Monthly Archives: March 2010

Family matters

“Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life”

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We had a really lovely weekend; I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. Yesterday evening, though, Spring’s first allergy attack hit me hard. I know today is Monday, which means I should be sharing a menu plan with you. But for now, I’m concentrating more on breathing. It’s hard to think about what you’ll be eating for the week when you can’t taste anything.

I’ve always had bad seasonal allergies. I’ve never been to an allergy specialist before, but a GP once told me I had the worst nasal inflammation he’d ever seen. So, yay for me? He prescribed Zyrtec and Flonase, which worked really well until the Flonase started making me crazy dizzy. Turns out, other medications also make me dizzy, and you know what I don’t need? More dizziness.* I can’t remember whether the Zyrtec had bad mojo or not, but I’ve been taking Claritin for the last several years.

And every Spring, I’ve thought, “I should go to an allergy specialist.” And then I don’t, because procrastination! It’s what I do best.

But! This morning, I called an allergy specialist and croaked out, “I’d like to make an appointment.” On Thursday, I’ll go to their office and get poked with needles. (Or something. I don’t know.) And guess what? I can take exactly zero antihistamines between now and then!

I’m guessing they’ll say something like, “You’re allergic to trees and grass and dust and dust mites and pollen and everything else in the whole wide world. We suggest you take three allergy shots a day. And wear this bubble on your head.” And you know what? I might sign on for that.

*I get really dizzy for two or three days roughly every month and a half. If you clicked on that link and are wondering, the CrazyFeelings are mostly gone. But now there’s the dizziness. Why haven’t I gotten the darn thing removed already? I don’t know. Laziness, I guess.

Also: “Breathing in the greatest pleasure in life.” Giovanni Papini said that, and right now I certainly can see what he meant.

Eating

Cake blogging on demand!

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i’m demanding a new blog entry…. it’s been 3 days. =)

That was the email I received from my sister-in-law this morning. Since she’s agreed to watch the kids overnight this weekend, I’ll comply. Also, the kids are upstairs playing “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle,” so I have a spare moment. (Even though said spare moment should be dedicated to folding laundry. Oh well.)

Earlier this week, I made a carrot cake for a friend’s birthday. I love carrot cake, and so does she. It’s the foundation of our friendship. There’s a place in town that claims to have the best carrot cake on earth, so we briefly thought about ordering one from them. Until we found out it would cost fifty dollars. And here’s one of my life rules: Do not pay $50 for a cake.

I’ve never made a carrot cake before, so I searched high and low for a great carrot cake recipe, finally deciding on the highly lauded “Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake” with whipped cream cheese frosting. The cake had a good flavor, but it was so dense that I don’t think it qualified as “cake.” I’m 98% certain that had more to do with my equipment than with the recipe, though. I’ve been using silicon cake pans, and I think they’re causing heightened baked-good density. It may also be that the oven’s temperature isn’t what it should be. Someday, I’ll pick up an oven thermometer to keep in there. Until then, I’ll use a different cake pan next time and see whether that makes a difference.

So the cake itself was disappointing — it has, nevertheless, been consumed already — but the frosting? Oh, the frosting! It was terrific. It would make a great fruit dip. Even though that would pretty much negate any nutritional value in the fruit.

Flotsam / Jetsam

Time to fill out a new bracket

We never actually did our date night this weekend, because I was worn out on Saturday night. I went to bed at 9, which left very little room between the kids going to sleep and me calling it a day. We did, however, have lots of fun on Friday night debating the merits of candies. Tomato Nation is currently holding the N Candy AA, and the polls for the first round opened today. I will be following this closely, although I probably won’t be buying all of the candies, nailing them to the wall bracket-style and eating the losers, as my friend Carrie suggested. Awesome though it would be to have a candy wall.