Spinach

Oh, glorious spinach from the garden, how many ways can I photograph thee? Many, as it turns out.

I decided to pick the largest leaves because we are going away for the weekend and I wanted to avoid the possible disappointment of coming home to bunny ravaged spinach. I think the bunnies have been so far deterred either by the high (for them) wall of the planter, or, they are unaware of the spinach because it is pretty much the wallflower compared to its planter cousins: cucumber, squash and beans.

Check out this beauteous bounty. (The spoon is a teaspoon.)






What to make with the spinach... Well, first the kids and I sampled a tender leaf raw. They chewed and swallowed thoughtfully, but did not want a second bite.

I had scape to use up, so made a scape-basil-spinach pesto. We're seeing Will this weekend and he's a fan of the scape pesto, so I was glad to make a bigger than usual batch.



We brewed some mint tea with mint harvested this morning and I was set to bake and cook to use things up and bring some goodies up north with us tomorrow. Then, I burned my left thumb while pouring some tea for Gem. Poured the tea right onto my hand.

Lately, this type of thing has been happening with more frequency. Crazy as it may sound, I feel like this, too, can be chalked up to strange hormonal doings. Maybe it's just age and I'm in denial, but this is reminiscent of the clumsiness/forgetfulness that I experienced right after having my babies. As if part of my brain had gently gone out of focus for awhile.

Anyway, instinct had me putting my thumb under the faucet with cold water running, but I remembered something Vinny said and quickly turned the water off. (Cold will make it feel better by numbing, but can actually hinder proper healing.) I applied some aloe (I finally got some from my mom the other day because I've been burning myself so much lately) and settled in with some pain and irritability.

But, within an hour, with a second application of aloe followed by an application of calendula, the pain is almost completely gone. And playing with bananas and kale and garbanzo beans in the kitchen feels like a possibility again.

Bedtime

Advancing polliwogs

The boys had their last day of the current swim class today. The schedule has been intense: Monday through Thursday at 5pm, two weeks in a row. They got their report cards and both of them are moving on to Polliwog 2! These expressions speak the truth. Sag is full of pride and a deep sense of accomplishment. Gem is delighted, but kind of surprised and a little nervous.

Seasonal table

Summer books

The seasonal book basket now holds summer books. Check. Looking forward to settling into expanding the experience of the season with some good reads.

We went to the bookstore recently so Gem could exchange a book he got for his birthday, one we already had. I ended up with this and this. One for the kids, one for me...

Gerald McBoing-Boing

The kids borrowed the book Gerald McBoing Boing from the library. Last night as we read it together, I noticed that it was a movie. The magic of YouTube brought us the tickle of viewing the short film this morning.

Scarf fest

Have a great day. I'm turning the computer off in en effort to help myself focus on some stuff that really needs to get down 'round here.

More little things

Weeds and This American Life while enjoying ice cream and then knitting while the boys are at swimming. The devil is in the details...

The little things

Blur

Well, things continue to blur. I'm just trying to get through.

I am figuring out that last week was plagued by blindsides of PMS. It would come and go, the timing all off...didn't feel good. It affects everyone. Cap, the kids...

I did manage to finish my mom's scarf and make some food for her celebration. And socialize and enjoy myself at Danielle's house for the whole day Friday. But, what stays with me is the paperwork that still lies unfinished, the spirals of self-loathing when I yap at Cap about his negativity instead of giving him sympathy and space.

Quavering sigh.

I just typed up a Dragon's Way food chart for the four of us. Cap wants to do it, so I am prepping with some excitement. I wanted to create a visual tool to see where we all overlap on our food likes and dislikes, specific to DW, in order to consolidate my cooking as much as possible.

Ben and Jerry's, I am truly savoring every bite (Creme Brulee, Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler and Karamel Sutra have been parties in my mouth the past few weeks), but it is time to move on...

MoMA/Momma

We went to my mom's today to celebrate her birthday early since we'll be away next weekend.

She took the kids and me to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) which was great. An exhibit she thought the kids would like had closed up shop, but, there was plenty else to ooh and ah and giggle over (naked boobs and bummies :-)

We discovered that Vincent Van Gogh is her favorite painter, followed by Paul Cezanne. The kids recognized some of the art from a book called Art Auction Mystery (thanks Wen :-), which was fun.

Sandy and Mike came over after we got back to Baba's and we enjoyed a lovely birthday dinner. Carrot pancake, orange hummus, figs wrapped in prosciutto, potato salad, chicken, string beans and carrot tempura, thinly sliced raw kohlrabi, and beets. Yum!

Sag snapped this during our trip in.

The birthday cake. My best one yet---the featherlight cake from Bette Hagman's book with a new frosting recipe that I LOVE. It's made with coconut cream (put a can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight and the next morning scoop coconut cream off the top of the opened can!), powdered sugar and vanilla. So simple and easy. And delicious. The berries were Jersey fresh, baby!

My mom's birthday scarf, which I have to say, looks better in the photograph than it does in real life. This was true of the photos I saw of it on Ravelry, too. The colors pop in a way when photographed that doesn't happen in real life. Well, it probably does under very particular light conditions...

By the end of the evening, Gem was darting around the room giving people bunny ears.

Sag was figuring out the 3-D drawing kit that Baba got for him at the museum gift shop. In this picture, Uncle Mike is holding a pair of 3-D glasses checking out Sag's drawings.

The bunny ears on himself, the teeth in various stages of growth, the looking like he's 8 going on 12... He takes my breath away.

Garden update

It's (nearly) a jungle out there :-)

The cuke plants overfloweth...

Gem feeling an echinacea bud.

Big ass squash leaves.

Alien-looking tomato flowers and hairy stems.

Cuke flower tucked under the canopy. Love the other-worldly light.

These spinach leaves look big enough to eat...

Evidence of spider life in the herb box.

The fuzzy pods on the wisteria are back.

Happy 4th

The 4th of July has never been high on my list of holidays. Usually it's a low key day.

Today we went over to Danielle and Norb's and had a really nice day. The town parade comes up their street. So we enjoyed the parade (I particularly liked the various drum corps and was fascinated by the candy being thrown to the crowd) and then spent hours chatting with each other and with another family they are close to who were over, too.

The kids played nicely, the food was excellent. Norb's ribs had me eating meat for the first time in weeks.

Thanks for a lovely 4th!

Movie day

The kids and I went to see Wall-E today with Danielle and her boys. It was good, kind of depressing for this adult. Reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, of all things. About 30 minutes into it, Sag said loudly to Lukas, "this is kind of boring".

The move did pick up its pace about halfway through and then near the end the kids were all kind of scared by a character. My guys agreed with Owen's declaration that the movie should have been rated G+.

Tonight, Cap and I watched a fantastic and fascinating documentary called "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters". Read about it here, I'm too tired to wax poetic. I highly recommend it.

I'm way sleepy because it's past 2am, again. Tonight I got (intentionally) lost on Ravelry. There is just so much there. I surfed through a bunch of "off the beaten path" knitter blogs. I bookmarked a bunch of them. I think I need to figure out Google Reader... Kate? :-)

Mood: restless

I've been restless lately. So have the kids, especially, Gem.

I read this over at Karina's painting blog this morning (as opposed to her GF cooking one---she's aka Gluten-Free Goddess) and it helped. The times of low rumbles and grumbles that distract from our personal horizons can be deadening to the senses.

Actually for me it's been deadening to the balance of my senses. I've been staying up late and then having insomnia. I've been craving dairy and eating cheese and ice cream sundaes. I've not been doing qi gong every day.

I think some of this can be chalked up to change of season. I am sensitive to these times and it would not be surprising that one of my kids would be, too.

But, some of it is development. The kids are changing (Gem just turned 8 which feels like a milestone age), they have both had growth spurts in the last month (those stretching bones, tendons and muscle!), and there's cognitive dissonance for me as I think about scrambling to adjust, resist it, then surrender to it.

For Cap, there's a big shift in the schedule of his time which comes with summer and requires adjustment. He's juggling that with the changes that the rest of the family is going through and it's not easy.

It feels like there's groaning and screeching deep, deep, underneath. Like moving tectonic plates. Slow, unseen, but undeniable. Well, faster than tectonic plates, but the rest fits.

I feel like I have been holding my breath a bit amidst this chaos. I long to breathe out. To push some of this stuff away, to create some space, to step off the ledge (away from the edge), to collapse onto my back, gaze up at the sky, and breathe.

Jellyfish

Stranded Jellyfish, originally uploaded by Garry'.

We read about Julie's encounter with jellyfish this morning and it has sparked a flurry of learning about jellies and how they sting. We visited the National Geographic Kids site and have been enjoying shots of jellies on Flickr.

My mind and soul have been expanded and I haven't even had breakfast yet. Feels good.

Views from the big bed

Another day of water

The kids and I went to "the lake" today with Danielle and her boys. A year later the kids were so much more independent, it was amazing. I could truly pretty much sit back and relax.

They spent most of their time in the water with sand play interspersed :-)

We left around 3:30 and met up again for swim class at the Y at 5:00!