What I'm cooking this week

I wrote this post last week while procrastinating putting the groceries away.
I'm writing it this week while procrastinating going to the commissary.
I'm backsliding.

If and when I ever accomplish The Buying of the Dang Groceries, I will be cooking (in no particular order):

Autumn Soup.  It's gloriously simple.  Try it!  (This week I'm making it with ground turkey breast instead of hamburger.  It's better with hamburger, but I have ground turkey breast languishing in my freezer.  I'll probably throw in some beef bullion to trick my people.  I'll also sub sweet potatoes, because... I want to.
Mel's Dinner Rolls on the side or dipped in the soup (or smeared with a half pound of butter), depending on preference.
Thai Chicken Salad.  The Wonder Hub and I had a coffee date at Panera before church this morning.  I noticed they have a new Thai Chopped Chicken Salad and I decided to try my hand at making my own.  I'll let you know how it goes.
Butternut Curry Soup.  Because my people will look at the salad and ask, "Um, where's the rest of dinner?"
Grilled Burgers with caramelized onion and/or blue cheese, perched atop crusty rolls.  I'm not certain of this, but I think I need to give credit to Ree Drummond for planting this idea in my psyche.  Bobby Flay's Grilled Sweet Potatoes will round out the meal.
Breakfast, because I always need one easy, breezy night.  The Wonder Hub makes a mean bacon and egg sandwich....
Pizza.  Always, always pizza.  Caramelized Onion and Prosciutto for the grown-ups (although the kids love it, too) and a meat pie (using extra sauce from Judie's Lasagna made just for this purpose) for the yahoos.
Pulled Pork.  I'll throw a pork loin or two in the crock pot with a can of Coke and then use the tender meat for whatever strikes my fancy...probably BBQ sammies one night, quesadillas for after-school snacks and then nachos for the Super Bowl.

Here I go.  If I'm not out in 2.5 hours, send in the cavalry with an extra hot latte.

Ohhhh, the pressure...

I can tell you what I won't do again.  I won't tell you that I'm going to write something deep tomorrow.  Or ever.  Talk about pressure!  This pressure has not been aided by three consecutive snow days, believe you me.  It took a whole day for me to relax, loosen up, and just enjoy this extra time with the boys.  There is nothing, nothing on this earth I love so much as a house full of boys.  I am human, though, and if I'm not careful I resent the loss of what I've come to think of as "my time."

The house is quiet for the moment.  I want to try to tell you what I learned the other day.  I think that I'll attempt to do it succinctly, rather than in some kind of brilliant prose, as I had previously planned.  No doubt God's word will be better without me in the way.

So.  The study is from Beth Moore.  For the record, I heart her.  I do.

Beth is always pointing out that God does not waste words.  He doesn't tell us things we don't need to know, and he always tells us things that we do.  This is a profound thought for someone like me, someone for whom the Old Testament was a dry, dusty wasteland of boredom.  (Please note use of the past tense form of is.)  She says this again as we're reviewing Genesis 18, verses 17-19, and 20-21.

¹⁷ And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, ¹⁸ since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹ For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”  

^{God does not waste words.  Why did He tell us that He talks to Himself?  I thought it had something to do with the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and it very well might, but Beth said that God is showing us that He always does what He says He will do.  Look, he does just that:}

²⁰ And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, ²¹ I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” 

And then she points to Jeremiah 29:11.

The yahoos before the deep

I know I said I would write something deep today, but who can get deep with three yahoos (pronounced yay-hoo, please) home on an Inclement Weather Day?  I kept thinking that I would feed them, get them set up with studying (mid-term exams if and when they ever go back to school), and hole up to write.

Then I met some girlfriends for coffee...and bought some groceries...and borrowed some supplies for the Dread Science Project...and by the time I got home I had to feed them again.

And then they were funny and engaging and generally entertaining (mostly because they didn't want to study), and who stands a chance against that?

And then someone suggested we go to the gym, you know, because exercise helps with focus and concentration, and c'mon, we'll just go for a little bit!  And then we stayed for a long bit, and then it actually, finally started snowing and we decided to give someone a ride home...and got rear-ended by a teenager...and did cookies in a church parking lot after we determined that there was no damage to Big Bertha.

And when we got home I had to feed them again.

And then the Wonder Hub came home early from the Biggest Office Building in the World, and we chatted while I shared my Nutella dipped Wheat Thins, and the kids decided to study so that they can watch tv later,

And here I am.

And I am not deep.

The shallow before the deep

I've just returned from my women's Bible study, where we are three weeks deep (emphasis on deep) into a ten-week study of the Patriarchs.

I used to think there wasn't much to be learned from the Old Testament.

I want to share something that came to light for me today, but I really need to mull it over for a bit first.  I'll plan on sharing it tomorrow.  For now, though, I'd like to pass on a little of the Randomness that fills my brain.

Random, in five points or less.

1. Someone used all of the Starbucks coffee grounds set aside for TUESDAY MORNING WOMEN'S BIBLE STUDY, so we had to make, gulp, Maxwell House.  It is a strong testament to my addiction that I drank it.  I shudder.

2. I had a fair amount of leftover chili from Sunday, and an unfair amount of time last night, so I made two boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese, dumped it in the chili, and called it dinner.

3.  Then I roasted vegetables, out of guilt.  They took so long to roast that we were headed out the door and nobody ate any.

4. Leftover roasted vegetables are disgusting.  I predict that I will either a) choke them down myself, or b) throw them out.

5. It will most likely be a), because food has to be really, really bad for me to waste it.

Sigh.

What I'm cooking this week

I've just returned from the commissary, I'm high on an Overpriced Espresso Drink, and I'm procrastinating putting the groceries away.

It's the perfect time to write a blog post.

So.  Here's the menu for the week (in no particular order):

Judie's Lasagna--with a layer of fresh spinach that I'm hoping nobody will notice.
Breakfast--to include some kind of potato/pepper/onion/egg/ham scramble, blueberry scones and cinnamon rolls, to fill the bottomless bellies at my table.
Homemade pizza--using the best pizza dough ever and whatever ingredients strike my fancy on Pizza Night.
Red Beans and Rice--a two-day, totally worth it process.
Mel's Famous Chili--Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Nobody makes chili like my daddy.
Chicken Tacos--it has come to my attention that no matter what new and fancy creation I slave over, Taco Night is still everyone's favorite.  These will be made with chicken, homemade seasoning that beats the tar out of that packet stuff, refried beans and allllll the fixin's.

Additionally, I will bake these coconut cookies I threw together yesterday,  Mom's banana bread (with its mandatory chocolate chips), and probably some chocolate chip cookies for sack lunches.

Miscalculation

All week long, the Wonder Hub and I have been looking forward to a volunteer appreciation dinner given by our church youth pastor.  Food, Fellowship and a night out of the house.  I believe they are having it catered, so I grilled the WH before filling out the rsvp, and again before confirming the rsvp, and once again before emailing with the youth pastor's wife.

So imagine my irritation when he calls home at 5:30 to tell me he's stuck at work twenty miles away, while the dinner, approximately fifty minutes drive from home, begins in one hour.

Grrr.

(There's not much more you can do when the Pentagon calls)

Feeling the weight of my rsvp, the weight of a catered event, the loss of the fellowship (not to mention having to cook dinner myself), I decide that I have to go.  I make a last-ditch call to my friend Julie, hoping to catch a ride.  When she answers the phone, I blurt

Are you going tonight?

Silence.

To the dinner?

Silence.

For the youth group?

"Ummmmm..," Julie stumbles.  I panic.  I'm afraid I've overstepped somehow.  And then she says,

"Karen.  Do you mean the dinner that is next week?"

Uh, yeah.  That dinner.  Are you going? 

Karen on compassion

I was taught a mighty lesson today.

I've been procrastinating having my 40 year blood-work done, because I see a doctor at a military base 20 miles from my home, and because it requires fasting.  Fasting from food I can handle.  Fasting from caffeine (in the form of coffee), I cannot.

Let me just confess here before God and (wo)man that I was jonesing in the purest sense of the word.

Sweaty
Shaking
Irrational
Desperate for the comfort of that warm mug in my grip.  Yearning for that first glorious sip.

I know I'm pathetic.  Once every four years I attempt to go off the juice.  It might take a psychiatrist to understand why I always choose to do this smack in the middle of a PCS (Permanent Change of Station) move.  Crazy.  Maybe that's why it never takes.  Maybe fourteen consecutive days of cringing, skull-busting pain is too great a price to pay for giving up something I don't want to give up.

At any rate, as I raced out of the clinic and in the general direction of an overpriced coffee empire-- Band-Aid on arm and keys jangling in hand-- I passed through the haze of some poor smoker's habit.

And even though my particular habit is not threatening my life, I totally, completely understood.

Running the race

Hebrews 12:1, which I claim as my life verse, has been running (heh) through my head today.  I guess you could say that I've been meditating on it.

I can't say meditate without feeling a need to clarify.  Meditate, in the most common, modern sense means to sit and be still, to empty your mind, and...I'm not sure exactly what.  Meditate, in the Biblical sense, is the filling of your mind with the word of God.

I've been turning it over and over in my head, this verse*.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

The cloud of witnesses, in my mind, has always been in the heavenly realms.  I guess it might include the angels, but my thought is that it is those who have gone on before us.  Those who have also thrown off their entanglements and run with perseverance.  Those who, because of their firsthand knowledge of what lies beyond the finish line, have reason to cheer us on.

Everything that hinders is huge.  If I sat here and typed out every single thing that hinders me from running my race...yet, that is exactly what we are called to do.

Let us run.

Let us run.

Let us RUN.

Today, for the first time, I have felt the sense of urgency that phrase conveys.  I'm afraid that I've been ambling all too casually through the race marked out for me, becoming distracted like a small child in her first soccer game; like one who is unaware of the rules and easily taken by pretty sights.  I have persevered only in that I haven't dropped completely out.

I'm not certain of the composition of that great cloud of witnesses, but I can tell you this: I want to cross that line amid their cheers.  I want to cross that finish line- legs wobbling, arms raised victorious, lungs gulping for air, wholly exhausted from having RUN.

*Disclaimer: I am not a theologian.

Thesis: Recessive Math Gene

There is a gene responsible for mathematical dexterity.  My father, with his PhD in mathematics, has the gene.  Me, not so much.  My siblings, not so much.  Three kids and you'd think the poor guy could get at least one engineer, but no.  Not so much.

There is a long list of evidence with which to back up my claim, but unless you've had the ill fortune to be my grade school/middle school/high school math teacher (or that poor remedial algebra professor at the University of Colorado), and would like to chime in now, we'll just take my word for it and call it good.

Speaking of calling it good, one day soon I will write about the grammatical disaster that is "I'm good," and why I feel duty-bound to respond to that bewildering statement with "Oh, yeah?  Good at what?" Or, if you're related to me, "Oh, yeah?  Good for what?"

I digress..

Somewhere in early adulthood, we (the siblings and I) came up with the "Recessive Math Gene" theory.  It was brilliant.  It explained everything so succinctly.  Better yet, it got us off the hook.  Because we had inherited the Recessive Math Gene from my genius father, we could not be held responsible for equations and theorems and (gag) statistical analyses.  It was simply out of our control.

(My grad school statistics instructor didn't buy our theory, but as my genius father came to Colorado and tutored me before the final, all was well with the world.)

So now the mantle, dubious though it may be, has been passed to the next generation.  My brother's oldest son shows promise.  Both of my sister's sons show promise, although they are a bit too young for Dad to claim any responsibility just yet.  My son, on the other hand, most definitely takes after his illustrious grandfather.

That is, if the number of detentions served in the 7th grade is any indicator, this boy has the gene.  My father, Dr. Klasi of the big, fat math brain, spent his entire seventh grade year in after-school detention.

FYI: They had detention back in the dark ages.

He spent a year there.  I have this from a very reliable source.

AND I saw his report card.  It was shocking.  Shocking, I tell you.

It gives me such hope.

Topical

I guess there should only be so many Random days in a week.

I guess blog posts should have topics.

I guess that, like a thesis, blog posts should move from thesis statement to point A to point B to some kind of closure.

For the record: blogging topics pop into my head all the live-long day.  It's a disease, I tell you.

Yesterday, I wanted to blog about my insane, desperate, and seemingly futile need for proper grammar.  Had I not been on my couch in a near-comatose state after driving eight hours to celebrate the military retirement of a very dear friend, celebrating that retirement for 36 wonderful, non-stop, delirious hours and then driving eight hours back home, I would have explained for you my theories about the decline of the English language.  Trust me, it would have been a stunner.

Today, for example, I thought about confessing to you all the follies and foibles involved in the creating of one simple pot of beef stew.  If I hadn't been up to my elbows in stew meat and onions, garlic and carrots, potatoes and beer, I would have lamented that I put things together in my typical backwards style, which then resulted in fishing carrots and potatoes out of the pot with a slotted spoon so that the browned meat could simmer on its own for a few hours...and then fishing browned meat out of the pot with a slotted spoon so that it could be cut into smaller pieces...and then giving up and dumping the whole mess in together and counting on the fact that my people will be so hungry that it (the stew) will be gone 3.5 minutes after hitting their bowls.

As it stands, though, it's just been the kind of weekend that wipes a girl out, leaving nothing for you to pick through but her random thoughts.

Tomorrow, I promise to have a topic.  I promise to have a thesis.  I promise to move directly from point A to point B to some kind of closure.

I hope.

Random...uh, Friday?

What day is it?

I'm posting from a TLF (temporary lodging facility) on a military base somewhere in South Carolina.  I had planned to post a gorgeous picture of the bbq chicken pizza I made last night, sprinkled with cilantro and sitting on my new, Christmas pizza peel, in an attempt to demonstrate that not every meal I cook is a total disaster.  But, alas, I left the camera cord (and maybe the camera) up north, so you get a Random post instead.

1. The Wonder Hub and I tortured the children by cranking "lame" music on the radio and singing at the top of our lungs.  When we got tired of that, we tortured them with talk radio.  This was especially effective because Child #2 has no media privileges (no iPod) and Child #3 forgot to charge the iPod he just got back last night (after 3 weeks of no iPod).  Awesome.

2. My behind is sore.  And yet, here I SIT, typing this out for you.

3. Road-trip calories should not count.  They should be free.  The Chik Fil A, bbq potato chips, Skittles, Mounds (dark chocolate), and licorice should not be held against my efforts to fit into my pre-Christmas jeans.

4. The Wonder Hub is chewing licorice in my ear, being generally annoying because somehow it's my fault that he hasn't started writing the retirement speech he gets to deliver tomorrow morning at 10:00.

5. I'm leaving you now.  I have to go hug Wendy, and Rachel, and Becca...and maybe even some boys.

Happy...whatever day it is!!

I give!

I can see by all the comments to yesterday's post that you're dying to know about last week's Worst Dinner.

I was determined to not blog about it, but since it's important to you, I give.

It went something like this:

I was ironing and watching Rachel Ray.  As much as I like Rachel as a person, I generally don't care for her recipes.  I don't watch her show.  Since ironing is the Most Boring chore (dusting is Most Futile, laundry takes a close second) I do it only once quarterly and I always watch television to pass the time.  I'm sure I planned ironing for 9:00, so I could watch the very cool Kelly Ripa.  It's telling that I was still ironing at the end of Rachel's show (which featured the very cool Taylor Swift), when she whipped up a Tex Mex BBQ Turkey Tamale Pie.

Okay, so the name isn't all that appetizing.  Really, though, the filling was fabulous.  I think the whole thing had a fighting chance to be pretty darn good, if it weren't for,

A) my grave errors in judgment on the tamale part of the recipe, and
B) the fact that somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I decided that my famous (no, really) Mexican Canned Bean Soup should round out the meal.  For the record: that one tamale pie would have been gobbled up (theoretically) in an instant and I would have been left with four hungry men, staring at me like "So. What's for dinner?" and no hope for saving my life.

So A).  I didn't have polenta on hand, but I do keep a stockpile of those Jiffy boxes of cornbread.  I decided that two would suffice for the topping.  Unfortunately, instead of 2/3 cups milk, I added 1 2/3 cups milk to the batter...and then, even with the help of a resident math genius, couldn't figure out how to fix it.  It went downhill from there.

And B).  Because (round two of) two boxes of Jiffy cornbread were too much for my little pie plate, this happened:

 ...and even though the top looked like this...

...the middle looked like this:

So no big deal, right?  Just throw that sucker back in the oven and dig into the soup.  Which we did, topped with cheese and sour cream and full of yummy Mexican flavor goodness.  All was well with the world.

Even after the pie had to go back into the oven for a third time...

And a fourth.

And the top was charred, but the inside was fine and nobody was really all that hungry any longer but they know how attached I get to my little creations so they gamely held out their plates and we all took a bite and realized that

The only thing worse than chasing Mexican Canned Bean Soup with BBQ Tamale Pie is chasing Mexican Canned Bean Soup with really, really bad BBQ Tamale Pie.

And for only the second time in 8.5 years of wedded bliss, I threw it away. Nobody will remember the name, but "that pie thing" will go down in the annals of our family history along with The Lasagna from Hell.

Random Tuesday...

with no guns,

and only one nose.

That there, behind the nose, is last week's Worst Dinner.  I decided just now that it should have a title, with capital letters.  Unfortunately for the people who live here, I will likely have additions to that newly-coined category.

This particular dinner was going to get a whole post, but I just now decided that it's not worthy.  It was that bad.

My heart is heavy with all the suffering going on in this world.  Everywhere I turn there are hurting people.  Everywhere I look there is pain, and really, to be perfectly honest, there is so much of it that I feel a sense of hopelessness.  How can we fix what has been so violently broken?  How can we possibly bind all the gaping (physical/spiritual/emotional) wounds?  My head is shaking as I write.

We can't.

And then, a whisper in my soul says this:

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

I turn it over and over in my mind.  What, exactly, does this mean?  I think it means that for those who put their trust in Jesus, there will come a day when He will set all things right.  All things.Right.

I don't know how, but I do know this:  He has done what He said He would do.  He said He would die.  He said He would rise again on the third day.  I believe He is trustworthy, and I am thankful that though the world seems filled to the very brim with hurt, one day He will come again and make all.things.right.

Random Monday

1. I went to grab my workbook for the Bible study I started last week.  This is how I found it.

2. I belong to a great gym, where you feel part of a family and instructors routinely razz you for not coming to their ridiculously early classes.  I go to my gym as much for the social aspect of hanging out with great people as for the endorphins.  Since I started physical therapy, my new gym is the therapist's office.  I make the most of it, chatting it up with the therapists and other patients.  This morning, I was lying on my stomach at the very edge of one of those large, padded tables next to an equally large man doing pelvic raises as I held on for dear life and completed three sets of 10 glute squeezes.  I decided at that moment that society is overrated.  I retreated to the solitude of my mind, where a person can do her glute squeezes alone and with dignity.

3. I live in a nudists' colony.  My house is chock-full of hormonal males in awe of their muscular development.  When they were younger, the pre-dinner quote was always, "No guns at the table!"  Recently, it is more often, "Go put a shirt on!"  At any given moment, someone here is in front of a mirror, flexing.

4. It's never, ever me.

5. The best quote in a weekend full of great quotes was this: "Move over!  You're in the way of my flexing!"

6. Maybe you had to be there.

7. Or.. on the other end of the Skype call, where my in-laws were treated to nude flexing battles.

8. I hope they're not re-thinking taking a Spring Break trip with us.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Do you know this verse?   I know it better than the back of my hand, the contents of my closet, the inside of my spice cabinet (which isn't very well, admittedly, given that I found two bottles of ground ginger the other day, as I was putting away the ground ginger).  

My mom gave me this verse in the way that the Old Testament patriarchs handed out blessings.  She had it done in needle-point for my first-born child and then framed in posters that have hung over the doorways in all three boys' rooms in every single house we have occupied.  She quoted it in times of trouble, at my many crossroads, in moments of uncertainty and on the occasion of new beginnings.

Far from becoming immune to this often-repeated promise, it moves my heart even now.  My God has plans for me!  Good plans.  Hopeful plans.

How awesome is that?  

Psalms 8:4 says, What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?

Somewhere along my way, I actually opened my Bible to Jeremiah and read the verse I know by heart.  I remember being shocked at what follows the promise that was given to me (and to you!):

¹²Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

In the context of the time that God gave this word to Jeremiah, this is God speaking to His people, the Israelites, who were in bondage in Babylon.  They were in bondage because they had turned away from their God.

In the context of my life, present day, this means that God wants to bless me, has a plan for my life, but above all wants a relationship with me.  I think it's a mistake to think that the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 is a freebie.  Living in God's blessings requires that I be in relationship with God.  I get (and stay) in relationship with God by seeking Him.  (You, too!)

The with all of my heart part?  With that, I need to ask for help.  I don't really even know what it means, to be honest.  I won't let that stop me from asking though.  I hope you won't, either.

Two Resloutions

One serious, and one not-so.  I glanced at a headline in my local paper this morning that said if you want to be successful with your New Year's resolutions, be specific.  Here's me, being specific.

Serious
I want to understand God's holiness.  I know He is holy.  The Bible says so.  In a discussion about whether God would be offended by the "Grilled Cheesus" episode of Glee!, my friend Jessy left the following brilliant comment:

"I don't think I quite fully understand what it means that God is holy."

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.  Therefore, I resolve to seek out and learn more about God's holiness.  I'll keep you posted.


Not-So
Before beginning this post, I finished an email exchange with my CAbi lady and friend, Lorrie.  She has tracked down a jacket (that I absolutely do not need) and would like to bring it by the house tomorrow morning.  I told her to come at whatever time suits her, but to call my cell before she leaves her home.  She misunderstood, and asked if late afternoon would be better than early morning.  I paused, fingers over keys, and debated my response.  How truthful should I be?  Finally, I took a deep breath and typed the following:




I can be here at any time, but I'm likely to forget at any moment that you're coming.  If you call when you're on your way, I'll make sure to be home.

Last year, I may or may not (I can't remember) have resolved to not be such a spaz.  This year, I resolve to accept my limitations, present them frankly, and roll with it.

Sharp Knives: Day One

I cut myself.  With the bread knife.  Is that even possible?  With these babies it is.  I had just sliced some rolls in preparation for some NY-style Egg on a Roll breakfast action.  As I have always done with the old, antediluvian knife, I ran my thumb and pointer finger down the blade to clean off the crumbs.  As I have never, ever done with the old knife, I came away with a bloody pointer.

Good, I thought.  Now that's out of the way.

As I was applying a Band-Aid, my mother-in-law walked by and raised her eyebrows.

New knife, I shrugged.

Good, she responded, now that's out of the way.

About an hour later my husband noticed the bandage and raised his eyebrows.

New knife, I explained.

His response?

Oh, good.  Now that's out of the way.

The best gift

I may have mentioned that I learned to cook at the ripe old age of 32, when I married the man who singlehandedly put away all the Christmas decorations yesterday while I hung out at the mall with two hilarious youngsters.

Tell me I'm not the luckiest girl on earth.

So.  For the last 8.5 years of wedded bliss, I have been cooking with these knives:

Everything I know about cooking, I learned with these knives.  Every.Single.Thing.

In South Dakota, where I grew up and where we walked uphill two miles in the snow (in both directions) to school with no shoes on our feet, we believe that a little hardship is good for the character.

Perhaps character is why I never bought good knives.  Perhaps, in the beginning anyway, I didn't know any better.  Perhaps after I knew better I started researching knives, looking longingly at their shiny blades and sturdy handles.  Perhaps, while I dreamed of a bread knife that cut instead of tore, sliced and diced tomatoes that weren't squashed to oblivion, and all the magical things I just knew I could accomplish with an honest-to-goodness Chef's knife, I couldn't decide exactly which knives I wanted.  Perhaps every time I considered purchasing new knives, someone had a growth spurt overnight and required a new wardrobe.

Perhaps my proficiency at procrastination is to blame.  Who knows?

Well just imagine my surprise on Christmas morning when I opened this:

...and then these:

...and this (it cuts bread like it's butta, baby):

...and maybe best of all, this (which will not leave my kitchen, under penalty of dismemberment):

I feel like Annie, and these knives are my own personal Daddy Warbucks.  Or wait.  Maybe my husband is my own personal Daddy Warbucks.  That makes more sense.  Either way, I'm giddy, people.  Watch out, it's a whole new world!

The best time to blog

The very best time to blog is when the iron is on; when it's staring at you from across the room, right next to six months worth of ironing...while the mountain of your husband's button-downs and your boys' polo shirts jeers at you.

Later, I will blog about my best Christmas gift.

It's not jewelry.

It's  not clothes.

It's definitely not a toy.