Thank you...

Just a little spot to send out a quiet, cosmic thank you to the service men and women out there...Special thoughts to: Grandpa, Uncle Don, Joe, Bill, Eric, Annie, Jeff, Stephen, and the GMC guys. I'm grateful for each and everyone one of you!

What is normal, anyway?!

Normal...such a nice, bland sounding word. A word that implies that all is how it should be, even keeled and without need of change. But sometimes things change without your permission...and then you need to get a new normal. When my dad moved out? Total shift in what normal became. Dinner as a family became fend for yourself night on a regular basis (fend for yourself night was AWESOME. Eat whatever you wanted for dinner, whenever you decided you were hungry.) Going away to school senior year? Definite new normal needed (life with roommates, no control over most meals, enforced study hours...). Going away to college? Same thing. The biggest new normal for me has been my dad. About 5 years ago he was in a serious accident, leaving him in a drug induced coma for weeks, and leaving a whole bunch of scar tissue on his brain. The man my father is today is not the man he was even seconds before the accident. That's not to say that he's entirely different, but there are marked differences. He gets tired more easily, gets confused easily, and sometimes just isn't quite himself. The biggest change in normal for me is my mindset regarding him, though. It's taken me a while to come to terms with the realization that my soon to be husband and future children will not know the man I grew up with. They'll know Fred 2.0...and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'll know the difference...but what's abnormal to me, will be perfectly normal to them...what is normal, anyway?!

Someday..

I'll get around to sifting out my recipes and putting them on an attached blog, or something, to differentiate from the knitting/random stuff blog topics. Until such time (which, let's face it, I'm lazy so....never), the subjects will remain mixed together.
Without further ado, here's a random smattering of what I've been up to, am listening to, etc...

New music: The Johnnies debut album, the new Decemberists (both are amazing, get them NOW)

Knitting projects: pay no attention to the column to the right of your screen. It's full of lies. Also, I'm working on other stuff.

I'm currently on a muffin baking kick. It might be just a one day kick, but it's a reasonably epic one...4 different kinds of muffins today, all with different batters. Blueberry, lemon raspberry, honey corn, and morning glory (my own take on them, though...no nuts or raisins, thankyouverymuch, but added some oats...subbed applesauce for 3/4 of the oil...came out AWESOME.)

Dinner tonight was a take off of a fabulous pasta dish my uncle made last weekend. Whole wheat penne, tossed with: olive oil, shallots, garlic, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, spinach, chicken and sundried tomatoes. added a little dried thyme and kosher salt at the end. ohmygod. amazing.

Other excitement: wedding planning is at a standstill, due entirely to laziness and end of the semester stuff for Dan, logged some quality baby time while K finished up a project, shoved my foot in my mouth regarding dinner with dad last night and a comment about unemployment to K (guh. studip studip studip....think, madigan. THINK.)

So, yeah...nothing super exciting...off to watch game 7 of the Bruins/'Canes series....