I Ask for So Little. Just Fear Me, Love Me, Do as I Say and I Will be Your Slave.

Doug got me this cookbook, which was sort of an impulse buy on my part. I had seen it earlier and pawed it affectionately. Later, I said, "If you ever wanted to buy book for me, buy me this". Being nice and subtle keeps our marriage strong.

Anyway, it's cute nifty little book. It does use rather a lot of half and half and cream and milk chocolate bars...it is definitely not a low fat book (although there are a couple of token soy milk recipes in there...which I have less than zero interest in). There is one simple recipe in there (well, not that any of them are *difficult* recipes, but this one is nice and elegant) of just milk chocolate and darjeeling tea. That's it. Okay, you can add milk or sugar, but I can't see how you would taste anything with more milk or more sugar. If you know me at all, you know I drink tea like (more than) water. It honestly never occured to me to add my eating chocolate to it. I forsee Earl Grey with orange dark chocolate in my future. I don't really drink a lot of hot chocolate, but I do love it, especially after being outside in the snow.

Which leads me to snowshoes! We took advantage of a big sale and bought the kids snowshoes. I would have done it much earlier this year but there was... no snow. Fiona took to it quickly (she told me she had some practice at school on a friend's) and Sophia even took a few steps in them. We had a nice little walk, but for most of it Fiona whined and whined about how tired she was and how long the trail was. I think we spent maybe half an hour outside. It was on the warm side that day as well. I am not sure if this means we don't go outside enough or what.

So addition to the copious ever-present whining on the 5 year old end, we have mounting tantrums that only seem to be increasing with intensity on the Sophia (2 years old) end. If she isn't screaming, Fiona is whining. If this were summer, we'd just go outside and run and swim it off. It is a lot harder right now because it's cold and there is frankly too much snow to go in the backyard. We sometimes go on the porch or driveway, but it's not quite the same. And nobody listens! Honestly, in a moment of exasperation with Sophia, I lamented, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" (Do you speak German?--probably misspelled). For some reason, that got a laugh. Sometimes neither of them seems to understand English. Maybe I am drinking too much wine. Or Godiva liqueur.