Veloute

Two Very Different Christmas Lists

2010-11-12T19:39:00.004-05:00

One:

"Girly" black cowboy boots
High heels
Extra lipstick (she doesn't have lipstick now)
Make up kit

Two:

2 year Muse subscription (her paternal grandmother gets a 1 year for her every year)
Pencils
Erasers
Black cowboy boots, "non-girly"
Origami supplies, including books with new animal patterns
"Bright perky" Zumbuddy (she got one for her sister for her birthday)
Snuggie

Owner of list number two also has a running commentary about which Christmas book she would like. The Christmas book appears on the end of their beds from their mom and dad every year. Owner of list two is also very much looking forward to the Christmas Eve pajamas. Owner of list one would like a bathrobe and slippers since her sister has those things. Who knows if they will get worn. (I've gotten the pajamas and slippers, but no robe yet).

I don't know what the fascination is with black cowboy boots, and I'm even less sure if I can get "girly" ones (I think that must mean it has sparkles or the like on it).

Six Years

2010-10-18T04:03:00.009-04:00

Happy birthday to my amazing Sophia. I love your complicated personality. Fierce, fearless, stylish. You're only six and you have your rock moves.

Sophia

2010-09-06T18:47:00.002-04:00

I wasn't here for this, but apparently Sophia was talking to Fiona and she said that some girls told her that God made them. She got this look on her face as if to say, "isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard?". Then she said, "I told them it wasn't true; my mommy made me."

The first day of school went well for Fiona and it went well for Sophia, except for the part where I came for lunch to help and she had a hard time with me leaving. That was painful. They read a book the first week of school called The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn. When I left the cafeteria, Sophia was inconsolable and I was barely holding it together. Sophia's teacher told her I would kiss the palm of Sophia's hand so she could have my kiss, and Sophia would kiss the palm of my hand so I would have hers.

Two weeks later, her teacher tells me that Sophia will be sitting in class, working, and occasionally brings the palm of her hand to her cheek for my kiss.

A Review of Summer

2010-08-16T11:20:00.007-04:00

This has been the summer of origami. My nightstand is covered with various animals. Origami has spread to the kids' grandparents' house, their cousin's house, and Triana's house. Doug's work colleagues are also the recipient of Fiona's origami creations. Sophia is starting to take an interest, too. It's great to see them so focused on something creative like this...as my dad said, the origami are like Tribbles. They are in everything at this point.

(Lunchbox of tribbles. I mean origami.)

The kids had some week long classes in June: Fiona had origami (her fascination started way before the class), a cooking class, a science class, and an engineering class. Sophia's age group had fewer choices, but she took a class about bugs. They seemed to have a good time.

There was lots of swimming this summer, but no formal swimming lessons. We made a trip to the zoo to meet friends, which was fabulous, but ended with us all drenched in sweat. It is too hot to do much of anything during the day. Most swimming is done in the evening.

School starts next week, which is leaving me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, school! They should have fun and they'll be with other kids (so far, this is a good thing). On the other hand, who will I play with? I would love a job, but it would have to be something that leaves me here in the afternoon when they get home, and would hopefully involve me having some free time on the weekend. In the meantime, there is plenty to work on in the house. I could paint any room, for a start. The kids' bathroom not only needs updating, it needs the paint/peeling wallpaper to come off. I need to get out of the house, though, or I will rave. I'm sure there is volunteer work I can do somewhere (definitely at their school).

February 2, 2002

2010-02-01T15:20:00.003-05:00

Fiona turns EIGHT tomorrow! She had a slumber party with three friends (only two stayed the night, though). They seemed to have a great time.

It was actually a great party. Fiona has great friends. Thank goodness!

I can't believe it's been 8 years. I feel like this picture is not that old, but it also seems so long ago, because she looks so different and is so different now! She used to be a quiet, clingy baby who I could not put down. She did not walk until she was 17 months. At playgroups, she would sit and observe. Now? Now she's off to slumber parties, is so talkative that she sometimes has to write in the "behavior book" in her class (ahem), and is quite independent. It's been so amazing watching her grow and develop into such an interesting person. One moment, you're nursing your baby in the middle of the night, wondering if there will be no end to this (there is, obviously, but it sometimes does not feel like it at the time) and the next they're begging to spend the night at a friend's house. The whole night away from you and they're relishing the idea. It's a cliche that the days are long and the years are short, but it is so true.

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Now is the Moon's Eyebrow

2010-01-08T17:41:00.002-05:00

I may have previously mentioned, that one Christmas tradition my parents did for us during our childhood was to place a book at the end of our bed (wrapped) so that we could open it first thing in the morning (and I do mean first thing). This was the book I got in 1988. I loved it then and I love it now. The whole book is based on bizarre nonsensical (some are rather poetic, some are just gloriously silly) questions like, "What is the difference between reality and a idea? Reality is what a person thinks who cannot remember." or "What is the difference between the moon and a needle and thread? The needle and thread are older." Each question and answer is accompanied by a whimsical illustration.

Ra Ra Ra...Smile!

2010-01-08T14:42:00.006-05:00

Sophia and I are hanging out this afternoon with new batteries in her camera. She's mostly interested in how the camera operates right now. I just taught her how to delete the pictures. Here are some that missed the axe:

Fiona had to write in the conduct book again. This time it was for throwing paper airplanes in the classroom while her teacher was out. She places a lot of the blame on C--C had all the planes in his desk, and he started it, etc etc (different C, but still a boy), but knows what she did was wrong and can't really answer why she did it--she just gets this bemused expression on her face. SIGH. In fact, it didn't even end up on her homework sheet that I sign because she came up to me in the classroom as I was leaving. I was there volunteering, saying my goodbyes to her teacher and Fiona marched up and launched into her conduct book story. Her teacher looked amused. We're going in Wednesday for a PT conference to--I'm sure talk about her behavior, which honestly seems mostly good, except when it's not--but also to revisit testing for the GT program.

Sophia came home from school ravenous despite just having eaten most of her lunch (I usually pick her up right after lunch). She ate a bowl of my granola! I don't think she's ever eaten my granola. She ate a whole bowl of that WITH yogurt. She hasn't eaten yogurt in ages.

It was cold enough this morning (upper 20s!) that I caught myself looking for my snow boots. Yeah, those are long gone. I know this is NOT really cold, but since we have crappy windows the cold just blasts through. People have trash bags and sheets all over their yards (to protect plants from freezing). Looks great.

I got hooked on some new (to me) songs over the Christmas break and here is one that Sophia also likes immensely. She calls it the "Ra Ra Ra" song.

Right now Sophia is reading The Pigeon Wants a Puppy out loud. I mean out LOUD. With inflections. I'll try to catch it later on video; it's entertaining.

One of Fiona's new favorite songs now is this (thanks, Alex!):

I should point out they don't watch the video, only hear the song.

Bad Boy Influence

2010-01-05T14:16:00.005-05:00

I guess I have acclimated to winter in Texas because it's about 46F right now and it feels COLD. However, the sun is brightly shining, so it's not so bad. We're supposed to get a hard freeze Thursday night and Friday night, so that will kill off anything that survived in the garden from the last freeze. Hopefully, this means fewer mosquitoes next summer. Sophia came home exclaiming that her teacher said we were getting snow tomorrow. There doesn't seem to be anything like that in the forecast, however. This is not a problem for me.

Fiona got off the bus yesterday looking happy and then very serious as she said, "Can I show you something before we go inside?". Then she shows me the page I have to sign every day that has her homework assignment and things to remember for the next day. Her teacher said that Fiona had been acting very silly in class today and was influenced by C (a new boy)--please talk to her. First of all, I was relieved it wasn't something worse. Fiona acting very silly in class is a problem we've had to address off and on during the years and it is gradually getting better. So we did talk about it. She said, "But MOM! I'ts C's fault! C is so silly and he makes me laugh so hard! I can not help it." She has been talking about C for a while now. She loves people who make her laugh. Hopefully, today goes better. She did say that when I met her at the bus stop, I looked so happy and "smiley" that she felt "really bad" about telling me her bad news (when she is silly or talkative or not following directions, etc, she gets written up in the "conduct book"). She is very forthcoming about the conduct book. She never hides it. It's quite remarkable. I'm not sure if it's the age or her personality or both. She's not going to sit next to C in groups and will keep the silliness to recess. She asked me if she and C could still be friends. Oh, Fiona.

On that note, though, our school (or at least her teachers) don't have any scheduled parent/teacher conferences during the year. I'm going to schedule one (for both girls) just to make sure I really know what's going on. The work that comes home looks good and Sophia is improving with reading and writing and Fiona's grades are great. I would like to try to get Fiona in the gifted/talented program, but it's a little tricky. Her teacher thinks she is more "high achieving" than gifted/talented, but said she would watch her during the year. The books that Fiona reads at school are easier than the ones she reads at home. All the other subjects seem pretty much at her level and she excels in those subjects. It's possible I don't really know what the gifted/talented program is really about. They test kids for the program in kindergarten. Obviously, we missed that since we just moved here. If it's just a matter of testing her, then I don't see why we shouldn't.

I don't have any pictures from today, so here, completely out of context, are pictures from last Halloween, which we had a lot of fun with.

Books and Hips

2010-01-04T14:12:00.006-05:00

Sophia survived her day at school and Fiona got off to school without a hitch (but will be glad when school has regular hours tomorrow). I just have to make sure we do violin practice this afternoon! Bonus points if we can practice a little more before bedtime.

Fiona has started reading The Chronicles of Narnia and has already finished The Magician's Nephew. The strictly-reading-about-dinosaurs phase has ended (or maybe it has just been added on to, because her auntie Alex got her a huge encyclopedia on dinosaurs) and we are back to fiction! She read a cool version of the Frog Princess on our way up to Denton, and finished two of her three Christmas books (still working on The Saturdays). Travels of Thelonious was a HUGE hit (I knew it would be, and that was the book at the end of the bed). She also loved the Moomintroll book, and is asking for more. Actually, she's asking for more of both. Happily, we have a birthday coming up. Oh yeah, the slumber party. Groan. Now if she would only read The Hobbit, which she got for Christmas last year. I don't know what I was thinking then. I should have waited a couple of years on that one. What I should do is read it TO her.

Oh, and the "book at the end of the bed" is a Christmas tradition I got from my parents. Every Christmas morning, there is a book wrapped at the end of the bed signed by the parents with the date. In my case, it was always this amazing book. Sometimes I got cookbooks! I still have most, maybe all, of those books.

Here is Fiona with the head of some LEGO dinosaur. I forgot that the eyes light up. She did the Stegosaurus last. She was slightly annoyed with the construction saying that the feet were incorrect. She has taken to spouting out random facts--but I have no idea if they are really facts. For instance, while we were waiting for the bus, there were 3 large black birds in our pine trees and the neighbors' trees. Fiona said they were crows (maybe they were). Then she went on to tell me that crows and owls are enemies and said something about the crows pecking the owls in the morning (???). She seemed uncertain about that last part when I asked her to clarify, but was adamant that crows and owls are enemies. (Speaking of owls, we love Owly, which you can probably get at the library. Props to Triana for introducing us!)

Did I mention Sophia has started sucking her thumb again? It's even worse than ever. She tells me how much she likes it, especially when she goes to bed. Exasperating as it is, I can also really, really understand, because I did the same thing and I did it for a long time (until I was seven). It was so comforting! It's hell on the teeth, though. I was at least hoping it would help her cope better with situations she feels uncertain of (drop off at school, talking to people, being asked questions, being around new kids...) but I am not sure that it is helping. Maybe I just can't see it.

I feel a strong urge to nap now, and maybe I should take it so I can be ready for encouraging Fiona to practice. That can be so draining. Especially if we HAVEN'T been practicing; then she gets really frustrated during practice (and then I get really frustrated). She really has come a long way since we started in July. Maybe it would help her to see me practice the piano, which is something I should really do (and it's enjoyable once I'm there...sort of like exercise). Then it's either dinner prep time or yoga time! I should prep dinner first. I've been biking, but I think my thighs would like a respite today.

Two amusing things: As Fiona was watching Ellen Aim open yet another MOVIE present at Christmas, she asked why Ellen didn't get any real presents. She said this with a look of stern disapproval on her face (mixed with bewilderment).

Ellen also appeared one evening wearing this shirt, which I love and probably need at least two of. Both girls loved the shirt as well. Sophia stared at the cut out in the top of the shirt and said, "I can see your HIPS". Sobo remarked to Ellen dryly, "I don't think she means your hips".

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T15:06:00.005-05:00

I spent the last two weeks in little D (otherwise known as Denton, the Home of Happiness). The kids had big fun with their grandparents and both aunties (on my side of the family). I actually went out on New Year's Eve to see ODIS with Alex and Ellen Aim. It was fabulous. I even danced in public (shudder).

The kids had a great first Christmas in Texas (We even got snow on Christmas Eve! Snow that didn't melt right away! Actual, big fluffy flakes! That hasn't happened since the early 1900s).

I also got to see a movie! We saw Sherlock Holmes, which was pretty silly, but a lot of fun. Favorite line: "You do realize what you're drinking is meant for eye surgery?" Also something about a package. This was a theater with wine, which helped. We may or may not have high fived during a few of the lines. It was that kind of movie.

Now it's a new year and tomorrow the kids go back to school. Fiona's school starts two hours later than usual, which will make things extra awkward tomorrow. I am not even 100% sure Sophia HAS school tomorrow. I guess I will find that out soon enough. She missed the last two days of school because she had a slight fever, but mostly because she was just obviously not feeling well. She has already asked me today if I will "pick her up early". This means I would pick her up at noon. She used to go all day, but they have this crazy long rest time at the school (from about 11:30 to about 2:30) and it totally screws up her bedtime. So I pick her up at noon when I can (I can't on Wednesdays and Thursdays). Honestly, I am sort of tempted to just take her out of school this year except that she IS picking up reading and writing and interacting with other kids. I miss last year when she would NOT want to come home with me and wanted to play a little longer. It was occasionally exasperating, of course, but by FAR preferable to going out of resignation. Sophia is also going through this DARLING phase of testing limits (the sequel and top volume version) and being absolutely defiant. Tell her she can't do something? "I am going to do it anyway!" She literally laughs at any discipline. I honestly have grey hairs coming in now. I've stopped counting them.

I have been a terrible parent in terms of Fiona's violin practice (I do it with her and I just haven't on this "vacation"). Hopefully, Wednesday's lesson is not too painful (I go with her, which is why Sophia has a long day at school Wednesday). Fiona's birthday is coming up (2/2!) and she will be eight. Eight! She is pushing hard for a slumber party. She wants a handful of girls (about 5, I think) and I want ONE. Still not sure what to do about that. She did attend her first slumber party last fall and it went extremely well, but the mother certainly did not get any sleep (neither did the girls, of course). I've been volunteering in Fiona's class (one of them, anyway...she has two teachers) on Thursdays in the early afternoon. I love doing this, because then I get to meet the other kids in her class. I still feel lost at Sophia's school, but it is getting a little better because she's been invited to a few birthday parties.

Now that it's time to get back into some sort of schedule, I'm actually making some loose "resolutions", which I don't usually do (if I want to do something, I just do it). Maybe making it a more formal declaration will help. I'm back to exercising, which is fun to do with Sophia there because she will really bust out some great dance moves. That girl can dance. I am going to try to write something every day. Hopefully, here. Facebook does not count. But if not here, somewhere. I am also going to venture into Houston once a week (probably that Wednesday) because I am tired of the weak produce at HEB. HEB can be great, but this one near our house is so-so. It's sort of like Shaw's produce at our former home. Pretty good, but the co-op had fresher. I think it's worth the trip to Whole Foods or Central Market for fresh produce. Oh, and maybe some cheese.

Addendum to Boston and Seneca Falls

2009-10-20T19:53:00.003-04:00

I didn't mean to leave you hanging on my mysterious symptom of having an extremely bitter taste after everything I ate. That is now gone and lasted about a week. I am pretty sure this happened because I ate pine nuts. What this article doesn't mention, besides why it happens (because nobody knows), is that, incredibly, the symptoms don't start right away. They can start one to three days after you've eaten them. In my case, salad with toasted pine nuts on a Monday or Tuesday (can't remember), symptoms on Thursday morning. This only happened to me--not to Doug. I don't know if my pine nuts came from China (most do). You can get them from Italy, but it sounds like they are harder to find. There seem to be no other ill effects. This is kind of a bummer, because I love pine nuts. I dislike that taste even more, though, so...I guess I will be looking for Italian pine nuts and see if that makes a difference. I've been eating pine nuts for years and this is the first time I've had anything like this happen!

Boston and Seneca Falls, Part Two

2009-10-20T16:53:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning we had another delicious breakfast at John Morris Manor Bed and Breakfast. More fresh fruit, a similar egg dish to Saturday's, but with herbs, and a side of bacon, and divine French toast with an apple compote. Fresh, delicious. I had coffee instead of tea. Also delicious. Oh, and by the way, it's real tea you get to choose from. Not Lipton.

On the way back to Ellen Aim's apartment, this time yours truly doing the driving---and screaming---, we listened to more great music. I love road trips with my iPod. We actually had very similar playlists, but notable differences, so that was fun. New stuff (ODIS!) and old/"other" stuff (mostly the kind of stuff you don't admit to liking).

We managed to get home in one piece and then it was off to meet Ellen Aim's husband at the theater (huge) to see Paranormal Activity. Ellen Aim thoughtfully provided us with disposable coffee cups of a bit of limoncello. I drank it a little too quickly (I felt a little odd walking around with it--we're on the subway, by the way). I also needed to eat, so we loaded up on nachos and hot dogs at the theater. YUM. Unfortunately, I did not realize the whole movie was shot with a hand held video camera. I discovered, while watching the Blair Witch Project, that I get motion sickness watching movies like that. I missed the last 5 minutes of Blair Witch to go throw up in the bathroom. Nice. So I tried to stay in the theater with my eyes closed. Impossible. It looked like it might have been a bit creepy during the moments I came up for air. Can't say. I left with about 15-20 minutes to go. It's a short movie. I also couldn't find the way OUT of the theater, so I ended up walking queasily in front of the screen. Yep, nice! I survived and didn't get sick and we made it back home. I wish we had seen Zombieland! I was fine by the time I woke up at 4 AM for my flight/drive home.

I can't wait to visit again! I think I'll wait until spring or summer, though. I think Ellen Aim is probably already making use of the box o' winter gear I sent her.

Sophia Takes More Pictures

2009-10-20T15:06:00.013-04:00

I couldn't resist sharing a few.

Intermission

2009-10-20T12:08:00.005-04:00

Selections from our road trip playlist.

Sorry the sound is SO crappy on this Odis video. Just trust me it rocks and buy the album. I want to see them live!

OMG! They have this song on YouTube! This is NOT an easy song to get a hold of. This is my favorite song. Ever. Maybe.

HAHAHAHA! Oh, the videos of the 1980s. Nothing quite like them.

Of course, there is more, but that is a sampling.

Boston and Seneca Falls, Part One

2009-10-20T10:14:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend before last in Boston and Seneca Falls, NY with my sister, Ellen Aim. I was lucky enough that JetBlue was the cheapest airfare I could find. I especially like JetBlue when I can go through the JFK airport. It's clean, the food is decent if overpriced, and there is free wifi. Plus, so far I've had pretty good luck with making connections and the planes leaving on time (it was late leaving JFK for Houston, but I had no connections to make and no children with me, so I didn't mind, but if I had had the kids with me...ugh!). I also like the TV sets on the back of each chair. Every now and then the sets don't work, so I wouldn't totally rely on those being there. You can still check one bag for free as long as it's under 50 pounds. There are also free chips and beverages. So, there is my plug for JetBlue.

I've been to Boston before, but driving down from Vermont. We've been to the aquarium a couple of times and the Italian district. It's totally different when you use the train/subway system and stay with someone who lives there (well, just outside of Boston, anyway). The subway system is nice (it would probably take me a while to figure it out) and I would LOVE to be able to not need a car. I hate driving in Boston. I don't like driving in Houston, and Dallas even less, but Boston? Boston is the worst. The city is great, the driving is terrifying.

So Thursday Ellen Aim and I went to a couple of her favorite pub spots. We went to Grendel's Den where they have half-price food from 5:30 to 7 PM. The beer is great (we had the Cambridge Ale), the food is...so-so. The pretzels were fine and the spinach/artichoke/snow crab dip was oookay, but we ordered some sort of Camembert dip (I remember it was supposed to have caraway seeds in it) that was orange. The light was dim. Perhaps it was pink. We tried to like it, but after eating half of it decided it "had grown off of us". I don't see it on the website menu at the moment. Still, the pub is worth a second try next time I visit! The butternut squash ravioli with sage and brown butter (damn, everyone makes that dish, but at least it is worthy of repetition) was perhaps a special as I don't see it on the menu. This was not bad at all. Oh yes, it had pecans. Lovely pecans. So definitely worth a second try. After that, I am not sure what we did. There was walking around and hanging out at her apartment, visiting a cute little Japanese store, and so on. We ended up at John Harvard's. I didn't take notes and I don't see what we had on the menu. Figures. I think we had the Oktoberfest brews (excellent), but I also had some sort of special stout, which was malty and wonderful. I'd go back for the beer. The food was not as impressive. We had mozzarella sticks, which were dry and lukewarm. However, they were very generous with the sauce. I was exhausted at this point and we went home.

Friday! Time to drive out to Seneca Falls, where we stayed at John Morris Manor Bed and Breakfast. The breakfast here is absolutely wonderful. It's clean, it's cute, and I would absolutely stay here again. I love bed and breakfasts so much more than hotels! They do have two dogs, who are friendly, but also not shy. May not be the place for you if you are really not a dog person. It would be a shame to miss breakfast here, though. Seneca Falls, itself, however, was not too exciting. We had a hard time finding a place to eat. Many shops appear to be out of business. We ate at a pizza/pasta place that did not have its alcohol license yet. We ordered pasta. We were served with what looked like at least a pound of pasta each. It was unremarkable in flavor. The garlic rolls that came before the pasta were crusty, warm, and flavorful. We filled up on those.

Then back to John Morris Manor (where there is no wifi, but we lived). We horked a couple of chocolate chip cookies and went to bed.

Saturday morning, we were treated to a fresh fruit plate, tea, pancakes with blueberry sauce,and a sort of baked egg frittata (but looked like it was baked in a pan and then cut into squares--very fluffy and light and delicious. I'm going to try this.) with cheese. The other guests (two couples at the same table with us) were utterly charming. There was also juice. Dogs did a bit of begging.

I have neglected to mention that since Thursday morning (the morning I left for Boston), every thing I ate had a bitter, metallic aftertaste. Everything. Water. Bread. Worst culprits were greens and sweet things. I was so paranoid that I had some mysterious dental issue going on. It wasn't so bad the day I got to Boston, but the absolute worst day was Saturday, the day we were going on the wine trails. So that was a bit of a downer.

So keeping in mind that I could not properly taste wine to save my life, we started at Eleven Lakes Winery, which is just down the road from John Morris Manor. This is exciting because it's new and had their grand opening on October 3rd. I bought a bottle of red for Doug. It's long gone now, but I'm pretty sure it was the Cabernet Franc. The innkeeper at John Morris Manor recommended it.

Then we had cheese further down the road. Oh, the cheese tasted so good and then the weird bitter taste symptom appeared. We both bought the Horseradish cheddar cheese (I'm sorry I don't have the name of the farm that made the cheese at the moment. I'll try to find it).

Then we went to Knapp Winery in Romulus (insert Star Trek joke here). Again, taste buds fail me here, but I will say putting pictures of cats on the label that look like they have been to the taxidermist is not a good marketing idea. There is a huge selection here. They have a whole category of "fruit" wines, which is really not my thing, but there it is. Neither of us cared for any of the wine we tasted (I will say you can taste anything they sell in your wine tasting--I can't remember how many wines you get to have in one tasting, but it's a significant amount). However, once we realized we could taste the limoncello or limencello, we had to try it. The lemoncello is quite good and Ellen Aim bought a bottle (wish I had, too). Next time I'll try the limencello. Maybe I'll even try the restaurant next time! This vineyard was very popular--it was full of people and cars when we arrived.

Our last vineyard stop was Americana Vineyards and Winery, where we went to last year.

We resolved to go again this year, because the food there is wonderful, and the Apparition wine (blend of Cayuga grapes) was a favorite. Really, this winery is the one to go to for wine made from Cayuga grapes. The Cayuga White is also very good. Clean, crisp, dry. The Apparition is a bit sweeter (not at all too much, mind you). The Finger Lakes region seems better suited to white wines in my very limited experience so far. The winery also had a tasting menu of blueberry wines, which we had to try. Avoid that. The best of those was the last item on the tasting menu, which was the dessert wine. That was okay.

Waiting for a table at lunch was a long 45 minutes or so.

It was worth the wait. Everything tastes fresh and in-house. The bread on the sandwiches is very classy. The menu was different than last year, so we couldn't get the little dish full of nibblies we had last year. I had a grilled chicken sandwich with arugula pesto and sweet potato fries (not soggy! crispy! delightful!) and Ellen Aim had pork chops with mashed red potatoes and kale. Oh, the kale was sort of disappointing. It had sliced carrots in it and what tasted like reduced apple cider in it. It was too sweet for me. I am noticing a trend here. It may not escape your notice I'm not a huge fan of sweet things. Really, I like sweet things. In moderation. It didn't help that when I ate sweet things, the bitter after taste in my mouth was at its worst. Perhaps the kale was just fine. Maybe Ellen Aim will weigh in. It was her dish, after all. The winery also sells fudge, which is delicious for a small bite. I really loved the coconut fudge.

The winery also has a very friendly adorable cat.

I was totally exhausted at this point (I am also predictable), so we went back to the inn. We decided not to venture out again into the depressing place that Seneca Falls is at night (we did find a liquor store...no Tuaca, but we got some Godiva liqueur). We put a disk of Supernatural in and ate some of the lovely Horseradish cheese with some leftover crackers in the car and called it a night. We had to eat in the living area instead of our room (completely understandable). Fortunately, the room was empty so we didn't have to share Supernatural with the other guests.

I'll save the rest of the trip for another post.

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It's RED!

2009-10-19T11:00:00.011-04:00

Triana got Sophia a RED digital camera for her birthday! Thank you, Triana! We found it this morning on the doorstep and we had to open it right before school started. Sophia's drop off at school has been dramatic lately, so I worried that this would make it worse, but amazingly, it went just fine. Maybe it helped she had a huge box of chocolate chip cookies in her hands to give to her teacher for her birthday celebration today.

Anyway, I used her new camera to take her picture:

She took these:

Going to have to work on having a steady hand!

We took this together:

I'll pick her up early today so we can get lots of practice in! I think I can make the resolution better, actually. I finally looked at the instructions (I had to, to figure out how to download it onto the computer) and I see that is an option. Instructions are a handy thing.

How to End A Crappy Week

2009-10-16T11:23:00.006-04:00

First give your youngest a big bath.

Later, have a glass of wine...

with a LUSH bubble bath.

Then prepare for a car trip out of town for the weekend!

5 years!

2009-10-15T15:06:00.015-04:00

Send To Phone

Sophia will be five this Sunday. We're driving up to Denton so we can celebrate with her grandparents (on my side). I asked her what kind of cake she wanted (hoping to distract her from her sister rabidly encouraging her to ask for a dragon cake) and she said she wanted the cake I made for her Daddy's birthday. This is excellent. I made an almond meringue cake with chocolate buttercream from The Art of the Cake. She did really get down on that cake. The meringue was a little problematic in August in this armpit-like area, but I think it will work better now, in colder, dryer Denton. It's all relative. Plus, I don't think I'm going to pipe the meringue in. I will next time--gotta hone those piping skillz, after all, but I want this to be nearly perfect, so in order to work faster and lighter, I'm going to just scoop that meringue in those cake pans. It'll be fine.

The birthday girl has lost a second tooth. Yes, it's early. Oh, and by the way, she has completely stopped sucking her thumb. I took her to the pediatrician for boosters and another shot (TX vaccination requirements are different than VT ones). The office was FILLED with hardcore pictures of diseases...of course, the kind of diseases you get if you don't vaccinate. Sigh. She was totally disturbed by these pictures. So the doctor comes in, and all is well. Then she notices that Sophia sucks her thumb. She encourages her not to. All of this has been said and done before by teachers, nurses, other parents, doctors, us, etc. She does not care and I don't blame her. Sucking your thumb is very satisfying when you are 4 (5, 6, 7...). She mentions how you can transfer the germs from your hand to your mouth. Whatev. But THEN she points to the pictures and said you can get THESE diseases. That made a HUGE impression on her. She stopped cold turkey.

This is not a good thing. She would be so worried if her hands got near her mouth. She asked about everything: "Will it give me yucky diseases?" She had no comfort outlet. Anytime she felt unsure or shy or tender or sleepy or anything that wasn't active playing or eating, she sucked her thumb. So we have spent the last month and a half trying to find how to survive when you can't comfort yourself. It has been hard. Fuzzy, her well-loved platypus thing, isn't cutting it. She was letting him go by the wayside before this and he's still on his way out. Although, truthfully, he has today made his way into the car and is waiting for her in her carseat. Her school gave her water out of the tap and she asked me when she got home if she would die now. Oh. My. God.

So, hopefully, this weekend will be good for her. She also had a dentist appointment this week and she would not let them touch her teeth. She DID let them X-ray her teeth, so at least we can see there are no cavities. Just lots of plaque that really needs to be cleaned off. But later. On the doctor and dentist days, I kept her out of school and we just played together. We went to the beach, had lunch with her dad, and just had fun. It's nice to go to the beach in October, by the way. It's snowing back in Vermont (I keep wanting to say "back home") and we are still wearing flip-flops.

I can't believe it's been 5 years. I think she still looks like my little baby, but as you can see, she is really growing into a big girl.

Science is Real

2009-09-09T08:40:00.000-04:00

I got the album on iTunes and it's fabulous!

New Camera

2009-09-08T09:43:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry this is sideways. I'm not used to our new camera, which shoots video! I know this is not new technology, but it's new to me! I love new toys.

Mistakes were made. But those littleneck clams were The Nom.

My Little Skeptics

2009-08-27T20:01:00.003-04:00

Two tidbits:

Sobo has been reading "The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill" by Dorothy Wall to the kids (Fiona started reading it on her own soon after). On page 12 it says, "The great day arrived. In a quiet corner of the bush, down by a little stream surrounded with bells and flannel flowers, everyone came from far and near to see young Bill christened". Fiona asked, "Why is his last name Christened"?

We went to Meet and Greet at Fiona's school. Her teacher gave each student a little gem-like thing to put under their pillows the night before the first day of school so that they would have good dreams about 2nd grade (I know this is sort of cheesy, but for the record, I thought it was cute). Fiona was telling this to Sophia later--that Fiona would have good dreams because of this gem. Sophia gave Fiona this confused look and said "No, you won't" in this incredulous tone of voice.

Lots going on here. However, our house has sold (with some conditions), but it is no longer ours.

Mundane Blatherings

2009-08-10T10:57:00.004-04:00

Oy, I'm still here, but engulfed by the details of life.

I finally got to register Fiona for school today and she is very excited. We've decided to let her take the bus to and from school, which is part of her excitement. It picks her up at approximately the ass crack of dawn, but, apparently, school here starts just after the ass crack of dawn. I asked about the gifted and talented program (apparently everyone gets tested for that in Kindergarten), and we can ask about that through her teacher (we find out who that is on the 20th)...probably giving it about a month to see where she's at. Sophia still seems to be enjoying school, although her teacher indicated that in the last two days she is reluctant to do her work. I was planning on taking her out of school tomorrow so she and Fiona can go to the Space Center together (there is this monstrosity of a climbing thing she salivates over, and it's so big and so maze-like that I want them to stick together in there). She is very excited about this. Hopefully, that isn't a bad idea because I'd like to do it one more time next week and take them both to the beach.

I had this idea earlier that Sophia would stay at her school until 6 instead of 2 when the school year started. Fiona's bus can actually drop Fiona off there after school, so I could pick them up at the same time. Fiona loves this idea. Now, however, it seems silly because A) I don't have a job yet. I haven't even started looking. B) 6 makes for a LONG day for them C) That'd be quite a bit extra spare change. So, hopefully, when I do find a job, that is something I can change later...and hopefully they could be picked up earlier than 6 (I mean, they go to bed around 7-7:30). I'm still not sure if I even like Sophia's school. Her teacher in the morning seems nice enough. I guess I need to schedule a visit and a conference to talk about how Sophia is doing. Once Fiona is in school, I can pop by a lot more frequently.

The closing date on our house has been moved to the 25th, or possibly some time before that. I believe the walls and ceiling are finally done, but the floors need to be finished. The entire first floor will be sanded and polished so it will all match. So hopefully, that makes up for the slightly later closing date. I just want it to be over.

Random fact. Did you know when you get your Texas driver's license when you move in from out of state, they take your old one away? You don't get a Texas driver's license with a photo on it for 6-8 weeks. This makes things extremely inconvenient. Things like trying to get important FedEx packages, opening up new bank accounts, using your credit card/debit card/checks. Oh, the list. It goes on.

We braved Houston last weekend and went to the FABULOUS zoo. We got a family membership, which is well worth every penny. My computer doesn't seem to recognize my camera at the moment (sigh), but hopefully pictures will soon be forthcoming.

These pictures are from Alex's visit last weekend. We had so much fun! It went by too fast. Next time we'll take her into Houston. I think the girls would prefer if we lived even closer to our families!

We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So!

2009-07-28T12:03:00.004-04:00

I'm drowning in the annoying minutiae of life, but I'm still here. If only this movie were out NOW. I'm really looking forward to this!

Some Pictures

2009-07-15T12:44:00.005-04:00

Just wanted to share these gems from Triana!

Howdy, folks!

Oh NOES!

BFF :o)

Lonesome Dove Bistro

2009-07-14T17:30:00.003-04:00

I am so bummed I don't have pictures of us--we were fabulous--or our meal--also fabulous. It was all, well, fabulous.

We got there early, so we sat at the bar. This is where I had my first taste of Tuaca. Definitely a good thing to have in your mouth. I love that their Cucumber Tini is made with Hendrick's Gin. I've mentioned a couple of times before I'm a fan. Ellen Aim ordered the Texas Tini, which was smooth and fruity...but the cranberry helped the peach from being just cloyingly sweet, I think. Prefer the Tuaca. I don't usually have a stop at the bar before dinner, but I'm so glad we did.

The appetizer menu was desperately hard to choose from. Our waiter helpfully pointed out that you can order a sampler of four appetizers. This was a great option. I have to point out, though, it is also misleading. It is the same price as ordering four appetizers. No harm done as it was scrumptious, but a little surprising at bill time. Not TOO surprising, however. My discretionary income tends to all go towards food, anyway, so...

We ordered the blue corn lobster hushpuppies with watercress sauce. This was my second favorite. I adore lobster and corn together. Great match. The watercress gives it a contrasting note--just perfect. I admit, it didn't really seem or look like blue corn. It looked like yellow corn. Perhaps the lighting? It tasted great, so whatever. We ordered the wild boar ribs with BBQ sauce and house pickles. First, I love house pickles. It's a small thing, but you lose points in fine dining if you don't make your own and you definitely gain them if you make them. These were really good and paired well with the boar ribs which were nicely seasoned, perfectly cooked, and DAMN. I could have had an entree of this and been done. My favorite. We also ordered the rabbit-rattlesnake sausage on rosti and creme fraiche. I had to talk Ellen Aim into something with creme fraiche, but this was also pretty good. I say "pretty good" because the sausage was nice, but honestly unremarkable--a bit dry, too. However, I am a sucker for little potato cakes, which were spicy, but nicely so. Then we had the bacon wrapped stuffed figs, with an almond inside. Those were bits of lovely. I don't remember what sauce they were with--it wasn't celery root puree like it is on the current menu--it was a sort of cheese sauce. The bacon sort of dominated everything and you didn't actually taste a lot of fig, but well. That's bacon for you. I dare not say there was too much bacon wrapped around the fig. Who says that? I remember Ellen Aim asking me worriedly, as she was eating the fig, "You did say there was an almond in this, right?" It's good to know what you're eating sometimes!

We weren't inspired by the second course (I'm sure it's all delectable, but one has to pace oneself), so we decided to share the butter lettuce salad. The citrus vinaigrette was so, so light. It was delightful. It seemed to have a slight floral flavor along with a lemony taste. The pepitas were a great touch. I also just want to say it is so refreshing to eat somewhere where the greens are really fresh. I know. It seems really basic. It's surprising how many slimy green salads there are out there, even in places that should know better. It's a dangerous world. Now let's talk about the lardoons. Really, Ellen Aim said it best: "A chunk of bacon, if you will". I don't think I need to expound on this. So. A second course well placed. We also had this really sweet bread basket. House made (it had to be) cheese-corn-green chili cornbread and slices of a thin loaf of a molasses flavored bread. So awesome. Just needed a little more butter, but then, I am a butter whore. Really. It's quite shocking.

Alex ordered the roasted garlic stuffed tenderloin (one of their signature dishes), which was as tender as you could want. It came with a vegetable hash, asparagus (I ate that...well, most of it), and apparently, a syrah demi-glace. I didn't try the sauce, I see. Ellen Aim ordered the New Zealand red deer chop with Texas elk sausage, roasted hen of woods, which came with chicory salad---I believe you could also call this "coleslaw". I ate the mushrooms. Slurp. Roasted mushrooms! It was actually a mix of mushrooms--some button mushrooms were thrown in there. The deer chop was perfectly cooked (medium rare) and so succulent. Ellen Aim didn't care for the elk sausage, but I enjoyed it very much. Again, not the most amazing sausage, but perfectly respectable.

I ordered the Alaskan halibut, smoked crawfish stew, and crispy yucca. Okay, the little bits of crispy yucca were an outstanding addition to this dish and was the first thing I noticed and loved about this. I love dishes that have different textures to it. The smoked crawfish stew was my favorite part of the stew---really fresh tasting. The halibut was perfectly cooked and seared. I don't usually order the fish dish when there's beef and pork around, but we were sharing. I actually think I liked my dish the best.

I knew that Ellen Aim wanted a Zinfandel, and I thought that was an excellent choice. Zinfandel goes with so many things, and it's hard not to please with a good Zinfandel. You don't even need food with a Zinfandel. I was torn between Ravenswood (very safe choice) and Ironstone (I think the cheapest one, but still probably okay). I asked our server what he recommended and he right away pointed to the Ridge Zinfandels. These are everywhere and I think they have a good reputation, but I'd never actually tried one to my recollection. We ordered the 2005 Ridge, York Creek, Napa Valley (which seems to be out of stock at places online, and I can't find it at Spec's). It was well balanced, full of jammy berry goodness---really, the sort of thing you expect with a Zinfandel. Rich and yummy. It did not disappoint. I honestly didn't give it much more thought since I was there for the company and the food.

We did order one side dish. This was Ellen Aim's birthday celebration dinner, after all. Can't pass up white truffled macaroni and cheese. This was served with breaded artichoke hearts on top, which was a nice touch. We slurped this. We absolutely would have used fingers and tongues on the bowl, but we were raised better, even after a bottle of wine and a couple of cocktails. I forget, though, how potent truffle oil is. The leftovers we took home reeked of truffle afterwards, even though there was no leftover truffle macaroni and cheese.

For dessert, Ellen Aim ordered the Digestif menu, which totally flummoxed our waiter, who said he had never heard it called that. We got the bar menu from earlier. Okay. No bourbon? Not that I needed bourbon at that point. Maybe you have to ask. Maybe I just missed it (very possible). We did ask about something called "Dolce" under Dessert Wine for $30 and our waiter said it was very sweet and syrupy--I forget what he said, exactly, but he did say it was "like pancake syrup". He was obviously dissing it, for which I give him props. It made up for his, oh, Ellen Aim, what did you call it? His hostile apathy? Something like that. Anyway, we stayed the hell away from that and shared a shot of more Tuaca! They put it into 3 smaller shot glasses. We didn't order three desserts, alas, but we shared the churros (called Mexican doughnuts), which were warm, cinnamony, and plentiful. The cajeta was my favorite, but the chocolate did go very well with the Zinfandel (which we still had some of by this point. See, we aren't total lushes. Oh, and the bottle disappeared very quietly. No one saw a thing. Things came and went. It was really good service except for the lack of interaction, which in my book, is not necessary, and falls under bonus points).

We went home happy and watched a couple of videos, and then pretty much conked out like the party animals that we are.

More Pictures from the Space Center

2009-07-14T17:26:00.004-04:00

She has seen Star Wars (and I don't mean those recent horrors...I mean the old, er, good ones), so this was pretty cool. She loved trying on the space helmets, too.

Here we are on our new sofa. It is very cozy!

Tuaca

2009-07-13T20:53:00.003-04:00

Oh, but one more thing.

Vanilla, orange, brandy. Italian. Tuaca.

They have recipes there, but right now, I'm pretty content with it straight up out of the freezer. Why mess with it? Also, I just love saying it.

Unedible.

2009-07-13T20:15:00.007-04:00

Ellen Aim has written an excellent post about our visit to Lonesome Dove here, complete with pictures (I don't have pictures unless she mails me the one of me holding the bowl of luscious mushrooms...and even then, I'm not sure I'll be sharing). It was truly a sublime meal. I'll get to that in a minute. I have something else to get off my chest first.

It's a little blurry. Suffice to say, it is a monstrosity. It is supposed to be a grilled cheese sandwich from the Space Center in Houston (a very cool place, by the way. But bring a picnic). It is not. Oh, no. It is lukewarm white bread---and yes, without crusts. "Pre-toasted". It tastes like lukewarm dry cheap cheddar cheese surrounded by moist cardboard. It is an abomination. They put that on my tray when I paid and I nearly said "WTF" out loud. Let me first explain. The prices here are astronomical (heh heh heh--bet I'm not the first person to say that!). Fiona wanted a cheeseburger basket (that just means it has fries, too). That's nearly 8 dollars. For a mediocre cheeseburger. It's edible, but mediocre. Hey, it has a piece of small wilted lettuce and a Roma tomato round. So I got a kids' basket in case she didn't finish hers. Plus mine came with a Caprisun, which is this drink in a foil packet that is mostly sugar and has token fruit juice in it. It's ~~ass~~ fruit punch flavor. I just wanted her to have some liquid. Anyway, I thought I could not go wrong with a grilled cheese sandwich. I have been solidly proven wrong. By the way, I paid nearly 6 bucks for that. I will say this: the fries are pretty good. They were hot and nicely salted. We had no problem finishing those!

I have this feeling I'll probably find myself eating there again (actually, Fiona certainly will, she's going to four camps there--that's just four days--and they provide snack and lunch, which is very cool for the price) and I think it's possible I just need to try something different. We should have kept walking and tried the Italian place. You can't go wrong with pizza...right? Okay, don't answer that. I did see some people eating some and it looked okay. We actually would have ordered Chinese food, but they didn't have pork, so she turned her nose up at that.

Except for that unpleasant bit of lunch, we had a fabulous time. If you are ever in the area, this place is a must see, especially with kids. Especially with kids over 40 inches. It would NOT be a fun place if you went when it was packed, because I think you would feel like a sardine (especially in the kids' area). We had a blast and Fiona wants to go back to tomorrow (not happening). I loved the presentation they have on living in space. Next time I want to allow more time to roam around. We had to cut it short to go grocery shopping before I picked up Sophia (who seems to still be enjoying school).

I shall return to talk about the dinner in my next post!

Moist

2009-07-08T19:44:00.005-04:00

Now there's a great word. Moist. However.

This. This is our purple house that is under contract in Vermont. The one we spent so much time and effort working on.

I think I like the waterfall and the warped floor the best. So the toilet apparently has been leaking. For days. That's about 4 inches of water in the basement there. We have insurance and it's all going to be okay, and hopefully the buyers will still want the house (well, they'll have new floors, etc). But damn. Now? Thanks, life.

Maybe Not the Kangaroo Nachos

2009-07-07T10:59:00.009-04:00

I'm driving up this weekend to help Alex take Ellen Aim out to dinner for her birthday. We are going to a restaurant named Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth. Look at the dinner menu (which changes daily). What would I NOT order? Damn. I don't know if Alex or Ellen Aim picked out the restaurant, but it looks like a bitchin' choice. I sort of just hopped on at the last minute to go in on the birthday dinner.

The dessert menu is chocolate this and chocolate that (I know, it's chocolate, but I prefer something else after an enormous meal. This will be an enormous meal). However, I see they have Mexican doughnuts, and I'm sure I'll have that. I mean, first, fresh doughnuts. That's enough right there. But dipped in cajeta? Now I feel all fluttery. I'll have to inquire about cheesecake lollipops. Strawberry shortcake is always good and, really, the basic desserts like strawberry shortcake can be the best desserts of all...or the worst. Like the banana split. At a place like this, I would have high hopes for something like a banana split. So that could be interesting. I am loving the fact that the ancho chocolate cake has a tomatillo anglaise. Having a hard time picturing what that would taste like. Actually, I sort of can and I'm still not sure. If I have room, maybe I'll have that. We'll see what the birthday girl wants to try and hopefully, we'll share desserts (3 desserts shared, I mean. Research. And birthday. Must have lots of desserts for a BIRTHDAY, right?). Tuaca is this, by the way. I had to look it up. Okay. So the flan sounds good, too.

Who knows if this is really the dessert menu we'll see (it may change fairly often depending on what's available and seasonality...one hopes). Still, I can see it will be hard to choose.

Do look at the wine list and feel free to leave a comment about what you would have. I have a feeling birthday girl will want it red and complex. I always love to try the specialty cocktails (there's that Tuaca again, frozen shots...I think I may have to try that), but I'm more interested in the wine/food pairing and this girl can only hold so much alcohol...and I just can't do alcohol on an empty stomach.

Anyway, celebrating will be had! Then Ellen Aim leaves us for Boston the following weekend. Boo.

The 4th was great fun and had in excellent company! We braved going out to see the fireworks (sort of a drag waiting for the bus to take us back to the parking lot where we left our car, but maybe there is a side street we can park on next year...and we'd need a cooler with wheels). Now I just have to figure out when to see Triana and her hub again! I'm just a wee bit too far away for visiting as often as I'd like. Yes, I know. I'm greedy. Triana took breathtakingly beautiful pictures of my babies. Here are some examples:

Triana also introduced me to Spec's, which has a very nice collection of wine. Damn. Perhaps, however, now, when we listen to the 3 Wine Guys podcast, we can actually find the wine! I haven't listened to the Mourvedre podcast yet, and I'm eager to. I love Mourvedre.

Not in Kansas Anymore

2009-06-29T08:40:00.002-04:00

Or Vermont, for that matter.

It was a smooth, but intense, trip down here and we are still unpacking. The worst part was Wednesday when the movers were here all day, unloading in 104 degree heat. I have been unpacking steadily since then and it is slow going. The kids are having an adventure and being amazingly well behaved (most of the time). I can tell they are ready to at least see other kids, though. Most people tend to hide in their houses during the day. It sort of feels like winter in Vermont, but a lot sunnier and hotter.

I have not taken one single picture, so I hope to do that soon.

Today I hope to make sure we have everything we need for Sophia's first day of school (which I think is next Monday, but I'm not even sure about that), find some summer camps and violin lessons for Fiona, get ready for Triana's visit this Friday (!!!), get the library cards, find the post office and mail Fiona's letters, call AT&T because the very nice man who was here for 4 hours (or was it 5?) did not leave any information about what our email address would be or any codes for anything AND now the land line is way too static-y to use, and, of course, I need to keep on keepin' on with the unpacking. I still need to get my driver's license. We did register both cars and get them inspected. That cost a pretty penny (90 dollar new resident fee for each car on top of all the other costs). We didn't do the driver's license because after getting to the DMV, we discovered the checkbook had been left at the tax office. Thankfully, someone turned it in. It had been an all morning thing by this point, and we were all done.

We'll have been here one week Wednesday and I can see now that, yes, indeed, I need to find a job outside the home. I have no idea what that will be or where and, of course, trying to find a new job is fairly daunting and anxiety producing.

More updates later, and hopefully, some pictures!

Goodbye Green Mountain State!

2009-06-16T07:13:00.002-04:00

We got Fiona's violin upgraded. Wow. She grew a lot this year. I'm sort of embarrassed how tiny the old violin was. How did that happen?

I have no tea kettle and no way to contain water to boil, so here I sit with gas station coffee. The first of many, I am sure.

The girls have just woken up, so I am frantically trying to squeeze in precious writing and computer time. However, the pantry and refrigerator beckon. I have to clean those out! I have to shower before the movers get here and hope I can dry the towel outside quickly. We're debating about staying in a hotel tonight after all.

We'll be traveling through New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and on into Texas. Once we get to Louisiana, just north of New Orleans, we'll travel into Houston on Highway 10...which is the route we took when we left Texas to live in Florida. Sort of cool.

I was hoping to get an Atlas for the kids to look at on our trip, but I'm not sure there will be time. The kids, by the way, are very excited and really looking forward to the trip down there. Please hope with me that nothing precious like Fuzzy (Sophia's lovey) accidentally gets packed. Maybe she'll let me put him in the car now. If you don't tell the movers not to pack something, they'll pack it! Imagine that. So we did have to rescue a screwdriver and expensive work shoes.

I could at least double this entry on all the things I will miss in Vermont and how much I have come to love this place (you know, except for those dark winters). I don't think I need to, however. I think it is evident from day one of my blog. Not the least of what I'll miss are just things related to the girls. The birth center where they were born, how the weather was outside afterwards when we cuddled up together afterwards (Fiona was born in February and there was a thaw then, but we got snow later! Sophia was born mid October, just after foliage season), and all the things we did together: hiking outside at the Montshire Museum of Science, smelling lilacs at the Shelburne Museum, creemees from many, many country stores (Warren has a great one, by the way, but I'm not 100% sure they have creemees), picking strawberries and just spending our days in the summer laying outside on a blanket and reading and napping.

Thank you, Vermont!

7 Days

2009-06-11T07:34:00.003-04:00

Click on the picture to read it. If you need translating, it says, "Poem about leaving. I will miss all of you very much. I don't want to leave this school and go to a new one in Texas :(, and I hope everybody enjoys this school very much. Made by Fiona for Mrs. Mancillas [ed note: the principal] I made this for you so you will know that the school loves you."

This is the morning she gets her "Citizen of the Month" award. I'm already blubbering. I'm not sure I can watch her get any sort of award without looking totally red and puffy. Oh well.

8 Days

2009-06-10T10:36:00.002-04:00

Okay, the hotel reservations are all made for the big road trip. I also scored the current Saveur magazine--an entire issue dedicated to Texas! What great timing! I have no idea why I haven't gotten around to subscribing to this magazine. It's a great magazine. I haven't actually had a chance to read this issue yet because Sophia claimed it and is fascinated by the big picture of the longhorn in the center of the magazine. We had a little conversation where she tried to wrap her brain around the fact that, yes, that is where beef comes from. She said "That's not nice" and in the next breath "I like to eat meat".

The people who looked at our house last night liked the house. They seem to be serious buyers. I am really hoping they make an offer, but trying not to get my hopes up. At all. Ever. Until contracts are signed.

Up! was greatly enjoyed by all. Sophia found a few things scary (and there is just a little bit of gun use/swords/fighting) and some things quite distressing (that's because they were) but liked it (still talks about the scary dogs, though). Fiona loved it and her friend seemed to love it, but I think they especially just loved seeing it together. I could have used some tissues.

Apparently, they are talking about Texas in Fiona's class today (they "visit" different countries throughout the year, ending in the USA by the end of the year. Her teacher picks a few states to study--including Vermont, of course--and Texas is one of those states this year). I can't wait to hear about that later!

I suppose today I will work on what's going in the car (I keep saying that, don't I?) and cancel the landline service and the rubbish removal.

I can't believe we'll be on the road a week from today!

Willie Nelson More CMT Music More CMT Music Videos

Citizen Brown

2009-06-09T15:47:00.002-04:00

I just got a letter from Fiona's school that she has been selected to receive the "Citizen of the Month Award" for May.

I showed her the letter and she got the sweetest, proud smile on her face.

She's having a great day. She has been talking non-stop since I picked her up from school (actually unusual...she usually likes to chill with a book). It was all about the science fair that her class visited at the 7th grade. She apparently completed all of the "Easy", "Medium", and "Hard" equations (just addition) and got a glittery orange pencil. This, of course, is a big deal. It's a cool pencil. She has a crown that declares she is "Fiona: Queen of the Swamp". I think there were other interesting items but she talks so low and quickly these days, it is hard to catch everything she is saying, especially in the car, and especially for someone like me who is a little hard of hearing.

9 Days

2009-06-09T13:20:00.002-04:00

I'm not going to be able to do a full countdown here because the computer will be packed away next Monday or Tuesday. Gulp. I'm sure the withdrawal symptoms will begin within hours. Perhaps minutes.

I've spent the better part of the day trying to figure out where we will stop for the four nights on our trek to Texas and also locating hotels that are not skanky (at least based on reviews), not overpriced, and have a pool (which we can only hope is not strangely oily and cloudy looking like one of the last places we stayed in. Shudder.). Oh, and are available. That helps.

We're going to see Up! tonight after some greasy spoon food from the Dairy Creme in Montpelier. I think a Dish of Dirt is probably a requirement (I believe it's chocolate cake, fudge sauce, chocolate ice cream, and two gummy worms--Fiona always gets that, and finally, now that she's 7, it doesn't look bigger than her head. I still think she should share it with someone, but she eats the whole thing). I'm sure we'll get a huge bowl of popcorn, which will thrill Sophia, who is my little popcorn fanatic. Like me.

I should now clean, as we have people looking at the house at 7 PM. All I want to do is take a nap. It's very dark today and rainy. Mostly dark. It's odd when it's like this, because the it's so green outside that it nearly glows. I need to bring in some smelly lily-of-the-valley soon. While I still can. I'll miss that.

Tomorrow marks one week until the day we leave.

10 Days

2009-06-08T13:25:00.002-04:00

I'm about to drop off the remnants of our garage sale to the Salvation Army (I hope. I am not sure they will take everything...). Our showing on Friday canceled, but we have someone coming tomorrow at 7...PM. That will be okay because I'll be taking the kids with friends to see Up! and get creemees. I can't remember if there are two es on the end of that or one.

I've got Sophia home with me today, but despite that, I've gotten things done and she's been very cuddly. She seems to be all set up for starting at her preschool in July (not wasting any time there...she won't be there as long during the day as she will be for the proper school year). It looks like we can buy new car seats for our last car accident and we will get reimbursed, so that is good (although I told her the cost of Britax car seats and she understandably balked a bit).

Fiona has painstakingly written out little cards for all her friends, teachers, and our neighbors with her new address on them. I still feel like I haven't gotten nearly enough time with friends, so I will try to squeeze that in this week and maybe into the next.

My goal for this afternoon is to pick the route we'll take, possibly make hotel reservations (or at least look for good choices), and finally start setting aside stuff for the car.

A 4 Year Old Analyzes P!nk

2009-06-02T09:03:00.003-04:00

So What - P!nk

I just bought this song because after hearing it every single day at work, I decided I had to keep hearing it. Actually, I ended up getting a few P!nk songs. I've heard her before, but it just didn't really stick with me until now.

So both Fiona and Sophia LOVE this song (hey, it beats Kindermusic). Sophia now will ask numerous questions about every song we listen to. For this one: "Why is she a rock star?" "Why does she have rock moves?" "Why is it called So What?" (Explanation follows to which she says, "Oh, that's sad").

She also loves this song:

Of course she asks, "Why does blood make noise?" She also asks the name of the song again and again and then gets this look on her face like she is thinking very deeply.

They also love this song, but I'm not usually around when they listen to it:

Christina Aguilera - New Music - More Music Videos

Well, it could be worse.

I love this song (ahem) and they could start singing this at school. I'm sure it would be a big hit at the Waldorf school:

Found

2009-05-28T13:43:00.003-04:00

Here's a comic I've saved, found in the masses of stuff I've accumulated. You'll have to click on it to be able to read it.

This would have been best as a Mother's Day post, but oh well.

I Would Eat Only Bacon.

2009-05-26T08:00:00.023-04:00

I give you The Brick Store. We drive all the way here for the bacon. The pepperoni is good, too. They have their own soda, but it's made with corn syrup instead of sugar, so that's disappointing. Still not a bad taste, especially the Sarsaparilla soda.

Mmmmm. Bacon.

At the Hop is a cute ice cream store next door. It's pretty basic in terms of the offerings, but I love the decor and it's a nice treat for the girls who have ridden in the car for an hour plus for...bacon.

She finished before Fiona. Gadzooks!

Some pictures of the inside:

It was a gorgeous day.

So we checked out the covered bridge:

The garage sale we had last weekend went very well (except for someone stealing 3 containers of earrings/rings/bracelets out of our garage while we were in Bath...) and this is my last week of work. We're still trying to pin down a date for the moving people to pack up our stuff and then tote it away. We also need to figure out where exactly we'll be staying on our great road trip to Tejas. We had one more family look at our house yesterday (making the grand number of showings up to...two). My car needs regular tires (goodbye forever, snow tires!) and a tune-up, and hopefully we'll have time to get Doug's car tuned-up. No word yet on when his car will be all fixed up. We're still waiting on money from the first car accident.

I think once we get settled into the new house (hopefully, that will go smoothly), I will sleep for a week.

Live Action Update! Looks like the day we leave Vermont will be the 18th. The movers actually need two days instead of one day to pack, and one day to load. This makes it a little close...it will take us 4 days to get to Texas, and Doug would start the next day (so we drive the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st...and he starts the 22nd). We just have to drive 7-8 hours a day and it should work out. I think we could have them come earlier, but then our stuff would be in storage. I'm not in love with that idea, and really, it will be nice to stay here as long as possible to see everyone we want to see before we leave.

One Quarter, Each Thing

2009-05-23T15:11:00.003-04:00

First, a picture of her on her field trip playing an old fashioned game, tossing a wooden ring with wooden sticks (the way she holds them in other pictures makes me think she should be in band later, in the percussion section!) Anyway, they really got into this game. Looks like some sort of dance in the picture.

We had our garage sale today, and it was extremely successful. It goes tomorrow, too, but I imagine it won't be quite as popular as it was today.

It's time for a bath now. One more week of work next week. Then it will be June! Our house is emptying out. It's really happening! If we could only sell our house. The garage sale seemed to generate a bit of interest in the house as well. My fingers are crossed!

In Other News

2009-05-18T10:57:00.010-04:00

Well. Now I have nice clean, undented car. The body shop even cleaned the inside of the car. It's honestly like new.

First of all, everyone is totally fine. Okay? Just so you know.

Saturday, Doug took the kids to the co-op for quinoa (which had accidentally gotten thrown out with some older grains and beans in order to get the big chest freezer empty for moving or selling). I wanted quinoa for a salad that I intended to bring over that evening for dinner at Ame's house (which was WONDERFUL). On the way back home, Doug was hit by a girl in her dad's truck. He was in the left turn lane going west (in order to turn on the street to our town) and she pulled out of a Mobil parking lot in a very wide turn, trying to go east. She totally hit the front left of his car and continued her way down the rest of the left side of the car (the side Sophia was on, by the way). Doug could see this about to happen, so he slowed his car down quite a bit. Hopefully, this will all get taken care of smoothly with our insurance companies. The girl (and her dad, who came later) was very nice (and is also fine as well) and the kids have had no nightmares or anything. I'm still amazed this girl was born in 1990 (!!), but that doesn't mean I'm OLD or anything. No, no, no.

It took ME most of the day to recover (and Doug as well, who did not want to drive for a bit), especially as when Doug called, the first thing he said (or maybe the first thing I heard) was "there has been a bad accident". Just waiting for the grey hairs to start appearing now.

So we are out one car again, but the good news is that (hopefully) the repairs should be done by the time we need to drive down to Texas. The cars also need oil changes, etc, so hopefully we can also squeeze that in. Yes, that's really coming up fast now. I think we leave in about 3 1/2 weeks. HOLY SHIT. Sorry, I just realized I should probably stop writing and get back to trying to sell our crap on Craigslist. I want to have a garage sale this weekend, and I need to get ready for that, too. That will be difficult as I'll be spending most of the day Thursday at Fiona's field trip to the Billings Farm and Museum and I work Wednesday and Friday. So that leaves today to do...everything. Which is why I'm writing and drinking coffee.

I took the girls to Lilac Sunday at the Shelburne Museum for one last time.

I've just sent in Sophia's application for a Montessori preschool, so hopefully that will go smoothly. Suddenly I have 30 minutes to do 2 hours worth of work, so more news later! Oh! We finally have a showing this Wednesday at 4 PM. Now if they would only buy the house. At our asking price. That'd be GREAT.

Please remove the maggots, rat carcasses, and corpses of shocked health inspectors and make the place fit for the preparation of sodding food.

2009-05-18T10:35:00.002-04:00

Here's the episode I was referring to. If you don't want to watch the whole thing (do try), the salt fun beings at about the 5 minute mark.

And Without Tasting It, You Call for SALT? I Hate You With a Passion You Can Only Dream of.

2009-05-11T10:37:00.006-04:00

(The title of this is from the best episode of Chef! One of my most favorite lines ever.)

Okay! Here is a picture Triana took of me outside Hen of the Wood. I finally found the menu, so I can share. For the first time, one of the dishes was slightly disappointing. Triana and I shared two appetizers: the wild leek soup and the Niman Ranch pork cheeks (I thought, "what if I never eat here again?" and promptly decided we must have pork cheeks, especially as Triana has never had them). The pork cheeks were, naturally, most tender and sublime. The wild leek soup? It was perfectly smooth. It had lovely little crisp flavorful croutons. The soup itself was bland. I think it actually needed salt. There are no salt shakers or pepper on the tables here, of course. There is usually no need. So while we had no trouble finishing it (for while it was bland, it also not hard to eat!), I would not order it again, and found myself wishing we had ordered the hen of the woods mushrooms. Or the oysters. Or the calamari.

For entrees we shared the Sheep's Milk Gnocchi. I cannot remember what it was served with (the menu I have is from the previous day, so it is slightly different from what we actually had), but the gnocchi was lightly seared so they were a bit crisp on the outside with a creamy, herby inside. Great texture. I do remember there was lemon and pine nuts. Outstanding. We also ordered the short ribs, which I believe was served with kale (always done perfectly) and more gnocchi--but different gnocchi! Two kinds of gnocchi! It is not on the menu, and as I'm writing about this two weeks later, details escape me. I will say they were a delight to eat and creamy.

We finished with three kinds of local cheese (going to have to hunt down some Vermont cheese sources while I'm in Texas). Oh, the wine! I didn't take a picture. We had the Orogeny Pinot Noir, 2006. It took about 20 minutes to really open up, but it had a great blackberry jam thing going on. Not so great with the soup (also not a surprise), but quite complementary with the other dishes. Even the Sheep's Milk Gnocchi!

For Sale, One Purple House

2009-05-10T16:21:00.006-04:00

It's very busy around here with the packing and the cleaning. Today the house finally went on the market and our realtor took some indoor pictures.

We had a great visit with Kendra, and she took this very cute photo of Fiona and Sophia.

Here's us!

So we found a house in Texas on our last trip. It's in the school district we want and it's a cute house. We haven't closed on the house, though. That we can't do until after we get there. We should get there about mid June. Now we're just waiting for the movers to come look at our stuff to estimate what they'll need to do. Once we know the date they will come move our stuff, we can figure out what day we will actually leave.

Blogging will be quite sporadic (so...nothing new there) in the next 5 weeks and then I imagine it will be a bit dead from mid June for a couple of weeks. I'll try to write as often as possible between now and then. I'm trying to write at the worst possible time right now (4-5 PM is never a good time, and the kids are extremely loud today...full of energy even after waking us up at 5:30 AM. Happy Mother's Day!).

Oh, and I just remembered!

I got rear-ended a while ago! No kids were in the car and no one was hurt. I was making a left turn (I saw that Dog River Farm had the first fresh eggs of the season!) and the woman behind me put on her breaks, but they didn't catch. They caught the second time, which is good, because the speed limit on this road is 50 MPH. She was very nice and GEICO, her insurance company, is so far being fabulous. An insurance company being fabulous. Yes, I said that. The car is all fixed now. I believe this is my first accident as the driver. Hopefully, my last.

And Here We Go

2009-04-15T10:17:00.002-04:00

Fiona came home indignant the other day. She said, in an incredulous tone of voice, "Did you know some people didn't vote for Obama because he's black?".

While I am pleased that she is flabbergasted that it would even occur to someone to vote for a person based on the color of their skin, I am sad that she even has to be exposed to this idea.

We did have a nice little chat about the irrelevance of physical appearance vs. the actions of a person.

The reason for this outburst is that one of her friends made a declaration to Fiona that, in their school election, she didn't vote for Obama, because she doesn't like people with black skin.

Sigh.

In other news, Fiona also apparently mooned some of her friends at school and we got a little phone call about that. That's a big deal now. If you moon your friends on the playground, the playground supervisor talks to you, the nurse talks to you, the teacher talks to you, your MOM talks to you (look, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on!), and they call the parents of all the kids who were mooned. When the playground supervisor came up after school to talk to me and said an incident had occurred with Fiona on the playground, I immediately thought something had happened like she had taken someone out or something.

Anyway, it seems Fiona was handled okay and not shamed or anything. There apparently was no daring or bullying or anything weird going on. I guess it's a tricky line for the school. As to why she pulled down her pants in front of people, Fiona said she thought it would be funny. This is completely plausible to me.

Thursday we're meeting with a realtor, who has looked at our house, and hopefully after this meeting our house will be on the market for sale! Saturday we leave for just over a week for Houston/Galveston. I believe the goal is to find a house to buy in Friendswood. I'm going to visit the schools in Friendswood because they seem great online, but nothing replaces a personal inspection.

Yay, Vermont!

2009-04-10T09:47:00.002-04:00

This was so nice to come home to. It was also satisfying that it was done by a veto override. Very satisfying.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

I Now Pronounce You Ben & Jerry

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

Ah, So You're a Waffle Man!

2009-03-29T11:52:00.002-04:00

Classic Red Dwarf. One of my favorite scenes. Ever.

I'm Waving at Fat

2009-03-29T10:29:00.006-04:00

I have nothing to say, really. Just wanted an excuse to share a picture of The Adipose from the fourth season of Dr. Who. Creatures of fat! Totally adorable.

Today is in the 50s and rainy. It's definitely time to get the deer deterrent spray (A mixture of rotten egg, chili pepper, and garlic. Mmmmm.) It's been so warm, plants are going to pop out any minute and when I'm not paying attention (my usual state of being), the deer will have their buffet. I'm sitting here with my hair saturated with henna again (meeting girl friends in Vegas makes me want to freshen my hair color and rip the hair out of my legs in case I wear a bathing suit). Not really sure why. It also helps me feel less funky now that I work in a bakery. You get really funky working in a bakery. Nails of dried dough is definitely not a good look.

Oh, and I have to share this from Triana's site. Go see Fashion is Danger there, too. I can't wait for the second season of Flight of the Concords. (The lyrics to this fine song are under "More Info" on the YouTube site--just double click the video to get there).

One More Bowie Clip

2009-03-28T16:17:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the friend who sent me this gem!

In a Bowie Mood Today

2009-03-28T13:16:00.005-04:00

Not many men can pull off this look. In fact, I think only David Bowie can.

This is actually new to me. I love it.

Just awesome.

Can you imagine seeing Bowie live? Damn.

I'm in this Bowie mood because I've been going through my vinyl records and found Let's Dance and Tonight. Most of his older stuff I have on cassette tape, unfortunately.

Oh, how could I forget this?

Mmmm. Noodles.

2009-03-28T10:06:00.003-04:00

You can find eight more sexy/amusing/tasteless food commericals here. Don't bother with the Paris Hilton one. Yawn. My favorite one is this one and the Guinness one. The dog one is just strange.

I gave my job notice today and it went well. It also helps make the fact that we are moving seem more real. Now if I could just get appointments set up for interior painting and some minor carpentry jobs! Hopefully we can get someone in to do that before June. I'm hearing about all the spring-ness going on down there right now (sigh, bluebonnets!) and I'm so impatient to be there already. However, it will be nice to see my tulips one last time. I'm not sure the gray squirrels have left anything left of our lilac. I may have to get my lilac in at the Shelburne Museum.

Ah, and on that note, here is my top 10 list of places I want to visit one last time before we move. This does not include visiting friends. For one thing, that will hopefully happen more than once (!!!). Okay. I'm not going to bawl. I'm going to talk mostly about food.

1. A Single Pebble (natch)
2. Hen of the Woods
3. Okay. This is not Vermont, but on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont, there is this country store that makes the best smoked bacon I have ever had. Ever. I think I can mail order it, but I still want to visit there one more time. I'll have to come back with the name.
4. Montshire Museum of Science
5. ECHO center and Lake Champlain (The view is nice. Plus I want pictures.)
6. I would like to finally hike to the top of Camel's Hump, but I don't think that is going to happen.
7. The Alchemist
8. The Montpelier Farmer's Market (definitely taking the camera to that venue).
9. Shelburne Museum
10. Dairy Creme stand and eating sugar on snow at Morse Farm (with pickle!)

We'll miss the apple picking, the strawberry picking, the fairs, and the 1,000 jack o'lanterns at Ellie's, but c'est la vie! If I could 12 things, I'd add King Arthur Flour (they have great mail order, great customer service, and I can get their stuff nationwide, I believe, so it won't really be GONE) and the Savoy Theater. I was just at Main Street Bar and Grill, and that was enough. That one is mostly for nostalgia's sake, but the food was quite good. I'd rather have gone to the Chef's Table for fine dining, but it's not a fine dining restaurant anymore--I believe the school uses it for catering. I'll also miss the fabulous Kellogg-Hubbard Library (great children's library!) and La Brioche. Okay! I'll stop now.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2009-03-25T19:39:00.003-04:00

It's official. Doug has accepted a job offer in Galveston, TX and we're moving in June after school is out (so far, that's June 12th if there are no more snow days). We won't live right in Galveston, but we'll probably be 25-45 minutes away or so. We're hoping to visit the third week of April (the kids' Spring Break) to buy a house. Now to figure out how to sell ours! Good times.

And yes, the above picture was taken after Ike went through. That's a bit of roof.

Las Vegas

2009-03-24T15:48:00.005-04:00

Next Friday (Incredibly. Time goes by so fast.) I will be on my way to Vegas for my friend Annie's 40th birthday! I have another friend there who I'm hoping to see. Honestly, Vegas is one of those places I have been totally uninterested in until recently. Now I can't wait to go. I guess I thought you had to like gambling to want to go to Vegas, but now I see that is not the case at all. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing my friends from culinary school and my Vegas friend and meeting new ones coming to this birthday celebration. I expect there will be many adult beverages and lots of great conversation. Oh, and of course, food. Most everyone coming to her party is some sort of foodie. I'll be staying at the above casino/spa (the palm trees look a little sad in this picture, I have to say). The pool looks nice. Whee! I'm not sure it will be warm enough for that, though.

Monday night we are going to the Vintner Grill for her birthday, which was arranged by her husband and sister. Should be a great 40th birthday for her!

I will be sure to take lots of pictures and write it all down.

Oh, and here is a trailer for Sita Sings the Blues to at least give you an idea of part of the animation style. You don't see the modern parts of the story in the trailer.

Sita Sings the Blues

2009-03-23T08:00:00.004-04:00

Have an hour and a half to kill? Yesterday I saw Sita Sings the Blues, which, while a bit of a sad topic, was very well done and has excellent music.

You can watch the whole thing here.

I actually saw it at the Green Mountain Film Festival yesterday. I went online to try to find the music (can't), but hey! You can watch the movie online. Tres cool.

I think we killed the L-i-c-e. Guess I'll find out in a week or two.

Working at the bakery tonight, noon until who knows when. My feet protest!

Update! You can get 3 of the songs (the first one is the one I wanted!) here for $2.98.

Checking In

2009-03-21T14:04:00.003-04:00

I'm still here. It's been gorgeous here. Cold, still, naturally, but it's definitely spring. Vermont is a tease about spring, so I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The next snow. However, the crocuses are coming up! I'll take a picture when they bloom, like I always do. Deer poop is already all over the yard. They're already looking for my tulips! Fuckers.

Guess what? We have lice again. I think it's just Fiona this time (I did find ONE nit in Sophia's hair like last time). I think I even know where she got them, but I'm not going to point fingers. So on this sunny day, I find ourselves at the laundromat because our dryer is still broken.

I'll write more later, but I'm in a Bruce Springsteen mood, so here's a video:

This Time Change

2009-03-12T07:37:00.003-04:00

Is kicking my ass. It's so hard to get up in the morning. I guess because it's dark. I usually wake up before the alarm clock and have no trouble getting up (it takes my brain a bit longer, though). Now I do not want to leave my warm bed at all. This is problematic when there are lunches and breakfasts to make, and showers to have. I don't have to be at work until noon, so that's okay.

I found this on Cute Overload, which I'm sure you all visit on a regular basis.

I think this is my favorite:

It's almost certain we are indeed moving to Houston/Galveston at this point. I guess the next step involves the buying and selling of houses. Gulp.

Once More, With Blathering

2009-03-04T09:02:00.009-05:00

It was a long trip home. We didn't get back to our house until 2:30 AM. Grim. We rode jetBlue, which has now spoiled me. There's more leg room (and at 5'2", I don't really need a whole lot of leg room), they have snacks (some Dorito/pretzel/Sun Chip thing, blue potato chips, cashews, animal crackers, "breakfast biscuits"--which are cookies, good chocolate chip cookies, and maybe one or two other ones), and they have the usual selection of beverages. There are also TVs on the backs of the chairs. This is sort of okay...Fiona loved the episode on the History channel on George Washington and then wanted more shows on presidents. That was not to be had (we watched a bit on the Civil War, but that didn't hold her interest as well). Then she found SpongeBob. She's never seen SpongeBob before, and I wasn't impressed with what I saw, I have to say. She seemed to like it. It stayed off pretty much the rest of the time and she was surprisingly good about it (I caught her watching some sort of talk show before we turned it off...the look on her face was total fascination. Mouth slightly agape and eyes wide.)

Here's Sophia winking at either her reflection or some fish.

So there is still not an official offer yet. Still waiting. I think the kids would be okay living there as long as we find a good school. I'd prefer to live closer to family, but at least we could get up there fairly easily. Still a little worried about living in a hurricane prone area. Traffic is mostly normal big city/bad drivers/jammed traffic, but during one very small traffic jam (it was Sunday and they were doing some construction, so two right lanes were closed), people were not only freely driving over the median between the frontage road and the highway--you could see lots of old marks on the grass showing that this is done all the time--people were getting off the highway in a line via the entrance ramp to the highway. What the hell! I only saw that once, and hopefully, that was a weird fluke. The traffic honestly wasn't even that bad. I've been in Vermont for 10 years, believe me, there is no traffic here and if I thought this traffic jam was not bad, it wasn't. I was astounded.

In other news, apparently the l-i-c-e may indeed be...gone? I still check and check because I think now is about the time when new ones would hatch (EW), but nothing so far. We did give Fiona another chemical treatment right before the trip and did not put anything else in her hair for a few days. Hopefully, that did the trick. It does seem to irritate her scalp, though, just mildly.

My first day of (part time) work at a local bakery (wholesale) is Friday, and I'm both nervous about it and excited. Hopefully, I won't be blowing my nose every 5 minutes like I am now and the coughing will be gone. It's a little awkward working in any food service job when you have a cold. Ideally, you'd stay home, of course, but this is the real world we work in. I won't even wear my whites. It looks like we all wear comfortable clothes and baseball caps. Most people wear shorts.

Okay, one more picture of the trip. This is Sophia at Moody Gardens Aquarium ("Yes! We are open!"). I love this picture because it reminds me of this one:

This is Sophia in February of 2006 at the Montreal Biodome. Cool place. Great city. Not a whole lot to do with small kids in the winter, though.

I'm really looking forward to April 3rd through the 7th, when I will be flying to Las Vegas to see my friend Annie for her 40th birthday! I have the plane tickets and everything. I'm really going! We're all staying here (you may want to turn your volume down, there's music). Don't look at the prices. We're getting some sort of group rate, which is far more sane. I am very excited! I haven't seen Annie in way too long and I'll also get to meet her sister, a friend of hers from Maine, and see my friend Andrea, who I haven't seen since we were all at NECI. Has it really been that long?

Houston, Part Deux

2009-03-03T17:23:00.003-05:00

There were several nice playgrounds in the area, which is definitely one thing I wish we had more of here. There were flowers! Butterflies! Oh, and a lizard. Yes. While looking at houses on Friday, we found a lizard in the back yard (Psst! Run away lizard! Run while you can!) Actually, I think it was a gecko. I'm not a herpetologist (And yes, I had to look up that word. What did we do before The Google?). So, I foolishly drew the kids' attention to said reptile and this creature completely captivated their interest. This could have gone on for hours, but we had houses to see, colds to develop. Wish I had a picture of this fascination! That house remained the favorite for the day because it was the "Lizard House". Actually, that house is one that went right in the bin. Plus it was next door to a barking dog.

We ate breakfast twice at Mamasita's (the NASA location). The girls had the scrambled egg and bacon tacos both times. They didn't have the fresh orange juice either time we went (which was too bad on Saturday; I could have really used it). I had the scrambled egg and dried beef and the next day just the scrambled eggs with potatoes. I wanted the shredded beef, but that wasn't ready right at opening time (why?). I asked for tea Saturday morning and got iced. Note to self: next time, specify. You're in the South, now. I love iced tea (unsweetened here, too, hooray!), so it was okay. The oranges were to help entertain the kids. Okay, I lie. I just like making orange smiles.

I need a hot bath. The kind that peels paint off the walls. I'll have to do this in parts.

Houston

2009-03-03T08:15:00.008-05:00

We're back from Houston, and I have the worst cold. Thankfully, we seem to have boxes upon boxes of tissues. Something to use up before the move.

No decision has been reached yet, so there's no new news on that front, but here are some pictures:

We flew on JetBlue and they let Fiona sit in the cockpit after our flight to JFK. Unfortunately, we somehow left her red plaid baby blanket either on the plane or in JFK airport. We've called Lost and Found at the JFK airport, but they haven't called back yet. She's not happy about losing her blanket.

Planning something, I'm sure. This is at the JFK airport.

We had Indian food Thursday night. It was really good. We ordered way too much naan. Fiona had two mango lassis. She is sort of a mango lassi junkie. We took her to a big HEB (a grocery store down there) and a Houston Central Market (Central Market is this amazing grocery store, which I'll discuss later) and showed her the massive amounts of inexpensive mangoes available here. As opposed to the rock hard, expensive, 15 mangoes you can get here.

They went to the Moody Gardens Aquarium on Saturday. I didn't go, as I stayed at the hotel coughing up organs and watched Religulous on the pay per view. They loved it. Fiona wrote down the names of most of the fish so she could tell me (and her class) what she saw.

More to come later! I have to take a roasting hot shower to soothe my lungs and then it's off to the dentist for Sophia.

Anything To Avoid Folding Laundry

2009-02-24T15:42:00.006-05:00

Fiona thought this was hysterical, as I knew she would. Sophia was less enthusiastic. She laughed nervously, then watched us from a distance.

Okay, me too:

Now back to folding laundry. We're off at 4 AM Thursday morning to visit south Houston until Monday morning (that's 12 AM Monday morning). It should be an adventure!

Your Eyes Are Filled With Light

2009-02-23T16:10:00.003-05:00

Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire (English Subs)
Uploaded by aka71691

Jai Ho!
Even I am a little excited by last night's results. Ellen Aim, of course, has much more to say.

Mama Bear Needs her Sleep

2009-02-20T12:48:00.001-05:00

This ought to stop those middle of the night awakenings by the kids.

Heh heh. Oh, the therapy they would need.

Love Letters

2009-02-20T12:34:00.008-05:00

I just found this when I went into the kitchen to clean after yet another round of Find the Nits in Fiona's hair (Day 3 and I'm still finding those little bastards).

This is why I pick out nits for hours on end. Well, one reason. Those red drawings are coral, by the way. They're studying coral at school, and we just watched Blue Planet: Seas of Life. They found it enthralling, especially the coral and the jellyfish.

Oh, and how could I forget this?:

LICE

2009-02-19T09:12:00.003-05:00

Yesterday while working conditioner through my hair (this is how I get out tangles), I found what I thought was a piece of fuzz. Then I realized the fuzz had legs. I found another one.

Fiona was at home since it's a school vacation week, so I checked her head right away. I knew her scalp had been itchy, which is not uncommon in the winter. At first, I didn't see anything. Then. I saw them. Scurrying away from me. I know now these were lice in the nymph stage, which had probably just hatched (although I have found a few adults). I took Sophia out of school right away, and Doug and I proceeded to do lots of combing, vacuuming and laundry. Coats are at the dry cleaner's. It seemed to happen very suddenly. I actually had checked Fiona a few days earlier (and they just had a check at school by the nurse), but didn't see anything.

I only found one adult on Sophia's head and no nits, which means I probably just missed them, I'm thinking. I keep finding nits on Fiona's head. It seems never ending.

Those of you who know me know that I have really, really thick, plentiful hair. I feel like things are crawling all over me. Fiona also (apparently) has very thick hair. Doug doesn't seem to have anything (so far) .

I think before the week is out, I may end up with very short hair. I've already chopped off quite a bit of Fiona's.

Fiona, by the way, is sort of fascinated by the whole thing. I've been just snipping the hairs off her head that have nits (they are incredibly hard to remove and the comb I got at the drugstore is totally worthless...I ordered a better one, which will hopefully come today) and sticking them in a plastic bag to throw away. After a particular round of Find the Nits, she wanted to see them. She said it would be neat to watch them in the bag go through their life cycle. Then she said, we would kill them.

Oh, yeah. Not doing that, by the way. I said, yes, that would be interesting, but we need to throw this away.

What I wanted to say is, honey, I'm sorry, but I need to torch these fuckers.

Incredible

2009-02-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-13T09:32:00.006-05:00

And an appropriate song! Pardon the lame commerical.

The B-52's - New Music - More Music Videos

I'm Vader! I Can Kill Catering With a Thought!

2009-02-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

Eddie Izzard - Death Star Cantine Lego - Amazing videos are here

Eddie Izzard and Legos. Outstanding.

My Kind of Stupid

2009-02-11T09:55:00.001-05:00

The first time I heard this was in the car and I laughed my ass off. Thank you, Triana!

Cute Description

2009-02-10T19:55:00.003-05:00

Sophia was sick yesterday, which was just as well, as it was a school in-service day. She had a fever and was just lethargic. She's totally better today. I picked her up from school and she immediately starts telling me she wants a playdate with SK (a girl!) They have a week break at the end of the month, so we'll try to arrange that.

We get home and we go through the back and forth of what to have for lunch. As is typical for her (as her teacher says, "every day is different with her!") she asks for something totally odd and random (meaning something that we don't normally have for lunch, but we certainly could!) for lunch. Potatoes. The hell? (Maybe I'm just used to Fiona eating the same thing day after day). So after figuring out she will really eat potatoes, I roast some fingerlings for her. She ate about half. While they were roasting, she decided she wanted eggs. She said "I want the yellow ones". I said, "The yellow ones?" I'm confused for a minute because lately she eats hard cooked eggs and only the white part. She said, "Yes. The ones that look like feathers." I said, "Oooh. You want scrambled eggs." She said "Yes. Scrambled." She ate about half of them.

Asian Bistro

2009-02-09T17:38:00.002-05:00

We didn't actually go to Sakura (for miso soup, sushi, and fried ice cream) yesterday, after all (in lieu of a party, I let her pick any restaurant to eat at for lunch or dinner or whatever). We went to Asian Bistro. Yes, the only link I can find for Sakura is a Trip Advisor site. It is so disappointing when restaurants do not have their own web site!

Here is how it all went down. Fiona and I got to Burlington a little early. It was really sunny, but still really cold. We ducked into the mall area on Church Street to see if we could find some clearance sales on winter clothes...she has decided she likes tights now. We'll see. We didn't find tights, but we did for her: a sundress, a pretty skirt, and flip flops. For me: two bikinis. I am not sure what has gotten into me, as I never wear bikinis in public, but they are pretty cute. I couldn't resist. I got an Indian style looking cover-up, too. Decadent.

After a little more poking around, we were both getting a little nauseated with Mall Sickness, and went outside for fresh air. She decided it was time to go home instead of eat (her tummy hurt). I tried to get her a hot chocolate for the ride home, but she announced in the long line that she thought she was going to throw up. We left the line and the store.

She decided right before Williston, that her tummy hurt because she was hungry. So we discovered Asian Bistro. She had a Shirley Temple, miso soup, and roast pork lo mein. I say "had". What I mean is: "ordered". Well, she did have some rice, a few bits of pork, a couple of sips of soup, and the snow peas from my soup. I had tea, chicken and sizzling rice soup (yummy), and a fried scallop and shrimp dish seasoned really nicely with salt and pepper (it was sweet, salty, and peppery--slurp). We could have had the strawberry mochi for dessert, but she wasn't eating, wasn't sitting (wanted to lie down), so we decided to have a dessert rain check and head on home.

Asian Bistro was a nice surprise, though. The Chinese food we can get nearby is just depressing. I'm not talking about A Single Pebble. That's the best in the universe. I'm talking about the shockingly bad stuff in a 30 mile radius from where I live. Asian Bistro is more like 50 miles from us, so unfortunately, it's not a weeknight take away type of place for us. Better for the checkbook, though.

If I get to go back, I'm definitely trying out their scallion pancakes. So far I've never had a restaurant version that I've liked.

The Alchemist

2009-02-09T13:58:00.007-05:00

Is so awesome, it has made my tiny list of things I MUST do before we leave Vermont. I'll get to that list later.

I had two 10 oz beers: FluxCapacitor and Sterk Wit. FluxCapacitor is dark, malty, and smooth. It was my favorite of the evening. Sterk Wit is really strongly flavored with coriander spice and also has some Curacao orange peel. I really liked it, but in a "wow, that's really interesting" way. I think I'd be more interested in pairing this with food than drinking it on its own. Doug ordered a pint of Donovan's Red, which tasted nicely of hops (mild, however) and was a beautiful dark red color.

The food is fun! We got the Liverwurst Plate with shaved red onion, house pickles (this is so cool), aged cheddar cheese, house spicy mustard and Red Hen Pumpernickel (Red Hen is one of my favorite bakeries. I'll miss Red Hen bread a lot.); the Beer Cheese Dip made with Alchemist Lightweight Ale, served with pretzel bits; Sweet Potato Fries served with herb sour cream (I never resist sweet potato fries); and the House Smoked Mushroom and Pepperoni Pizzetta with marinara, mozzarella and parmesan. The dinner menu, sandwiches, soups, salads, and specials all sounded good, too, but this time, it was all about the snacking to complement the beer. Although I was really tempted by the chili special. Hm.

I'm hoping I can go back at least one more time (since I probably can't make it every weekend). It's wildly popular, which makes me happy. It's also very dark and very noisy, but it's that kind of place. Since it was so dark, I couldn't photograph the food or beer with the camera on my phone. I'll have to bring a real camera next time.

Here is the one picture I got, with my FluxCapacitor beer:

If It's Cool With You, I'll Let You Get Naked, Too

2009-02-09T13:39:00.004-05:00

A different video of the song Ellen Aim posted earlier. Thanks to Triana and Jeff for getting me totally hooked on this series!

Today is a weird day. Sophia is sleeping the day away (thank goodness it's a school in-service day), despite a full night's sleep. Hopefully, she feels better soon (I assume she's under the weather or fighting something off) and sleeps well (again!) tonight!

Two Fabulous Baking Books

2009-02-09T07:56:00.003-05:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Triana, for this amazing book!

So far from this book, I've made the Lemon Barley Scones, the Whole Wheat Focaccia (I was very skeptical about this, but it was absolutely scrumptious!), the Soft Whole Wheat Pretzels (actually, Doug made those), the Buckwheat Pancakes, the Quinoa Pancakes, Simple Spelt Pancakes, and Morning Glory Muffins.

(Oh and HELLO! I just noticed there is Coconut Scone recipe. How did I miss that? I would have made that before the Lemon Barley ones, although those were good. Fiona once again pronounced me the "best baker in the world" after those.)

They even have a recipe for Scallion Pancakes, which is my all time favorite snack food. They use peanut oil in the filling rather than toasted sesame oil. Hm. I'll try a roasted peanut oil (for the filling, just plain for the frying).

Triana and I made the Classic Crunch Chocolate Chip Cookies (go to her blog for a pic of her second batch). We had no barley flour, so we used all purpose flour instead (the original is half barley flour and half whole wheat flour, so we used AP and whole wheat). The texture of these cookies is sensational. Crispy, yet a bit chewy in the center. They stay that way for days (if they are around that long). So many chocolate chips. It's almost too many (trust me), but it works.

This book also has an amazing looking Coconut Cake recipe. I don't make a lot of cake for home use (I only want a little bit now and then and I certainly don't want to fill up the kids on cake), but this cake is first in line for a special occasion. Maybe a Goodbye Vermont party!

Everything I've made has been outstanding. The only negative remarks have been from the kids...the Morning Glory muffins got a lukewarm response (they tried them, didn't finish them, and don't want more...I guess they have too many bits in them: sunflower seeds, shredded carrots, etc), and the Fiona did not like the strong flavor of the Quinoa Pancakes. What can I say? They taste like quinoa. If you like quinoa, that's okay, but if you don't, you don't. Apparently, pouring a heaping mound of strawberry sauce on them doesn't hide the taste, either. That little bag (1 pound, 6 oz) of quinoa flour cost me $10, too! It's the only flour I could not find in bulk. However, quinoa is quite high in protein, and it actually has a complete, balanced set of essential amino acids at that, so I'll try to keep using it. The pancakes have powdered ginger and crystallized ginger in them (I was out of the crystallized ginger; I keep eating it), which is a great match for quinoa. It complements the strong taste very well. Sophia ate the Quinoa Pancakes, but did not eat them with gusto as she did the Buckwheat Pancakes. Those went well with a blueberry compote.

This book is huge and I also hope to make the Bacon, Leek and Tomato Quiche this week as well as the Eclairs. I haven't made eclairs in ages. They aren't at all difficult. But, oh, I don't care how much whole grain goodness you put in them, they are definitely a once in a while treat!

Next book!

I've been spending so much time with King Arthur, I haven't made anything from this, but it's Dorie Greenspan (she has a blog!), and they are recipes from Paris patisseries. I can't stop reading this book. Thank you, Sobo! My friend Annie also has this book, and when I told her I had it, she gushed and gushed and extolled its greatness.

There are three recipes for madeleines: classic, honey, and Earl Grey. I say I do not have much of a sweet tooth, but then I remember madeleines. Really, I could eat one (or more?) a day. So perfect with tea. Just so perfect.

Need I say more? Oh, I do?

The recipes are easy to understand, they are not difficult, and everything sounds like good, wholesome French pastry ecstasy. It's also Dorie Greenspan, who even if you never made a single recipe (I dare you not to) from the book, is such a delight to read. Every time I read through this book, I want to jump on a plane to Paris.

Okay, one more tidbit: there is a recipe in here for Fresh Strawberry and Orange-Flower Water Marshmallows. Wow!

I also can't wait to try her recipe from Patisserie Mulot for Cherry Clafoutis. Swoon.

Invalidate Prop 8

2009-02-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

It Looks Like It's Really Happening

2009-02-06T12:27:00.003-05:00

Texas. We can move anytime, actually. Like now. However, we'll probably wait until the end of the school year and then move. Obviously, if there is a house to move into.

Looks like the leading contender is Dallas! I said winner earlier, but apparently, there are twists.

I was trying not to get my hopes up...and I'm still a little wary and probably will be until all our stuff is in a moving van in the driveway.

More Texas Odds and Ends

2009-02-05T16:28:00.013-05:00

So let me try to wrap up this trip before I forget it all. Triana, Ellen Aim, Alex and I not only went back on the wine trail to visit three wineries (the plan was two, but there was a new one, Pedernales, that seems very promising, and we had to try as it was in the area!), but we went to Buffalo Exchange (a very cool clothing resale store)--where I always seem to find something, much to the dismay of the bank account--and Mangia!--where they have the best stuffed pizza in the world. Perhaps I exaggerate. It's great pizza, though. Cheesy. Whole wheat crust. Cool atmosphere. Cheesy. Mmmm. Oh, and I tried Ellen Aim's Mothership beer and THAT is lemony hoppy goodness. Much better than my Shiner Bock, which, of course, I had to have.

Ellen Aim and Alex at Mangia.

Triana and I at Mangia.

I got FOUR cute little dresses at Buffalo Exchange, which I will not model here because it's freaking negative WTF temperature outside, so sorry. Trust me that they are cute. Actually, I got two (sort of scuffled with Ellen Aim as we're similar sizes for dresses) on the first trip and we had to go back (how terrible) as Alex's dress still had the ink tag on it. So I got two more dresses! Yay me!

I did not write down anything for the wine. However, I can tell you we visited Texas Hills Vineyard, where I got a very yummy Orange Moscato 2005. It's nothing brilliant, but it's quite balanced, easy to drink, and has nice peach and pineapple notes. That doesn't sound like two fruits that really go together, but it works. It's an easy wine. I also got a Kick Butt Cab 2005. This I drank in Austin and I don't really remember much about it except enjoying it. I didn't drink it with food. I read the description and I just don't really remember this. Sorry! I guess I'll have to buy another bottle. I did really like the label. Not a reason to buy a bottle of wine, mind you. The name is certainly very Texan, though, no?

We also visited Pedernales Cellars, which is very new. I got two wines here, too. The woman at Texas Hills recommended the Viognier, which was very floral and had great melon notes. Another wine "easy" to drink. This would be perfect with summer food and grilled food light food like vegetables, chicken and fish. I think it would also be a great match for a lot of Thai-style type dishes. I splurged and also purchased the 2007 Pedernales Cellars Family Reserve. This tasted great, but I haven't opened the bottle I purchased, because I was hoping to actually try aging a wine (I seem to have this problem with instant gratification). However, that may not happen as we may be moving. More on that later. I mean, I can't move the wine, right? Better to just drink it, eh?

We also went to Torre di Pietra. This was our last stop, which might be why Ellen Aim and I bought a bottle to have with our packed lunch prepared by Triana with lovely cheeses (That purple haze cheese. I could not stop eating it.) and fruits and crackers. We bought the Parada wine, and since I didn't write anything down (Doh!), I don't really remember this, except it was very nice to drink. Why do I not remember the wines I drink with Ellen Aim? Hm.

Anyway, there was one wine I tasted, I can not remember for the life of me which one...the Claret? It smelled like heavenly Kalamata olives and perhaps rosemary, but unfortunately tasted of Kalamata olive brine and I nearly spit it out. Perhaps someone has a better memory than me? However, that was the only lament. We visited Torre di Pietra on my last trip and we always enjoy tasting wine there. I resisted buying more wine because there is only so much room in my suitcase (they all made it! I just had to mail most of my clothes home) and things started seeming a bit expensive by this time. One of my very favorite things, however, are their wine filled chocolates (apparently, you can not shop online at this time). I could eat pounds of these. They really are that good. I bought some and, alas, they are long, long gone.

I remember at one time feeling sort of hoity-toity and condescending about wines from Texas. Each time I have gone to visit the vineyards in the Austin area, however, I am always quite pleased with the tastings. I think it's pretty exciting. I can't wait to go back!

Here we all are at Torre di Petra. The guy serving us seemed tickled I was from Vermont. Actually, it does seem to bemuse most people. The server at Mangia was all, "Gee, I never served anyone from Vermont before". Thankfully, all I get are positive reactions so far.

This is Triana and I at Pedernales Cellars.

Sisters :)

Drinking that Parada I do not remember the taste of, but did very much enjoy.

Evidence that wine tastes even better towards the end of the tasting trip.

I'll wrap this up with talking about Gloria's , which is a tasty Tex-Mex/Salvadorian cool little place. We went there for brunch and I had this very satisfying "Sopa Siete Mares".

It was enormous. We went to brunch and the portions were HUGE.

However, there was also a margarita special on, so I had one on the rocks and Ellen Aim had a frozen one. I never, ever get frozen margaritas, but I have to say hers tasted like it had about ten times the amount of alcohol. I could not have finished ONE of these.

So. Good margaritas. God, I totally sound like a lush, huh?

Alex had the Salvadorian tilapia dish, which tasted very nice.

Definitely recommend.

Sobo had the grilled shrimp. Also quite delicious.

Ellen Aim had some sort of omlette, I do not remember what, but I think I took her avocadoes and tomatoes. I'm sort of an avocado whore. They don't post their brunch menu, so I can't figure it out. She seemed to enjoy it. Maybe it was just the margaritas talking.

So when Ellen Aim posts about eating queso (really yummy, by the way), chips, and margaritas at Gloria's, I know now where she is. Well, we visited a different location than her usual haunt, but now at least I have an idea of the yumminess factor. Oh, our waiter attended the University of North Texas and is from South America (his words). He was very friendly, a tad hard to understand (not even because of his accent; he sort of mumbled and swallowed the end of his sentences...but I have terrible hearing anyway, especially with lots of background noise) and we all ended up with his business cards by the end of the meal. Sort of strange. Anyway, we went to the Addison location. I'd definitely go back. Yummy food, good drinks, enthusiastic charming waitstaff.

Birthday Festivities

2009-02-03T06:52:00.010-05:00

Fiona's birthday dinner. Miso soup (tofu, scallions, red miso), futomaki (egg, cucumber, carrot), and jasmine tea. She may not eat a single vegetable normally, but thankfully she still loves sushi rolls. Nori and all! Bonus: there is even some leftover for her lunch today. Score.

Harriet the Spy! Thank you Auntie Alex!

Hm. A large book. What is this?

OMGZ! All three books of His Dark Materials in ONE BOOK! Fiona loves these stories (she listens to them, as Sophia likes to say, "again and again and again and AGAIN!"). She really wanted the actual books. The Amber Spyglass is perhaps a bit over her head in parts at this time, but she still immensely enjoys the story. Thank you, Auntie Ellen Aim!

Her own Sumi-E kit from Auntie Alex! She is so tickled.

The monstrosity that is the gingerbread house. And, yeah, okay, it looks more like a church with the stained glass windows. She didn't want the people to scale, so leave me be.

It made her happy :)

So, Let's Talk About Rudy's

2009-02-02T08:41:00.008-05:00

I had the pork spare ribs. Oh my god.

I always, always have to have the creamed corn, because it is REAL creamed corn.

The coleslaw is good, too. Very fresh. Here is the menu. Triana had the moist brisket, which is just amazing. They have incredible BBQ sauce to slather over it, as well (I've been in Vermont too long. Every sauce, every salsa I had in Texas seemed so spicy! Alas!). I am pleased to see I can order it online! I can't bring myself to try the "Sissy" sauce, although let's face it, I've become a sissy when it comes to hot food. The turkey is also outstanding. Looking at the menu again, I notice you can click on the yellow stars for nutritional information. Ha! That is precious.

The sausages look good, too. If I can resist the brisket and/or the ribs, maybe I'll try that next time. Maybe I'll just have to go when I'm frantically hungry so I can have both.

Apparently, this location Triana takes me to is THE location (there are several locations). I cannot remember for the life of me where it is, so hopefully she will enlighten us in the comment section :)

Triana! We love barbecue. It needs theme music.

You Can Blame Triana

2009-02-02T08:22:00.004-05:00

While in Austin, we went to the amazing Alamo theater to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was an amazing movie, if difficult to watch in the beginning. But this post is not about Slumdog Millionaire. I'll let Ellen Aim talk about that (if she ever gets around to viewing it).

No, I want to share with you this song I cannot get out of my head. The Alamo shows cool stuff before the movie, in this case lots of very cheesy Bollywood songs. So, I apologize in advance. Except I'm not really sorry, because I'm evil like that. Oh, and I didn't have the Guinness milkshake (I was totally full from Rudy's), but I did have the fried pickles. They're the spear kind and served with ranch dressing. The batter was more of a breaded kind instead of the tempura type of batter. I think I prefer the tempura type of batter, but they were certainly edible.

Enjoy! There is so much to like here. Like Batman and Superman at the end. What the hell?

The Age of Reason

2009-02-01T18:46:00.005-05:00

Fiona turns SEVEN today (well, on the 2nd).

Tomorrow we'll assemble the gingerbread house (in lieu of cake--her request) with icing and candy and she'll unwrap her presents. She's bringing almond blueberry muffins for her birthday celebration in class tomorrow. Her requested birthday dinner is sushi rolls (with cucumber, carrot, and egg...no crab because she's a vegetarian again except in the case of pork cooked Chinese style) and miso soup. I'll get some more mangoes and frozen mangoes at the store tomorrow because I have this crazy feeling she'll want mango lassi. She just watched Iron Chef and nearly slipped on her pool of drool accumulated from watching them cook pork belly with mango.

Fiona continues to read voraciously. She has had another reading assessment. I would give you the numbers, but they don't really mean anything. For instance, the assessment says that they want children in this grade to read at level four, five, or six. Fiona's level says "30+". I suppose we will learn more at the next parent teacher conference in March. Her writing has always been pretty good, but it has made a dramatic change recently. She has been using lower case letters consistently and suddenly those backwards bs and ds and qs and ps have stopped.

She continues to be extremely social and friendly. She is fascinated with jokes and likes to check out joke books from the library. We went to see Totoro at the Savoy theater in Montpelier (the arty one) where there were tons of small children (you haven't really seen Totoro until you have a theater full of children and parents...great movie for audience participation). Fiona saw this movie ages ago when she was about two years old. She loved it. She would get so excited at certain parts of the movie...especially the scene where Totoro first appears. She doesn't jump up and down in the seat anymore, but it was fun to see it with her again several (!) years later.

Happy birthday, my sweet goblin princess.

Wink!

2009-01-30T11:03:00.006-05:00

Well, I've been back from Austin and little D for a few days now. The night I got back, Sophia threw up all over her bed (which I was also in). After a couple of days of that, Fiona joined in. Barfing has now ceased at last.

I'll start with the fabulous dinner Triana treated me to at Wink (THANK YOU, Triana!). I seriously wanted to make a reservation for the next day, but we had places to be, places to see. Please look at the menu, which changes daily.

We shared two appetizers. We had the "seared bison tenderloin on lolla rosa (a red leaf lettuce) with grilled leeks and roasted bell aioli". This was a beautiful dish. The bison was very rare and very tender. It had a dark, savory crust. The flavors of each part of the dish were wonderful on their own, but oh so good together. Bison is really lean, but it has a fantastic flavor. They really did a wonderful job with it. We also shared the "seared dayboat scallops with herb gnocchi, romanesco, Siberian kale, and brown butter balsamic". First of all, wow. I love browned butter, it's like a magic ingredient to me. It's so simple and it adds such an amazing flavor. It was a great match with the thick, reduced, sweet balsamic vinegar. The scallops were big, perfectly seared, and lushly meaty. I really thought I'd be swooning over the gnocchi, because I have a weakness for gnocchi, but the show was stolen by the sauce. The gnocchi were delightful, as was the kale, but I was just too distracted by sauce. It's the simple things, I tell you.

It was so hard to only pick two appetizers and two entrees. We could not decide between duck leg confit or rabbit, but the rabbit won out thanks to our very helpful and very pleasant waiter. I mean, if the question involves duck confit, the answer is (almost) always yes, but this rabbit sounded too good to pass up. The name of the dish was "rabbit loin and rabbit ravioli with Wink sausage ragu". These ravioli were wonderful little packages of yummy meatiness. The loin was very white and tender. The ragu tied it all together. This ragu was complex, savory, and the kind of thing you would lick off a plate, even in dignified company. There was some garlic-y kale with it, which always pleases me. One can probably tell from earlier posts that I have a soft spot in my heart for wilted garlic-y kale.

The next entree was "prime NY strip with Parisienne potatoes, rapini, braised trumpet mushrooms, and green garlic". The steak was very tender and had a very peppery crust. The mushrooms were savory and delicious. I didn't write much else about this dish, but it was a nicely done steak and potatoes dish.

I didn't get a wine list, but here's a picture:

The notes I got from this were leather, cherry, and berries. Very nice wine and went well with everything except the scallops. Definitely not a match with the scallops, but what can you do when you only want one bottle of wine?

Now dessert! It looks like the desserts don't change as much as the dinner menu. I believe they always offer the "wink trio", which is one dessert plate we had: a sampling of "lemon meringue pot", which is a nicely tart lemon curd in a crisp meringue cup with candied lemon zest and berries, "creme brulee", which was a very traditional, very nicely done creme brulee, and "El Rey chocolate cake", which is a warm flourless chocolate cake made with 'El Rey' chocolate and zinfandel infused cherries. I'm not usually a fan of chocolate after a big dinner--I usually prefer something light and fruity or a cheese plate--but these portions were just right. Just tastes of three very well done desserts.

We also ordered the "foie gras brulee", which is a foie gras custard with Riesling poached Bosc pear and spiced pecans. Foie gras is so buttery and creamy... and in a custard with a caramelized sugar crust? Fabulous. The pears were maybe a smidge too firm and crunchy, but the taste was a great match. Arugula sprouts were sprinkled over the dish and were a nice spicy foil over all. I tried a 2003 Chateau D'Armajan "Des Ormes" Sauternes glass with this, which had honey, jasmine, apricot, and honeydew melon notes. It really brought out the flavors of the pecans and the spiciness of the sprouts.

I must have been a very enthusiastic and inquisitive diner, as our waiter brought me a copy of the menu signed by the kitchen staff! I have fallen in love with Wink and I can't wait to eat there again.

Wink also has a 5 course and a 7 course tasting menu, which you may pair with wine if you choose. I think next time I will choose this instead when I take Triana there! The dessert menu does also offer a French cheeseplate, which looked extremely temping. But how can one not try the foie gras brulee?

Quick Update

2009-01-06T14:16:00.007-05:00

Fiona starts talking about the candy canes long before Christmas.

Sophia loves to play on the heat vents or play in front of the fire. She seeks out warmth.

Sophia and I have fun with the webcam. Here she is practicing her wink.

Getting Christmas cards out was difficult this year due to squirrely subjects.

So our debit card number was lifted and someone has been eating at McDonald's and Dunkin Doughnuts on us. Oh, and filling up at Gulf Oil. The card has since been canceled, and unless I am very much mistaken, we will not be responsible for $300 in flat burgers, stale doughnuts, and gas. Still, it's an icky feeling.

Sophia is now going to school five days a week. She is taking to this with relish. She's come a long way from being so sad at drop off, tearfully waiting at the window.

Christmas was wonderful and the girls got fabulous loot and fun was had.

We survived the vacation and it actually went by rather quickly.

10 days until I see friends and family in Texas, but who's counting? If ya'll are getting too warm down there? Don't worry, I'll be sure to bring in some sort of cold northern front.

Oh, and if you haven't been to Ellen Aim's blog today, be sure to check out today's post.

Winter Song

2008-12-20T17:44:00.000-05:00

Winter Song with Ingrid Michaelson

I love this song and I just found the video.

Feeling Grateful

2008-12-20T08:56:00.007-05:00

We got lots and lots of beautiful snow last night. It's so nice when this happens on the weekend when we don't have to be anywhere.

Fiona brought up a tray of two cups of tea to us this morning. Mine was perfect, Earl Grey with milk. Doug's was milkless English Breakfast. She accidentally put milk in it at first (which is actually how he prefers it) and so started over. The screeching we heard earlier was due to the fact that Sophia wanted to carry the tray up. Sophia adores her sister and equally adores working in the kitchen. Anyway, Fiona was obviously quite pleased with herself...she was just beaming. I tried not to tear up. I'm such a sap.

Yesterday, Fiona had a "holiday shopping" thing at her school. I think the profit goes towards the PTA. She was very excited about it. They take an envelope with money in it for shopping for Christmas gifts. You write on the front together who they want to shop for and how much they want to spend on each person. We sent Fiona with $20, 6 of it from her allowance. She allocated $4 for each person: Dad, Mom, Sophia, Sobo, and Eliza (they had a section for friends, parents, siblings, and grandparents). Fiona gave us our gifts right away. She was beaming. Mine is a faceted glass "gem" with "Mom" on the front in a pretty box (the girls both just love boxes). Fiona says it is a diamond and she spent ten dollars on it, but she saw it and really wanted it for me. I'm not really a diamond kind of girl, but this is the most beautiful one in world. (Sobo, your gift is on the way!) I did tell her that one does not need to know the cost of a gift. I was very touched she gave me something she thought I would adore. I thanked her for it and we had lots of hugs. She said, "Thank you for telling me how much you like it".

She saw her friend Eliza admiring a necklace with two hearts, so she was very sneaky about buying that for her. She gave it to her afterward. Eliza was so pleased, but she said that she shouldn't give it to her (I think she thought it was just for family). Fiona pointed out to her that she had budgeted for a friend on the front of the envelope.

Days like this make up for all the screaming, all the "I hate you!! You are the stupidest, meanest mom in the whole world!! You hate me!!! You don't love me at all!!" and then some.

Hey!

2008-12-18T07:08:00.002-05:00

Sophia loves Shut Up and Let Me Go by The Ting Tings:

The Ting Tings - New Music - More Music Videos

I asked if she wanted some music. She said "Yes! I want that song that goes...it goes...I ain't faking this. Hey!"

Just a Quick Woo HOO

2008-11-06T13:18:00.003-05:00

I'm still walking around in a bit of a daze.

I had a fabulous time with Ellen Aim in Ithaca a couple of weekends ago (oh boy, I haven't written in a while, have I?) You can read more about that trip there and it has pictures!

More to come.

Happy 4th, Sweet Sophia

2008-10-17T10:16:00.009-04:00

Okay, it's really tomorrow, but I'm excited. She's excited!

Four years! They've been four wonderful ones.

Pippi's Pining for the Fjords

2008-10-14T09:56:00.003-04:00

Fiona talking. I swear she looks like she's grown up in New Yawk.

Alas, after just telling a friend that our birds are so messy, and actually, I'm really not fond of them at all, we found Pippi lying on the bottom of her cage. I think I hear my taxi to Hell just outside the door now. (Although another friend of ours, who let us borrow the steamer for the wallpaper, said I should test it out on the birds.)

So we buried her in the back yard and Fiona sang some songs. She doesn't seem particularly sad, but Sophia is a bit sad. She keeps saying she misses Pippi and wants to write notes for her to put outside. She also keeps asking why Pippi died. I have tried to answer this in several different ways, but she still keeps asking. Don't we all.

The leaves are all pretty much yellow now. However, there are so many peepers here that it is actually affecting traffic. That combined with the desperate construction going on makes for some uncharacteristically stopped up traffic.

I'm so looking forward to October 23-26, where I will join Ellen Aim for her visit to the Cornell Law School! If we can find a room somewhere. It's a long 6 hour drive there, so I'll have to load up the Pod with road songs.

I will tentatively say that I may have a very minor source of income and a major source for a creative outlet. I have started making cakes for a friend's coffee shop and they seem to be selling very well and have received lots of compliments. It makes me very happy.

He Taught Me How to Turn My Cheek When People Laugh at Me

2008-10-03T07:31:00.002-04:00

And, boy, am I laughing. My dad sent this, Ellen Aim posted it, and I have to share it, too. Try to hang in there (it's not easy) for the lyrics at 1:45.

Triana's Visit

2008-10-02T15:44:00.008-04:00

Today was Fiona's first violin lesson! I think it went well.

Last night was Open House at Fiona's school and her teacher told us that Fiona is pretty much at a whole different level of reading than the rest of her class. Unfortunately, the 2nd graders have reading time at a different time, so apparently she can't go there. I'm not too worried as she spends a lot of her free time reading (and she can't hear you when she reads, which is exasperating, but at the same time, I totally understand...). We saw her reading basket and we'll see about putting some more advanced books in there or something. Her teacher wants her to work on comprehension, which she is pretty good at, but could be better--she tends to read very quickly. Again, I can relate.

We had a great visit with Triana, who wrote a great post about it at her blog, so I'll let you read it there. Suffice to say, good times were had, silliness ensued, and good food was plentiful. Fiona still mourns and mopes (mainly after school, which is prime moping time) for Kendra's presence.

This is the best foliage season ever. I can't believe how bright the leaves are this year. Some years it's very yellow and brown. This year is Red! Orange! and Yellow! It is outstanding. I took some lame pictures and they don't really do it justice.

I did take Triana to Hen of the Wood, where I did not get a recent menu, so I don't really have details. What can I say? The food was utterly divine as usual. They really know how to cook their pig. However! We saw the Chef, Eric Warnstedt, who was named one of Food and Wine's best new chefs of 2008. So that is incredibly awesome. But before I discovered that, he was there in the hallway with us and I asked him if he was the chef (doh, I knew that, but I can't start a conversation to save my life), and then, upon affirmation, said I loved his food and wanted to shake his hand, which I did. Squee! I said I had to bring Triana there since she had never been. After being seated, we got a little amuse bouche of grilled bread, blue cheese, and bacon. Oh, the bacon. I did have pork for an appetizer and entree on top of that. What can I say? I love pig, and it is magic at Hen of the Wood. I do remember Triana had the hanger steak, which she was worried would be tough, but I said, do not worry. They know how to cook meat here, and it will be perfect, or they will redo it. It was perfect.

I've posted this before, but it's not on YouTube anymore. It's worth repeating in honor of bacon:

glumbert - Jim Gaffigan loves bacon

Ten Foods You’ll Find, Eat, and Regret at the State Fair

2008-10-01T07:40:00.001-04:00

I love food—the greasier the better. So any day that includes deep-fried calamari with warm marinara sauce is a good day—no, a great day—by my standards. There’s no better place to get your greasy grub on than at a state fair.

View >>

Apples!

2008-09-23T08:00:00.016-04:00

This year we went to Shelburne Orchards instead of Adams Apple Orchard, just for a change.

Most of what we picked were Macs, but we got some Honey Crisp and something I can't identify. The trees aren't marked at all, as far as I can see. But the apples are great.

They also have the best cider doughnuts we've tried so far. They're rolled in cinnamon sugar, and they are warm and perfect.

All the apple picking was done by the girls. I just sat and watched and took pictures.

They filled two of these.

Sophia's drop off at school is going marginally better. Sobo left Tuesday for Texas and we miss her. Triana comes today and will be here until Sunday morning! We're going to Hen of the Wood tonight, which she has not been to before. Obviously, this must be remedied.

The wasps are back. They are only in the attic right now. I was up there at the worst time--in the middle of a very sunny afternoon. Trying to seal up a window crawling with cluster flies and wasps is not my idea of a good time. There may have been screaming.

Amusing

2008-09-22T08:08:00.002-04:00

This.

Post coming up soon about our apple picking, with pictures. I gotta get the playroom ready for the Kilted Carpenter to finish our windows. Did I mention their house is purple, too? Nearly the same purple.

Sophia's drop off at school has crashed into a double helping of drama every MWF morning. She doesn't want to go. There is screaming and crying. It's ugly. I don't know if she isn't ready for this or what. She did fine at drop off activities this summer. It really sucks.

Food Blathering

2008-09-15T16:42:00.005-04:00

I finally got my paws on CookWise, by Shirley Corriher, which I bought more as a reference book than for the recipes. I actually forgot it had recipes. Anyway, it explains how and why things happen in cooking. A great book in a similar vein is Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, but without recipes.

Lo and behold, she has my favorite waffle recipe in there. I've seen similar waffle recipes in other books, but the best is Marion Cunningham's (from The Breakfast Book). The waffles are the lightest I've ever had. The outside is crisp and the inside is soft. You can substitute whole grain flours in part for the all purpose flour (AP), but it loses some crispness. The flavor is still excellent.

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or instant)
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups warm whole milk
1/4 pound butter, melted
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 cups AP flour
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp baking soda

Sprinkle the yeast on warm water in a very large mixing bowl (you'll need it to be large so the batter can rise) and let bubble. Instant yeast does not need to be proofed (you don't have to wait for it to bubble). Add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, and flour and whisk until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand overnight at room temperature. If it's really hot where you are, refrigerate the batter.

In the morning, beat in the eggs and baking soda. Cook in your waffle iron. It's essential to serve this immediately, because it starts to lose perfection as it cools down.

I am not one to put maple syrup on my waffles (I'm strictly a salted butter on my pancakes and waffles kind of person...I want to taste waffle/pancake, not syrup), but warm maple syrup is a nice accompaniment. Fiona staunchly swears by fruit compote on hers.

Waffles are one thing I simply will not buy mix for. I have weakened to a few convenience foods since having kids (jarred tomato sauce, Annie's macaroni and cheese shells, even !egads! frozen pizza ...I'm sure there are more examples, but I am drawing a blank), but not waffle and pancake mix and not granola. (Pizza dough is so easy to make, so feel free to mock me. I do make pizza dough, but sometimes it's so nice to just take something out of the freezer.)

Granola is so easy. Both the girls love it (sometimes they even want it for lunch) and I can put all sorts of treasures in there. I like mine rich in nuts--and this is where I put my maple syrup. I use either that or honey for the sweetener. I love adding dried fruit (after baking) like cranberries, raisins, or blueberries, but I love the dried fruit from here the best, especially the strawberries and the raspberries. They need to be kept very dry, though, or they get chewy. I also love my granola heavy on coconut, preferably unsweetened. It's so easy to vary the flavors and it's so easy to make. I cannot imagine buying it.

Daily Drama

2008-09-15T15:58:00.003-04:00

We have been going to Sarducci's often for lunch these days. One table is next to a mirror. Sophia loves to watch herself eat in the mirror. She makes hilarious faces. I'm sure by the time we leave, there are copious garlic oil handprints and lip marks on the mirror. Last week, she looked in the mirror, cried out and buried her face in my arm, declaring, "My freckles are hurting me!"

Tunbridge

2008-09-15T14:27:00.011-04:00

We went to the Tunbridge World's Fair Parking was crazy! The little VT highway was totally jammed! Well, it was a lot for here.

Sophia and I in front of the cow barn. We also saw some oxen, four of them Fiona's teacher's.

The carousel was a huge hit. They went on three times.

Fiona continues to read and continues to be very excited when she has homework. I've noticed her avidly reading It's Not the Stork which we bought for her a few years, ago, so I've upgraded her to It's So Amazing!

Fiona with It's So Amazing! This is a fabulously comprehensive sexual education book for ages 6 and up. So far, she thinks the funniest thing about it is the hair-do on the cartoon duck. I wonder when that will cease to be the funniest thing. This picture was actually taken at a restaurant; she insisted on bringing it inside to read. I love this book because not only does it present the basics in a matter of fact way (but with cute drawings), it also discusses contraception, different types of families, adoption, HIV/AIDS, and sexual preferences.

Random Pictures

2008-09-11T07:27:00.006-04:00

Sobo brought the girls these Japanese rice paper umbrellas.

She oozes personality.

And today's moment of Zen.

We have lots of great cemeteries up here, due to the granite quarries around. This is from Hope Cemetery in Barre.

Violin Concerto for Mums in D Minor

2008-09-10T14:33:00.007-04:00

We started renting a violin for Fiona. The bow is purple. Her lessons should start soon. There are free group lessons during school once a week, but I think we are going to look into private lessons as well. She also wants to learn piano, which is great, but I said let's take it one instrument at a time.

She's coming down with a cold or something. She came home from school today with a sore tummy and a runny nose with sneezing. She said she just wanted a box of tissues, a bag for used tissues, and her violin, so she could practice "outside in the fresh air next to the mums".

This violin is so small, it's like a pinky violin.

Oh, by the way, the carpenter did a fantastic job with our windows. We're definitely keeping his number for future projects. He's also very cool in that he wears kilts. I guess it is his trademark, because when you write out the check, you make it out to "The Kilted Carpenter". So if anyone needs a carpenter in central Vermont, give a shout out in the comments.

The Incredible, Edible Egg

2008-09-10T14:19:00.005-04:00

So I did make a souffle with those sexy eggs. I got even more the other day. The sweet person who is always there and looks for eggs for me seems to know the secret places to find eggs. Normally, he just goes to the coop, but I saw him looking in bushes near the farm stand, too, for eggs. Free range, you know.

The above is a roux (the flour and butter cooked until light brown) with the egg yolks, milk, and seasonings (pepper, salt, a bit of cayenne--I'd put more in, but Sophia might eat it). It's very dark compared to when I use grocery store eggs. Normally, this would look very pale yellow.

I love egg whites. When we would make chocolate meringue at school, we had to use an enormous mixing bowl. The thing is, to fold in egg whites in that volume, you can't really use a whisk or a spatula. You have to use your whole arm. (Actually, it does work better to use your hand to fold in whites, but a whisk works well, too). Being covered with chocolate meringue is definitely not a bad thing. And if it makes you squeamish to think of someone's arm in your meringue or cake batter...you probably should eat your meals at home.

Before (I added cheddar--Cabot's Hunter's Cheddar--and Parmesan).

After. Great fun to eat.