Postcards from Summer

{My intention for this summer is relaxed & slow & intentional: to take more pictures with the big camera; to be outside as much as possible; for my girls to have as many fond memories of summer; and to capture some of that here.

So postcards it will be. A picture or two of our day, with a few words written. Just like an old fashioned postcard!}

Yesterday I turned some of those strawberries we picked the other night into a strawberry-blueberry crisp thanks to a recipe I found on Pinterest. It was a little too sweet and juicy but still delicious! And I have plenty of strawberries left to experiment with the recipe and make it again!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend full of fun, family & relaxtion!

December 1st

December already!

November was so full. I missed this space and visiting all yours. I will be fixing that this month!

But most of my computer time in November was writing for NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words. It was a wonderful motivating, inspirational and habit forming month. I learned that if I just sit down at the computer then words will come. I cannot guarantee that they will be the perfect words, but for writing a draft, they were good enough.

While doing that there was a first birthday to plan and celebrate. HOW has this first year gone by already? I cannot wrap my head around it!

There was Thanksgiving at my mom's. I made the cracker and cheese turkey, she made the fruit one. We had a fabulous day. And there was so much food left over that we went back down for supper Friday night too!

Over the weekend we enjoyed Daddy being home for four full days, an unheard of event around these parts. (I am very much looking forward to it's repeat at Christmas!) There was slow days of knitting and slowly getting up the Christmas decorations, sipping tea and hot chocolate, a little bit of shopping, a whole lot of Advent planning. My goal for this month is simplicity. In everything. To enjoy the season through the eyes of my girls. They need some art projects, baking cookies, twinkle lights and decorations and they are overjoyed. Simple and intentional are the mantra I will be repeating to myself in the next few weeks.

I am looking forward to catching up with everyone again!

Around the yard

There is lots of things going on in our yard this week!

The gladiolas that we planted two years ago are still coming up. One of Ree's favorite things to do is run outside in the morning to see if there are any new ones flowering.

This morning we counted twenty peppers growing with lots more flowers. A few eggplant flowers. Lots of lettuce. It looks like the spinach may be passing by. I need to get out there and pick some. This week we picked almost all the radishes to bring to my mom. There are still some left, but they are little so we are hoping they grow a bit more before she gets them too.

The onions and beets and carrots are humming along nicely. Probably will be ready to pick in a few weeks.

There is a bug in one of the eggplant leaves that I don't know what it is. At first I thought it was an earwig but I don't think. Possibly a wasp, but I didn't want to get too close to see just in case!

This week we also found a dead robin and I stepped on a garter snake. 

Never a dull moment in the yard!

Make & Listen

My making is listening this week hasn't been too productive. I haven't started V's quilt. I wanted to make both girls new pajama pants for solstice but I haven't started them yet either. That's okay. There's plenty of time this winter for both pjs & quilts!

Ree & I did make peppermint bark & she made cookies with my mom. She's also been going to town with the art supplies. This week she's been making a fort out of paper & adding to it. I'll have to try to take a picture, but each time I grab the camera she says not yet, it's not finished!

As for listening it's been Christmas carols!

What are you making & listening to this week? Head over to Dawn's to see what other's are up to!

In the garden

Our garden is still going strong. With some things anyways!

This weekend Ree & her daddy headed out to check on things. They came back in with a handful of carrots & all excited that there are a lot more out there! 

They also reported to me that the cauliflower didn't take off at all. We have "at least 100 eggplants Momma!" as her daddy told me there are probably 15 out there. Only two little peppers which I am pretty bummed about. I love peppers! 

All in all I'm happy with what we've gotten/will get. Once we planted the seeds the morning sickness took over & I really wasn't into the garden this year. But thankfully the eggplant is delicious and we will have plenty of that for me to fix & freeze for this coming winter!

Around here

The weather for this first week of Fall has been fabulous!! Chilly mornings; beautiful sun filled afternoons; chilly evenings. Ree & I have spent a lot of time outside soaking it all up. We also decorated the house for Fall. She put all the decorations on "her" shelf in the kitchen. We use it as a nature shelf so she thought it would be a good place.

I made the first apple crisp of the season the other day & it was delicious!! More of that will be happening soon. All the sudden the garden has decided to produce tons of eggplants. There are a lot more then the one's in the pictures! I have plans for eggplant parmesan and other recipes I need to look up! I also plan on freezing some for this winter!

I love this season & we are trying to soak up as much of it as we can!

Blueberries & Peaches

 

Last Friday was rainy, damp, grey and chilly. A perfect day to do some baking!! Between early pregnancy yuckiness and the weather being too hot to turn the oven on, we haven't had very many (at all) baked goods. Ree was more then happy when I announced we'd be making muffins, scones & peach crisp.

She was a BIG help. Her job was measuring the blueberries out and then placing them in the batter. Notice how they are in one layer in the bowl. She spent about a half hour or so measuring and putting them neatly in there. Those are the muffins, she did the same for the blueberry scones!

After the muffins were ready to go in the oven she sat there to watch so she'd see when they popped up. She was SO excited to sit and eat the muffins that she made. I was so happy too hoping she'd eat them. She is a very picky eater! She took a big bite & I knew by the look on her face that she'd have something to say when she was done chewing. I was right "These muffins make my mouth blue & purple and I don't like the taste of blue & purple. Next time lets leave out the blueberries!"

I then started in on making the peach crisp I was bringing to supper before our beach date with family the next night. My goal is to start using some of those ideas that I pin on Pinterest. Peaches this year have been delicious and I wanted to do something with them so I went to Pinterest the other day & found this recipe and it came out delicious! I didn't have quite the amount of peaches it called for so I cut down on the butter and should have cut down on the topping too. But it still came out yummy!

Today would be another great day to bake, the weather is beautiful sun, hardly any humidity at all, blue skies....except I think we'll spend time outside instead of in the kitchen!

Blizzard

  

The Blizzard of 2013 is upon us! They are predicting we could get 2 FEET of snow here. Ree & I spent the day at my mom's yesterday. In preparation of the snow that was to come my mom had all the ingredients to make rice krispy snowmen. Ree had a blast! They came out very cute!

Today is my husband's birthday & we haven't let the snow get in the way of the festivities! This morning Ree & I baked a cake and put up some decorations. Thankfully his work closed early so he was home before the weather got really bad. There was a nice lunch, some gifts & now supper is cooking away. I heard there's some chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream if everyone eats all their meal!

Later on we'll be curling up under blankets with books & knitting (for me). Ree has been busy playing buttons & legos all afternoon. Both she & I have wicked colds so this storm is good for us to hunker down & relax. Not the most exciting of birthday's for my husband but he's assured me relaxing inside & some shoveling is just what he wanted!

I hope everyone in the path of "Nemo" (when did they start naming snow storms?) stays safe!

Last week, before the horribly sad events of Friday took place, Ree & I went to my mom's to make Christmas cookies. Every year she makes about a 100 dozen cookies to gift. This year Ree was thrilled to be able to help roll the dough and decorate them. All By Herself. (The decorating that is).

She took her job very seriously and they turned out beautiful!

And then Friday happened and I kind of forgot about these pictures. My husband & I have been talking and praying all weekend and we keep coming back to we don't want Ree to grow up in fear. Everywhere we've gone since Friday morning we've been on constant alert. Our nerves have been on edge watching everyone, seeing possible threats in every person we see. 

But I don't want that for Ree. I want her to be the carefree, happy little girl that she is. And as her Momma I can make that happen. I can show her that the world really is full of wonder and awe. That (I believe) there are more good people then bad. That in order for our world to have peace and love we need to be that instrument. 

I read (one of many, many) articles over the past few days where a woman from Newtown was quoted as asking "What is the rest of the world doing? Are they going about their normal days like nothing has happened?" I can say for my family that no, we aren't. We are mourning with them. Feeling their ache from afar. Although only one state over it's really not that far away. 

We are thinking of what we can do in our spot in the world to make it a better place. We are holding our child closer. Thinking of ways to make her world more peace-filled and joy-filled. The lessons we have learned from Newtown will be long lasting. And we will never forgot the faces of those precious little one's who were ripped from their parents lives way too soon in such a horrific way.

Weekending

Our weekend has been filled with fun!

Saturday Ree & I ran a few errands before coming home to bake pumpkin bread
She napped while I cleaned a little
Then we headed to my parents to drop her off on an "adventure". An overnight stay at Nana & Grumpy's. (She is big on going on adventures right now)

After we left there we headed out for a big night on the town. We went to Main Street in my hometown. We sat in the window seat of the local pizza place and people watched while we waited for our grinders to cook.

I love downtown in the quaint little village I grew up in. Seeing these pictures reminds me I want to introduce Ree to the Main Street's in our state.

After our meal we walked a few buildings up to enjoy homemade ice cream. I forgot to take a picture until they were finished! We then went to the local "mall" and walked around there for a bit, browsing in the science store; the bookstore; and the Hallmark store.

We then came home to watch: Aladdin. Oh yea we know how to have fun when the little one is at her grandparents!

It was odd to wake up today without knowing Ree would soon be up. It's a gloomy, rainy morning. A good one to curl up in my chair with my morning coffee and a book. I've also organized my craft room a little, planned out my next few knitting projects, and packed up a few boxes of things to donate to charity.

In a little bit we'll head down to reunite with Ree, go to Church at my home parish, then spend the afternoon there watching the Patriots HOPEFULLY win this week. After that it's up to my sister-in-laws for more football and a mini-birthday celebration.

All in all I'd say this is the perfect weekend!

Linking up with Amanda at The Habit of Being

In our yard

We took a walk around our yard last night looking at all the changes that are happening. We've had some rain in the past few weeks and that has really helped! I also spent some time this week weeding all the gardens so they look prettier too!

We have MANY eggplant blossoms coming and that makes me very excited! We also have a ton of green peppers. The seeds were a mix so I'm not sure if we'll have all green peppers or if the red ones start out green too. Although they look like they are green-green so we'll see in the next few weeks.

We also have one pepper plant that is producing different looking yellow peppers. They look like hot peppers except we didn't plant hot peppers. Again we'll have to wait and see.

The tomatoes are growing like crazy. We had to get bigger stakes last weekend because the plants kept falling over. There are many, many green tomatoes which I suspect will all redden at the same time. I see a bunch of roasted tomatoes in our future! Depending on how many ripen at once I may make pasta sauce.

Our lettuce and carrots are also growing strong. We harvested our first lettuce this past week and there is already enough to harvest more. It's so satisfying to bring in food that we've grown to feed my little family.

The gladiolas are also growing strong. Just tonight I spotted the first red buds and was so excited! We also were surprised when we came around the corner of the house and saw that there are tons of white roses blooming. I may have to go clip a few tomorrow for the house.

It was very refreshing to get outside. The heat & humidity have finally broken so we've been spending some much needed time outside. The gardens seem to be enjoying it as well!

I'm linking up with Ginny for her Saturday Garden Journal

This Moment

We harvested our first tomato this week! I was so excited!

Linking up with Amanda at SouleMama!

Happy 4th!

Our 4th of July holiday was full of: food, fun, family, friends & fireworks!

 I made rice krispies treats thanks to the suggestion by my sister. Then found this rice krispies treat sparkler idea on Pintrest. Next year I'll do this! 

 Ree & I decorated our driveway for the holiday with a flag & fireworks side-walk chalk drawings. Then it rained for a little bit & started to wash our flag away! Thankfully the weather cleared so we could enjoy the outdoor activities!

We went to our city's fireworks display on the 3rd. Then yesterday we went to a friend's cookout & my hometown firework display.

Ree loved the fireworks on a few conditions: as long as she had glow bracelets to play with; a lap to sit in; and she could see them. She loved pointing out the colors. She doesn't like (AT ALL) the neighborhood fireworks that you can only hear & not see. Too much like thunder for her!

My husband took the rest of the week off so we're in vacation mode right now. Lazy, hazy summer days here we come!

Pinterest...Food

I love Pinterest. It took me awhile to get the hang of things and to understand what it's all about (I'm slow sometimes). But now I love it and check in at least once a day.

Some people are intimated by it, or think less of themselves after visiting. They feel like they don't measure up because of all the pretty things there; things they can't make or don't have time to make. 

But not me. I go there to see some pretty craft eye candy; or check out new recipes to try; or to get inspiration for things to make with Ree. I like how it's a place to keep all the ideas I want to try "someday" organized. With nice pictures to remind me of them. 

My goal has been to try and do at least one of the things I've pinned a week. It's not going so bad. This week I made a few things from the food board.

These lemon cookies are THE. BEST. COOKIE I've ever had. Seriously. I made them as a snack for my husband to bring to work on his birthday. I made them at my mom's house and we had to force ourselves to stop eating them or he wouldn't have gotten any. I had to hide them on myself when I got home. He ate them and told me "I can't believe I've lived my whole life without these cookies". I feel the same way.

He made me promise to make them at least once a month. I can do that. They are easy and quick and did I mention delicious? 

These spinach balls on the other hand....we each took a bite & spit it in the trash. Not very good. I followed the recipe to a T but they came out dry and blah. I'll stick to my own spinach puff recipe.

I have tons of other yummy looking recipes pinned I want to try in the future. As well as boards full of other pretty things. Come on over & join me! It's fun!