Above: Sunday dinner. Grilled chicken thigh, mushrooms, and baby potatoes with roasted Brussels sprouts and Parmesan. (Breakfast both days was a toasted everything bagel with cream cheese, because whenever those two things are in the house, I am compelled to eat them obsessively until they run out.)
My dad's birthday was this weekend - on Groundhog's Day. He celebrated it in Key West with my mom - they won a vacation there at a recent fundraiser. I'm told he enjoyed a Steve Miller concert and watched the University of Michigan basketball game. Happy birthday, Dad! (Additional Dad love here, here, and here.)
I'm also learning to channel my home-ownership impatience into something positive. Whenever I get all itchy or mopey about not being able to, you know, control the future and change the pace of time, I clean, fix, or do something proactive for the place we're currently in - even though it's "just" a rental. My attempt at being a little more Zen about the whole situation – appreciating the moment, and the process, and acting without expectation and whatnot. So! This weekend (and this morning, as I was still on a roll) I raked the back yard, turned over the main garden plot (and found lots of fat, wriggly earthworms – a great sign), and stirred a portion of the leaves I raked into the compost pile. Inside, I swept and vacuumed everything, wiped down countertops and shelves and sinks, cleaned weird gummy spots on floors and stovetop corners, took out all the trash and recycling, changed the sheets and started washing all our blankets and comforters.
Yeah – I'm working through a lot of impatience. (Or maybe I'm just getting into spring cleaning way early.)