What's cooking

Last night Marty and I went and saw Julie & Julia. It was fun, and cute, and I was inspired. So inspired that since then I've thought that I should spend some of my birthday money to go to my favorite kitchen-supplies outlet store and get one of the mortar and pestles that I've had my eye on. And maybe I need to get a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking too. Or at least see what Julia Child videos I can find at my local library.

Tonight on my way home from work, I stopped by the grocery store. I didn't buy a duck to debone and turn into "pate de canard en croute." I'm not ready for "Boeuf Bourguignon" either. As you can see, perhaps some of the Julia Child mojo has worn off. Or maybe it was a long, hard day at work.

On the bright side, the employee monitoring the self-checkout lanes complimented me on how well and efficiently I checked myself out.

Catching Up

You might not know it from what I've posted so far, but it's been a pretty busy couple of months for us. So here's a quick run-down of some of what we've been up to.

In July, Marty's "Grandpa Jack" passed away. We changed our 4th of July plans and went up to Minnesota for the funeral. I've been meaning to post about this trip. About Grandpa Jack. But I haven't known what to say. We miss him, but the funeral services were a nice tribute to a life well lived.

We enjoyed being able to visit with family and friends while we were in Minnesota. Unfortunately, though we took the camera with us, we only managed to get 2 pictures on it from that trip.

Not too long after returning from Minnesota, I had a little vacation trip to Buffalo to stay with Boss and her family.

I had a really good time while I was there. In fact, even the fact that my luggage didn't arrive with me (or if it did, it spent the night on the plane) was a good excuse to have some fun crafty time. Afterall, what do you do when you're on vacation with no clean clothes and have spent the night in borrowed PJs? Why, you get your super-crafty sister to whip up a skirt for you. And of course she'll just happen to have a shirt to go with it that she can give you.

We played in the backyard, made paper boats (and submarines), went to the Buffalo Zoo, and lots of other fun stuff. Again, I didn't do so great at photo-documentation. Here are a couple pictures I got on my iPhone. These onese with Sam on the bench were initially going to have both Sam and Grace on the bench, but Grace got tired of my inability to push the right buttons and effectively take a picture. So by the time I actually got any pictures taken, she had wandered off.

And these are some of the pictures I took of Sam and Grace and Boss riding the train at the zoo.

My trip to Buffalo was strategically planned so that I could also fit in a night at The Hill Cumorah Pageant. Until this year, I think the last time I saw it was in 1993. What made it especially fun was having Mom and Dad, Mark and Shana and their boys, John, and Michael there too, and getting to meet Michael's fiancee Jenny and her kids.

Then a couple weekends ago we had Marty's sister Jamie and her family come visit us. We picnicked at Duke Gardens and enjoyed seeing all the beautiful flowers in bloom. We checked out Duke University and UNC campuses. We played some cards and some rock band. And we took a trip to the beach.

We didn't take any pictures of that visit either because we'd managed to lose the camera (I have since found it--in the laptop bag--still packed from our Minnesota trip). But I do have this picture to share that Jamie took while we were in Minnesota. This is me and Jamie and Ryan's daughter Norah. Marty and I are both quite smitten with Norah--and can you blame us? Look at that smile!

Caught!

The other day Marty and I were in Target. On our way to the checkout counter, I was side-tracked by a tote bag. I admit, I have a thing for tote bags, and this one was cute. Real cute. My infatuation with it was short lived, however, because I don't pay that much for a tote bag. So I walked away.
A couple days later Marty said to me, "I looked in the office closet today..."
Right then I knew I was caught. That's where I keep my purses, totes, and other random bags that I'm not currently using. He'd found my stash! (And I thought I'd hidden it so well behind my fabric and card-making stashes--Argh!)
"...You've got like a hundred bags in there! And you were eying a new one at the store!?"
"It's not 100. Maybe 20. Or so. And I've used them all."
"But how can you possibly need another?"

He just doesn't understand. But if I go back to Target and find that bag on clearance, I'm getting it in a heartbeat.