A Return to the Blog

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from this blog - with good reason! In the past year I finished my master's in Gerontology at an accelerated pace (almost double the load) while continuing to be the full-time, stay at home mom that I am. In addition to finishing with a 4.0 GPA, we got pregnant again with #3 (yay! - due in January 2012) AND got moved to Denver for my husband's job just after graduating.

Nothing like preparing a house for sale, packing for moving, scampering halfway across the country for two day school finding trips and finishing a thesis with morning sickness to make you wonder if you've taken on too much!

Nevertheless, as I'm setting into a new routine here in Denver and looking forward to moving into our new home next month (we are presently in corporate housing), I'm finding myself wondering what, exactly, we've been eating for this past year! I know we were in an easy routine with home cooked meals, but can't for the life of me recall what we were eating every week! I think there was a fair bit of tortellini involved. Also, living up here at altitude I've discovered it's pretty tricky cooking meat properly so I've pretty much abandoned it. My husband, cycling more than ever, needs his protein but is content cooking his own meat.

At some point this spring I discovered the Six o'Clock Scramble and subscribed. It's a GREAT cheat sheet for creating a menu plan. I don't mind that it costs some money because I really like the convenience and the meals have challenged me to try new foods.

Today, as I was making dinner, I remembered Disasters in Homemaking and thought I'd get back to it as a great way to keep track of the meals and household rhythms that seem to work for our family.

I'm really happy to be here in Colorado - it's simply gorgeous and I love a new adventure. The one thing I'm sad about in the move is that we didn't get the chance to garden this growing season. I'm hoping to learn about produce gardening in the Denver area so that next spring I can start at the right time. I think we are going to put a greenhouse in our yard too, which will be really exciting! I only major drawback to the Denver area I've found is that it simply cannot compete with California in terms of the bounty of farm fresh, year-round produce available. That's what you get for living somewhere with four full seasons, I guess! It inspires me to grow our food even more, so we'll see what comes of it then. I'll be posting those adventures over at the Plant Killer.

Stay tuned for menu updates and adventures in homemaking!