Spring Training

We went down to JetBlue Park to watch a little Red Sox spring training in action today!

She tried to make some new friends, but they were all business. They wouldn't even look at her. She even moonwalked in front of them. Boys and their sports... 

It was really fun to get to see behind the scenes! We walked through the inside of the facility too with one of Amiel's colleagues. She showed Lily and me the training room, the cafeteria, the equipment room and Homer, the equipment-room-dog!

Sunrise

A beautiful Florida sunrise on my morning run!

Lily, Danielle, Mia and I have been spending our mornings at the pool so far. No complaints here! Lily was doing such a good job today using her arms to try to swim and blowing bubbles with her face in the water.

Florida

I got the opportunity to travel with my (work) family to Ft. Myers, FL for the next couple of weeks, and I jumped at it! What? Spend my days with Lily and Mia at the pool or beach? I guess I could manage that... if you force me of course...

It's amazing so far and beautiful!

Did I mention there's no snow on the ground here?

Happy Valentine's Day

My Sweet Husband brought me two dozen roses, oysters, and champagne for Valentine's Day! He spoils me, and I'm so thankful for him!

This is our 12th Valentine's Day together! I hope there are many, many more!

Boston does not celebrate Mardi Gras

But we do!!



Home made king cake and jambalaya for dinner!!! Not necessarily in that order...

Oh, Monday.

I was pretty optimistic about being able to dig the car out so that I could drive to work this morning, but after 45 minutes and only 1.5 free wheels I gave up and caught a bus. I knew it was going to be a Monday when I stepped off the train (had to take a bus to a train to get where I was going) and it was sleeting.
It hasn't been a bad day at all, though, as it turns out. Lily always makes me laugh, and Danielle brought me coffee and a bell pepper! Just what I needed!!

Lily and I did have some outdoor fun this morning despite the rain.



I know this looks like a white mess to you, but I worked really hard on that awesome sled ramp for Lily! She said it was fun but wanted it to go all the way to the fence...


And these guys are slightly less than round snow men. She got a cute snowman family kit for Chanukah, and we finally got enough snow to use it! Maybe we'll try for legit snow men tomorrow.

Happy Galentine's Day!

Gina and I teamed up to throw a Galentine's Day party today! She's a fan of Leslie Knope so that's where the Galentine's term comes from in case you're not into Parks & Rec.

There is still pretty crazy snow on the ground and sidewalks and the entire mass transit system is shut down for the second and a half day so everyone had to walk or cab it over to Gina's place. I don't think any of us will forget the craziness of this weekend for a long time.


Anyway, it was a big success!

The premise was 'come eat waffles and drink punch and swap your favorite things!'

All the goodie bags! And Sara's goodie box... she got stuck OUT of town because of the storm!

It was fun to see what everyone's favorite things were. They could be anything... favorite lip gloss or favorite pen! Anything fairly inexpensive and worth sharing was an option!
We ended up with: dry shampoo, eye liner, a brownie & recipe, buckeyes & recipe, ped eggs (this was mine... I've had one since 2008 and LOVE it. It's so gross and amazing and you should totally get one!), lemon curd & recipe, sugar body scrub, tattly temporary tattoos, and shower gel. So fun!

My generous and lovely co-host!

You can't possibly choose only one waffle topping when there were so many to choose from!

The boys got together, too. They went the most opposite direction from our cute waffle girlie party and threw Meat Fest 2013! They just all came to our house and ate various types of meat: pulled pork. leg-o-lamb, sausages, stuffed chicken skin, foie gras, pork belly, bacon bread... I'm sure I'm missing some. They looked a little less than spry when all was said & done. But that was to be expected.

Happy Valentine's Day week!!

Snowpocalypse: Nemo

We've made it through the worst of it. Everyone is in recovery mode; shoveling walks, digging out cars.
I've seen people cross country skiing, streaking, and snow ball fighting out the window so far. Oh and we saw a plow mow over a street sign then drive away




















That first step's a real doozy.








We left the shovel inside the car and had to dig with our hands like mole people so that we could get the door open.


Once inside the car I felt a little like an avalanche victim.


We only got half way through before we realized it just wasn't happening today.


Bryan helped our landlord shovel the walk too.


I just watched.





It was like an apocalypse seeing everyone walking in the streets with no cars. There was a driving ban until this afternoon.


Like a rat in a maze...

Snowpocalypse: Nemo

I can still see across the street, so I don't think we're anywhere near the height of the action.



A local milk aisle.

For blizzard Nemo indoor activities, I'm planning on baking and cleaning!

Home Made Bread

I found this little book: Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish a few weeks ago and found myself truly inspired to make something delicious after reading all of the background information and many of the recipes inside.

I chose to make my own 'levain' which is also called a 'mother' or a 'starter.' It took a week of feeding my levain every day at 7am... the timing is very precise in this book which I thought would be a hard thing for me to stick with, but it ended up being kind of a relaxing ritual to start my day.

My big tub specially purchased for bread making!

Whole Wheat Flour

And warm water... that's it. The levain gets it's yeast naturally from the air over time.

A gray morning out my kitchen window.

I was so glad to have step-by-step instructions and pictures of what each step should look like. It takes a lot of the second-guessing out of the process. When doing something completely new, this makes it much easier.

The hand-mixed whole wheat flour and warm water.

The bubbly levain at an almost mature state! I think this was day four.

just look at those bubbles!!!

On day 6, yesterday, you can begin to use your mature levain in actual recipes! Again, there was a lot of exactly timed mixing, folding, proofing, cooking... but it wasn't too much. One step at a time gets you all the way to your goal, ya know?!

My first dough, ready for proofing overnight!

So here it is! My very first loaf of Pain de Campagne!

I'm so glad I rescued this dutch oven. It comes in handy all of the time!

yay!!!

A happy Sunday morning indeed!