Lucky....or Not?

Yesterday the leprechauns made a little mischief while everyone was sleeping. We had green milk, green sugar and green toilet water! The girls also found a few little treats in their shoes-some japanese erasers and chocolate gold coins.

The girls have had the past two days off from school for parent-teacher conferences and a teachers workshop. Both girls recieved much praise from their teachers. Becca has all A's and one B. Kenzie 'exceeds expectations' in all areas. I am a very lucky mommy to have two smart girls. As a reward for such great work we hit the book fair so the girls could pick out some books. We were also lucky enough to be blessed with some beautiful weather with temperatures close to 60, perfect for playing outside.

Dom even got home a little early and joined us for a walk to the river.

It was a very nice day until I totally messed up dinner.

Now let me start by saying that I have come a long way in the kitchen. I couldn't even boil water when we first got married. We ate a lot of frozen pizza and steak-umms. Dom would often cook when he had a job close to home, as he has lots of experience since he had cooked his way through high school and college. Then he got a job farther away and I was in charge of dinner meaning we ate a lot of prepackaged things like Hamburger Helper and frozen meals, which is not of course real cooking.

Slowly I gained confidence in the kitchen. Dom, my mom and mother-in-law offered tips and encouragement. I started watching cooking shows and surfing the net for easy recipes. I am proud to say that I am no longer afraid of the gas stove and words like mince and saute don't send me running for a dictionary.

So yesterday, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I planned on making an Irish stew which I had made quite succesfully the year before. Stew is not hard to make, quite simple in fact, but not so I was not so lucky this time. Now my very sweet husband insists that the failure of dinner was not my fault but it was, mainly because I did not pay close enough attention when buying the lamb. (I still struggle a little with buying meat.) He said they should have labeled it differently, Anyway the label did say Lamb-Stew Meat B.I. What I failed to notice was the B.I. meaning of course bone in. But when I realized my mistake at home I still thought I could make it work by just taking the meat off the bone. What I soon realized is that the meat was very fatty and that really the only thing this was good for was making a stock and then throwing away and long story short we ate salad and smoothies for dinner. Not very irish, but luckily, still tasty!