schickHouse

Not On My Diabetic Diet

Last night Elle Mae helped Daddy turn some of those luscious black raspberries into luscious raspberry cobbler. She just loves helping in the kitchen. MMMmmmm!!! Delicious. I did have a tiny bit. Can't wait to be off this diabetic diet. I NEVER used to consume diet Turkey Hill tea, Coke Zero, and Diet root beer, but I have to admit, I am thankful to the diet-crazed folks who feed that industry. Those artificial flavors are not for me, but solely water to drink for 5+ months is not quite up my alley either. My ticker says 17 days to go!!! Yea, Baby.

Kyaraben

aka character bento.

i love it when i stumble across something that i had NO idea existed, completely new to me. and when it has an artistic bent, even better! i'm sure i would have so much fun spending hours on creating these extraordinary dishes, but i'm not so sure that will happen in this lifetime. for some amazing examples, visit anna the red's bento factory. stare & drool at her wall-e, farm scene, and video-game inspired food-art. and if you google for images, you'll be equally amazed. it at least has inspired me to do a LITTLE something special with the children's lunches.

83+100=Missing Fastnachts!

i finally unearthed my missing glucometer yesterday. today my morning prick was 83 (good), and after a breakfast of cereal it was 100 (great!). i'm guessing that at the present i really don't "have" the gestational diabetes, because when i was certain that i did, i could NEVER eat cereal for breakfast and get a good number. all this to say, i could definitely go for a fastnacht today. :o\

Long's Horseradish

so, this is kinda odd. about four days ago i googled "long's horseradish" just to see what came up. it was on my mind cuz i had been to market and visited with mike a little, plus my dad wanted to pick some up for his trip to texas. so as i googled i found those great fotos by schrott, plus this Q&A site. apparently my curiosity was not satisfied because this morning i ended up on youtube, again searching for long's. turns out just two and a half weeks ago, they launched their viral videos. they must be working. they viraled their way into my brain without any sneeze even! check 'em out. now i'm going to have to work on being brave enough to put that POW on my food.

Philadelphia & Food

steve & i had a wonderful weekend away in philly. aunt sandy kept the children, and they had fun at mcdonald's, chuck e cheese, and the hop. meanwhile, we were feasting on some treats of our own. we hit a couple spots we already knew about and also tried a new place my brother recommended. 

saturday we stayed out of the city to avoid getting stuck in any obama traffic. instead we did some maternity shopping at king of prussia. i found a great pair of jeans, a nice ruched tshirt, and a bathing suit i'm hoping will still fit when summer rolls around. we had lunch at the cheesecake factory (i had a ginormous burger) and a small supper at pizzeria uno (delicious loaded nachos). then we went to see benjamin button. it was really good, really long, and it made me cry, but that's not too hard to do these days.

sunday we stayed in the hotel a while and chatted about the upcoming year. talked about possibilities and preferences about house projects, vacation, and homeschool. we headed down to reading terminal market and scouted out a late lunch. it was so delicious. had some chinese food made before our very eyes at a place with "shang hai" in its name. also scored some coffee beans, cookies, and squished pennies. afterwards we drove down south street and just around town in general, seeing what we could see. eventually found our way to pat's and geno's. got one of each to do a side-by-side comparison. we both preferred pat's (on this given nite). when we returned to the hotel we did some tv watching which included seeing the eagles lose. bummer.

today we packed up, toured around a little more, and headed to the rose tattoo cafe. it was perfect. great garden room. out of the way, a place we'd never have found without the recommendation. and the food was tremendous! i had crab au gratin (very fresh and wonderful crab). and steve had a spicy pulled pork sandwich topped with a pineapple salsa. it was amazing. oh, and we tried mushroom bisque as an appetizer. and THAT was even delicious.

headed home in the surprise snow. took four hours instead of one and a half. o well. had a wonderful weekend with my honey. it was fun doing restaurants because we used to do that a lot "back in the day," and we always enjoy each other's company. good to be back with the children, too.

Chocolate, Part 2

just a few quick fotos from our visit to gertrude hawk's chocolate factory open house over the weekend. as if we didn't get enough sweets on halloween. it was scrumptious. the chocolate pennies were $10 for a LOT of coins (steve & the children stacked and counted over 700)!

cyrus with our stash.

shelby with the mold for the 25# bunny.

miss hollywood on her way to the chocolate tour.

a few miscellaneous shots from our adventure.

      

Freebie

remember to milk this election for all it's worth!

AND... a free cup of joe at starbucks. (would you like a joe-the-plumber or a joe-biden?)

Breakfast Is Different When Daddy's Home

Chapple Butter

this past indian-summer saturday we ventured over to boehm's for their annual apple fest. we wanted to buy some of their famous chapple butter and also listen to grammy & aunt doris play in the reunited orchestra. it was all completely wonderful. and my always-serving husband even took the children home around lunch time to feed and rest them, while i stayed to listen to the second orchestra concert. (i even took my camcorder.) oh, and as a bonus, there was a caricaturist there for free! so, i now am the proud mama of four adorable little cartoons.

 

How Did I NOT Know About This?!

ice screamers?! and their convention is in my town. aye! it'll be on my calendar next year.