Much Better

No, he's not naked. This is a G-rated blog. He just took off his shirt because I'd cut his hair and some had gone down his shirt and were itchy. Anyway, the point is that tonight was haircut night. His hair was getting quite long, and I'd been meaning to cut it for about a week. So now it's done...and it'll look better in the morning after his shower.

Planning Ahead

This is Jason at the dinner table. (Like you needed me to tell you that.) He's looking through a vegetarian cookbook we got for our wedding, in hopes of finding a dish that we could make to go with mashed potatoes, broccoli & cauliflower au gratin, and oatmeal patties. My parents are coming to visit for the weekend, and we need to go grocery shopping. (We also need to scrub out our fridge, and now that it's virtually empty would be prime time to do that. I should put that on my list.)

We didn't actually find anything that sounded good, but we discovered a can of Prime Steak (I think that's what it's called) in our pantry, so we're going to experiment with that. It should make a full meal, with room for dessert, of course!

We do this when we have the time to - plan our menus ahead of time. We sit down with our favourite cookbooks and our recipe box and plan out about a week's worth of meals. It helps with creating a grocery list, and makes deciding what to make for dinner a little easier. Usually we write what we plan to have on a white board on our fridge, and then mark which day we'll eat what. Some days it happens, some days it doesn't...but it doesn't matter, so long as we don't let the vegetables in the fridge go bad.

On Friday night we're having curried celery soup. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? We won't know until we try it!

Swine Flu Preparedness

The big event of the day today was the emergency convening of the university's Emergency Management Team. With all the hype around the world about swine flu, we needed to get together and discuss what steps we needed to be taking, and review the plan we'd set in place about two years ago when there was a huge scare over the bird flu. So we met for about an hour and a half, had a good discussion over what we need to do to be prepared and avoid panic on our campus, and most of us left with new assignments in our notebooks. Really, I'm glad I'm on this team. It keeps me informed...and sometimes keeps me from panicking.

A Productive Evening

While the potatoes were cooking tonight, Jason and I independently started doing things to straighten up around the house. I vacuumed, he hung the new towel racks we'd gotten for our bathroom (there were only hooks before, and they didn't allow our towels to dry very well). Then I headed upstairs to clean up our guest quarters. We just moved them from downstairs, and hadn't gotten around to getting them set up yet. Since we have company coming this weekend, I decided it was high time I get the upstairs ready. Jason followed me shortly afterward, and worked on hanging a curtain rod in the bathroom doorway (it doesn't have a real door) and started working on getting the second guest bedroom ready for a door (it didn't have a door, either, as it was acting as a den for the people before us, and a closet for us). Meanwhile, I sewed a curtain for the bathroom "door," and started working on decorative pillows for the guest bed. Though the pillows aren't done yet, we did get the bathroom done, as you can see above. I am quite proud of our productiveness, and hope to have a similar evening soon.

Also, I want to wish my grandpa a very happy 80th birthday today!

The Birthday

I'm not the only one in the family who celebrates my birthday on April 26. Jason's little sister, Whitney, and, ironically, her husband, Rolie, were both also born on April 26 (different years, though). A small gathering at Olive Garden to celebrate quickly grew into a huge family affair, with 17 people altogether. We had grandma, aunt and uncle, parents, siblings, and cousins. And a whole lot of fun! This picture was taken after the meal. Katrina is trying to learn how to play the clarinet so she can feel more comfortable conducting band, when that day comes. Jason plays clarinet, so he was giving her a few pointers before she hit the road back to home. Me? well...I just stood there, pregnant belly and all, watching and attempting to sound like I knew what I was talking about. Happy birthday, Whitney, Rolie, and me!