Today was a quiet Easter. It was lovely to have some quiet, peaceful time after our usual crazed activity levels!

We slept in a bit, enjoyed baskets from the Easter bunny (their first chocolate rabbits!), and then around noon we packed up to go to my mother’s house.

The girls had a lovely afternoon with their Nani and Vóvó, including Easter baskets, an egg hunt, and then a treasure map. I got a lovely Easter basket with nummy dairy-free chocolates, and then my fabulous birthday present – a new vacuum! woot! The old one, er, was old and kept getting clogged. So pretty and shiny!

Ra did a great job there, very quiet and cute, until he jumped into my parents’ pond. ooops! He got a nice little tub, and then hung out in his crate next to a heat vent while we went to my father’s house.

The girls played with their Mimi and Grampy while B and I rested for an hour, but we got a chance to talk politics and grown-up talk for a bit too.

Then it was back to my mom’s house for dinner. Artichokes and asparagus, with dairy-free Hollandaise sauce. yummmmm….

Now I’m ready for a nice nap. *sigh* Of course, Ra is full of energy after being so quiet and well-behaved all day! Even full of energy he’s still quiet. I’d be surprised if we heard him bark more than a half-dozen times, and he’s been with us almost a full week now.

Tons of pictures tomorrow – Have you ever seen a birthday bunny cake?

Happy birthday to me! I’m 37 today. Wow.

We carted off two loads of crap to the dump (or, we loaded the van twice, B and BG drove and dumped). Our spring and fall cleaning sprees are almost complete!

The cupcakes and cake are cooling, and we’re off to a cousin’s birthday party in a little bit.

Today is a great day for counting blessings. I am very lucky to have such wonderful friends and family.

Best quote for today so far: from LG, “When I’m a grownup I want to be just like you, Mommy! Except for the brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, and pain.” heh

“Ra, don’t eat the library book!”

“Ra, no bite the laptop!”

“BG, we can’t keep all the broken toys missing parts”

“I don’t see any toys on the grass.” (says the child surrounded by toys…)

“No bite!” (over and over and over) followed by “Gentle!”

“Sit. Good dog!” (he figured it out!)

“Mom, that is so lame” (I attempted graphic design. ’nuff said)

“I found my roller skates!” (followed by an entire day of hearing skates on the hardwood floors)

“Max and Fang arrived!” (we won a few Barbies on eBay to make “Maximum Ride” action figures)

Welcome to the world of teething puppy, crazy kiddos, and spring cleaning!

Now that it’s spring, it’s time to celebrate that we live at the beach. All winter we deal with living at least 5 miles from anything useful (gas station, coffee shop, grocery store, etc), being at least 30 minutes from most places, and living on a peninsula at the end of the earth, so we are some of the last streets the town plows. We live with all that because we are a 5 minute walk from a beautiful beach and a great little park.

Forget the overcast skies and chilly winds! Spring is here, so we trek to the beach! There are a limited number of days when dogs are allowed on the beach in the spring (through Memorial day), so we take advantage of them while we can.

Australian Cattle Dog folk often say, “a good cattle dog is a tired cattle dog”. Very true. It’s also very true of my daughters. A walk with the dogs and then a trip walking around the beach, plus some spring cleaning will make for very calm, quiet girlies!

At least until they get some rest, then all bets are off. (check out the cute sleeping puppy picture)

Happy first day of spring!

Welcome, Sun. We can’t quite see you today, so we’ll have to bathe in the warmth of… lamps.

OK, so what if we have snow on the first day of spring? That’s not an omen or anything, right?

The girls tried to take Jack and Ra out for a walk. Ra followed Jack up to a point, but he was freaked out by the chilly weather and the snow, so we came back inside. A little bit at a time!

You can see some of the snow on each of them. Aren’t they too adorable for words? *sigh* They’re also way too smart, and I’m ruined for another breed.

Weird note of the day, we have yet to hear Ra make any sound. He can definitely hear and see, but he hasn’t made a sound. He is starting to settle in, though – he’s got more energy than fright today!

We welcomed Ra to the family today. He’s a mix of spring, Rachel’s birthday, and happiness.

Ra is a red Australian Cattle Dog, 9 weeks old. Our other dogs are also Australian Cattle Dogs – Jack is a blue, and Harley is a lab/ACD mix.

Ra was the Egyptian sun god, which seemed fitting for an orangey-red dog we picked up just before the Spring Equinox!

He is a sweet little guy, and the other dogs are getting used to him. He’s definitely bringing some sunshine into the house! Er, and some stress, too… Puppy obedience classes will start soon…

Birthday week continues! Stay tuned for Spring Reading goodness tomorrow!

BG said “now I have a big brother [Jack is 10 1/2] and a baby brother!”

If we had all my archives, I could say “my first pair of new glasses since the beginning of this blog”. Wow. For those readers who have known me offline, today I received my first pairs of new glasses since we moved from Austin. BG was 3 1/2, and MG was 1 1/2, and LG wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Just think, at that point we had more dogs than kids…

Ahem, I’m getting distracted… A Gaggle of Girls, home of the tangent…

At left you’ll see one pair of new glasses. These are the larger ones of the two pair. The new prescription is amazing – everything is just so sharp. I can read things that are still a bit blurry with my old glasses. Everything also seems to *pop* a bit with the new glasses. I can’t stop grinning! They have some cool detailing on the side, too.

I had asked someone about the cool-looking smaller frames, and had been told that sometimes they were difficult for constant wear because you lose some peripheral vision. I did get a pair of smaller frames, and I like them, but not for constant use. I think they look nice, though.

In other news, BG got a pair with pink lenses. She loves them, and says they are helpful for reading. MG and LG are jealous, of course, and LG made Mary Jane glasses, while MG extracted a promise for sunglasses.

Welcome to Birthday Week! Wherein we celebrate Rachel for the whole week. Is it too much? Well, it’s my blog, so I guess I can talk about myself occasionally. I’m not a person who will tell you offhand “yeah, it was my birthday a week ago…” Nope. I like my birthday. I’m Not Happy it’s being eclipsed by Easter this year, though. Feh.

These are my last days of being 36, so each day will come with a list of 6 things having to do with me. Six days, 6 items per day = 36. And then on 3/22 I turn 37, and there is much rejoicing that my family tends to be long-lived, and so I’m still about 10 years from middle-aged. Woot! Many thanks to my Nanas!

Todays 6 things are 6 things I did for myself today:

1. Bought artichokes, my favorite vegetable of all time. Swoon

2. Bought daffodils to brighten the house. Forsythia is my favorite spring flower, but they don’t have that in the flower section of the grocery store.
3. Slept in until 9:30, then when BG offered to make breakfast, accepted her offer.
4. Chatted with a friend on the phone, just for the heck of it
5. Took the laptop away from my darling children, just to browse around looking for birthday presents.
6. Read a novel by an author I love, even though it meant reading a gasp! Harlequin Romance. It was good, too!

I took the very-helpful BG with me to the grocery store, which made everything much easier. While we were there, I bought 2 packages of cherry tomatoes so I could try making another Cherry Tomato Crisp this week. It worked pretty well last time, though the bread crumbs didn’t really brown. This was the first way my girls liked tomatoes (other than in a sauce), so we need to repeat it! We might want to actually follow the recipe this time, too. heh.

Happy Ides of March, everyone! In honor of Julius Caesar, let us eat well, and with an Italian-inspired meal! I remember making chicken with artichoke hearts in college, before I became a vegetarian. However, in the past 15 years a lot has changed and I don’t have all of my recipes from that time in my life!

This recipe was inspired by the memory of those meals eaten with friends in one of the townhouses on the Skidmore College campus. It was delicious then, and it is delicious in its current incarnation as well! Still easy, quick, and relatively inexpensive as well.

Check out the recipe