Category: motherhood

A spare hanky.

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Five Photos, Five Stories, #4

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A minivan slowed down as I rounded the corner to  our front gate.  A window opened and a little girl was waving something at me.

“It’s from Venable” her mother said from the driver’s seat, as I realized who and what it was.  A spare vintage handkerchief I whipped out of my purse and handed to the mom friend next to me during our children’s fourth grade ‘moving up’ ceremony  as we collectively became a bit misty eyed over our children’s departure from the sweet elementary school they had attended for the previous five years. A school they had left 3 years ago now – how had it been that long?  It didn’t seem like that long ago they were in kindergarten, telling us how they thought we should befriend each other because it seemed to them we’d get along.  They were right of course, and we’ve been friends ever since.

A voice from the back seat inquired when our next sewing night was – which reminded us it had been way, way too long since we got together to knit which really was just an excuse to drink wine. We used to have a regular night, but then trying to keep up with kids and husbands and jobs and life made it harder to pull off and it sort of fell by the wayside, although thanks in part to those former kindergartners turned eighth graders(!), we still manage to keep tabs on each other, if not occasionally run into each other.  So we set a date and for the first time in a week, I felt okay about the fact that I had failed to line up summer activities for my child, because this particular mom friend hadn’t either and frankly, she was looking forward to the open slated-ness of the season, which I kind of admit, so am I.  I realize this is probably what our kids saw that made them realize we should be friends and why they remind us to hang out.

And while this is not at all why I happen to carry spare hankies – always vintage ones of course – it is awfully nice to know that these sort of quirks of mine are readily accepted, just like I completely understood it took a little while to come back to me.  Sometimes life gets in the way, but like raising kids, sometimes these things are just moments in time.

Breathing room.

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Making daisy chains.
Pound cake and my yard sale score.
Everything in bloom! Thyme, lavendar, sage, peonies, bolted arugula, clover and buttercups in the grass
Sunlight through the dust
Dinner
Dancing to the dead coming out of the window while ‘studying’ in the front yard
Dessert.
My glorious rose bush

It was a glorious Memorial Day weekend here.  The weather was just simply beautiful and honeysuckle scented.  We had no where to be for three whole days – a first since a snowstorm I’m pretty sure. Pat went fishing with Cola, we had lots of girl time in the yard, gardening was done, back roads were driven in pursuit of local berries, which got jammed and frozen while the strawberries we picked from our yard garden got turned into strawberry ice cream that was shared at an impromptu dinner last night with Charles and Carol, our second dinner party with neighbors over the weekend.   There was a yard sale score in the shape of a pretty new covered cake stand – the sort that you can flip upside down and turn into a punch or trifle bowl in a pinch,  which I guess gets entered into both collections, bringing me to four punchbowls and eight cake stands. To celebrate, I baked a pound cake – this is my go-to recipe, one I tore out of Southern Living eons ago.  Just dump everything in your stand mixer and let it go. I love those sorts of recipes.  Baking the pound cake was also to use up some of the four dozen duck eggs that were dropped off this weekend, some of which might be involved in a pickling project. The pound cake was pretty divine served with the homemade, homegrown strawberry ice cream.   Ambitious to-do lists were made and accomplished this weekend, although the house didn’t really get cleaned like it needs.  Now that I’ve wrapped up my last PB&J Fund classes for the semester, I’ll have free afternoons again so maybe I can get that caught up. I did get laundry (mostly) caught up this weekend.  One shouldn’t be too ambitious about these things I don’t think.  All in all, it was a lazily productive weekend, the sort that had lots of impromptu pop-ins and visits, poison ivy, lazy yard drinks, beautiful evenings and the first lightening bug sightings of the season.  Hello summer.

 

It’s not all rainbows.

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IMG_9960 (1024x683)This past Friday night found me home alone, as my family had taken off for different sides of the state with one in Williamsburg and the other in Lynchburg for their various activities.  What did I do with my glorious alone time?  Why I scrubbed out both showers, removing the shower heads to be soaked in vinegar, caught up on some netflix and had pop corn and ice cream for dinner.  Of course. Isn’t that what every forty-something wife and mother does when they get alone time? Continue reading →

That time I nailed the biscuits.

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I made THE BEST biscuits the other night.  I mean, really.  They were the sort of biscuits you brag on the internet about, in fact, they are the reason the internet was invented so that one could brag about these sorts of biscuits. Edie praised them for three days straight.  Do you know how awesome something I’ve done has to be in order for her to do that in her thirteen-year-oldness?  That’s right, pretty darn tooting awesome.

All white flour version
Biscuits and jam, so good. In this case, melon jam.
All white flour

So what did I do that these particular biscuits were so good? I used cream. Back when I was obsessed with making good biscuits by picking the brain of everyone I knew who made them as well as reading up on them, I seem to remember reading something about the effect of using cream in making your biscuits.  I happened to have cream I need to use up, so I thought I’d try some in my biscuits.  In mixing fat into your biscuit flour, you want those fat globules to be as small as possible for the flakiest biscuits and by using cream, which has that butterfat already in the small size you want, bingo! Effortlessly good biscuits.

Of course, I used butter in these particular biscuits too, which I took the time to make sure was well worked in (which is key!!)  As I was out of any form of whole grain flour, these were made with all white flour – I mixed cake flour with all purpose flour since I tend to not keep White Lily flour on hand. (I wrote a few years ago about how the flour used affects the texture of your biscuit. Soft flour makes for a lighter biscuit and since cake flour is soft, using some in your biscuit mix makes for a better biscuit.)  I have since restocked the pantry, so I will be making biscuits with cream and whole wheat flour this week to see how that goes. Stay tuned.

Edie also thought I should share Sunday’s dinner – crepes stuffed with country ham, sauteed brussels sprouts (blanched, then sliced thinly and sauteed in butter in a cast iron skillet) topped with a Mornay sauce with freshly baked sourdough bread on the side. Holy Moly that was a good dinner and I have to give credit where it is due – that filling was entirely Edie girl’s call.

(I know, I go on and on about the biscuits and did not share a recipe. I’ll share it when I nail the whole wheat version. Promise.)

 

Just like mom used to make.

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It’s official – my baby girl is a full fledged teenager now.  To celebrate, she wanted a cupcake decorating party, similar to what one of the local cupcake shops hosts, only she wanted it here, because according to her, my frosting is better than any cupcake shop in town.  Which makes me so irrationally happy I can’t stand it.  She is after all, a teenager now, so I am incredibly annoying, horribly embarrassing at times and other times just beyond ridiculous, but I still make the best frosting in town.  I call that a small triumph.

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Hanging in there.

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I haven’t written much about motherhood here lately – Edie is at an age where I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to tell her story anymore.  Also, she googles herself and this blog comes up and if she’s googling, then chances are her friends are googling and I definitely don’t want to post anything that’s embarrassing to her.  Continue reading →

Scenes from a weekend.

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Side view
Selfie girls
Great pumpkin selfie
Two girls and a 501 pound pumpkin
Melons on the porch
Garden haul
Happy Lucky Combo
Chicken dancing
Chicken dancing
Dancing lederhosen
Roasting peppers
Sunday morning brunch
Late afternoon fall light
Checking the new lights for the man cave
Autumn yard
Part of a day’s work: jar of candied cintron melon, fermenting peppers and a peach pie

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All that, with shooting stars and rainbows.

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IMG_4656There was this music festival down the road in Nelson County called Lockn’ this past weekend. Across the street from where the festival is held is a church, Trinity Episcopal.  A small but rather sweet church, they host Sober Lockn’ as well as Waterlockn‘, embracing the festival as their neighbor. Pat’s employer, James River Association,  was assisting with Waterlockn’, which offered rides to a private, local swimming hole on the Tye River, just a few minutes away from the festival site, with proceeds benefitting Kid Care.  (The Tye is a tributary of the James River.) Continue reading →

In the groove.

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IMG_3683It’s been the first full week of school, which means the return of daily structure and routine.  I know it’s good to have, I know Edie craves it, but after a summer of no structure, not only does it seem slightly overrated, it’s also slightly shocking to acclimate to.  At least it is for me. Continue reading →