02.23.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:07 pm by Anne

Hooray! I found some passionfruit juice at the local store. It is LOOZA brand and all I will tell you is yum-yum!

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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:04 pm by Anne

Finally we took the time to trim back all the plants and clean out the garden and flower beds. Saturday afternoon Lily was strapped in the outdoor swing and given a few toys to play with while Shan and I went crazy with the clippers. It was great and because the weather couldn’t have been more perfect, I kind of get the distinct feeling that Spring may be here. I would be surprised to get any more freezes but stranger things have happened so who knows. Lily is taking her nap now and used the opportunity to plant a bunch of yellow and white onions. The nice thing about onions is that they are tough and even if we do get another freeze, they’ll just shrug it off.

After much mulling I invited Shan’s other set of Grandfolks to our Fat Tuesday supper tomorrow, diabetic or not. The etouffe will be fine as will the salad and shrimp. Granny just can’t drink any of my hurricane cocktails or have kingcake. Shan likes to remind me it’s less about the food and more about the companionship anyway.

and speaking of driving to the liquor store this morning, Lily crabbed the whole way there. I couldn’t figure out the problem, she had just eaten, her diaper was clean, and she was surrounded by toys but still her eyes welled up with tears and she sniffed and cried until right before I pulled in. Then I got the pleasure of waking a sleeping child so I could go in. As I pulled her out of the carseat, I saw the problem. She had been sitting on a Little Person figurine. Agh. Poor baby. I’ll have to do better when strapping her in, those little hard rubber toys would suck being forced into one’s backside. We are at each other’s mercy though until she can tell me, “Hey Mom, get this damn thing out of here!”

Saturday night we had Shan’s folks over for supper, Chicken and vegetable stirfry and individual molten chocolate cakes drizzled with fresh strawberry puree. During dessert, one of Shan’s friends and his wife dropped by to pick up something and we invited them to stay. I don’t think they were too impressed with the cake since they only ate half of theirs. SOmething tells me the gooey center might have wigged them out and they were being polite by not demanding I bake it longer. Then Shan’s folks left and they stayed to teach us how to play ‘Canasta’. Oh man. I love this game. Lucky for us we had the required four decks of cards. I could play that game all day long and by the end of the game, it wound up being almost 2:30 in the morning. Unbelievable. We haven’t stayed up that late in years. Naturally, Lily woke us up at 7:10 AM and we dragassed into the kitchen. Sunday morning was not pretty. My eyes hurt and we were both exhausted. I said to Shan, “Now I know why old people aren’t supposed to stay up so late.”

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02.20.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:12 pm by Anne

Forget the spicy shrimp and andoullie over grits, I am going to prepare instead a nice chicken ettouffe and provide either boiled spicy or grilled spicy shrimp as an appetizer. Hmmm. In the meantime I am having to plan picking up the hurricane cocktail inredients. Passionfruit syrup… I wonder if those italian syrups for coffee and icecream feature that flavor?And rum. Which will entail another trip to the store of forbidden spirits either way north or way south of here. sigh.

Today another glass was broken. I need to tell Shan that no longer is it allowed to have glasses for latenight water drinking. This, because the bedside cedar chest is low enough for Lily to pull things down from, and as I combed my hair, she wandered over and yanked Daddy’s glass to the floor. The sound of tinkling glass brought me over pretty quick and I was able to pull her out and move her away from the multiple shards of razor sharp glass laying all over the floor. nice.

And she has another fromt tooth coming in! She still has more on the top than on the bottom so it’s nice that this new one is on the mandibula.

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02.19.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:34 pm by Anne

So I am planning this years Mardi Gras menu. Since the grandparents will be over on Tuesday already, I just need to invite Shan’s parents too, and call it good. Since the last time the other set of grandparents came over and one had a mild diabetic reaction to the food, I’m thinking about leaving them out this time.

*Spicy shrimp and andouille over grits
*non-Cajun green salad with cooling mint dressing
*hurricanes
*king cake

Although, I’m not sure about the hurricanes…I might be the only one drinking them and that would be so inappropriate. cackle. Plus, I don’t own the appropriate barwear. Hmmmm. I guess I need to check my Commander’s Kitchen cookbook for more idears.

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:43 am by Anne

My left wrist, ever since Basic Training and all the thousands of pushups I had to do, has been a slight aggravation. Minor pain for a long time and when I became pregnant with Lily, it seemed to exacerbate. Now that a full year following the pregnancy has come and gone and especially since the pain has flared up and become an obstacle to lifting things (I dropped a box of Babs’ possessions last weekend all over the damned floor.), I thought it was time to see a Dr. He looked at it, manipulated it, asked if the knot had been there for very long or had it appeared out of nowhere…that I didn’t know but I suspect it was slow growing. Along the line of my thumb, going towards the wrist, the knot resembles a tiny pea under my skin. Dr set me up to get an x-ray and told me in the best case scenario it is a bone cyst and no big deal but in the less likely, worse case scenario, that it is a bone tumor. nice. I got the x-ray done yesterday and have an appointment again next week with my Dr, so hopefully he’ll know what it is by then. In the meantime I wear a freaking wrist guard that is a minor help. But enough about me!

Yesterday Lily took her first baby-steps towards feeding herself with a spoon. I had just started giving her some yogurt for lunch and gave her the little stubby spoon after she kept clawing at it. Oh it was a mess of course. I’d put a little yogurt on the spoon and she’d jam it into her mouth. A few times I thought she might swallow the spoon entirely but each time she drew it back out. It seemed she was a lot more impressed with holding the spoon than with the food and soon, her entire face was covered in white goop. Shortly thereafter I commandeered the spoon, put away the yogurt, and resorted to finger foods to finish off her lunch.

Lily is such a good eater I am nervous about how long it will last. Hopefully forever and she will never turn into the finicky little brat I was for so many years, much to my parent’s chagrin. This morning I made some scrambled eggs with cheese to accompany a slice of toasted sourdough my mother-in-law had baked. She loves the bread and would eat only bread if I let her, so I started her out on the eggs. Happily she scarfed them and then the bread and then the orange juice. Good baby!

After the requisite morning bath, while I put in my contact lenses, to distract her from flushing the toilet a million times or pulling out baskets of non-hazardous toiletry items, I said, “Hey Lily! Can you comb your hair?” She bent down, picked up her baby comb, and began dragging the little thing across her scalp. She wasn’t really comb-combing, but Lily totally had the right idea. I pulled the door open and let her peer at the reflection of the toddler in the mirror and grinned. She does have good hair for a baby but is going though a pretty obnoxious stage of not wanting her hair in ponytails. It’s hard enough getting those fine strands into the proper shape in the first place and within an hour, she pulls them out and chews on the hairbands. Ack! A month ago she couldn’t care less and now any kind of hairstyle is such a bane. But I won’t give up. Not ever.

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02.18.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:21 pm by Anne

new Pictures

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02.17.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:19 am by Anne

So anyway, we finally wind up at some huge shopping/bar/restaurant building (I still can’t remember the name) and after parking across the way, hurried through the windy cold to eat. I have only eaten at Outback Steakhouse twice in the past but after this experience, I don’t foresee ever spending my money there again. The bartender was surly, for one, but that can be forgiven given the drunk clients. Our waiter was completely awful. Condescending. And late with the food. More bread took a half hour. And the steaks we got were not medium but very rare. Even after he brought them back following a re-grilling, mine was still mostly rare except now it had a serious charred crust. Babs ate hers. The salt crusted baked potato I was looking forward to was also disappointing, overdone and soggy. Two things a baked potato should never ever be. Finally, after seeing I hadn’t touched the meat, the waiter took my plate away and asked if we wanted dessert. The nerve!

I forgot to mention that the first day I got in, Babs drove me to the police station for a little meet and greet. My favorite person was Officer Terrell, a stern but hilarious man who volunteers on the dive team, meaning he straps on a wetsuit and looks for dead bodies in various waterways. He’s just the model of a police officer, honest and forthright and good. I suspect he will continue being a pillar of support for my sister when she enters the academy in March. Gahh! The only downside to Officer Terrell is that he suggested we eat lunch at a local eatery called ‘George’s’ . Oooh. not good. not good at all. I mistakenly ordered the chicken Parmesan while Babs got the good old fashioned, hard to screw up, hamburger with fries. My sauce was bland and had to have come from a can, the noodles over cooked and also from a can, and the chicken amounted to 3 fried chicken tenders. I believe they are the same thing that is served when one orders the chicken tender basket.

Anyway, the next to the last day I was there, Babs and I again got in to the car and drove drove drove. This time to MacArthur Center. This is, in short, a giant mall full of good shops. Williams-Sonoma, Yankee Candle Co., Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, etc. I finally went into a Gymboree and got Lily a red raincoat for next year. Clearance priced plus an extra 20% off! Great stuff there. Since it was the day after Valentine’s Day, all the heart motifed items, or most of them ,at Williams-Sonoma were on sale as well. I bought a set of pastel colored heart ramekins with matching plates and gave them to Babs since she was in dire need of some pretty and sweet kitchen items. Then we ate the second best food item of the trip, a giant soft pretzel with salt. I could eat one of those or more a day for the rest of my life and never be tired of them. Atkins diet Schmatkins diet, simple carbs are my friend. We also went into the Bombay Company. I wanted to look and see what kind of candlesticks they might have, since while visiting I was also in charge of decorating my sister’s house. I don’t claim to be an expert, at all, but I am a fan of focal points and making areas interesting, and to be honest, Babs’ interior was very similar to how she lived in her apartment before getting married. No organization, items tossed on flat surfaces with no rhyme or reason…so while there, I made it my job to fix up her kitchen (which is huge and lovely and much larger than mine!) and the living room. In any event, no candlesticks were found, but Babs did see a lovely equine print, framed and matted, and on sale (she never pays full price for anything). After walking through the mall, she finally decided to buy it right before we left. This was probably the best purchase of the day. Her living room had nothing on the walls. We went to Lowes and got some screws and threaded sheetrock fasteners used when there isn’t a stud in the wall right where you need one and hung the horse picture. It looked so good and made a tremendous difference. YAY! Now I have to go to the Doctor about my wrist.

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02.16.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:58 am by Anne

Well, I am happy to report the planes never erupted into fiery flames and both getting to Virginia and coming back home to Texas went just fine. And inbetween, I got in a really nice visit with my baby sister. Flight time kind of sucked, 3 hours, but I am amazed and thankful the technology exists to travel over such a distance so quickly. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, being away from the baby. I’m not going to say it was easy or that I was fancy free but it didn’t depress me at all. Really, it was only a little bittersweet when we were out in public and I’d hear the shrieking of other babies or see family units pass by…when I pulled up in the driveway yesterday, Shan was outside, holding Lily in his arms. She saw the truck and was expressionless until she saw me inside and then her face broke into the biggest toothiest smile I have ever seen and she held her arms out to me. I was in heaven and it was so good to be back home. Now about the trip.
I was wrong about the MC Escher exhibit at the museum. Apparently that happened already…in 1998! So we opted instead to visit the Jamestown Settlement. The weather was gorgeous, very similar to north texas, and although we didn’t get to tour the ACTUAL Jamestown colony, there were all manner of intersting replicas and guides and movies. It was pretty incredible to think about life during those pre-colonial times. We got to tour the ships (also replicas but functioning) that brought the first indentured servants and militia and gentlemen from the Virginia Company over and they were tiny! Just amazing, really. After that, we drove around Williamsburg a little, and stopped in the evening pretty close to William and Mary University, in colonial Williamsburg. Although we didn’t stay for supper and it got pretty dark pretty quickly, we did manage to get one of the best caramel apples I have ever eaten. Babs got one too but hers was free after she mentioned eating a mealy one from the same store a year earlier. Now that’s customer service. Anyway, there was a restaraunt that we stopped by called the Trellis but the wait was 3.5 hours! Come on! It was 6:30 and we decided we had better things to do, no matter if one of the pastry chef/owners wrote the famous book Death by Chocolate. Though, it might have been better if we had waited. Babs is worse than I am when it comes to directions, if that is possible, and she had an idea of a different place to eat supper in Virginia Beach. So we headed out there. By 8:30, after driving up and downthe strip[ more than 3 times, she pulled over at a 7-11 and got directions. It turns out the place was in Norfolk not Virginia Beach! Ack. By the time we got there, and I can’t remember the name of the place, it was 9PM and I was about to throttle her out of extreme hunger. more later, baby has awoken.

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02.11.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:46 am by Anne

Lily and I went to our first Gymboree session yesterday. Her nap was cut a bit short as I loaded her up around 11AM and she ate cheerios from her little bowl until we got there. The previous class had run late and the entryway filled with Mommies and toddlers pretty quickly, I was surprised to see so many people. I could tell that it was a little click-ish…a number of the Moms knew each other and chatted about all manner of tedious BS. An older mother, she appeared to be in her 40’s, very loudly began describing a situation in which she and a number of other women were in some public place and one of the ladies “Just popped out a boob, then and there, and didn’t cover up at all!” Evidently aghast… And the woman she was loudly talking to, demurred and mumbled softly “Oh, I’m not into that kind of thing either.” For the record, I am not comfortable “popping out a boob” to nurse in public but it’s not THAT big a deal to me if someone else is. I don’t see it as pornographic and I really don’t think it’s as inappropriate as making out with someone but I guess it can be a hot button issue for some people, so %$ck’em and feed’em fishheads.

When we were let into the gym, everyone took off their shoes along the outer wall and met in a circle in the middle of the room. There were soft gym pads all over the floor and brightly covered cloth tunnels, and oversized vinyl rolling cylinders and slides and balance beams, and balls of all sizes all over the place. The coordinator, Carole, welcomed Lily and me, and started the group off on a welcome song to get the kids ready for some serious playing. The singing was a little weird at first since I didn’t know there was going to be any, but it quickly wore off and I joined in like a drunken sailor. Lily loved it. After the song, Carole described today’s semi-structure play. We were to work on strengthening baby’s legs by encouraging them to climb up ramps and slides and help them walk on the balance beams etc…and then we all scattered. I didn’t take Lily to any particular station but let her follow a ball around and explore on her own. She liked pushing the cylinders and crawled around the jungle gym after balls, but she didn’t want to crawl into any of the tunnels, which is understandable…the tunnels are very new to her. Then I took her around to various slides and those were a big hit. Carole came by and showed me some various materials to put beneath Lily that would increase or decrease the amount of friction and also volunteered that pulling a baby around the house on a blanket also helps them to develop a sense of balance. (We did that this morning.) The neatest part of the class, I thought, was when we all regrouped in the middle again and Carole brought out a huge brightly colored ‘parachute’. The moms all grabbed an edge, lumped the kids in the center underneath it, and we flapped the chute over our heads and pulled it down under us. It made a really cool tent-cave and the babes loved it! They crawled and played and Carole said it taught them about ’spacial differences’. After putting it up, she brought out some bubbles and sang a tune while mesmerizing our children. All babies are crazy for bubbles and Lily was no exception. There were only a few moments when Lily acted less then ideally. The first, when she grabbed a ball away from a little boy that was rolling it around. As I mentioned to my friend, it’s kind of difficult to reprimand a toddler in a situation like that. I weakly told her that it ‘wasn’t nice to take his ball’ but the boy’s mother pretended nothing had happened and gave him a different toy. This was probably the best thing to do. The second, was towards the end and we had our child in our laps and were singing a song and moving the baby to dance along, Lily decided she didn’t want to participate and kept arching her back, trying to get away from me. hahahahha…little urchin, surely by now she knows she can never get away from me!

Today I am preparing for my trip to Virginia. It looks like I’ll be leaving pretty early in the morniing and driving my own self to the airport. so boo freaking hoo. I am mostly packed and am starting to get excited about seeing my baby sister. One thing we’ll be going to do, which I am excited about is the Chrysler Museum of Art. I found out that they were having an MC Escher exhibit! So y’all have a romantic Valentine’s Day and I’ll be back Sunday.

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02.07.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:30 am by Anne

*Date Night*

We did not:

-go to a movie
-go out drinking
-go out dancing
-go to a show
-clean the house

We did:

-go to the ‘gold toe’ outlet and buy some socks on a friday night

-have a great dinner at our new favorite mexican joint ‘Luna de Noche’. Shan got a cup of tortilla soup and a plate of 6 large grilled shrimp, stuffed with pecans, and wrapped in bacon. He was feeling charitable and gave me one. They were so good, we even attacked the rest of the shell to get at the miniscule bit of meat further in. I ordered a cup of tortilla soup and a grilled chicken taco with guacamole. Very very yummy. Great margaritas but mediocre cosmopolitans and passable sopapillas. What do you want for mexican food though?

-sleep without interruption

Now I am drinking some earl greyer and awaiting the arrival of my little miss and Shan is in the garage with his grandfather working on something mechanical again. Hmmm. What to do today?

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