Chicken with shallots, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and spinach pasta
Chips with garbanzo bean, pepper, and corn dip and guacamole (and favorite salsa!)


Chicken, broccoflower, and shallot stirfry on white rice

Gingerbread cookies with cream cheese frosting


Tomato soup with Blarney Castle cheese sandwiches

Kale soup with chickpeas, carrots, and celery


Lentil soup with carrots, onion, and garlic with biryani spices

Homemade bread and butter pickles from Ben's boss (killer stuff!)


Spinach enchiladas (with cottage cheese, cheddar, olives, anaheim peppers, and Hatch sauce)

Hello! I'm 25 now! I had an excellent birthday, even though my family got snowed out of visiting.

That weekend we went bowling at Lucky Strike, had dinner with friends, and played with my new present:

Thank you to everyone who pitched in for my super cool gorgeous flat screen HDTV! Our games look fantastic, I don't have to squint from the back couch, and we get most network HD stations with out antenna (no cable for us!). Also, I discovered this rad channel call the tube that
plays music videos ALL the time. It's a dream come true (sniff!). On my actual birthday we played games with friends and had pizza and ice cream cake. I won boggle and scrabble :-)

In other news, I went to a new craft store with a new friend. Fancy Tiger has great fabrics, yarns (including crewel!), and vintage goodies for making hip crafts. I got some great fabrics for my wall projects and a tiny crewel kit.

I saw The Queen this weekend and loved it. One of the best made movies in a long while, definitely recommend it. Should have won Best Picture (my Oscar party was fun, by the way. Shawn won the pool).

My HOA is hilarious sometimes. They do an awesome job keeping the grounds clean, especially with the constant snowfall. One day we came home to this on our door:

Overkill?

I love the new Endless.com, run by Amazon. Great organization and search terms, great prices, great layout (no flash!) and free overnight shipping. Right now they're giving you $5 off to use overnight shipping. I got two beautiful pairs of Kenneth Coles for super cheap. They have 1 year return policy and they pay for return shipping. Who could ask for anything more?

What is Caturday?? A celebration of the hilarity of cats, sometimes with funny captions. But first, let's meet a new cat

Brian's face shows what "smitten" looks like. I went with Brian to help Cate and Trevor find a cat. Although Brian swore he was just researching, he ended up bringing home a gray tabby kitten who he named Zoe. She's pretty fantastic. She perches on shoulders, plays a lot, let's you hold her on her back, and does lots of Celine Dion paw stretches when you scratch her.

Cate picked out a cuddly long gray-haired cat who was just itching for love. They named her Mona, and she's working extra hard to earn Trevor's cold heart.


But BACK TO CATURDAY, which is really about online pictures. Do a search or go to this website to brighten up your dreary days. Here are some of my favorites.

I did a little fiddling with the template and layout. Sorry for pictures that don't load and unfinished edges. I'll try to work on it a little more.

Baked eggplant parmesan (with sauce from scratch) and steamed asparagus. Spring is just around the corner!


Beef stew with potatoes, carrots, onion, and mushrooms.

For certain reasons, work has been very light lately. In fact, I was told not to bother coming in one day last week. What do you do with a surprise (paid!) holiday?

1) Sleep in (just a little!)
2) Bake and play all the live long day
3) Document it for devoted blog readers

So here's your chance to see what I do in my time off and how all my lovely creations get made.

How to make Brownies

Start with a good recipe, such as the one in How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Melt your chocolate and butter together while you gather the rest of the ingrediants.


Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and salt, beating after each addition. Stir in flour until just barely combined.


Give the cat some canned food as a treat to get her out from under your feet. Add butterscotch chips and spread in a greased pan.


While the brownies bake, plant some herbs.

How to Bake Bread

Get a good recipe (again from Bittman). Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a food processor. Whir away while you add warm water.


Look in dismay at the lever you mangled by putting the toaster oven in in front of it. Sigh and remind yourself that it's still functional so there's no reason to replace it. it's just ugly and sad. Then set your dough in a warm place to rise.

Save the Goran mines of Death Mountain.

Put the buns in the oven and rock Guitar Hero.

Serve with creamy parsnip soup. Admire the gorgeous flowers your husband brought. Think about how lucky you are.

Oh my. How did it come to this? We have a dog. A puppy, actually.

Meet Jem.

Jem is a 3 month old beagle we got this morning from a breeder in Littleton. She's very sweet, quiet, and playful. And truly truly outrageous.

A quick update on life since we got a dog. The cough Jem had is just kennel cough, akin to our flu. The vet recommended not only a cough supressant and an antibiotic, but a nebulizer to give her a second medication that will penetrate the lungs. So Ben gets to treat her with our rented nebulizer every morning and night. Additionally, she had roundworm and giardia, which we're treating with a powdered medication in her food. Ay yi yi. Nothing to worry about, and it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, it's a lot of fuss for a little puppy.

Everyone wants to know what Molly thinks of the dog. Once Molly became accustomed to the new smell in the house, we brought Jem into the basement while Molly was sitting on top of a chair. The dog sniffed out the room while Molly watched with a bemused expression. She seemed tense and her ears were pulled back, but she made no motion to run away. Even when Jem came up to the chair to sniff her, Molly just stared. A couple times since then Jem has gotten too close and Molly hissed and scratched. The dumb dog goes in for more each time, so we have to separate them at that point. But overall, it's encouraging that Molly is tolerating so much, and still acts like she owns the house.

Ben is exhausted from getting up so early and waking to Jem's whining all night. He didn't realize having a puppy is almost like having an infant! But we had a pretty solid sleep last night with Jem in the crate by our bed. And she's still oodles of fun to take on walks.

I got an oven thermometer to test my suspicion. Bingo! My oven was 90 degrees cooler than it claimed when I tried to cook biscuits last night. No wonder my baking is taking so long and cooks unevenly. Guess I get to spend my Friday morning on the phone with customer service. I hope the oven is still under warrenty.

*Update: I feel obligated to point out that this is not my cat. Sadly Molly is only this hilarious for glimpses, which I could never catch on film. This is from the fount of cat humor: icanhascheezburger.com.

New England boiled dinner

Kung Pao Chicken

Vegetable soup with buttermilk biscuits

Italian style beef rouladin asparagus and carrots

Lemon butter cookies

Like I said before, Molly and Jem have gradually gotten closer in proximity.

In the above shot, Jem could smell her, but couldn't figure out where the cat was. Molly's shiny yellow eye kept sharp vigilance.


Again, Jem is on her scent, with Molly's shiny eye on the lookout.


A brief encounter! Three times Jem got slightly closer in the meeting, and three times Molly hissed and scratched. Jem has not be deterred.


Late at night when both were sleepy, Ben brought them together to see what would happen. Not much of a surprise - Jem's squirming and Molly's recoiling from a scratch in this photo.

Jem is a total wimp about rain and snow. She shivers and digs in her heels when we try to walk her. This has been difficult, because lately the spring weather has turned to this:




So I thought I'd whip up a little doggie jacket. I did a quick and dirty job, and it didn't really work.



Then at Target they had some dog jackets on clearance. $3!! I gotta try it at least.


Glamour and Glitter, Fashion and FAME! Je-em is truly outrag- er. that's enough.
But seriously, I love her Joan Rivers impression on the left. And she's transfixed by her beauty in the photo on the right.


With Jem getting all the attention lately, I picked up a little gift for Molly.

It was an immediate hit. She's so easy to please. Catnip, cardboard, what else do you need?