Who knew pine nuts were so flammable?

Monday, Oct. 21, 2002
6:21 PM

We had a lovely weekend - lots of time with friends and good food. Friday night was nice and lazy - I think we ate pizza and watched a movie. Saturday we tidied up the house, which thankfully was not an onerous or stressful task. The whole downstairs is looking neat, except for just a few things in the library. I am reveling in the feel of a clean house and expecting to keep it this way as long as possible. Still have some work to do upstairs but it will all get done.

Saturday evening Rob and Wendy came over for dinner. Wendy and Kevin cooked, Rob made pasta and I sat around and looked cute. Wendy was right - once you have fresh pasta, there's no going back. We had fresh focaccia bread as well - yummm. The pasta got tossed with shrimp, veggies, pesto and asiago cheese. (My stomach is growling just thinking about it...) Yummy stuff. We hung out, watched a movie, had some ice cream, caught up with each other... It was a wonderful evening, good to catch up with friends and make time to reconnect.

Sunday was a lazy morning (at least for me, Kevin decided he was bored enough to do the rest of the dishes). We did get dressed to attend Regan's baptism ceremony in the afternoon, then back to the Smith house for a reception. The lady of the hour was very tired so she went to bed right afterward, but behaved beautifully during the service. She was the only baby not screaming her head off at one point or another! And looking very cute in her dress and fluffy white hat.

Got to see many friends during the afternoon. Mike and Sue and their boys, Rich, Susie and David, Genie, David and Nadine, and the O'Leary clan. It felt like a very homey gathering, with several kids of varying ages, Zephyr trying to scam food from people and Zach chasing her around. It was good to see everybody, even if for a short time.

We eventually took off to change clothes and then head up to Gen and Alan's place. We missed seeing Teri and Keith but instead showed up in time for dinner, again by the lovely Wendy. Again, good to see friends that we haven't seen enough of lately. Dinner was fabulous again (but how could it not be?), with warm spinach salad with bacon bits, fettucine alfredo and chicken stuffed with mozzarrella and prosciutto. The most exciting moment of the evening occurred when Wendy opened the oven to check on the roasting pine nuts, only to have flames shooting out the oven door. Fortunately, nobody panicked and Alan wielded the fire extinguisher to great effect. No real harm done, just a lot of smoke and some pine nut briquets. Oh well...

After dinner we spent time just lolling in front of the fire and making S'mores. It is really good to reconnect with close friends, to feel that the friendship is as strong as it ever was. The love and support of our friends means so much; it gladdens my heart to know that we are surrounded by people who care about us.

So that was our weekend. I spent a little while today working on my parents' backsplash. I am slowly making progress on it, hopefully I'll be finished with laying the glass in a week or two and I'll be able to go install it. I am nervous as hell about that because it'll be the first time I've done such a large piece, but I think I know what I'm doing. I just hope it doesn't all fall off the wall and scatter all over the floor. That would suck. Hopefully, that won't happen. I'll post pictures when it's done.

Ciao!