Sunday, October 23, 2016

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2006. We took Mattie to a Fall festival and as you can see Mattie went down the big slide. The previous year Mattie was scared of the slides. The slides may have intrigued him but he did not want to try it. In 2006, he agreed to try it sitting on Peter's lap! That was a success and once Mattie tried it, he wanted to go down the slide MULTIPLE times that day. I was always the designated photographer in the family, while Peter went on the adventures with Mattie. That worked out well since I prefer more on the ground activities and Mattie and Peter loved movement and rides. 


Quote of the day: There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but the way out is through. ~ David Allen

Peter and I set out to accomplish a lot today. Our first task at hand was migrating all our plants (that come in during the winter) back inside. This is a huge undertaking because it requires a lot of pruning of the plants and making room for all of them. Not to mention that they are heavy to carry! Our living room is back to being green again. In the winter months, it is a real welcomed sight. 

 I have been invited to a fall brunch this week at a friend's house and I offered to make two different egg stratas. Strata  is a family of layered casserole dishes in American cuisine. The most common modern variant is a brunch dish, similar to a quiche or frittata, made from a mixture which mainly consists of bread, eggs and cheese. It may also include meat or vegetables.

This strata contains asparagus and mushrooms. It may look easy to do, but it actually is far more labor intensive than a quiche. Mainly because it requires a whole lot of chopping and cooking of each item before mixing it together. 

This strata is spinach and gruyere cheese. We went to the market yesterday to buy gruyere cheese and I got into an argument with the deli counter manager because he refused to grate blocks of gruyere cheese for me. I found him so distasteful to deal with that I reported him to the overall store manager. But each strata has a different fresh bread chopped into it. The one above has sourdough bread and this one has Italian ciabatta. 

Sunny was so good during all these chores that after we were done we took him to Roosevelt Island, which he absolutely loves! 

This is a special spot to us. We used to go to this beachy area of Roosevelt Island with Mattie. At low tide, you can literally walk out into the water. In the background is Georgetown University (with the spires), where Mattie's hospital is located. 

This is the wonderful sight we saw at the end of our walk.... a young buck! Can you see him blended beautifully within the trees. Sunny was fascinated!!!