Yes, that is what my Ex called me the other day. Master Chef! Just two years ago, he said my food tasted bland and would watch over my shoulder as I prepared food. Now, he can’t get enough of my cooking.

Two years ago, I took up cooking. It’s a passion of mine and I absolutely love preparing meals for my family and friends. In those two years, I’ve improved by leaps and bounds; today, I cook at least one meal per day (more if I’m not working) and have expanded my repertoire of recipes significantly. One of my favorites (and Gavin’s, as well) is a very simple dish that turns boring, ordinary broccoli into a special treat. Better yet, it’s super easy to make!

Blasted Broccoli

- Preheat oven to 500 degrees

- Cut 2 heads of broccoli into florets. Dry thoroughly

- Toss florets in olive oil, salt, and pepper

- Arrange florets in single layer on baking sheet and put in oven for 8 - 10 minutes (until florets are slightly browned)

- Remove from oven. Enjoy!

To give you a sense of how good this simple recipe is, you should know that because of it, my two-year old son actually requests broccoli because he thinks it’s a “treat.”

Being from Boston, I miss the snow. I don’t miss the cold much, but the snow? Oh yes. It just doesn’t feel like winter to me until that first blanket of soft, quiet powder falls.

It doesn’t snow very often or very much in Seattle, but last night we got nearly 3 inches (by my estimation). I was excited to spend the day at home with Gavin. We went outside and together made his very first snow man:

To the surprise of exactly no one, Gavin named our snow man “Thomas.”

If my Ex doesn’t pop a major blood vessel in his head this week, I will declare it a victory. The poor thing has been oh-so-stressed about the appliance fiasco which finally culminated yesterday in the arrival of a washer and dryer (nearly one full month after their originally planned delivery date).

The new washer and dryer, which are the smallest ones we could find that still qualify as standard size, are still too large. When our place was being built, it appears the laundry room was not constructed according to the blueprints. The few inches they shaved off (I think by accident) mean the difference between a nice laundry room and two white albatross’ sticking out into my hallway. Not to mention the fact that we no longer have an accessible linen closet.

My poor Ex paces the house, green tape measure in hand, occasionally pausing to examine the dimensions of a door way or a wall. I think he keeps hoping that if he measures walls enough, they will somehow change. Up til now, there has been no luck on that front. But he’s holding out hope.

(Sometimes, the tape measure sleeps beside my Ex, resting delicately on the night table. I can only imagine this is so that upon awakening, my Ex loses no time in resuming his home examination.)

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we are probably going to have to reconfigure some walls in our *brand new* house. It’s frustrating, especially since they were drawn correctly in the plans - they just weren’t built that way.

I’m not sure how well my Ex is going to hold up during the construction process.