Jazzy now has three teeth, having just cut his upper left incisor.

And today I tried making an icebox cake for the first time. Basically just alternating layers of whipped cream, graham crackers, and sliced strawberries, chilled in the fridge for a few hours. I was slightly dubious. We were all slightly dubious. It rocked, the moisture in the whipped cream transforming the graham crackers into a perfect cake-like texture. Definitely a keeper recipe! I've seen a variant with layers of pudding replacing some of the shipped cream. I may have to try that next time....

Slowly getting back into routine. (Which still, unfortunately, involves waking up too early. I am just trusting that will work itself out over time, for all three of us.)

Since we were going to miss the first three weeks of classes for this term at the community college and city programs, we didn't sign up for some of them. No Monday yoga, no Saturday morning belly dance for me and gymnastics for Squiddle. It's been sort of relaxing, really, to only have four classes on our family schedule. And after my first couple days of frantically making the front yard and garden beds look, well, not abandoned, I've eased off on what I'm trying to accomplish each day.

(Wonderful Husband has, several times in the past, accused me of overloading my to-do list. He is correct about this tendency.)

Today's to-do list included a CostCo run, watering the kitchen garden and my potted plants, baking bread, and de-cat-hairing the sofa. All this has gotten done. Dishes are washed and the dry ones put away. I'm nudging at the kitchen over the next couple days because I'm at a point where I look around the house, and though there's space, there's clutter. I figure if I try to tackle one room each week, maybe I'll be able to make headway.

And as part of trying to slow down, I'm trying to cook more. Last night I tried a recipe from one of the Jamie Oliver books I brought back from the UK. It was... okay. The steamed coconut buns didn't turn out, but I later figured out why - the dough was too wet. The hoisin mushroom and chicken mixture was okay. The cucumber "pickle" needed something more, but I haven't yet figured out what. Tonight's meal is going to be simpler, and more familiar. Grilled bratwurst, homemade sauerkraut, and probably rice pilaf from a package. Wednesday dinners tend to be fast and simple, as I have writing class tonight.

For just now, however, I'm going to get a refill of my tea, and go lie down next to the napping Squiddle.

Two days of productivity followed by two days of little to no energy. Thus is balance maintained? Haven't even been able to write, so not submitting any pages to class this week.

Made chili for dinner tonight. I was surprised when the Squiddle ate whole the small bowlful I gave him as an experiment. Don't know why I was surprised, though - it's basically bean/tomato stew....

Feeling in need of something new and good to read, but the writers I follow in the fandoms I read seem to be on hiatus at the moment.

Oh, we watched the new episode of Steven Universe, and rather than focusing on the story of how his parents met, I ended up focusing on a side bit: "Waitaminnit! That girl Marty just slept with in Greg's van is named Vidalia? She looks a lot like Onion. And Vidalia is a type of onion. And Marty is tall and thin and has platinum hair like Onion's older brother, Sour Cream. Holy crap, did we just witness Sour Cream's conception? And this in a kids' show? OMG, I bet all his mom ever told Sour Cream was that he was conceived to music (Greg's sadly underattended concert). No wonder he wants to be a DJ. Headcanon accepted!"

So everything I've ever read about cooking safety and hygiene says, no you nevereverever use the same knife and board to cut vegetables after cutting raw meat. (The other way around, veg then meat, is of course fine.)

But... if they're immediately going in the same Dutch oven together, to be simmered for like an hour, I don't see the point. The raw veg is going to touch the raw meat in the pot anyway. Must I dirty a second board and knife?

Am I totally in the wrong here and going to die a horrible death (or at least get pretty sick) from salmonella one of these days?

It's been a hot weekend, so we've mostly been hiding inside until the heat of the day dies away. By opening doors and windows in the early morning, and evening, and then keeping them closed during the heat of day, we manage to keep the inside of the house about fifteen degrees cooler than the outside. The difference between 100 Fahrenheit and 85 Fahrenheit is significant!

That said, I feel like I've gotten a fair amount done this weekend. We had my parents up yesterday for brunch, the last chance we'll have before they sail off for six months in Mexico. I went through twenty pages of edits on Field of Stars. I made sun tea, swept two rooms, and realized my Italian plums weren't going to last another day, so put up four and a half half-pints of Peach-Plum Ginger Jam.

Today I've gotten less done, so feel like a bit of a slacker in comparison. I've done the laundry, swept two more rooms and the hallway, made chicken cacciatore for dinner, and edited ten pages. Wonderful Husband and I also did a bit of grocery shopping.

But mainly we've been staying cool.

Inlaws arrived safely and stopped by briefly on their way to the hotel to cuddle the Squiddle, who is much bigger than when they cuddled him last.

Unrelated thought that's been nagging at me for a while now. I never know how to respond when people praise my cooking. I'm not one of those gifted individuals who can merrily fling a bit of this, some of that, and a dab of yet something else together and end up with a dish. I cook by mechanics, by tried-and-true recipes. So I really, honestly doesn't feel like my cooking is anything praiseworthy. I'm getting praised for following directions. "Oh, you did that paint-by-numbers so well!" So I never know what to say.

Thus far this year I've managed to remember and keep Pancake Day, Pi Day (my first time ever making chicken pot pie, which turned out well, though the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pie needed a little more baking than it got), and today, St. Patrick's Day. Which menu involves corned beef, potatoes, and carrots in the crockpot, a small head of cabbage to be cooked right before dinner, and a loaf of Cheddar and Herb Soda Bread just now out of the oven. This bread was kind of fun - I went out into the garden and took snippets of most of the herbs I've got going (thyme, oregano, dill, chives, and rosemary, though I skipped the mint) and chopped them up fine with some lavender. We'll see this evening how it tastes.

And, amusingly, we took handprints of the baby last night with the non-toxic ink pad. We managed to get most of the ink off his hands afterwards with baby wipes. But we couldn't get the stuff under his nails. So he currently looks like he has a Marilyn Manson French manicure. :)

Thus far today I:

made pumpkin buttermilk pancakes, which I loved and Wonderful Husband didn't, and bacon for breakfast
washed breakfast pots/pans/bowls, emptied dishwasher
registered for Costume College
bought tickets to go to the RenFaire twice this year - once with my husband, once with my mother
TRIED to sign up for my writing class only to find that the community college is having a website/Oracle database disagreement
made sourdough bread, currently in its second rise, which will actually get baked tomorrow morning
finished the week's laundry
went to JoAnns and made use of sales and coupons to buy stuff for Squiddle - including the beginnings of his Hiccup costume
reluctantly put the brace on my left wrist
transformed one of Wonderful Husband's long-sleeved button-ups, with a torn sleeve, into a short-sleeved button-up.

Apple pie done. Jellied cranberries done. Chunky cranberries done. Purchased sourdough starter started.

To make tomorrow morning: cornbread, succotash, hoshikage's sweet potato biscuits.

My mother-in-law spent the day extremely sick with the flu. We're hoping it's the 24-hour version....