Just not enough time...

Oops...ran out of time and wasn't able to accomplish most of my goals for last week.  Funny - when I wrote them I thought they would be so easy!!  This is why I need to start following more time management blogs.

But I had a really good week anyway.  This weekend was a lot of fun.  Went to a CAbi party on Friday at Courtney's house.  Very fun!  I spent a little too much money but I'm excited about my purchases.  I think a couple of thing will be spring spring staples...if spring ever happens!  On Saturday Abigail and I drove to Ann Arbor to watch Anna's robotics competition.  I'm so glad we did it.  I had no idea what to expect but it was such a cool thing to watch.  I'm not even going to try to describe it here but I'm so happy that Anna has found such a great activity and I have a feeling it's going to help make her very successful in the years to come.  After the trip to Ann Arbor we had our parenting group birthday party at Gymboree.  This could have been fun but poor little Abigail just wasn't feeling it.  At one point she even laid down on the playmat and almost fell asleep.  We still stayed for most of the party but finally took her home.  Good thing we did - turns out she had a 103 fever.  Oops!  But nothing a good night sleep couldn't cure.

I know what you're thinking...Megan, you were active all weekend?  Well, I was supposed to be.  We were supposed to have the Heckers over for a game day but ended up cancelling because of Abigail's fever.  So we spent the rest of the day cooking, cleaning and - most importantly - relaxing.  I plan on waking up tomorrow feeling very refreshed!

This week brought some hits and misses in my culinary attempts.  On Wednesday (or maybe Thursday - can't remember) I made pork carnitas.  Pretty gutsy of me because I used pork shoulder (or pork butt) for the first time.  Super fatty but delish!!!  And I got to use my favorite kitchen item - my orange Le Creuset Dutch oven.  How can you not be happy when you've got an orange pot cooking yummy pork goodness on the stove?

In anticipation of the game day that didn't happen I attempted to make some yummy treats.  The first treat I made turned out pretty well.  I made chocolate dipped pretzel sticks with sprinkles.  It took a little while to figure out how to not drip candy coating everywhere but how can you not have something "chocolate dripped" be a little messy?  They turned out really fun and Gary LOVED them!

I also made a pesto dip.  This was from a recipe I found in a magazine somewhere.  It was just a few ingredients - yogurt, may and pesto.  It was good.  Not great.  Needed some more pesto because it didn't have enough oompf (oompf is a word, right?). 

But the pesto dip had way more oompf than the horrible blue cheese snacks I attempted.  I was so excited about these...I thought they were going to be blue cheese pillows of heaven.  But they did not turn out at all.  They didn't rise, tasted a little burnt and had very little blue cheese flavor (even though the cheese I used was pretty strong).  The frustrating part was that I couldn't figure out what I did wrong.  But not to worry...there are too many recipes out there for me to waste time on one that was a DUD!

Goal time.  Since I wan't too successful in meeting my goals last week I'm just going to reuse all the same ones for this week.  I don't want to have to write this for a third week in a row so I'm going to use this paragraph as motivation for this coming week.  Time to kick into gear!!

Best Weekend of the Year!!

The third week of March is almost always my favorite weekend of the year and this year was no exception.  It's the first weekend of March Madness!!!  I love getting all wrapped up in my brackets and sitting on the edge of my seat wondering which big teams are going to fall to unknown Cinderellas.  Usually I've got the added bonus of watching Michigan State dominate all the way to the Final Four but this year we fell to mediocre UCLA in the first round on Thursday night.  It put an end to a disappointing season for my Spartans.  But the important thing is that our streak of Final Four appearances (14 straight) is still in tact!!  So although I didn't have as much of a vested interest in this year's tourney I could still enjoy watching all the drama that is inevitable in this crazy game.

The other great thing about the third week of March is that it marks the beginning of spring.  And wow, I need spring this year!  This was the hardest winter that I can remember.  If I never see my snow boots again I will be perfectly happy!!  This weekend was gorgeous - still a little cooler than I'd like but the sun was shining so brightly.  On Saturday morning, Gary, Abigail and I went down to Eastern Market to celebrate that sunshine.  I have to be honest - I only remember going to Eastern Market once in my life (and even then I just remember the wine store).  It's such a great place to spend a Saturday morning.  And it's exactly what we wanted to do when we moved home...support all the wonderful things going on in the city of Detroit.  We will definitely be spending a lot more time there!!

So besides hours and hours of basketball, the start of spring and exploring a new favorite destination, we were also able to spend a really relaxing weekend at home.  We cleaned the house (although not as much as we needed to - do we ever?) and I tried to cook up some treats.  Now, Gary will say otherwise (he has to, it's a husband rule) but I'm not really the best cook or baker out there.  In fact, I don't really think I'm very good at all.  But I love trying!  We bought catfish at the market and some fun fish fry mix as well as Gary's absolute favorite spring treat....asparagus (thought I was going to say Peeps?).  The catfish was a little soggy but not too bad and the asparagus was good but I should really start trying to perfect the recipe (roast with olive oil, salt and a splash of white balsamic).

Since Peeps weren't on the menu I decided to practice making cake pops so that we'd have a sweet treat.  I've made cake pops before - 4 of them.  It was around Abigail's birthday and I had extra cake so I thought I'd whip some up.  They tasted great but the size was a problem - they were softball sized.  And the decorating was harder than I thought.  So I read up on some tips for Round 2.  This time didn't go much better.  I don't know if I used too much or too little frosting but the balls wouldn't hold together.  And the decorating is still hard!!!  The balls were bumpy and lumpy and the candy shell wasn't very smooth.  But I guess that's what sprinkles are for.  And who cares?  They tasted great!!

The weekend went by way too quickly as always but we tried to jam in as much family time, relaxation and fun activities as we could.  I had lots to be grateful for as I fell asleep to a rainstorm last night (my favorite sign of spring).

Now that it's Monday though I want to start the week out right and get some weekly goals out of my head and into cyberspace.  Maybe that will help me actually accomplish some of them?  (I'm not sure I would place money on that).

Weekly Goals

1) Download and organize the hundreds of photos that have been on my camera for months.
2) Figure out how to add some of those cute Abigail photos to this blog (and possibly one or two of Gary & me).
3) Mop the kitchen floor...are there people out there who do this every week???
4) Finish up the household paperwork that I need to do.
5) Do some personal work that I need to do.  Can't tell what it is now (everyone's got to have their secrets) but hopefully doing this work will bring good things to my life.  For all of you out there reading this, please say a little prayer for me on this one.  Oh wait...nobody knows this blog exists so there probably won't be too many prayers coming my way.  Guess I better get to work and make it happen myself!

Peek-a-boo

I've got a new favorite thing that Abigail does.  This weekend she started playing peek-a-boo...but she's the one who covers her eyes.  It is the cutest thing ever.  She spreads her hands out, slaps herself in the face, makes sure you're watching and then lifts her hands up so you can say "peek-a-boo!"  She's not really hiding her face.  In fact you can see most of her face the entire time.  But I love that she's learned to make this little game her own.  You can just see her fill with pride.  You can probably see me fill with pride at the same time!  Peek-a-boo has never been so much fun!

Silence...

Some days are longer than others.  When we lived in NYC I used to work from home all the time.  I work best when I'm in my pajamas (yes, I know anyone who gives advice about working from home says to get dressed every day but it's just not me).  I was very productive sitting on the couch listening to the classic NYC combination of sirens and screaming.  Even when I was in the office I was surrounded by noise (one colleague in particular could be heard gossiping and giggling throughout the building). 

But now I work from home EVERYday.  I am amazed at how quiet it gets.  The mean streets of Birmingham, Michigan don't really get as noisy as W. 77th Street & Columbus Avenue.  I wish I could say that things get better when I pick Abigail up from daycare but she's not quite the conversationalist yet.  I guess I should be patient.  She is only a year old and the extent of her vocabulary is "doggy" and "all done."  By the time Gary gets home I'm dying for adult conversation but my mood has also soured because I've gone so long without it. 

I'm not really complaining...I love that I get to work from home everyday.  Just need to figure out how to add a little happy noise to my day-to-day!