Going Domestic

busy in the kitchen

Monday is an unofficial Soup Day around here. Because Madeline usually has a swim class in the afternoon, after school, I don't have a lot of time to put dinner together, so I've taken to making a batch of soup for dinner earlier in the day. Usually, I make pumpkin soup or the Martian Soup recipe from Whining and Dining, and sometimes it's split pea soup (always trying to find a recipe as delicious as the soup from Belbin's). Today I tried something different - this recipe for Sausage and Bean soup. I just used the stove top, not a crock pot, and it turned out really well. 

A couple of weeks ago, I figured out a way to re-purpose the Betty Crocker white cake mix that a friend leaving Thailand had bequeathed to me - the Oreo Cupcake recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor's cupcake book, which is reproduced here. I'm not really a fan of cupcakes or cake mixes, but this recipe was a fabulous choice to make for my daughter's kindergarten class. They were very yummy, though the chocolate frosting with Oreo crumbs on top looks really brown. 

fancy feet

One of things that always makes me smile, living here, is the fancy footwear that women wear. It does not seem to matter if the rest of the ensemble is embellished. Any occasion is an occasion to wear shoes or sandals with ruffles, jewels, beads, red patent appliques, and three-inch spike heels. 

For example, the Montri bus monitors at my daughter's school all female, and they stand in a line on the sidewalk every morning. I'm not sure exactly what purpose lining up serves, but they are all wearing their unremarkable uniform of black pants, a white short-sleeved button-shirt, and a vest (usually a Thai-woven print in maroon, but today, a very Burberry-esque plaid). But the shoes? I scanned their footwear, and saw flats with rhinestones, heels with bows, and sandals with silver straps that went around and around and around one's ankles. 

My brown Keen slides seem so plain in comparison. 

window shopping, and not even at a shop

Last night, in-between Sadie's bite-sized intervals of sleep, I sat transfixed with my macbook on my lap, perusing Knock-Off Wood. This lady and I have the same taste in furniture, but she knows how to figure out how it's build and then do it! The faux PBK Cameron storage unit that we had built for Sadie? She had plans for just about every item in the Cameron series. 

I immediately started searching her site for plans for a Learning Tower, something I think that we'd get tons of use out of.

Chris had mentioned wanting to get a bookcase similar to Madeline's for Sadie room, but I'm sort of smitten by these Bankable bookcases. Same with this cute little bed. She'll need a bed soon, right? 

calgary is so funny sometimes

Dare I imply that the City of Calgary finally has stopped living in a fairy tale world? Chris called to say that we'd received the property tax assessment for our house, and it's down about $100-125K from previous years, which brings it to a fairly reasonable and realistic number. 

The skeptical part of me assumes that they are going to increase the tax rate, though, so we'll pay the same regardless.

careful what you wish for

I'm not going to confirm or deny any possible locations for our next move, if we move, but I really don't feel ready to move back to Calgary this summer. Or next summer, and probably the summer thereafter. I am totally, totally, totally surprised that I feel this way, too.

We're finishing off our third year in Thailand, and it's about this time that Chris's company starts looking into where it's overseas staff can go next. If we don't move on this summer, we probably will within the next eighteen months. 

There would be some really fantastic things about going home - I can't argue that living around farmer's markets, the mountains, and the fabulous meatloaf sandwich at Spolumbo's would be a horrible thing. What I am uncomfortable with is that an assignment back to Calgary could be temporary. 

Temporary means that between Thailand and the next international assignment, I will have gone back to work and/or school, put Sadie in daycare, and the entire family will have settled back into our regular lives. We'd own cars, have a garden, season passes to the zoo ... I just can't say with certainty that I'd support leaving it behind, one more time. So, I hope that we don't have to decide just yet; I've thought of little else for the last few days and obsessions are heavy things.