September Recap

September saw some pretty nice weather this year, like every year. Normally we just assume that the leaves will be falling and the smell of hot cider will fill the air as soon as September first hits. Instead we're generally walking around all sweaty trying to force the season and pretending we like pumpkin spice.


The boys had a lot of fun playing baseball, however, Josie always insists on pitching. While her stance is adorable her accuracy leaves a little something to be desired. The boys want me to pitch but Josie's screams of protest are usually enough for them to humor her at the expense of their own fun.


Like we do most septembers we loaded up the fridge with all manner of garden and farm vegetables, mostly in the form of peeled and diced tomatoes.


Our friends Debbie and Michele came to visit which meant I could cook something nice for one of the three or four times a year I am granted the time to do so. I made a mixed grill with chicken, ribeye steak, and a friend's homemade sausage on a bed of creamy polenta.


We also got to enjoy a drink or two on the deck, something we had hoped to do many times this summer but didn't happen until mid September.


Martin continued his constant goalie practice in the driveway and roped anyone he could into playing with him whether it was a brother, parent, grandparent, neighbor, or someone simply walking past our house.


Elliott spent most of his time riding his bike. Martin has given up on riding his bike. Even though he can do it, he decided that since he fell once that riding bikes is just not for him.


We also got in early on the apple picking this year. Since the kids are in school full time we weren't able to go on a weekday and have the entire orchard to ourselves. We did, however, get a chance to enjoy some cider donuts and have it feel a little less like we were trespassing on someone's private orcahrd after hours.


A few days running I have taken the boys out to play Pokemon after I picked them up for school. I even purchased the Pokemon GO late for them in the only setting where I did not feel embarrassed to order it. It's much less shameful when there are five-year-olds around.


As with any Pokewalk we take Martin manages to convince every dog owner he meets to stop so he can pet their dogs. I'm shocked at how few dog owners are annoyed by this.


At the end of the month my wood plank arrived, a vertical slab from a cedar tree. With a lot of research (and even more luck) I intend to make a charcuterie board to be ready for Christmas this year. If you don't see it in my Christmas pictures this year and I don't mention it you will know that something has gone wrong and that I have spent a lot of time and money effectively ruining a beautiful piece of wood.

Let's hope for a Christmas miracle!

The Walk Home

Since our return home from our North American tour life has returned to a normal state. Aside from another bout with the dreaded Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease things have been good.


With some help we were able the affront to horticulture that was our front shrubs.


We harvested many more vegetables form our garden.


We made lots of fresh tomato sauce which, despite the look on his face, Elliott has enjoyed quite a lot.


Martin has assisted me on the "Garbage-Q" which is how he now refers to the barbecue.


We babysat Evelyn for a weekend.


We picked up a lot more vegetables from our farm share.


And, the cousins enjoyed eating huge amounts of ice cream.

Recently the boys have not wanted to sit in their stroller for their walk home from daycare. They would much rather walk by themselves, or as they would angrily yell it, "I do myself!"

This has turned a normally enjoyable 10-minute walk into a 45 minute odyssey complete with picking flowers, trying to walk into our neighbors' yards, not wanting to hold my hand while crossing the street, and sometimes wanting to be carried the rest of the way.


It all begins with stalling as we try to leave daycare. They recently set up a book fair at our day care which means they continually try to take books from the shelves and read them in the entryway before leaving.


Then, as we walk along a busy street, they try to pick flowers, plants, and large sticks up to carry with them on the way home.


They try to sit down on tree stumps to take a break.


And, on occasion, Elliott just lies down on his belly on the sidewalk and refuses to follow me home.

This week marks the one year anniversary of our move to Illinois. It's hard to believe it's been that long since we said goodbye to New York.

It will be nice to not have to spend all of this fall looking for and moving into a new house. Maybe we'll even get more than a ten day lead up to Christmas to mentally prepare the boys (and ourselves) for the festivities at hand.

Hooray for the holidays!

The Sweet Life and the Flu

This has been a pretty rough week. On Monday, after a week of feeling just so-so, I came down with the full-blown flu. I know this because I went to the doctor where they stuck a swab all the way up my nose and apparently took some sort of DNA sample directly from my brain which they tested and it told them that I had the flu.

So it was that I was forced to not snuggle the babies for about 36 hours until I was able to maintain no fever for over 24 hours.


Then it was full on baby-snuggling time. Elliott may have looked like he hardly remembered me but it was a glorious moment to be reunited with the Wombats and to not need to use hand sanitizer or wear a surgical face mask.


A lot can change over the course of a work week. The boys seemed to finally reach the end of the line with their six month clothes. They are starting to resemble plump little sausages ready to burst out of their casing whenever we manage to cram them into any six month clothes these days.


Last night, after a fair amount of coaxing, I was able to get Martin to go to sleep before Jen returned home from work. The result was him finding a new sleeping position which is on his stomach, pressed up against the absolute edge of the crib and snoring. This doesn't seem to be all that comfortable a position to me but this is the position he held for ten straight hours without moving an inch.


In between checks to make sure Martin was still breathing I poured myself this Chocolate Bock from Sam Adams. It was light, chocolatey, slightly acidic, and sure to make my father-in-law cringe.

It's everything I could have wanted in a beer last night.



Tonight we gave the Wombats their first taste of butternut squash. I had boiled and pureed some last night after dinner and it went over quite well. Since I'm a fan of lists I'm going to start keeping track of how much they seem to enjoy the foods we're making for them. It's something that only I would be interested in but that's the only reason I ever really do anything.

The Wombats' Favorite Foods (in descending order from favorite to least favorite)

1. Sweet Potato
   
2. Avocado
   
3. Butternut Squash
   
4. Carrot
   
5. Peas
   

While Jen did the bedtime dance with Martin I put together a salad with kale, Marcona almonds, St. Agur cheese, and currants. I made a dressing with fig spread, sesame, tahini, and red wine vinegar. For the main course I boiled some sweet pea raviolis Jen brought home from Murray's Cheese. I made a sauce with rendered bacon, butter, shallots, cream, salt, pepper, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. This mostly just used up things in the fridge that were nearing the end of their useful life, however, it was also delicious. For beer I stumbled upon this gem a couple months back on my winter-beer scavenging trip. It was the N'ice Chouffe from Brasserie Achouffe in Belgium. This is a yearly release from them but my eagle eye spotted the difference on the label and I picked this one out on the shelf which was somehow leftover from 2010. The beer store was kind enough to do the aging for me. The result was a slightly mellowed version of the N'ice Chouffe. It had a cheesy-yeasty flavor, heavy malt, and high alcohol content. Strangely, after two glasses, I hadn't really felt the affect of the alcohol at all. Instead I was merely marveling at my love of gnome-themed Belgian ales.

After a week Jen is now sick and so to are the Womabts. Well, presumably they are sick. Their noses are leaking like wide-open faucets. You wouldn't know that they are sick by their attitudes as they both seem to be having the times of their lives. I guess if I could poop and pee my pants, have people bathe me, and sleep whenever I damned well pleased it would take a lot more than the flu to get me down.

Man their lives are so sweet!

Marching On

Wow. A lot has happened recently. Here's what you might have missed . . .



Paul and Caolan stopped by to visit us (mostly Jen). They brought some flowers from a place that told them that they wouldn't even believe how beautiful they were going to be. Then they demanded a minimum $1.00 tip.



We had corned beef and cabbage at 11:00PM on St. Patrick's Day after a long day of work. It was not my finest batch but it was the best I could do with virtually no time to actually cook.



We made Ruebens the next night with the leftover corned beef ingredients.



Our basil has reached soaring heights in our AeroGarden while our chives (previously just one chive -- now three!) and thyme seem to be struggling a bit.



We had some Severino stuffed rigatoni with Monte Bene marinara sauce (made in Bedford, NY). I don't think I've had jarred tomato sauce in close to five years but I needed a quick dinner and this whole dinner cooked in about 10 minutes and cost about $10.00. That included the Pain de Campagna (also made locally). The 365 Chianti was $9.99.



The next night I used the remaining Monte Bene with some raviolis from Penne Lane (also local in Huntington, NY) and a simple salad.



Jen's spirits are on the rise every day! She is now thrilled to be disabled! Even while our main laptop is on the fritz and we need to use our old one which is missing several keys.



Last night I was determined to set aside more than 10 minutes to throw dinner together. I had a full 20 minutes so I threw something together that didn't just involve pasta! It did involve this delicious four cheese bread. I can't figure out how to say this without it sounding insulting but it kind of tasted like Goldfish crackers. Delicious, delicious Goldfish crackers!



I got a great deal on flank steak so I seared it, steamed some broccoli, baked some potatoes (from Elba, NY), and made a little salad with cherry tomatoes (from Plainville, CT).

Now we're going to slowly try to crawl back to our regular dinner/lifestyle. Jen's leg brace should be off within the next ten days and we may even get to have dinner at the table soon!

Man, that Soothsayer was right. The Ides of March were (or was?) rough.