Lazy Weekend

A lazy weekend indeed. I think it was necessary after the stress of the holidays! Did some of my on-line class, talked to my mom and one of my friends. Read a lot! Slept in. Nice.

That was yesterday. Today, I slept in and ventured out to go on a spending spree. Started with Borders Books. Love that place. I get these fun discount coupons weekly and, being a book junkie, I find it nearly impossible to pass the discounts up. So, at Borders, searching through the Arts and Crafts books, I came across an obviously misplaced book. Surely this must have been meant for me to find. It fits right in with my 2010 goal of being a better housekeeper. Plus, the graphics in this book and on the cover are just so fab! The book I picked up is called "No-Hassle House Cleaning". I can't wait to dive into that. I really need to do some house cleaning as I have friends coming next weekend. We will be going on a scandal-filled bus tour of the West Adams district of LA. This will be followed by food, fun and revelry at my hopefully clean house.



I also went to Fresh & Easy, Trader Joe's and Target to spend even more money. Since all the local weather reports said the upcoming week of pretty much non-stop rain was not starting until tonight, I ventured out on this spending spree without my umbrella or raincoat. It's a damn good thing I don't bother spending lots of time blow drying my hair into a straight style of some sort since the clouds opened up early and the drops of rain began to fall!

When I got home I decided I wanted to make not one, but two dishes. New vegetarian recipes I came across. Both recipes contain red lentils. I should add that the house smells really good.

One is a red lentil and barley casserole



and the other is a red lentil and artichoke stew



Funny (or maybe sad) how the weekends just fly by. Tomorrow, I begin a new work schedule at the day job. It's called the 9/80 work week. This basically means, you work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on Friday, repeat Monday through Thursday the following week, and then have that Friday off! I can't wait. I think my first assignment for the off Friday will be to have the landlord replace my archaic electric stove top. Said stove top, completely shut off while I was sauteeing onions and carrots for the casserole. A cooks worst nightmare. Who's idea was it to make electric stove tops anyway? Surely, not a cook.