Fabulous Saturday

Though chilly, today has been sunny, sunny, sunny! Once again I missed my chance to drink beer and Jameson at 7 am in anticipation of the St. Patrick's Day parade. I had to get up extra early four out of five days this week, so I opted to rest my tired eyes. I hopped a bus, once up, to meet Anna Belle for brunch. We have been to so many different brunches that it doesn't surprise me anymore that we order the same thing off the menu. Today, at Gaia Cafe on South Pearl, we both ordered a chai with our eggs in a basket (in brioche-bread...so tasty! plus a little bowl of fruit) with a side of potatoes (kind of a scalloped potato dish than fried). It was tasty goodness and filled me up. We talked and talked...always good to catch up. After breakfast we strolled down the street and popped into a little jewelry shop - local artists. She found some amethysts that looked great on her, and I found a late gift for Mary. As we checked out, I snuck a ring she had her eye on into my purchase, to which she scolded me for wasting my hard-earned money on something she didn't need. But really, I told her, that wasn't why we were looking at all the pretty stones. Unbeknowst to me, she had already picked out something for me. So then shegifted me with a pair of amber earrings that match an amber ring my sister gave me a couple years ago. We walked back onto the street with our new little treasures and enjoyed some more sunshine. I love gifitng people with little pleasures, and yet it can sometimes be difficult to receive. What a fun little exchange we ended up with! My afternoon was pretty laidback until walking to church, meeting my friend Jenny there and catching up afterwards. As always, I left with some kernels of contemporary wisdom to ponder. The evening cooled down quickly, and would you believe it rained and snowed before the day was done!

pooped again!

It feels like Sunday. I took the day off to play with Erin while she was still in town, so my sense of calendar is off. It has been a full weekend, and I am still tired. I promise, I am headed to bed as soon as I post this. Yesterday I walked around City Park, walked a lot downtown to meet the girls for brunch, walked home from downtown, and even biked to a friend's for dinner. Whoosh! It was a pretty low-key day, but I felt it in my feet and heavy eyes. I went to bed excited that I was meeting a car today with the hope of buying it. Today, I bussed downtown and walked up to Budget to rent a car. Erin and I drove up to A-Basin to Oren for a day of skiing. We had a terrific day - lots of runs, a bit of sun, and tons of fun. I will mention that there was one snafu -when Oren saw fit to relieve me of a ski as we loaded onto the chairlift. I tried furiously to snap my boot back in to the binding, but he kicked it out from under me. Nice, huh? He admitted that he wanted to give someone else the opportunity to do something nice, and actually a couple people had the opportunity: the man who carried my ski up and the lady who slowed down the chair for my one ski manuever off the chair. Good work, Oren! The skiing was great, and even better, we got to hang out back at the house with everyone a bit longer over Chinese take-out and miso soup. Sadly, the car was sold before I had a chance to look at it, but there will be others to see. I don't mind walking and bussing as much as I can, but there are those times it would make life a wee bit easier, like for work. I got to talk with friends, make plans for the week: dinner with Jake on Tuesday and Nikki on Thursday, family dinner on Wednesday...Friday, anyone? I also talked with family, and if you're the praying type, please keep mine in your prayers. There are those in my big "family" - relatives of blood and heart - that could use some divine work in their lives. Peace out...G'night!

a long fun day

oooph...I've only enough energy to put Almost Famous in the VCR and unwind. From sun-up to sunset - okay maybe more like 8:30 - 8:30 - it was shower mode. Baby shower mode! This morning we put together favors and appe-teasers for the shower. We headed down to Oren's parents' house in Castle Rock, and everybody had lots of fun. There was so much good food, fun conversation, and adorable baby gifts unwrapped. When we peeled out of the car and washed up dishes and everything, I felt pooped. The couch is comforting... It is pretty exciting to have a new baby joining our family. I know the baby really is Ahna and Oren's, but I think we are all excited to support and help Ahna and Oren raise Baby B-B. I don't know when or how it will feel that their shoes are mine, so it is fun to think how this new life will affect us all. Only two and a half more months...

Happy reunion!!

I was delighted to put this week of work to a rest. Not because of work, but because I missed over half a dozen buses - sometimes missing one meant missing the next. What craziness! And to take the cake, the car I was pursuing online turned out to be a scam. Yuck! But after forty-five minutes of walking, I made it home. I had time for a quick rinse in the shower, and we had fixin's for quesadillas. Mary and Jennifer were on their way to the airport to pick-up Erin, and Ahna and her mom were on their way up from Castlerock. Sarah got home while I was cleaning up. THE ORIGINAL FIVE BACK IN COLUMBINE!! Ahna, Erin, Mary, Jennifer, Sarah, and I pranced from one room to the next with our wine or cranberry juice, apples and cheddar, and a few cameras. Ahna's mom and Sarah's sister shot photo after photo as we posed in the kitchen, the living room, the nook by the pool table, and all over. It was a lot of fun. The energy and laughter was high. Reunions are so much fun...

Publicly shaming myself

I am really embarrassed about what I did last night, but because I can still type, I am grateful. Once a month those of us in the house have a business dinner...in our business socks. With slim pickin's in the cupboard and fridge, Mary and I came up with a nice salad of greens and and grapes and raisins and pistachios. To compliment it, we opened a box of butternut squash soup. Though I intended to do some car-shopping, I realized we had no bread products to soak in our soup, so I made buttermilk biscuits. A couple ingredients were substitutes, but the dough still tasted great. After cutting the dough into 21 little circles, I pulled the stoneware out of the oven and another cookie sheet from the cupboard. The biscuits looked so delicious in the stoneware. I stuck the cookie sheet in the oven and reached for the stoneware with my bare hands!!! The HOT stoneware with my naked fingers!! Quickly to the sink I rushed, and my hands soaked a long time in cold, cold water until the water wasn't cold anymore. I couldn't tell where the blisters were, but was willing to wait until my fingers were numb. Oh haste! Down the last two digits of my left pointer finger, I have swollen white blisters. There are a couple other tender spots on my left hand, but no more blisters. My right pointer finger is blistered across the pad, but I can still hold a pencil (since I didn't hold it properly in the first place). The pad of the bone in the palm of my hand is also pretty tender. Oh silliness!!! No flossing for a while. Trying to be careful washing dishes with hot water. Showering is delicate. And I am forever rubbing aloe on to soothe my nerves that cringe now and again. No moral of the story that I know of; I am sure I'll burn myself again one day.

snowy day blues

This is not a complaint...more of a lamentation with an understanding that weather changes. Some say it is a sure sign of global warming wreaking havoc on our weather patterns. I say it is a sure sign I was supposed to sleep in and spend all day on the phone. Yesterday was a gorgeous Saturday - a beautiful reminder of what is to come. Gorgeous was reading the paper on the front porch in sunshine. Gorgeous was an afternoon in the park, upwards of mid-seventies. My hairy legs sticking out of my shorts may not have been gorgeous, but I did wear shorts and a tank top, a first since South America. Well, I didn't pack shorts down there, but you get the point. Mary and I spread a sheet and then a blanket on top to add an extra layer between us and the blanket of (canadian) goose poop all over City Park. We read and talked and just basked in the sun. (I covered myself in sunblock, not to worry.) Erik and his dog Bapu stopped by for a visit. The weather beckoned many to the park and gave me the urge to garden, though I knew what the weather had in store. When hunger came, I got a call from Johnson, who is back from Belize, and we got to have lunch - a first in two and a half months. All sorts of delightful activity! Today was supposed to be a ski day. I was looking forward to bombing down the mountain and hanging out with Nikki. The fates would not allow it. With blowing snow and a drop of over forty degrees in town, the mountains were also getting blowing snow, but the temperature was (is) in the teens and felt like FOUR DEGREES!!! Really...I am trying to limit my chances of frostbiting my toes over and over. My big toe is still peeling...hopefully not an excuse I will have to keep using. Tuesday I get another chance to make it up there, so I hope it warms up a smidge by then. All in all, I still got to listen to Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk. I talked with my dad, my grandma, Pat-Amy-Maddie & Grandbob, my sister's boyfriend, and my ski buddy. The TV room is nice a toasty now with the door closed, so I'm thinking I could maybe change back into my shorts and tank top (except my room is in the forties or fifties). Hope it is sunny where you are!

Successful first batch!!!

While in Argentina on the farm, Vida exposed me to Wild Fermentation, a book about making your own cheese and vinegars, wines and breads, beers and sprouts: all sorts of yummy foods that you can get in the store, but are so much more fun to make yourself. My parents found it for me for Christmas, and I was eager to try some recipes. My cheese was good, and I want to make more. But the real excitement exploded last night! In January I started the bug for a batch of ginger ale. I bottled a gallon of ginger ale by the end of January. It doesn't take long for it to be ready if the setting is right, but I realized after a week or so that it wasn't warm enough for the fermentation process to continue. I moved the bottles to a better spot and found the ale begin to carbonate. Thursday night I opened the mason jar of it to see how it was - flat and not the perfect flavor was what my tongue (and everyone else's) told me. A little bummed, as I planned to open them last night for our Leap Year house party, I stuck the other bottles in the fridge to chill and made a plan to compensate for the flavor: lime juice, sugar, and vodka. I emptied the contents of the mason jar into my blend and stuck it in the freezer to get cold. The first folks arrived and weren't drinking alcohol for Lent, so I dared to open a new bottle of ginger ale with the hopes it could be served solo. POP went the "cork" and PHSHSHT went the ginger ale like a bottle of champagne. The bottles have that ez-cap, like Grolsch. Evidently the mason jar didn't keep a good seal because the other four bottles of ginger ale were AWESOME!! I had a lot of fun letting folks sample them, though there wasn't a lot to go around. Now I want to get another bug going! Kombucha is on my list to start this month, too. Unfortunately, the sourdough starter went moldy before it got bubbly - again a temperature thing probably. I can't wait to try some more...