Wonderful Weekend

I made Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon (or, as our Julia pronounces it, “buff borginoney”) on Friday, and we got snowed in on Saturday so Mom made sauce (the house smelled heavenly) and we stayed in PJs all day and watch movies and ate spaghetti and meatballs. I love winter!

 Here’s what we watched:

Snow Day: PJs and comfort food

So, yeah, this is what constitutes a snow day in the DC area:

P.S. That's not ice; that is slush.

In my experience, snow days usually at least give kids a chance to go sledding. Not that I'm complaining. I slept in (very in) and I only got out of my PJs in order to shower and put on new PJs. I feel like Aunt Linda.

Also, I am watching season 1 of Homeland so as not to feel culturally illiterate when someone brings it up, which is all the time. (Now I will only feel culturally illiterate when people discuss Dr. Who!) I'm also enjoying some delicious comfort food, leftovers of something I made a couple days ago: Creamy chicken pappardelle.

I had some pappardelle from Trader Joe’s that I picked up because it looked so delicious and then I didn’t know what to cook with it. Then I discovered this recipe which reminded me of a pappardelle dish I had at Lidia’s in the Pittsburgh Strip District. That dish is seared in my mind as one of the most delicious, comfort-foody things I have ever eaten. Alas, it was one of Lidia’s seasonal pasta choices and I have been back several times hoping to catch them on a Roast Pork Pappardelle day and I never do.

So, when I saw this recipe and read the story about it being inspired by comfort food in the movie The Holiday, I knew my Trader Joe’s pappardelle had found its destiny, even if it did mean I’d have to handle raw chicken. (Raw chicken is the scariest of my terror meats, so you must realize how badly I wanted to try this dish that I was willing to go through the anguish of raw chicken.)

I highly recommend you check it out: The Best Pappardelle Dish You Will Have Outside of Lidia's Restaurant.

It was so delicious and the leftovers are just as good. Happy snow day!

I do not cough for my own amusement.

I had a lazy day today, and what is a lazy day without a viewing of Pride and Prejudice (the far superior BBC version, of course)?

So, I'm watching the scene where Mr. Collins comes to visit and condole with the Bennet sisters in the midst of the Lydia/Wickham scandal, and there's this part where Kitty sees Mr. Collins' carriage approaching and she spits, "It's Mr. Collins. Well, I'm not gonna sit with him for anyone!" Then she runs off to hide in the bushes or whatever, and later sneaks up to the sitting room window like the world's worst spy in order to check if the coast is clear, melodramatically ducking out of sight when necessary. And I realized, yeah, that’s me. That is so something I would do. I’m Kitty Bennet. We’d all like to believe that we are Lizzy, but I am Kitty.

I'm making peace with this as best I can.

Also, that "What is it, Mama? Why are you winking at me? What am I to do?" bit is something I can completely relate to. Don't ever try to pass me a signal across the room in Mafia.

Indolence

Today I slept 'til 11, went out for brunch, came home and took a nap, and then went out for dinner. An episode of Project Runway made its way in there and that's the closest I came to work.

Happy Labor Day.

"Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance."

And we're off! For the next nine days I will be visiting my dear aunt and uncle and cousin, and indulging in indolence and delight and sunning and swimming. Jen is driving. Maggie is sleeping. Jules has her bubble gum, swim floaties, and Dora the Explorer doll and she is all set to go.

I write to you from the PA Turnpike while listening to a song with the lyrics, "Take a right at my parents' house on 869, goin' straight on to Bedford till you start seeing signs for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, then you'll know what to do. And once you're out on the highway it's all up to you."

Indeed.

La dolce vita

Made possible by the cuteness of my niece and the hospitality of my aunt and uncle.

And I'm off!

I've decided to embrace summer, so I'm headed here:


...for a very awesome, very lazy, very long weekend. Later taters.

I haven't made a huge mistake.

This is today's lunch. (Kris, hopefully this makes up for all those meat photos.) A perfect bowl of mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic. A great companion to an Arrested Development marathon.

I do love a lazy day.

Pink and red and trivia and laziness

Happy Valentine's Day to all you people who are in love. And Happy Valentine's Day to people like me who love to see red and pink sparkly stuff, chocolates, and flowers all over the place.

In other news, Trivia was tonight and the two married couples in our group shunned V-Day in order to join us for trivia. Commitment! We came in third, just like last week, only two points behind first place, just like last week. But! We maintain a hefty lead overall in the tournament. We are so gonna win, I am certain.

Also, I just got back from Houston, visiting Amanda, where my trip went something like this:

Sushi, nap, sleep, kolaches*, nap, Bosnian food, massage, Mexican food, nap, movie, movie, sleep, kolaches, nap, Texas BBQ, movie, movie, Indian food, nap, sleep, kolaches, fly home. We pretty much could not have been lazier and it was awesome. And I got to see Biutiful, so my Oscar-readiness is chugging right along.

*Kolaches are little breakfast buns filled with stuff like egg and cheese and potato. Deliciousness abounds.

Random days off and buttons and ribbons and prints

I have a friend at work who, in mid-November, decided to take off every Wednesday between then and Christmas in order to get all things done that people need to get done this time of year. Well, she’s got Christmas hosting duties, two small children, and apparently more leave hours saved up than I do, so I couldn’t follow her lead entirely, but I did take one Wednesday off – today. It just seemed like a good idea, to take a random day off for no reason.

I got a lot done today, even if much of it was fun stuff like bake apple strudel and watch a marathon of The League and go for Great Cheap Dates with my sisters and Brian to see Red. Random days off FTW!

But I also spiffed up my craft room wall. This summer I bought a print at one of the awesome local artistry shops we visit when Kris and I go stay with Liz. I had framed it and put it on my craft room wall:

But then I thought that looked so good that I bought three more colorful frames and decided to make a grouping. I had another awesome print, but I was unsure what to do for the other two frames. Then, during my recent weekend of industriousness, I used what I had on hand in the craft room...


...to make a couple of collages...



...and it all turned out like this:

I love the idea of using crafty materials to decorate your crafty space. And I didn't even realize until I hung them that the buttons in the blue frame mimic the dots in the green-framed print and the ribbon in the pink frame mimics the lines in the red-framed print. I delight in it.

This is the state of things.

Vacation is almost over.

I live in the Eastern Standard Time zone, but I am currently on the sleep schedule of someone seven hours behind the Eastern Standard Time zone.

I just put on the same loungey clothes I was wearing last night.

I can no longer be responsible for my hair.

Monday morning is going to be rough.

Gah!

I was feeling better this morning so I went out to shovel a path to my garage. Why hello, blizzard. Next door, Jones was standing in the middle of four feet of snow shaking his head, dismayed that he doesn't live in Florida. Anyway, I was shoveling away, listening to my iPod (P!nk is best for shoveling) and I was almost to the garage door when the shovel caught my earbud cord, whipped my iPod out of my pocket and through the air, and disconnected it from the earbuds still lodged in my ears. For a moment I saw its shiny silver backing silhouetted against the bright morning sky and then it was gone. Oh fudge.


Ack! I raced to dig through three feet of snow to discover my precious object. Then I raced into the house (I may have been screaming in horror--I don't know--you'd have to ask Jonas) and dried it as best I could. It actually appears to be working perfectly; the music plays, the Moron Test tests, the Lightsaber app swishes and hums. Thank goodness Apple makes these things idiot-proof because I am the clumsiest person I know.

That was plenty of excitement for one day. The rest of my afternoon will be spent this way:

I can't wait to hear the woman say, "She stepped into the spin, then I'm not sure, but it looked like she got caught in his lederhosen."

Four day weekend

Sleeping in, playing pinochle, taking naps, playing Trivial Pursuit, eating cream puffs, playing the I Love the 80s board game...

I love lazy winter weekends.

I (heart) sleeping in.

Three days back after Christmas and I've logged three 2-hour delays and one early dismissal. I honestly don't know what I'll do with myself once we have to come to work at the normal time. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I love Christmas vacation

I have decided that I will be staying in pajamas today. All day long.

Don't judge me.

And I'm off!

Today I fly to Texas to visit Amanda. There will be laziness, there will be fun-having, and there will be a ludicrous amount of eating.

I think Sam Houston would have wanted it that way.

Plans for today

1. Sleeping in (check)
2. Swimming (see above)
3. Eating too much (no problem)
4. Being lazy (also no problem)
5. Love being at Aunt Linda's house (always)

It's almost 11 and my sisters are still asleep. My mom just said, "Oh, I should get dressed" and I replied, "Why?"

Also, Julia is doing yoga on the Wii. She's very advanced.

Virginia is for lovers... of laziness.

Last week the Stombaugh family stretched our annual reunion to a whole week and relocated it from Portage to Williamsburg, Virginia. Many thanks to Aunt Joan for all her planning and work. It was a marvelous vacation week. We slept in, played games, read, swam, and relaxed. We pretty much lived Aunt Linda’s life for a week. It was fabulous. I finished No Country For Old Men (definitely read this book, people), six back issues of Entertainment Weekly, and put a good dent in my second reading of The Secret History (seriously, run, do not walk, run to the nearest bookstore and buy it. And then buy a second copy and gift it to a person you really like and think should have access to wonderful literature.)

Poor Jen had a sinus infection for most of the week, but she still had a nice, relaxing time. Melis has been teaching Jules the rubber ducky song (and also to love Ernie and despise Elmo) and so I bought Jules a huge rubber ducky at the Williamsburg Toy Shoppe. It's almost as big as she is and I had some reservations that she'd wig out and be terrified of it, but she's totally cool about it. She's going to have to start bathing in the big tub to accommodate her new bath time buddy. While we were in the toy shoppe, some old ladies started cooing over how adorable Julia is and one of them offered to purchase her from us. So that was a little weird. But I like weird.