weekened madness

well, once again i managed to take it not quite easy.

friday after work, i treated myself by not cleaning the house in my "every nook and cranny" way as normal, and instead did the basics. if everything goes right, next friday will be my last chance before oliver arrives, so i'll be doing an extra super cleaning then. bryan and i watched license to wed, which was [expectedly] stupid, but had some funny lines, and was perfect to lay on the couch and zone out to.

saturday morning, i had a hair appointment... finally!! i had needed a haircut since... umm... the beginning of march... so it was nice to finally get around to it (we've had a busy year, that's all i can say - plus my stylist in atlanta was a genius so i was afraid to try someone new). i saw my sister shannon's stylist at vici capelli, and she did a great job. my hair looks super cute, and will be ultra low maintenance when ollie is born.

i hit the walgreens for some vitamins, and kohls for a tablerunner, where i got distracted by the latest sale (i swear 80% of their merchandise is always 50 - 75% off), and picked up a few extras. i ran home to grab bryan, and we headed out to sams club, where it turns out you can't leave for under $100 because everything costs at least $10. we grabbed a few items from the grocery store, and headed home to start some cooking.

while i was at the salon, bryan had made some pizza dough to freeze. while he generally avoids flour (i.e. baking) like the plague, his pizza dough is other worldly, and thus falls under his domain. he worked on a chile paste, which involves roasting dried chiles, reconstituting them, and running them through a food mill. he made a GIANT batch, and used about 1/3 of it to make a chile sauce for my enchiladas and we froze the other 5 cups. meanwhile, i played a new puzzle game he had downloaded to the xbox for me. once the kitchen was a little clearer, i made a double batch of chocolate chip cookie dough to freeze. mmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmm.

bryan carted up a bunch of rubbermaid bins from the basement to the bedroom for me, so i could switch out our clothes for cold weather clothes. turns out, of the 8 or so bins, only one contained his clothes. he already had most of his clothes in his dresser/closet, and i just needed to unpack his sweaters. i, on the other hand, had pretty much NONE of my clothes unpacked, since none of them have fit since, oh, may. so i spent a few hours unpacking, organizing, and packing up non-winter clothes. that may not sound like fun to you, but i enjoyed it very much, and it really made me look forward to my future project of creating a storage and organization system in the basement for this type of stuff. i am TOTALLY buying a labeler (oh the excitement!)!

bryan and i had a lovely romantic dinner at chez jacques, downtown. our "secret date place" in atlanta was a little french place, so we had been on the lookout for something similar. i had heard a lot of good things about chez jacques, so we decided it was the perfect spot to have one final date before we become parents. :) we started with the Bouchee D’escargots (puffed pastry with french snails), since i am an escargot lover. these were quite good, although we did find them a little oversalted to our tastes, and the garlic had not been cooked down and was cut rather large... and there was a lot of it. the flavor was good, if a little over the top, and i felt like a fire breathing dragon for a little while. the snails themselves were very tender. we also had the mussel special, which were steamed mussels in a white wine cream sauce. they were good, although they seemed a little more seafood-y to me than normal. bryan assured me that they were fine, and it was just my overly sensitive taste buds. :) for dinner, i ordered the Croque-Monsieur Frites. i love a good croque monsieur, but was disappointed to find this was hardly what i was expecting, and that mine are far better. i use a the recipe from the jacques and julia cookbook, and it is so over the top and fairly messy (cheese, meat, cheese, mustard, mayo, and toasted in no small amount of butter). this croque had NO mustard or mayo, just ham and cheese, and didn't seem to have been toasted in butter at all. so overall, it was pretty bland and unimpressive. i had the waitress bring me some mustard, which helped, but i brought half of it home. the frites were quite good, however, and bryan and i were able to discern that they were hand cut (which is what i expect without thinking about it, but it's always nice to have that dream come true). bryan had the Coquille Saint-Jacques (sea scallop with vermouth sauce), which he enjoyed. the scallops were just barely this side of done, and he found his overseasoned a bit to his tastes, but since we don't use a ton of salt i think we tend to notice it a bit more. for dessert, we shared an order of chocolate mousse, as well as the dessert special, chocolate terrine. the terrine was sooooooo chocolaty and dense, it made the mousse hardly seem chocolaty at all. almost ridiculous if it wasn't so good. all in all, we enjoyed the experience, and plan on taking a lunch trip back there next month so we can try the crepes (i've got my eye on the roast beef with mushrooms one).

sunday after church, bryan dropped me off at target to get a few last minute baby things while he grabbed a few items at home depot. i'm pretty sure we're totally prepared at this point, if not over prepared. ;) we need to stop thinking about it, in any case, since every time we do we think of something else to buy. dad came over for lunch and computer fun with bryan, while i made a batch of oatmeal cookie dough and parkerhouse rolls for freezing. unfortunately, we don't have enough corn tortillas so i wasn't able to get to the enchiladas. monday night!! i played my new game for some time while bryan and dad talked computers. after dad left, we installed the car seat bases in our cars and made sure we knew how to get the seat in and out. :) it was much easier than i thought! the seat is an even tighter fit in bryan's back seat than we thought it would be, but that's the reason he's getting a new car. i went to take a nap, and unfortunately bryan woke me up. an hour and a half later, but still. the weather was SO gorgeous here all weekend, and i had opened the windows in the bedroom and had such a lovely breeze. a lovely breeze is the perfect place to take a nap. i folded laundry, which is completely abnormal for me (i get it all done over the weekend and then usually wait until the following friday to fold and put it away, because i need the baskets to do laundry again... i know, i am a slacker). we watched some season 3 office episodes, ordered in chinese, and that's about it.

i'm making the final checks off my hospital packing list. the baby's bag has been packed for some time, and now i think i've gotten mine and bryan's bags all set as well. there will be quite a few things to bring to the hospital. :P if my calendar is right, it will be next weekend!!!!!! otherwise, the following week. either way, we're almost there! :)