Quick Week, and Quick Update

One of the best things I've done is book myself a half hour every week to write a blog entry. Otherwise I think I would get bored with myself and stop writing things down, but you know if it's on the calendar it has to get done.

I say this over and over, but I’m completely amazed at how fast time is flying by, sometimes it seems that time hurls by more than anything.

We mellowed out our week a bit more than originally anticipated, I decided that 2 plays, and a ballet in one week were a bit much for us to keep up with. We went to “Scarlet Pimpernel” at the high school Monday night for family night. I was a little concerned that Jake would have a hard time following the story, so I had given him a bit of background information on the French Revolution, but as with most 5 year old boys the only thing he remembered is that people got their heads cut off (what is it with boys and gory stuff like monsters, and body parts getting cut off anyway?). He was pretty excited for that part of the show, and I was a bit concerned that no head cutting off would actually be included. I shouldn’t have been concerned; La Guillotine played a fairly prominent role in the show, including a scene where someone gets marched to the Guillotine, and then you hear it fall the lights go out and there is screaming. Jake was pretty impressed with that part of our theater experience. They did a great job, and Jakey and I both enjoyed the show.

Tuesday and Wednesday there wasn’t much going on, I think the 2 night sleep over, and the late night at the play caught up with Jake as he was asleep really early both nights, Tuesday at 7:00, and Wednesday as soon as we got home at about 6:00. Wednesday morning I still had to wake him up at 7:00, but Tuesday after falling asleep at 6:00, he decided he was ready to get up for the day at 4:30. I kept him in bed until 5:00, but after that I told him he could get up but there was no way I was getting, up, so he went and got some breakfast (I already made his instant breakfast that was in the refrigerator, and he likes his cereal without milk). He watched Cartoon Network eating cereal until I got up at 6:30.

Thursday we attended Clytie Adam’s Nutcracker in Ogden with Golda and Ruby in it. I was going to wait another year or so to introduce Jake to the ballet, but mom had some extra tickets (they got tickets for the wrong night), and I figured I would go with Nikki so someone was using the tickets. Jake was actually pretty excited about it by the time we got there, we got in a few minutes early and I let him pick out a Nutcracker at the boutique, to get him in the spirit. I had also told him the Nutcracker story again on the way there, we generally read it (it is one of our book advent calendar stories) each year, so Jake remembered the story once we got going. Once the ballet started, I kept whispering what was going on in Jake’s ear, until he finally said “I don’t know why you keep telling me, I can tell what is happening”. Due to the fact that he had been awake since 4:30 a.m., by halfway through the first act, I was having a hard time keeping Jake awake, but I kept telling him he had to stay awake until at least the buffoons so he could see both Golda and Ruby. He did it, in fact other than a quick nap during the second pas de deux he stayed awake through the whole thing. I asked him if he like the Nutcracker, and he said yes, so I asked him if wanted to go again, and he gave me a pretty emphatic “NO”, which over the course of a couple days I got into a “maybe once a year at Christmas”.

We hurried out as Jakey was tired and getting cranky, and when I got home I realized I had left my purse under the seat of my chair in the auditorium. Loosing your purse is such a bad feeling, mostly because everything in it is such a pain in the butt to replace, especially things like your driver’s license, or your security ID card for work. I drove back but everything was closed up for the night, so I drove back home debating whether I should immediately start reporting my credit cards lost. By the time I got home I had decided to just assume that people are honest, and that my purse would be there the next day when I drove up to get it. Sure enough my feeling was right, my purse was sitting in a box in the administrative office it hadn’t even been opened. It was a really good feeling to know that people are still basically honest, it’s sometimes easy to forget that day to day as we tend to get a lot of bad news, and not so much the good stuff.

We had a really laid back weekend, which will probably we our last one as we head straight into the holidays. Saturday we got up early and cleaned the house, and moved the big pile of food storage I’ve been keeping in the living room into the kitchen so we have room to put up the Christmas tree. Then we headed out to run some errands, mainly to stock up on Turkey’s in the freezer while they are really cheap (I also stocked up on butter while it was cheap). My newest “meal deal” is to stop at least once a month and get a rotisserie chicken at Sam’s Club. They are $4.97 and will literally feed me for 10 meals (at least). The first night I make potatoes, have the chicken legs, and broccoli from the freezer. Then I put the chicken in the refrigerator. The second day I take all the meat off, and then throw some onions, garlic, and celery, into a pot with the bones and make some chicken stock with that, and then refrigerate it. I take the meat, and put half in a baggy,, and the other half I make into chicken salad, which will make enough chicken salad for about 5-7 sandwiches. For the chicken salad I just dice the chicken (it’s about 2 cups), dice a cup of celery, a cup of grapes, some slivered almonds, some fresh tarragon (or whatever I had tarragon from earlier in the week, but thyme is good as well), and then a ½ cup of lite mayo. The third day I make either chicken noodle soup or chicken & dumplings. I made chicken and dumplings this time around a big pot, which made 5 2 cup servings to freeze. I had to buy some grapes, but otherwise I had everything in my pantry or refrigerator so like I said 10 easy meals for less than $10, can’t beat that.

I’m happy it’s a short week this week, and excited for Thanksgiving, I still need to pick up sweet potato/yams to make for Thanksgiving dinner, I found a really good recipe for baked yams with marshmallow strudel (marshmellows, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter) which should make the marshmallow fans happy, and I think I will just do some cinnamon butter for those that just want a baked yam with that. I’m also going to do the Paula Deen trifle for dessert. I like having leftovers after thanksgiving, but this year I’m just going to keep it simple and do a turkey breast only, some potatoes, a few yams, and as I’m the only one that likes it I’m going to get a sweet potato pie (I like that way better than pumpkin pie).