All posts by Nichole

Family matters

I went back to Ohio, but my city was gone

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We had guests this weekend, so date night was almost shuffled aside this week. Those guests, though, had concert tickets for Friday night. So rather than turn on the TV after they’d left for the show and the kids had gone to bed, we pulled out a new game and played it until bedtime. There was, once again, no dressing up (or even changing out of my sweatshirt), but we had a lot of fun playing cards together anyway.

3/52
Project 52: Date Nights logo

  • Two children in bed.
  • House guests otherwise occupied.
  • A copy of Lost Cities.*

    • This was my first week “planning” date night, and all I did this time was buy a game in the event that we’d have time to play it. I’m at bat for all of March, and I’m a little nervous. I’ve made a list of things I thought would work nicely, but now I’m second-guessing myself and worrying that they’re too cheesy. Maybe we’ll just play “Lost Cities” every week for a month.

    (I will try not to do that. I promise.)

    *It’s an adventure-themed card game with five suits that’s reminiscent of gin rummy. Each suit corresponds to an “expedition.” It’s addictive.

    menu plan Monday

    Groceries gone wild

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    menubuttonLast week’s planned chaos at the grocery store worked out pretty well. This week’s unplanned, entirely without-a-list fiasco just stressed me out. (I know that’s a bit lame, but it did.) Lesson learned. I will take at least a rudimentary list along from now on.

    This is not to say that I didn’t actually bring food home from the grocery store. That, I did manage. Here’s what I’m going to do with it:

    Chicken salad sandwiches.
    I’ve been using a Paula Dean recipe to make chicken salad for my lunches for the last several weeks. It isn’t a plate of carrots and broccoli by any means, but it definitely tastes good. And it’s less expensive than buying a bunch of frozen meals, which is what I’d been doing. Anyway, this week it’s making a dinnertime appearance.

    Garlic beef stirfry
    The sweet and sour pork we had last week was so good that I decided to make stirfry a regular menu item. Regular, that is, until that week when I forget to make it and then we don’t have it again for a year.

    Turkey burgers with roasted sweet potatoes
    Poppy chose all of our produce this week. It didn’t end as badly as I’d expected. She picked some sweet potatoes, an apple and a tiny butternut squash. That might make its way into the roasted sweet potato dish.

    Chicken … something

    Au gratin potatoes
    I bought a big bag of potatoes last week, and it needs to become Something. I think i’ll be au gratin. We shall see.

    Reading

    Someday I will go to the Roethke House

    I’ve loved this poem since the first time I read it. I don’t remember when that was, exactly, but it was before I knew that Roethke grew up in the same town as my dad. He still lives there (my dad; not Roethke), and because it’s between Dad’s house and Meijer’s, we drive past Roethke Park every time we’re there. But I’ve never been to the park or to the Roethke House.

    Anyway, this poem moved me even before I knew of that geographical connection. Its rhythm and that “palm caked hard by dirt” and the “countenance” that “could not unfrown itself” just get me every time.

    My Papa’s Waltz
    by Theodore Roethke

    The whiskey on your breath
    Could make a small boy dizzy;
    But I hung on like death:
    Such waltzing was not easy.

    We romped until the pans
    Slid from the kitchen shelf;
    My mother’s countenance
    Could not unfrown itself.

    The hand that held my wrist
    Was battered on one knuckle;
    At every step you missed
    My right ear scraped a buckle.

    You beat time on my head
    With a palm caked hard by dirt,
    Then waltzed me off to bed
    Still clinging to your shirt.