True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes

Boy they are better than candy. Homegrown tomatoes have to be one of the most inexpensive pleasures on the earth. I grew three varieties this year. Early Girl, which has not turned red and is now two weeks past the harvest date. Sweet Zillion, a cherry tomato, that was an experiment this year and brand new to me but will be number one on my list next year. And ?, a grape tomato that I failed to write down the name of when I planted them. Please feel free to chime in if you can name it from the picture. Happy Summer!



-- Post From My iPhone

Baby Food - Squash

Squash is one of the easiest baby foods to prepare. Even if gardening is not your hobby. The instructions in fact are quite simple.

Purchase the largest bag of cut up squash carried in your grocery. Steam it in your microwave with a little water. Drop the steamy chunks in your blender and puree. Use the cooking liquid to get it moving. Then freeze in clean ice cube trays. The next day pop the frozen squash cubes out into zipped storage bags. Label with today's date and the contents: Yummy Squash!

The cost you ask? About 25 cents per 2.5 ounce serving. Significant savings for very little effort.




-- Post From My iPhone

Take your blog to bed?

This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system. Only kidding.
This is instead an experiment in mobile blogging. I have wanted to give this a try for sometime now. I needed some time to do some research on how make this happen. My ultimate goal was to be able to blog from my bed. Strange but true. More later. I want to post and see if it worked.

-- Post From My iPhone

Summer Rules

This has been knocking in and around my brain for about two weeks now. There is no school for the next eight weeks so in my mind this is the time to tinker with the schedule.

First, the schedule. A day by day, time by time, hard and fast routine. My children actually yell at me if we don't follow it. They like the schedule and they like to know what to expect (who doesn't).

Second, I hate to mess with something we have had going for so long....still.

An idea has been percolating in my mind called "Summer Rules" to be posted on the refrigerator only for the eight weeks of no school for July and August.

Bedtime - What if we did go to bed more in line with sundown. Would nine o'clock really be ridiculous?

Dishes - My husband and I have always eaten on real dishes at every meal. No paper plates, cups, plastic forks, paper napkins. We are proper and therefore I wash a tremendous number of dishes. Environmentally I would feel pretty guilty buying these and I haven't for over two years for any occasion whatsoever. Including birthday parties for my children. I bring appropriate tableware and cart it in and out. The expense has been noticeably different. However, would it be terrible for eight weeks to give myself a minute break from 50% of our dishes? Maybe this is the break I really need right now with a lot of other special projects coming online.

What else - This is what I haven't figured out yet. The summer rules should be special, convenient, and more free wheeling don't you think? I'm going to ponder this one more and post again soon. Feel free to make suggestions if you like. I'd be interested if other people are considering lifting some of the school time rules for July and August.

The Food Groups

Yes, yes. I know children don't have the four food groups anymore. However, the cut and paste project my daughter brought home from school this week was very much like the old food group art projects we used to do years ago.

Her favorite fruit was apples. Her favorite meat was steak. Her favorite vegetable was broccoli. Her favorite dairy was chocolate milk. Her favorite grain was pancakes.

This is where my friends get to laugh. Big, loud, rolling on the floor ones. Why? Because. Every Sunday, I make "made from scratch" pancakes. Not the ones from the box that says complete. But real honest to goodness made from scratch pancakes. My friend Kris who is in the food business once threatened to fly here to eat them. Considering she lives 18 hours from me it seemed extreme. I did not realize what a big deal these were. Until today.

It made me feel like a good mom.

A Few Good Men

I love that speech in A Few Good Men. You know the one I mean. Where Tom Cruise is giving Jack Nicholson a hard time. I almost know it by heart and every time I watch that movie I practice the speech.

I do a lot of public speaking in my life. Peronally and professionally. It always surprises me when I hear someone else tell me how frightened they are to stand up in a crowd to talk or to sing. My middle child had to get up on stage this week and boy was he scared. It was so strange to me. In my mind I was thinking, "Boy when I was his age I was singing in front of crowds of hundreds of people."

Three years ago I spoke professionally at a conference. There were 800 people in the room. I was thrilled and proud that so many people came to hear what I had to say. It was truly exciting. I couldn't believe it when my friends said that they couldn't believe I had the courage. Courage? Me? Are you kidding?

Sewing Again

I admit it. I haven't sewn in years. I used to enjoy it a lot. I also used to have a lot more quiet time in my life to concentrate without any interruptions. However, a custom job in my home has called my name. I needed to replace an item on my patio that provides shade and was destroyed by a windstorm. It is too expensive to replace the entire thing. I bought a canvas dropcloth at my local home improvement store, measured, chalked and cut. I pinned it together and began the sewing. I had forgotten what a wonderful feeling of accomplishment it gives you to make something with your own two hands. It was as if waves of calm were washing over me. What a wonderful feeling. I can't wait to finish this project that I had dreaded to begin.