It looks like stew weather. It’s dark and cloudy, rain is falling from the sky. Never mind that it’s 74 degrees out, it looks like stew weather to me. This was my frame of mind two nights ago, when I made my infamous “Irish” stew. It’s pretty easy really:

Pour three cups of beef stock and one cup of veggie stock into a large pot. Add one 14 ounce Guinness. Set on med high heat.
Toss in three tablespoons of minced Garlic. (Mmmmm… no vampires at my house.)
Dice a handful of scallions and one onion of your choice. Toss them in.
Cut a few potatoes and a yam into bite sized chunks. Toss them in.
Cut up a few carrots into bite sized bits. Toss them in.
Cut up a few stalks of celery into bite sized bits. Add them to the pile.

(If you have small children who want to help you cook the stew, I suggest placing the cut up food into tiny dishes and having them toss the contents of the dishes into the stew. Marlena really enjoyed helping me the other day and this method resulted in no cut fingers and no splash burns.)

Cut up a small portion of fresh Anise (Fennel) and add it to the mix. It has a licorice flavor, so don’t add too much, but it really adds to a savory stew.

Open a can of black beans. Pour the entire can, juice included, into your pot. Do the same with a can of stewed tomatoes.

Toss in your stew meat, place on a lid, and cook for about forty minutes on medium high heat.

You can do all this in a slow-cooker if you remember to start dinner in the morning, or on lower heat if you remember to start dinner before five. As I never remember to do either of those things, this is what I do.

The stew was a hit, and went very well with the beer bread biscuits I made the day before. We had a bunch left over so I made Pastys using Grands Southern Style biscuits for dinner the next night. They were so good I made a batch for the next night too! Marlena and I also made apple pie pastys for dessert, they were also yummy.

Mmmm…. I love the end of summer, all my cooking skill points were spent on cold weather cooking.

Marlena has adjusted well to school, claims to have made many friends and is generally happy with having something to do other than get in trouble with me. She likes her teacher and seems to like her school. Granted, this is day two for her, so we will have see.

Oliver and I went to a mom’s club meet and greet this morning, he was really happy to play with other children and spent quite some time sitting up all by himself. Between that and rolling over onto his back from his tummy the other day it looks like my little guy is getting serious about getting mobile. I really enjoyed meeting the other mom’s in the group, as they all seem very nice and low key. I was doubly excited because I thought I might actually get to work today. My master plan was based on the idea that Oliver usually takes a morning nap, but was awake at the meet and greet this morning and was more active than usual. As a result I thought he would sleep really well this afternoon.

Ha ha HA! He didn’t sleep at all!! Not a wink until it was time to get Marlena from school, he fell asleep about fifteen minutes before I had to wake him up. Oh what a cranky baby is he!

He knows. He knows I am coming up on a deadline. He knows and he will never sleep again!

When I went to school for the first time, my parents spent weeks preparing me for my first day, telling me how great I was going to be, pumping me up. By the time the actual day came, I was ready to go, happy to be heading out to a new frontier. My family dropped me off at school and returned home, only to find my brother, mournfully staring out the window for a glimpse of me. I had been his daily playmate for his entire life. They had prepared me for school, but they had forgotten to prepare my brother for me going to school.

Today, I feel very much like my brother did. I have been waiting for Marlena to “get out of the house and let me work” for the last month. I have been looking forward to school like you would not believe, but now, on the morning of her first day, I am sitting mournfully at my desk, surrounded by work. My house is just too quiet, and my normal playmate isn’t here. Sniff.

We went to a birthday party at Club Libby Lu in the Menlo Park Mall last night for a friend’s daughter’s 8th birthday party.

We were at the mall until about eight thirty or so before retreating to the Mom’s house for beer, wine coolers, and recovery. A few minutes after we left, there was a shooting just outside the children’s place, very close to where we were. Very close. A man shot a woman in the store, and then killed himself. Obviously my angels are working overtime in making sure that the 15 or so children, 8 parents, and baby got the heck out of there before this all went down. Thank you angels, Thank you so much.

The party itself was fun, in that ultra-girly, make-up and glitter, high squeaky girl music kind of way. The girls were brought into the store and given rock star outfits to change into. This consisted of black sparkly bell bottom pants and a black tee with a large silver star on it. No bare midriff, no thumb-skirt. I was impressed that the outfits were not modeled after the Hooker Dolls, as my first impression of the store indicated they would be. (There was pink everywhere!)

After changing clothes, the girls had their hair twisted into fun little rows and pinned up. Fake kinked hair pieces shot through with long hot pink strips were attached via clips. Then the girls were covered head to toe in glitter and make up, were allowed to pick out 5 accessories, and make their own lip gloss, lotion or perfume. (It turns out I am allergic to the smell of the lip gloss Marlena made. Horribly allergic. Eyes tearing up, nose instantly stuffed, headache pounding allergic.)

After they were made all “pretty”, the girls danced to two songs with the teens in charge of the party and were sent on their way. The teens didn’t know the words to the songs, and neither did the girls, but the moms, including me, had no problem jamming out. Why? Because the first song was “I love rock and roll” by Joan Jett.

I mean really, this was an 8 year old’s birthday party and they played Joan Jett?

Afterwards there was present opening, and then the aforementioned alcohol eased recovery for us moms. I have pictures coming in the email soon, as I forgot my camera. Marlena had a blast though, and says she wants to do the same thing for her birthday. Hmmm…. either we will get her to change her mind or we will create a make-over session at home. We have the dress ups, it would be less expensive, and we have better music.

Marlena begins school on Monday, and I begin work. I need to finish up this complaint, file it, along with a motion to appear Pro Hac Vice, and get moving on the cases. I look back at this summer and can’t imagine why I am not finished with this filing already. What did I do with my summer? Why does caring for a newborn and a six year old take all the hours in a day? Ack! I haven’t even played World of Warcraft, or crocheted three hundred scarves, or scrapbooked. There is nothing to show for three months of time, except for the fact that the children are still alive, the pets are still alive, and the house isn’t a complete disaster. (Although, I still haven’t finished unpacking boxes.)

Well, I am off to bed. I still have a smidgen of a cold, and I intend on being well enough to work my tushie off all week so I can get this case up and running.