Halloween Party

Last night, Beer Man escorted a cowgirl and a wiggle worm out for a night of fun.  Sound like a joke? Nope, just Halloween 2010 in our house!

We went to my co-worker David's home for a COSTUMES MANDATORY party. It's great to see what people come up with when they are forced to wear a costume. Most of them were pretty original too, not the typical stuff you find at Walmart or Target (or Halloween City for that matter). It probably helped that most of the guests were from other countries.  You see, David's wife is doing a fellowship (I think?) in a lab at Yale and people come from all over the world to work in a research lab there. Funny how we always take for granted how prestigious of a school we have here...

I digress. My favorite costume of the night was from another coworker. He and his wife wore white button down shirts, red ties, and hats with hot dogs on them. Their daughter who is 6 days older than Nikki was a hot dog. The stroller? The hot dog cart. Super cute!!

What? Are you expecting a picture? I forgot my camera.... oh well.

Here is a picture of my sister and brother in law though. They didn't come to the party but they came over to take pictures anyway.

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Failed Recipe?

I'm not sure. If the success of a recipe is measured (no pun) by the ability to follow the directions then I have failed many. You see, I always think I can make it better (there is that narcissism again!) so I usually stray pretty heavily from the directions.

I saw this on The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Burgers http://www.thefarmcafe.com/2010/06/how-to-make-the-farmhouse-veggie-burger/. Why I thought I could make something better that a professional chef called THE BEST is beyond me. I had to make several substitutions based on necessity since I still cannot have milk or anything that contains it, so that nixed the cheese. I had assumed the cheese was used as a binding agent so I had planned to use an egg or two instead.

So I cubed and fried the eggplant, added some salt and pepper, and granulated garlic while it was frying. Once it was soft, I moved it to a mixing bowl and added a can of white corn, some chipotle peppers, bread crumbs, and a can of black beans. This was a sticky mixture so I nixed the egg that I was going to use in place of the nixed cheese....

Formed patties... sort of... and put in the fridge to settle. An hour later, I heated the oil, added the patties and eventually decided we were having sloppy joes for dinner instead.... Yeah, the patties wouldn't stick together, the mixture looked like puke and I was a little leary of it at this point...

But... lo and behold, it was delicious? Failure?

Working from home...

It's tough. Real tough. Some days, like yesterday, I am ripping my hair out and nearly in tears by 1:00.

Still, I wouldn't trade the opportunity for the world. I would rather have no job and be poor than miss the time I get to spend with Nikki and Patch. It probably wouldn't be so difficult if she wasn't such a cuddler.

Or so darn adorable.

How am I supposed to get any work done around here?

Break over... back to work I go.

First Blog. EVER.

I know, right? I must live under a rock. BUT...

Everyone else is doing it so why not me? I have lots of happy stories and many beautiful baby pictures that I love to show off.  So why not expose myself to a bigger audience?

So here we are. My first blog, which so far has been about nothing.  Kinda like the journal I keep for Nikki. It's a pretty sparkly silver blank notebook with stickers that spell out NICOLINA down the binding. My aunt gave it to us as a gift and Dean and I love to write notes to our little girl and ask others who love her to do the same. I can't wait to someday give it to her, though most of the stories are much like this one. About nothing.

I'm a lucky lady. And I love Frank Sinatra. I know the song is about personifying the phenomena as a promiscuous girl, but not to me. You see, I'm narcissistic sometimes (don't judge- you are too) and I like to think the song is about me. Not the promiscuity, but the name. I'm lucky- I have an incredible (totally incredible) husband and a baby girl that stops traffic with her adorableness. See?

< So, I am Lady Luck. Narcissistic? Perhaps. Do I care? Nope.