Untangling the mysteries of the universe, having pie for dinner

I have seen four of the past five 3:00 AMs. Not as bad as the early days, obviously, but it's hard to get used to sleeping through the night and then lose it again. Generally Anna has a bottle and then goes right back to sleep, but once my brain clicks awake I'm in for at least an hour of something like the following:

"What am I going to wear tomorrow night? I should have done laundry. Oh, there are a couple of new shirts from Target, I could wear one of those. Is it horrible to wear new clothes without washing them first? I think there was an episode of House where someone got really sick because the dye in their brand new jeans was poisoning them. That doesn't seem very likely in a shirt. It's still sort of gross though. Eh, no one will know. I wonder if I could train myself to stop saying the word "like" so often. I hear people on TV say it constantly and they sound like idiots, so I probably do too. I'm afraid I would just replace it with another, stupider verbal crutch. Maybe I just shouldn't talk. OH CRAP I HAVEN'T WRITTEN THANK YOU NOTES FOR ANNA'S PARTY YET, WHAT THE HELL SELF. I can't remember how to make an upper case Q in cursive. Is it like the number 2? I see some people write it that way, but I don't think that's what I learned. Is it like a G, with little horns on top of it? Who was D'Nealian? That sounds French, I guess. So it's probably Dutch. Seriously, I can't picture the Q at all. (Visualizes writing every capital letter in cursive except for Q.) Yeah, okay, I think I have the rest of them covered. I gotta remember to look that up tomorrow."



So, rest assured if you are ever awakened in the wee hours that I am busy pondering the big and important questions.



Anyway. I often turn to 101 Cookbooks when I think we could use a little boost of healthy. I think it's really a testament to how fat-laden my recent menus have been that when I went casting about for "something lighter" I ended up making lasagna pie.

More accurately, a lasagna tart, and sadly it was actually a step up, not-giving-us-heart-disease-wise. More importantly, it let the rolling pin re-assert his kitchen domination. He's definitely not going to let some punk teeth-hammer throw him over without a fight.

"Roll out any tart dough lately, fool?"

It was a first tart for both of us, and we're pretty proud of ourselves. That'll do, Smashy.

No, those aren't dill pickles, but you're not wrong to think that I would be interested in such a concoction.

Good stuff. The zucchini retained just enough crunch to make it texturally interesting, and the sauce had a nice flavor despite the fact that it was probably dripping with BPA. (Dear Prevention magazine: I hate you.)

Last week of music class! This is pretty typical of my view of Anna when we're out in public.

Okay, so...I'll meet you in the parking lot when it's time to go?