TuttleTree.com

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs ground beaf, lean
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp each: Garlic salt, Italian Seasoning, Basil, Oregano
• Ketchup & Mustard
• 1 small handful of grated Mozarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, combine beef, eggs, 1/4 cup ketchup, and breadcrumbs. Kneed thoroughly with your hands. In a separate bowl, combine 1 tbsp mustard, another 1/4 cup ketchup, spices, and cheese; mix well. Press meat mixture into an ungreased 4x9 loaf pan, coat with sauce mixture, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and place on center oven rack for 1 hour.

With 4 minutes and 23 seconds remaining on the timer, have your toddler, 2-days shy of his (or her) first birthday walk across the room, but fall over onto your bipolar cat.  Cat will screech and scratch the child, leaving a long cut on his (or her) face, around the eye, but lucky for you, not actually in the eye. Panic.

Turn oven and timer off, leave door cracked. Take child to emergency room. Child will have scratch cleaned and inspected — need "steri-strip" (fancy band-aid), but luckily not stitches. Receive prescription for antibiotics, and head to discharge. Woman working at discharge offers plush cat toy made by seniors at a nearby home, not realizing it was a cat that caused the injury. Her coworker will make a joke along the lines of, "don't you know it was a cat that scratched him (or her)??", not realizing that her joke was the truth. Explain that it actually was a cat, and have a good laugh over the irony. Take the cat toy anyway.

Drop your spouse and child off at home, then head straight to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled before they close; since they won't be open the next day due to Holiday. Wait 15 minutes for prescription to be filled, show pharmacist pictures of scratched child. Return home, reheat meatloaf for 10 minutes at 350. Serve with lukewarm leftover mashed potatoes and shame.

For best results, start prep by 5:00pm so that you can eat by 8:30pm.

Your results may vary.

(Morning after:)

This year is a little different. In years past, people have asked me about my plans for Christmas and I had some relatively clear idea of what was going on that I passed on to them. Visiting family, good food, stuff like that.

This year, with Dylan's birthday on Friday, people have been asking me what our plans are, or what we're getting for him, and I just go completely blank. For me, right now, life doesn't exist after Saturday (his party). I know we have plans, and I know we have gifts for him, but I just don't think much about anything beyond his birthday party right now. I know what he's getting for his birthday, and I know what's going on for his party. And I'm pretty sure there's going to be a day after that. But beyond that, I'm not really clear.

Luckily, I've got plenty of time to figure it out. When I get back from the doctor's office (where I am right now), I'll work a half day from home, but then I have the rest of this week off. So let's just call this pajama week, ok? I may even shower a few times.

I could explain the recent silence, but chances are you are already aware of some of the bigger things going on in my life; and know that those things can be stressful and distracting from things you might otherwise normally work on. Sorry about that. And uh, "That's all I've got to say about that." So let's check on a few things.

Dylan's birthday is a week from TODAY! He's almost a year old. Holy crap! He's nearly walking — getting better all the time; starting to add a word or two (sock!) and a couple of new signs (cat, for the first time the other night) and sounds (Elephant calls! So cute!) to his vocabulary; and starting to really get visibly interested in books. For the moment, I'm really enjoying this. He hasn't gotten to the stage where all he wants to do is sit and read every book we own consecutively (like certain nieces and nephews), but he is very pleased to get through two or three books, and even motions over toward them before and after naps, and at other random times.

From the slightly-less-mind-blowing department, I've continued to try new foods. Honestly, I don't know exactly where I stand in terms of the one per month thing. When I stopped posting about them I started to forget exactly when I tried what. Last Saturday we had our first Thanksgiving dinner for the year with our friends, and there I tried both a parsnip & pear purée (I guess in place of mashed potatoes?), and baked (not boiled) brussels sprouts. I didn't like either very much, but I disliked the brussels sprouts more. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised I tried brussels sprouts — that was one of the things I specifically thought I would NOT try this year.

I also recent submitted a presentation proposal for a ColdFusion conference I've been to a few times as an attendee. One of my goals has been to get more comfortable with public speaking and to do presentations now and then. I don't want to get myself too worked up over this — they haven't even announced the topic short-list that the community votes on to finalize the topics — but it's the public speaking equivalent of throwing myself in the deep end. In addition to that, I've taken over as the manager of the Philadelphia ColdFusion User Group, which means I'll be standing in front of a room full of people at least once a month to introduce someone else, if not presenting something myself. Hopefully that will help make me more comfortable in front of a crowd. I am at the same time both very excited and quite terrified by all of this. It might be a good time to invest in some Depends stock. Just sayin'.

So that's what I've been up to lately — pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. What about you?