Week in Review
- This past week we ended up going out for at least one meal per day. One day Husband Jeff went out for both lunch AND dinner. We went to
- La Taguara (Venezuelan)
- La Brioche (French/Euro)
- Green Owl Cafe (vegetarian)
- NauTiGal (casual waterfront)
- Bunky's Cafe (Middle Eastern/Mediterranean)
- Survived my son wearing underwear most of the week. Actually this wasn't too bad, but it was our first real potty-training time and Husband Jeff and I were clueless. We had a pow-wow about it one night, wondering what we should do and how to handle certain situations. Sonny D goes on the potty all the time at daycare, but he's a bit more belligerent about it at home. "No potty!" he declares or "I already went!" (yes, but it was five hours ago!).
- Sang lots of fun Rock Band songs at a friend's birthday party, including Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe". Even the guys were singing along to both!
- Lived through two hours of solid whining-crying courtesy of Sonny D on Sunday afternoon. It was horrible!
- Opened a new face lotion, Yes To Carrots repairing night cream. It's not bad, by not great either. Scent is important for me in products, this one only smells ok. It doesn't go on that great, the texture feels a little waxy. Doesn't seem to do anything for wrinkles or discoloration. The only good thing about it is it's the moisturizing is fine. Not great, but just enough for me.
- Finally bought butter-flavored extract. I've been looking for it to try this brown sugar & molasses baked oatmeal but I couldn't find it at my regular grocery store or Target. I finally ordered a bottle of Watkins brand on eBay. I was also intrigued by their peanut butter extract, so I bought a bottle of that, too. Can't wait to try them in things, any suggestions? I was thinking for Sonny D's cupcakes that I'd make them peanut butter flavored.
- My best friend called over the weekend and asked if I want to go to Jamaica next month. Of course!
- Painted fingernails with Sonny D. I don't have too many colors since i don't paint my nails too often. He picked plum and I painted my own silver.
- Took Husband Jeff to Target. Normally he doesn't like going there with me since I take forever, but I asked nicely and had a small shopping list so we weren't there all night.
Lately I've been...
- Thinking about redecorating the dining room. Currently the walls are two shades of brown and the curtains are aqua/turquoise. I've been picking up interesting paint samples but I'm decoratingly-challenged so I have no idea where to start. I wouldn't mind a larger rug, but the ones I've found online are either smaller than our current one or way too big for the space. We're also talking about changing the setup of the room since it's so narrow. We would move the table against the wall and adding a banquette/bench for seating along that side. Husband Jeff offered to make the banquette, which would be cool since we could customize it to put storage inside and it would fit perfectly.
- Trying to come up with creative cold-weather outfits. The high temperature for Wednesday is predicted to be 11! For work I typically wear footless tights under my dress pants and blazers over tops and sweaters.
- Wanting to go out to eat at new restaurats -- That BBQ Joint (BBQ), Pelmemi (Russian dumplings), Bassett Street Brunch Club, Layla's Persian Food, Kusaka (Japanese in Mineral Point), etc. And there are some not so new places that I just want to go back to, like the Brat und Beau near our house. And many old favorites!
- Waking up too early. Wake up around 4 a.m. to pee and can't go back to sleep. This morning I just started to turn my brain off and get comfy enough to drift off to sleep and my sunrise simulator started coming on (5:15). I upload that's better than actually getting to sleep and being rudely woken up only a few minutes later.
- Having high hopes of things I want to cook/bake/make right now - pretzels dipped in chocolate for holiday spirit, a small batch of cupcakes for Sonny D, English muffin bread, homemade marshmallows (more holiday spirit), mom's cashew brittle, cream cheese + pumpkin bars, biscotti, grape-nuts banana bread, and many more, but none of those things have actually happened.
- Thankful for my handy husband. I mentioned the toilet downstairs was making noise, he fixed it right away. He's also great at building fires in the fireplace.
Menu
This week is another quiet one. For the menu I'm repeating things that I've listed in previous weeks (some several times!) but still never ended up
making.
My department at work has about 50 people so we celebrate the holidays with two-plus weeks of treats. I signed up to bring treats this Thursday and I'm bringing breakfast items, a southwestern style egg bake (green chiles, cheese, spices, maybe black beans, etc.) and baked banana oatmeal. I'll make the oatmeal the night before and prep the other one at the same time so I can throw it in the oven to bake in the morning.
My department at work has about 50 people so we celebrate the holidays with two-plus weeks of treats. I signed up to bring treats this Thursday and I'm bringing breakfast items, a southwestern style egg bake (green chiles, cheese, spices, maybe black beans, etc.) and baked banana oatmeal. I'll make the oatmeal the night before and prep the other one at the same time so I can throw it in the oven to bake in the morning.
- Monday - one of our slow cooker prep day meals of Char Siu (Asian) pork with rice and roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash.
- Tuesday - I figure there will be leftover pork from Monday since it's a big hunk of meat.
- Wednesday - Haven't decided -- either pancakes and scrambled eggs or pasta with red sauce and garlic bread.
- Thursday - Another day where I'm not sure what I'll make. I'm going to defrost some ground turkey, but I'm not sure if we should have parmigiana meatloaf or Asian meatballs.
- Friday - maybe we'll finally have the frozen leftover chicken masala with eggplant Punjab and palak paneer.
- Saturday & Sunday - The weekend is totally unknown, we're talking about getting together with friends, but they haven't contacted us back to say yes.