In the good old summertime

Ants found in the office, which is above the kitchen: one. Ants found in the craft room, which is next to the office: one. Ants found in the nursery: one. Orkin Men cursed out because their oh-so-impressive spraying regimen is obviously totally useless: one.

We tried out the lemon ice cream for real tonight. Our conclusions: no-egg ice cream is too soft, at least the way we've made it so far. Maybe with too much cream. It could use a little more sugar. However, it's also intensely flavorful and even with its faults is a darn good dessert. I do like our work. I'm looking forward to full-on summer, I think; the ants will eventually go away (they seem to come out in the spring and fall), and we'll be making more ice cream, and the garden will improve (assuming I can ever get out to weed and to plant the last of the things I want to plant), and everything will be good.

Trying to relax

Blechh. My calves hurt (three charley horses last night--Eric said, "How is that possible when you only have two legs?") and I'm tired and there's a baby bubbling around in my internal organs. The last bit isn't so bad, except sometimes I wish I could make it stop, and the middle one is a good tired; I went out and worked in the garden and the yard a bit, and that makes me happy. Eric was going to mow the lawn, but his shoulder injury from an old car accident flared up again yesterday (possibly triggered by an irritating episode with his mother and her computer) so he's taking it easy. I'm trying to, too. We went to our first childbirth class on Thursday and I walked out of it crying because the relaxation exercise had triggered a whole bunch of unhappiness I hadn't realized I was carrying around. Eric said, "Apparently neither of us are real good at the relaxing thing," but we're giving it a try.

This weekend we intend to unload the bookcases in the office so that we can replace them with the bigger bookcases in the nursery, and make ice cream. Lemon ice cream. Yummy yummy lemon ice cream. I also intend to make another batch of chai, if there's enough cream left. I made some this past week just because I felt like it, and I think I'm getting close to a good recipe. I'd like to have someone else to get a second opinion (Eric's no good because he doesn't like chai), though I'm not sure why when it's my taste I'm trying to cater to. I think. Anyway, books and ice cream ahead. What could be more relaxing than that?

Home comforts

I am quite tired--pleasantly so, except for the back. I spent a good four hours out in the yard today--mostly doing garden work, but also weeding around the raspberries and the one rose (which may be getting yanked; we'll see how I feel about it). Eric helped out by Round-Up-ing weeds. While we were both out we learned that the neighbors have such frequent parties (a few times a week) partly because one of them is a Pampered Chef salesperson (whatever they're called). If I'd known that before I would have inquired whether Pampered Chef has angel food pans any better than the Baker's Secret ones.

Alas, I didn't; so Eric got one from Kroger today, because we were bound and determined to have angel food cake with sugared strawberries and homemade French vanilla ice cream tonight. And so we shall. The strawberries are macerating, the ice cream is setting, the cake is cooling. We've just finished dinner, tacos. I don't mind quick meals on the weeknights, mostly, as long as it doesn't descend into "What do you want?" "I don't know, what do you want?" "I don't know. Pasta?" which it too often does. I'm sick of pasta. But I'm really liking a more work-intensive, well-rounded meal on Sundays. Followed by dessert is even better. A dessert that kicks off the ice-cream-making season is better still.

Ice cream disappointments

I made Cherry Garcia the way Ben & Jerry's book told me to, though I was dubious, and it doesn't taste like Cherry Garcia; it tastes like bland chocolate chip with icy chunks of cherry thrown in. Next time I'll know to listen to my instincts. I'm thinking cherry puree.

I made Mexican chocolate, chocolate with cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne. I've decided to get rid of the cayenne next time. I do find the hot-and-cold juxtaposition intriguing, but it only occurs at the very back of my throat. I can't decide whether the ice cream numbs all the ones in front of it, or there's some interaction with the fat, or what, but it's weird, and every time I eat it I feel like I'm starting a sore throat. Otherwise the ice cream is entirely satisfactory. I'm eating this stuff quickly just so I can start over with a new batch. This is not a good idea for my health, but I don't seem to be able to pay that as much attention lately. I'm eating well, just a lot--and of course a lot of ice cream tastes. Cherry vanilla is next.

Things move, and people too

My seam ripper is missing. This is severely problematic. I have Dad's quilt to finish by July 1, when we go out. And not only is it not started, but I've got this other quilt to finish first. And to do that I need to rip out part of the also severely problematic back and redo it. Then pin, quilt, and bind--not too hard, especially since I can leave off the binding until there's more time, since it's just our summer bed quilt. But I can't find my seam ripper, which means I can't rip out the seam, which means I can't progress.

I was going to go to Joann to pick up a replacement seam ripper and maybe some cotton-acrylic or wool-acrylic yarn if I found some on sale for a baby sweater for my friend who already made me a baby blanket (I'm not pregnant and she knows it; she says she ran out of people to give blankets to and it's the only crochet stitch she knows). But Eric called because his friend from school had just told him she got a job offer, and he's worried because he was slightly later than his classmates at applying for jobs and is afraid he won't get one at all.

So I went home, and we talked. Some of the things he said were a bit odd--for example, that he would never be able to support our family. I mean, he went into teaching knowing what the salary would be like, and I've never demanded that he support the family single-handedly, and I don't expect myself to do it either (I am technically now, but by the skin of our teeth--but then, if we were permanently going to live on just my salary we'd be making some lifestyle changes). Some went back to our one big issue: where we're going to live. We talked, and as usual didn't get much resolved, but he seemed a little heartened that I wasn't disappointed in him for not having a job yet. I was put in mind of how I felt in early 2006, when I was living in my Toledo apartment, jobless and despairing and playing way too much World of Warcraft.

And instead of quilting, I spent the evening gardening and cooking. (Eric was at his weekly gaming session.) I planted some peppers and cotton and sunflowers and cantaloupe, and swatted mosquitos, and picked some spinach in the hopes it won't bolt so quickly this year. At least I've been able to enjoy some. And then I made marinated spinach salad, and chai ice cream, and brownies for the chocolate chocolate chocolate nut ice cream we're making at Eric's dad's request for our party this weekend. Other flavors we've made for the party: pineapple and lemon. Other flavors planned: strawberry (by popular demand), root beer, and apple cinnamon. We're very much enjoying the experimental part of this hobby.

I think I'm going to have to revisit my idea last year of cutting off hobbies until I get my writing tasks and ideas in order. Ice cream doesn't take much time. Neither does bread baking. But the non-food crafts do. I need to keep up the garden, and I really do need to finish these two quilts; but otherwise I may want to place a moratorium on non-literary creativity until further notice. Though that'll be hard...I want to knit some reusable grocery bags from the cotton I have that I won't use otherwise, and there's a bunch of spinning fiber I want to get to, and I wanted to make Christmas stockings this year, and I have the perfect baby sweater picked out and C will love it.

Marvelous

The vanilla bean ice cream turned out marvelously. We made a good vanilla last year, and I used the same recipe but with a slightly higher cream:milk ratio and with the vanilla seeds simmered in the milk and cream rather than simply adding extract. The butter pecan was surprisingly good, but a little light on the flavor--if we do this again we'll amend Ben & Jerry's recipe. The lemon bar was a flop--too much lemon extract gave it a candy flavor, and the cookies didn't add all that much. And then I made cherry-vanilla using frozen cherries we had spurned for an earlier batch of ice cream, and I think it's pretty good. If it passes the taste committee (the birthday party tonight) I might try cherry-chocolate.

I also drove on our new driveway for the first time last night. So this is what a real driveway feels like! No bumps, no dips, no gentle steering around obstacles. I almost crashed into the back of the garage because I was waiting for the usual dip that tells me I've gone far enough. Marvelous. Maybe not $6803 marvelous, but marvelous nonetheless. I might even take it over ice cream--some ice cream, for some period of time, at least.

Important bulletin

It turns out freezing cream is a bad, bad idea. We had extra from the wedding, see, so I stuck it in the freezer. I pulled it out last night for ice-cream making. When I opened the carton this evening it wouldn't come out because it had clotted into a tangled mess. It smelled fine, it was just clotted and protein-y and...yuck. I made my fastest run to Kroger ever. (Where they had boxes of satsumas! At least, they said that's what they were. The boxes were $8 each and I didn't quite believe, so I didn't get any. But I will later when they get cheaper, if they're still here. If I can get satsumas out here--?)

I dreamed last night I was Christmas shopping with M and Z. Z went to try on a white butterfly shirt that I said would look good on her, only it was attached to some sort of decoration with meat hooks on it so I was worried. M and I wandered around the rest of the store, where I watched people pushing each other in the aisles and wished I had stayed away from the stores as I had intended to. Then Z came out and had us all try on suits made of carpets.

I made my first by-the-seat-of-my-pants bread Saturday. It was pretty good, but not a complete success. I put a little too much oil and salt in, and not enough yeast. The amount of rosemary was good, though, and it was nice to have some bread to snack on. And my sourdough starter is nearing readiness (I think) so I'm going to give that a shot soon. I also have to figure out what kind of bread to make for Thanksgiving. Sourdough's out, as half Eric's family doesn't like it. A rustic loaf? Rolls? Both?

I also made two batches of apple butter, sour cherry jelly (which is indeed very good, and it even jelled the first time--after I added half a second packet of pectin), and an apple pie. Plus feeding the sourdough starter and cooking meals. We own two sets of measuring spoons and three sets of measuring cups, and when I was finished I had a two-thirds cup, a one-third cup, a one-quarter teaspoon, and a one-half teaspoon left in the drawer. I even used the one-half tablespoon and one-eighth teaspoon spoons. (I did not, however, use the auxiliary set of measuring spoons--dash, pinch, and smidgen. They're not in the drawer; they're hung up on the wall.)

The next cooking step is a bunch of birthday ice cream for Wednesday. Brenda and Michelle have birthdays around now and are sharing a "family party" dinner. Originally we planned to make peach ice cream, which they both love, but the peaches I bought and lovingly ripened inside my green tomato box (rapidly turning mostly red) turned out black inside and mushy and bland. Michelle's second choice was vanilla and Brenda's was butter pecan, so those are the ones I'm proceeding with tonight. Plus I noticed Brenda's "birthday cake" was lemon bars, and I decided to try to make lemon bar ice cream. I may or may not release that to the family, depending on how the test run turns out.

Vaccinations for all

I've had a mildly sore throat--tickly, feels better when I drink a lot--for thirty-six hours now. I had a slight bout of sneezing yesterday morning, and a slight attack of body aches yesterday afternoon. Did I mention that Eric is sick? From his fourth day of teaching? I've clearly caught it from him, but the onset is so slow that I'm hopeful that either I'm merely being inoculated and showing some vaccination reactions, as it were, or that the cold itself will be very mild because my body's evidently had time to marshall its defenses. Eric is very bitter about this.

I have also already failed as a housewife. He has no more clean underwear. It's laundry night for me.

We went to dinner last night at a relatively new Italian place for Edith's birthday and Eric's sister's, and it was fantastic. The gelato and the cappuccino were the only things that weren't delicious, and since I don't drink cappuccino and there was birthday ice cream waiting at home, that wasn't a big deal.

The ice cream went over very well. I made it Tuesday night, since Eric was still sick. We had chocolate mint, chocolate orange, and peanut butter chocolate with Reese's cups. The chocolates were a little soft and the peanut butter a little hard (probably because I put in twice as much peanut butter as the Ben & Jerry's recipe recommended--the flavor wasn't too strong either), but they were a hit. Eric's brother-in-law--well, I guess he's mine too--suggested we sell our ice cream at the farmer's market and Eric was sorely tempted. We'd have to work on scoopability, but I could see it being a fun day if we did it. I've been wanting to get to that farmer's market.

White satin anxiety

I had the inevitable emotional breakdown last night. We weren't getting enough done and the peach ice cream needed work and my house was a mess and my parents were coming the next day and nothing would be ready for the wedding and it would thunderstorm all day. We did end up getting a fair amount done, but I was anxious and weepy all night. I think I'm over it now--crying is stress release, you know. I do have the feeling that once my parents get here, everything has to stop, but that's not true; they're coming early so that they can help us do things. And it's a good thing.

I'm feeling a little funny about the wedding. It's a little more than half the size we thought it would be, and so does it really make sense to get dressed in a funny impractical gown and put crepe in my hair? And what if people think our ceremony sounds stupid? What if it is stupid and I realize that there's something I wanted to say that I'll never get to? Which doesn't make sense; I can say it whenever I want, ceremony or no; but by having this wedding without an official solemnizer we elevated it from legal requirement to cultural ritual, and I'm afraid we won't measure up.

Once we polish up the ceremony--yes, we're still not finished, and the officiant hasn't yet seen it, which I'm sure is causing her some anxiety--not to mention we threw in a "Princess Bride" reference that she may or may not go for--everything else is, to some extent, unnecessary. The programs are basically done; we delegated the cookie-making to someone else; we have decorations and food. We don't need bookmarks. We don't need a bachelorette party. We don't even really need music, though that's also causing me anxiety and burning the reception CDs is probably something I'll ask Eric and Mom and Dad to do tomorrow while I’m at work (as well as grocery shopping and maybe straightening the house). I've been bringing CDs with me to listen to while I drive to and from work, and I've found a couple of songs that could work, though nothing that strikes me as perfect. I guess that's okay. The wedding won't be perfect, and neither will the marriage--but it'll be as good as we can do with what we've got, and the people I love will be there.

Q & A

Q: Is it possible to get tired of strawberry ice cream if you're having it night in and night out, trying out very slightly different variations each time but still basically consuming the same recipe each time?

A: No. No, it is not.

At least not with our recipe. To the approximately 40% of people who aren't coming to our wedding: Come to the wedding. We have ice cream.

Wedding-brained

Less than two weeks to the wedding. We made a test batch of strawberry ice cream tonight, using the new 1.5 quart test-batch ice cream maker. We're totally opening an ice cream shop someday. Anyway, the strawberry is, how do I say this...fantastic. We may not be serving it at the wedding after all because we won't be able to bear parting with it.

I have a bunch of people I need to call, including Dad to see if he's offended that I asked him to change the father/daughter dance song (so that it could become a parent/child dance instead). I have beans and amaranth (deep red seedlings) coming up in my garden. I finally, finally got rid of the trash pile by the driveway, at the cost of a pair of sunburn epaulets. Yesterday we went to the Toledo Zoo to see the baby polar bears (just like half of the Midwest) and I wore a three-quarter-length shirt and gained some sunburn bracers. It's like I'm playing World of Warcraft. If I get sunburned legs, do I get a set bonus?

(Also Mom's going to kill me. She told me I could only wear a tank top or a long-sleeve shirt outside until the wedding, and I was for the epaulets, but not for the bracers. Plus what she meant was that I couldn't get a partial tan, only a total one or none at all. I guess it's time to slather on some sunscreen and go work in the yard in my bathing suit? I have weeding and mulching to do...)

Ooh, and check out what I did today!



We made tabbouleh for dinner, and I made pita bread (out of The Bread Bible) to go with it, and it puffed up! Just like it was supposed to! I was so excited. It's probably a good thing the little things can make me so happy, because there will be a lot of little things going on in the next 13 days.

Gimme some sugar

A 25-pound bag of sugar sits in our kitchen, between the microwave cart that holds the cookbooks and the doorway to the pantry. Why do we need 25 pounds of sugar you ask? Excellent question. I'll tell you: because we fancy ourselves food geeks.

More specifically, because we're making homemade ice cream for the wedding. With our current response rates to the invitations, we're figuring on seeing about 60 people there (which is much less than I'd thought and I'm curiously let down, even though that's just about what I originally wanted--it's Eric's large family that's making the difference), and planning to make about 10 gallons of ice cream, just to make sure there's enough. (And who could object to leftover homemade ice cream? We have a chest freezer now, we can store it.)

And 10 gallons of ice cream requires most of a 25-pound bag of sugar. Also gallons of milk and cream, pounds of fruit and chocolate, a big bottle of vanilla, a few cans of concentrated orange juice, and about three dozen eggs. And that's it. All-natural ingredients, that's us. We calculated it at about $100 for the whole thing, which puts us at about the same price as Breyer's (when it's not on sale, anyway) and a little better than Ben & Jerry's.

We can probably get away with making less than the full 10 gallons, considering we're also having cake and a catered lunch and snacks and candies and also cookies as favors and possibly a chocolate fountain. But we think we're food geeks, and we want to serve homemade ice cream to everyobe we know and love (who can attend). Besides, if the ceremony (still unwritten, I might add) is lousy or it turns out to thunderstorm, our ice cream is--in our admittedly biased opinions--good enough to make up for it. How can it not? Look how much sugar is going into it.

This weekend, we will go to The Andersons for fruit (and I will probably pick up a plant or two because I can't help it--especially if their cucumbers are ready for sale; I can keep them inside a couple of weeks if necessary). And then the great ice-cream-making saga of 2007 will begin.

The not-a-shower shower

I have dirt under my fingernails. I planted sunflowers and beans and flowers, and I gave away some plants (thank goodness--my windowsill was overcrowded--plus I got a couple of nice ones in return), and I finished the herb bed, but today was not really a day about gardening. (Although it was a gardening day. It was gorgeous outside, warm but not too warm--I've still got the kitchen window open.) Today was our not-a-shower party.

We spent the first part of the weekend cleaning and organizing, which I was really grateful for. I hate it when my house is dirty and disorganized, and part of living with Eric is living with dirt and disorganization because I'm trying to, you know, compromise and stuff. So it was nice to get the dust off the shelves and organize the books by category and vacuum the carpet where Eric's books are normally scattered, even though I kind of hate dusting and vacuuming. (Organizing books I like. We have an interesting library. In the nonfiction section I organized books into: science, religion (3 books total there), history, language, reference, psychology, nonfiction narrative/biography, trivia books people give us, and, naturally, 'other.' 'Other' included things such as One Good Turn, the history of the screwdriver.)

We served tacos and homemade ice cream, and I harvested my first garden produce for it, a handful of green onions. The homemade ice cream--chocolate chocolate chip and mint Oreo mint--was a hit. The peach-with-frozen-peaches was awful, we discovered last night--the frozen peaches have an off taste to them--so we threw it out. we had two babies visiting, which was always fun, and Eric's groomsman tried on his vest, and Eric's dad and stepmom gave us an iron and a knife block/measuring cup/utensil set. (Immediately after we opened these, Eric got up to show everyone our new Kapoosh knife block. I didn't understand this lack of tact until Eric said later that he hadn't seen the knife block part of the set. Eric's sister also commented at one point that the air conditioning was on, even though the windows were open, and why was that? Eric started explaining that it had been too hot that morning, which it hadn't, and as I crossed behind her to turn off the air conditioning I muttered, "Because your brother's a freak," and she laughed.)

It was a good party, even though some people we were expecting (and needed to see, like the best man to fit his vest) didn't show up. We should do it more often. We should also make more mint Oreo mint ice cream, because man, was that stuff good.

Middles

So we were supposed to go to the florist yesterday. But Eric had to get an EEG (he's fine, it's routine), and so he had to shower the gel stuff out of his hair, and then we had to eat, and then it was too late. So I'm going today, alone, because Eric has a class. Pout. Anyway, we did the dishes and I watered the carrots and we went for a walk instead, and on the way home we stopped in at his mom's.

At his mom's was Addie, Eric's now six-weeks-old niece, and also the tail end of a confrontation between Eric's mom and Michelle. It's complicated, but suffice it to say that Brenda was unhappy about something Michelle had said, and Michelle had said it because of her lack of awareness of a situation she hasn’t been allowed to know about, so I think both were frustrated and I know both were unhappy. And Eric and I feel slightly caught in the middle, because Brenda more or less declared that she's not going to try to be Michelle's friend anymore (adding to us, "You two can do what you want…") and we kind of understand that, but we also understand that from Michelle's point of view that was uncalled for. And we're always being asked to do things with them, or watch Michelle for an afternoon, and she's in our wedding, and…well…it's uncomfortable. She's having a rough enough time with her parents divorcing, and having her home disrupted by this, even if it's temporary (and I can't think that Brenda will really be able to carry this out for long--she loves Michelle), isn't going to be any better for her.

My birthday present, my spinning wheel, is due to come today. I need to go to the florist, but after that I may invite Michelle over to see my new toy and give her a couple of hours in a house where nobody resents her.

After that I need to get spinning; I have a bunch I want to do before the wedding. And make curtains. And finish that quilt. And do the rest of the wedding planning--though that's mostly little things once the flowers and chairs are ordered. Oh, and planting a bunch of things and putting up some shelves and figuring out how to make my shoes not make that flip-flop sound. I have less than five weeks left.

We're having a not-a-shower party this Sunday, because we don't want a shower per se but we want to see people. We're having a taco bar (and Eric's dad offered to bring smoked ribs) and snacks, and we're serving three kinds of ice cream: mint Oreo mint, chocolate cherry, and frozen peach. The peach is a test batch using frozen peaches rather than fresh, since we suspect we won't get really good fresh peaches the week before the wedding. We made the mint Oreo mint already and it could use some more cookies but is otherwise pretty darn good. And I'm totally looking forward to trying the chocolate cherry. The peach is the only one we're planning on serving at the wedding (plus strawberry, orange, and chocolate), but our ice cream experiments remain interesting--and tasty.