All-Lemming Synchronized Swimming Team

Well, it's nearly February, time to look back on all of last months New Year's resolutions and feel like a loser. I don't normally make resolutions, but this year I decided to make an exception and try a new direction. I have made New Month's Resolutions. I figure, if it takes 21 days to make/break a habit, that gives me an extra week to really make it stick. Then I move on. So far, January has been "Let the tidy person trapped inside the lazy person's body out" month. I was tested on this this week. I mistakenly believed that our twice annual house inspection from the property manager would occur on the 29th and had planned to clean accordingly as she is a cleaning Nazi and has even remarked in the past on the grass being a few inches too high (having been cut only a few days earlier). Ariel called late Tuesday to say that I had the date wrong and that they were coming the following day, first thing in the morning. The old JennyB would have run around screaming and frantic at the thought of this woman inspecting the closets and <gasp> seeing the dumping ground that we call the garage (some people have a junk drawer -- we have a junk two-car garage). Fortunately, New JennyB has taken over, and all I did was spend about 15 minutes collecting the recycling and sweeping in the garage. The next morning, after loading the dishwasher, I went to the gym, and left Ariel sick on the couch to entertain the property manager. There was no other special cleaning done in anticipation of this visit. Ariel reported that the PropMan remarked how well-taken-care-of the house was. Score!

There is no actual list of resolutions, just something running around in my head in case I want to practise one early. Going to the gym has been fairly successful so far though getting into a pattern is mind-numbingly difficult but absolutely necessary for my success. February is the gym's month.

Another floating resolution has been "do art with enough frequency to justify the zillions of supplies you own." This has been a terrible failure, so far. Back in September when my mum and bro were here, Ross and I each bought these blank postcards at the Tate Modern, all full of inspiration and promises that we would decorate them with our amazing brilliance and send them to each other. I have now sent one. Of a shrimp. After I inked the little tasty morsel (for he is cooked, as you can see), I scanned him and then reprinted him on 200 gsm watercolour paper. Our printer has issues with normal cardstock (120 grams per square meter), so you can imagine how much coaxing I had to do to get it to take it. When we bought the laser printer, I was so excited since it prints waterproof, so I would be able to mass produce paintable inkwork. This is the first time I have been successful in the operation. Anyhow, I practised the painting a few times before I was ready to commit to the postcard, so I'm left with multiple little painted shrimp here. I liked how Ross's shrimp turned out, but I'm disappointed with the boring background colour. I despise watercolour. Watercolour painting is like coaching the all-lemming syncronized swimming team -- it's easy to get them in the water, it's getting them to swim the way you want and not drown that's the hard part. Exasperating. Here's a little picture I did of my chickies as a gift for my neighbor. Just to tidy up.

Holiday Wrap-up

Ah, the lovely joys of those magical days between Christmas and New Years!

Sunday, we had friends over for dinner to celebrate. Eight years ago, when we moved away from South Carolina, I thought I would never again have reason to say this, but alas: this dinner was to celebrate a friend's new set of teeth. Yep, Karen had most of her teeth pulled (a common solution to many things in English dentistry), and we promised her and her family a steak dinner when her dentures arrived. This dinner was cursed. When we arrived home from church the house was cold and dark as the power was off. We rearranged the menu to things that could be either made/baked on the grill or cooked on the gas stove that's also outside on the grill. The electric company said that we'd have no power until well into the evening, so we dug out all of out candles, made the place festive, and made do with what we had. Of course, 2 minutes before the family pulled into the drive, the power came on, showing the carpet that we hadn't been able to vacuum and all the mess in the kitchen. The fun of eating by candlelight was ruined, but dinner was delicious anyway.

The day before, I had made this lovely yule log/ bûche de Noël which is made entirely of chocolate ganache held together by chocolate cake (actually, as you can see, the ganache is holding the cake together as I broke it when unrolling it). The thing I love about ganache, other than it's the tasty main ingredient in a chocolate truffle, is that ganache (and therefore this cake), though made mostly of cream, doesn't need any refrigeration. It won't go bad. This is because there is so much fat and sugar in ganache, that any bacteria that might eat it develop type 2 diabetes and die immediately.

We had this much cake leftover today (Wednesday, when I took the picture) because A) it's a very rich cake, and B) L&L have been terribly digestively ill since Sunday night. You know they're sick if they won't eat my chocolate cake. Taking care of the girls, especially Lena who's been vastly more ill than her sister, has been like a return to the days when they were babies. Yesterday, I spent the day in the daze of a parent who has been up every hour with a crying child. This morning I awoke elated that my baby had finally slept through the night. Then I fixed Lena a bowl of oatmeal which I had to feed to her, and immediately I slipped into the old pattern of scooping the cooler outer edges from the bowl so as not to burn her mouth, and she would promptly open her mouth when she was ready for the next bite. If she hadn't occasionally spoken in complete sentences, it would have been just like she was little. It was dear and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed it when she later put a load of laundry in the machine and went back to being my 8-year-old.

Hope that all have a warm and healthy New Year.

1 Comment »
melindatsura said,
3 January 2008 at 11:39 pm · Edit

The bdnoel looks much more impressive than the yangy chocolate-anise cake we tried to re-create from Maggiano’s several years ago. remember? we’ve not had good success with recipes found online. If you made that cake at our house, however, it would not have lasted to Wednesday. The platter in your picture would be empty because our kids gobble up all things sweet - especially ganache. When family sent goodies in the mail this holiday season - we had nary a taste - erstwhile our kids mouths and fingers were covered in crumbs, and gooey sweetness.

I’ve also exfoliated the house. LOVE post-holiday cleanup.

Merry merry to you all.