Category: another day in the life

Sick Day.

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Miss Thing has a cold and couldn’t quite bring herself to get out of bed, so I caved and let her stay home from school today. When she finally managed to get up, she kept herself busy working on her Ancient Greece project and I got some sewing projects caught up. You know, the ones that are so simple that just sit there for months on end? Like sewing a new button on Pat’s brown cords. Fixing the trim on that doll dress that been sitting there for ages. Finally fixing Edie’s stash of ‘big hankies’. And Mo’s skirt. I’ve had the last 5 days off work now and I swore I was going to start making Christmas presents. Laundry is almost caught up, I have started washing windows in my house (A serious procrastination move), the house, including both bathrooms, is relatively clean and I even scrubbed out the dishwasher this weekend. And, as of today, I have gotten the biggest pile blocking my way to starting holiday presents out of there.

So maybe when we get back this weekend, I’ll start on Christmas presents…. unless of course I think of something else that I need to do, like clean the chimney. No, that’s too crazy and ambitious even for me.

About Orange.

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My living room is painted orange. Sherwin Williams ‘Exciting Orange’ to be precise. When we bought this house 11 years ago last June, it had been a rental for some time, which meant every room but one was painted white. And white did not work in the small living room, which is also how you enter the house. It also gets very little natural light as we have alot of old trees around the house and that room faces north. We lived here for 4 years before we found the right color, and honestly? Inspiration came after a pitcher of watermelon margaritas one afternoon.

When the painters did the swatch on the wall and left for the day, Pat took a look and questioned the choice. That man has never questioned any of my design choices for our house. I run everything by him and he approves without question. He did the same here, until….

I’ll admit. I was nervous about painting the first room you see when you enter our house orange. People thought it was my devotion to either Virginia football or Auburn football, because the adjacent hallway is a dark blue. (And neither shade is the proper PMS color for either school. Because I just happen to know these things.) No, I just wanted something that would grab the tiny bit of light that is in here and throw it around. I wanted it to flow with the spaces it opened up to, both upstairs and down. And I needed something to go with the purple velvet sofa I’d already acquired. I made a rash, gut decision over a pitcher of margs, and by golly, I was going to stick to it.

It turned out okay. So okay, that when people notice the color, they comment. Extensively.

I don’t think about it much. I carry an orange leather purse, that admittedly, is over the top, as it’s oversized and has what can only be described as fish scales on it. It’s fabulous and I never fail to get a comment on how great my purse is. A dear friend brought me back an orange cashmere scarf from Italy that I wear quite a bit. I love it more than most of the scarves I’ve knit for myself. I noticed I have a tendency to wear two scarves so that I can wear my orange one on top when I go out. A lady stopped me at Kmart the other day to tell me how good I looked in that scarf. She went on for a few minutes how orange really is my color.

When Edie was a toddler, she went through a phase where not only was orange her favorite color, she would only wear orange socks. I finally found them at Old Navy, in the little boys section, and I grabbed every pair in her size. She refused to wear shoes if she couldn’t have her orange socks. Had to be orange. It got to be a problem in January.

I’ve never really thought about how much I do love the color orange until recently. I’ve heard a friend describe me by my orange living room and wondered why that was a big deal. A mom friend came in yesterday to pick her daughter up from a playdate and even though she’s been here dozens of times before, even sat and drank wine with me in my orange living room, never noticed the color before and just went on about how great it was.

I noticed the other day as I took Edie to the bus stop that alot of the neighborhood trees were orange. Combined with the glow of the morning sun, the whole world seemed orange. I love orange, I feel it’s slightly underrated as a color. It’s cheerful, it’s original. My living room is the only room that doesn’t feel cold with those darn energy efficient CFI’s in my lamps, because orange can overcome anything.

Maybe that’s why my orange living room makes such an impression. It’s just proof of my originality.
Although if you ask, purple is still my favorite color. But orange is a very close second….

Best Holiday Ever?

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So, we headed east to Urbanna for the Oyster Festival this weekend. I call it the love child of SEC football and Mardi Gras, but way more family friendly. Urbanna is a tiny town of about 500 folks or so that plays host to this festival that has an attendence of about 50,000. There are RV’s everywhere you look. And parades, daily. And booth upon booth of just about every fried food you can imagine. Fried Ho-ho’s. Fried Pecan Pie. The Seafood Fritter, which is the size of a plate, with all manner of seafood in it. The air is heavy with the scent of french-fried-corndogs-funnelcake-fried goodness. I’m pretty sure my arteries hardened just walking around this weekend. Someone said they saw a sign for deep fried butter. Serious fried food.

Friday night, all roads into town close at 6 pm for the Firetruck Parade. This parade consists of 60 firetrucks from all over the state of Virginia – although there was one from Maryland this year. Last year, we timed how long we could hear the parade before we could actually see it – about an hour. And then it was another 20 minutes until we actually saw the trucks and not just the lights.
This year, they reversed the parade route, so as soon as we heard it, we had to trot out to see it. It was nicer being on the front end, it moved faster and so therefore was easier with the kiddos.

We stay with dear friends who live in town. They both work at the school and Smiley raises oysters – so all weekend long, we just eat his oysters. As well as all the fried food you can imagine, not to mention some fabulous things we have all cooked up. Saturday morning, we set out to walk the town, see the sights and get something to eat. Crab bisque from the ladies at the church on Main Street, along with a ham biscuit for your pocket is a must. As a devotee of funnel cake, that’s a must for me as well.

The roads into town are closed again all day Saturday, with the big parade starting up at 2. Shriner’s from all over the state, local marching bands, Miss Oysterfest, Little Miss Spat and their courts are all featured. Our friends live right off the parade route, so once again, we have a great spot for viewing and then head back to the house to start up some dinner. The festival ends about 8 or so I believe – and then , just like Mardi Gras, clean up begins. Into the night you can hear the sounds of dump trucks and street sweepers and when you walk around town Sunday morning, you can only see small remnants of what happened the day before. The air no longer smells of fried food.
The best part though, is the friends.
It’s a certain group of friends that gather for this and sometimes this is the only time all year we see each other. The kids get along wonderfully and really are like cousins. Edie is 3 years older than the closest one to her in age, but she is dream child, so, so far, we’ve been okay. She’s really awesome with the younger ones. The first year Owen realized Edie was one of them, but could read to him was pretty magical and since then, he’s been in awe of her. They all are actually. This year it was pointed out to me that she’s becoming a ‘tween’. I’m not sure I’m ready for this development, although, I have noticed us heading towards that, but since I’m around her every day, I haven’t been as quick to acknowledge it. Mollie however, who first met Edie when she was barely 24 hours old and hadn’t seen her since July, noticed it Friday night, in a loud shocked pronouncement. Everyone else still has a while before their kids move into this stage, but, with the first baby moving into it, it’s now inevitable for all of them.
Oysterfest is how we mark the year- it’s just after Halloween, but before the ‘real’ holidays we spend with family. Someone remarked this might be the best holiday all year and I can’t agree more. We spend it with the friends who are the family we’d choose if we could. We really are an assortment of kindred spirits and we are all completely comfortable being around each other just doing nothing. We have little traditions we carry on every year – most notably, Saturday Afternoon Women’s Wine, Sunday Planting Ceremony, among others. We spend days planning and everyone brings all sorts of goodies to share – and a good deal of it has been raised, shot, canned, baked ourselves or by someone we knew, from the moonshine we drank to the goose on Saturday afternoon, the sausage Sunday morning to the oysters all weekend long. This year when we said goodbye, the boys had already set a date for our next get together, so us gals didn’t have to wait all year to see each other again. Because truth be told, our husbands manage to get out and visit each other, take fishing trips, but it’s rare I get to see any of the wives. I can’t wait.
Now to just make it through the holidays….

Obnoxiously productive.

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I do realize that my sense of productivity is a bit higher than most, but still, not anywhere near some folks. I like to call myself the underachiever of the overachievers. I can spend an entire weekend curled up with a book, but yet still find myself doing things like baking loaves of bread because that’s not really being productive and wouldn’t some nice hot fresh bread be good while I’m curled up reading? But I still don’t get near as many things done as I’d like to. Or really probably could….

Today, however, is one of those days where I’m totally amazed with myself. I didn’t even realize until I was halfway through the process that I was baking 2 cakes at once. I mean, I had a gameplan, but then all of a sudden it hit me that I was being obnoxiously productive.

Cake one is to take with us this weekend to Oysterfest. It’s super easy and the only cake I make with a box mix. Counting the steps on the back of the box, it has 5 steps. Seriously. Use a box mix of white cake. Follow the instructions, but pour the batter into the biggest, shallowest pan you have (like a rimmed cookie sheet or a jelly roll pan). Bake until done, about 20 minutes. Immediately dump a jar of peanut butter on top. Let it sit at least 10 minutes, until soft enough to spread over the entire cake. Then, sprinkle a bag of chocolate chips on top. Let them get soft and spread. Voila. It tastes like the old Tastykake’s Kandy Kake treat. Perfect to take to big parties.

The second cake is a flourless chocolate torte. I discovered it a few years ago in my Green & Black’s Chocolate Cookbook. I wanted a quick & easy cake for Betty’s birthday and this one had exactly 5 steps. And I discovered I can skip one – grinding almonds – because I use cocoa powder instead. Butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs, a pinch of sugar & a pinch of cocoa powder. Seriously gooey good.

That cake is for the Caregiver’s Appreciation Day at JABA, my employer, on Saturday. I was asked to make a dessert for it and figured I’d make something really yummy, as being a caregiver to a family member dealing with a long term or degenerative disease isn’t easy and doesn’t always come with alot of thanks. A gooey chocolate cake is really a small token of my respect.

All in all, making both cakes took less than a hour. Leaving me plenty of time to do laundry, pack and heat up some leftovers. Because after baking 2 cakes, I’m definitely not cooking dinner. That’s just a little too productive for me.

Halloween traditions.

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A few years ago, a neighborhood friend called me and asked if I would help her revive an old tradition of a potluck gathering at the park on Halloween before trick or treating. It started out as something the kids could do between school and trick or treat time, let them see each other’s costumes and maybe get something besides sugar into them. As her kids got older, I seemed to take over. Which really isn’t that much of a stretch really, seeing how I live across the street from the park and use any excuse to throw a party, anywhere.
Over the years, as one group of kids grew up and over the party at the park, a new group of kids have arrived. This year’s party had a small handful of the old guard there, but a slew of new little kids that had moved into the neighborhood. From a neighbor, I had been handed contact information for someone that wanted to help with the party this year, someone who is ready and willing to take over the party when I’m ready to hand it off. It’s definitely sort of bittersweet to watch it transition. We still have a few years left and I know Edie takes great pleasure in the fact that HER mom is in charge of the party at the park every year, but there is really something sweet about seeing the new little ones and watching their parents form bonds. Some of my best friends are the other mothers in this neighborhood, and our entire relationship is based on taking our kids to that park every afternoon. I love finding out a new family is there because they saw my flier hanging up somewhere in the neighborhood. How flipping cool is that? Alot of the parents didn’t show up in costume and when they saw me in my fabulous witch hat, a few made comments about ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was part of the tradition’.
That’s the thing about traditions, we can hand them down, but they are yours to do with what you want. Sure, I’d love to see someone else drag out their grandmother’s punch bowl and use it at that thing every year (although I’m pretty sure I’d be willing to continue doing that one myself for quite some time), but it’s not mandatory. Neither are adult costumes. Or as many kinds of mac & cheese as you can imagine. Has anyone else noticed that mac & cheese seems to be the universal kid favorite pot luck dish? Although it was good to see the tray of hot dogs being served up. I may have a reputation of being a serious foodie, of demanding to know where most of my food comes from, but, I do break that for a hot dog. So contradictory, I know. Well, I am nothing but a walking contradiction.
After getting some food in the kids and the sun starts going down, we all head out to hit the trick or treat trail. After countless years with her friend Nick, Edie ended the night with a pack of her neighborhood girl friends instead. She’s still not sure how she feels about that change -she’s pretty sure she would have ended up with more candy had she been with Nick, but she still has more than she’ll ever eat. She’s already lost interest in it….and hasn’t noticed that we’ve eaten all the butterfingers already….although she finally found someone to trade that bag of pretzels to. So maybe mixing things up is good, yes?
I’m still dressing a witch next year though. That’s one tradition I like not having to put too much thought into every year.

I don’t like fall.

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Everyone seems to love fall. Except me. I love spring and summer. I get sad when the long, hot days come to an end. I wish they could stay forever.

Yes, fall has pretty colors. It has Halloween. It has college football. It’s apple season. It’s starting to be soup season. And it even has my birthday to entice me to like it. And yet? I don’t. Because I know winter is coming up right behind it and I dread those long dark days. I dread the grey. The cold.

Sigh. I just don’t like fall.

I love apples.

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For me, the best part of fall besides college football season, is apples. I am, and have been as long as I can remember, an apple a day gal. You can drop one in your bag and carry it around with you for days without it going bad. When you pick 40 pounds at the orchard, you don’t have to go home and deal with them immediately, you have a few days, weeks even. They bake, stew, fry and cover themselves in caramel quite beautifully. They are, hands down, my most favorite food. I always, always have apples on hand. Always. They are one of the few foods I break my usual must eat local rules for. This past year though, thanks to the Local Food Hub I was able to eat local apples through spring without having to store them myself. They are the best though, and you get the best selection of them, when they are fresh and in season.
As a kid, red delicious was the way to go. Somewhere along the way, I discovered the fuji, and from there, it became the stayman, the pippin, the ginger gold, smokehouse, and the best of all, the Arkansas black. I stumbled across the Arkansas Black (sometimes also called black stem) one year and have been in love ever since. So many apple varieties, so little time. If I see a variety I’ve never heard of before, I need to buy a few to try them. Other than the grocery store Red Delicious, a childhood favorite now throw to the wayside, I have never met an apple I didn’t like.
Currently, I probably have close to 40 pounds of apples laying around my house – 4 different varieties. Last Friday night when I didn’t feel like cooking dinner, I made an apple crisp. Sunday after picking? Baked a pie and made one for the freezer. Tonight I made caramel apples with homemade caramel. The first time I’ve ever made my own caramel – who knew it was that easy? And that good? I want to get a few more pies in the freezer. And a batch or two of apple butter made.
I love apples. They are low maintenance, easy to travel with food you can eat right out of hand. How can you go wrong with that?

End of the Season.

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Since last spring, I have had the distinct pleasure in having that view right there, looking out from Leni’s front porch, while I have enjoyed the most lovely, lively and inspirational conversations every Second Wednesday of the month.

I had met Leni once, while assisting her first canning class at the cooking school, but otherwise, showed up at my first Wednesday knowing not a soul, nor what to expect. Over the months, I have met a number of lovely people, who all share a love of food, real food and alot of respect for knowing how to do things by hand, yourself. In short, I have found a world of kindred spirits. I met Rowena, who’s magazine I have picked up for years, completely inspired by her monthly meal planner. I have gotten to know Leni, my hostess.

The first time I met her, it was apparent she had this amazing knowledge of cooking and gardening that I really, really wanted to be able to tap into, but she is also charismatic as hell. I was, and still am, completely in awe that she invites me to hang out. I’m really not sure what I can offer. I like me, and I think I’m a good time, but I’m always slightly touched when other people think that about me too. Call me slightly humble.

Every second Wednesday, we have sat on the porch and discussed cooking, canning, raising children and livestock, gardening, we have toured the gardens, we have tasted each other’s treats from the garden and oven. It has been something I have looked forward to every month. Every month, I have driven home, feeling completely inspired, like anything I want to do is possible. I just need to figure out WHAT. But I also sense that will come in time. The universe has put this in my path, it will put whatever it is I’m supposed to do next in my path too. It has a habit of bonking me over the head with things.

Last night was the last Second Wednesdays of the season. They’ll resume again in May and I don’t think I can wait. Rowena mentioned she might be agreeable to some sort of winter plan….in the meantime, I will miss my Second Wednesdays. And I am already, even more than usual, anxiously awaiting the arrival of next spring already.

I’m that old and cranky apparently.

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I grew up camping. It’s one of those things I’m sort of ambivalent about. I used to go with just me & my dad, sometimes we’d bring the sister closest to me in age, but oftentimes, not. We’d go out to the middle of nowhere and have a nice campfire and some hobo type dinner that involved spam.
When my mom would go camping with us, it was a whole different type of camping. We always stayed in a campground, with a bathroom in sight. We had a huge tent, with cots, for sleeping. There was a dining tent, a whole kitchen set up – there was nothing roughing it about camping with my mother.
I never felt the urge to get my own camping equipment. In college, there would be groups that would go camping, but I never joined in. Not sure why. When I met Pat, every time we camped it would end two ways – we’d wake up in unseasonably cold weather or, it would rain. One year I was brave enough to suggest camping at the Outer Banks, as I just really wanted to go to the beach and it seemed like an economic way to go. Until we woke up in the middle of a tropical depression. There was the canoe/camping trip when I was pregnant where there was no rain in the forecast and as soon as we put in, the bottom of the sky fell out and we proceed to get 3″ of rain that day. I love that man, but even suggest putting us in a tent for a night, and you’re going to make it rain.
Needless to say, I decided a few years ago, that if we must go out to the woods and sleep, we have to have a roof over our heads. We need a cabin. I can live without electricity and running water. I can live without internet and tv for a few days, but, I like a roof. I want to be able to make coffee in the morning, under cover of some sort. That’s really not asking too much, is it?
Pat had to work a booth at a music festival this weekend. We know a good number of folks that like to go to those things and since we got to go for free (thanks to his working it), it seemed like something good to take Edie to. I can spend one night in a tent for this, right?
Edie had her mp3 player and her nintendo ds. Pat had his new laptop with the gps device that can find internet anywhere so we could have football scores. We knew a slew of folks going and best of all, there was no rain in the forecast. It was going to be unseasonably warm & sunny. I had no excuses as to why I could not go.
Having never been to one of these things before, I really didn’t know what to expect. I recognized the names of the bands, but I’m not a huge blue grass fan, I’m not a big Americana fan either really, so I can say, I had never listened to most of them. There were alot of young hippie types there – some really unsavory looking ones too. It was billed as a family event and while there were kids activities (the best of which were offered by my better half as part of our free entrance to the festival), I found myself having to yell at several young men on several different occasions for unsportsmanlike behavior. There were all sorts of sketchy looking characters walking around the campground with all sorts of things they were selling.
First was partyboy, in the next group of tents over. Now our little group had quite a campfire and picking circle going on until the wee hours of the morning. When Edie called it a night, she insisted one of us come with her into the tent. As the spout on my box of wine had apparently stopped working (still don’t have a clue what that is about, but there is still plenty of wine left), I took it as a sign that I had been cut off and went with her. We fell asleep well enough, but got woken up by sounds of partying a good number of times. Most notably, the next group of tents over, a group of young men, one of whom had this loud laugh that I can only describe as very beavis & butthead like, only dumber sounding. As everyone else fell into their tents and went to sleep, this party continued on and got progressively louder. Finally, they grew quiet and we all managed to get back to sleep….until just a little bit later (about 5:30 or so), when they cranked it back up a notch. As I laid in my tent between my husband muttering ‘shut up. just please shut up’ and my daughter complaining about the language being used, I finally sat up, unzipped the tent and in a voice a little louder than I had intended yelled “PARTYBOY”. A very quiet, ‘yes m’am?’ answered me. “SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!” Silence. Golden silence.
Later that morning (a much more reasonable hour), I apologized to everyone around me for being so loud in my yelling at partyboy and every last one assured me it was fine, and thank you very much. In fact, later on, I got to witness a neighbor giving a hard time to a youngster on the other side of them, for trying to abscond with some of their stuff, like their firewood.
I didn’t start feeling really old and cranky until this kid came walking by with an armful of water pipes, offering them up. First of all, I’m pretty sure he hadn’t had a personal association with any form of soap in longer than I wanted to know. Secondly, he looked as if he had been trying his merchandise along the way. Thirdly, there were children running around! I don’t give a rats behind how ‘legal’ your things are, be cool. Don’t make me have to answer questions from my curious child. I mentioned to him that children were around and he might not want to be so flagrant with his wares. He told me to stop being uptight.
If you know me at all, you know I am NOT the most uptight parent out there. I know that I myself have stayed up partying to wee hours of the night and have had people yell at me to just shut up and go to bed. I brought her to a hippie fest for crissake, how uptight can I be? I was trying to warn the kid that other mothers might not be so nice about his offering his wares to everyone in sight and looking like he did, he was just trying to get busted. Seriously.
The festival itself was ok. It was their first year and they have some kinks to work out for sure. Next time the family camp ground on the hill next to the road might actually be the better option, instead of in the woods with all the riff-raff. The upside to the weekend? It didn’t rain. And I didn’t get poison ivy.
I’m just that old and cranky apparently. What a way to find out.

Dreams really do come true.

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For years I have harbored this secret fantasy that one day in my thrifting adventures, I was going to stumble upon a beautiful, large, mint condition, nice rug for a completely unbelievable price, like $50. I had never actually mentioned this fantasy to anyone because I was worried that if I said it out loud, it would never happen and I was already pretty close to thinking it really might never happen. I have luck with thrifting, but that seemed like a whole new level of luck. Like, the thrifting gods would have to smile down upon me and shower me with serious love kind of luck.

Yesterday, that dream came true.

I just so happened to be at the shop when a guy came in unloading a van full of housegoods. He dumped the rug on the ground and it had a $50 price tag on it. Really? It literally landed at my feet. The other end of the rug had the label – I started getting excited seeing the name of the manufacturer and the fact that it was 100% wool. We unrolled it so I could check it all out and omigod I knew I could not pass this up.

The best part? As I was carrying it out of the store, a woman walking in stopped and offered she had purchased a similar rug 20 years ago, for thousands of dollars. !!!!!!
I’d say the thrifting gods definitely showered me with their love yesterday. Next up, I want a new round china butter dish, something floral please, (in pinks of course) and some cake stands. Something pretty and vintage looking. That’s reasonable, right? Certainly more reasonable than a really nice rug for $50.