A portrait a week for a year.
This week: new kid size headphones (for the airplane) in her Easter basket.

A portrait a week for  a year.
This week- Corrine skiing with daddy in Winter Park.  She happily made five runs before going into the lodge to play.

Just some of things running through my mind today.

*  Last October I made an apple pie with the last of the apples from a neighbors tree.  I didn't bake it but just put the whole pie plate in the freezer.  When it was frozen I wrapped it really well in layers of plastic wrap and stuck it back in the freezer.   I baked it last Friday night.  It was Dee-lish.  I have NO idea what I put in the pie or how I made it so that I could bake it at a later date.  Frustrating.

*  I need to make a vegetarian dish for a co-worker who just lost her husband.  It shouldn't be too hard, but I get nervous when I bake for other people.  Mostly I just hope she likes it.  A group of us from work are making food for her freezer.  She is in her early 30's and hasn't even been married a year yet.  Her husband was riding his bike home from work and was hit by a car.  She was on a layover (which I'm sure was the worst feeling in the world).  Turns out he was riding the wrong way down the street and the car that hit him didn't see him.  I can't even begin to imagine what she is going through.  My heart aches for her so the least I can do is cook.

*  Trying to figure out a good schedule for the upcoming months.  I had an MRI a few weeks ago.  I have a bone spur on my shoulder and a partially torn rotator cuff.  There are things I'd like to get done before going under the knife.  But then I'd also like a little vaca from work.  Not that surgery is a vacation, but I would be out of work for 4-8 weeks.  I'm not sure if there is a good time for that.

I may have jumped the gun on the whole chicken thing.  My inner voice has run the course of "I am out of my mind" to "I can totally do this."  They are a week old now and are living in a tub in the spare bedroom under a heat lamp.  We have no outside housing for them yet.  Nor do we have any idea of what sort of housing to build them.  I was thinking a chicken tractor.  Bryan was thinking something more permanent and stable.  He's afraid that a predator will get them and then I'll be a basket case (and there is probably something to that).  Of course I don't want anything to happen to them.  The cats are curious.  Henley is oblivious.  And Buffett wants in that room so badly he can almost taste them through the door!

I have no idea about raising chickens.  While I did grow up on a cattle ranch in Kansas until I was eight we never had chickens.   I guess I'm sort of expecting to learn as I go.  My dad has a friend who has said I can call on him if I need and there is always the internet.   I was relieved that they made it through the first night in our house.  I just don't want anything to happen to these little fuzz balls that will make me doubt my chicken raising abilities.  And I don't want my peeps to say "I told you so."

Right now all I can say is bring on the chicken adventures!