New friends, and cooking experiments

Today started out as a bit of a lazy day. I had planned to work on some scrap-booking that I'm behind on, but suddenly it was noon (or slightly after) and all I'd managed to accomplish was to have breakfast and do stuff on the computer. Then I got a message from Melanie (a woman who lives in Geneva that I've talked to some online, but have yet to meet) about a meet-up in town this afternoon, and I had just about enough time to take a shower, have some lunch, and head in to meet her. The sun that had been peeking through the clouds so far all day of course decided to go into hiding and out came the cold and rain, and the coffee shop where we'd planned to meet had decided to close for the afternoon, but everything worked out ok after all-- we all met up and found a new place to hide and stay warm, and had a great time chatting. I got to meet Melanie, Jessica was also there, and then about 5 other women (and a very very cute St Bernard puppy!). It was great to meet some new people, and it was yet another reminder to try harder to get out and hang out with people rather than letting laziness and inertia keep me at home.

When I got back home, I was greeted by a package from Cristina... with some gifts for Loki:

She also wrote a cute letter to her future nephew, which will definitely be going into a baby book. =)

Back in California, I'd started to form a repertoire of recipes that I felt confident enough making (most courtesy of Real Simple magazine, one of my faves ever). Since our move, I kinda got away from trying to make anything even remotely fancy (mostly b/c I was intimidated, b/c I'm silly like that), sticking to uber-easy pasta+frozen veggies+sauce or olive oil when it was my turn to make dinners. Well, this week I got inspired, and actually bought some chicken on my last big grocery store trip (which I never do, b/c I'm always too lazy to actually cook it) and right now it's on the stove, and I'm gonna try to make my chicken and corn empanadas (one of my good ole Real Simple recipes). I'm kinda excited, though perhaps I should wait to see how they turn out first. ; )

Who knows, perhaps I'll even go out and get some eggs tomorrow so I can make Zach some pumpkin bread for when he gets back Saturday morning. =P