I took the last antibiotic for my lyme’s disease last Wednesday morning. The night before, feeling my old energetic self, I cleaned up some of my flower beds from the last big storm. I hacked back the flattened daisies, ripped out some weeds, picked up alot of sticks and definitely did not notice what all I was grabbing, nor did I wear gloves. Came inside, wiped the sweat off me and watched a movie with my girl. Took a shower before I went to bed, but it was too late. By the next night, I was covered – arms, legs, belly, behind my knees, inbetween my fingers and worst of all, all over my face. The next morning, bright & early I was at the doctor’s office to get my steroid prescription, which then had me all over the place. The week before it was all I could do feed my family. This week? Well, I can’t sew or knit because of the poison and frankly, with Nature 2, Becky 0, I’m not itching to work in the yard right now, no pun intended, but man oh man, when that doctor warned me I’d be fighting the urge to clean out the attic at 2 am, she wasn’t kidding.
Instead, I’ve been cooking and baking up a storm. Gumbo, zucchini bread by the batch, cookies, ratatouille….and finally catching up on some reading. Someone dared me I couldn’t finish “Infinite Jest”. I’ve been picking it up and putting it back down for long periods of time over the last year. This last week, I have read almost 400 pages of it, almost 200 of them in one day.
Not alot of crafting going on, but I have been enjoying sitting under a tree reading. Which might possibly be my most favorite thing of all to do and something that feels incredibly lazy at times. Maybe nature was telling me I needed to do that more.
Don’t mess with Mother Earth. Clearly.
Category: another day in the life
Pretending we’re not in a heat wave.
Last winter was a record winter and it just felt like it wouldn’t stop snowing. I remember we were all worried about how hot this summer was going to be as a perfect follow up and we are now apparently in some record (or soon to be) heatwave.
I have gone to my happy place and have gone through all my winter pictures. I think I feel 10 degrees cooler just looking at those icicles.
This year’s cake.
Every year, I bake a cake for my dear friend Betty’s birthday. It’s always chocolate, usually something over the top, almost always a work of art. This year’s was no exception. I asked Edie to help me pick out a new recipe and she opened the Martha Stewart Desserts cookbook right to this. A devil’s food cake. It looked easy enough, the ingredients list was relatively short, I figured why not?
Things I learned? Transporting a triple layer cake is no easy feat. Next time, I’ll assemble it there. I thought the cake itself was a wee bit on the dry side – it may have been slightly overbaked, but it was still good. And the frosting. Oh my. It took 2 and a half hours to make, stirring it every 15-20 minutes. Worth it. The recipe makes enough for you to assemble a three layer cake and fix just about every shortcoming with a mound of frosting. Now, that’s a good recipe.
Yard Sale Season Rocks.
I have a thing for vintage cookbooks. But I have a thing for books in general, so when I saw this set of 18 circa 1972 McCall’s Cookbook Collection at a yard sale this weekend, I almost passed. I’m supposed to be on a no-net gain of any books and I just got a new salad book for Mother’s Day. These didn’t look like they had ever really been used and part of the thing I love the most about vintage cookbooks is the notes the previous owners left behind. But then I started looking. From the “Show Off Cookbook”, I present:
It seems that even in 1972, women were still trying to trap a man by her cooking. I know it worked for me…(Well, it did. I only learned to cook because I told that cute boy I knew how and I then proceeded to learn just as quick as I possibly could.)
The Book of Merry Eating.
Look at those illustrations from the Cookie Cookbook. Very “Lonely Doll”. And the only one like that in the whole set.
The Show-off Cookbook. With instructions to cook your way into that Man’s heart right there on the front cover.
I love that the cover of the salad cookbook is a molded castle jello salad.
This is the one that sold me on the entire set. A pineapple fashioned of cheese & olives? An entire cookbook on finger foods? Oh yes please. Not to mention a whole section on hibachi treats. And dips that are ‘definitely different’.
The whole set came in the original plastic box and really, doesn’t take up that much room at all. Turns out I did have room for them in my cookbook cupboard without getting rid of any cookbooks!
They were published in a cross between a magazine and a paperback and are a complete treasure trove of ideas and recipes. A whole book on ‘Marvelous Meats’. Cookies, Desserts, a few party cookbooks, it’s going to take me weeks probably to sort through them all. Eighteen cookbooks….. it seems slightly excessive, but I had to have the set. Don’t you agree?
And bonus, in the back of the index book, I found a handwritten recipe for fruit cake. I know have at least 4 hand written fruit cake recipes from my vintage cookbooks. I think I might need to try one this year. After all, it was the one handwritten note in all 18 books…..
And a handful of garlic to go with it.
Last August, I assisted in this canning class down at the Charlottesville Cooking School. I’ve been canning for years and have taught a few friends, and always have people ask me where they can learn to can. I had suggested to my friend who owns the school that she should consider offering a canning class. To me, if you like knowing where your food comes from enough to grow your own food, you should know how to preserve it, right? So, she found this completely amazing woman to teach it and I got to help. I really did mean to keep in touch with Leni, but let’s face it, keeping in touch with anyone not on my everyday path of school and work can sometimes be a stretch. Honestly, even people ON that everyday path I have a hard time keeping up with. *sigh*. When I went to the 2 year anniversary party of the school last month, I ran into Leni again and she gave me her card and told me to get in touch with her. I finally did and spent the evening out at her house with a very lovely group of women discussing gardening and food and just life. I just feel so inspired now to work in the garden, to get serious about building more vegetable beds, about increasing the diversity of what I grow among a few other new projects. (Somehow convincing Pat to build me an outdoor oven after he paints the house and builds me a chicken coop.)
I didn’t take my camera along, why, I’m not exactly sure, I do tend to carry that thing everywhere. So, no pictures tonight, but, I did come home with a handful of elephant garlic seeds to put in the dirt somewhere, to go with my inspiration and that counts for something. Next time I’ll take the camera, definitely.
Adventures.
The second grade drove down to Natural Bridge today to see the sights, including the petting safari.
Last night being Ben’s birthday, we celebrated in grand manner, with chocolate cake and champagne for the adults, sparkling cider for the kiddos. I’ll admit, I had been slightly overserved, was up way past my bedtime and then got up early this morning to work out with a friend before getting everyone up early so we could pick everyone else up and get to school at 7:45 this morning to drive the hour and a half south. And in typical fashion, I was just running a wee bit slow, managed to spill my breakfast all over the front seat of the car in trying to pick up one kid and so ran into her mother’s kitchen yelling about can I have some paper towels please, then didn’t get enough, so I had to run back in a second time. I am so not a morning person. And I was not having a good morning. Managed to get to school only 10 minutes late and block the circle in front with my illegally parked car, keys in it of course, while I wandered around eating what was left of my breakast. The other mom I was carpooling with, commented that while she knew she was in for a fun day today, she had no idea it was going to be quite so wild. I think she liked that I had a thermos full of coffee with me. I think she would have liked it better had I not already put my sugar in it. I need my sugar in my coffee.
It calmed down after that. Okay, the wax security guards in the corners at the wax museum were a little unnerving and when they tell you a camel can rip a bucket of food out of your hands with it’s mouth and to be careful around them, you should listen. It was a busy, interesting day. Even if we didn’t get time to stop and visit Foamhenge. We’ll have to go back.
Slightly distracted.
The weather has just been too pretty to be inside. And the yard needs too much work. So I’ve ignored the messes and dust bunnies taking over and working on what’s important. Digging in the dirt. Ripping out beds, prepping old beds, planting flowers & veggies and generally just rearranging things out there.
It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so I can clean the house then, right? Maybe….also want to make some spring dresses for me & my girl. In fact, I promised her one. But look at that sky. Who can stay inside & sew when the sky looks like that?
Exactly.
Winding down.
For spring break this year, I took the mini-me to NYC to see the sights. From the moment the subway car doors slammed shut taking us away from Penn Station and a young poet stood up and started performing his work, her little mind was blown. We did MOMA, we did the Met, we did Central Park, Times Square, the Village, and more. We covered alot of territory in our two full days running around the city.
We stayed with an old friend from college, who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and the world’s second cutest baby ever. (The first being my Edie of course.) I taught said friend to sew back in college and she currently teaches fashion history at Parsons The New School for Design. She has quite the library of books about fashion and sewing and some really amazing clothes she’s sewn for herself. The whole experience has me completely inspired to get creative as soon as I get settled back in. And to be a little less intimidated by making my own patterns.
But first, we have to acclimate back into quiet, small town life. Everything bloomed while we were away – the dogwoods, the azaleas, the grass became green and luscious and leaves have started popping out on all the trees. So very nice to come back to so much green after our exciting tour of the city. I do love the city, but I think I love my green more. And Edie agrees. She’s been outside almost all day getting her green fix on. Although she did tell me, she does want to go back and see more of the Met. I completely agree.
How being a grown up is over-rated.
I sat down and got spring break planned. At least, I bought train tickets for our trip. I got our summer child care plan figured out – which camps, when. Writing camp, Art camp, Girl Scout camp, and just camp for camp’s sake because we need something that week and I don’t care if cheerleading is the featured activity, it’s alot less expensive than any other option and you can just look at it as a cultural experience and they are touting you’ll learn awesome dance moves which certainly you can take with you and they can come in handy, right?So inbetween all this running around with spring fairs and swimming and soccer and art and working more and having to plan ahead (which really bothers me to no end, I hate feeling I have to be on top of things because if I don’t have my kid’s summer planned by spring break, I might not have any options besides paying a college kid more than I make an hour to sit around my house with my kid but planning that far ahead makes my head spin and makes me think I could cause a late March snowgedden.) I’ve not had alot of time to enjoy this divine weather we’ve been having. Spring has sprung in a most delightful, welcome way, especially after the month of February here (well, December and January weren’t too popular either for a number of reasons, mostly starting with the letter ‘C’ and rhymes with ‘Old’.). I did find time the other day to sit under the dogwood and notice how it is budding and there are birds checking out the new birdhouse Pat hung on it the other day. And Garden Gnome seems to have weathered the winter just fine, despite being buried in snow for a good few months.
I haven’t had much time to be productive in the way I’d like to be productive – I’ve pulled out the bins of my warm weather clothes, but haven’t yet swapped them out for my cold weather ones, nor have I figured out what’s going, what’s getting altered (a lot of it) and what’s just getting tossed (should be a healthy portion, we’ll see). I haven’t made anything all week besides some lack luster dinners, but I’ve been productive. Spring break and summer are planned as much as they need to be. I started doing some serious restoration in the garden (and am sore all over thanks to it) and got some of the outdoor rearranging I’ve been wanting to get done since last summer, but had to wait until the right planting time, done. Nothing picture worthy though, just replacing the soil and lambs ear border carried away by the floods of late January, moving the butterfly bush to begin to replace the now dead hemlock and moving the lilac to replace the butterfly bush. It took 400 pounds of topsoil to replace what we lost and I still need some more.
But, I did get some lounge time in, even if I did need to schedule it and that feels completely wrong to have to schedule. I think I need to schedule alot more and just let some things slide….even if that’s how that basket sits for so long untouched….
Taking a wee breath.
So Edie has had something to do everyday after school this week, except today. I’m working more so I feel like I have less time to do anything, what with all the running we do. And the weekend is not looking too much better. There seems to be an endless list of things to do outside, inside and around the house. Gifts to be made and sent for last month’s birthdays. I am just not capable of doing anything on time anymore it seems.
But today was too pretty. I did take some time and just soak it in. Look at that sky. The tulip magnolia in the front yard is starting to bloom. When that’s done, the dogwoods will be about ready to bloom. This is how I measure spring.
I still managed to bake brownies for tomorrow’s spring fair at school. And banana bread for around here because I haven’t baked them anything since last weekend and pickings are slim for breakfast.
Actually, I don’t think I have enough oatmeal for my breakfast tomorrow. Good thing I baked.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 
