A Completely Random Post

When Matthew and I were looking to buy a house we saw many interesting things, including a kitchen with a water fountain--like one you'd see in a school hallway. But we also looked at one house that had a stove like this. I'd never seen one before and tried to describe it to people, but couldn't, so in case I tried to describe it to you, here's what it looked like:


This one is actually in better condition, but isn't it weird how the cook top is a drawer?

The Heatons' Spring Happenings

Our social calendar has really been booked up these last few weeks. Okay, well, we've at least left the house a couple of times. Here are some photos from our latest adventures.

A few weeks ago, Matthew and I went for a stroll through the garden at the R.W. Norton Art Gallery, not far from where we live. The garden's many azaleas are an impressive sight in early spring. Their web site says they have around 100 varieties.

Matthew had a week of vacation in early April so we ventured home for a visit. We were lucky enough to be there for our nephew Landon's fifth birthday. He wanted to celebrate with dinner at Applebee's so he could order cheese sticks. If you look hard enough at the picture, you can, in fact, see his plate of cheese sticks. He sucks the cheese out and leaves the crusty, fried shell. We gave him an Anakin Skywalker Lightsaber.

Every kid takes up with Matthew. Our nephew Brenner became Matthew's buddy instantly, even though we've only been around the kid a few times. Brenner sat in Matthew's lap almost the entire time we were at Applebee's.

While on vacation, we picked up this lovely oil pastel drawing of our home that we had commissioned from my cousin Vince. I can't wait to frame it and hang it in our house.

And as a surprise, my cousin Jonathan made us this beautiful wooden tray. It's nice and wide so I can carry several things at once. We're having a picnic with our LifeGroup in a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to using the tray then.

Our trip was cut a little short because Matthew had to work on Easter weekend. Though we made the 11-hour drive back all in one day on Friday, I had decided to host an Easter dinner at our house for Sunday. I spent Saturday cleaning (thankfully, with us being gone, the house wasn't too bad), shopping, and preparing my menu. We had 11 adults and 2 children coming so I had to set up some additional seating. Our menu consisted of a Coca-Cola baked ham, fried chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, green beans, honey-glazed carrots, crock pot macaroni and cheese, tossed salad, and lemon cheesecake. Friends brought drinks, an appetizer, rolls, and a 7-Up pound cake. And our friend George, a fifth-year resident, brought this gorgeous amaryllis. What a treat!

I had filled some plastic eggs and gotten out some baskets in the hopes that we could have an Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately, we had stormy weather all day. So we had an egg hunt in our hallway.

I think Avery still enjoyed the hunt!

This past weekend, we attended two more birthday parties and we're invited to another this weekend. Plus, a picnic is coming up. Fun things!

A Vent by MB

As a die-hard Georgia fan, it's probably heresy for me to even bring up Tony Cole, but something in this article really struck a nerve and I need to vent. (And what good is it to have a blog if you can't vent every once in a while?)

The story in today's AJC highlights Cole's latest run-in with the law. As you likely remember, he was on the UGA basketball team for the 2001-2002 season under Jim Harrick, a man renown for his good judgment...not. Harrick, of course, wasn't exactly known for his play-by-the-rules mentality when he was hired at Georgia (thanks, Michael Adams), and he and his son went on to completely embarrass the program.

Cole has done the same. He is most notorious among Dawg fans for doing an ESPN interview in which he said Harrick Jr. paid some of his expenses and gave him an "A" in a class that he never even attended. But he's also been arrested for trespassing and writing bad checks and been accused numerous times for assaulting women.

Now he's in all sorts of trouble in Chicago, where he's being blamed for the resignation of the Cook County, Illinois, chief financial officer. Cole worked for Cook County as a human resources assistant, and news has come out that the CFO bailed Cole out of jail TWO TIMES for "violating a protection order against an ex-girlfriend that he pleaded guilty to punching in the face." Still a class act. He's in jail again.

But none of this is what has riled me up. It's this: This guy--did he even finish school? I know he didn't finish at Georgia--was making $61,000 as a human resources assistant. Sixty-one thousand dollars. This seems like a lot of money for the position, particularly when it is filled by this loser. Meanwhile, there are second-year residents working 80-plus hours a week actually saving lives and helping people, not to mention obeying the law, who make nowhere near that amount.

Yeah, yeah. Life's not fair. I get it. Ugh.

But Surely They're Homemade? You Better Believe It.

In today's Dining & Wine section of The New York Times, well-known food writer John T. Edge has an article about biscuits (click here to read). Well, actually it's about frozen biscuits and how even we Southerners who profess to the ability of spotting a frozen biscuit from six paces out are bringing these pre-baked breads to our kitchen tables.

I've got news for him: That's not the case in this Heaton home. See, I had the (mis)fortune of marrying a man whose momma made delicious homemade biscuits for him all the time. (You may recall: Biscuits are his heritage.) He took a real gamble in marrying me. I loved homemade biscuits, but couldn't make them. As you likely know, I was not a cook at all, in fact, and barely knew my way around a kitchen. I held fast to the belief that if you can buy it already made why do it yourself? (And I marveled when I realized that my roomie Jamie had a pasta maker and a meat grinder. Uh, you know there's a Publix two minutes away, right?)

Now, however, we're almost three years into marriage and I can honestly say I've never served him a frozen biscuit, or even one from a can. In the first few months of marriage, with Matthew working such long hours at the hospital and me working on, well, nothing, I had time to practice biscuit making. (Plus, I really wanted to be a good wife.) Thankfully, his mom slipped me the recipe off the back of the White Lily flour bag and it was simple enough for me to stick with it.

We probably have biscuits with supper about once a week (we had some Monday night in fact. I delivered supper to Matthew while he was on call at the hospital. He called to tell me they were the best biscuits yet. I'm still improving.)

Don't get me wrong: I don't make everything from scratch. Unlike my foodie friends Jamie and Amanda, I have absolutely NO DESIRE to make my own cheese (I wish I could find the link to their online video adventure making mozzarella) or my own bacon. I will confess to serving Sister Schubert's yeast rolls and using many other convenience products in the kitchen. But my biscuits are the real deal--made with flour, shortening, and buttermilk. Matthew won't have it any other way.

If you are looking for a good homemade biscuit recipe, check out my friend Amanda's blog. And if you ever come to visit us, please bring a bag of White Lily self-rising flour. Can you believe they don't sell it here? Other brands really don't taste the same!