Happy Valentine's Day

For all the lovebirds out there, a little Valentine's Day poetry:

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Can’t find the exact source of the poem, but I found it on page 225 of Marcus Binney’s The Women who Lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive.

10th Birthday!

In honor of Auntie Nettie's 10th Birthday, her inner child is playing hooky today from all adult responsibilities. She is not going to work. She is not blogging. She is not paying bills. She may not answer the phone until after her b-day*, and she is definitely not being serious. She is going to wear comfy clothes and be super duper silly.

She is going to take the train (ALL BY HERSELF) into the Big Bad City, then get on another big train to go and play with her friends in the country. There will be no adult supervision, lots of girl talk, lots of laughter, and probably some good food. She may then come home and watch all kinds of tweenbopper shows on Disney and not feel the least bit guilty about it. SO THERE!

Her "return" to adulthood will be in the late hours of the evening so she can watch Battlestar Galactica.

Then she'll still have allllllll weekend to play.

Happy Birthday to me!

*post B.S., and still okay for Mountain and Pacific time zones. Plus, voice mail messages from neices and nephews can be saved and replayed for years to come. Think I'm kidding? I still have Amber and Drew on the voice mail from last year! Too cute to delete.

Grateful List 2/2-2/8

In addition to a enjoying a fabulously relaxingly, warm weekend, which I have already blogged about, I was grateful for some completely random things last week:

• For the courtesy of colleaques who bring in their leftovers to supplement our breakfasts and lunchs. There's nothing like walking in and seeing a sampler of cheeses, crackers, and pastries to make your morning.
• For the fact that the week rushed by in a blur. I hate February, so the faster it goes by, the better.
• That Admiral Adama isn't dead ... yet.
• And for free ARCS that show up in my P.O. Box when I'm completely disappointed by my current library selections.

I'm a simple gal. Little things make me happy.

Quote of the Day

There is an old Jewish legend about the origin of praise. After God created mankind, says the legend, He asked the angels what they thought of the world He had made. "Only one thing is lacking," they said. "It is the sound of praise to the Creator." So, the story continues, "God created music, the voice of birds, the whispering wind, the murmuring ocean, and planted melody in people's hearts."

Music Lovers Quotations, edited by Helen Exley

Take a few minutes to listen to the music today, whether it's the sounds of silence, Beethoven, babbling babies, or symphony of street noises.

Items of the Week - Building Blocks for Babies

Not to spoil the surprise for some of my friends who are expecting visits from the stork ... but I've been having fun using up scrap yarn to create these blocks. They are stuffed with a variety of things, including yarn scraps and fiberfill, so they are extra squooshey for little hands. They are also very light, so they won't hurt the baby when tossed around. Hopefully the color contrasts and the different patterns and textiles are good for brain development too.

Stay tuned for more Items of the Week

and other Auntie Nettie's Attic merchandise and special offers.

Auntie Nettie's Kitchen

I had a very Flax Hill Garden-esque weekend. Along with sleeping in, leisurely reading of the newspapers, and watching of more Jane Austen, it was a wonderful time. I mostly stayed in my kitchen and whipped up all kinds of things. I cranked up the CD player, and listened to an eclectic range of music, from the Twilight soundtrack, to the Elgar Cello Concerto played by Jacqueline Du Pre, to KT Tunstall, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. (Have you ever really listened to the second movement or his Edgemont Overture? Glorious!)

With the warm weather this weekend, I had the window open wide to let in the smells of spring and was able to taunt my neighbors with the aromas.

There’s something very cathartic about cooking, especially when you do it from scratch. I don’t use a food processor or a mixer, so everything is chopped, shredded, beaten, and mixed by hand. I have about 2 square feet of counter space, the world’s smallest sink, and a very narrow range top, but some how it all works. Who needs a gourmet kitchen?

I made loaves of Apple Bread, a batch of Fudge, a pan of Mint Chocolate Brownies, a pot of hearty Chicken stew, and a whole Broccoli Chicken Lasagna. If Jane can share recipes and photos, so can I.

Apple Bread aka the Zucchini bread recipe
from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook
covered generously with demerara sugar crystals

Grandma's Brownies from
the original 1996 edition of Help! My Apartment has a Kitchen cookbook,
(modified to include a center layer of Andes Mints)

Broccoli Chicken Lasagna

1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 can (14.5 oz.) chicken broth
1 3/4 cups milk
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 package (16 oz.) frozen broccoli cuts, thawed
9 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
1 1/3 cup julienned fully cooked ham, divided
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
2 cups cubed cooked chicken

In a large skillet, sauté mushrooms and onion in butter until tender.
Stir in the four, salt, pepper and nutmeg until blended.
Gradually stir in broth and milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
Stir in Parmesan cheese and broccoli, heat through.
Spread ½ cup broccoli mixture in a greased 13 in. x 9 in. x 2 in. baking dish.
Layer with three noodles, a third of the remaining broccoli mixture, 1 cup ham and 1 cup Monterey Jack cheese.
Top with three noodles, a third of the broccoli mixture, all of the chicken and ½ cup Monterey Jack cheese. Top with remaining noodles, broccoli mixture and ham.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
Bake 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.
Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting.

Yields 12 servings

NOTE: I excluded the mushrooms and substituted a variety of other things. I used cooked turkey for the ham. I used cooked egg noodles in lieu of the lasagna noodles. (About 5 handfuls of dry egg noodles). I also used jalapeno Jack cheese and added crumbed bacon and chives to the broccoli mixture. I also used a LOT more pepper and Parmesan cheese. Since the egg noodles are bulkier than lasagna noodles, you'll have to press down on the layers to get it all to fit in the casserole dish.

Really good reheated for the next few days.

Enjoy! I know I am!

Gates to the Past, February 2005

Writing about my past trips to Belvedere Castle and the Gates installation prompted me to dig through the photo archives to find this CD. (How fortunate that this is the one bit of the photo archives prior to 2008 that is actually on a disc and not on negatives.)

Follow me down memory lane and through the Mariner's Gate to see ... the Gates.

Belvedere Castle
Exiting the Park by

the American Museum of Natural History
The End