Roasted

Promotion

I promoted myself from the back row to the second to last row in Zumba class today.  I thought I deserved it. 

Dinner

I made the lemon poppyseed cake a couple of times down here, but instead of lemon (can't find lemons here), I used orange.  And it was poppyseed-less.  And I made a warm strawberry sauce rather than rhubarb.  Nonetheless, our guests declared it to be the best cake they've tasted in Loreto.  That's not saying a whole lot, but I was pleased.

The glory of the dinner goes to D who did everything but dessert.  It was delicious. I think his best roast ever.  And he made steamed broccoli and cauliflower with a cheese sauce.  The sauce was a bit runny, but tasted better than the non-runny sauces I've had, so it was perfect.  He also made carrots in sugar water.  When Avery saw him chopping the carrots, she said, "I love carrots!"  She ate fairly well last night, though nothing compared to what she ate at Rob & Debbie's when they had us over last week.  I swear she ate as much meat as I did, as well as a good portion of potatoes and some veggies, followed by a piece of cake.  Debbie said after the dinner that she was amazed at a toddler eating so much.  D and I were pretty stunned, too!

I was also able to enjoy wine for a second time while down here. That means my body allowed me to drink some wine. It still feels like a crap shoot when I taste wine as to whether I'll reject it or will want to drink a glass, but that's not so bad.

Avery didn't want to go down with our guests here last night, but that wasn't shocking.  She fell asleep within 2 minutes of them leaving after fighting sleep they whole time they were here.  She rather likes Rob and Debbie and constantly asks where they are when we go out with them.  "Where's Rob & Debbie?"  as spoken by Avery sounds like "Where's monkey jammies?"  I've repeated the two phrases over and over, but can find no similarity when I say it, but both D and I make the same mistake when she says it. Odd.

Rescue Me

We're getting a bit more into Rescue Me as evidenced by the fact that I look forward to Avery's nap time not to take a nap myself, but to watch another episode.  I find it interesting that all of the characters are pretty much despicable at one point or another.

Paperless Kitchen

I've made great progress in reducing my paper towel use in the kitchen over the past six months or so.  One of the best tricks was putting the paper towels in an inconvenient spot (hat tip to RHG for that idea).  Another thing that works for me is having a lot of cloth rags and not feeling guilty if I only use it once then put it in the hamper to be washed.  I found this blog post today about going paperless and I think it clearly outlines the steps of going paperless very well.  I've never added up the money we save on paper towels, but give our previous use of them, I'm sure it's a good chunk of change.

I've realized I need to bring a large number of cleaning cloths down here to achieve the same goal.  I am going to bring lots of these microfiber cloths for cleaning, and place another order of these napkins on Etsy. (Warning: I'll probably do a post on Casa de Turtle about this, so don't fault me for double-blogging).

Night Sky

One thing that I just never get over is the night sky here.  The stars are so clear and the night is so dark.  I'm not one to ooh and ahhh over the sky, but it's gorgeous.  Hmmm.  Christie, you should learn how to photograph the stars!