Party for the baby boy (and his mom)

We had a baby shower a couple of weeks ago to prepare for the newest addition to the family. Well, he'll be the newest once he finally decides to show up. Baby Boy doesn't seem to be in any hurry to meet us even though he's dropped into place and, according to the doc, his momma could have delivered any time in the last week weeks. I don't know why, we're all quite friendly!

Perhaps he's waiting for the weather to warm up. Perhaps someone should clue him in that:
- we live in the mitten state
- it's only the end of March
- it still could SNOW
- really

Michigan is notoriously unpredictable when it comes to weather. A couple of weeks ago we had a couple of days of 68 degree weather, and then it snowed. And it's been cold ever since.

Anyway... back to the shower.

I hosted it and Rico totally kicked butt getting the house whipped into shape and prepping the food. That's definitely one perk of having a house husband (ha ha, I know he'll read this). I put up the decorations... well, maybe that's all I did. (Just kidding.)

Charlotte made an awesome Noah's Arc themed cake with a cupcake rainbow. So, so cool. The colors were much prettier in real life -- the lighting wasn't great, and I'm not a pro at color adjustment in Photoshop... so there you have it.

Baby Boy got lots of great things -- including some great mitten state stuff: his first Detroit Tigers logo wear and his first Michigan State University outfit. Woop-woop!

So, Baby Boy, anytime. We're waiting to meet you!BTW, I'd call him something other than baby boy, but his momma decided what his name will be is up in the air. She was going to name him Justin (I think after Justin Bieber) but then someone mentioned that when she takes him home to visit his abuela in Nicaragua they'll all call him "yust-in". And that's not what she had in mind. :)

Spaetzle

No, that's not a foreign swear word. It's a pasta -- a german pasta -- that I haven't had in years. But I'd like to. I once had a roommate who was German. Her mom and brother were awesome cooks. When we'd go to their house we'd have awesome food -- and my favorite was ... spaetzle.

In all honesty I can't remember exactly what it tasted like. But, given my love for mac and cheese I'm guessing it was something like that. Mrs. Wolske's was the best. The total best. Even better than when I ordered it when I spent a summer in Austria.

I remember Mrs. Wolske and Michael making it by forcing dough through a collander (with larger than normal holes) into boiling water. That's all I really remember about making it. As I looked for a recipe I found that you then pan fry it -- with butter or bacon drippings. Oh, yeah, no wonder I liked it.

Drooling. What brought this on? We're watching Anthony Bourdain "No reservations" and he's in Austria. He just ate brains marinated in red wine (ick, ick, ick) and some really red, red, red liver. I had to look away when that flashed on the TV screen. I'm starting to feel queasy seeing that stuff.

Now flash up some spaetzle and I'd be all set. Wishing I could get Mrs. Wolske's recipe so that Rico could make it for me. Yum!

The case of the missing scones

Killer is doing ok. She's starting to breathe a little heavy again, but she's not in pain and seems like her normal self.

And yes, she's getting spoiled. She enjoyed toffee-chip scones yesterday... twice.

I should clarify it's not because I gave them to her as a treat (but you know I don't mind). I left the package on my night stand and forgot to take it to the kitchen yesterday morning. Apparently they sounded good to her because when Rico came home at lunch she'd taken the package to her bed, opened the plastic top, and eaten a few of them.

Rico (the silly guy) put the package back on the night stand, and by the time I came home after work she'd gotten them back down and finished the package. Yummy!

I'm glad she enjoyed them!

The terrible horrible no good very bad day

We love our dogs because they teach us to live in the moment, and they make that moment happy. Unless they are cowering in thunderstorms.

Words of wisdom from my friend, Paula. I'm struggling today because it's been a terrible horrible no good very bad day... we received the sad news that our big old puppy dog has cancer.

She started breathing really heavy last week when I was home with the flu. Rico took her in on Friday and the xrays showed... well, nothing. All they really showed was that her lungs were full of fluid. So much fluid that they couldn't tell anything else. That's not good.

We saw a specialist yesterday afternoon and they withdrew 2L of fluid from her chest. Yes, 2L -- the size of the Diet Coke bottle in my fridge.

The lab results came in this afternoon: It's an aggressive blood or bone cancer and there's nothing we can do for her except make her comfortable.

My heart hurts.

This is what she's doing now -- but on the carpet instead of the sand on the shore of Lake Michigan. She's napping and chasing after something in her dreams. Sweet dreams, baby dog.

Gorgeous day in Michigan today!

It's finally showing signs of warming up in Michigan -- we were up to a balmy 68 degrees today -- and I really mean that sincerely. Balmy. As in I-didn't-wear-a-coat-to-work balmy. Yippee!

In light of the great-weather-warm-up I figured I should update my list of "Things to do (... before the snow melts). Here's the progress (but before I get to that can I tell you how irritating I find it that there's no strike through option in blogger? Irritating. So what I would normally strike through I've turned to green):

- Do a major clean of all rooms. Clean out junk and only leave essentials. Put the rest in the barn for the spring Relay For Life of Lowell garage sale fundraiser. Pretty much done, out of necessity, because we hosted a baby shower on Saturday and I had invited many people who hadn't yet been to our house. Can't make a bad impression, you know, this might be the one and only time they see the house.

- Get Rico to build the cabinets for the "new" laundry room and finish the beadboard and trim. BIG, big excitement here! The cabinets are assembled and are cooling their heals in the living room -- waiting for another pair of hands to help Rico hang them up. My weak-armed self was no help as I could barely help hold up the tiny 10" cabinet Rico built to store detergent -- look at it. It's so small -- and I was no help at all. My only contribution as to make sure the bottom of it was "on the line" -- you know... the pencil line.
In my defense I'm too short to reach them over the washer and dryer anyway, so Rico pretty much knew I would be no help with hanging the cabinets. Oh, wait! I handed him the drill too. Wow, I'm good. Definite progress. Now I just have start putting money away to purchase the doors for these lovelies from IKEA.

- Clean couch upholstery (and figure out where we're going to put the couch now that it's been displaced by the treadmill). This one's half done --it's not steam-cleaned yet -- the couch made it to the basement (opposite the bookshelves and the toy table). I like it. I LOVE that it's no longer in the living room taking up space. While it was handy to have it there for the Christmas Eve party it got old fast.

- Scan old photos and eliminate prints not displayed. If you never look at them what's the point of having them sitting in a cupboard? I've got 75% of them scanned, but I still need to separate them and save them as individual images as I ganged them up when scanning to save scanning time. So, this one is half done too.


Still on the list -- and with the piles of snow melting we're running out of time -- unless it snows again. (it is Michigan after all):

- Patch cracks in drywall (1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 basement stairwell, 1 hallway) and nail pops in ceiling. Rico, if you're reading this... I can't reach these, so I'm leaving these fixes up to you.

- Repaint master bath and add tile above the shower unit. Rico, if you're reading this... ha ha.

- Continue purging "holiday" decorations and paraphernalia. Too much, too, too much stuff. (And I'm not just talking Christmas stuff.). I still want to get to this before the May garage sale fundraiser.

- Sell Polish pottery that I don't use. Note to self: Let Desiree and Cookie know what's available as they might be interested.

- Pare down dishes in kitchen -- too many extra sets of dishes and way too many bowls. Rico did check with a place that buys and sells china about a set of dishes he has from his previous life (ha ha) -- we've just got to ship those off and rake in some cash. Woo-hoo!

- Clean out cabinets in bedroom. Purge, purge, purge. This will be easy once the new cabinets are up in the laundry room. I can purge, and move, and organize at the same time.

Ok. my work is cut out for me.

And I've got to get better about blogging -- it's been quite a while since my last post. I've been a bit out of sorts for a few weeks and haven't felt like I had the energy -- and then the shower prep took up time, and then I had the flu for 4 days (yuck). I've got to get back at it (and get back on the treadmill too)! Oh, that's another thing. I've been getting on the treadmill and that's cutting into my sitting on my backside time (also known as lurking/blogging, for me, anyway)

I'll have a baby shower post soon -- and I can share the "project" that I had my Dad work on for it (Thanks Dad!). Ber's due ANY DAY as the doc keeps moving up her due date!