Food Friday

Today it's more of a note to myself just in case it turns out to be edible and wonderful. Inside my mind, it's going to be a delicious dinner. We'll see what reality produces.

It went something like this.

1/4 package of bacon, chopped & fried...cause bacon makes everything better
1 yellow onion, chopped & fried with the bacon
1-2 lb chopped cooked chicken
1 butternut squash, peeled & chopped
1 box of mushrooms, sliced
2 zucchini, chopped tiny so no one notices
1/2 a head of cauliflower, chopped small
carrots, sliced
2 tart apples, peeled & chopped
1 can of coconut milk
lime juice
water
salt
pepper
ginger-fresh, peeled & grated & powdered
garlic-fresh, minced
cumin
curry powder
nutmeg
mace
coriander
cayenne
red pepper flakes

really wanted to add ground cloves, but I'm out

I started cooking thinking it would be a soup, but I'm thinking it's going to turn out more stew like and I'll be serving it over rice.

On other fronts, we're doing the Al's run/walk this weekend with my nephew. Should be fun and cold.

The windows are done. The inspector gave the all good. The assessor gave his opinion. Now it's time for clean up. Seeing that it's fall, I'm going to be really lazy and do nothing to the yard. The tree removal folks will come one day and get rid of all the dead shrubs lying on the lawn, or so they claim. The ground will settle and then it will snow. By the spring I'll have a better idea of what I want to do with the space, which is really nothing. Nothing that I want to do, that is. I am not gifted in the area of outdoor space. Frankly I could care less and I'd let grass grow right up to the house on all four sides if I could figure it out. Maybe some potted fake plants that don't require attention or someone gifted enough to keep them alive!

Then there is the inside. There is lots of dust to clean up. I need to do something with the interior window frames. In the game room, I want to stain it to look like the bar and paneling. In the boys new room, I'm thinking I'm going to paint it white to match the molding by the floor. I'm also planning to finally get around to some of the painting I started thinking about a year ago, when lovely Mrs. Sheep came over and gave me brilliant, beautiful ideas.

I guess I'm just a slow starter. I need incubation time before I begin.

The boys room will be a combo of a lime-ish green, bold orange and quiet blue. I'm thinking vertical stripes with the blue and green being large, thick stripes and the orange being a thinner stripe between. My only project left to determine for that room is how much paint and how to paint on the awful stucco stuff on the walls. On one hand I'm thinking it might be a sort of cool effect of the stripes aren't super clean because of the stucco, or it could just look like I'm really lazy and don't care much, which is way more true to life.

The missing case worker has not been located, but at least I have a phone number to call in the event of an emergency. It only took about 2 weeks and several other people plus myself making calls, sending emails and stopping in the office to get that information. To me it seems like common sense to have some sort of policy that says, if the case worker goes on leave, the foster families are notified in 24 hours or 48 hours or something like that. I can't even imagine how this is working out for the birth families. Oh well, in the end, no harm done, just a bunch of time wasted.

Next week we'll be doing the first of the honors choir stuff for Little Mr. It seems that this may be his thing. He's in choir at school during his lunch period. Then he's in a local choir. From that he's in an honor choir that will be performing in Milwaukee next weekend. He's already begun rehearsals for yet another honor choir that will perform in the area in January, I think. Then he's got his name in for yet another select choir to happen after that. I never would have guessed it, but it's all good.

It's no wonder life goes by so fast over here.

Soon after that we're going to help out a friend and take their kids for a week while they're away at a training conference. It will be a fun, but busy week as we bump to 7 kids. This time it'll be 4 boys and 3 girls. Most of them are in school most of the time, so I should be able to catch a cup of coffee in between!

Then we're racing down the track to Halloween and Thanksgiving just like everyone else. I'm already happily thinking turkey thoughts.

Gobble, gobble.