Getting ready

There are baby clothes in our laundry closet, little pajamas with their feet hanging down and tiny socks laid out to dry.

There is a rocking chair in the bedroom! Joe brought it home just yesterday.

There is teddy bear with a bear with a diaper on it sitting by the stairs.

There is a lot left undone. But things are beginning to take shape in a new way already.

It is still very quiet in this home, though. No crying at all...

Dreaming of greening

I've spent much of the morning planning this year's garden. It is not a big yard, but I got down to mapping it out, and there's a lot of plantable space. More than I can probably plant this year, actually! I hear the way to do it is to expand the garden a bit each year, and that does seem the most manageable way, but oh, I wish I could just fill the yard with flowers and fruits and vegetables.

A corner of the yard doesn't drain very well. I'm going to try to see if I can get things together enough to make some raised beds, but it will still be wet underneath. Are there any plants that like such conditions? Other than rice, I mean...?

Hello, Mr. Chicken

Today I cooked a whole chicken. I have cooked a lot of meat in the last few months, but nothing that so much resembled the animal it once was, and nothing so big all at once.

It was easier than I imagined. Washed it, added salt and butter, and stuck it in the stove... The hardest part was waiting for the juices to run clear. I pulled it out and pricked the thigh a few times, but had to stick it back in because the meat was still a bit bloody.

Joe just chopped it into fourths and ate a quarter for dinner -- all but the bones. I'd been reading about all the complicated ways to carve it and things to do with the leftovers, but it looks like I won't have anything but the neck and giblets for stock.

I consider this a warm-up for the 12-pound turkey I bought during a sale before Thanksgiving. It awaits me in the freezer, and I am not so frightened of it now.

Also, I unpacked the last boxes that were hanging around the kitchen! The kitchen seems so much bigger now!

Shopping list

One of my wonderful sisters-in-law came over today! She and I had lunch, and her toddler son mashed the cheese and lunchmeats. Then she helped me clean the "room of doom," also known as the art room because it has Joe's easel in it. Now we have cleared away some boxes and he can actually get near the easel, woo!

In the last week or two, the house has started to look better instead of worse, and it is a huge relief.

After the visitors left, I felt really sleepy, so sat and sifted through some papers to figure out whether they were trash. This list is from March 4, 2005:

Buy:
-Bread
-Milk
-WSJ

Could also use: lettuce.

(WSJ means Wall Street Journal, for those of you who did not consider it a staple item.)

Oh yes, Joe had a business meeting in York on Tuesday, so I went along and got to see some of my York friends. On the way back, we stopped by College Park for Mass and dinner with one of Joe's college friends, which seems only fair after I had so much fun earlier in the day. (I had fun at dinner, too, but it was even nicer for Joe.) Then Joe's woodcarving club had a Christmas party yesterday. We went and ate elk. Phew! It has been fun, but tiring.

Measure twice, cut once

Joe playing with blocks

He is actually starting to make a compost bin.

Okay, now he is really playing!