Beastmomma

Thank you to all of those who sacrifice so much in service of their countries.

I want to give a special shout to those men and women of the Muslim faith who serve in the military.  I agree with the sentiments of the U.S. Army's top general:

Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse," Casey added on NBC's "Meet the Press.

I may be counting my yumminess before I actually experience it, but I just spent almost and hour and a half preparing what looks to be a delicious Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagna.   I got the recipe from the Kitchn website in a post about five exciting lasagna.  It is getting colder and I had spent a lot of the day on my feet, trying to weave my way through crowds.  We got the ingredients over the weekend and even though I was tired, I knew that I wanted something warm and comforting.  Hopefully, this will deliver.

The crowds I experienced were in IKEA and Costco.  As you may imagine, I have a lot of books and I need some bookshelves to store them.  We also have small amount of china that I wanted to store in something that would fit in our kitchen and not break our banks.  After much discussion (internet surfing), we picked out a few bookshelves for me to try to find.  When I was in the store, I ended up picking out a different bookcase that was less expensive and I ended up finding something that looks like it will work well for our dishes.  As I was going through the showroom, I was thinking about Care (hello Care!) because the last time I was searching for shelves she was with me.  I felt so organized because I wrote down where I parked and had my own list of names of products for which to search.  Even with all that prep work, I was amazed to find that I was in the store for almost two hours.  Afterwards, I went to Costco which was fortunately not too crowded.  By the time I got home, I was still tired and needed a pick-up. 

Not sure if folks feel like sharing, but I will ask anyway.  What are foods that make you feel warm and/or comforted?  How do you navigate crowded stores? Do you create a strategy before hand? Do you feel miserable the whole time? Do you just go with the flow?

 ** Update**

Unfortunately, the lasagna did not hit the spot.  I felt that it was only okay and did not really sing on my tongue.  I have a lot of leftovers, so I am sure that I will be trying to figure out how to improve in the coming days.

On Monday night, I went to the second meeting of a book club that I started.  The membership is mostly spouses of professors at the school where my Partner teaches.  I wanted to try to diversify the group and so I invited his only young-ish female colleague.  By young I mean that she is closer to our age than most of the older faculty in the department.    She added good perspective, but I still want more variety of folks in the book club.  It could also be that we are still a new group and shy about sharing opinions.  At any rate, I am glad to have a social activity that involves books with nice folks.

The host made two versions of jambalaya.  I only sampled the vegetarian one, but it was quite tasty and flavorful.  We talked about the book and then conversation drifted to food, marriage, and kids.  Of the six wives, four have children, one is expecting her first, and one is pregnant.  I will admit that sometimes in the middle of baby talk, I feel a little behind in life.  Partner and I talking about children and would like to have some in the future.  For now, we want to enjoy our new marriage and get adjusted to living together.  I know that the timing is not right for us, but I sometimes feel a bit like "all the cool kids are having babies."  Also, I feel anxious about being able to have children the longer we wait.  With all of these thoughts running through my brain, I have a hard time concentrating on the baby conversation.

Anyway...

One person really loved the book and one person hated it. The rest of us were somewhere in the middle. I had lukewarm feelings about the book which was That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo.  It was hard to like the main character and I did not fully appreciate all the sarcasm.  I will explain more in my review.