last days of disco

it's a yummy sandwich made from egg white poof, spinach, turkey bacon, and arnold sandwich thin. you can see the last days of disco on the tv. once upon a time, I was a shy, geeky kid living in NYC. somehow I hung with the cool kids a liitle bit. chloe sevigny was one of the people I knew in the say hi and that's it way. well, I think we can say that things took their proper course(s). the last days of disco was charming, like it was written and produced by a wes anderson/owen wilson character.

about to drink coffee, run, and get on with my day.

o&o, e

finally bttw?

I was kinda single white female today (married yellow female?). I've been inspired by ktiker for quite a while, but today it went a bit far: breakfast included an egg white poof, and a green monster, I went running OUTSIDE, and now, I'm blogging.

ok, so ktiker never has two breakfasts...but the green monster was eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaarly, and the piece of toast with egg white poof, tomato, spinach, and cucumbers was late...am I turning into a hobbit?

btw, awesome guest post on the windy city blog! I will be purchasing the ingredients for the meal today. I just got even creepier, ewww. do I have my own life AT ALL?

I just read Audrey Niffenegger's book, Her Fearful Symmetry. I'm mentioning it because it's partially set in the suburbs of Chicago and mentions Heaven on Seven. I'd already read that post on Kate's blog, and was all, oh! I know about that place when I was reading the book. The book was really fun to read, as was The Time Traveler's Wife, but you know what? I'm not even going to pretend that I understood it AT ALL.

big red month

and it's not red for the ladies, just red due to unwillingness to exercise. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but between stressing out over everything related to the sale of our house (I still can't believe we were lucky enough to sell it!) and packing, I stopped doing extra physical activity. well, the upshot is that I feel like a giant flobberry, and foolish to boot because I don't have any real excuse. I did go to the gym the other day, and it was not a wonderful, fluid, back to the ole' workout experience. today, I'm planning to go again...and just get through it until it feels good again. the sad thing is that I'm writing about only running like two miles!

john and I went to Ambler for dinner last night. we ate at a restaurant called, from the boot. john's food tasted like it was from someone's boot. I had mussels, which were pretty tasty, but now my hands are all weirdly swollen. is there a connection? the best part of dinner were the complimentary garlic knots. Henry put a bunch of those down.

ah, it feels good to write a blog entry again!

by the way, have I mentioned the fact that windows vista really DOES SUCK?

I don't have a photo of dinner, so here's this one instead, Henry at 10 months. dogs are Gummi and Gary.

must go shower for work.

I will live to blog again!

Does anyone even bother to check anymore? I've moved, and now I have post-traumatic stress disorder from it. OK, so maybe that's a bit dramatic, but really, everything feels so disorganized and hectic that even though I know I should be happy, I just feel crazy, flat like a pancake! but look, even through it all, I still take photos of my food! they're littering my camera roll on my iphone. who needs memory for photos of their kids, or pets, or family? today's breakfast was the dregs of my sunflower seed butter + granola that I made in my newly moved into kitchen. more to come...exercise? ha! I'm going to the gym for the first time today in weeks. ugh.

this will not be pretty

the move is beginning this morning. the A-Team can't find a place to put their truck. tune in again tomorrow for gory details and photos. love, e

grody, totally grody

I decided to get all homey and make Henry's birthday cake. it was his birthday yesterday, but we're celebrating one day late.

anyway, I made a chocolate cake with buttercream icing. the icing was intense, I had to buy a candy thermometer to do it properly. I got the recipe from epicurious, and made sure the reviews were good...

all went fine, except that I mistakely bought salted butter. um, ever tasted 5 sticks of salted butter that's been mashed together with some suger and egg whites? it tastes SALTY! oh, and buttery too. this cake is not going to taste good. it's got two layers, and some raspberry jam, so hopefully that will do something. my guess is that we'll each eat one bite, then throw it in the trash!

this morning, we took Henry to our neighborhood diner, and Ann, his friend, had a birthday booth all decorated! I'll post photos soon.

gym hiatus

I've vowed to stay off the treadmill until I no longer have a respiratory infection. well, I'm not positive that I have an infection per se, but I am still hacking stuff up, wheezing, and blowing my nose all the time.

breakfast this morning was not my usual greenie, but a boring piece of bread. I was starving by lunchtime, which came after I drove out to the mall to get a cakestand, offset spatula, and candy thermometer (which also doubles as an oil thermometer). I'm making a layer cake for Henry's second birthday. I've decided on chocolate cake with raspberry filling, and chocolate buttercream icing. yes, it's completely decadent! what can I say, the kid likes chocolate. plus, it's been an ambition of mine to get good at making layer cakes. this will be my first one.

I got lunch from the cafeteria once I was back at work.

it was my standard soup and salad lunch. this time I added a bit of brianna's poppyseed dressing to the beet portion of the container. there was some lettuce in there, but that was just for show. I barely ate any of it. I feel that I must get over my aversion to lettuce, but it's just so unappealing. the only way I like it these days is as a wrap for stuff. there isn't any salad dressing I like so much that makes me really want to eat lettuce. I think I od'd on salads in 2004.

last night we had my favorite split pea soup for dinner. here's a really bad photo of it. I swear it tastes so much better than it looks. plus, it's super easy to make.

here's how to make a yummy split pea soup:
one large onion, diced
3 or 4 large carrots, sliced into disks (or on the bias, or whatever) ~1/4" thick
3 stems celery, cut same thickness as carrots
16 oz. green split peas (or yellow), rinsed (pick out any weird looking items)
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
salt and pepper to taste (only add salt after soup is finished)

- saute all of the vegetables until fairly well sweated
- add to crock pot (or soup pot) with split peas
- stir well
- add water to pot so that level is about 1.5 inches over the contents
if you're cooking it on the stovetop, bring the pot to a boil and skim off the scum that floats to the top (yeah, that sounds pleasant), then lower flame to simmer, stir well, and partially cover - cook until the peas turn to mush. finish by adding water to get the consistency you like.
- if you're using a crock pot, then put the setting to high for 3 hours, or so, then turn to low and let it stay on for a couple more hours. if you're away all day, put the setting on low & the soup should be finished when you get home.
- salt and pepper to taste. I find that the soup cooks better if you avoid salting it before it's cooked.