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So here I am trying to post before midnight hoping that I have a chance of getting something coherent out. I tried a couple of recipes tonight because I hadn’t the foggiest what to serve my man for dinner. I was going to do these black bean burritos from fine cooking but they morphed into something not anything like the original recipe so I can’t post it. Aside from the fact that they were burritos with black beans there wasn’t much of anything similar… well that’s not entirely true. I guess I followed the recipe in the sense that I stirred a half cup of cheddar into the bean mixture and added a handful of fresh baby spinach before rolling. Of course at the point where I used chipotle tabasco sauce instead of mincing a whole chipotle in adobo, omitted the pepitas, added shrimp, sliced avocado, leftover rice and then forgot to add the salsa I was pretty far off track.

On the other hand, the banana bread that’s baking now is much closer to the original recipe… except I was one banana short dammit! I mean but I figure what’s the big deal? What if I had really big bananas or small ones? So I made it anyway I just added a dollop of sour cream to make a little extra banana and it looks and smells hella good. Maybe I can post the recipe for that one since it wasn’t adulterated beyond recognition?? The smell is enough to drive you mad I tell you.

Oooh, ooh the closer was all new this week. We started to watch it last night but it just got way too late so we’ll have to finish it tonight. It has me totally sucked in though. I love that show. Oh and I decided that we will tackle the bedroom first rather than the living room. Remember that old conundrum? We finally settled on furniture and it’s a comin! Can’t wait. We upgraded to a king sized bed. I say it’s because we need more room for Chase but the truth is the only person who is a worse bed hog than my daughter is my husband! He’ll never admit to it but it’s true.

I can’t believe how big my little girl is getting. I took this today… it’s a cool picture but sadly the moby is lurking in the background.

Still not done!  I’m really not any closer to being done either in spite of having sat here searching and hunting for the last two hours at least.  Meanwhile, here are the pics I promised.  Oh, and I bought Chase a sippy cup today.  Did she ever love that!  She thought it was so cool and she looked with every bit of her tiny being as if she was saying this is MY cup!  Katrina was here today while I worked and she just loves her.  She is so good with her, I will be sad when she goes back to school and can’t watch Chase anymore.  Here are today’s shots:

This week has been long and hard and it’s only Tuesday!  It’s been more mentally challenging than physically challenging of course I tend to think that one is just as hard as the other.  So far so good though, two tasks down and one to go.  If I could just get over the hurdle of self doubt and put some words down on paper I would be in good shape.  Let’s see, what else is going?  Not a whole lot.  Actually, frightfully little with the exception of work and school related activities.  The good news is that the semester is over in 2 and a half weeks!

I’m not at home at the moment but will be in the next couple of hours.  I’m pretty sure that I have some cute pictures of Chase to upload from my Camera of her playing with Teenie.  It’s a pretty cute sight to see.  I never thought that Teenie would be so in to her or that she’d be so gentle with her.  The other day I let Chase hold a biscuit for Cricket to take and you’ve never seen a dog take a cookie so daintily.  Very cute!

I’ll be back in a few, I just didn’t want to leave ya hangin’ any longer.

First my husband likens me to crazy ass Larry David THEN I come home today and put down my new bag and he gets me again. I had just returned form picking up his fathers’ day gift and slipped it, wrapped in paper into my bag. He actually thought that I was carrying around the purse stuffed with the paper from the store! Just to look fashionable or something. I couldn’t believe that he would actually think I would do something like that. We broke down and gave Daddy his gift tonight. Mostly because he guessed what it was. He has this uncanny knack of being able to look at anything and tell just exactly what is inside the package.

We got carry out from Tamber’s tonight. Fried chicken and mac n’ cheese and it was actually good. It had been recommended to me but you know you can never really trust recommendations from people that you don’t really know. Who knows what their idea of good is. Luckily we were pleasantly surprised when we opened the containers to find full half chickens cut down and fried to perfect golden delicious goodness and perfectly seasoned to boot.

They were too much not to share so I took a few quick pictures of my baby’s belly. We hit the mall together ’cause it’s Friday and because Chase has outgrown the last round of clothes. The mall is a wonderful wonderful place. I stopped short of buying shoes but I really, really wanted to. I did however buy a bag because when I don’t have Chase with me I don’t have anything to throw my wallet into other than one of my old giant sacks.

I’ve been watching Curb Your Enthusiasn and it’s hilarious. Ben says I remind him of Larry David. I didn’t see it but now I think he might sadly be onto something. I picked up a copy of Blueprint magazine while I was waiting in line at Barnes and Noble. It’s supposed to be a chic guide for living. All I’m saying is you can call a single mattress and boxspring a “daybed” but it’s still just a mattress and boxspring on the floor. Not only that but the first time I saw Martha trot out that idea she at least put feet on the thing.

Dude, I’m tired I’ll have to finish this tomorrow.

Ok, back to finish off from yesterday. The point of posting pictures of my spoils was that I realize that I just refuse to pay full retail for clothes. I can’t think of a time where I’ve seen something in the store that I wanted so bad that I wanted to pay full price. With one exception of course and that’s for shoes. I will happily pay full retail for shoes. That’s only because I have come to learn that I just don’t need that many pairs of shoes. I’m happy with a few pairs of really high quality kicks. So I bought a bunch of clothes for her, the bag, and a couple of shirts and spent less than 100 bucks. Partly because Gymboree was having one of those sales where you scratch off your coupon to find out how much you won in additional savings and at Macy’s you get an extra 20% off when you use your card even on sale or clearance items.

That’s our girl.  Smiling and cooing at everyone from her little purple perch.  We decided to bring the Bumbo out to dinner because the infant seat is just way too heavy with Chase sitting in it.  It worked phenomenally well.  She could sit up at the table just like the grownups and eat her peas and she loved every minute of it.  Not to mention the best part, which was that she could see all the old ladies and wow them with her smile.  I was trying to hold out for dinner on Friday night and I almost made it!  I was good all week but when I got home and the meat hadn’t finished defrosting, I threw in the towel.  Dinner was good but not the best it’s ever been at Donna’s.  I always fall for the specials and they are so hit or miss.

So you know how I’m always agonizing over my decision to transfer to UB.  Well, with every passing semester I doubt myself less.  I say this because I’ve had all of these adjunct profs who graduated from UB and who are doing really well for themselves now and then they bring in guest speakers… you guessed it, other grads who are doing really well for themselves and they laugh and talk and carry on.  It’s pretty clear to me now that if you can plan to live and work in Maryland then a degree from UB will be just fine because that’s where everyone else went.  On to the next problem which is that these are almost all men.  For example, the sports law class that I’m taking.. mostly men and they just carry on and on about all kinds of obscure things.  At some point I just tune out because they get so far down into the nitty gritty that it’s way over my head and it’s not like I don’t know anything.  So I get mad, these dudes never stop talking blah blah blah.  But I calm down and I realize well, you just have to beat them at their game, be more attentive to the reading, read the paper, etc. etc.  Then the question becomes do I have time for that?  And therein lies the problem… the age old problem of work or family?  I could do all of those things but at the expense of what?  So I defer and the men continue to dominate it makes me so mad.  Everyone should have twins first go round so each parent has a baby to care for.

Enough about that though.  I rant on and on and now my chai is cold… fabulous.  TGIF right?

You know how they say your body craves things that it needs?  Like you’ll crave citrus if you’re deficient in vitamin C?  Well I’m sitting here and craving cookies but I resisted the urge to go slice a few off and bake them.  Then I started daydreaming about biscuits… buttery, tender and flaky and I started wondering… am I deficient in carbohydrates?  Yes, I decided, I must be and am off to slice and bake those peanut butter oatmeal chipsters.  I’ll have to post the recipe I spose.

Thanks for the toys Mum!

I’ll get to work on that right away…

And now the blue one…

What’s this?

All done!

Heeelp us!

This week anyway since they’re on sale for $1.99/lb. They are ripe and sweet like you wouldn’t believe! Raisins aren’t nature’s candy anymore! You won’t believe it but I finished my first project AND learned a few things along the way. I managed to pull it together in just a few stolen moments here and there and it feels really good to be done… that is with the button sewn on and everything.

I tried a new recipe tonight. I have the freezer loaded up with tilapia fillets to make up for all the steak we like to eat. I don’t know if I’ve ever prepared tilapia myself before but we had some in the freezer form let’s dish and I remembered liking it and thought we’d try it again. I used a super simple recipe almost a non-recipe it was so easy and it turned into a great and really flavorful 30 minute meal. I should add that I didn’t really follow the recipe exactly because I only made 2 fillets and the recipe is written for 6. The amounts for the butter and such were too small to scale back so I just did it by eye. The only substitution to the ingredients I made was to use fresh parsley instead of basil. Hmm, methinks I didn’t follow the recipe at all but it certainly was good! I will definitely be making this again.

I had a meeting yesterday that I so badly want to blog about but at the risk of ending my professional career before it ever begins I shall remain silent on the matter and tell you in person if I remember when I see you. It was good stuff though.

Apparently the summer session is half over and it just frickin’ started! I now have only 3 weeks to research and write my 25 page paper. Happiness! Oh, did I mention it’s hard to get a baby to pose for pics that show off a top? I did my best.

Did I tell you? Maybe you saw? Abby is here and what a little sweetie she is. We can’t wait to meet her!