I must be feeling re-invigorated. I've had an overwhelming urge to cook this weekend. That's always a good sign that I'm feeling happy and energetic.

I am attempting to make yogurt in my crock pot. It's remarkably easy--time consuming, but you don't have to do anything other than warm it up and let it sit. I hope it comes out good!

I have also decided to start experimenting with homemade barbecue sauces. I had some really tasty barbecue in Texas, which reminded me that real barbecue is a whole different beast from that bottled crap we usually buy. I have one recipe I use on pulled chicken in the crock pot, and it's good, but I want to come up with something GREAT. Tonight's experiment is a recipe I found online that uses root beer.

Finally, I boiled a bunch of eggs to make egg salad to bring to work. I bought the meat-grinder attachment for my mixer, largely because I like my egg salad ground up that way (with green olives--yum!) It's about time for me to actually use it.

Nick has been pestering me to make ice cream, so I bought cream and I will make French vanilla this week. I have some vanilla beans up in the cabinet so it should be tasty. It will go perfectly with the pie I'll be making with the pecans I bought in Texas.

Okay, now I'm really hungry. Rob needs to finish mowing the lawn so he can fire up the grill!!!

I have spent the past week feeling like I'm on the verge of getting sick, and desperately trying to avoid it. But I haven't worked out since Thursday, and I woke up this morning feeling hideously depressed. So fuck it--I'm going running today and if it sends me over the edge, so be it. I'd rather just get sick already than continue pussyfooting around.

Woke up at 12:30 last night to the sound of someone bumbling around in the kitchen. At first I thought it was JR coming home, but usually she's a lot quieter when she gets home late at night. I went out to investigate and found the lights on and Nick's Easter basket missing. I went in his room and he was sitting with his basket in his bed doing the book of Sudoku puzzles that was in it. "I just couldn't wait until morning!" he exclaimed. Little rat!

JR and Nick and Frieda and I went to the playground early this afternoon. Nick rode his newly training-wheeled bike (he just wasn't going to learn to ride without them). We wanted to play fetch with Frieda but there was a big group of people having an Easter egg hunt there. No way was I letting the dog off leash with all those potential new "friends" around to knock over. But then we found this little preschool playground that was completely fenced in. It was locked, but we lifted Frieda over the fence and then climbed over ourselves (with Nick admonishing, "Are you sure this is legal?!?!?" the whole time). We even got Frieda to go down the slide by tossing a treat down it (totally funny sight).

Then the girl with the pit bull showed up (the one who alpha-rolled Frieda) and put her dog over the fence too. She didn't do anything to Frieda this time around, and the dogs had a BLAST playing together. Serious major dog fun. One freaky quirk about Frieda is that when she gets super-excited the hair on her back stands up like a mohawk. It's the most hilarious thing. Pretty much the entire time she played with Bailey (the other dog) her hair was on end. At first I was worried because normally that happens to her when she's scared by something. But she wasn't giving any other indications of stress or unhappiness. She was doing her play bow and wagging her tail and having a grand old time.

Also, she wound up covered head to toe in playground sand--mostly her face. I wish I'd had a camera with me because she was quite a sight. Now she's totally calm and quiet. A tired, dirty, smelly dog is a happy dog, right?

I had hoped to go to Crate and Barrel today to use our gift certificate on a meat grinder attachment for my mixer. I want to use it to make egg salad and ham & pickle from our Easter leftovers. I know you don't need a meat grinder to make egg salad, but it's how my parents always made it (with olives!) and I like it to be finely ground like that. I'm a snob--sue me.

Sadly, Crate and Barrel is closed today for the holiday. Damnit! Maybe I can sneak out tomorrow at lunch before all my meetings.

I bailed on the Castles and Coasters thing today because I just don't feel up for it. Thankfully I had never set it in stone with Nick, and JR wasn't up for it today either, so no one was disappointed. Maybe next weekend.