One bright spot in all the mess of late is that the blueberry-pecan biscotti we made over the weekend came out really well. Better than we expected. It’s nice to be able to do some baking now that we’re not showing the house (though I fear we’ll be back to that soon).
So I just had Agent Murphy help me wash a head of lettuce and tear up some of it for our salad tonight. He did pretty well with it, though I had to keep a close eye on him so he wouldn’t tip over the bowl of water. We already had a water event this morning when he got into the bathroom and dumped The Dog’s water bowl. You’d think after that I would have avoided more water games. But I’m glad I let him try this. He really seemed to like it.
Now I’m off to get our pasta sauce ready.
We had dill peas and Mr. Tldz’s famous lemon oven potatoes for dinner tonight. (And some Trader Joe’s grape leaves in a jar that had been hanging around for a while. The Agent didn’t have those.) Agent Murphy did well with his dinner, though he was slow to pick up on the potatoes. Happy to report that the potatoes are back to their best — the recipe with which I was wooed.
Then it was cranberry pie for dessert. There were no walnuts to be had at the store this week, so we went with pecans. We were a little dubious about how that would work, but at least at first try we think we like the pecans better. (Hey, this is Southern cranberry pie after all!) Due to the nuts, the Agent couldn’t have pie for dessert but he had vanilla ice cream, which he slurped down to the last drop. That’s our boy!
It was lovely. We stuffed ourselves with all sorts of yummy food — huge burgers (I went a little overboard with the meat!), homemade slaw (red – Carolina style), homemade watermelon milk shakes (If you can’t get to Cookout, bring Cookout to you!), blueberry pie (the last of the berries we picked last year)… The evening of the Fourth we watched Bull Durham, accompanied by a big bowl of popcorn and some root beer. All in all a very relaxing weekend. And Mr. Tldz and I are freshly coiffed as of yesterday afternoon. (Agent Murphy will wait until next time to get his next haircut.)
The new listing of the house is up. (Can’t say the same for the new yard sign. Mr. Tldz and I made a couple of futile attempts, even after a little rain when we thought the ground might be softened up a bit. Obviously there’s some trick to this that we’re missing, because brute force isn’t working.) Had a showing yesterday afternoon. Here’s hoping we get this place sold!
Mr. Tldz and I had a lovely, lazy, relaxed weekend. It has us looking forward to the upcoming long weekend!
We went out for pizza Friday night to clear out for some showings, and noticed that the ice cream parlor across the street from the pizzeria that has been “coming soon” had a banner up announcing a grand opening on Saturday. So Saturday afternoon we went over there for ice cream. Agent Murphy enjoyed his cup of strawberry for tea time very much. Though the ice cream was good, unfortunately we were a little put off by the place because they had their “best customer” out collecting signatures for a petition to turn some flashing lights outside their store back on. It didn’t really make sense, and when we didn’t just agree to sign immediately (partly, at least, because I had ice cream in both hands and Mr. Tldz had ice cream in one hand and a toddler hand in the other) she said loudly to the next group of people she approached, “They didn’t sign because they must be Communists.” Way to lose some customers when you’re trying to build business for a new venture.
We had another showing on Sunday while we were at Mass. Then in the afternoon we finished watching season 1 of Matlock while a pot of lentil and brown rice stew simmered away on the stove. We’re happy to report that Agent Murphy likes this stew, which is good since it’s a family favorite. (Tasty, and really inexpensive to make a vat.)
Although we’ve had an uptick in showings of the house since we reduced the price (6 since the change), no sign of an offer yet. Hopefully we’re beginning the process this week of listing with the new realtor so we have a seamless transition — one listing expiring on July 2, the new listing going up July 3.
Today I’ve been busy with laundry, and Agent Murphy and I went to play group at church. Small crowd today — one family of 4 kids, and a little girl just a bit older than the Agent. The 4 siblings are 3 girls and a boy, so the boy, though he’s almost 5, was happy to have Agent Murphy to play with when we arrived. (I use the phrase “play with” loosely.) It was very sweet — he asked his mom if he could tell the Agent something, and when she said yes, he went over and whispered in our little guy’s ear. His mom told me he wanted to tell the Agent that he’s going to his friend Frankie’s house. I guess he was just very excited to have another boy to talk to.
Indeed, we are blessed that Fathers’ Day cannot fall during Lent. I was treated to some really yummy french toast.
We headed off to mass while our house was shown by a couple different agents and came home to have lunch and a third showing. Hopefully the new price will get the right person’s attention and we’ll sell quickly.
Now it’s off to share some of the chocolate Agent Murphy “helped” Mrs. Tldz pick out for me.
Long time no post! We had a nice trip to Chicago at the end of May. Agent Murphy was a real trooper in the car, even though we got stuck in construction traffic on the first day coming back (on Sunday!) so our planned leisurely half-trip ended up with our getting to our hotel in Kentucky very late.
We went to Lincoln Park Zoo and had hoped to make it to the Children’s Museum, but Mr. Tldz and I were both a bit under the weather. On our penultimate day there, my mom hosted a get-together of family of friends, and it was good to see lots of folks. And Agent Murphy receieved several gifts, for which thank you notes are forthcoming. Saw my sister and her family briefly Sunday morning at Mass. Unfortunately, we ended on a bad note with my mom, but hopefully little by little we will rebuild things.
Agent Murphy had his hearing screening shortly after we returned, and as we expected, all is normal there. Last week he had his speech evaluation, and the therapist is leaning toward the idea that he has a lazy tongue. So we’ll start weekly speech therapy in a few weeks when we hear back about scheduling. Her sense is there’s no reason to think he won’t respond to therapy, that just a little boost should be enough to get him started talking. We’d sure like that! So now I have a bunch of handouts to read through with ideas to try to stimulate language, and we’ll work on that while we wait for therapy.
We had a big day yesterday. Agent Murphy and I finally made it to play group at church for the first time in a long time. He’s still pretty reserved there. Then we went to Mobile Mother Goose at the library in what we hope will be our new neighborhood. (Of course, I couldn’t resist driving by “our” house.) He wasn’t sure what to make of all that. We’ll try it again next week.
Speaking of “our” house… The price has been reduced again. It’s making me really antsy that someone will snatch it up before us. We’ve had a lowball offer on our house. We’ve countered and are waiting for the response. And we’ve had a couple more showings. But we’re on the verge of changing realtors if this current flurry of activity doesn’t yield anything this week. We met with a guy on Saturday who has ideas about actively marketing our house, rather than the “let’s list it and wait and see who shows up” approach our current agent takes.
Had RW and S. over for dinner Saturday a week ago to thank them for keeping an eye on the house while we were away. It’s always fun to catch up with them and we rather enjoy the challenge of finding onion-less recipes to serve to S., since most of our recipes start “chop 1 onion” (or more). Ah, but the pork tenderloin with poached plums that we like has no onions. Yum! We look forward to getting together with them again around mid-July.
Mr. Tldz and I both had physicals last week with our new primary care doc. We need to schedule our blueberry picking outing, and a day trip to the dairy north of here. And I need to carve out some quality time to spend in the basement getting organized down there so we can be ready for the move when the time comes. Other than that, it’s the same old same old around here.
My Mothers Day celebration started Saturday evening, when for date night Mr. Tldz made a lovely dinner — moussaka and lemon oven potatoes, neither of which we’ve had in a while; and then he made baklava! Yummy! (Holy cow – do all those items actually go together?!? We’re usually famous for weird combinations of ethnic foods.) It was fabulous — especially when followed by a nice back massage!
For breakfast Sunday we had freshly made blueberry scones and steel cut oatmeal. Agent Murphy was good during Mass. (We didn’t have to make a break for the narthex at any point during Mass, so that counts as good.) I got my presents when we got home — God and the World, a written interview with Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), a John Michael Talbot CD, and from Agent Murphy Dr. Laura’s new book, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms. Looks like both books will be good reads. As Mr. Tldz said, the interview format with Ratzinger is probably the best way for me to read his stuff these days since it can easily been done in tiny chunks.
During Agent Murphy’s nap, I went out and picked up an umbrella stroller for our upcoming trip to Chicago. We’re looking forward to that! We actually really like our full-size stroller. It’s nicely light weight, but we were looking for something with a smaller profile when folded so it doesn’t take up so much room in the trunk, and we found an umbrella one that doesn’t seem to be built for midgets to push. After Agent Murphy’s nap, we called the grandmothers. I had a nice chat with my mom, and Mr. Tldz left a message for his.
We got all of our cooking (including a couple of pies) and laundry done for the week. (Ours, anyway. Agent Murphy always has more!) And we still managed to retire at a normal hour. A very good weekend. I hope all my mom friends out there had good Mothers Days, too.
Now my boy is clamoring for help with his puzzles and for story time, so I must go be Mommy.
Mr. Tldz and I read more of Miss Betsy: A Memoir of Marriage last night, and then again this morning, as we decided to be a little bit lazy. We had breakfast. I went to the grocery store. (Normally a Friday night task, but yesterday’s normal schedule, as you know, was interrupted. On that note… My lips aren’t really tingling. I’ve been using a lot of lip gloss, because I think what I’m feeling now is the burning/stinging of chapped lips. I suspect yesterday when they were a little bit numb, I kept biting or licking at them to make sure they were still there. Shoulder is sore, but very bearable. Pain killers a couple of times a day it seems will suffice.) We unloaded groceries, had lunch, put Agent Murphy down for his nap, I did a little cleaning around the house.
I headed out to check our local children’s consignment store. I got Agent Murphy a number of spring/summer items there last weekend, but the stuff for boys is always pretty slim pickings. They said they were getting more stuff ready to put out, so I thought I’d check back today. Hooray – several more cute items, including one I’d meant to pick up last week that we’ll hopefully be able to use for 18-month portraits.
Since I’ve returned, I’ve made most of the meal we’re delivering tomorrow to church friends who recently had a little girl. Mr. Tldz has dessert for them (blueberry cobbler) in the oven and is working on a blueberry pie for us. (Time to finish off our blueberries from last summer before blueberry season rolls around again. July will be here before we know it!)
Agent Murphy is awake now, so I must go tend to him and help Mr. Tldz in the kitchen. And there is much more cleaning to do tonight and in the morning, as our realtor is holding another open house tomorrow afternoon.
We are now the proud owners of an 8′ pew from our old church. It’s stashed in the basement. Hopefully whatever house we move to will have a nice spot for it.
Just got done icing a batch of Almond Joy Biscotti. It’s our first flavor experiment, working off the basic biscotti recipe we have. The author of that cookbook (all desserts) suggests one have an icing spatula, so we procured one around the time we got married. Never actually used it until today. What a great thing! Now we’re waiting impatiently for the chocolate to set so we can try these guys out. The half-baked ends of the dough rolls tasted pretty good, though, so that’s promising.
Agent Murphy woke up Friday with his nose all coated over with snot. He’s had a runny nose ever since, but at least this morning his nose wasn’t all caked up; so hopefully he’s on the mend. (He’s currently nearing the end of a much-needed nap.) I seem to have come down with a bit of a cold, too. I don’t know if I gave it to him or he gave it me or we caught it together. I ought to be napping, too…
We were concerned about the length of Palm Sunday Mass (officially Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion) with the Agent’s not feeling quite up to snuff, but he did amazingly well this morning. Maybe this bodes well for a good Holy Week. We’re actually planning to go to Easter Vigil Mass, hoping we can get Agent Murphy to go to sleep once we get there and sleep through it, since it starts after his bedtime. (We’d love to participate in all of the Triduum services, but we figure that would be pushing our luck.) We may be leaving Mass after a brief time, or we may make it through all three hours. We shall see. I should probably go find him some cute Easter pajamas to wear for the occasion…