Author Archives: Alison

Far From Daily.

Far From Daily.

Daily blogging >was< my intention, but this house stuff has been tiring and nearly all-consuming.  Wednesday I spent the whole day hanging pictures and towel bars and suchlike.  Yesterday I had shopping and housework, and started preparing for the Praxis test I’m taking in January.  Today, well. . .I’ve already done a load of laundry, run, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and moved the wrapped Christmas presents to their hiding place in the attic.  (The cat is stuck up there now.  No way am I climbing into the eaves to get him.  Stupid cat.)  I’m heading out to Costco for the first time since moving, dropping off a present at the Post Office, and checking a couple of garden centers to see if they have flats for daughter #1’s science fair project.  Then it’s house cleaning time, but the new house takes a fraction of the time to clean up that the old one did. 

At some point, I have to check the levels in the hot tub, but right now isn’t good.  We have freezing rain pelting down, and the snow earlier this week collapsed the screen house that was over the tub.  It’s not a good hot-tubbing environment, so that’s going to have to wait.  Poor dead screen house.

I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting.

I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting.

This morning started with cleaning the snow off the cars and shoveling the driveway.  After finagling the laundry around a bit, I set up a table and started wrapping presents (I’m done, BTW, except for a couple of items I pick up on regular shopping runs. . .plblblbtttt!).  I ran out to the supermarket, came home and grabbed a quick lunch, then wrapped presents some more.  Then it was time to make whoopie pies for daughter #2’s bake sale, then make dinner.  I have five minutes until it’s ready to serve, so here I am enjoying 5 minutes on my behind before it’s time to walk the dog, then make the filling for the whoopie pies and fill and wrap them.  If standing burned as many calories as it felt like today, I’d never have to diet!  Oh, and I can’t forget to pack up the recycling and put it on the curb along with the giant robo-can of doom.

Indian Restaurants

Indian Restaurants

It looks like there are only two in our area, so last night we tried Aamantran, on Route 9 in Toms River. We were very pleased! The food was good, a bit more expensive than we were used to in North Jersey, but not by much. The samosas were not as chunky as the ones we’ve always had, with the potatoes and peas kind of mashed, but they were good. Audrey had Aloo Gobi, and it came in a smoky-flavored red sauce, also different from the way we usually have it, but very yummy. The thing we didn’t realize is that they have dosas on the menu. Next time we’ll have a nice masala dosa instead of the samosas. Not too many Indian restaurants serve them, and they’re lovely. (I can’t believe my mouth is watering at the thought of Indian food at 7:30 in the morning . . .)