Pansyiana: February 2004 Archives

One year ago today, I blogged about the Feast of St.Valentine and of course what I made for dinner. Today I made Spinach Stuffed Leg of Lamb (Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book) and Cinnabon Clone Cinnamon roles (recipe courtesy of Dinka).

Today, I picked up an Amish cookbook to add to my cookbook collection. My Amish neighbor who runs "The Amish Store" seemed surprised I cooked, although admitted to sampling my homeade pannetone when I sent it to her daughter's for Christmas and said it "was really good". Another one asked my husband what I do:
Hubby: She stays home and takes care of the kids.
Neighbor: That's good because women all want to run away these days.
Even though I knew what he meant, this last statement inspired a strange image of women with those sticks with the red with white polka dotted cloths tied at the end to the carry their few parcels running away from their homes.

Gorbulas has been very, very sticky lately. Not sure why, but he has been. He hates when I sit, try to read go online, all he wants to do is nurse. If he is not nursing, forget about it! Last Tuesday, in a fit of rage he snapped the monitor off the top of, laptop, so I had to purchase a new one. In the meantime, if I wake up in the middle of the night and get up, he wakes up. If I try to read, he comes and sits on the book. If I go online, well, we've been there. I am at loss here as to what the problem is except maybe it is a growth spurt like Fastolph just had?

Alas, Pansy is having computer trouble again. Hopefully we'll see her again soon.

there were w few items I desperately wanted to make my life whole and complete.

*Toe Ballet Shoes-but since I was under 12, I could not have any. I made due by walking around with Dixie cups on my toes.
*A Baby Chick-so cute and fluffy. I asked for one for Christmas when I was 4 or 5 and never got one. So I attempted a few times to hatch an egg from the fridge to no avail.
*A Mickey Mouse Phone-so I could call Mickey Mouse I guess.
*Stilts-all kids need stilts so they can walk around and pass as grown-ups. I compensated again with the Dixie cups.

*My husband stayed home today because last night. when he uh. tried to leap over a snow bank, and flipped over (it was almost funny-the kids were looking outside the window and said "hey Mom, there's some kind of animal out there," and it was my poor husband crawling out of the bank covered in snow) he lost the car keys. So he could not look for them (or leave the house) until the sun came up, and by then he was late, so he took a personal day. At first I was starting to think we were suffering from some type of denomic bad luck, but after he found the keys, I started to think my Guardian Angel took them so we could have a much needed day off.

*We decided to take the kids to see Cheaper By The Dozen. No the driveway was not open, but we had a pathway plowed. and it was a balmy 27 degrees today, so getting down the driveway was no sweat. It was actually fun because my husband insisted on pulling Fastolph, Gorbulas and myself in the tobagan and the older two played in the snow the whole way.

*We went to the Apple store which is like Scary Geek Central and bought a new keyboard because Rosey Posey spilled tea on the keyboard last night. Every email I attempted to draft this morning was sans the 'm' key so all my letters read as if I had a stuffed nose. Man is that store a rip off. I also need a new adaptor plug which was $79 bucks, that will have to wait. My husband managed to tape this one up to keep it working, but if I suddenly drop off line again, it is because I still refused to spend that $79 bucks. Then the Sales guy asked why we did not have the warranty and my husband was like "because it is a lot of money." The Geeky guy was like "it's only like $30 a year." Only? Does he make enough selling computers to raise four kids and spend $350 on a warranty?It is amazing how the older I get, the cheaper I get.

*We went to the second of two places labled "The Amish Store" in the area. The first is a bulk goods shop, this was more of a general store, which did not have much. The owner however is my next door neighbors mother and it was nice to chat with her a bit. I mentioned I was upset because I have yet to meet her daughter because of the snow between us, and she told me her daughter has expressed the same sentiment.

*I have been renting Sho-Gun from Netflix.com. I remember loving it as a child, but truthfully all I really remember is how lovely Lady Mariko was and how I wanted to be like her. Now that I am watching it again I am struck by how 1.it's like all late 70's early 80's. I mean like everything else in that time period, it's all narrated by like Orson Welles and stuff. 2.It's all anti-Catholic (or it is so far). Lots of stuff about Catholics occupying Japan for money and stuff, and lots of Jesuits calling the hero, the Protestant Anjin-San a heretic who will burn in hell. How annoying.

OK, so last week we were what I thought was "snowed in" meaning the driveway was unpassable. The week before we were "snowed in". Last Friday brought "snowed in" to a new level.

My husband has been parking the car at the end of the driveway and walking the driveway in order to get to work. In a desperate attempt to get out, I decided to try it. I did it, but will never do that again. The places in the driveway that are covered are covered by mounds of snow ranging from 3 to 6 feet high. Luckily it what not all soft snow, so in many places we were able to climb over them. But what a workout. Imagine, it is 14 below, but you do not feel cold at all because you are climbing snow mounds with a thirty pound munchkin in the sling. You only notice the cold because you are out of breath, and when you stop to take a breath, you uncover your face, inhale and and there is like no air. And it freezes everything insode when you breath. Never again!

So the next day, the tractor blew out our driveway. Woohoo. Then it snowed again. Then the winds blew again. I cannot get around to the back of my house to the woodshed (because of what else-snow), so we put our wood in the barn. 9 AM Friday morning, I put on my boots, coat and hat to go to the barn and get wood and five feet from my door is a wall of snow up to my waist. I attempted to climb over it only to find it is that loose powdery snow and I sink. So I had to trudge through it only to find a bigger mound in front of the barn. I was seriously starting to wigg out. I called my husband and told him not to come home out of fear I would find him dead from being stuck on the middle of a snow mound in the driveway. He laughed me off (for what it's worth, my opinion of my spouse has gone up dramatically watching him walk that twice a day, getting up in the middle of the night to tend the fire and chop wood etc.). Fortunately we were blown out that evening-which I doubted was possible. I watched those mounds get bigger and bigger each hour.

We got to Church yesterday and stocked up majorly on food because it is supposed to snow again tomorrow. Woo hoo! I think if I had a snow mobile (and it seems we are the only rejects who are not Amish who do not around here), I would think this much more fun.

Many thanks to those who have kindly inquired about Pansy. She is having computer trouble, but hopes to be back later this week.