3/12 thanks

le 1^er.iii.12 - fairy bandaids

le 2.iii.12 - Max Brown

le 3.iii.12 - moderate productivity, GYM!, eating well

le 4.iii.12 - tortilla española and Ravenswood cab

le 5.iii.12 - Monday's almost over

le 6.iii.12 - sticking to my gym and healthy eating regimen :)

le 7.iii.12 - friends

le 8.iii.12 - fun hair day

le 9.iii.12 - Sun Kil Moon's Alesundle 10.iii.12 - Michael Sheen, for the millionth time

le 11.iii.12 - studio fairies

le 12.iii.12 - supportive, understanding friends & a great rehearsal

le 13.iii.12 - two test periods, no lesson plans :)

le 14.iii.12 - SO looking forward to w(h)ine with KBB today!

le 15.iii.12 - funnest cov. group night evah, really cool extra time with MO

le 16.iii.12 - my Paris "slow shoes" &, bien évidemment, SPRING BREAK!!

le 17.iii.12 - Slap Betle 18.iii.12 - successful impromptu white chocolate mousse

le 19.iii.12 - new Beau feeding strategy

le 20.iii.12 - extremely yummy curry

le 21.iii.12 - S&L and their oh-so-S&L-ness

le 22.iii.12 - the smell of millet toasting in the skillet

le 23.iii.12 - Paul Abbott & UK Shameless

le 24.iii.12 - quinoa with my curry

le 25.iii.12 - millet with my leftover couscous

le 26.iii.12 - Monday's being underway, so only 4 more dread-filled Sunday nights

le 27.iii.12 - Aidan Gillen

le 28.iii.12 - Wanting Memories

le 29.iii.12 - Les Plages d'Agnès & fun time with old students

le 30.iii.12 - frozen banana ice

le 31.iii.12 - yummy stuffed collards

layering

We're having knitting time at my house tonight, Sherri, Jay and Mary. I've decided to make a couple of verrines. All the rage in France the last few years and I've been wanting to make some for ages.

Normally verrines entail a variety of textures and/or flavors. Often it's a case of flavors that might seem incongruous but which blend crazy well. They can be sucrées (sweet/dessert) or salées (savory/appetizer).

I have a couple of really fun ones in mind for some future event which would be something like "School Lunch" or "USA Classics" - one pbj, one tuna salad/potatochips/dillpickles, one which I have yet to figure out how to do that would play with the yumminess of tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Tonight I'm going to do the pbj (Kelly gave me some incredibly yummy cabernet and pinot grig JAM the other day - among other fun things!) so it will be layers of that (two different colors - fun!) and my Smuckers natural peanut butter, and crunched up white melba toast (I think - I might use unsalted crackers or something - I'm going to look around at the groc.)

With that I _was_ going to do this one:

Pears, roquefort, cream, walnuts.

(Source http://www.easy-french-food.com/verrines.html)

Or possibly another more sweet one. Pondering: peach/fromage blanc/vanilla or something with chocolate... altho part of me thinks one of them should entail some green... I looked for something chocolate/mint but there isn't a great selection so I might have to invent one. I'll let you know how it goes.

At the moment we can only have three max because I only have two 6-piece sets of my 2-oz shot glasses I had envisioned using. Luckily there are only 4 of us ce soir.

I REALLY want to do another little all-verrine soirée sometime soon - possibly in May... on verra - where I could feature the lunch ones plus some others.

Bright morning stars

Usually when we record the piece it goes badly. Finally seem to have broken the recording curse with this one, which actually went better than it ever had in rehearsal. I'm the top voice most of the time when all of us are singing (not the solos, and part of the time it's me and someone else on top - particularly at the end - don't try to listen for me at that point).



Just as well there's this to feed HOV b/c my spirits have been pretty bad all weekend, and today being Monday, of course they have not had much to boost them yet. Still, it's only 4 days til spring break so there's that to be glad of.

Conversely, studio time yesterday went Really Well. Thank goodness since last week I was super disappointed - couldn't seem to get anything to turn out. I will be able to go to the Tuesday midday Open Studio next week thanks to break. Hopefully having three sessions (that and the two Sundays around it) close together will get me back in the groove for sure.

I'm a little worried about summer and being able to afford Open Studio, admittedly partly because I think I'll want/be able to go more often. M*indy the OS monitor and Eil**n the new instructor of the evening classes were talking the other day about the need for a consistent system of cleaning it, etc. At the moment it's just whoever feels like tidying something up - not very systematic or consistent and usually the big things (floor mopped, cleaning the tables, slab press, etc.) don't really get done. So I think I'm going to talk to T*mmye (director of the center) and see if I might be able to exchange studio-cleaning for studio time. I could work with M and E to do some reorganizing, etc. T is usually pretty happy to barter, so we'll see.

In my heart of hearts I really want this to turn into kind of an unofficial apprenticeship so I can learn as much about actual kiln firing and glazes, etc., as possible.

Thanks HOV for helping adjust my perspective today. I feel a lot better now.

Day IS breaking.

crap/sigh/deflate

Much much sadder than I expected to be about Paris, which is almost certainly not going to happen (deadline 5pm this eve - 3 apps in and no others on the horizon; we would need absolute minimum of 8 students and even then I'd be retrenching on several program components), one week extension to the deadline notwithstanding.

Part of it is feeling that it is the one part of my job that I've done really well and get as much enjoyment out of (almost) as the amount of stress and work it engenders (at least the gap is much smaller with that than with anything else - which is really saying something given the sheer amount of effort necessary for it) and yet...

Had been feeling pretty good about it the last week or so - income adjustment aside, I was happy I'd finally have a summer where I could catch my breath, happy finally to have a spring where I wasn't getting more nervous with each passing day (less each year but still...)...

But today I am completely dejected.

Maybe that was all some kind of unconscious protection mechanism - preemptive sour grapes?

Hopefully I will find a way to take this in stride. I've been feeling a lot better in general this year and especially this spring so a backslide would not be good. Not that it ever is.