Peonyiana: June 2003 Archives

Just wanted to buzz in and say hi. I'm writing from my parents' house in North Dakota! For real!

My sister's wedding on Saturday was great: beautiful bridesmaids (who got hungry during the pre-wedding picture session and sent my husband out for pizza, which led to trouble when we were called for family pictures), magnificent bride, relaxed groom.... Hambet SLEPT through the whole wedding (thank you Guardian Angel!) so dh and I got to see the whole thing instead of strolling around in the parking lot. The reception was a lot of fun, too.

Yesterday was also a big family day (the groom is the youngest of six, I think, and they are all married with kids.) My mom had about 30 people for brunch. Now everyone is on the way home. We will be staying through the week. Nothing exciting planned. We might go out to my grandmother's farm this afternoon to pick some rhubarb, and later this week we might go to a lake in Minnesota.

Oh, avoid that interstate that runs between Rockford, IL and Beloit, WI. Just north of Beloit we got stuck in a horrendous, chew-your-leg-off-to-escape traffic jam. We were making sensational time until we got stuck there on Thursday.

Just wanted to post quickly before I said au revoir. My Things To Do list for today is running off the page.

Our basement is doing a little bit better, but when he was investigating the source of the leak, my husband found a lot of old, hidden water damage. So this is going to turn into quite a project. In a way, this may turn out to be Providential -- I was thinking about turning the basement into a hobby room this winter, so better to find the problem now than later. Everything we had stored was up on shelves, so the only damage we had was to my hoard of shipping boxes and to a scrap of carpet.

I have been told that we should rejoice when contradictions come our way, that they mean we're on the right track. So perhaps something good will be waiting on the other side of this.

Oh, I tried making that mint gelato. At first I was disappointed because I screwed up the custard (step 3) -- instead of being a nice, thick, smooth mixture, it resembled scrambled eggs suspended in water. But I mixed in the cream and put it in the fridge, and froze it in the ice cream maker the next morning. It came out all right! Very tasty. The mint flavor is a bit of a surprise, it's different than commercial mint ice cream -- more complex. So at least I have that little success to report.

Today I have to drive over to Virginia to give a house key to our friend Iris. She is going to come check on our basement a couple of times while we are away. I have to be back at two to meet the estimator. In between all this, I need to finish the laundry, pack the clothes, and wrap the wedding presents.

We will be leaving first thing in the morning and will be back around the second week in July (unless Iris calls us with bad news about the basement.) I will try to pop in from time to time, but otherwise we'll just be hanging out with the family. Hambet hasn't seen Grandma since this time next year, so it will be fun for them to see each other again.