(no subject)

Rob Brezsney's Free Will Astrology is often spookily on-track for me.

Week of February 14, 2002

Happy Valentine's Day, Libra! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how you always manage to drum up a "delirium of solutions" (in William Carlos Williams' phrase), and how many of them are elegant. I am delighted you're developing an ever-more-finely honed knack for knowing precisely when and how to give your abundant gifts, and I'm also excited by your growing sense of when to cut back on your giving so as not to overdo it. I'm almost out of room here, but I want to add that I love how you're no longer trying to get fixed by influences that can't fix you, and how you're learning to recognize the magic that really can heal.

Yeah, I know... it really is what I read into it and they often make good meditations for me on what I really want to be doing with myself.

It's a nice Friday. I've gotten way too much work done this week, so I'm taking the afternoon off to play with Jet, maybe go out in the snow with him and futz about. John has a nasty, gnarly, hardish deadline this afternoon, so I'll get to play with my little boy and distract him like crazy.

He's a little boy! He's really not a baby, so much, anymore. Mobility, finding things that interest him, more control of his body, vocalizations that are getting to be far more word-like, and communicating a slew of things through pointing, yelling, and expression. All those degrees of independence are now his. Joan, yesterday, handed him a pen, and he scribbled all over the Valentine's Day card Joan made for him to give to us! He scribbles and he didn't get scribbles all over himself!! Amazing.

I also handed him a spoon and a mostly empty jar of food, yesterday afternoon, and he even put the bowl of the spoon in his mouth occasionally! I think I'm going to have to try it when he's more hungry rather than less hungry the next time. He, amazingly, didn't get it everywhere.

He helps put his clothes on by sticking his arms out at, usually the right time.

He helps get saline solution up his nose with the spray bottle. It's so funny watching him squint his eyes and present his nose. I think his poor nose is always so dry that the spray helps so much that he remembers, and he helps. I would not have thought it.

He's probably capable of so much more than we're 'letting' him do at the moment, sometimes I think I'm 'holding him back', but he has so much fun playing and trying stuff and doing things himself that it doesn't really matter in the longer run of things.

(no subject)

Rob Brezsney's Free Will Astrology is often spookily on-track for me.

Week of February 14, 2002

Happy Valentine's Day, Libra! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how you always manage to drum up a "delirium of solutions" (in William Carlos Williams' phrase), and how many of them are elegant. I am delighted you're developing an ever-more-finely honed knack for knowing precisely when and how to give your abundant gifts, and I'm also excited by your growing sense of when to cut back on your giving so as not to overdo it. I'm almost out of room here, but I want to add that I love how you're no longer trying to get fixed by influences that can't fix you, and how you're learning to recognize the magic that really can heal.

Yeah, I know... it really is what I read into it and they often make good meditations for me on what I really want to be doing with myself.

It's a nice Friday. I've gotten way too much work done this week, so I'm taking the afternoon off to play with Jet, maybe go out in the snow with him and futz about. John has a nasty, gnarly, hardish deadline this afternoon, so I'll get to play with my little boy and distract him like crazy.

He's a little boy! He's really not a baby, so much, anymore. Mobility, finding things that interest him, more control of his body, vocalizations that are getting to be far more word-like, and communicating a slew of things through pointing, yelling, and expression. All those degrees of independence are now his. Joan, yesterday, handed him a pen, and he scribbled all over the Valentine's Day card Joan made for him to give to us! He scribbles and he didn't get scribbles all over himself!! Amazing.

I also handed him a spoon and a mostly empty jar of food, yesterday afternoon, and he even put the bowl of the spoon in his mouth occasionally! I think I'm going to have to try it when he's more hungry rather than less hungry the next time. He, amazingly, didn't get it everywhere.

He helps put his clothes on by sticking his arms out at, usually the right time.

He helps get saline solution up his nose with the spray bottle. It's so funny watching him squint his eyes and present his nose. I think his poor nose is always so dry that the spray helps so much that he remembers, and he helps. I would not have thought it.

He's probably capable of so much more than we're 'letting' him do at the moment, sometimes I think I'm 'holding him back', but he has so much fun playing and trying stuff and doing things himself that it doesn't really matter in the longer run of things.

(no subject)

Yay for the IOC! Actually getting it figured out, fixed, and out of the way makes it possible for everyone to concentrate on the other events, much more nicely. I'm glad they actually got it resolved so quickly, relative, it seems, to what they usually do.

Yay!

(no subject)

Yay for the IOC! Actually getting it figured out, fixed, and out of the way makes it possible for everyone to concentrate on the other events, much more nicely. I'm glad they actually got it resolved so quickly, relative, it seems, to what they usually do.

Yay!

Valentine's Day Dinner

Since we decided to stay home (it was snowing and we hadn't had anything else planned), I made Good Dinner.

I defrosted some filet mignons, whipped potatoes, and cut up a cauliflower to use in a cauliflower gratin.

Normally, I do not think of cauliflower as an especially delicious sort of vegetable. I usually reserve that for off-the-vine tomatoes, fresh artichokes, or pulled off the stalk sweet corn. Cauliflower is kind of blah, usually. But Cooks Illustrated had a tempting recipe for cauliflower gratin, where you boil the flowerets briefly and gently (it also helps to get rid of the sulfur content, so no stinky vegetables here!) and then toss it with a nice roux-based cheese sauce with lots of nice minced shallots and garlic, a kiss of cayenne and then blanket it all with fresh bread crumbs with butter and seasonings. Then bake until bubbling, hot, and crisp on top.

It was a very nice compliment to the pan seared steaks and their garlic and dry Marsala sauce. There was just a bare tablespoon of the reduced Marsala, chicken broth and garlic quick cooked in the still-hot pan after the steaks had been gently removed. That sauce was so intense it did for the mashed potatoes as well as the steaks. Yay! Jet loved the cauliflower and bits of steak. He turned his nose up at the mashed with garlic, though. I actually think it had more to do with the texture than the taste.

Dessert was the last of the lime cheesecake and Jet got enough of a sample that he decided he liked cheesecake and acted like a little hungry bird looking for more hand-outs of the cheesecake. Hee.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Since we decided to stay home (it was snowing and we hadn't had anything else planned), I made Good Dinner.

I defrosted some filet mignons, whipped potatoes, and cut up a cauliflower to use in a cauliflower gratin.

Normally, I do not think of cauliflower as an especially delicious sort of vegetable. I usually reserve that for off-the-vine tomatoes, fresh artichokes, or pulled off the stalk sweet corn. Cauliflower is kind of blah, usually. But Cooks Illustrated had a tempting recipe for cauliflower gratin, where you boil the flowerets briefly and gently (it also helps to get rid of the sulfur content, so no stinky vegetables here!) and then toss it with a nice roux-based cheese sauce with lots of nice minced shallots and garlic, a kiss of cayenne and then blanket it all with fresh bread crumbs with butter and seasonings. Then bake until bubbling, hot, and crisp on top.

It was a very nice compliment to the pan seared steaks and their garlic and dry Marsala sauce. There was just a bare tablespoon of the reduced Marsala, chicken broth and garlic quick cooked in the still-hot pan after the steaks had been gently removed. That sauce was so intense it did for the mashed potatoes as well as the steaks. Yay! Jet loved the cauliflower and bits of steak. He turned his nose up at the mashed with garlic, though. I actually think it had more to do with the texture than the taste.

Dessert was the last of the lime cheesecake and Jet got enough of a sample that he decided he liked cheesecake and acted like a little hungry bird looking for more hand-outs of the cheesecake. Hee.