sickies

Finally caught the cold bug that has been going around. The rest of the house has been sick for a week, Pancho has bronchitis, but I thought since I wasn't sick by now then maybe I wasn't going to be. Wrong. Woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose today. Oh well, I've got the time to rest so hopefully won't keep me down for too long.

Went to a Whole Foods Chocolate Lovers' Class last week. Basically a quick 20-minute presentation on how cacao creates chocolate and about the different percentages. Lots of samples! I love dark chocolate and they had these fantastic sugar cookies with a chocolate orange filling. Got the recipe, going to play with it a little to make chocolate-dipped sugar cookies. Learned how to double boil chocolate, too, which is something I've never really understood but it sounds easy as long as you keep attention to the water level. There are other classes and things, like about different cheeses and how to make soup. Might check it out. Picked up an organic sourdough round to go with our dinner that night and it was deeelicious. Sort of far (and expensive) to go there a lot but for certain things like special chocolate, bread, tea, cheese, or nuts I think I can convince myself.

Made cheesecake on Friday for the first time. It's amazing. Not too difficult, either, but the 3 packages of cream cheese that went in it still gross me out a little. But the graham cracker crust came out nice and firm and the cheesecake is rich. I decorated with little valentine's nonpareils.
Valentine's Day was low-key but nice. Pancho made me jambalaya, all by himself. Just spicy enough and the sausage and shrimp were fantastic. (An Emeril recipe, too!) Mostly just hung out, I watched The Secret Life of Bees. Queen Latifah was great, as usual. I've liked her in the last like 4 movies she's been in.

Not too much is going on around here. I finally ventured down to the basement by myself to do laundry. It's dark and dirty and mice are probably lurking in every corner but I sucked it up. Those little miceies can't stop me from having clean towels. Otherwise, starting to wonder if I'm making the most of my time off. I'm suprisingly not bored but am amazed at how fast the time is going. I certainly feel relaxed and not stressed out so I guess its working as a vacation. Maybe feeling slightly guilty about it though, like is it wrong of me to have done nothing for 2 months?