The husband is out of town right now. That means that the girls are in danger of having some small part of their lives go undocumented. I would hate for them to be the only ones in their graduating class not to have every single event, no matter how insignificant, be fully recorded for posterity so…
The Cupcakes have been agitating to decorate for Valentine’s Day for weeks now. I managed to hold them off for the entire month of January, but today I gave in. This afternoon the girls and I made a quick run to the craft store for supplies. Thirty plus dollars later we emerged with a low-temp glue gun, construction paper, foam hearts and enough glittery stickers to cover at least one of the dogs. Let the madness begin:
In unrelated knitting news Wisteria is nearly complete. Hooray! I didn’t make my self-imposed deadline, but it will be done in time for Madrona.
OK, I’d better go before the girls start decorating each other.
Well, it’s what was for dinner earlier this week. Mr. zella was down with a cold earlier this week. Luckily for him homemade chicken soup was on the menu. I’m still on a huge Mother’s Best kick right now, so I tried Lisa’s recipe for her mother’s homemade chicken soup.
I started out by simmering the broth for about 3 1/2 hours. There are two whole chickens, one onion, three or four carrots, four stalks of celery, four parsnips and a bunch of Italian parsley in the pot along with about 8 quarts of water. This recipe makes a lot of soup.
Nearly half a day later I strained out the very mushy vegetables, shredded the chicken and added it back to the broth along with some minced carrots and celery, cooked egg noodles and good dose of salt and pepper.
The soup seems to have done its job. Mr. zella is fully recovered and is accompanying the girls at a princess-themed birthday party at this very moment. He drew birthday party duty because I am on the couch with a mug of tea and the beginnings of a nasty cold.
Maybe it’s time to make more soup.
I’m slacking off for a few minutes. I’m hiding from my to-do list and averting my eyes from the laundry pile. Instead of being industrious I decided to take a few minutes to post another picture of Wisteria.
click for larger image
Wisteria has been growing, growing, growing, as my five-year-olds would say. I just wish that it would grow a bit more quickly. I would really like to have it done by a week from today, and based on my current rate of production that doesn’t look likely.
