Yadda Yadda Yadda

I don't have much in me today, but I do want to post more often than every week-and-a-half.  That just isn't enough!  (But it is so hard to find the time.)  Anyway, this will be a list-post because it is so much easier and I don't have to worry about cohesion.

• I love prunes.
• Note to self: when confiscating the obscene excess of Easter candy, don't let it sit in the bottom of your bag until it melts and congeals everything together.  Throw it out in when they aren't looking, say, 1-2 days after the fact.
• I got my hair cut when I was at my parents' house in Western WA.  I wasn't too pleased with it at first, since it wasn't at all what I asked for, but I am learning to like it as it grows out.  It was a good cut (just not what I thought I was going to get).
• I'm obsessing over Indian food again.  I ordered every cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey that I could find in our library system.  Next step?  Find the time to read them.  Right.
• We are going to order an entire hog from a local pig ranch in our are.  (Pig ranch?  Is that right?)  It will be an Ossabaw hog and I am going to ask for every last bit of it.  We love pork and the thought of being able to eat a heritage breed with NO ADDED CHEMICALS sounds so wonderful.
• Buying whole/half/quarter animals for food (not to mention butchering chickens) always brings into consideration what being a meat-eater actually means.  Moreso than buying meat at the store, I would say.  I think about that hog, and think about it as a living entity, destined to die and become food for my family.  That I (we) will be eating the entire hog vs. a nameless ham here or a unidentified slab of bacon there.
• I really love bacon.  And bacon fat.  And cooking with lard.  I can't wait to have my hands on some pig fat from a CLEAN hog.  Up until this point, I have only had access to lard from the butcher, which is probably from a conventionally-raised hog, which are some of the most antibiotic, drug-filled "farm" animals in agribusiness.  Poor things.
• We've eaten lettuce, radishes, chives, and scallions out of the garden this year.  That ain't much.
• We had our first truly warm day yesterday.  Actually, it was hot and muggy.  Spring has been a long time coming and now, all of a sudden, it is summer.  At least it felt like it yesterday.
• I might get to see the majority of my family next fall for my cousin's wedding.  Yessssssss.
• I cut off all my fancy long nails, they were too annoying and a lot of maintenance.  I like the way they look, my boys loved having their backs scratched by them, but whaaaaaaat?  I can't believe how much work they are!  Bah.  Back to the drawing board.
• As a result, many of my tender fingertips dried up and cracked open.  Yeeeeouch!  That hurts.  Ladies, is this normal?
• I am finding our home to be more homey and desirable as the years go by.  It is nice.  I like feeling like this is my house, not someone else's house that I just happen to live in.  It seems like I have felt that way since we moved here.
• I suppose it helps that we finally rearranged the living room satisfactorily, where it verges on looking nicely put together.  And with that, we hung our wall-hangings were we wanted them, instead of on the pre-existing nails. 
• It feels really good.  I like looking around now.
• FACT: Our living room (the "addition" that was added in the mid-80's when the home owner was paralyzed in a car accident) is the size of our first apartment, about 600 square feet.  Very nice for children to romp around, but tell me -- how on earth can that possibly look cute?  It is really hard.
• FACT: We've lived here for 4 years next month.  Yowza.  How is that possible??  Has time really gone that fast?  We have now lived here for the same length of time that we did at our house in S. Minneapolis.  And I cried so hard when we left there.
• I'm reading The Pioneer Woman Cooks.  Holy smokes, a lot of her recipes leave me drooling.  (Aside from using way too much white flour and worse, vegetable shortening.  I'd rather use the real deal.  LARD.  White flour can be subbed just as easily, but still.)  I like that the food she presents is so simple, and a lot of what "your average folk" eat (or ate growing up).  And I really like that her recipes are hearty.  Yo, it gets the stomach growling.
• Often, when Stinky is nursing, it is like his left-hand is alive and jealous of my breast, working evil.  Somehow, it is always creeping in . . . fighting for the space, trying to get in his mouth, and he has to decide whether to drink milk or suck on his thumb.  It mostly happens while he is sleepy, so it really is like his hand has a mind of its own, taking advantage of the situation and its hapless prey.  (We're talking about a hand here.  A baby's hand.)  It has made me laugh so robustly that it actually startled the poor babe and diverted the malicious intentions of his rogue left-hand.  Argh, matey.
• I better close up shop . . . this list is getting long.
• I think I'll post some pictures of my boys.  See below, sisters.