Adventures in Homemaking, Part 1,756

M and I can be patient. Or maybe it's busy. Or lazy. Anyway, something kept us from replacing the sink faucet after all attempts to fix the cold faucet drip failed. For literally the last six months, we've been turning the water on and off under the kitchen sink. Very annoying. (So annoying that some members of the household would forget to turn it off and then we would have a very high water bill. Ahem.) I think M was inspired by the visit from our friends at Restano, who came regarding a different plumbing issue. And I must say, he looks like he means business, surrounded by tools and pipes underneath the sink. I am confident that we will soon have a new, fully functional faucet. And if for some reason we don't, we're moving. I mean it. We're selling the house and finding an apartment.

I just noticed there's a grapefruit on the floor in the corner. I vaguely remember bringing home a grapefruit in my purse. Someone at work gave it to me. Note to self - look for other missing contents from purse. I think the resident toddler may have done a little pickpocketing.

There are 14,000 cheerios on the floor. Lindsay and Teddy came over and there was some excitement over the snacks. As in, Laurel spilled them all, and then she and Teddy went wild...grabbing handfuls and stuffing their little faces. It was pretty hilarious. I thought we cleaned most of them up, but cheerios are one of those things that inexplicably multiply...like unmatched baby socks and parking tickets.

Laurel played lots of hide and go seek with me from behind the living room curtains. She just started pushing a toy car around (I would never have know this was a developmental milestone except Sarah came over on Sunday and "experimented" on Laurel by giving her a language assessment for one of her classes. All of a sudden I am acutely aware of developmental milestones.)

And finally, I just made a brilliantly simple and delicious lentil soup from Vegan Planet. Even if everything else in our lives is mildly chaotic, or sometimes, frankly, just plain weird, at least we can cook. We'll always have that.

Indian Spiced Lentil Soup
2T corn oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, minced
14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1t peeled and minced fresh ginger
1/2t ground cumin
1/2t ground coriander
1/4t cayenne
1 1/2 cups dried lentils, picked and rinsed
6 cups stock or water
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
salt and black pepper

Directions:
Heat corn oil and add onion, celery, sweet potato and garlic. Cover and cook until softened. Add tomatoes. Stir in ginger, cumin, coriander and cayenne. Add lentils and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Note - do not add salt to lentils until they are all the way cooked, or they don't get soft. Add the cilantro, salt and pepper to taste.