BEFORE
Well, I reckon it's official. I am now a Soccer Mom. Today, we took Daphne to the sporting goods store at the mall to get outfitted for her upcoming soccer season. The league sent out coupons good for today only, and half of Loudoun County was there, crammed into the small shin-guard aisle, some with their strollers. Needless to say, I was a little stressed. But, we got what we needed, and Daphne wore her new gear all the way home. Then, she practiced outside in the yard with Coach Kevin (aka "Daddy," but not on the field). She once again refused to smile for a photo...I guess soccer players are supposed to look tough.
Although Dallas apparently just got two inches of snow, Spring has arrived in the mid-Atlantic in full force. It has been beautiful the last few days. Yesterday, Daphne finally got to play with the Moonsand she got for Christmas. I had been warned to keep this stuff outside. Thank goodness. What a mess! But she had fun with it, so that's good.
After a relatively normal Tuesday, things have kicked back into high gear. This photo is from Wednesday afternoon, when Daphne and some of her preschool friends took over the cul de sac with all manner of riding toys. It was a beautiful day, and I think all the kids and mommies had a good time. I was hoping Daphne would actually play WITH her friends, but she kept to herself most of the time, and dug in the dirt or attempted to mooch snacks off the other moms. I seriously don't know what to do about that. She constantly asks people for their food! Look at that picture! The kids are probably all sitting away from her because they're afraid she'll swipe their snacks! Anyway, it was a nice afternoon, and it resulted in a 2 1/2 hour nap for Daphne.
Last night, I made this Garlic and Goat Cheese Gratin and it is my new favorite side dish. Of course, how could you go wrong with goat cheese and garlic? I pretty much stuck to the recipe, but I only had 4 oz of goat cheese, so I reduced the milk and cream a little and baked it in an 8 x 8. Also, after reading the reviews on Epicurious, I added more garlic. I used two russet potatoes because Wegman's didn't have any Yukon Golds (!?), and I baked it for about an hour and a half (I covered it with foil at about 1 hr 15 min so the top wouldn't burn). I suppose if you don't like goat cheese, you could use cheddar or something else. But it wouldn't be the same.
When WE ask Daphne to smile and pose for a nice picture, we get this (above), or this (below),
Or this:
Here is a quick video from yesterday's ballet recital. The teacher turned off the lights and let the girls go crazy with some ribbons.
Daphne and I enjoyed the Cinderella play on Saturday night. She wore a fancy skirt and her ruby slippers. We were met there by some friends from preschool who were all decked out in Cinderella princess dresses. I wish I could post a picture, but probably shouldn't for privacy. But trust me, they were really cute. The play was interesting because it was performed by a cast made up of people with various disabilities, such as Down Syndrome and cerebral palsy and so forth. It wasn't the best acting I've ever seen, but the actors were really giving it their all and having a blast, and Daphne didn't even notice that they were at all different. 
This morning, Daphne's ballet class had its "recital." The parents were invited in to watch the last 30 minutes of class and see what they've learned over the past few weeks. It was about the cutest dang thing I've ever seen. Daphne did really well, except for being obsessed with her untied ballet slipper the whole time. Kev was able to go, and so were my mom and dad, and I think Daphne really enjoyed having a big audience. 
Hello there. Long time, no blog. I am writing to you from the calm between the storms. It has been non-stop action around here, and it's about to start again. But today, at least for the next couple of hours, I am stopping down for some blogging and American Idol DVR catch-up and general quiet time. Ah.
Here we are headed to First Friday, where we saw Irish Dancers (Daphne was fascinated), Maddy Curtis (a great local singer who should have but didn't get through Hollywood week on American Idol), and a Celtic band complete with a piper. I LOVE BAGPIPES!
Here is Hunter. He is a good dog. Except when he gets on the couch without permission (thanks, Kim.) Daphne took this picture, and the self-portrait below, which has nothing to do with anything...I just like it.
I just love that little face.
So, that's where I've been. Sorry, Mary, if you were worried about me! And don't worry if it's a while before I'm back again, as things are about to get crazy. Here is what happens the next several days:In the middle of all that, there is bread to be baked, dinner to be cooked, 90th birthday parties to plan, a Peanut to care for, and the TIME CHANGE. How I hate the time change. Ben Franklin's worst idea.
So, it's mostly all good fun stuff, but I am tired just thinking about it. Some people I know are all about action. I am not so much. I am dreaming of one of those vacations Kev and I used to take where there was a whole lot of doing nothing but maybe canoeing around a lake, playing some dominoes, and cooking up a pot of corn chowder. Someday...
I'll be back when I can!
PS. There are some really good girls on AI this season, plus Andrew Garcia. It's about to finally start getting interesting...
Thirty seconds and a schmear of butter later, this slice was gone.
I am making good progress on my latest knitting project. It is going to be a cowl/neckwarmer thing from this pattern. I have never worn such a thing, so we'll see. It's possible it will drive me crazy to have something like this around my neck, but I reckon if it's cold enough, I won't care.I don't know if I'll get it all done, but I'm gonna try.
Last night, we had pancakes for dinner, inspired by this episode of Tyler's Ultimate. I don't like ricotta cheese, so I just used my Kerbey Lane pancake mix, but I tried a new trick: I whipped the egg whites separately to stiff peaks and gently incorporated them into the rest of the batter. This made the pancakes REALLY fluffy. I made the proscuitto just like the recipe, and to the apples, I added some cinnamon and brown sugar. They were good, but next time, I will probably cut them up smaller so they get a little mushier. As I had hoped, this "breakfast for dinner" was well-received by a certain little Peanut, who said, "This is the life of my dreams!" as she ate. Yeah. Any life featuring maple syrup is the life of this kid's dreams.
I woke up in the middle of the night to the delightful smell of a neighborhood skunk who had recently been startled by something. It was HORRIBLE. I can still sort of smell it when I go into the living room. For a while, I was worried it had attached itself to me, but none of the other preschool mommies seemed to try to get away from me today, so I think I'm all clear. I'll never forget the time Albert the dog got skunked and it attached itself to my mom. I arrived at her house, and she greeted me with a distraught "Smell my head!"
OK. Time to get going on the rest of my list. Try the pancake trick, though! You'll have the life of your dreams!
This loaf of cheddar bread was the best thing about our weekend. It was a rough one. There were many tears and battles and time-outs. Now, I'm just ready to forget about it and move on. But the bread was really good. You MUST get the book and make some! Your family will thank you.
Things are going better today. Daphne got fancy this morning and twirled around the house in anticipation of ballet class.
On the third try, I got my new project going. 
Look! A patch of grass in my yard!
We still have all THIS to contend with, but it's no match for the sun.
Go Sun!
My house is clean upstairs.
Most of my house is clean downstairs.
Daphne is sleeping, so now I can watch last night's Project Runway.
If my pan sauce turns out OK tonight, I reckon I might actually be getting my groove back.
So, Kev's sister sent me this recipe recently for Beer and Cheese soup. It happens to be a Rachael Ray recipe, and she knows how I feel about Rachael Ray, but sent it anyway. This told me she must have a LOT of confidence in this recipe, so last night, I made it. And it was GOOD. The perfect thing for a cold and windy winter evening. I stuck to the recipe with three exceptions: I used about half an onion instead of leeks, I used some Worcestershire sauce instead of Kryptonite (uh, I mean mustard), and I added some minced garlic with the vegetables, because that's what I do. I used Trader Joe's Vienna Lager for the beer, and I made some croutons to go with it. Very tasty. I think next time, I will probably make some bacon bits to go on top too. Please tilt your head to the right to see the picture as it's meant to be. (I don't know why Blogger sometimes rotates my photos the wrong way. Frustrating.) Anyway, even with the carrots and tons of calcium, there is no way to spin this and try to make it seem at ALL healthy. It's pretty bad for you. But one bowl won't kill you, so give it a try. Like I said, you can't go wrong with cheese. Tonight, we're having a salad.
My mom finished the picnic quilt she was making for me. I love it. All the fabrics are really cute. Now, if only we could actually have a picnic. Snow, snow, go away. In Texas, snow is almost magical every time it happens. It's special because it's rare. Here, it's really only magical the first time. Then, it's just a pain. At least this year it is. Everything is covered in it, and most of it is now a very ugly dirty brownish color. I did see a little patch of grass near Daphne's school this morning. It was brown too, but it was grass. Spring cannot come soon enough for me.
Today, Daphne's class finally had their Valentine party. It was a little disorganized, but fun. The kids performed as usual, which is my favorite thing. Tonight, I'm joining another mom from Daphne's class at a crochet group. She said I could come and knit. I'm looking forward to the night out. Yesterday, I started a new knitting project, but messed it up twice. This wasted a couple hours of my day and put me in a really bad mood, and now I'm debating whether I should start it over a third time. I need to start SOMEthing or I won't have anything to work on at the group. Now, though, I am going to take a brain break and watch last night's American Idol. If they kick off the cool Mexican guy who sang the Paula Abdul song during Hollywood week, I'm gonna be MAD. I heard they might put Howard Stern on there when Simon leaves. If that happens, I'll never watch it again. 
Daphne is finally going back to school today. As soon as I drop her off, I am coming back home, turning on some loud adult music and tidying up a little. Then I'm turning OFF the loud adult music and sitting here in my chair in the quiet with some chai, some yarn, a fire and my Valentine flower from Kev until it's time to go back to get her. Serenity now!
These days, I have to stop and think a minute to figure out what day it is. It feels like we are in some sort of weird time warp. Daphne hasn't been in school forever, and Kevin has been working from home. The routine we had going has been completely thrown out of whack, which isn't good for people like me. I need a certain amount of predictibility in order to function properly.
Over the weekend, I mixed up more dough and made two loaves of cheddar bread (can you believe I didn't take pictures?!), which was really good, although I think I prefer the plain loaves I made last week. Pumpernickle is coming soon, but it requires special ingredients that I don't have on hand. I also made some chocolate chip cookies and finished my dad's very late birthday scarf:
The sun is out and the snow is melting. I can see the pavement on the street out front. Still, Kev just spent the last two hours shoveling us out of the driveway (again) because we were blocked by drifts and snow from the plow. He didn't look so good when he came in. 
Now, I can move on to another recipe from the book. I'm leaning toward pumpernickle if I can get to the store in the next couple of days. Shouldn't be a problem the way things are going. We may even be able to go to yoga tomorrow. Hallelujah!
I almost forgot to tell you I got this picture of Tula's chicks a couple weeks ago. Looks like they're doing well. I could use a nice coat like theirs right about now!
First of all, I can't believe I have resorted to using an REO Speedwagon song to title this post. I'm sorry. These are desperate times, I guess. Second of all, I took a picture of my breakfast this morning. Another sign of Blizzard Fatigue Syndrome. My new favorite breakfast, above, is Stonyfield Organic Fat Free Yogurt ("Chocolate Underground") with Trader Joe's Vanilla Almond Granola and dried cranberries, also from Trader Joe's. I apologize that this is about the most interesting thing I have to report this afternoon. But it tastes really good if you want to try it.It is still snowing a little, and the wind is still blowing, but not quite as hard as it was this morning. Cabin Fever has hit. I want to go to the mall. Or the coffee shop. Or ANYwhere. I want to see grass. Or anything that isn't white. Daphne is asleep at the moment, but she is going a little House Crazy too. She wants us to call her Mowgli (from the Jungle Book), and she refuses to play by herself. I have another loaf of bread resting and waiting to be baked, and I have about three inches to go on my dad's scarf. The mailman didn't come today. The plow is coming down the cul de sac but seems to be fighting a losing battle. There is nowhere to put any more snow.
Yesterday was better. Before the storm started, Daphne and I went to a friend's house for brunch and a play-date. It was really nice to get out of the house and visit with a couple other mom's from Daphne's school. Daphne had a great time, and I did as well. The food and company were both good, and I scored a new recipe for possibly the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. The roads were terrible, though, and now they will be worse. I think it will be a while before things seem normal. I am counting the days until spring.
We're trying to make the best of it, though. It could be SO much worse, so I shouldn't complain. My family is all home and safe, and we haven't had any power outages. We have plenty of food to get us through the next few days, and we have good neighbors who look out for each other at times like this. My favorite part of the blizzard is the quiet. It is usually so noisy on our street, but it has been so peaceful (except for this wind) during the past few days. I think I will make some chai and knit a little and enjoy the silence for a while. I hope you are all safe and warm wherever you are.
So, this is what it looked like out my back door on Saturday morning. The official Leesburg totals I heard ranged from 32.5"- 34" but there were drifts even higher. Friday morning, Daphne and I took one last walk to get craft supplies and last minute grocery items. When we left Safeway, the snow was just starting to fall, and it didn't stop until about 6:00 Saturday. My parents got about the same amount of snow, but they unfortunately lost power for several hours. Luckily, they got their fireplace going, and power was back on by the time they went to bed.
We were housebound all weekend, but we kept very busy. Kev did a lot of shoveling. I helped a little and it was not fun. The snow was very heavy this time.
Daphne tried to play in the snow, but it was really too deep to be much fun. She enjoyed eating this icicle, though. She's standing on our sidewalk out front in the picture...you can see Kev's awesome shoveling work. Our next door neighbor has a snowblower which pretty much immediately broke, but our little Ben Franklin shovel was up to the job.
While we've been stuck in the house, we've done a lot. Daphne and I made this shirt (using a sponge stamp and fabric paint) for her Valentine's Day party at school, which is supposed to be Thursday IF they don't cancel school (a few more inches of snow are predicted for tomorrow).
I also took advantage of the time by cleaning the house, playing a little Rock Band, and FINALLY baking bread with the method from my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book.Daphne, digging some Cream and doing her rock and roll moves. I love my funny kid.
Yesterday, we had about 5 inches of really great packing snow, so we made this nice snowman. He is pretty much gone now, his arms and nose eaten by the neighborhood critters.Today was Daphne's first of six ballet classes at the Rec. Center. There is not much cuter than a group of little girls twirling around in leotards and tights and little ballet shoes. Unfortunately, one of the girls (can you guess who?) was twirling around in sock monkey slippers instead, because her mommy waited until the last minute to buy ballet shoes, had to get them on line, and they didn't arrive in time for the class. Oh well. The good news is, Daphne had a blast, and we were both excited that one of her friends from school was also in the class. The moms had to wait outside, but we get to go in during the last class in March. I can't wait for that. In the meantime, Daphne showed me a couple things she learned today, and you can see too if you press play above and below.
We spent the weekend in NY at Kev's parents' house. We had a good visit, and on Saturday we all took Daphne to see the Princess and the Frog. Great movie, but it has some pretty scary parts, so be prepared if you take little kids to see it. Daphne was great, very brave. I think for her, it's mostly about the popcorn.
It was REALLY cold in NY, and although we returned home yesterday to 4 inches of snow, it was about 20 degrees warmer. More snow is supposedly coming tomorrow night, and then again this weekend. We'll see. If it comes, I hope it's at least packing snow. The powdery stuff isn't much fun to play in. AND I hope they don't have to cancel any school. Oh PLEASE don't let them cancel any school.
OK. Off to take advantage of nap time. Hope you all had a good weekend, and your February is off to a good start. Coming soon: Home-baked bread.
