nobody told me there'd be days like these

i'm sick.

aislinn is fussy.

school has been closed for three days.

i've been iced in for two of those, con bebe, sans jake.

work is piling up and my clients are getting impatient.

(even though they're iced in, too.)

autumn is having a meltdown because she lost a Fancy Nancy book.

the dog just got out of the backyard and is terrorizing the neighbors as they come home.

i need a margarita and a beach.

aislinn speaks mogwai

she also does the lion's share of her eating after dark and before sunrise, and has a witching hour of 3:45 a.m. and insists that we all join her.

is she going to turn into a gremlin when she hits puberty?

cauliflower soup

i totally can't take credit for this recipe.  i stole it from thepioneerwoman.com blog, but i made it last night and it turned out well, so i thought i'd share.

1 stick of butter

1/2 onion, finely diced

1 stalk celery, finely diced

1 carrot, finely diced

2 heads cauliflower, roughly chopped

8 cups chicken broth

2 cups whole milk

6 tablespoons flour

1 cup half & half

2 tablespoons dried parsley

1 cup sour cream

salt and pepper

melt 1/2 of the stick of butter in a dutch oven.  add onions and saute until transluscent.  add carrots and celery and saute while you're chopping up the cauliflower.  add cauliflower and parsley and simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, with a lid on it.  add chicken broth and bring to a boil.  reduce heat.

once it's boiling, melt the other 1/2 of the stick of butter in a saucepan.  in a bowl, whisk together the milk and flour, and add to the melted butter.  whisk.  remove from heat.  add the half & half.  add this mixture to the soup, stirring to thicken.  simmer for 5 more minutes.

when ready to serve, add a large ladleful of soup to the sour cream, whisk to incorporate, and then pour back into the soup.  don't add the sour cream directly to the soup or you'll get chunks a la curdled egg yolks in your chocolate pie filling.

i served it with oyster crackers and dr. pepper, because that's the way i roll.  also, it was just me and jake, and jake was rushing out the door because he had a last minute ticket to the AC/DC concert.  if i had more time and/or if i was serving more people, i probably would've whipped up some faux red lobster cheddar biscuits.  they're SO EASY.  maybe i'll post that recipe next.

wherein i cleverly distract you from how long it's been since i blogged by posting pictures of my daughter

do you not just love her sock monkey pajamas?

5 months old

aislinn has an eye infection

and i have a hearing at 9:00 a.m.

someone tell me this gets easier.

the best soy latte that you ever had and me

when i was pregnant with aislinn, i got a grande decaf nonfat cinnamon dolce latte from starbucks every morning. i justified the expense because i was pregnant, and i thought i deserved it. apparently i thought i deserved a lot of things because by the time she was born i looked like a damn watermelon. actually, most of that was water, and it was august and ten trillion degrees, but i digress.

after she was born i stopped drinking them, because i wasn't working downtown anymore and the starbucks drive through was no longer en route to my office - which frankly is a blessing, because now i have to drive across the river to the 101st and riverside location, park my car, and actually walk into the building for the privilege of paying $0.29 for coffee and sugar and $4.00 for a disposable cup with a starbucks logo.  

when i worked at brewster & de angelis, several afternoons a week we would drive down to DoubleShot at 18th and boston, which interestingly is in a location that used to be an art gallery where i worked in college (thought: why didn't i stick with that? can you imagine how much lower my blood pressure would be if i still sold warhols to the wives of orthopedic surgeons for a living, instead of trying to get them alimony?). my boss always got an americano, which is insane and i would never order one because it's as black as tar and might as well be a cup full of liquid methamphetamine. i always ordered a nonfat latte, and the owner/barista (who is a terrible snob) mocked me because he didn't serve anything nonfat, so he'd make it with regular cream and just not tell me. okay, fine, whatever, i didn't drink them often enough to make a difference. i was reading his blog archives the other day, and apparently he refuses to serve decaf, too.  

really? is coffee that serious?

i really love coffee art, though. jake and i were at a hotel in dublin and he ordered an irish coffee, and the bartender made a shamrock on the top out of the foam. coolest thing ever? yes. coolest thing ever.

i feel like i can't blog unless i have a picture to post

so here's a random one from christmas:

i love reading other people's blogs. but i love them more when they post pictures. and i don't want to have a boring, text-only blog. so i feel like i need to have a picture to accompany each post.  which is probably why i'm not posting more often.  i've been too busy to spend much time in photoshop lately. so random pictures it is.  and short, choppy sentences.

aislinn is feeling better. she still has a mean cough, but she's not feverish anymore. it's so hard to watch how a little cold wracks all 12lbs of her. it's so much more traumatic to her little body. but she's weathering the storm and will be back at daycare tomorrow.

this weekend i decided that i was going to clean the house and take pictures and post them for you guys, because we've been in the house for two months and i still haven't shown you guys the Wallpaper O Horror.*  this weekend i honestly got closer than i ever have before, but clearly it wasn't close enough. i got up on saturday morning and cleaned and swept, vacuumed and dusted, and did about 5 loads of laundry. but by then it was afternoon, and autumn wanted lunch. and then there was a parachute project involving bread bags and string and old GI Joes. and then it was time to take autumn back to her mom's, and aislinn needed a nap, and then some friends came over, and they had wine, and the next thing i know it's sunday and there's a sinkful of dishes and baby toys all over the floor.

i have been unusually manic about cleaning lately. i've always been compulsively tidy, but lately it's gotten really bad. i think part of it is because i watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8" (which jake LOATHES, by the way, so i have to DVR it and watch it in secret when he's not around), but that show makes me think, "oh my god, that woman has eight children and she mops her kitchen floor three times a day? that means i am a TERRIBLE HOUSEKEEPER!" and then i find myself standing in my kitchen at 9:00 p.m. with Jon and Kate Plus 8 playing in the background, scrubbing every. last. spot. off my ceramic cooktop.

the inauguration is tomorrow. what are you guys doing? we haven't made any plans yet, but i want to do something festive. on election night we broke out a bottle of special edition bourbon:

i can't think of anything inaugurally appropriate to cook tomorrow night.  i mean, it has to involve chicken, because i think that's the only thing i have in my freezer.  except for some venison, which i am totally intimidated by and haven't thawed yet because it just looks so ... bloody.  and bambi!  but seriously the only political food i can think of is senate bean soup, and i'm not in the mood for that.  

ideas?

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*it is virtually certain that i'm going to post pictures of my wallpaper and one of my readers is going to comment, "hey! i hung that wallpaper in my house! intentionally!" and then i'm going to feel terrible and next time we see each other it's going to be awkward, so i'd just like to apologize in advance for that.