I saw this book Mama, Is It Summer Yet?
Photos courtesy of Design Mom. Thank you, Gab!
a summery read
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Monthly Archives: June 2010
porch envy
I love our porch at 605. The sitting. The people-watching. The squirrel-watching. The $.99 Goodwill side table. The hoping-to-see-the-hairless cat-watching. The banter. We also love to wander the neighborhood and gawk at all the beautiful summer-friendly porches and lovely lazy seating arrangements, but we hardly ever see any people. Why don’t people use their porches more? I was theorizing that it was because people have migrated to their more secluded backyard decks and patios where they can sip a cold one and gossip with more privacy. Maybe, but Chris thinks people have migrated to their flat screens inside. Sad, but probably true. What do you think?
Even though our porch is one of my favorite parts of 605, it doesn’t stop me from having a bit of porch envy.
This Baltimore porch has me panting. Grey with a pop of orange, yes! Maybe it’s door envy? Whatever you call it, I’m inspired.
What inspires YOU today, lovelies?
Happy Tuesday!
drinking like a Montessori
This week started out with me sniffling in the car while trying to distract myself with the book Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects
So how’d she do? Well, according to her Guide, she did OK for the first hour and then another baby started to cry and that upset her. Babies. They can be so empathetic! So for the next (almost) hour, she was sniffling too. Never full on crying, trying to hold herself together, be a big girl and all. Egads, that didn’t make me feel any better. So she goes back again today for another round and with a work meeting on my agenda, I won’t have the opportunity to sit in the car and sniffle so things WILL be better, right? I’m not exactly sure what Murphy’s Law of Parenthood has to say about that logic, do you? Don’t answer that.
Two mornings a week didn’t sound like much, but it’s been weighing heavy on my heart. Eventually, I know she’ll love it and I’ll be sad because she’ll cry when she has to leave school one day. Can’t win, can we?
So in the meantime this week, we’ve been having a very fun, wet week with a cup. Who knew that learning to drink from a real cup could be so much fun!? At school, the kiddos only drink from real cups. No sippy cups allowed. But she’s only 13 months old?! Yes, a cup. It’s been amazing and hilarious to watch her progress this week with the cup. It’s empowered her; she is so proud of herself with a real cup just like Mamma and Dadda. In the beginning of the week, most of it ended up on her lap. Like a bath at the dinner table. But now, more of it ends up in her mouth. So very cool!
And how cute is a baby drinking from a real cup? SO CUTE. Right?
By the way, if you’d like to find a beverage option that’s suitable for all family members, I recommend to check this out!
I’m sending lots of good karma into the world today, hoping it will bounce back (is that how it works?) and make Wren a happy little birdie today at school. Will you send out some good karma too, dear readers? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?
I hope things are happy and healthy in your nests. Have you been enjoying the first real week of summer?
Michigan pride pillow?
Hey all you Michigan lovers, don’t you just heart this Michigan pillow? I would put the heart a little further north and west, but that’s just me… what do you think? Where would your heart be sewn?
Love, California makes all sorts of state pillows in custom colors. Check ’em out! Kitschy and fun, no?
Summer is here.
Happy Summer Solstice to you, dear readers. It’s decidedly summer here: 75 and sunny and the bikinis are at the beach. We had a fun beach day yesterday to celebrate Father’s Day and I was very concerned about Wren’s precious skin so she was generously slathered with sunscreen, but I neglected to do the same for my own skin. Result? The season’s first (and hopefully, last) sunburn. Oops. Sigh.
Because I’m a list-maker and my Spring Forward list kept me focused on enjoying Spring’s delights, I will do the same for summer. So here goes…
- pick lots of strawberries and blueberries to enjoy and put up for a long winter
- enjoy a huge, fresh sandwich from the Village Cheese Shanty in Leland
- feel good after running the National Cherry Festival 15K – this is coming up more quickly than I thought so we’ll see how good I feel…
- I know I said (err, wrote) at some point about how I WAS NOT going to make marshmallows from scratch (so utterly Martha), but with it being s’mores season and all, I’m inspired to make some marshmallows, roast them (a bit burnt is my style), then sandwich them with some really good chocolate between a couple graham cracker pieces. Wondering if I will notice a difference. What do you think?
- spend lots of evenings on the porch with dear Chris
- wear a pretty sundress while playing bocce and sipping a fancy cocktail
- swim, swim, swim, swim. A lot.
- eat lots of salads and grilled meat. Yes!
- enjoy my annual corn dog and maybe even an elephant ear or funnel cake… oof.
- make progress on my Dairy Lodge Diet. I’ve been slacking lately and I need to get back at it!
- take Wren to her first Northwest Michigan Fair. “Goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the Northwest Michigan Fair!”
- frequent our local farmer’s markets and art fairs
- have a big garage sale and get rid of some stuff (err, junk)
- visit Werner’s vineyard. He makes my favorite local wine: Left Foot Charley’s Pinot Blanc. Lovely!
- pickle something from my garden
- make some kind of jam. Strawberry?
- be overwhelmed with harvesting all the veggies from my garden. This would be a good problem to have. We’ll see… so far, so good.
- enjoy the summer sunrises as much as the sunsets
- stay up late to be awed by the Perseid meteor showers in August
- picnic, picnic, picnic. Doesn’t everything taste better when you’re eating it outside?
- erect our hammock and enjoy a few lazy moments
- read a book. The whole book. Wow, what an idea! Got any suggestions?
- run through the sprinkler
- chase the ice cream truck
- be barefoot most of the time
- make Wren’s play kitchen – similar to this one
- create bouquets from our zinnias and bells of ireland
- dance with the little birdie at the Cedar Polka Fest. She is going to LOVE it!
- get on the water in someone else’s boat… anyone?
- take Chris out to eat at Siren Hall for a date night
- take in a few films at the Traverse City Film Festival
- do a weekend camping trip and eat hot dogs, plain potato chips, a bottle of Faygo rock & rye and german potato salad from a can
- sleep outside
- enjoy a campfire and cheesy camp songs
Oh my, I could go on, but I better stop. If I think of more, I’ll add them later… What do you look forward to this summer?
Happy longest day of the year, lovelies! Any fun pagan rituals planned for tonight? Enjoy!
Happy Father’s Day!
Chris doesn’t read my blog every day (supposedly has better things to do!), but maybe he’ll take a look on Father’s Day? Just in case…
Strawberries!
The little birdie and I had a great time at the farmer’s market this morning while we let Chris enjoy some peace a quiet and a few more minutes of beauty sleep. We got ourselves a couple bins of lovely, organic “jam strawberries,” which are softer and a bit imperfect. Imperfect means perfect for chubby baby hands. Needless to say when you see the photos, Wren loved them!
I’m not even going to post any recipes or ideas on how to enjoy strawberries today because my favorite way is to eat them fresh. What’s your favorite way to enjoy fresh strawberries?
yeeeeeesss!
I saw this photo on Waldorf Modern’s site and HAD to share. It made my heart skip a beat. You?
I am getting more and more annoyed with people and awful, rude cell phone behavior so this sign made me smile. I want to wear a t-shirt (all the time) that says something to the effect of, “really? Is that phone call so much more important than the interaction we’re having right now? In person? Live? Here? Now?” AAAAHHHHH!
OK, glad I got that off my chest. But really, people’s behavior gets worse and worse. Agree? Or maybe the t-shirt should read, “Just because your phone rings, doesn’t mean you have to answer it.”
Are you as p-o’ed as me? Or doesn’t it bother you?
Back to that sign. Isn’t it lovely? Happy Friday, lovelies! May you enjoy the people with whom you choose to spend your time and ignore your phone.
a few things
Just wanted to check in with you and let you know I’m thinking about you, but I’m also thinking about a lot of other things so my blog is going to look a bit neglected. For a little bit. Here are a few snippets of life from our nest:
- Chris broke his wrist and while it’s amazing to see what he can accomplish around our nest and at work with only one hand plus some fingers from another, it’s still a major bummer for the nest.
- Ever had mastitis? It knocked me out cold for a few days. Ever been hit by a truck? That’s what I felt like. I’m so sorry if you really were hit by a truck because I’m sure it was a lot worse, but you get the point. Pain is really interesting because the pain of natural childbirth, or any kind of childbirth for that matter, is intense to be sure, but it comes with a purpose and that makes all the difference. When was your last paper cut? OUCH!
- Wren will be going to “school” a couple mornings a week pretty soon so I can make some progress on my *work* and she can play with some other kiddos. As she’s becoming a busier little 20 pound tornado, my *work* has slowed to glacial speed. No big surprise there!
- Wren likes to pull herself up on everything and walk along the furniture, but no real walking yet. Any bets on when that might be? She’ll probably skip over walking and go straight to running, the little high-energy lady that she is.
- We’re in the process of refinancing our house. Finance, yuck.
- The garden is doing great and I did some bittersweet thinning yesterday. We had a delicious salad with assorted microgreens: spinach, radish, beet, mesclun mix, ooh la la. We also enjoyed our very first red, ripe strawberry, which you can see if you look closely… Here are a couple pics of the gardens and flowers and I promise more on that process later. Enjoy!
These are my zinnias I grew from seed in the sunroom this spring. They make me smile. The best $1.99 I have spent in a while.
What’s been happening in your nest? How are your gardens growing? Have a lovely weekend if I don’t see you in Cyberspace. And a hip hip hooray for all the Dads out there. Although it’s obvious that we literally could not do this (life, that is) without you, we adore you and how much you absolutely adore our kiddos. XO
What’s your color personality?
Have a few more minutes to spare in Cyberspace? Check out this color personality quiz.
Here’s what I learned about myself:
You are dynamic, your actions are only directed by your own will and you know how to lead people. You are also able to have in-depth thinking, you think before acting, and you know how to communicate your knowledge. Finally you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them towards the set goals.
Well, I’m not so sure, but it was a fun five minutes! I always love looking at colors so it wasn’t too much of a wasted five minutes. Enjoy!