should have opted to pay $.30 more. Under the skin, there were large pockets of fat. Ew. The name brand chicken I used before did NOT have fat stores under its armpits and behind its knees. At least not to that degree. I spent a long time last night cutting off piles of fat, and I figure I lost at least a pound off that chicken. So ultimately the $1.29 chicken was a better deal.

Live and learn.

By the way, go make that rotisserie chicken. It's awesome.

* I know, I know. I should be eating free-range chickens that had a happy life, but I don't think they sell those for $1.29 a pound.

Church Change-Ups

Hooray! We got a new Primary President yesterday. Several weeks ago our Primary President and her husband left. He got a promotion and before we knew it they had moved to Seattle. She was great and hated to leave us in the lurch, but we assured her we would be fine. Since then, the 1st Counselor and I have been trading off Sundays to be in charge and do the Sharing Time lessons and activities. But we really wanted someone to be called because you really do need a full presidency. Also, alternating every 3rd Sunday instead of every other Sunday is much better. For obvious reasons.

At first, I was terrified they might call me to do it. But then I felt like I might actually be ok with that because it's a few more meetings a month, but generally not that different from what I'm already doing as a counselor. Pretty much as soon as I realized I would be fine with it, I felt like I wouldn't get the calling. I just knew it wasn't me.

Then I heard a rumor that it might be this woman in the ward who I have actually wanted to get to know, but since I've been in the Primary since they moved into the ward and she's been upstairs in Relief Society, we haven't talked much. Yesterday she got the calling and I am thrilled.

First of all, she's just cool. And really, you can't have too much coolness in your life. She has a 12 year-old and a 16 year-old and she still wears awesome boots with heels to church. Also, her kids are super-smart and kind of blow me away, so I'm looking forward to chatting with the super-smart mom and getting her insights on things.

I helped out with a Primary class that she substitute taught one week and she was great. The kids were so attentive to her. Right now she's feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, but I know she'll be perfect for the job.

Distracted

Sorry for the silence over here. I'm really focused lately on my healthy eating and swimming, so I've been posting a lot more on my other, health-centered blog.

Other than that, I'm still married, I still have a job, the sun has finally come to Providence. Life is good.

Big Pile of Nothin'

For part of my lunch hour today I moseyed over to this women's dress store down the street from my office. They had some really cute Spring dresses in their windows that I've been eying for a few weeks. I have given myself permission to buy a few items for Spring and Summer so that I don't hate the way I look every time I walk out of the house in the coming months. I am armed with a couple Banana Republic gift cards (thank you, American Express rewards!) and an Ann Taylor Loft coupon, which I intend to fully exploit.

So it turns out that those cute dresses? Yeah, turns out they weren't cute so much as kind of oddly fitted and made of multiple fibers that do not occur in nature. Also, a bunch of them were column, rather than A-line, and as a woman with hips, I can't wear column dresses. Well, I could, but I would need to stuff my bra to triple D size in order to fit the top.

There was one dress I really and truly loved, but they didn't have it in my size. The next size down was just a touch too snug, but I figured I'm in weight loss mode and it should fit soon and maybe I could justify it if I could take advantage of their buy 2 dresses, get $10 off deal. Only I couldn't find a second dress.

But then I found a cardigan in this beautiful shade of blue on what I thought was the 60% off rack and I figured I could rationalize paying full price for the dress if I got the sweater for cheap.

Only when they rung me up, turns out the cardigan was on the buy 1 get 50% off rack. I didn't want another cardigan because all of the other sweaters were in ugly colors. Seriously, one amazing blue, and a whole pile of yuck. So then I had a dilemma at the register and figured if I had to pay full price, I should probably buy the thing that fits right this second.

So I have a cute cardigan, but I am disappointed and hope my expeditions to the mall prove more fruitful.

Easter Celebrations

Good Friday service here. Our friend is the organist and the service consisted of 17th century German music, sung by professionals, 17th century musical instruments, including a harpsichord, and candles gradually extinguished. Very solemn.

Easter Vigil and Easter morning here. Jason sung in the choir both days. I love singing the Hallelujah Chorus with the entire congregation on Easter morning. I know I'm Mormon and all, but the Episcopalians (and other denominations) really know how to celebrate the resurrection. So joyous!

Now we have friends coming over in an hour or so for a nice ham dinner.

Lovely.

Swim-A-Thon

I swam 55 laps (2750 yards) in my allotted hour on Saturday morning. I'm very pleased with that because I was only shooting for 45-50 laps. Not including my own $20 donation, I raised $162.50. If only I had had more than a week to bug everyone I know about it...

This Is the Kind of Day They Write Showtunes About!

I love this.

Go Away!

The weather is draining my will to live. It has been rainy all day and now the clouds are so thick that it's almost pitch black at 4:30 in the afternoon. It is April, Providence, not January!

I'm having a very very very very hard time focusing on work right now. Don't tell my boss.

Oh great. The torrential downpour has started.

I Heart Peanut Butter

I need this:
I am a HUGE peanut butter fan. I'm talking all-natural peanut butter, which comes with a layer of oil on top that has to be mixed in completely or you have half oily/half hard-as-a-rock peanut butter. Mixing the oil in usually results in some kind of mess, usually because I lose patience. I eat a little peanut butter almost every day so you can see how vital this crank is to my life.

Vital.

Beans

Did anyone else used to love the Pintos N Cheese from Taco Bell?

No?

Just me?

Well, anyway, at home right now I have pinto beans simmering in the crock pot, making my own version of the Pintos from the Pintos N Cheese. I used the recipe for Refried Beans from my favorite crock pot recipe site, but they're not actually fried. Or even refried. You just cook them up with onion, garlic, coriander and cumin, then smoosh them up with a hand mixer and you have pureed beans to store in the fridge for future use. I pile on some cheese and microwave for snacks. This is the second time I've made them and they are tasty. You know, if you like beans and cheese. Which I do.

Swimaroo

I am finally healed and was able to go swimming this morning. I am completely out of shape again, and feel weak and puny, but at least I did it.

Also, I signed up to participate in a swim-a-thon this Saturday. Since I haven't been up to working out, I just found out about it, thus the short notice. The money will go to the Y's Financial Assistance Fund, which provides assistance for programs and services to those who can't afford it. Since we live on the edge of a rough neighborhood, there are a lot of after-school programs aimed at helping kids excel and stay out of trouble. So if any of you who know me in real life would like to donate to the cause, let me know. You can donate either per lap or a flat amount. I believe they're counting a "lap" as 2 lengths of the pool, and I usually swim 45-50 laps per hour.

I'm excited for this because I've always been jealous of my runner friends who could run a 5K here or there for charity. If the Y does this again next year, hopefully I'll be in better shape and can sign up for a couple of hours.

Look At Me, the Important Lawyer

There are several big projects coming up at work, but in the meantime, I think I've billed about half an hour today. However, I've also been pulling together materials for my upcoming business trip. I'm going to a 3-day Medicare seminar.

Woot woot! The party just doesn't stop around here!

I know, sounds amazingly dull, yes? I have discovered that things that might be amazingly dull in general, are actually pretty interesting when you have real-life experiences and clients to relate it all to. So while I was about to gouge my eyes out while taking the RI mandatory seminars on RI court procedure*, Medicare law actually applies to what I do every day. And I need to know this stuff so that my clients don't get fined or shut down or arrested because of something I missed. Oops won't really cut it.

Also, I get to stay in a nice hotel for 3 nights, which thrills me to no end. I really, really like hotels. I like the comfy bed and the crisp white sheets and towels. I like the teeny little soaps and lotions and shampoos and I squirrel them away every day so that they have to replace them and I wind up with 3 or 4 of each. I like that there is a place in the world where I don't have to clean the bathroom.

More perks: Another fun associate from the Boston office will be there too and one of my good law school friends who works at another firm in Boston is coming. And hopefully I will get to see the Summerses on Thursday night.

*Because, see, I never go to court and the written materials they gave us will be useful if I ever do need to go to court, but listening to a lecturer basically read the book at you for 6 hours when you have no context and know that you will most likely never use the information is no fun.

Best Chicken Ever

Last night I made CrockPot Rotisserie-Style Chicken and Jason proclaimed it the best chicken I had ever made ever. It was pretty tasty and very easy.

1 whole chicken, skinned* (4-5 pounds)
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder (I didn't have any onion powder, so I used garlic powder instead)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch of chili powder
4 whole garlic cloves
1 yellow onion, quartered

Skin the chicken and get rid of the neck and other stuff from the cavity. In a bowl, combine all of dried spices. Rub the spice mixture all over the bird, inside and out. Plop the bird breast-side down into the crockpot. Shove 4 whole garlic cloves and a quartered onion inside the bird.

Do not add water.

Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours, or on low for 8. The meat is done when it is fully cooked and has reached desired tenderness. The longer you cook it, the more tender the meat. I cooked it for about 9 hours on low.

I was a little concerned about there not being enough liquid and the chicken burning and sticking to the crock. However, by the time the chicken was done, it had created about 3 inches of flavorful juice in the bottom of the crock. I made mashed potatoes to go with the chicken and they were great with a little bit of that juice spooned on top. Since I skinned the chicken, the juice was only a little greasy.

* The whole skinning thing is easier than I thought it would be and then the chicken isn't simmering in its own fat all day, which is a good thing.

Hamster

This little guy kills me with his cuteness. Go ahead and click on the square to give him some food.

Corned Beef

Yesterday was the day of corned beef, which, since I don't drink, is how I think of St. Patrick's Day. We had a few friends over for dinner and had a great time. In fact, I laughed so much that my cracked rib that had been feeling much, much better started hurting again. It was worth it.

I actually based my corned beef on a recipe I found online, but I can't find it now, and honestly I sort of made it my own anyway so I don't feel too guilty about not linking to it.

Crock Pot Corned Beef
5 pound corned beef with spice packet*
1 can/15 oz beef broth**
1/2 C. red wine***
3-4 T mustard****
1/3 C. brown sugar
12 oz water
8-12 red potatoes, quartered or sixthed (new word!) depending on how big they are. You want bite-size pieces
20-30 baby carrots, halved
1 onion, eighthed (I like making up words)
1/2 head of cabbage, chopped into medium-size pieces

Chop carrots and onion and place in the bottom of the crock pot. Cut most of the fat off of the fatty side of the corned beef. I was injured while doing this, so be careful! Knives are sharp! It's very annoying to be without the use of one of my thumbs.

Place beef in crock pat, fat side down. Sprinkle seasonings from packet over the corned beef (you can also use a tablespoon or so of pickling spices). Smear 2/3 of the mustard over the corned beef. Pour the broth and red wine over the beef. Mix the brown sugar and water together and pour over the beef. THEN, flip the beef over so the fatty side is facing up (because, despite your preparations, there will still be some fat) and smear the rest of the mustard on that side. This will keep the good stuff from drying out.

Cook on low for 10-12 hours.

Remove beef from pot and cover with foil to keep warm. Remove carrots and onions from pot into a bowl to be mixed with cabbage and potatoes later. Your crock pot will probably be about 2/3 full of broth. Put chopped potatoes in a large stock pot and pour the broth over the potatoes. Fill the pot the rest of the way with water until the potatoes are covered by about 2-3 inches of liquid. I also added about a tablespoon of kosher salt. Bring liquid to a rapid boil and boil potatoes for 20 minutes. Test potatoes. If they are almost done, but still a little tough, it's time to throw in the chopped cabbage. Boil potatoes and cabbage for 20 more minutes. Mix potatoes and cabbage with the onions and carrots, slice the corned beef and serve.


* I realize most corned beefs are smaller, but I found a big one on sale and snapped it up. Adjust recipe accordingly.
** I used reduced sodium, but like it matters. This is a corned beef, people. Sodium restrictions have no place here.
*** The recipe I found called for a can of beer here, but I had no beer. I did have red wine.
**** The recipe called for yellow, but we only had dijon. Frankly, I like the dijon. I bet brown deli mustard would have been even better. Next time...

Spoiled, Spoiled Kitten

Yesterday morning I got up, fed Tiny and got back in bed for another half hour. When I finally got out of bed for real, Tiny came dashing into the bedroom and starting meowing in a very panicked way. He even woke Jason up, and Jason is basically dead to the world once he gets to sleep. I picked Tiny up and cuddled him for a few seconds and he purred like a motorboat.

This morning I got up, fed Tiny and got back in bed for another half hour.* After he finished eating, Tiny came in and lay half on my shoulder, half on my pillow, purring, until I got up for real. Five minutes later, after I put in my contacts and brushed my teeth, he started wandering around the room, meowing again in a distressed way. So I picked him up and cuddled him and he purred and purred.

I see. Tiny has proclaimed, this will be the new morning routine.

* It's not so much that I'm lazy and can't get up when I need to, but more that if I stir and don't feed Tiny right away he walks back and forth across my chest and butts my head with his and meows incessantly until I feed him.

Appealing to My Inner 8 Year Old

We just saw the space shuttle from the 3rd floor of our house. And it was TOTALLY awesome!

Apparently, the trajectory of the shuttle right after this launch took it up the Eastern seaboard and we were told we might be able to see it around 5-8 minutes after the launch. So we watched the launch on the NASA site and then we ran upstairs* to look south to southeast. We scanned the sky and then I saw it! It looked like an orange planet, only going really fast. We watched it until the main engines shut off and it faded from view.

Jason just informed me it was 341,600 feet (65 miles) high eight minutes into flight, traveling at 17,000 miles per hour.

So thrilling!

* To the still-empty apartment. Let's hear it for still having no upstairs neighbors!

Tidiness

So I'm just curious. How important do you think it is to make your bed every day?

Our bed gets made once every few weeks - when I wash the sheets. I bring them upstairs warm from the dryer and make the bed look pretty. Then 20 minutes later we go to sleep and that's it, no more pretty bed for a few more weeks.

Granted, I don't really have a lot of say in whether or not the bed gets made since Jason wakes up after I leave for work*, but maybe on the weekends I could make an effort and have a tidy bed. I know that to some people it is very, very important to make your bed every day, but it's just never struck me as that integral to my life.

And really, when you have overflowing hampers and a bedroom closet whose contents gradually creep toward the center of the room until beaten back in a whirlwind day of cleaning, you're going to close the door to your bedroom when you have company over anyway, so why bother going to the trouble of making the bed look nice?

* I have to pick my battles and I have a feeling that if I asked Jason to make the bed every morning he would look at me like I was insane.

Bus

Things you overhear when you take the same bus as a bunch of RISD* students:

Guy: So I saw Cassie's movie the other day and it's great.
Girl: Oh yeah?
Guy: Yeah. She really did so well. There's this one scene where she's taking a s*** and she actually does it on camera.
Girl: Oh yeah?
Me: (Thinking, He did not just say what I think he said...)
Guy: Yeah. She was really dedicated to it. She just took a s*** right there.
Girl: So she filmed herself taking a dump?
Me: (Thinking, That's what he said alright.)
Guy: Yeah. It's really great. The sound was perfect. I'm so proud of her.
Girl: Yeah, that's really great.
Me: (head explodes)


* Rhode Island School of Design

Fried Chicken

Sunday night I made fried chicken for dinner and it came out great. I can take no credit (other than the labor) because I based it on this video.

However, if you don't want to go watch a 5 minute video, I'll give you the lowdown.

1) Get some chicken. The guy in the video cuts up a whole chicken, but A) that intimidates me, and B) the grocery store had big packs of chicken pieces on sale this week, so I just mixed and matched.*

2) Dredge the chicken in the following items in order: A) Flour with your choice of seasonings (I just used fresh ground pepper and kosher salt); B) Whisked eggs (I wound up using 4 eggs for about 16 pieces of chicken); and C) Bread crumbs (I used the packaged Italian seasoned kind).

3) Fry in about an inch of oil, heated to 350 degrees, 10 minutes per side.

4) Cool on cooling rack over newspapers to catch the maximum amount of grease.

Ta-dah! Very easy.

However, I cooked with the windows wide open and will continue airing out the house when I get home tonight. That greasy smell sure clings.

* And also prepped bags of chicken to put in the freezer for later meals. I found out Sunday afternoon that skinning chicken is surprisingly easy. I left the skin on for the fried chicken, but removed it for, say, the brown sugar chicken I'm making in the crock pot today. I also boned some chicken breasts Sunday, so now I have that skill. So I don't think I need to pay more for skinned and boned chicken breasts anymore.

Spring

Even though we got almost a foot of snow last Sunday night/Monday morning, Saturday was sunny and lovely and hit 60 degrees, I think. I opened up the windows to let in the fresh air and Tiny plopped himself in his usual place on the windowsill.

I also took the opportunity to plant my seeds for this year's growing.

You can't really read the labels, so I'll just tell you I'm growing cinnamon basil, sage, lime basil, rosemary, and, of course, tomatoes. This little peat greenhouse thing came with 36 starters. I put the rest of the peat pellets in a ziploc bag and figure I won't have to buy a new seed starting kit for 3 years.

We bought another herb kit for our AeroGrow and I set that up as well. This year we will have parsley, mint, Italian basil, purple basil, chives, dill and thyme. (Yes, we will have a LOT of basil this season. We like basil.) I can't wait for everything to start sprouting. I have especially missed having fresh dill this winter. I didn't transplant the dill from the AeroGrow in time last year and it died. Then I bought 2 dill plants on 2 separate occasions that looked lovely at the grocery store and promptly died about 12 hours after I brought them home. The chives and Italian basil from last Spring are still going strong, though, and the purple basil just died a couple of weeks ago because I think it finally got too cold in the apartment for it.

While I busied myself with the planting, Jason took apart our PS3 to try to figure out why it's acting up. It's cute when he's handy and geeky like that.
In the background of the above picture are my tomato plants from last Spring. I cleaned out all the dead growth last weekend and right now there are about 15 tiny green tomatoes and probably 50 blossoms. I figure I'll just let these plants keep going until I get seedlings for this year and then I'll dig out the old plants and plant the new ones in their place.

Fear

The other night we had dinner with some friends. These are relatively new friends who know hardly any of our stories. At some point during the conversation, we told them about Jason's accident a couple of years ago, when he rolled his car on the way back to Providence from Cambridge. As Jason described what happened and how it felt to be driving 70 miles per hour one second and the next second to be sliding across the highway upside down in his car, I shuddered a bit. The relief I felt that night knowing that he got out of the car and walked to the ambulance overshadowed the realization of just how close I came to losing him. Every so often now it hits me and I feel the urge to go give him a tight hug and tell him I love him.

It's also been a big lesson to me of the fact that I need to listen to that little voice in my head. That night, Jason and I had argued for the seventy millionth time about our relationship. He left my apartment later than he usually did and when he walked out the door, I was mad at him. As he was leaving, I clearly thought that I should ask him to stay and sleep on the couch, but I was stubborn. A couple hours later he called me to tell me he had rolled his car and he was fine and they were taking him to the hospital if I wanted to drive down. When I saw his car the next day, I nearly burst into tears.

I've decided that one of the hardest things for me about love is that fear that something might happen to the person I love. I picture Jason and me being together for many years, having kids, sharing a long life together. But in the back of my mind is the worry that it might not work out that way at all. I keep that worry under control most of the time, but sometimes it peeks out.

I Want To Hang With the Cool Kids

Have you ever had people who you maybe met once or twice through mutual friends and you kind of thought they were awesome and hilarious and were super-excited to find out they had a blog and now you blog-stalk them?

Yeah, me too.

Clothes

I am officially tired of all my clothes. Also, I think my clothes are officially tired of me. Everything is either too clingy for comfort right now, too baggy to look nice enough for work and/or too grungy. I realized the other day that my favorite green sweater is starting to pill over the breastular region, I'm assuming partly due to my non-ergonomic desk space where sometimes the edge of my desk rubs against my chest.

I keep realizing that I've had a lot of my clothes for quite some time, which might explain why they're looking kind of raggedy. Every morning I look in the closet and spend way too long trying to find something that doesn't make me feel completely gross.

Also, it doesn't help that since I've been sick, my rock star getting back to swimming action hasn't happened. I'm still getting so winded just from walking up one flight of stairs that there's no way I can swim laps. Hopefully I can swim next week, but in the meantime I'm feeling all overweight and bulgey.

What I really want to do is, well, A) lose 20 more pounds, but also B)toss most of what I have and start over completely to rebuild my wardrobe. Anyone want to nominate me for What Not To Wear? I am willing to wear track pants and sweatshirts exclusively for a couple of weeks if it would get me $5000 for a new wardrobe.

Cough, Cough

I have been ill. Knock down, drag out, Jason asking me if I was dying ill. I can't remember the last time I felt so awful. I can't remember the last time I took more than one day off of work. I took 2 1/2 days off. Scandalous!

Tuesday night was miserable. Every muscle in my body hurt. I had my herb-scented microwavable heating thing wrapped around my neck and the electric heating pad under my calves in a an attempt to make the aching stop. I felt like I was going to keel over when I stood up and the littlest activities made me huff and puff and have to hold onto nearby surfaces for support.

Today I'm back at work, but after being here for a few hours, I'm exhausted. I'm looking forward to going home and putting my jammies back on. I'm also looking forward to sleeping in again tomorrow. I will need to do work tomorrow, but I can do it in the comfort of my home, on the comfy couch.

Tiny looked completely shocked when I left for work this morning. I think he got used to me sitting in one spot on the couch with him on my legs. See, I discovered that the only way to prevent the wracking coughing fits that brought tears to my eyes and left me gasping for air was to sit completely and utterly still. That suited Tiny just fine.

Gardening Advice

Can anyone come up with a good reason for why I should trash my current tomato plants and start new ones in a month or so?

I started two types of tomatoes last Spring and after some trial and error and advice figured out how to make them fruit. They're still producing (I chopped up 10 tiny tomatoes and put them in a stew yesterday). Currently there are 5 or 6 green tomatoes on the plants and a whole new crop of blossoms at the top of each plant.

However, my plan has always been to scrap my current plants and start afresh this Spring, armed with my increased gardening knowledge. But they're still alive and they're still producing. Jason suggested I just cut off the dead branches and keep these plants around for another season.

These plants produce teeny tiny tomatoes, which may be a result of my not pruning them enough, or because they're growing indoors. I planted another plant outside last year and the tomatoes on that plant were about twice the size as those from the indoor plants. I was kind of thinking I would tweak things this year and shoot for getting some bigger tomatoes indoors, but I don't know if I need to start all over again to do that.

I know outdoor gardeners don't really run into this issue since plants, you know, die in the winter. Any thoughts as to why I should or shouldn't keep these plants around for another season?

Girly Movies!

I recently picked up these little beauties on a trip to Costco:















The only question is, which movie do I watch tonight while Jason is at choir practice? Tough decisions.

Ski Utah!

Jason and I just got back from a long weekend trip to Utah courtesy of cheapo tickets from Delta. I got to see his home and also meet his grandparents who weren't able to come to our wedding. Before this trip, I had only spent about a day and a half in Utah when I flew out for the wedding of two good friends (Hi, John and Amy!).

I'm just going to put it out there that I thought then and I think now that it is kind of surreal being in a place where most everyone you meet is Mormon, especially after living in places like Chicago and New England for the past 10 years where the Mormons aren't really around in high numbers. I can see the pros and cons. For one, it would be kind of comforting and comfortable to be surrounded by people who have a similar belief system. However, I can also see how it might be very insular and limiting. Plus, as a liberal Mormon, I'm kind of atypical, particularly in Utah. And I do like diversity. I hear Salt Lake City itself is a bit more diverse.

A couple more cons: you can only get recycling service if you pay extra. Jason's parents don't and I felt wracked with guilt every time I threw away a plastic bottle. Also, you really do have to drive everywhere.* There is no walking. Although everyone could walk to church, which is about .2 miles from everyone in the wards' houses, but no one does. Jason and I walked home from church on Sunday. We're fightin' the power. Actually, he just didn't want to wait around while his parents did the post-church chatting.

More pros: it was fun hanging out with various members of Jason's family, houses are comparatively cheap, and OH MY GOSH the MOUNTAINS!

I grew up surrounded by mountains in Tucson and even though I enjoyed them, I realize now how much I took them for granted. When we were flying into Salt Lake I looked out the window of the plane and felt in awe of the mountains. That didn't go away for the entire time we were there.

I mean, seriously:

The mountains and hills of New England are lovely, but there's just something about the mountains in the west.

We ate Mexican food, went to the symphony, spent time with family and went cross-country skiing, which was a first for me. I've never done any kind of skiing. I think I look pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed it, although people are not kidding when they tell you it's hard**. We went around the trail a couple of times, and then Jason and his dad went around once more while I waited for them and enjoyed the peaceful scenery.

I also took the opportunity to practice going down the big hill at the end of the trail a few times without an audience. I say "big hill", but it was really more of a slight incline that inclined a tiny bit more than all the other inclines on the trail. But to someone who has never done any type of skiing, it was huge and I went fast and it was awesome once I got over the fear. I fell on my butt once. While I was standing still. As long as I kept moving, I was good.

On our last day, we went over to my friend Martha's house, because she happens to live in the same town as Jason's parents. Martha and I were best friends from the ages of 10-13, or thereabouts. We reconnected via email and phone about 3 years ago, but hadn't seen each other in 14 years. So Jason and I went over and had breakfast with her and met her two kids (who were very sick, but still cute). It was great to see her and catch up.

Overall, I give Utah two thumbs up.

* To everyone in Boston who thinks Providence is SO FAR AWAY, I would just like to point out that it's no further than the distance between Provo and Salt Lake.
** However, I also got really, really winded just walking up a hill on the BYU campus. Stupid high altitude!

Absence

So I've been really busy at work and when I think about what to blog, I'm just not having any inspiration. I'm only just pithy and witty enough to come up with a mildly interesting Twitter once a day or so.

My latest news is that yesterday was my annual review. I know, I can't believe I've been there for a year already either. Overall it went very well. The head of the health care department came down from Boston and I met with him and my boss. It was a pleasant chat. They had some constructive suggestions for me, which I absolutely agreed with (I recognize that I am in no way perfect). Generally their comments were complimentary and I'm feeling more secure with the work I'm doing.

Also (another work story), on Tuesday a contract that was MY contract was finally agreed to by both parties. I started working on it probably 4 months ago and basically had to take some vague information and create a very detailed contract from scratch. Then the other side came back with their edits and I had to talk about them with the client and figure out what we could and could not accept. We went back and forth multiple times and over the course of the whole thing I only conferred with my boss a few times and each time he said "Sounds good" and that was about it. On Tuesday, the client called me and told me the other side accepted all our latest revisions. We both said "Yay!" It was really the first piece of work I saw through from beginning to end, on my own, and I feel good about the finished deal. Now I just have to hope some scary clause I may have missed doesn't come up and bite me in the a** at some later date. Fingers crossed.

Decorating!

I'm feeling inspired by Molly's blog about her new curtains, and by a suggestion from my Primary President to decorate.

Jason and I have about forty-seven hundred windows in our apartment. It's lovely. We get so much light. Light that lets me grow herbs and tomatoes* in the dining room. The only downsides are A) lack of privacy, and B) it's kind of hard to watch TV during the day, especially if the action in the show takes place at night. Jason and I will squint and ask each other repeatedly, "Wait, what just happened? I think that was important."

However, all of those windows are bare except for the ones in the bedrooms and the bathroom - and our bedroom and the bathroom just have cheapo mini blinds. Plus, when I open the bathroom window in the summer, Tiny likes to sit on the ledge behind the mini blind, meaning he has carved out a little hole for himself in the mini blind. Apply enough cat pressure to those slats and they snap right off.

The problem is, hanging mini blinds in all the windows is both expensive and very time-consuming. And then all you really have is mini blinds, which are not that attractive. I love Roman shades (which some kind soul before us hung in the guest bedroom), but those are even more expensive. I thought about just buying one long rod and hanging a curtain or valance over several windows in one fell swoop, but half our living room is the shape of a turret, in the Victorian style, which means every one of the 5 or 6 windows is on a differently-angled wall.

Last Saturday we had a Primary presidency meeting and beforehand Bonnie, the president, came in and I gave her the tour of our (embarrassingly messy) home. She commented on all the windows and the light and I mentioned to her how I had been trying to think of a good way to dress up the windows because we don't want to do anything too expensive or time-consuming since we don't know how much longer we'll be here and we're cheap. She looked at me and just said simply, "Tension rods."

Um, duh. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

So now I'm looking at tension rods and while I really like ones like these, they are almost as expensive as the fancy-pants shades. I'll probably end up getting something like this. But then I get to go find some curtains or fabric to dress them up. So excited! Any Providence people want to go curtain shopping with me?

* I plucked 9 bright red tomatoes off the two plants this morning and chopped them up for the stew I put together in the crock pot. Yes, it's January 29th and we have fresh tomatoes! Granted, they're very tiny and they take forever to ripen because of the hit or miss sunlight we get in the winter, but they're still growing. There are a few that are kind of orange right now and several more that are green AND there are more blossoms on the tops of the plants. Indoor gardening rocks!

Too Big Love

Last night I dreamed that Jason had taken a second wife AND had a baby with her. I spent a lot of the dream freaking out and hitting him and he was completely nonchalant and like, "Whatever. If you leave me, I've still got this other chick and my kid over here." I woke up SO MAD at him. Then I realized it was a dream and I am insane. Then he sleepily wrapped his arm around me and I forgave him completely.

Note: This may or may not have been a side effect of discussing whether or not we were going to watch the latest episode of Big Love right before I went to sleep last night. That show creeps me out.

Mmmm...Bread

Now that we've had the bread machine for a whole week, here are our favorite recipes thus far.

My favorite:
Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread
4 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C oats
1 1/2 t. salt
15 fluid oz warm water
1 1/2 T. olive oil
1/3 C molasses/honey/agave nectar (I used agave nectar in the 1st loaf I made and molasses in the 2nd)
1/3 C plain yogurt
2 t. yeast

Put all dry ingredients except yeast into bread machine, then wet ingredients. Pour yeast into yeast dispenser. This makes a large loaf. It may seem kind of dense when it comes out, but it slices up light and tastes great.

Jason's favorite:
Cranberry Bread
(This is a tweaked version of the raisin bread recipe in the recipe book that came with the bread machine)
18 1/4 oz (3 11/16 C) flour
2 t. salt
2 T. dry milk
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. vanilla
2 T. butter
1 3/4 T. sugar
1 1/2 C. water
1 1/4 t. yeast
4 oz Craisins

Put all dry ingredients except yeast and Craisins into bread machine, then wet ingredients. Pour yeast into yeast dispenser. Depending on your machine, you might have a fruit dispenser, or, like me, have a machine that beeps at you about 50 minutes into the cycle to let you know that it's time to put in the Craisins. This makes a large loaf.

Modernity

Last night we went up to a party thrown by the Boston office at a fancy hotel (can you say sushi buffet?). Jason and I carpooled up with my boss and his wife and on the way home his wife and I were talking about the amazing power of Facebook.

As of yesterday I have something like 346 "friends" on Facebook, which is just amazing. Friends spanning from when I was 3 years old to right now.

You know what else is pretty amazing? I watched the inauguration on cnn.com sitting at my desk at work. Next to the video feed, everyone's Facebook status updates rolled by, talking about their own personal amazement at that historic moment. Then a friend of mine from high school who is black started texting me on Facebook about her feelings and about the tears she had already shed that morning.

I have to admit, leading up to the inauguration, anytime anyone mentioned Obama in the same breath as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, I completely fell apart. No matter how you feel about our new president's policies, this is an historic time and I am proud of our country.

Personally, I do like Obama. I know he is not perfect and he will make mistakes and I won't agree with everything he does. I don't have that "Praise Obama, for he will save us all" mindset. However, he does have this amazing power to inspire people. I don't think we have really had anyone like him in this country since JFK or RFK or MLK whose rhetoric can give people such hope, even when we are facing such hard times as a county. I also like how realistic he is. He doesn't promise us all ponies and rainbows. He says times are hard and it will take hard work to get to a better place. I think the key is he seems to truly believe that somewhere off in the future we can get to that better place as a country.

Weekend Festivities

Jason's parents visited us this past weekend because they found ridiculously cheap tickets and decided to come. All last week I wondered what in the world we would do with them because, as I discovered, everything we like to do in New England involves being outside or walking outside or standing on breezy cliffs and such. Apparently we are trolls in the winter, only poking our head outside long enough to get to and from work and church.

Well, I needn't have worried because this weekend wound up being The Weekend of Unexpected Snow. Hi, weather people? When you see a storm system moving across the country, chances are it will eventually hit New England. We were supposed to get a few inches of snow on Saturday night, but wound up with about 6 inches. Church was canceled, which was good since as of 10 AM, the plows still hadn't made their way down our street, and we had a very good excuse to be lazy bums on Sunday. Then, for good measure, it snowed about 6 more inches on Sunday night.

Saturday we kind of lazed around most of the day, then headed to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch/dinner. Then I happened to mention how Talbot's and Ann Taylor are conveniently located right next to each other in the mall, and Jason's mom thought that sounded very interesting and she might like to see that for herself and off we went to the stores (I got a $140 cashmere sweater for $40. I know!). Jason has needed pants for about 2 years now, so he bought 3 new pairs. A successful shopping day was had by all!

Sunday was our snow day. Jason's mom just finished her PhD in December and hasn't really had much downtime since so she reveled in having no commitments and no schedule. I kept myself busy cooking another loaf of bread, onion soup for lunch, and a faux HoneyBaked ham for dinner (details on the ham to follow).

Jason and his dad, on the other hand, were crawling up the walls because they do not like to be still. I should have sent them out on a snow walk, but that didn't occur to me until later in the day. On the plus side, Jason's dad took it upon himself to scrape the new window labels off of the tops of the windows in the living room. The labels have been there since Jason moved in 2 1/2 years ago and we have talked about peeling them off, but just never got around to it.

Monday we went up to spend some time with a couple of friends in Boston and then had a farewell dinner at the Texas Roadhouse for a labmate of Jason's who is moving back to Taiwan. What he wanted more than anything was to go to an American steakhouse before he left and we aim to please. I also made a loaf of Cinnamon Cranberry bread that turned out great.

Now, for the ham. I found a recipe online that claimed to be a replica of the glaze used by the HoneyBaked Ham Company. Hams just happened to go on sale at the store this past week, so I bought one. I mixed up the glaze and rolled the ham around in it, then spent a really, really long time caramelizing it with a little blowtorch from Home Depot. Note: the tiny blowtorch is great for creme brulee, not so great for an 8-pound ham. I think I need to buy a larger blowtorch for the next ham.

I thought the glaze tasted very authentic, and all told it probably cost about $20, versus the $70 or $80 it would have for the name-brand ham.

Faux Honey Baked Ham
1 fully cooked shank half ham, bone in (pre-sliced)
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon paprika
Dash ground ginger
Dash ground allspice

1. If you couldn't find a pre-sliced ham, the first thing you must do is slice it. Use a very sharp knife to cut the ham into very thin slices around the bone. Do not cut all the way down to the bone or the meat may not hold together properly as it is being glazed. You want the slices to be quite thin, but not so thin that they fall apart or off the bone.
2. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl.
3. Lay down a couple sheets of wax paper onto a flat surface such as your kitchen counter. Pour the sugar mixture onto wax paper and spread it around evenly.
4. Pick up the ham and roll it over the sugar mixture so that it is well coated. Do not coat the flat end of the ham, just the outer, pre-sliced surface.
5. Turn the ham onto its flat end on the plate. Use a blowtorch with a medium-size flame to caramelize the sugar. Wave the torch over the sugar with rapid movement, so that the sugar bubbles and browns, but does not burn. Spin the plate so you can torch the entire surface of the ham. Repeat the coating and caramelizing process until the ham has been well glazed (don't expect to use all of the sugar mixture). Serve the ham cold or reheated, just like the real thing.

Next time I make this, I'm only going to make 1/2 to 2/3 of the recipe because I had a lot left over. I probably could have used some more on the ham itself, but the recipe would probably cover a 15-pound ham easily.

Glass

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see the Chihuly exhibit at the RISD Museum. We went with our friends Chris and Katie who are the glass experts in our lives. They have spent many hours blowing glass at the MIT lab and have been involved with making many pumpkins at MIT.

Chris and Katie are kind of awesome people to have as friends, not only because they are awesome in general, but also because they bestow you with pretty things made of glass.

Item 1:
Commissioned by Jason, ostensibly for my birthday, but he liked it so much that he kept it. He says it all evens out because we got married and it's mine now too. Mmm-kay...

Item 2:
Katie gave me this one as part of a bridal shower gift. I love it and am thinking of relocating it from the dining room to my office so I can enjoy it while I'm at work.

Item #3:
This was a wedding present. It stands about 18 inches tall, sits on top of a tall bookshelf and TOTALLY classes up the joint.

So we went with our glass friends to the glass exhibit and it was splendid. I would highly recommend it, only the show has ended now. However, apparently there is an exhibit in some botanical gardens in Phoenix running through the spring, so if you're in the area, check it out.

As you enter the exhibit, there are all of these huge seashell-shaped pieces of glass above you.
The light going through them reflects on the wall


This is my favorite piece.
It stands about 10 feet tall. I have already commissioned Chris and Katie to make it for me just as soon as their home glass lab is up and running. And as soon as they get a staff. And as soon as I'm rich. It made me think of being under the ocean, particularly with all of the spindly pieces of seaweed next to it, looking like they're moving with the waves.
Glass chandelier:
Close-up of the chandelier. I remarked to Chris and Katie that the balls look like a bunch of connected pumpkins. They're a similar shape.
I think this pot looks like it's about to get up and walk away on those organic-looking arms.
Pretty glass flowers circling a cylinder
These were lit from underneath and looked like neon rods
Before we entered the main exhibit, there was an exhibition of some of the people who Chihuly taught while he was at RISD. I like this crocodile
Right inside the entrance of the museum was an exhibit of clear glass. In the center was a giant banquet table full of glass goblets and fruit and birds. Amazing!
The only problem was that it was hard to catch the detail with the camera since all the glass was clear. This is a large bowl of pears
This is glass wallpaper, with the pieces toward the center painted black. I want glass wallpaper.
Jason took this picture of the sun setting behind the Baptist Church as we walked back to the car.
In conclusion, I need more glass in my life.

We Have Bread!

I got my Christmas present!
It is the Panasonic SD-YD250, which I'm sure means absolutely nothing to you, but it's a pretty okay one, I think. I'm on a healthy cooking listserv and emailed the list to see if anyone who makes whole wheat bread regularly has a bread machine. I've read about some machines that crack under the pressure of making a lot of whole wheat bread because it's more dense. One woman said she makes whole wheat bread a lot and this is her bread machine and it works great. Jason had a 25% off coupon for Amazon, which made me feel better about the cost, and he got it for me.

We had our trial run today. Jason's parents are visiting and before we left the apartment for an outing, I spent about 15 minutes dumping all of the ingredients in the machine and then we left. When we got home, the house smelled like baking bread and we had a half hour until it was done. Here's my fine loaf of bread:
I am super-impressed. I used the Whole Wheat Yogurt Bread recipe in the cookbook that came with the machine. The recipe had only whole wheat flour in it - no white flour like most "whole wheat" bread recipes. The result was light and fluffy and tasty.

Jason was concerned that the bread machine would be a big waste of money*, but it was so easy that I think I'll be making bread on a regular basis.

* Although, as I pointed out to him, I really do use all of our kitchen gadgets on a semi-regular basis. For instance, the blender is currently on hiatus, but during the summer I make smoothies almost every day. Right now I use the crock pot a couple of times a week, but I'm sure in the summer I won't be using it as much. But the point is, I do use them. We have no frivolous kitchen gadgets since I like to cook so much.

Merry Christmas to Me!

My Christmas present is coming on Friday: a bread machine. We're not so much slaves to the calendar and presents have kind of become something that happens on or around the date in question. First and foremost, I had to figure out what I wanted and I'm really bad at that. My parents can chime in, but I believe we figured out what Jason was getting me on Christmas Day itself.

So yay! Bread machine!

Do you have any good bread machine recipes? I know it comes with a little book, so I'll check that out, but I'm especially interested in whole-grain recipes that don't use white flour (or not a lot of white flour. The whole wheat bread recipe in The Joy of Cooking uses more white flour than wheat, which doesn't seem quite right to me). But if there are any other recipes you adore, please share.

Mmmm, Big Salad

I heart big salads. Usually when I'm out for lunch, and sometimes for dinner (Cheesecake Factory), I love ordering the big salad. It's perfect. You get a lot of good veggies, plus usually some chicken breast and cheese, maybe black beans. Just get the dressing on the side and use very sparingly, and it's a healthy treat. If you like salads, that is. Which I do. Sometimes if the salad has enough good stuff on it, I don't even need dressing.

The one thing you can get in downtown Providence that's semi-healthy and filling is something called the Belly at a Mexican place down the street from my office. It consists of a burrito minus the tortilla. I don't get rice and ask for extra lettuce and voila! The big salad.

However, not wanting to spend $7 on lunch every single day, I made my own Belly today: (All I had to take a picture with was my Blackberry and this doesn't look very appetizing. In reality the colors were not this sickly, I promise.)

My Belly (and now my belly (hahahaha)) has about 4 oz chicken breast spiced with garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper; 3/4 C. hydrated and cooked black beans; 2 C. lettuce; 1 oz grated sharp cheddar; a few tablespoons medium salsa; and about 1/4 C. cottage cheese.

The cottage cheese is in lieu of sour cream, because I checked our sour cream this morning and it is not in good shape. No matter how small a container of sour cream I buy, it always goes bad before we use it all. Anyway, I figured the cottage cheese would work because one of my favorite snacks is chips dipped in salsa mixed with cottage cheese. Trust me, it's good.

And I'm very proud to say that I am wearing a white twinset and there is nary a salsa splotch to be found anywhere!

Moroccan Lentil Soup

Jason left for a ski trip with his boyz last night. I was invited, but didn't want to infringe on the male bonding, and I've never been skiing before and figure someday I will take a class somewhere, but not this weekend. They totally got the hook-up though, because the sister of one of the guys works at the ski resort and got them free lift tickets and ski rentals.

I figured that since Jason was out having fun, I would invite some ladies over for a craft night. That craft night turned into dinner and crafts and I made the following soup from my favorite site A Year of Crockpotting.*

Moroccan Lentil Soup
--1 cup dried lentils (NOTE: I used 1 1/2 cups because I wanted more lentily goodness)
--1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
--1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
(NOTE: 1) I prefer hydrated beans to canned because they have less sodium and are ridiculously inexpensive. 2) I didn't have any hydrated garbanzos and pintos BUT I had just cooked up some blacks beans a couple of nights before. To substitute for the 2 cans of beans, I used 3 cups of home-cooked black beans.)
--1 onion, chopped
--2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
--1/2 cup chopped celery
--1/2 cup chopped carrots
--28 oz can of diced tomatoes (and juice)
--4 cups vegetable broth
--1 1/2 tsp garam masala
--1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
--1/2 tsp cumin
--1/4 tsp nutmeg
--1/4 tsp cinnamon
--1 inch ginger, peeled and grated (NOTE: I didn't have any fresh ginger. Oh the shame! I used about 1/2 tsp ground ginger and I think the flavor blended well. I do love fresh ginger, though, so I'll get some in time for the next time I make this)

Chop up all of your vegetables and add them to the crock pot. If you are rushed in the morning, consider chopping the vegetables at night---it took me longer than I wanted it to (NOTE: I am a big fan of prepping all my veggies the night before, putting them all together in a tupperware in the fridge, and just dumping them into the crock pot the next day). Drain and rinse off the beans, add to the pot. Add the dried lentils. Grate your ginger, and add it along with the dried spices. Stir in the vegetable broth and tomatoes.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Soup tastes best the longer you cook it, and it is even better the next day.

Before serving, use an immersible blender and pulse to blend some of the vegetables and beans together. This isn't necessary, but it really improves the texture of the soup and melds the flavors nicely. (NOTE: I don't have an immersible blender, and serving this chunky worked great)


The original recipe this was based on included some ground cardamom, and next time maybe I'll add that in as well. As it was, the flavors in this were outstanding. I got home from work about an hour before anyone came over and the aroma was driving me crazy. I think everyone at my house last night gives this soup two thumbs up.

Jason was kind of concerned when he saw me prepping the crock pot yesterday morning that he was going to miss out on something awesome. I assured him I would cook it again if it was good. Not only is it good, but it's also amazingly cheap because all it has in it are beans and some veggies and spices. And it makes a lot. This is going into regular crock pot rotation.

* I have to admit, I'm kind of sad the year is over. There are literally hundreds of her recipes that I haven't tried yet, but I can't help but hope she keeps putting out more. The thing I love is that they're not the standard type of crock pot recipes. She gets creative and uses good ingredients and fabulous spices.

High Strung

Apparently Tiny needs to take a Valium now and again. He is a little on the high strung side.

We knew that he liked us, and people in general, of course, and I've written about how ecstatic he was when we got home from our Christmas trip. However, shortly after we got home, we noticed he was acting funny, going into the litter box probably no less than a couple of hundred times a day (I'm basing this on the fact that in the course of my getting ready for work one morning, he went in about 20 times).

I was concerned that he had an infection and after 3 days I finally convinced Jason that maybe something was wrong. Then Jason did some research and found out how bad it could be and completely freaked out. I promised to find a vet first thing in the morning.

Then next day, I called an animal hospital and Jason took Tiny in. The vet said that it's hard to tell what causes these problems, but the good news was, he didn't have a blockage. It could either be caused by an infection or some sort of anxiety.

So we started giving Tiny an antibiotic, but he started getting better almost immediately and we figure it was probably anxiety because we were gone for so long. Yes, our cat has anxiety issues. I don't know what we're going to do the next time we go on a trip. We may have to hire one of Jason's undergrads to come catsit.

In a slightly related note, Tiny now adores the cat carrier. Jason brought it up from the basement to take Tiny to the vet and it has been sitting in the dining room waiting to be taken back downstairs for the past week. Tiny has now adopted the carrier as his favorite place ever. If he's not sitting on one of us, we know when we go into the dining room we'll see his yellow eyes peering out from the carrier.*

* Apparently it embarrasses Jason when I tell Tiny stories because it makes it sound like I think he's our kid or something. So feel free to skip the Tiny stories. Frankly, I think he's entertaining (and I am willing to listen to other peoples' pet and/or children stories). And besides, if there's one person in our house who would be completely devastated if anything happened to Tiny, it would be Jason.

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a good New Year! I solidified my position as an 82 year-old woman by falling asleep around 10:30 on the 31st, waking up for 2 minutes to watch the ball drop in Times Square, and promptly falling back asleep.

Also, I spent a lot of the last two days crocheting.

Woo hoo. I bet Jason's happy he married me now. I am super fun.

We were planning to go out to the Providence celebration on Wednesday, but then we had a snowstorm and the temperature dropped to 7 degrees with 45 mile per hour winds. Um, no.

Instead, we ate shrimp and sushi at home in our PJs, had a fire in the fireplace and watched a really, really, REALLY bad movie. Actually, falling asleep might have been a defense mechanism to ensure that Jason wouldn't make me watch another awful movie.

Yesterday was a lazy day. Jason went to work for a little bit, giving me the chance to finish Wives & Daughters since I can't watch period pieces with him in the house because I can't handle his commentary. Then he came home and requested that we DO something, which I was all for, but we couldn't really come up with anything to do. All our friends are out of town or moved or at least an hour away and not up for something spur of the moment. Plus, it was really cold outside. What do you do on days like that when you're feeling antsy?

What I wound up doing was cleaning the kitchen and making black-eyed peas, which tasted great despite the bottom layer of peas getting a little singed. Note to self: just throw away the huge, yet poorly made stockpot because even though it holds a huge amount of stuff, that is worthless when it all smells slightly burny.

After dinner Jason had the brilliant idea of making a New Years gingerbread house. Last year (as in 2007) we bought a kit at Costco and then never got around to making it. Then this December wound up being so busy that we didn't get to it before Christmas. So we made it last night.
I was particularly proud of my gumdrop hedges all around the perimeter of the house.
The icing icicles on the windows didn't turn out as well as they have in past years because the icing wouldn't stick very well.
Note the snowman with the crazy eyes under the eaves. He would scare me.
We discovered that even though the icing and cookies and candies are hermetically sealed in their packaging, after a year they will taste like plastic and nastiness and not so much like icing and gingerbread and candies. Except for the fake Sprees. Those still tasted good.

And because I didn't post these before Christmas, here are our Christmas decorations (which probably won't come down until the end of January because we like Christmas in this house).

Our nativity on the mantel
Tree
Brothel mantel, aka Jason's homage to red lights.
The picture doesn't really do it justice as you can't really see the red glow it gives everything. I did manage to tone it down a bit with the garland, and the red lights have kind of grown on me. They won't be going on the tree or anything, but they work on the mantel. With garland and other distractions.