What Denise is doing this week

So, "What Denise is reading" kinda went out the window when we moved. Not that I haven't been reading... you guys get it, don't you? Anyway, I'm not reading anything new this week, but I am working on a couple projects, so I thought I'd put those here instead. 1. This. I am SOOOO sick of not being able to find dresses that fit someone who's 5'10" and in reasonably good shape. So I'm gonna learn to make 'em, dang it. 2. House re-org. I love our house, but it doesn't work quite the way I want it to yet. 3. We tore out all the old landscaping-- it was old and overgrown and a lot of it was mostly dead. So new things are going in. Blueberries go in tomorrow, I'll start hardening off the heuchera, hostas go in as soon as it stops dumping rain at every opportunity. The rest will wait for Uncle Kevin's birthday so I can beg advice :) 4. Calorie counting. I HATE calorie counting. But if I don't... well, I don't want to go back there. And I want to be strong. SO-- no more two packs of pop-tarts for me:)

Ugh

I have a sinus infection and two ear infections. That is all. OH, except that James is on his way to get me Golden Noodles from the Thai place down the street. AND orange soda. How awesome is he? Really really awesome:)

A combination of "Huh. Who knew?" and procrastinaton

So, I'm doing a cake-baking booth for a Relief Society activity on Saturday (that's tomorrow). I had all these grand plans about how I would prepare gradually over the week, so I didn't have to crunch it all on Friday. Well, all of you who know me can probably predict about how well that turned out (although I did get all the buttercreams made ahead). Today I've made Vanilla Bean Financiers, Golden Financiers, and Lemon Poppy Seed Cake, PLUS I've taken the kids for a good walk, kept up on the dishes, and dinner is in the oven. Who knew I could pull off that much in a day? (Hint: Not me.) On the other hand-- I'm never procrastinating this much baking down to one day ahead again. Not ever. I've been standing in front of my stand mixer and scale all day! It does smell GOOD though...

What's for dinner?

Djej Emshmel. With apricots, extra garlic, and chickpeas. And rainbow couscous. Oh yeah!

As an after-thought, why is it, Google, that if I search for an image of Djej Emshmel, this is one of the top results?

P.S. Take that, SOPA!

If there's anything I'm NOT going to do tonight...

it's going to be obsessing over the South Carolina Primary. No sirree Bob.

Oh my...

I watched part of the Republican debate last night (the one in South Carolina). I didn't get to see all of it-- it was approaching the dudes' bed time, and we all sit down together and watch a show then. Anyway, I asked Will this morning if he had watched any of it (mostly he was horse-playing with Ethan). He said he did see a little, and then he said "And I learned something. I learned that America is almost destroyed." Ah, politicians.

Well then.

We have survived the craziness that is buying a house right before the holidays kick off. Should you have the option and are on the fence about doing so, I do not recommend it. BUT-- I love my house. :) SO. Regular reading, living, and blogging shall now recommence. Starting with reading the returns from the Iowa caucuses. And should you need another reason to start poking around here, things like this will start popping up more often too: