April 6, 2012

Outside Temp: 29F (I was expecting a blizzard, and while it snowed most of the day, I would hardly call it a blizzard here.)

What I cooked today:
Chicken Noodle Soup (without the chicken): The last Friday of Lent, so no meat.  I think Chicken Broth is okay, so I made chicken noodle soup and just skipped the chicken.  Worked great for lunch!

Mediterranean Lentil Soup: For dinner, I made a crock pot recipe for a lentil soup with an awesome vinaigrette that you drizzle on the top.  It had tomatoes, onions, celery, beef broth and thyme and slow cooked all day.  We mixed up the vinaigrette when we got home from church out of red wine vinegar, olive oil, basil and parsley.  Then, as we served up the soup, we drizzled the vinaigrette on the top.  It was great.  We had some fresh baked bread with it, which was great to dip in the soup.  We felt a little guilty, since we were supposed to have a humble meal for Good Friday, and even though it had no meat, it was hearty and delicious.

Update:
I woke up this morning to a migraine and incessant chirping. 

That's it, I was done.  I took 2 Excedrin and some Sudafed and started working on getting the dog room ready for the chicks.  We had a bin that we were going to use, but we had moth balls in it, and that smell does not stop just because you clean it out.  We left the bin outside last night, hoping that it would get rid of the moth ball smell.  This morning, the bin was full of snow, and still smelled like moth balls.  Not cool.

So, we grabbed some small packing boxes (I pray that we don't have to use them anytime soon for actual packing), and built a large area for the chicks.  We decided that they should have enough space that we can integrate the chicks and no longer keep the yellow ones from the brown ones.  So far, so good.  They are all getting along.

We were a little concerned about the cold, since the room was about 60 degrees this morning.  But, between the heat lamps and the space heater, the room is a nice 80-85 degrees now.  The chicks seem to be happy in their new home, and I am totally looking forward to a nice night's sleep with no chirping.

I also opened up all my windows in my bedroom this morning, with the snow falling, just to air out the room.  I vacuumed and dusted and now the room doesn't smell like chicken poop.  Next time we get chicks, I pray that I remember not to have them in our room!  That was kind of dumb.

My mom sent me a text, asking about the weather.  Apparently, this 'blizzard' made the national news and she was worried.  I had to laugh and tell her that it was warm here... okay, so in normal terms, 30-35 degrees is not warm, but when you think of a blizzard, I was thinking of negative 20 or so.  The roads were clear and the snow was not really sticking.  On top of that, there was not much wind, so no 5 foot drifts. 

We had no problem heading into Belt for Good Friday service.  And we explained to Ryan that when we say the 'Our Father' during mass, he doesn't need to yell it out.  You can use your inside voice.  Of course, everyone in the church, including the priest, could hear him yesterday.  Today was much better.  But, the best part was that, even though his voice was a little loud, everyone could understand him.  That's amazing in itself!  He had all the words down and he did great.  The priest even commented that it was the Holy Spirit working in him.  I love that!