Thursdays are Rosemoor days

Halfway
January 6th, 2010
Today, more than most days, was a half day. It was similar to those days in school when you would have to go in for part of the day and get the other rest to yourself. Part of everything was lovely. The other pieces, were... well...not. I'll share the lovely halves.
The full batch of oatmeal cherry chocolate pecan cookies was waiting on the counter when I woke up this morning.
I started a new drawing.
We got a call that said we will have a new-to-us house soon.
We had a lovely sitter come to stay with the munchkins so we could go out tonight.
The movie "The King's Speech" was well done.
Jurgen's main dish, the bread, the amuse bouche, and the fresh squeezed orange juice were lovely at Lucy's Table.
The hot chocolates were lovely at Pazzo.
We found parking in the Pearl to view a gallery.
The kitchen and the livingroom are now clean.
It's a good day to look at halvsies.
Blessings

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Eating
December 29th, 2010
I've been eating a little differently this past year. I'm not quite sure when it started, but I began to watch what I ate more closely. I do recall the munchkins needing more and more food, and realizing that their portions were growing beyond what I needed. I think I began to watch just how much I needed to be full, just what made me feel good. As I ate less, I began to choose more carefully what I ate, and in turn my tastebuds became heightened to the foods that were fresh and in season. Naturally, chocolate evaded all of those boundaries, but stopped only at the quality checkpoint. Purchase less, but only the best. Of course, the munchkins have continued increasing their portions, as they need to, but they are getting the better stuff too... I'm not about to cook two entirely different meals, only one with less ingredients on their plates if need be.
Blessings

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Warmth
December 23, 2010
Have yourself a merry little Christmas. We will be this year. All our family flew in early last week and we celebrated with them a week early. We'll be waking up tomorrow to full stockings, a cozy little group, and cocoa. We are hoping to feel calm and refreshed. Today we're baking cookies (a first for us!) for all of our neighbors and writing letters to the kids we sponsor overseas. I hope you are sharing some joy with those around you.
Blessings

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Slowly
December 17, 2010
I'm only slowly admitting that I may be in a little bit of a depression. Isn't that what you call it when an artist is having trouble seeing pictures in their heads, a writer who can't think of words to write, a woman who is numb to her core artistic passions? It's not all gone. I get glimpses, it's not completely empty like it was when my brother died. It's not writer's block or the flitting of too many projects, but more like an empty field. At least I found the charger to my camera battery. Maybe taking some more pictures will help. I'm having an extra amount of trouble focusing.

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Taming the Chicken Breast
December 9, 2010
Last night I proceeded to cook a skinless bird. You know the one, the tough white meat that hits your plate more than half the nights of the week. Once again it was dry and I knew why. Grrr. I didn't want to use butter, oil, milk, or a salt bath to keep it tender, but hadn't come up with an alternative. So, I'm now in search mode. Most recipes call for frying the outside of the chicken to seal the juices in. I have done this quite a few times before, using a dry nonstick skillet and the chicken's own fat to keep it from burning. Another one of the tricks seems to be pounding the chicken flat so that the cooking time is at minimum, but I don't always want paper thin chicken. For right now I'm going to have to resort to buying them with the skin on and removing it after cooking. Of course, for recipies with skin-on chicken, this one looks amazing and easy Jamie Oliver Chicken.

We celebrated St.Nick a few nights ago. The munchkins set out their wooden shoes, carrots for his horse, orange juice and cookies. They woke to , Chocolate letters, and little presents. However, since we're living in the states, they had to wait until after school to open everything. Oh what sweet agony! Dh even took them to the gym first to burn off the energy that they were going to have from all that sugar.

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December 2, 2010
Dear Friends,
The closing of Vox's blog hosting site came at an oddly perfect time for Rosemoor. We had a pipe break at Deer Haven soon after Vox closed and it gradually became clear to us that the damage caused to Deer Haven was so extensive that we would be forced to evacuate while the property was being evaluated.
Meanwhile, ideas had been brewing over moving Rosemoor's blog onto our own website. So while our family has been in transition, I've been working on the new blog spaces for Rosemoor. I'm happy to introduce the first version of our redesigned site to you, and hope you'll enjoy watching as we work out the kinks, both online and off.
Blessings,
Angel

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