TToT – Post-iversary!
So as it turns out, this is my 350th post. A little post-iversary, if you will.
I kind of want confetti and party horns to happen here…pretend it did.
Now let’s get down to the business of being Thankful.
I’ve been exercising my culinary muscles in the kitchen again this week and managed a couple of great meals, if you’ll excuse the hubris.
We needed a fish meal on the roster, so I opted for salmon cakes with soy-wasabi glaze next to a chopped spinach salad with cashews, shredded carrots, and a quick homemade Asian-inspired dressing.
![20141104_191942[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/20141104_1919421.jpg)
Later in the week, I defrosted some eggplant and white bean “meat” balls that I made a few weeks ago. I paired them up with a goat cheese spaghetti (except I used my favorite feta) with garlic and anchovy dressing. The plate was lacking in color, so I grabbed a can of diced tomatoes and whipped up a quick skillet sauce to go on the bean balls. I served this for guests. Yes I did.
![20141105_183933[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/20141105_1839331.jpg)
Here’s the best part: in both of these meals, the inspiration came from items that needed to be used so they would not go to waste and things on hand in the pantry. OK, I had to buy a box of thin spaghetti and a jar of anchovy fillets. But I actually do usually have both of those on hand. Honest.
Now that we’re finished talking food, on to the rest…
First up, Kidzilla had a really great week at school. All good behavior reports and and e-mail note from the teacher telling us today was especially good. We met with her team of teachers for a follow-up again this month and while we had some rough spots in October, we seem to be back on track and off to a good start so far this month.
Kidzilla saw the eye doctor today…our girl is going to need her first pair of glasses. She has a very positive attitude about them and was actually quite upset that she didn’t get to take them home today. She’ll wear them for six months, then we’ll follow up and see where she is at that point. She picked out a splendid and very fashionable pair of purple frames. They are pretty similar to mine and my Mom’s, actually, which is really cute.
We accepted an invitation to an impromptu and successful play date at the park with a classmate on Friday afternoon. That’s more of a victory for me than Kidzilla, I think. I’m kind of bad at this play date thing for so many reasons. My introvert would much prefer to hide my head in the sand and say “um, no thanks” but it’s kind of a necessary evil. We don’t really live in a world today where we can open the back door and say “go play” and know that our kids are safe and looked over by the entire neighborhood. Parents are busy. Work schedules and kids’ activities keep everybody way too busy. And so the invention of the play date. But social interaction outside of school is important for Kidzilla. Connection with other parents isn’t a bad thing for me, either. So yay. And we got fresh air and exercise. More yay.
For those who missed it, allow me to refer you to Tuesday’s post about smoothies. Williams-Sonoma invited me to participate in their Smoothie Week based on an older post they saw on the blog and I was thrilled to do it. If you haven’t read it yet, please go check it out here. And if you were expecting or hoping for Soup of the Week on Tuesday and got a smoothie instead…come back next week for May’s request – cream of mushroom soup. I will probably toss in a butternut squash soup variation for Kidzilla and the Hub because they aren’t feeling the mushroom option.
I had routine follow-up visits with my rheumatologist and allergist this week, both of which went well. Blood work numbers look good, one of them noticed I lost some weight, and I got to ditch my allergy emergency kit since I’ve gone so long with out any kind of reaction to shellfish.
We had some very enjoyable visits with family and friends this week – some short, some extended, but all good.
I am thankful for warm blankets on the bed at night, cats to warm cold toes, and a good night’s sleep.
I am always thankful for the Hub’s amazing coffee. I am thankful that it is fall and I can enjoy pumpkin coffee, even if it means cheating on the Hub’s amazing coffee with some Dunkin Pumpkin. (Actually I kinda just like saying “Dunkin Pumpkin.”)
I am particularly thankful for hugs and kisses and cozy snuggles with my Kidzilla, and for the fact that more often than not she will happily slip her still-tiny little hand in mine whenever we walk somewhere together.
I am thankful for the magic of Friday nights.
OH! The photos probably won’t do it justice, but Kidzilla and I had the awesome pleasure of experiencing the very edge of a rainshower. The juxtaposition of the storm and the sun provided TWO spectacular rainbow sightings for us to enjoy together. Yes, I got pics. No, I wasn’t driving when I took them. We were either pulled over and stopped or Kidzilla was on camera duty, I promise. And it was raining. So bear that in mind when you view. These are not amazing shots.
I love that we got to share these sightings together and I can’t help but think that the rainbows may or may not be a little bit of an answer to some things on my mind of late.
What about you? What moments have made you thankful this week? Share ’em in the comments or join us and link ’em with one of our lovely TToT co-hosts!
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HAPPY POSTI-VERSARY! Confetti being thrown as we speak (which one of the cats will eat and then yerf up).
I would like to eat that plate full of salmon cakes and salad, please. Jury’s still out on the bean balls….
Congratulations on being noticed by Williams-Sonoma! They won’t leave ME alone, either. Oh, wait, that’s just the mailing list I accidentally got on 🙂 When is Smoothie Week?
I wrote a post this week about the anti-Lisa cook that I am and the soup I threw together this week, but I haven’t posted it yet.
Yippee for good meetings at school and good Zilla behavior. She will be darling in glasses – they don’t seem to have the stigma they had when I was a kid.
Good for you, playing nice with the other mom on Zilla’s play date! It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?
Rainbows are always magical and beautiful.
Oh damn – those cats would indeed go after the confetti and yerf it up. See? This is why I can’t have nice things.
If you have a can of decent salmon, you can do those cakes – easy. And canned salmon is not as bad as it sounds. It’s pretty darn good and a whole lot cheaper than the usual going price for fresh in the market. I promise the bean balls are not gross. If you like white beans, you’ll like them. I love that there’s eggplant in there and my Husband ate them anyway!
Smoothie Week is as we speak – all this week and ending on 11/10. I found some other smoothie posts for it – I’ll have to link them up and share them when I have a minute.
Zilla has had a great week and she is very excited about her glasses. She made me promise to keep them a secret until her “big reveal.” What a drama queen. I don’t think it’s like it was when we were kids at all – thank goodness. There’s enough out there for kids to make fun of – and they do – without one more thing.
No the play date was not horrible at all. The other parents are quite nice. I’m just so introverted by nature that it’s often difficult to be comfortable in those situations. I’m working on it. 🙂
Our rainbow pics are hardly as cool as they were in person, but yes they are always exactly like you said – the kind of thing that never gets old.
Awesome! Zola….mushroom soup!….caffeine and rainbows?….and a victory over introversion?…..wow…happy that recent health bomb didn’t screw up your rheumatology stuff.
I was glad that long stretch didn’t seem to have much affect on the overall picture, either. In fact, my inflammation markers were down from last time! Go figure.
Frist!
Well, not quite. On a technicality, Dyanne is Frist. She landed in my spam folder late Friday night after I was in bed and not approving comments. But you are the Frist comment that went up without needing approval.
Why after all this time do I still have to approve Dyanne’s comments out of spam???
Stupid auto correct. .. ZILLA! NOT ZOLA! makes me picture her with a mask and sword!
Oh that’s all she needs – weaponry. I always think of the line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “…And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
hey zoe!
do you mean Émile or…. Guy Williams?*
*old person cultural reference, sorry luckily you have ‘the google’
I think she meant Zorro…but who knows?
Ummmmm can I come over for dinner? The white bean meatballs sound amazing! I will definitely be back for soup – I love soup, especially with my mouth in its current toothless state. My Kidzilla has glasses too, got them when she was in 3rd grade, but her prescription is super mild and she doesn’t wear them often. They really do make adorable frames for kids these days.
You know, I thought of you when we had the bean balls – wondered if you would like them. I think I have them on a pin somewhere. If I do, I’ll send them. And like many things, they get better the next time you serve them after all the flavors get cozy together. Oh, and they’re pretty soft, too! You could probably eat them right now!
The glasses for kids – and everybody – really are cool. Hers are a very snazzy purple.
Those are great pics!!!
I still haven’t made it to Starbucks for a PSL, yet. I need to get on that.
I’ve never had one at Starbucks. Went there maybe once or twice. When I asked for plain old coffee – just coffee, nothing whipped, foamed, creamed, latte-ed, or anything else – they looked at me like I had five heads. I’m suspicious of anyplace that can’t do plain old coffee. 😀
What a wonderful list of thankfuls and awesomeness. Happy postiversary! Glitterbombs and such. I am looking forward to the soup recipes – I love butternut squash soup, too. I’m so glad you are feeling better and have apparently been cooking up a storm. The salmon cakes were making my mouth water and I’ve never tried to make them. Well composed dish as the Chopped judges say! Good week with Zilla, too. My daughter has been wearing glasses since 5th grade.
Butternut squash soup is a favorite here, Val, so we make it fairly often. I’m searching to see if I can come up with a fun variation.
These salmon cakes were really delicious. I always think fish cakes of any kind (minus crab) sound less than appetizing, but these were really great – the glaze gives it a little something special. Can’t take credit for composition, though – I grabbed the recipe online. Just have to remember where so I can share the recipe.
Ahhh this is PACKED with goodness *throws glitter and streamers for your 350th postaversary*
I’m so glad. I’m glad you’re carrying on with the blog, and that Zilla’s week at school has been so much better, and the allergy tests went well.
HOORAY for you going outside your comfort zone to make sure Zilla had a good play-date. That’s a tough thing to do when you’d rather not.
The fish cakes and salad look AMAZING. Well done you 😀
It’s a good week overall, Lizzi. Zilla has had a really terrific run this week. That’s a great thing.
The food this week just turned out so well which is always fun. I love how beautiful that spinach looked on camera!
Oh so much fun here. Using up food! Culinary muscle flexing! Rainbows! Glad your doctors visits went well.
I love coming up with meals from what’s on hand – kind of like my personal version of “Chopped”!
And good doc visits are always a positive thing.
I’m so proud you went on a play date! And my first glasses were purple too…way back in the third grade. She will look adorable and I can’t wait to see the grand reveal. Now if we could just make our date happen…
Hm, yeah. Lots of luck with that!
And I think I knew that about your purple glasses.
I don’t even like salmon but that photo made my mouth water..literally! Especially the salad. That looks amazing!
I remember Nik’s first pair of glasses. She was in first grade and picked out purple frames too.
Congrats on your 350th post! ******confetti****** Fantastic!!
I think purple glasses for little girls’ first pair must be the thing. I love that hers are purple and that I and my Mom also have purple in ours. So cool.
The salad was what made that meal for me, Sandy. I mean, the salmon was really good, but the salad with the Asian-inspired dressing really kicked it over the edge.
I’m loving the virtual confetti – nothing to clean up!
Going to grab that salmon cakes recipe….looking for new fish ones to try! Keep the culinary muscles flexing, Lisa!
I’m looking for which recipe I used, Michelle, but I’m pretty sure it’s on my Pinterest seafood board. I’ll e-mail you the right one.
Both of those dinners look amazing. Now I must go and fix something huge for breakfast because you’ve gotten me so hungry.
They were really delicious – really good recipes plus it’s very satisfying to produce something great without having to shop and make a huge production of it. Oh, and we had breakfast for dinner last night at Kidzilla’s request – “Mommy eggs” (which is Eggs Benedict minus the Canadian bacon). Delicious and such a good suggestion!
Wow. Dinners at my house don’t look anything like yours. I can pretty much guarantee that 3/4 of the ingredients you used in those two dishes have never been in my house.
Congrats on the 350th post and your smoothie success. 🙂
Glad to hear Kidzilla is doing so well in school. And that you are doing well with the “stresses” of playdates.
Simpler than they look, I promise. The bulk of those meals was things like canned tomatoes, canned fish, pasta, and beans. The salads were CSA stuff. And you have so many great things from your garden!
Kidzilla had a great week in school – I’m really proud of her efforts to get back on track.
I imagine that Zilla will remember sharing rainbows with you. I still have a memory of my mom taking us kids on a drive to find the end of a rainbow. Somehow we knew we wouldn’t actually catch it, but it was a magical sort of day. 🙂
I hope you’re right, Kristi. I know I remember things like that with my Mom.
We took Kidzilla on a trip to an outlet mall we like not too far from our home. At the time, Kidzilla was reading a Fancy Nancy book that talked about Paris. She saw a telephone tower that she was convinced was the Eiffel Tower and our entire ride home we were trying to get to “Paris.” So cute.
oh yeah! cog rats* on the 350th!!
* yeah, apparently in the mind of the disturbed Word-Complier (working in the basement of wordpress or google or wherever) feeding the Spelcheck machine, that is probably the word I had in mind.
Thanks, Clark. And thanks for bringing the “cog rats” over – the Rotten Cats ought to enjoy their company! 😀
You know what’s strange is I never used to like seafood at all when I was a kid and now I can’t get enough of the stuff – prawns, shrimps, haddock, and oh yes, salmon. Salmon is a definite favourite, and so I’m liking the look of those delicate not-too-little salmon cakes you’ve got top of the page. Now eggplant is a different deal, I’m yet to eat a dish with eggplant in that I genuinely enjoyed. Pumpkin coffee I like the sound of though. I’ve never been a coffee drinker but I can imagine making an exception for a pumpkin version (I’m googling it as we speak, or rather as I write). Anyway, I have a question that I hope you won’t feel is too forward. My wife and I don’t have children yet, but we’re thinking about trying soon, only we’re not sure whether the time’s right (translation: whether our cashflow, among other things, is adequate. Or whether we’re ready as human beings). We enjoy other people’s kids, and yet are often slightly relieved to give them back after babysitting too. I guess I just wanted to ask (and feel free not to answer if I’m being nosy here. I’m aware I’m prone to being nosy), if you had to pick your favourite thing about having a child and your least favourite thing about having a child, what would it be? Is it all pros, no cons? Is there any conceivable way to imagine what it’s like before experiencing it for yourself?
It’s funny how people’s preferences and tastes change. The salmon cakes are great – I’m going to put the recipe up as soon as I remember which one I used!
Eggplant is a love/hate thing with me. I like it sometimes, some preparations, but not across the board. The eggplant and white bean “meat” balls were the result of looking for a recipe to allow me to use up too-soft eggplant. This was perfect – and you don’t even know it’s there, so if you don’t care for eggplant, you’re all set.
Any coffee is good coffee, if you ask me. Even bad coffee can be tolerated when necessary. If you are a first-timer to pumpkin flavored coffee, I recommend trying Dunkin’ Donuts for their pumpkin spice at this time of year. You can also get pumpkin spice flavored creamers in the supermarket if you prefer that route. And then there is the make your own at home method, which I’d love to try, but the Hub hates pumpkin coffee so that’s a no-go here – he doesn’t want to “contaminate” the coffee maker. Although I do have to out him here and say that he inadvertently added pumpkin flavored creamer to his coffee the other night AND LIKED IT. Ha!
As for the rest…I will have to think on that one a bit. I’ll send you an e-mail.
I finally made it! First of all, Yay Kidzilla! Way to go! In that ADHD vein, I had a parent-teacher conference this morning where (again) we talked about how attention will always be playing a major role in someone’s learning. All the teacher could record is that Maggie can rote count to ten, though she and I both know she can rote count much, much higher than that. But, there’s the window and the Promethean board, and what’s for lunch, and all sort of other interesting things.
As for playdates, you wrote my feelings perfectly.
As for food, I had one of those clean out the fridge successes (so rare for me) this week, too! Stale cornbread and sausage and sweet potato hash with gravy. It was good!
Oh, you DID make it! I was wondering what happened to you…clearly you were cleaning out the fridge. That sounds like a good throw-together for fall. Well done!
That whole thing where the kid can do more than appears to be true? Yeah, that was sort of the theme of part of our meeting with Kidzilla’s team last week. Attention is indeed an issue. I totally get it…I lived it. Guess it’s good that we understand these little women.
I think we should have a playdate, given that feel similarly and all that. I suspect we would have a very grand time. And if we didn’t, we could just sit in silence and not feel obligated to be social and just be OK with that, too.
Yay for good reports from school!! How funny, our girls have üurple frames as well 🙂 I’m glad the Missy loves her glasses, it’s definitely easier that way!
Warm blankets and sheets are definitely something to be thankful for. I’d like to add: a hubby who doesn’t mind me slipping my icy-cold feet under his legs to warm them up 🙂
I would like to thank you here for sharing your recipes. I made your tomato cream soup on Halloween, and it was simply awesome! I’ll try more of your recipes 🙂
Have a wonderful week, Lisa!
Purple frames are clearly the hot thing for little girls (and big girls)!
Oh, that’s a good one to add, Stephanie – definitely thankful for a Hub who will share his natural body heat. I swear my Husband actually gives off heat – you can hold a hand inches from him and feel it. Weird, but helpful on cold nights!
OOH! You’re so welcome – I’m so excited that somebody is using them! That tomato soup is on our list of favorites. We no sooner finished the last batch than Kidzilla asked for another round.
Have a great week, too, Stephanie!