125 biscuits

I woke up at 5:38 this morning. On my own. No alarm. And it made my heart so happy. And my equilibrium at the gym happy too, having had 40 minutes to adjust to being awake before exercising, instead of the usual 10 or so. It's now 8:59 and I'm wiped out. But since I don't want to wake up at 4 (which would not make my heart happy), blogging is a clear answer. :)

Today at work we had the monthly staff birthday lunch. While in line I noticed a co-workers skirt and in my head I said, "Oh, Courtney's skirt is from Gap." What came out of my mouth was "Oh, Skirtney's court is from Gap." I heard it come out. I paused. Received a strange look or two. Said it again, thinking still "Courtney's skirt is from Gap" and again what came out was "Skirtney's court is from Gap" still not computing what was wrong. Yeah, blaming THAT on that 5:38 a.m. magic.

Last week (per mentioned, maybe?) was a 4-day work-week, and how thankful I was for it. I did a lot of work at work on Sunday, and Saturday was filled with a project of sorts (more below), and Friday was really a great day of just fun. My friend Katie came to town for a bit--hooray! There was a multi-church Good Friday service--HOORAY! And pizza with excellent ladies afterwards--hooray!

Saturday was a quiet morning. Run, errands (including a trip to the bookstore; more on my selection below) time with a friend. Then, my Saturday project. I got to make breakfast for church on Sunday morning, and I choose recipes that I could do the day beforehand. The menu was biscuits and breakfast casserole. I have an awesome (and easy) homemade buiscuit recipe I used, and the casseroles were easy, just labor-heavy. Zakiya came over and helped me; thank God-I think she grated cheese for an hour and a half. When all was said and done, 125 biscuits were made and 5 casseroles were constructed. At one point I was worried there wasn't enough. Let's just say I sent half a casserole home with someone on Sunday. I took an ENTIRE casserole to work. And took an ENTIRE casserole home. Yes, that's almost 3 too many. I've been having it for dinner since Sunday. At least it tastes fantastic. If you live in Athens and want leftovers or some biscuits, call me. Seriously.

Sunday was Easter Sunday...happy, happy day. Excellent, excellent church service and fellowshipping. Quiet afternoon. Happy-happy.

Oh! Per mentioned, I got a new book. I was given a giftcard to Barnes and Noble, that I went to use it on Saturday. I was going to grab a couple of novels, but it put me in too bad of a mood to buy "beach books" with no scheduled beach time in my future, so I moved on. And a cookbook would be a far more practical choice (and I love practical uses for giftcards). So I spent almost an hour looking at books. I was going to get one by the founders of Baked, but I just wasn't in the mood for a sweets only cookbook (practical, remember)? I saw a few Food Network cookbooks, but I just wasn't impressed. I was thumbing a Rachel Ray when I saw it. The one I was missing. The Joy of Cooking. I'm in love. I used it for the breakfast casseroles. I read a chapter or two when I got home.

My current cookbook collection. Joy fits right in. (The Grit cookbook was absent for this photo-shoot, but definitely an important part).

I took this picture last night from my front door, thinking it was cool (it was at the top of the porch).

This morning at 6:30 I walked into the web.

Not cool.