What's For Dinner Wednesday...and a Christmas Letter!

So I was thinking today, as I mailed out my last 7 Christmas cards...making it 50, people! 50 cards!...Anyways I was thinking that all my lovely blog readers weren't getting one. I mean, some of you will, but not all of you. So I thought, I should post my letter, because you already got the Christmas picture yesterday but the letter you have not seen. So here it is. Even before the snail mail recipients.

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas! 2008 has been a tremendously eventful year here in the Clark home. So tremendously eventful, in fact, that we are partaking for the first time ever in a great Christmas tradition- the Christmas brag letter!

I suppose the biggest thing to happen this year was our son, Ezekiel, was finally evicted from the womb on June 11th. With a due date of May 26^th he has continued a fine old family tradition of devoted late-ness and Josh and I have started an equally fine (though new) tradition of out-stubborning our children.

In the 6 months since that hazily remembered day Zeke has transformed from a tiny (ok he was 9 and a half pounds, so maybe not exactly tiny) infant to a crawling, babbling, 20 pound, 6 month old. His stubbornness has grown more powerful with each passing month but I am confident that Josh and I (as veritable stubborn Jedi’s) will prevail and guide our young Padawan correctly. For as Josh likes to say, stubbornness leads to screaming, screaming leads to tempers, and tempers lead to the dark side.

Another great June event was Josh’s graduation from college, June 14^th in fact. Because, you know, that’s the way we Clarks like to do things, all at once in a chaotic bundle. He received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a minor in both physics and math with flying colors, and as a prize for all his hard work he got to fulfill his dream of working the next 40 or so years.

I have mostly been keeping busy this year making, and subsequently raising Ezekiel. It is a full time job. And like any job these days it leaves me with the responsibility to spend a frightfully large block of time each day wastefully surfing the web. Since the one painful moment of this year, the ending of the election and all the constant online news, statistics, interviews, debates, spoofs, and endless, joyfully endless opinions this has been a lot harder to do. I’ve coped by devoting this time to blogging obsessively at TheCocoCafe.blogspot.com. Josh is having a harder time weaning himself off of the election coverage. He plays as much World of Warcraft as possible but it is just not the same.

I pray this letter has found you and your family well and that your year was as tremendously tremendous as ours…or…you know…at least ok.

All the Love we have left,

Josh, Courtney, and Ezekiel Clark

AAAAnnnndddd, now a segment of......WFDW!
Rice Pilaf and Honey Chicken!

So first you want to put some brown rice and some broth, (at a 1/2 ratio...as in 1 cup of rice equals 2 cups broth) along with a few tablespoons of butter, some garlic, and some pepper in a pot to boil. If you dont keep chicken broth in your house, by the way, you should. It makes everything better. But I suppose you could use water.

While it heats up and maybe even starts to boil you can chop up and add some carrot, some parsley, and some onion. (I shake my parsley in because its dried. Fresh is better but who really keeps fresh herbs all the time?) Once its boiling and everything is added turn your burner down to low, cover your pot, and ignore it completely for 4o minutes. You now have other things to do!

Like taking a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer or fridge, placing them in a casserole dish, and drenching them in butter and honey. For my 2 breasts I think I probably used 2 Tbls of butter and 2 Tbls of honey and it was plenty. Bake it for...oh it depends if it was frozen or not, but it took mine say 40 min for frozen? Thawed more like 20 I'd guess. Just look at it every once in a while. When it looks like cooked chicken and isn't bleeding anymore its done. Its not hard, trust me.
Yum! Josh loves this chicken, because he loves honey. And we had that canned cranberry jelly with it, you know, the Thanksgiving kind. Because I love that stuff. But that's optional, lol. You could have green beans or something for all I care. I just cant get enough of that cranberry jelly. I know its probably 40 percent high fructose corn syrup but I just dont care. I'm even eating some right now as I type!

Anyways, have an amazing Wednesday. I know I will, admiring my lovely toes (I got a pedicure last night). Especially since Zeke slept all night. And really ALL NIGHT this time. Ah lovely pain medication, my teething son can have you everyday for all I care. Im seriously considering writing a sonnet to Tylenol.