Focaccia!

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been busy. Baking out the proverbial wazoo. This weekend, I made beer bread (bland), pear muffins (from Weight Watchers and not even yucky!), and hamburger buns (recipe had rave reviews, but I thought they were kind of bland too.)

This weekend, I have big plans to make a Guinness Cake for a friend’s birthday party and maybe some focaccia. (The recipe I have calls for potato. Isn’t that weird?) I’m also going to paint the kitchen, I think. We’ll see. I’m just itching to get started. Not literally. Har!

We’re back in our old offices again. It’s good to be back! I got to rearrange my office so it makes a bit more sense, and now I can see out the window…such a lovely view. Yay!

Looky what I made last night, from scratch!

I am baker extraordinaire!

Also, I’ve lost 5 lbs in two weeks on WW. Whew! Let’s hope I can continue at this rate. Not if I keep baking bread like that. Hmmm.

Uh oh, must remember to wear green today. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Poor George, he’s still sick from a cold. He might not be able to have Guinness today. That’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

Woah. It’s been a weird week. Not in a bad way, just out of the norm. Monday, after work, I raced to the gym, ran a couple of miles (only had 32 minutes for my entire workout), then raced home, showered in record time, and then raced to my cousin’s house. I was babysitting her son Max from Tuesday morning at 6:15 until last night at 11 pm. Of course, I had a break in there to go to work. Anyway, Monica had to fly to Illinois for a meeting. Yow! Did that paragraph even make sense?

Anyway, because of the early start, I spent the night on Monday. We went to Frankie and Johnny’s for dinner (yum shrimp poboy!) and then she kind of showed me the ropes with Max. I hadn’t babysat him for quite a while, since before Katrina, and he’s grown up a lot. Awww, dang, he’s so cute! He talks a lot now. We were having fun last night naming animals in one of his books and the monsters in Monsters, Inc. The kid is a Pixar expert, no kidding. Two and a half and I’ll bet he could recite Finding Nemo word for word.

Anyway, so here it is Wednesday, and I’ve only seen George for about ten minutes since Sunday, it seems like. Yesterday I was so tired I drove all the way home for a thirty minute nap after work and before going back to Monica’s. Zzzz.

So. Project Runway finale. Tonight. Going to make some homemade pizza for the occasion. Did I say I was getting sick of pizza? Ehhh. I even had pizza last night from Whole Foods for dinner. (Mine’s better. But now I am inspired to use some portobello mushrooms on the pizza tonight. Wish I had some goat cheese. Mmmm. But I do have fresh basil.)

What else? Yesterday, the first piece of our exciting Pottery Barn purchase arrived. I’m so excited to get the second piece so we can put it together. I thought it was going to be delivered tomorrow, but apparently not. Anyway, I’ll put a pic up when we get the whole thing up. It’s a tall, narrow wine cabinet. Pretty! Storage! My favorite thing, storage. Of course, having a pretty piece of cabinetry in our otherwise hideous kitchen (excepting the new dishwasher and fridge, they’re pretty too) just makes me more eager to paint it a nice, warm, neutral color and to refinish the stairs. All in good time. Man, and if we could replace the white formica countertops, I’d be in heaven. Must wait until my new website takes off. Yeah.

Okay, off to work! (Am not re-reading post before I upload it. I am just a little too sleep deprived for that. So apoalogies if it’s gibberish.)

So who was surprised by the best picture winner last night? Yeah, yeah. I was more surprised by that big monsterous thing that was on Charlize Theron’s shoulder. Well, maybe frightened is more accurate. Sheesh. That was scary.

I have now discovered a new talent of mine. Pizza making. Yes indeedy. Who’s have thought? I made pizza dough from scratch this weekend and it was insanely delicious. My second batch wasn’t quite as good as the first (note: pastry flour is NOT to be used in pizza crust, but where was the bread flour at Whole Foods?) but still yummy. If I wasn’t slightly sick of pizza right now, I would totally try to find some bread flour (as opposed to all-purpose flour) and make another batch, but I don’t think I can. Oh wait, I think I will on Wednesday night for Project Runway. Woo! Project Runway finale!

We also drank green beer yesterday. That’s a first for me. I have a problem with artificially colored food/beverages normally, and by that I don’t mean foods that are artificially colored normally. We went to “Friendship Day” on the levee near our house. It’s really a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, but I’m not exactly sure why it’s called Friendship Day. Whatever. Free beer and sitting on the levee getting my first minor sunburn of the year. It’s good stuff.

Also, I channeled my inner Pottery Barn decorator and did this in our kitchen:

(inspiration from PB:)

Okay, raise your hand if you watch Project Runway. Now lower your hand if you hate Santino. Who still has your hand raised? Evil people, that’s who. Hmmph. I am v mad at the producers of PR for manipulating us like this. You know he’s going to win. I mean, why else would they have softened him up so much last night? Oh, poor Santino with his sad childhood. Personally, I think he is so mean because he’s so ugly. Okay, perhaps that was a low blow, but come on. Lots of ugly people turn out perfectly nice. Hmmph. Anyway, I just hate the idea of him winning. Jerks shouldn’t win!

On a lighter note, I’ve found the new perfect thing to listen to on my iPod while on the treadmill. It’s that NPR game show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” Yes, I’m a dork. But it’s more fun to listen to than Britney Spears. (But not N’Sync.) Anyway, give it a try! But only if you can giggle and work out at the same time.

Oooookay. Strange day at work.

I walk in, and my coworker says “did you cut your hair yesterday?” Um. No. I did not cut my hair at my desk, over my keyboard.

So I look at my keyboard and there is evidence of a haircut all over it. Ew. Ew. Ew. Someone broke into our offices last night….didn’t steal much, they seemed to leave behind more than they took. Grody.

So I think that I will never try to go out to eat on Valentine’s Day again. What a debacle! Not really, it wasn’t that bad. But we didn’t get to eat at Dick & Jenny’s because of the ridiculous wait (getting there at 6:15 only to be told we wouldn’t be seated until after 10? Um…no.) so we went to our old standby, Crescent City Brewhouse. Of course, it’s a nice choice for V-day as it’s meaningful for us (first date, engagement night, etc) but I was looking forward to something different. Ah well, it was nice. And also nice were the two dozen pink roses I was greeted with when I got home from work.

Awww!

Going to Baton Rouge this weekend…haven’t seen my mom in a while. Hope I don’t get a blow-out on the interstate. I have a plug in one tire keeping the nail hole from leaking. Hmm. I think friend Jon will be riding with me to Baton Rouge, though, so at least I won’t be the one changing the tire. Ha ha! Just kidding! Glad Jon doesn’t have internet access to read this. tee hee!