Been very busy lately, but I’ve certainly been missing my houseguests! Between Andy and then Joy & Brian, we had company for about six weeks continuously, and I had withdrawal symptoms after Joy & Brian left. Had to ask my neighbor over for a beer on the deck Thursday afternoon—I was knocking around the house with no one to talk to. Later that evening I managed to completely blank out on the code for the security system and had to call Dale (who was getting his hair cut at the time) to find out what it was. At least I remembered the password for the security company when they called to make sure everything was okay. Jonathan didn’t think much of the alarm though.
I’ve spent the last couple of days doing research on genealogy.com so that I can avoid renewing for another year. Primarily I’ve been going through the 1900 Census to make sure I’ve either found everyone that I should have done or determined that they can’t be found. No great surprises found, just some grunt work. It’s about all I feel up to with this head of mine (pollen—see previous entry) anyway.
I am most pleased to report that every seed I have planted has sprouted! I have leeks, carrots, spinach, bush beans, Texas hummingbird sage, snapdragons, yellow squash, nasturtiums, marigolds, anise hyssop, pansies, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums. The last few days I’ve been doing some reading on vegetable gardens, and I think I did mine mostly all wrong, but we’ll see how things go. I always looked at this at a learning experience anyway—my expectations are fairly low in terms of harvesting high quality produce in any quantity.
I really enjoyed using my barbecue grill a couple of times while Brian & Joy were here. My favorite was making carmelized sweet onions earlier in the day and then grilling hamburgers (or veggie burgers) outside, and heating up the sweet onions in one of my cast iron skillets right on the grill. They were exquisite! Dale been doing the dishes since his dad left, and it sure makes it more fun for me to think about cooking. Tonight we had broiled tilapia with a homemade dill-thyme (from my herb garden, of course) butter on top, as well as a few breadcrumbs; some cappellini in a tomato sauce with fresh basil added; and some steamed broccoli. And a salad. Tomorrow we’re having pork chops braised in a dark ale along with leeks and potatoes, and the next day we’ll have some salmon in a strawberry balsamic vinaigrette. It is nice to remember that I do love to prepare food!
Okay, hopefully this will make up a bit for my recent dearth of blogging. :-)
Posted by elizabeth at April 7, 2003 01:12 AM