Today is my half-birthday. When I was a sophomore in high school, my biology teacher would celebrate all the birthdays and half birthdays of her students from January through June so that everyone would get a treat. I thought it was very sweet. Aside from the birthday recognition, Ms. Weston was one of the best teachers I ever had. I learned so much from her--in fact, when I got to AP Biology, it was like a review almost. There were very few new things in that class. I was pretty impressed with how thorough she had been with us lowly sophomores.

This is for Trinity: I made a delicious dinner of lasagne and steamed asparagus. I started with a yummy bolognese sauce--I chopped an onion, 2 shallots, 3 cloves of garlic, a carrot, and a stalk of celery and sauteed it with a pound of lean ground beef. Then I added about a cup of ruby port, some thyme and marjoram and 2 jars of marinara (didn't have time to start totally from scratch) and let it simmer. While the sauce was simmering, I mixed up a pint of lowfat cottage cheese, about 4 oz. parmesan, some fresh-snipped rosemary from my garden and about 6 oz. shredded mozzarella. Then I layered my noodles, cheese mixture and sauce and finished with sauce and some shredded cheeses. I baked it for about 30-40 minutes and then took it out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes.

For the asparagus, I broke off the fibrous ends and steamed it in a frying pan with a little water. I squeezed some fresh lemon juice into some mayo for a sort of mock hollandaise and served it over the hot asparagus. The whole dinner was delicious and better yet--tomorrow's dinner is already prepared. I *love* leftovers. In fact, I think I like leftovers even more than the first night's food in many cases.

Last night was our annual church talent show. I'm part of the Activities Committee along with Ed so we were responsible for organizing it. I was also the backstage manager. It was pretty fun. I even got roped into a skit put on by the church leaders. They did a take-off on American Idol and I was one of the bad singers. I did a stirringly timid and off-key rendition of Onward Christian Soldiers. It was really awful! And the judges were very funny. The one who was being Paula said nothing about my bad singing but complimented me on my flaming copper hair and my lime green shirt. It was pretty funny, actually. I was glad when the whole thing was over, though. Those big productions can take a lot out of a person. Thankfully there were a lot of people who stayed to help clean up so it only took about a half hour to get the building back to normal again.

Amy and I went to Kmusik on Friday and Aidan slept through the whole thing yet again. That's ok--it's mostly for her education at this point anyway. Afterward, we went to visit Alison again and she taught Amy how to use her baby sling and sold me some really great fabric. Several times a year, her mother's friend (who is an interior decorator) gives her all the bolt ends and remnants leftover from jobs and then Alison sells them. She gives the proceeds to her mother's philanthropic sorority. I got some really great orange ribbed fabric that's going to make stunning window treatments in my living room. I was hoping I'd have enough to slipcover my chair-and-a-half but I don't think I will. I also got some other fabric with orange, lime green, yellow and some blue in it that will make a fabulous shower curtain for Joey's bathroom once we paint it lime green. I also got a few other remnants in orange and yellow. I'm very excited. It was probably somewhere along the lines of 30 yards of fabric, all total, for $10. How excellent is that? I can't wait until her next fabric sale!

Delyn and I went scrapbooking Friday night. I haven't done any scrapping since February when I finished my 1996 album. Now I'm working on 1997 but I'll be starting my 2003 album soon, too, because I have New Year's Eve, Amy's shower, Joey's braces and Aidan's birth pictures to do. I love scrapbooking. Have I mentioned that recently? On Friday, I'm going to a big scrapbook convention downtown at the convention center. I'm only planning to go to the vendor fair since I don't like attending classes nor do I want to stay late downtown at a crop but I do want to see what new products are out there. I got some great new stuff on Thursday--there are few new lines of vellum stickers that are absolutely gorgeous. I'm a sucker for anything made of vellum.

Now it's time to have some dessert (nothing spectacular for that--just some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from a friend) and an episode of L&O.

Ta, all.

--L