Salted caramel mocha vs. willpower

Guess who won that battle? Dang, I should not have had that mocha! It was like a zillion calories. The barista offered to make it nonfat, but I said no. In for a penny, in for a pound. Yikes, except it probably really will be a pound (on the scale, that is). But it was YUMMMMMY!

Once again I have nothing special to blog about, which is weird because I woke up at 2:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep for all the blogging I was doing in my head. As a result, I am on the grumpy side today from lack of sleep. I'm holding it together, though.

So let's get this blog thing going. How about some updates?

Last night's attempt at a steak dinner went better than the previous two. I'd give it a solid B, maybe even a B+. I managed to cook them medium-rare, woohoo! This time, I heated up the pan, poured in a little oil, swirled it around until the bottom was covered, then went to the garbage disposal and poured all the excess out. Yes, Mom, I know you're not supposed to pour oil down the disposal. But I don't have time to root around under the sink for the yucky jar filled with oil and grease, not when Katie is hanging on my leg demanding "Up! SEE!!!"

Anyway, I think I was right about too much oil ruining the steak last time. So this time it didn't have that weird boiled meat taste, thank goodness. The only thing wrong was that I don't think the pan was quite hot enough initially. I heard a little hissing when I added the meat, but not the fantastic, smoke-inducing sound that I'd hoped for. Next time, higher flame. Otherwise, it was very tasty. Anthony, as always, was appreciative, and today he got a steak sandwich to take to work! Poor guy, deli meat gets so boring after a while.

In other news, while I was buying the steak at Costco, I bumped into an old friend from my Lindy Hop days. She's a bit older than me, and has two kids who are now at UC Davis. They're incredibly happy and well-adjusted kids, not to mention good students, so I know I can trust her parenting advice. She told me about a nearby co-op preschool called Little Hands. It's a nonprofit and it's run mostly by parents. I believe they have a couple of paid teachers and administrators, but all the other work is done by the parents. We are taking a tour on Monday and I'm really excited! It sounds miles better than Gymboree, but it also sounds like a lot of work. So we'll see. I would be so happy to meet some other parents of kids Katie's age. I love staying at home with Katie, but it can be a bit isolating. It would be so neat to have some play dates - both for Katie's sake and for mine. Since Katie's birth, we've had exactly two play dates. One was with a mom I really liked but who went back to work full-time, and the other was with the infamous mom who brought her sick kid over and gave Katie the worst virus she's had to date.

More news? Let's see...the wasp nests are now gone, thanks to Donovan's Pest Control. Unfortunately, my crunchiness got in the way, and I requested that they not use a "residual" pesticide to keep killing the wasps for months on end. I didn't want any poison that lingered around Katie's play space. I just had them remove the existing nests, and since it's getting close to winter, I hoped we'd be in the clear. Well, the wasps are back, and I can see that they're busy building new nests. I've decided to do nothing. They are paper wasps, and as wasps go, they are the friendliest, least-stingy species. They've never bothered us in the least, so we're just going to live and let live. Besides, they're said to eat lots of other pests in the garden.

So that's about it! We're looking forward to 48 hours with Dada (aka The Weekend). Gotta love Fridays! :)