7 Quick Takes: Cheesefare Edition

--1--

For my Western Catholic readers, happy Lent!  For the rest of us Orthodox on the Old Calendar, happy Cheesefare week!  This is the week of bidding farewell to dairy products.  (We bid adieu to meat last week).  Russians call this week maslenitsa, or literally, Butter Week.  They eat loads of blini (crepes) this week, and try to use up all the dairy in the larder before Monday.  We now have a few traditional Cheesefare Week meals, including cheese pancakes with sour cream and jam.  I'm having a little trouble running down the farmer's cheese necessary for the dish (darn Soviet style grocery shopping!), but I'm determined to persevere, even if it means driving to New Jersey for it!!

--2--

The Great Fast starts on Monday, and with it, a new cooking adventure.  This year, I can eat soy again, so my vegan recipe index is bigger than in the past few years, but I still have to eat legumes on a rotation basis, so we'll see how things shake out.  I'm doing a fish food challenge on March 9, so perhaps we'll be able to rotate in some tuna and salmon for Aunnciation.  

--3--

One other food related item, which is, we recently discovered that my boys LOVE Caesar salad.  I mean, love it to distraction.  I've been buying these family-size salad kits (from Dole) and the boys between them can put away most of two bags.  TWO!!  Crazy.  I'm sort of dreading the teenage years, given how they eat now.

--4--

I definitely have a stress fracture, and I definitely need to wear the boot for 6-8 weeks, which officially makes me feel like Job.  Let's pile on a little more, shall we?  I guess it is appropriate for the season.  

--5--

On that note, my husband pestered me into going to the doctor yesterday since I've been coughing up my lungs for several weeks now, and it turns out I was only a day or two away from pneumonia.  Lovely.  The doctor took one look at me in my boot, with Birdie strapped to me and asked me if I wanted happy pills in addition to the antibiotic.  

--6--

I'm still plugging away at paper flower projects for Spring Fling, but alas, I have nothing new to show you (or at least, I've not had time to photograph any projects), so I'll show you this little guy instead.  I love the gnome set in the current Mini catalog, and I especially love the sentiments that go with it.  Does it get any better than "hangin' with my gnomies?"  I think not.

--7--

On Sunday, we were driving to church, and about 4 miles down the road, there was a CLUNK, followed by an ominous scraping noise.  My husband pulled over to inspect, and sure enough, the bracket holding the muffler had dropped off, and the muffler was dragging on the ground.  He got out a bungee cord, tied up the muffler, and off we went.  We got to our exit, and another CLUNK followed by scraping noises followed us.  My husband pulled over again (right on the exit ramp, lovely), and the bungee cord had melted.  He found some rope, jury-rigged the muffler up, but since it was so hot, couldn't get it very tight, so we scraped over every speed bump to church (and there are a lot in that part of New Jersey, let me tell you).  After we got going again, Harry piped in from the back seat:

Twinkle, twinkle, 

Chocolate bar,

My dad drives a rusty car.

Pull the starter, push the choke,

Off we go in a cloud of smoke.

Twinkle, twinkle

Chocolate bar,

My dad drives a rusty car.

We about died.

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