Friday Fave Five

Finally, I'm at a computer on a Friday!  w00t!

I won't even try to cover how great the honeymoon was (Aruba), and I'm sure we're all sick of hearing about the wedding so I won't go there either.  But that doesn't leave me without stuff worth celebrating!

1. Kini

 She's been so quiet this week, after spending the last couple with her friend, Ike.  It's like she keeps looking for him but can't find him and gets sad...but her tail still wags on.  :-)  Here, she was chilling out with me last night while I worked on the complicated quilt, and something about my foot got her very interested.  She sat like that for a good few minutes.  Also, can you believe that this used to be her??

She's 58 lbs as of last weekend, and still growing.  Our little monster.

2. Reminders of a nerdy past. 

I needed some extra moving space for the complicated quilt last night, so I unearthed some textbooks for area.  I miss math.  I miss having daily access to Matlab.  Anyone out there need free (assuming you'll provide fun software) labor on a math modeling project?  Have brain, will crunch numbers and make graphics.

3. Rainy Days

Rainy days like the one we had Wednesday are the reason why soul food was invented.  My college roommate would beg to differ, but I think coming home to the smell of cooking red beans is the best thing in the world.  Fortunately for me, I married a man who agrees with me.  :-) Bonus happiness is the autumn beer on the right.  Yummmmm.

4. Kitchen gadgets

Even better about making red beans this week was the need to finally unearth my rice cooker. We've been living off of minute rice for months, and that just wasn't going to fly this week. Finally, we had real rice. w00t!

5. Small victories.


This week, I started a new goal with my cooking blog. To that end, I've been reworking the blog, including making my very first button (see above)!  I've also done a lot of research (the tip of the iceberg I'm sure) into different cultures and their culinary contributions to the world, and I'm SUPER excited to actually challenge myself to cook this stuff!  It's going to be a comfort-zone-pushing year, since I'm sure I'm going to need to go to (gasp!) ethnic markets, which have, for as long as I can remember, intimidated the heck out of me.  Even butcher shops make me nervous.  This year is the year to conquer that, and I can't wait! If you're from someplace on the list, please please please share some family recipes with me!  I'm looking for authenticity, which doesn't always come directly from the world wide webs.  

So that's been my week.  Tomorrow we get to go retrieve the generosity of others from MOTU's best man's house...then next week I get to write thank you notes!  (Seriously, I actually like writing them...I love getting them, so writing them is fun. I'm also thinking of including fun pictures in them, so we'll see.)  Anyway, hope everyone has a lovely weekend!