There's no domestic bliss here this weekend.

So, I had all kinds of plans for myself this weekend and I got none of them done. Well, very few of them, anyway, and those that I did get done I can't say that I got done well. Let me give you a few examples.

Example One: I had planned on shoveling the driveway on Friday night, so that I wouldn't have to do it on Saturday, but I ended up staying later at work than planned, Doug picked me up and talked me in to sticking around in Harvard Square for dinner, and by the time we got home neither one of us felt like suiting up to go out into the cold and dark to finish the shoveling that Doug started on Thursday morning. So, we ended up doing it Saturday morning. And I ended up getting into a really foul mood while shoveling because I was simply amazed at how much snow we have and unless we have some serious melting in the near future we will be piling this stuff in the street because our piles have reached their maximum capacity. (Don't even tell me about an impending snowstorm for this week because I just can't hear that right now.) The piles we have made from shoveling are already about my height and then some, and I can't lift the snow any higher. See here? We used to have a fence, but now we just have snow. I was trying here to make a space for our garbage cans to go, and I succeeded, but only for a few hours, because when I went out later that morning to go to the grocery store I noticed that an avalanche slid into my nice, clean spot. Too bad, garbage cans. You'll have to go in the street.

Example Two: After calling much of Saturday a wash, given the hours spent in the yard shoveling and contemplating my potential death should one of these beauties fall on me as I'm walking in the driveway (yes, I know that I should knock them down, and I tried, but, in yet another example of jobs done poorly, I'm too short to reach them even with my shovel stretched at full length, so the most damage I was able to do to them was break off their pointy tips. A small win, I guess. Now instead of piercing my skull should one fall on my head it may simply knock me unconscious for a few minutes.), I decided to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox before bed. I almost achieved this goal, almost succeeded, until I fell asleep with my chin on my chest about two-thirds of the way through. That's no reflection on the movie, of course, since I loved all that I did see. It's simply another indication that this weekend was pretty much a waste of my time.

Example Three: And a waste of my money. I spent quite a hefty sum at the grocery store on Saturday buying ingredients for my planned meals today, and yet somehow two did not turn out at all like planned so I have scratched the third and will attempt it another day. So there goes that money, down the drain, flushed away like, well, I won't say.

I first attempted aebleskiver, in my new aebleskiver pan, and had such high hopes. See? Don't they look like they had such potential for looking like this? (Thank you to Secrets of a Kitchen Wizard for the photo (and for showing me up).) But in the end, my aebleskiver looked like this: I suppose my consolation on the aebleskiver (which tasted great, even if they looked like a cross between clams and footballs) is that Marge, in her letter to me, said that it took her about three tries to make hers come out well, too. Of course, if it took her three tries that means I may be making these forever before I get them to be the little carbohydrate beach balls that I was hoping they'd be.

I probably should have taken my breakfast-cooking experience as a sign of things to come for the rest of the day, but I ignored all warnings and set out to make an eggplant ricotta bake for dinner. I tried this recipe before, without much success (please read on for more info on that failure), but thought I'd give it another go because I like eggplant and the recipe seems like it should be easy enough for me to handle. But, no! Rosanne, why would you think that a recipe with only three straight-forward steps would be easy enough for you to handle, especially when you didn't get it right the first time? I made the exact same mistake today that I made the first time I tried this recipe. I cut the eggplant slices too thin, and, consequently, when I roasted them they turned out like this: Eggplant briquettes, anyone? Gah! I mean, I even told myself when cutting the eggplant to cut the slices thicker than I did last time, so that I could avoid the whole charred eggplant thing. Whatever. I threw away the most charred pieces and used the severely-roasted ones, and I can only hope that when we finally eat this tonight the sauce and cheese will overpower any of the eggplant flavor. And then I will file this recipe in the back of my recipe box to try again (third time's a charm, right?) someday a long time from now when I'm having a little better luck than I have been having this weekend.

Oh well. What to do now? I wanted to practice my violin, but at this rate I'd probably snap some strings or drop it on the floor and crack the neck. I might have to stick to reading, but I guarantee that I'll be asleep in fifteen minutes, so what's the point? Maybe a nap. Or maybe I should clean. Sigh. What a perfectly good weekend, and what a way to spend it!