It's Tuesday

Right now I have vegetarian chili cooking in the crock pot. This is the second time in one week where I have used the crock pot my grandmother gave me Nov. 2007. And this is also the second time EVER that this crock pot has been used. I am exploring the realms of soup. I have never known how to make soup before, but being that I have time to learn, I am educating myself. I bought a 2 pound bag of carrots last week (let it be known that I do NOT like carrots but want to try making veggie sushi which typically has carrots in it) and I need to use up the majority. So, last week I made carrot soup. This soup turned out pretty good even though I don't like carrots. Michael even had a bowl of leftover soup the next day. I think we probably have about one bowl left which I will force myself to consume within the next day or so. Since it's been so cold this week, I felt that some chili is necessary to warm up our insides. So, I found a recipe this morning and put the ingredients in the crock pot for consumption later on this evening. We'll see if this one turns out well also. I deviated from the recipe slightly but I don't think my additions will be the failure to the chili. I also plan to make some homemade cornbread (I think I'm going to put some real corn kernels in it as well since I have some leftover) and I'm considering a spinach salad. If I do end up making the salad, I think I'll make a mustard vinaigrette to go with it. It will be a complete meal straight from Kristen's kitchen.

This past Sunday we went to see West Side Story at the National Theatre in D.C. The performance was good, and the singing was wonderful, but I didn't like the director's version of the play. He made all the conversations between the Puerto Rican's to be spoken in Spanish. Although this does make the play more realistic, it takes away from the show when you don't speak that language. Even though I knew what was going on, I still came away from the show unfulfilled. Also, they updated the play a little making it feel more in the current time, but I didn't appreciate that either. I say, if you are going to do it, do it like it was written in the time frame it was written. I still enjoyed the day in the city. Afterwards, we went to an early dinner at this restaurant called Chef Geoff's. It was really good. I had the asparagus risotto balls for an appetizer and the butternut squash ravioli for my entree. They had this in the typical "sage butter sauce" but the twist...ameretti cookies crumbled in the sauce! It was delicious. Every so often you would come across a sweet little crunch! It made it a very special pasta dish.

Tomorrow Michael leaves for Houston until Friday. I'm not sure what I'm planning to accomplish while he's away, but there is supposed to be one person coming to pick up some boxes on Thursday. It will be nice to get some of those boxes out of the house and to know they are going to be put to good use again!

This coming up Sunday we may try to go to the kick off party for the inauguration. It's on the Mall at the Lincoln Memorial, free and there are going to be many well known names there including Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington. And more people are going to be there as well that haven't been confirmed yet. It's supposed to be really cold that day, but for all these names, and it being free, I think I could manage to put on enough clothing to be warm. We would probably leave early in the morning with food and water on our backs and then wait all day for the performance that evening. We'll see if we actually end up doing it. But I think it would be really fun and well worth the effort.