Saucy

I wanted to have the thank you note in my in-laws' hands before I posted this picture, but since their note is still sitting on my desk waiting to be mailed, I guess that's not going to happen.

This is one of three (three!!) awesome, awesome cookbooks they sent me for Christmas. This one is 612 pages and in addition to giving a brief history of sauce making (ancient Greeks used fermented fish guts - blech), includes the hows and whys and what-with's of basically every kind of classic and modern sauce-making concoction you can think of! I'm so excited I don't even care that I ended that sentence with a preposition!

Anyway, I'm anxious to start my self-appointed lesson plan. The first class is on... lemme see here... [flipping pages] - ah, Liaisons! Oooh, sounds so illicit, doesn't it? Leave it to the French to make "thickening agent" sound dirty.

Okay, I'm off to liaison with something butter based. See you after my heart attack!

Gift from a wise man.

Weeks ago, a box came from down range with myriad little funny-pages wrapped gifts for Ro and me. I couldn't even imagine what they'd be, so I didn't try. Thus, I was surprised and elated to find this had my name on it!

I won't lie, yesterday was rough. It's not the first Christmas I've solo'd as a parent, but certainly the first where there felt like something was missing. It wasn't devastating, tho, and Ro kept the holiday cheer going with a sunny disposition, even tho the weather was dreary in the extreme. Skype helped us out a bit, too, allowing a brief video call that morning where we opened gifts as a family (how COOL is the 21st century, right?!) and another convo later in the evening with a better connection.

I found some liquid cheer about 10 ounces into a wine bottle, which was helpful not only in the evening, but later that night as I fell asleep with a smile on my face. Everything looks a little brighter this morning. Of course, that's probably the light reflecting off of the 6 inches of snow dumped on us yesterday, but whatever - I'll take it!

Happy early birthday to me!

Thanks, Mom!

Not my fault!

Interwebz having fits, tried to log on but couldn't for a long time! Here's day 12...

Yay! The Tuscany photobook came in the mail! And it looks HAAAAWE-some. It looked awesome on Snapfish when I was putting it together, but I was prepared for a noticeable difference - a certain anti-WYSIWYG, if you will.

That's part of what took the book so long. First, I had edit the picts, then I had to format the book to my satisfaction. Then I had to walk away from it for 30 days so I could preview it with relatively fresh eyes. Then I had wait for the prints to get here so I could make sure the site printed in a quality that wasn't complete crap. (It's very inexpensive, so you can understand my hesitation.)

Aside from the fact that my prints took a long time to ship, I was pleasantly surprised that the quality was very good, even going so far as to crop my edited pictures appropriately, instead of trying to force it onto a single size for their convenience. So I ordered the book, and voilá! Hardbound memories, made to order.