a good day

[magicicada]

the weather has turned absolutely perfect. i know it's temporary, but it's a sign of things to come. today has been slow and leisurely and still a lot has gotten done. after breakfast, i spent an hour leisurely reading the paper while listening to the radio. in the background, i had tivo media playing a slideshow of family photos. instead of feeling regret for things undone, old pain or nostalgia, i had an overwhelming feeling that everything had led up to this point in my life and was therefore good. i have tentatively arranged for catherine & zak to watch sylvia on our anniversay so that h_postmortemus and i can go out to dinner together. they asked which anniversary this would be and looked surprised when i said it would be our ninth. i'm a bit surprised myself, it doesn't seem like it's been that long.

after that leisurely beginning i sauntered out to the veggie garden and took care of some of the overgrown beds. i wasn't worried about sylvia and even after over an hour outside, i was not overheated. i feel good about how much i accomplished and the compost heap is full. the nasty weeds are well on their way to becoming fuel for next years garden - very cleansing.

around 1pm (the time i like to be done), jeff realized that we had forgotten completely about starting the crockpot. in order to make up for lost time, we both got into the chopping. jeff chopped up the meat for both today's crockpot and tomorrow's, while i chopped potatoes, onions & carrots for today's meal. we finished by 2pm, so that meant dinner would be ready around 7-8pm, not ideal, but ok. i added all sorts of extras like rosemary, celery seed and worcheshire sauce, but somehow managed to forget to add liquid entirely.

for lunch, we had some of the bean and cheese burritoes i had prepared earlier in the week. i had this great idea to make my own cheapie burritos that might not be quite so fattening (5 pts per for ww junkies).

bean and cheese burritos:

• 10 whole wheat tortillas


• 2 cans fat free refried beans


• 5 oz shredded cheese


• 1 onion


• 3 banana peppers (from the garden)


• 2 fresh tomatoes (from the garden)


• 1 tsp? annatto oil


• salsa (1 tbsp per burrito?)

cook onions & banana peppers in oil, combine appropriately. place in freezer. when ready to eat, put in toaster oven at 400 for 15-20 minutes. they were delicious. but wait, there's more... at the last minute as h_postmortemus was putting the burritos on a plate, i said, 'hey, why don't we eat outside' and we relocated out to the picnic tables. the weather was still lovely, there were no mosquitoes and after lunch, we set sylvia on the table for some highly supervised crawling practice.

somewhere in there, i got in a shower and found the deodorant that had gone missing. small victories are also important.

then we were off on the real mission of the day which was to go to babies r us to get a baby gate. of course, we can't just get a baby gate. sylvia's sleepers were getting a bit small and she seems to have hit a new developmental stage so i thought checking out the toy section would be a good idea :). when we arrived, sylvia was already hungry so there was a quick snack in the glider array. the important parts of the mission were completed and we started diverging into the halloween costumes - too many choices and we're not sure whether she'll be in stroller, crawling or walking. in the toy section we found a wooden block train for $10 *snag*. i let sylvia test drive one of the push/walk toys, but she's not quite there yet.

back out into the cool evening for a run at the turtle's close out sale (60-70% off). we headed out into the parking lot, but from the back could not tell the waldenbooks from the turtles. no real harm, we just walked through the waldenbooks, stopping only for truffles :). the deals at turtles were insane. the 60% off was on used cds as well and they had a further bonus if you bought more than 5, which of course we did. my 4 were:
Alistair Black - Didgeridoo Dreaming (Australian new age, very mellow pleasant album. digeridoo featured prominently.)
Poi Dog Pondering - Volo (i like this band and have been looking for an excuse to buy another cd)
Dzintars - Songs of Amber (Latvian Women's Choir - folk songs etc, some in yiddish) [edit - i've now listened to some of this album and it's very nice. i've forgotten how much i like choral works]
Roy Orbison - In Dreams
total price: $8
i didn't even get to all the cds. sylvia was getting restless (she had woken up from her impromptu snooze in the middle of a very loud store), the line was long and our crockpot was nearing completion. i waited for jeff while he was buying the cds and noticed the moon, nearly full, was perfectly framed by clouds. the weather was still perfect. off across the parking lot and through the waldenbooks to the other side. this time jeff stopped for more truffles and i found a peanuts coloring book in the clearance bin :). homewards!

sylvia had definitely had enough by the time we got home, but a bit of milk seemed to brighten her outlook. the crockpot was delicious even though i forgot to add the liquid and we have meals for 2 more nights next week. tomorrow we'll make another crockpot with pork brisket, cabbage and red potatoes. that should leave us pretty well set for the week.

Comments

Autumn incoming!

[greatblueheron.livejournal.com]

At last, the end of the muggy, musty tunnel of summer can be seen ahead! Joy, indeed.

And now I'm hungry for burritos...