Cheeseburgers in Paradise

It was a rainy day today in Atlanta. We spent the early afternoon working on bread, but then we went out to Your Dekalb Farmers Market and Whole Foods to get Gabriel food. At the farmers’ market, we got fruit and sweet potatoes for the Chipster and Thai chilis, Thai rice, and nuts and grains for bread for us. At Whole Foods, we got meat for Chip and a few things for ourselves, including a bottle of Chard-No-Way as a special treat, since it was on sale.

We drove around the city of Decatur to look at houses for sale, just to see what the prices were like. We found East Lake, an area that is being gentrified. It was an interesting mix of lower-income folks and lots of young families renovating big old houses. It looked like it could be a good place for a family and a place where the home values will probably skyrocket in the next few years, even though they’re pretty high right now. We’re thinking that we might rather go for a bigger house on a bigger piece of land a little removed from the city, but we’re going to consider all of our options.

Speaking of our home, it looks like our closing will be on the 13th of June. That means that we’ll be going back there somewhere around the 8th, in less than 3 weeks, to pack up. We’ll stay through the 19th, because Laura is having her graduation, and Katie and Billy are celebrating theirs.

For dinner, we had burgers and corn on the cob. Even Gabriel had a cheeseburger and corn. Well, we broke it into tiny pieces, but he would only eat one little taste and refused the rest. He wouldn’t even eat the corn after we snuck a piece of meat into it, and he normally eats it right up. Finally, we fed him a banana and a jar of veggies and pasta. We were so excited to try to feed him normal food, but it looks like it will be a little while before he is ready to eat anything new. We thought our dinner was good, anyway. We had homemade poppyseed buns on the burgers, and they were fantastic.

The offer we did for the free PSP deal was to join BMG – you know, buy 3 CDs and get 500 free. We chose it because we will only have to buy 1 CD and pay for shipping and handling on 11 otherwise free ones. Anyway, we got our first 7 free ones today. We got Johnny Cash, Live at Folsom Prison; Barenaked Ladies, Everything to Everyone; Ibrahim Ferrer, Buena Vista Social Club Presents; Franz Ferdinand, self-titled; Garden State soundtrack; Thelonius Monk, Mysterioso; and Miles Davis, Milestones (how clever is that?!). We realized that we already have Milestones, so we’re going to try to return it and get something else. We listened to all of them except Miles, and they are all great. The Cash CD is just one of the best things we have EVER heard. Everyone should have this recording. Even the liner notes are great.

Gabe's Ten Month Birthday!!

Today was Gabriel’s 10 month birthday. He spent it practicing for the day, very soon, when he will start walking. Patty was talking to Laura on the phone in the kitchen and heard Gabriel come up behind her and bang on the open dishwasher door. She didn’t think anything of it, because she for some reason thought he was in his walker. When she turned around, she realized that he was, in fact, standing there. He’d crawled over from the living room and pulled himself up. He is getting really good at sitting up and standing up on his own. Just today, we found him standing in the living room by his toybox, by his swing, moving between the two, holding on to the swinging chair of the swing and keeping his balance, the dishwasher, and the bookshelf – all without our help and most without our presence.

He has a way of reaching milestones on his birthday. Today, in addition to the advanced crawling and standing skills, he slept really well. He slept soundly through most of the morning, went down for naps relatively well (still not as well as he could, but good for him), and fell asleep pretty quickly at night. He was a lot of fun today.

When Patty got back from tutoring, she found Gabriel in his highchair in the kitchen watching his daddy make brownies for his birthday. We have found lately that he is happy sitting in his stroller or high chair when he is near us. He seems to be happiest just hanging out near us and likes to talk and play with us, as opposed to when he’s able to crawl around and play on his own. It’s nice to be able to put him in the stroller a few minutes before we actually walk out the door while we finish gathering diaper bag, phone, camera, and keys; use the bathroom; put on our shoes; etc.

He still has a runny nose and we think that everything we own now has a nice coating of his nose goo. It doesn’t seem to be getting better. At least he isn’t really complaining (except when he tries to pick his nose and we won’t let him) and he doesn’t have any other symptoms.

Patty got a message from her sliced turkey today. It said, "Love."

We are beginning to plan what to do with our house money. We are going to pay off some credit cards for sure, but we think that we are also going to buy a car. Ours is ridiculous for a family, it’s all slashed up inside and out from break-ins, and the lease runs out soon, anyway. We have to actually put Gabriel in standing up on the floor, climb in after him, and put him in the car seat. We do that all in reverse to get him out. And forget about parking on the street, because then we have to climb out while holding him from the passenger side, which is nearly impossible because we have to squeeze between the car seat and the passenger seat while trying not to bump his head on the door frame. Sometimes we actually succeed. Anyway, we welcome suggestions. We’re thinking that we want an SUV of some sort with 4-wheel drive, a good-sized engine, automatic (need that other hand for discipline!), and either white or silver. No more blue; 2 blue cars in a row is enough for us for a while. No black, either – we’d have to actually wash it. Anyhow, there’s no point in really planning until we actually have the money.

Two breads in the works – rustic and challah.