Flu season is so upon us....

My delay in posting this week was due to my husband's coming down with the flu, shortly followed by my own struggle against the nasty virus. I thought about just quarantining him and telling him that he was on his own, but being the good wife that I am, I was there for him, and then when I inevitably got it myself, he was there for me :).

Friends of ours (the Andersons - I babysit their daughter everyday) got it before we did and shared it with us, which actually turned out to be a good thing, because Michelle was sick at the same time that I was, meaning that they didn't need me to babysit when I was unable to. We're all feeling much better now.

Bran got it on Wednesday and was wiped until late that night. I got it at 3am on Thursday, and was on the couch unable to move except to puke into the bucket we had next to the couch until about midnight Thursday. It was a long day.

I'm so thankful that we got sick now, and not next week, because I'll be in Seattle! We leave Monday (the 24) morning, and check into our hotel at 4ish. I got us an awesome deal at a Best Western right downtown because of being a Best Western employee. So for $40 a piece we get a 2 night stay (it's $60 a night, and there will be 3 of us - Jen, Rachel, and myself). I'm so excited about the trip, as I have never been to Seattle, and because Domino Magazine just did a spread about some of the best places to shop and eat.

On Monday night, one of Rachel's friends (whom Jen and I don't know) is having a party, and so while Rachel parties it up, we're going to go out on the town for a fancy "just us sisters" dinner at a place called Canlis. It looks like the food will be amazing, and the Restaurant is beautiful. As for the rest of the trip, there will most definitely be lots of shopping and sight-seeing. I'll be sure to post pictures!

Chesterton on Women

Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school-mistress, but not a competitive school-mistress; a house decorator, but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman’s professions, unlike the child’s, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful.

- G.K. Chesterton, from What's Wrong with the World.

Ashley's Recent Cooking Adventures

One of the "Marriage Requirements" my parents have for Jen and I is that we must be able to cook 20 meals before getting married. Being the guinea pig as far as the whole marriage thing goes, I was still burning microwaveable mac and cheese when Bran and I tied the knot. I baked a lot when I was little, and could read a recipe, but had little experience with actual cooking. I have since then taken it upon myself to cook from scratch whenever possible (which isn't very often right now, since I work until about 9pm three or four nights a week). On the nights when I don't have work, however, I spend hours in the kitchen.

My sister had a wonderful idea that has since helped me in my cooking endeavor. She knows that I love to collect and organize things, and so she suggested that I cut out any recipes that look good from my many cooking magazines (everything from Real Simple to Taste of Home and Bon appétit). My plan is to eventually make a sort of recipe scrapbook with recipes that I have made and ones I want to make, along with what Bran and I thought of them, and whether I want to make them again. Thus far, I have made several different kinds of pasta dishes (lasagne, homemade macaroni, etc.), lots of chicken dishes, salmon, steak, garlic mashed potatos, etc., and even more deserts (pumpkin pie, pumpkin cupcakes, cake, cookies, custard pie, and my absolute favorite, along with everyone else's, molten lava cakes).


Having my brother-in-law/culinary afficinado live with me has been a tremendous blessing in my own cooking adventure, as he often likes to comment on my uninformed cooking style. His advice is sometimes a little too late ("yeah I would have added the milk much slower and wisked while doing so, which would have prevented such and such and so and so"), but when it is given at the right time, I find it incredibly helpful.

I have once again neglected to upload the photos I wanted to post, but promies to make some grand efforts to do so either today or tomorrow.