Feeding an army.....An army of one that is

Tomorrow night my cousin Greg, his wife Misty, and their two friends are coming to our house to spend the night during their trip to New England. I'm very excited for them to come and visit but I'm a little nervous about what we're going to feed them.

My Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Bob raised three boys. Three BIG boys. And I don't mean big as in fat. I mean big as in big, brawny, strapping, muscular good 'ol Iowa boys. The kind that think a standard box of cereal is a single serving size. And usually is when consumed in a mixing bowl instead of a regular cereal bowl. I always used to be in awe that Aunt Lorraine can throw together a huge dinner when guests drop by unexpectedly but now I'm starting to realize that what is a huge dinner spread to her guests is probably only equivalent to what she set out as a light afternoon snack when the boys were all in high school.

When I was in high school I stayed with Greg and his first wife Marilyn for a few weeks one summer. I volunteered to cook dinner one night and proudly made a recipe for enchiladas that I had learned in Home Ec during the previous school year. The recipe made eight enchiladas and I remember telling Marilyn that it was probably more than we needed since there was only three of us and their toddler son but she gave me a look and said "not with Greg around." We sat down for dinner with the pan of enchiladas in the middle of the table and I remember Greg picked up the spatula and scooped out four of them for his plate.

So the question becomes, what the heck do we feed them tomorrow night? Lincoln and I are not used to cooking meals like that. Tonight we had ham steaks and mashed potatoes. Lincoln cooked two steaks and between the four of us we only ate one. I think tomorrow night we'll have to pull an "Aunt Charlotte" and make a huge vat of spaghetti with a big salad and a few loafs of garlic bread. I call it the Aunt Charlotte because she had 9 kids and one of the only things I remember from her house was the incredibly large pot of spaghetti that she made when we came to visit.

Despite needing to truck in groceries - not to mention the beer - needed for tomorrow night I am VERY excited for their visit and can't wait to see them. It should be a great time.

Mother Nature needs a snooze button

The weather has been so nice lately that we've been able to sleep with the windows open. Each morning we wake up to the birds chirping, the rooster up the street crowing, and a woodpecker somewhere off in the woods. That's not necessarily fun but it hasn't been too bad although the woodpecker definitely does a good job of not letting us fall back asleep. This morning, however, was a different story. There was some sort of bird outside of our window at 5 a.m. this morning that was very, very loud. And no matter what window we closed it sounded like it was right outside the ones that were still open.

I don't know if he was looking for his mate, his parents, or his children but eventually he found all of them and then they had quite the little party. Not a fun way to start the day.

After we closed all the windows I managed to fall back asleep again but woke up from a very disturbing dream with a sore jaw. I dreamt I was standing in a hotel restaurant (standing, not sitting) and eating every possible food that I can't eat right now because of my mouth.....steak, chicken, potato chips, etc. I woke up from that and went downstairs for my bowl of ice cream for breakfast. I've got soup for lunch and hopefully some pasta for dinner and then back to more regular food tomorrow although I still have to stay away from anything crunchy or crusty for about a week.