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weekend music & cooking
Feb. 7th, 2016 09:27 pmYesterday, we clocked through four or five Moody Blues albums, as well as the War of the Worlds rock opera featuring Richard Burton and Justin Hayward which I only found out existed last weekend (HOW ON EARTH DID I LIVE ON THIS PLANET NEARLY 34 YEARS AND NOT KNOW OF THIS WONDROUS THING?!), and mixed up carrot cake for Joel's birthday cake, complete with three extra cupcakes (because Gwen gets both cupcakes AND cake for her birthday, so clearly dad needed both too), purple frosting, six candles all right next to each other in a line up in the upper left corner, pink and purple nonpareils, and about half a container of Star Wars sprinkles (I left the room for about five minutes).
We also did a recipe my friend Sarah had posted on Facebook: Melt peanut butter with a bit of icing sugar, spread on ginger snaps, put in fridge until hard. Melt dark chocolate, dollop on top of peanut butter, put in fridge until hard. Very easy, and tasty.
Today, we put on another Moody Blues album, played War of the Worlds again, made two loaves of buttermilk honey bread, and steamed some mussels for supper. We'd planned to go to the fishmonger yesterday and get fresh fish for supper, but when we got there, nothing looked exactly right -- and then I saw the bags of mussels, and realized we could do a treat for Joel. He loves them, and it's been ages since we've had them (I'm not sure we ever had them in Heidelberg). His birthday was Friday and much of my celebratory planning was rather last minute, so I was happy to find something else I could throw in to make things special.
I am pleased to report that not only did Gwen gamely try the mussels without much persuasion, she actually ate a goodly number of them (she also tried about three that she spit out half-chewed, and one she opened up and refused to eat because of its beard -- but a four-year-old's first time eating mussels? She wins.)
I also went over to the new house ("that's not 'home'! that's the new house! it's not home until our things are there!" Word, Gwen.) with Joel for a few hours -- it's been maybe a month? Or more? since I was there, because Joel just gets so much more done when Gwen's not there. But today he was ready to put the cupboards back up on the kitchen walls, and we wanted to eye where to put the drawer handles and look at more paint chip samples. She actually did really well -- we were there for over four hours, and much of that she entertained herself upstairs, on top of having entertained herself downstairs at home for 1.5 hours this morning before Joel and I got out of bed. Sometimes I feel like she needs my input on her play EVERY THIRTY SECONDS and I despair of her ever growing out of it, but then days like this happen and I am reminded that (a) playing by yourself is a skill that you develop and (b) she doesn't get to see me all that much, really, and she does simply just love playing with me. But days like this help me have a bit more patience.
We also did a recipe my friend Sarah had posted on Facebook: Melt peanut butter with a bit of icing sugar, spread on ginger snaps, put in fridge until hard. Melt dark chocolate, dollop on top of peanut butter, put in fridge until hard. Very easy, and tasty.
Today, we put on another Moody Blues album, played War of the Worlds again, made two loaves of buttermilk honey bread, and steamed some mussels for supper. We'd planned to go to the fishmonger yesterday and get fresh fish for supper, but when we got there, nothing looked exactly right -- and then I saw the bags of mussels, and realized we could do a treat for Joel. He loves them, and it's been ages since we've had them (I'm not sure we ever had them in Heidelberg). His birthday was Friday and much of my celebratory planning was rather last minute, so I was happy to find something else I could throw in to make things special.
I am pleased to report that not only did Gwen gamely try the mussels without much persuasion, she actually ate a goodly number of them (she also tried about three that she spit out half-chewed, and one she opened up and refused to eat because of its beard -- but a four-year-old's first time eating mussels? She wins.)
I also went over to the new house ("that's not 'home'! that's the new house! it's not home until our things are there!" Word, Gwen.) with Joel for a few hours -- it's been maybe a month? Or more? since I was there, because Joel just gets so much more done when Gwen's not there. But today he was ready to put the cupboards back up on the kitchen walls, and we wanted to eye where to put the drawer handles and look at more paint chip samples. She actually did really well -- we were there for over four hours, and much of that she entertained herself upstairs, on top of having entertained herself downstairs at home for 1.5 hours this morning before Joel and I got out of bed. Sometimes I feel like she needs my input on her play EVERY THIRTY SECONDS and I despair of her ever growing out of it, but then days like this happen and I am reminded that (a) playing by yourself is a skill that you develop and (b) she doesn't get to see me all that much, really, and she does simply just love playing with me. But days like this help me have a bit more patience.
