THEY'VE TAKEN MY SOUP RECIPE AWAY!!!

So this is a post out of desperation because my very favorite soup recipe, the one I've made about once a week for the past month or more, has been taken down from the website on which I found it and I have to try to recreate it here, where the link won't change, so that I won't lose it forever.  It's a slow-cooker Italian meatball soup recipe and it is WONDERFUL.  The best thing about it is that the meatballs don't have to be cooked ahead of time, so you can just roll them up and drop them in without dirtying a bunch of extra dishes.

The recipe went something like this:

For the meatballs:
1 lb. loose Italian sausage
1/2 c. (or 1 c.?) bread crumbs (I like panko)
A few pinches dried herbs: I like sage
A couple good squirts of ketchup to stick everything together (or sub an egg if you want)
A couple dashes of garlic salt and pepper

Form into meatballs and place in slow cooker.  I usually layer them all around the bottom rather than piling them up.  They won't stick together if you heat the broth as follows:

For the broth:
In a stock pot on the stove, heat together:
2 qts.(ish) chicken stock
2 T tomato paste
1-2 t red pepper flakes

Pour over meatballs.  Cook about 6-8 hours on low in the slow cooker or 3-4 hours on high (depending on how hot your cooker gets - mine usually takes about 6 hours on low.  When the broth is simmering you'll know the meatballs are cooked through.)

About 1/2 hour before serving, drop in 1/2 - 1 c. noodles (or 1/2 a box, if you're Paul.  The more noodles you put in, the less broth you'll have.  You've been warned.  This is a great time to use crazy-shaped noodles: we like gemelli.)

Immediately before serving, drop in 3-4 good handfuls of fresh spinach.  Allow to wilt before dishing out.

Die happy and go to heaven.  Eat leftovers for the rest of the week until it's time to make another pot.

What's new since, oh, this time last year

So about how this was supposed to be a shelter blog about my new house and all the fabulous things I was going to do to it.  And then about how I got married and hubs and I did all kinds of fabulous things to the house, but my camera was broken and I didn't really record any of them.  And then we were too cheap to pay for internet at home, and my laptop decided that it didn't want to get on home internet connections anyway.  All that happened in the past two years or so.  So, you know, there's some stuff to catch up on.

Two summers ago we renovated the bathroom, but in typical fashion when I was taking pictures of the house today I didn't feel like taking pictures of the bathroom (... possibly because it needed to be cleaned and I felt like taking pictures more than I felt like cleaning the bathroom.  Don't worry - it eventually did get cleaned).  So the big bathroom reveal will have to wait.  But yesterday the little guy was cooperative and happy to sit in his bouncy seat for a bit while I deep cleaned the kitchen, so I took pictures today of my fabulous renovated kitchen, which was this summer's home improvement project.  (Warning - this will probably turn into an epic, next-great-American-novel style post.  Unless the little man freaks out, in which case it may turn into a to-be-continued.)

A bit of back-story: when we started the kitchen (Labor Day weekend, appropriately enough), I was 31 weeks pregnant and we had just gotten back from two weeks in France and Spain with my little sister.  The old kitchen was pretty tiny - something like  47 square feet, with a teeny pantry off it that was mostly unusable because of a water meter sticking up out of the floor, a dinky hot water tank taking up the rest of the floor and the shelves way off to the side so they were almost unreachable.  So the plan was to bust out the old pantry and open that wall up for some fabulous counterspace (the old kitchen had about twelve inches of usable counterspace), remove the upper cabinets that were on the left wall and put in a fancy new sink and an all-in-one washer/dryer so that we could wash diapers in our own house instead of going next door to my cousin's house.  So fancy!

So to set the stage for the renovation, here I was:

August 29.  Already so preggers...

After moving the appliances into the front room, we spent a delightful weekend tearing apart the old kitchen. Mmm... asbestos.  

(Don't worry - I wore a mask and Paul did all the really iffy stuff.  Little man came out fine, so it couldn't have been that big of a deal, right?)

We made an epic trip to Ikea to pick out and buy our kitchen cabinets, sink, faucet, and countertop.  And while we were at it, we also got a daybed and two mattresses.  And a cowhide rug for good measure.  It all fit in my Element.  We were impressed.

Long story short on the installation {because little man is starting to fuss} - it took longer than we expected because the water lines all had to be moved, we installed a new hot water tank in the attic, we ended up replacing all the gas and hot water lines... it was a lot of work.  So fast forward to November 1st.  Approximately 38 weeks pregnant, kitchen gutted, floor reinstalled - time for tile.  Paul's view of me helping him with this step looked like this:

One month later, my belly had gone from little watermelon-sized to BIG watermelon-sized

You might also notice the fancy window above my belly.  We cut a pass-through in the wall where the fridge used to be for a breakfast bar.  I forgot to take pictures of it today, so it'll be the subject of another post one of these days.

So the floor was down and it was finally time to install the lovely Ikea cabinets that had been sitting patiently in our garage for the past two months.  I spent the next few days assembling cabinets while Paul was at work and we hung a few a night until they were all in.  (Spoiler alert: I spent all day assembling cabinet components and hanging doors the day I went into labor. You ready for that baby to come?  Build some cabinets.)

Once the cabinets were installed, we (and by "we" I mean Paul with me standing by for moral support) cut the gorgeous butcher block blanks for our countertops.  That was the evening I went into labor, and, by happy coincidence, Lexy text me demanding a picture, so here's the last picture of me pre-baby the night we cut the countertops:

T-15 hours until the easy part of being a parent would be over

So anyway, we fit the countertops and laid them in place before calling it a night.  Except that it was a short night because I went into labor around 11 and little man was born at 8:13 the next morning.  (Maybe someday I'll write out our birth story for public consumption. I have a paper mama-journal that I'm keeping, but I don't know yet how I feel about sharing the birth with a wider audience.  My thoughts on that are fodder for another post anyway.  Carrying on...). 

So when we came home from the hospital, the appliances were still in the front room and the countertops needed to be screwed down.  We hadn't installed the trim pieces on the cabinets yet, nor had we tiled the backsplash.  Paul quickly moved the appliances in that weekend and the kitchen was up and running!

So here are some pretty pictures of our new kitchen three months later (... still lacking the backsplash and trim pieces, but just squint a little and pretend they're there, ok?)

So there you have it.  The project started on Labor Day and ended (... well... sort of ended) with going into labor.  How's that for poetic?

Also, you thought you thought for a minute that I was actually going to publish a post without a gratuitous baby picture, didn't you?  Hah.

He's discovered wiggling, which I'm all for, but it makes it very hard to get a non-blurry picture.  Seriously, though, look at that face! Hee.

I'm still alive!

And I have the internet at home again thanks to my lovely, initiative-taking husband.

And a snazzy new laptop!

And I appropriated my mom's camera!  (... like that?  "Appropriated" instead of "stole"?  I should be a politician.)

Score!

Hopefully somewhat regular blogging will resume soon (... who I am kidding?  When has my blogging ever been what one could call "regular"?), but I wanted to check in, let anyone still lurking around here know that I'm not dead, and that my time has been taken up with one of these lately:

...well, ok, not "one of these" but that one up there specifically.  Isn't he cute?  Somehow I find myself already the mom of a three-month old.  Weird.

So, I started That Cardboard Box as a shelter blog about my new (then... I've already lived here three years.  Weird again) house, and, as the house has had some rather major renovations since I last had a proper camera and regular internet connection, I have some catching up to do.  I also have high aspirations for doing crafty and cook-y type things that I'd like to chronicle.  Oh, and I'd like to finish my dissertation one of these days and I'm hoping that writing here will make staring at blank pages and blinking cursors slightly less intimidating.  Sort of desensitization therapy or something.

So anyway (for the zillionth time tonight), I'm back.  And maybe this time I'm even back to stay.

Oh Baby!

I don't think I've posted anything about this yet (especially when I last posted here I was only about 3 weeks pregnant), but we're having a baby!  (This should not come as a surprise to the two people who read this blog.  Just thought I'd throw it out there). 

So anyway, Saturday was my baby shower and I am completely overwhelmed by people's generosity, not only in their beautiful and thoughtful gifts, but in sharing their time with me on the most gorgeous Saturday we've had in a long time. 

Amy and Lynn were the perfect hosts.

 Amy peeking out the door to supervise.  (Also, doesn't this picture remind you of this one from our wedding?)

Lynn, Lynn's mom Grandma Irene (our baby's honorary great-grandma) and me. 

I didn't see the RSVP list, so I wasn't sure who was coming, and as the guests began arriving (and arriving and arriving...) I couldn't believe how many had come from far away to spend the day with me.  For example:

Toohey, Jen and Kim: northern Ohio; Bri: a few towns over; Kate: Virginia; (me, Amy); Lexy: Chicago

How cool is that??

I was also reminded how blessed I am in family: aside from my real mom (who didn't make it into any of these pictures because she was taking them... oops), I counted no fewer than eight "moms" who were role models and mentors to me growing up, and who I now count as friends.  My own grandmas have passed away, but I had four "grandmas"  in attendance (two great aunts, one of my great aunt's best friends of 50+ years who might as well be a great aunt and Amy's grandma who might as well be my grandma, too). 

This baby is one lucky little guy or gal to be coming into a world so full of love.

And on that note, my hormones and I need to go find a box of tissues.  Love you all.

*cue happy dance*

I PASSED!

General exams are over and I'm officially ABD. Let the general merriment and celebration commence.

Happy Walentines Day

I've developed the annoying habit of replacing V's with W's, as in wegetables, wiolins, and Walentines Day. I'm not quite sure why that is or where it came from, but there it is. So, whether or not you celebrate Valentines Day, I wish you a wery, wery happy Walentines Day from me and my walentine to you and yours.

*I'm in the trenches of finishing preparation for my general exams, grading students' midterms and papers and generally acting like a responsible student. Maybe someday I'll be a responsible blogger, too, but probably not quite yet.

Printed Words

Another year flown by. I can't help but think I'm missing some books below (I could've sworn I read more than that!), but I can't think of any off-hand. Oh well. Printed words, 2011:

Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver
The Woods, Harlan Coben
The Falls, Joyce Carol Oates
Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel
Keeping Watch, Laurie R. King
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent
Riptide, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Game, Laurie R. King
Justice Hall, Laurie R. King
Organic Farming, Peter V. Fossel
Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry
Knockemstiff, Donald Ray Pollock
The Holy Thief, William Ryan
The Dirty Life, Kristin Kimball
The People of the Mist, Henry Rider Haggard
The American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Maria Francis Child
Stories of a Woman Homesteader, Elinore Pruitt Stewart
AfterAge, Yvonne Navarro
State of Siege, Michael Wallace
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
The Naked Gardener, L B Gschwandtner
The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova