Posting a few pictures retro-actively here. Preggo makes me cook for her tummy these days, so whatever she says goes. Invariably it ends up being some sort of bland comfort food. This casserole almost totally worked, except the potatoes were a little too big, and there wasn't enough to it. Laura seems to have liked it, so I guess it succeeded there. What she really wanted was the puff pastry topping. And what she wants even more than that is the little puff pastry desserts I make with the leftovers. Thank goodness she's easy to please.

I recently inherited this bridal portrait of my mother. She died when I was 4, of breast cancer. It must have been extremely traumatic for me, because I don't remember a thing about it. In fact, I cannot remember anything about my mother at all. This is something that I think about all the time; maybe not on a daily basis, but at least a few times a week.

Thank goodness that my family was blessed with a wonderful step-mother. She has definitely taken very good care of us, even if we didn't all appreciate it at the time.

I like to keep pictures like this around, just to remind me of that part of my family history that I've forgotten. Maybe someday I'll remember on a comfortable couch at a psycologists office, but for now this is the best I have.

This is an old picture. In fact, I took this on my honeymoon with my old 35mm camera. The lake was frightingly high, usually this is a lazy little waterfall instead of a roaring torrent. The funny thing is, I just had this film developed a few months ago, I didn't even know I had these pictures!

Its starting to get dark out when I get home nowadays. This is going to make taking photos that much more difficult. Ugh. This photo is from back in early July, but I felt it deserved to see the light of day, so to speak.

Pictures of the belly are coming one of these days. Laura thinks its twins. I don't know why she thinks that; but its sort of freaking me out. Is our apartment even big enough for 4 people?

Last night I played in my second multi-table tournament online. It was a $5 turbo rebuy tournament. The blinds raised, I think every 5 minutes or so. And guess what? I made the final table. And guess what else? I bounced on the bubble! Out of 125 entries, I came in eigth, missing the money by 1 place. I'm still really upset about that final hand. I had just paid the blinds (the blinds were 6000-12000 at that point, more than half my stack), and I get dealt AK offsuit. My mistake was in pushing in here when literally the small stack at the table (surprisingly not me) would be blinded out on the next hand. I got really unlucky to lose the hand though. The big blind had a pair of twos, and caught a set on the flop. It was just so frustrating to play for two hours just to get bounced on the bubble like that.

However, other than that final hand, I think I played some fairly mistake free poker. I was the chip leader for a good half-hour in the middle of the tournament, but a run of bad cards just as the small stacks started moving in on every hand let others catch up. In the end I think it was worth the $15 I spent on the tournament. I definitely learned a lot, and had some fun outplaying 117 other people.

Its either the heat/humidity or I've got some sort of bug, but today I've been totally dragging. Like it was a serious challenge just to drag my sorry butt down the street to Church. While there I could barely stay awake. And this was the noon Mass!

Actually, now that I just finished moving our couch out (a nice college student came by with her father to pick it up), I'm feeling a little more ambitious. Maybe I'll actually get my act together and go grocery shopping. I really just hope that a storm comes through and cools us down.

How am I going to be able to handle a screaming child if I always feel like this on weekends?

Sleep has been a little elusive this week. This is somewhat due to reading before bed, but mostly due to Laura and I talking long after the lights have gone off. Each night I get more tired until tonight when I fall asleep after dinner.

Why does this matter at all? Well, I'll tell you. When you're sleeping, you aren't taking pictures. This picture is of my adorable little cousin that I took last month. Last month? Yeah! Cousin? I have nieces older than her! I know! Such are the foibles of family. Kreacher is going to have some young first counsins once removed.

No picture tonight. I know, I'm a miserable failure. However, I did make this Chocolate Mousse from 101 Cookbooks. Its not your average mousse, since there's no dairy, but its still darn tasty.

I did make a few unsanctioned changes. I used 9oz of regular Toll House chocolate chips (its what I had in the cupboard), and I used Kahlua and vanilla instead of Amaretto and almond. It was just a tiny bit of Kahlua, so I'm not too worried about Kreacher.

This was possibly one of the easiest recipes to grace the pages of 101 Cookbooks. You should definitely give it a try.

Tony wanted to look outside more than life itself this morning. I think he was ready to jump on top of the air conditioner and peek under the window shade. I never did figure out what he was looking for, instead I took the opportunity to snap a few pics of him. What an evil daddy.

I've got to make dinner for myself 2 whole days this week! While I really want to have something really bad for me, like turkey dogs, I decided to do a little recipe I found in last months Eating Well. This is just pan-seared cod with a citrus sauce. The green beans and potatos were last minute freezer loot. Dieting sucks, but I figure with my dessert waiting for me tonight, I can suffer a little.

That's not to say that this was bad. It was really freaking good. I just wish I could eat both portions that I made.

Tonight was another fun cooking night. I made some tomato risotto from Cook 1.0 (my favorite cookbook!). It was way easier than the last time I made risotto, which was a marathon 45 minute stir session. This came together nice and fast, and didn't have any weird ingredients, except perhaps for marscapone cheese (which I omitted) and fresh basil (which I had on hand).

I'm not really sure if Laura liked it. She famously and coincidentally got sick the last time so she might be a little tainted. I thought it was fantastic. Basil and tomato go so well together.

Today's picture is a self portrait. This project is starting to suck. But I'll stick with it as long as I can. I just have to remember that not every picture has to be a masterpiece. That's not the point of this exercise.

I hope that I never become one of those parents who finds it perfectly acceptable for a child to scream for 15 minutes straight in a restuarant. This wasn't McDonalds, but Za, a relatively upscale restuarant. This place is cursed with the appearance of being kid friendly. I say appearance because Za serves pizza and salad. Every kid loves pizza. Except these pizzas often have exotic adult flavors like balsamic soaked cherries, goat cheese, and so on.

Even I, the famously laid back Peter, started getting annoyed after the 10th minute of screaming. Finally the parents took turns with the kid outside. The strangest thing? The kids were screaming in a "happy" way. Ugh.

I mentioned yesterday that I made some chocolate ice cream from Alton Brown's recipe. Well, I ran it through the ice cream maker this morning and let it harden all day. We just had a few scoops with some marshmallow topping. I have to say, this is some of the best ice cream I've ever had! Sure, its not very good for me. What with the pure half-and-half, and the 8 egg yolks. But damn, I'm thinking homemade ice cream is fast becoming a Kovacs family tradition. And I'm okay with that.

I should mention, that on this rainy lazy sunday, Laura and I took a nice little nap. I know, get them in while we can. The funny thing about naps is I always seem to be more tired afterwards than before hand. This picture was taken shortly after, which explains the state of Laura's hair. I think its super cute of course, but Laura was less than thrilled when this became my picture of the day.

Laura and I went to El Guapo (Powerderhouse Sq in Somerville) for dinner tonight. We realized that we had't eaten out in quite some time. Together at least. I think this resturant is great. Despite the not-so-glowing review in the Boston Globe, I think it has a decent atmosphere (its a bar, not a classy restuarant) and some killer food.

The entrees are on the expensive side of things, but I think that they are definitely worth it. In fact, this place is the new gold standard for mexican food around here. While I've never been to Tu y Yo, it definitely beats Rudy's and Ole.

Despite the heat today, I did end up doing a little cooking. I whipped together some homemade granola bars, as well as some "premium" chocolate ice cream. I'm still waiting for the ice cream mixture to cool down, so I won't be enjoying that one until tomorrow. But the mixture already tastes just like melted chocolate ice cream!

I went for a walk in the woods behind work today and discovered a little development of nicely manicured houses, all in a pretty circle. It looked like classic suburbia. It must've been recycling day, because all the little blue bins were neatly lined up on the curb. These houses would've probably been $250,000 anywhere else in the country. But Lincoln, MA? A cool $1.2 million. Sure, there's no housing bubble. No siree.

Laura and I aren't the kind of people to keep news like this quiet. We just found out this morning, but we've been suspecting it for a couple of days.

I'm really excited about this obviously. I don't think it has completely sunk in yet because I don't feel the slightest bit scared. I know my life is going to be completely different, I just haven't wrapped my head around it yet. I like to break things down into what I can easily handle. For example: I have to cook a little better and make sure Laura gets the kinds of things she needs. More protein and calcium (being a vegetarian does make the whole protein thing difficult). We're eventually going to lose our "office". We're ditching the desktops and getting a laptop; but that's such a long way off it hasn't even entered the picture yet. Other than that, its just little things. Like the fact that I'll be WHOLLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANOTHER HUMAN-BEING! Holy crap. What have I done!

Haha. Just kidding. That kind of responsibility is old hat. I do take care of Laura well enough. I'm sure we can handle it.

What is with Hollywood and its inability to make 90 minutes of a funny movie? Invariably the movie gets tangled up in its own plot, and ends up falling on its face. Laura and I just got back from Wedding Crashers. It started off humorously enough. I even laughed out loud, sniggered and snorted many times. But the last half hour wasn't filled with any laughs. Sure I was mildly amused, especially at the Will Farrel cameo.

Other movies have done this too. Even great ones like Office Space. It can often be forgiven depending on just how hard you laugh at the beginning.

Listen up script writers. We don't need tidy endings. We don't even need everything to make sense. Take a page from Dude, Where's my Car, or Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and deliver us some non-stop laughs the whole way through!

Laura and I went to the park on our way home. In addition to offering sweeping views of downtown Boston, we found this plaque in the middle of a bare hilltop. I'm not entirely sure what happened to the tree. Perhaps I'll just have to find out.

I had no idea what to make for dinner tonight, and Laura suggested a rice bowl from the ever popular Cook 1.0. This is a really simple recipe, but it does require a few exotic ingredients: thai green curry paste and coconut milk. But if you have those in your pantry (inexplicably, I did) then it comes together really easily.

Only 1 more week on the hard-core diet. And then I can actually have seconds when I make a fabulous meal like this!

Ben Folds rocked the bitches and shit tonight. I mean, he rocked. Russ whined earlier that Songs for Silverman wasn't hard enough, but let me tell you he rocked that bitch.

There were two unfortunate moments tonight. Ben Folds didn't have an encore. At least, not one that we waited around for. And then Rufus Wainwright came on. I'm sure Rufus is a great musician and all, but I just wasn't digging his music at that moment. Add that to the pot heads lighting up behind us, and the fact that we wanted to beat the huge lines back to South Station, we were practically forced to leave early!

Seriously though. Who lights up at a Rufus Wainwright concert?

I didn't even notice, but as of Sunday, I've been taking pictures for 2 months straight. Well, I missed one day in there. It was early on and it completely slipped my mind. There's not too much to take pictures of when its 11 o'clock and you're in bed already. Oh well, I'll have 364 pictures when I'm done (or perhaps I'll just go one extra day).

Of course, in reality, I probably won't stop, but just slow down a little. At the very least, this has trained me to bring my camera with me EVERYWHERE! Except, this friday I can't bring it to the Ben Folds concert I'm going to. I'm not sure what he and Rufus Wainwright are so worried about. Afraid I might take pictures of their patented secret drumming technique. Or document Ben's various stances while pounding away at the piano. I'm not even going to bring it with me for fear it might get confiscated, or I'll have to go home to drop it off, and that pisses me off!

Work seriously pissed me off today when I spent a good 2 hours tracking down a "bug" when it was another member of our team performing some black-hat testing. That is, they were purposely trying to break everything to see if there were any security holes. Due to some horrible miscommunication, I spent all my time on a wild goose chase looking for a non-existant bug. I was none too pleased.