Teatopia

Food, Uncles, Lost and FOUND!

I’m loving this de-lurking thing. Although, many of you have not yet de-lurked! I see you on my tracker (especially those of you in Europe!). Keep on de-lurking! I love comments and I have already started going to some of your sites to say hello. I love meeting new people. This is so much fun!!!

Well, call me Martha F-ing Stewart. This has been a weekend of good food! On Saturday night, after a day of shopping with my mom at Babies ‘R Us, I made Olive G@rden’s Zuppa Toscana, after snagging the authentic recipe off the web! It totally tastes like the restaurant’s soup. The only thing I did differently was I peeled the potatoes, which the recipe doesn’t specify. I don’t like the skin floating around in the soup with the potatoes get soft. Eeeew. This recipe is a great way to get kale into your diet. At least, that's my justification for a recipe that calls for sausage, bacon, and heavy cream! This soup is perfect with cheesy garlic bread for dipping!

Today, I baked a sour cream pound cake to take to my parents’ tonight, and then Olivia and I headed over to her Uncle Ben and Uncle Joey’s house. They’ve been in a decorating frenzy since Ben moved in with Joey, and the apartment looks fabulous. Very Pier 1-ish, which it totally my taste. I got to meet their adorable roommate E, who explained her lack of contribution in their fab apartment. She said that’s the benefit of living with two gays. :-) I told them they should audition for "Queer Eye", if that show is still even on. Ben & Joey have been shopping for antiques to blend with their ultra-modern décor, and Ben did a lot of the artwork in the apartment himself. I’m tempted to commission him because he did such a great job! I’ve been looking forever for a painting to hang above our couch, and after two different attempts, I’m still not happy with what’s up there. I also love when people are bold enough to experiment with color, because I’m not really.

Something amazing happened today. Five years ago, I lost a small red leather notebook where I wrote daily entries while in college in England. I journaled about what I saw, stuck ticket stubs and other little souvenirs inside, and when we moved to Georgia, it disappeared. I even had a mad search for it when we cleaned out the guest room to create Olivia’s nursery. Then today, my mom called me and said that my dad found a small red notebook made of leather in their storage stuff, and it had stuff about Cambridge in it. I can’t wait to sit down and have a good read. I know there’s tons of stuff about my ex “Doug” because missing him was such a daily part of my life there. I only wish that someone would’ve hit me in the head with a huge-ass shovel and told me that when I got home, Doug would dump me and I’d soon meet my soul mate. I wasted so much money on international calls when, hello! I could’ve been buying Parisian perfume and drinking more Italian wine! But seriously, I can’t wait to re-live the cafes, shopping, all the amazing things I learned in my classes, the weekend whirlwind trip to Paris with my then best friend (we’ve kind of lost touch, but I still love her!) I know I’ll end up crying remembering when I was younger, independent, and totally feeling my oats in Europe! Ah, how life changes. Good changes, though. I love being a Mommy!

Speaking of which, here are new shots of Olivia and her proud mama!

Such a big girl drinking from her first kid's cup! She's been drinking from a straw since Thanksgiving Day, but now, we order her a kid's cup with diluted apple juice. So big!

Expert puller-upper finally! :-)

Oh, and for those of you who use Movable Type (or if you’re just really smart and helpful), some browsers won’t allow you to navigate away from my page. It simply refreshes if you hit the back button. I can’t figure out how to stop this, and neither can my usually-really-computer-savvy husband, or else he just didn’t try very hard. Does anyone how I can keep this from happening (the navigating problem, not my husband not helping me when I need it. He only does that sometimes!).

Posted by Hannah at January 14, 2007 09:26 PM