The Sultan of Snark

 Yesterday I was ruminating and relating to Dada how much I love chicken korma. There's something so comforting about the creaminess of the coconut and the warm, yummy goodness of it all. 

"My comfort foods are squishy yellow foods. Dal, korma... maybe it's the turmeric..."

Liam quips without missing a beat, "Minions." 

😁

A post of random

 I very much enjoy posts of random. I don't have to worry about whether the photos are going to load in the proper order or anything. I just type using stream of consciousness, which  is fun when it's just you but annoying as heck when you're trying to read someone else's. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, anyone? Ick. Not my cup of tea. 

But speaking of tea, I've been having many, many scones with mine! We have partaken in the "must have a sourdough starter during a pandemic" craze and our starter has been around longer than some people's relationships. Therefore, I've named it Maurice a la Steve Miller Band's "The Joker":

"Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah, some call me the gangster of love, some people call me Maurice 'cause I speak of the pompatus of love..." 

I don't even know what that means. And spellcheck underlined it. Hmmm. 

Anyway, Maurice has been diligently fed and watered for months. I don't even remember when we got him. We had sourdough pancakes for weeks until I was the only one not tired of them, the boys declaring them "too eggy". So I started hunting other recipes. I made a sourdough banana bread, but I was the only one to eat that and it got buried in the back of the fridge so I had to throw it out. Then I found chocolate chip sourdough scones and they are fun! I've even started to change up the chocolate chips for other flavors or combinations. Some have butterscotch and white chocolate chips. Some are dark chocolate. The "black and white ones" are white chocolate with either semi sweet or dark chocolate. I freeze a lot of them and give away a bunch. Our mail carrier has had one, I took a tray to the guys at the Honda dealership when they fixed up two of our vehicles, I've taken some to neighbors, sent some home with Pap, etc. 

I've also fallen in love with a new comfort food: dal. It's red lentils, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, zucchini, onions, and so on. As you can see, I figured I better designate an "I'm cooking with turmeric" spoon lest they ALL turn yellow.

So, so yummy. A small brown birdie told me it's very forgiving and that it can be doubled or even tripled, so I have doubled it and have been pleased. The kids won't touch it, but I can't get enough. So satisfying.

This kid. He had just put on his Old Spice Swagger deodorant, which is pretty darn close to any Axe body wash in scent power if you ask me; he snagged my sunglasses of the bar and vogues, "Now I'm officially called a Swagger!" Cracks me up every day.

We are still trying to be responsible about keeping our social bubble small, so we ordered in for Valentine's Day and kept things low-key. We did order a new set of sheets because we've been married over twenty years now and you know how sheets and towels start to get ratty looking. Dada ordered a red set from, get this, Sheets & Giggles. They are super soft, environmentally friendly eucalyptus, and we love them. However, they are also red and I feel like they shout, "welcome to the Den of Iniquity!" I keep sniggering as I make the bed, but they are comfy! So here's the shameless plug: if you, too, would like to have your own Den of Iniquity, (they have other lovely colors besides red) check out Sheets & Giggles and see for yourself.

I experienced a virtual women's retreat, which was lovely, and I can honestly say that I think perhaps it was the first time I've ever had a donut for communion... that's just how it worked out!

Feel free to capture this one yourself:

Damon had a dessert fail:

You can caption this one, too. Audience participation time!

My lovely birthday earrings from Becky. Check out all the beautiful options at Made for Freedom and read about how they are helping women rescued from sexual slavery find meaningful employment.

I'm not even sure what's happening here, probably just a "smile for Grandmama" photo op. It looks like pancakes (not sourdough) so I'm thinking Fat Tuesday, perhaps? Liam's old robe was suddenly like 4 inches too small in all directions so we found him a new one at goodwill and I am not sure that he's taken it off. Let's just say that boy is loving remote schooling. He very much enjoys the not getting up at 6 to be on the bus at 7. He still disappears when he turns sideways, but at least he does it in a snazzy bathrobe, haha!

Autumn roundup

What've we been up to during the radio silence?

This kid turned 15, but that's another post altogether.

The garden went completely nuts with tomatoes so I had to make soup, many times. And since I save chicken bones in the freezer until they threaten to take over, I had the opportunity to make bone broth. 

I also found a red lentil dal recipe with zucchini that turned out amaaaaazing and I can't wait to make it again! Even Zita approved, so that's high praise, hehe.

Yes, we are Those People who've been caring for a sourdough starter throughout the pandemic, and can I just tell you that sourdough pancakes are wonderful?! The boys declared them, "too eggy" and refuse to eat them. Dada is back on a low carb diet, so guess who reaps the rewards of yumminess!? Helloooooo elastic waistbands.

In order to combat the expanding waistline, especially as all I see when I look down is belly because m'boobs are gone, I've been doing a fair amount of indoor cycling, yoga, and, ta-da, I bought running shoes! I know, right? You're all gasping in disbelief. Well, you better sit down for real, because I've actually run four times. Two of those times were by myself! We won't talk about my time or how I plot my route so that someone will find me in case I die, but I'm proud of myself. I am definitely a fair weather runner, though, so who knows if there will be anymore 2020 runs as it is now almost 9:30 in the morning and only 31 degrees. Not happenin'.

We had about four absolutely gorgeous, back up in the 70s, days in a row. I keep lamenting, "why don't we live in a place where the temps are like this all year round?" Dada laughs at me. I can't help myself. It's just so gorgeous and splendid to be able to be outside without the multiple layers that are coming!

Well, of course, this is Ohio, thus we have a screwball day thrown in there, too. 

So we've been up to a little of this, (see Damon?)

which led to a lot of that.

Damon was cajoled into dragging many, many tarp-loads of leaves to the curb with the excuse that he could count that as phys ed minutes for the log he's supposed to be keeping. Our teachers declared that since everyone is spending so much time online, they'd prefer special classes to be outside or otherwise offline. So we've done yard work, yard work, and more yard work. I'd much rather rake leaves than shovel snow, though I know that's coming. Most of our days working out there yielded tarpfuls of crispy, crunchy, light, dry leaves, for which I was thankful. There was still complaining, but less than there would have been otherwise, for sure, by all parties involved!

School has been chugging along with the expected good and bad days. Our district has been remote from the get-go and decided to stay that way for the indefinite future. A certain someone got ahead and then "forgot" to check their to-do list for three days and unsurprisingly ended up behind, someone else has had multiple close calls with due dates for projects that hadn't been thoroughly inspected before the due date and thus causes panic on the part of the parents. I don't know why, as it's not our grades, but I think that's been so deeply ingrained by this point that there's no turning back. Another certain someone is aggravated that nearly identical projects are being assigned for both art classes though one had been described as the end-all-and-be-all of art classes and deliberate scheduling had been taken all four years to get into said class. And so it goes. As Anne of Green Gables mused in a letter to Marilla, "the sun will go on rising and setting whether or not I pass geometry," or something very, very close to that.