Category: motherhood

More on biscuits, plus a salad.

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That long weekend in which I perfected pizza crust, sourdough bread AND the biscuit?
Well it turns out that even if you do work out 5 days a week and can eat your weight in carbs thanks to your good Irish genes, a massive overdose on white flour where one eats the better part of a pizza one day followed by at least an entire loaf of sourdough baguette a few days later and follows that up with 4 biscuits at dinner the next night with 2 for breakfast the morning after over a 5 day span will result in a muffin top just like your girlfriends warned you about once you are at a certain age, which apparently I now am.
So, after hitting the gym hard and watching my carb intake, especially my not-quite-entirely-healthy carb intake and getting that waistband on my jeans to fit like it should, I was ready to get back on that biscuit project.  As I stated in my last post about biscuits, I want to come up with a whole grain biscuit that is light, fluffy, tasty AND easy on my waist line no matter how many I eat in one sitting.  I’ve spent serious time reading and talking with my other foodie friends about types of flour and fat and had a few ideas I wanted to try out.
I also acquired an assistant in my mission.
After watching countless hours of Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, along with a little bit of bow tie guy that she won’t admit to watching (She claims to not like him and last week’s profile in New York Times Magazine with the title “Cooking Isn’t Creative and It Isn’t Easy” sent her on a good 20 minute tirade of how that’s exactly why she cannot. stand. him.) on PBS’s Create channel, my girl decided she wanted in on the great biscuit project.
So, I measured out the flour proportions I wanted to try and she took over, with a small assist from me on working in the butter.
The recipe we used calls for 3 cups of flour.  We did one cup whole wheat, one and a half cups all purpose flour and a half cup cake flour.  For the fat, we did equal parts lard and butter.  We cut the lard in first and the butter second.
The biscuits themselves were light and slightly crumbly.  I think the flour mixture was spot on.  I want to play around the amount of lard – I think next time we’ll do a quarter lard and three quarters butter.  I also will cut the butter, or at least most of it, in first, as the lard is ridiculously easy to cut in.
I’ve now tried lard in both a pie crust and a batch of biscuits.  It does make your pastry incredibly flaky, but it also imparts a certain animal taste.  I like it in the chicken pot pie, but not so much in biscuits.  Toasted for breakfast, smothered in butter and Grandma Kathy’s blackberry jam I didn’t notice the flavor as much, admittedly.  But I also am not that much of a fan of meat or the taste of it in general.  I like bacon and sausage, but I mostly prefer the smoky flavor and the spices involved more than anything else. Although the flavor, combined with the larger size biscuits Edie cut out definitely kept me to eating just two biscuits with my soup and salad.
The salad is worth mentioning.  We had some goat’s milk brie and some toasted pecans that she thought would pair wonderfully with dried cranberries and the arugula I always seem to have on hand and work into dinner a few nights a week.  Only we didn’t have any dried cranberries on hand.  What we did have though, was some cranberry spread I’d made last year.  I proposed the idea of using it as a basis for a dressing.  So, down we went to the shelves in the basement where all things canned, pickled and jammed are kept and grabbed a jar.  We thinned it with olive oil, lemon juice, honey and water until it was just the right consistency, then tossed it with the greens, cheese and nuts.
It was a darn good salad.  And she did a most excellent job on the biscuits too.  Definitely some proud mama moments as I watched my little foodie go to work in the kitchen last night.
As for the dressing,  I think the liquid proportions with the exception of the honey ended up being equal.  Using a fruit spread (or jam) as the basis of a salad dressing seemed pretty genius to me and I’m now brainstorming ways of using up my stash on the shelves down there.  At some point I might measure things and write out a real recipe to share, although I definitely will be making a batch of cranberry spread again this year and if you like cranberries, I recommend you make some too.  It’s easy and oh so good.
Reminder – the cookbook giveaway is still open, so get on over there and enter before this Thursday, October 25.

All you need to know.

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Last year, on the first day of fourth grade, Edie’s teacher went around the room and asked each child to use one word to describe themselves.  Edie’s word?  “Awesome”.

Come the parent teacher conference the first week in November and Edie’s teacher was in full agreement with her.  It became sort of a running theme in school last year, with one of her friends, who had to write about her in an assignment, wrote, “The reason Edie tells people she’s awesome is because she only tells people what they what they really need to know.”

Edie played soccer for the same coach for 5 seasons – from the time she moved up to U-10 in second grade until this past spring.  Coach Bill isn’t coaching U-12 this season, so we had to find a new team, which meant a new coach.  While she’s on a team with her school friends for the first time ever, her new coaches don’t know that she prefers to play defense, they are all about following the league rules and having all the girls play all the positions.  Which means everyone gets at a turn at goalie. 

She’s never played goalie.  Last season when asked, she told Coach Bill she wasn’t playing goalie because she could break a nail.

Seriously.  Instead, she played defense and probably saved more goals than the girl who played goalie that day, only because she couldn’t use her hands, her nails were safe.

These are the things that truly matter to my girl.

Saturday morning as we were setting up by the sidelines, we noticed Edie wearing a goalie shirt.  “Did she know she was playing goalie?” “I don’t know, she didn’t mention it.” 

Turns out, she didn’t know until about 2 minutes before the game started.  So, with absolutely no experience, no practice and no warning, she stepped into the goal box. 

Of course the ball immediately came her way.  And stayed down there most of the half.  Pat counted 5 saves within the first 5 minutes of the game.  The team they played were fast, tall and good.  No way could you tell she’d not ever played that position before.  She had 10 saves in all the first half, giving up just one to a girl who was just so determined to score a goal you could see it on her face as she charged up the field over and over.

I am so proud of my girl, who just stepped in and DID it.  Sure, she has her moments of serious not-quite-11-year-old girl attitude, some of her limit pushing these days has us at our limits trying to figure out how to deal with it,  she even has her moments of self doubt, but she also has this wonderful ability to pick things up and just run with it, fearlessly, and kick ass at it.   She really does tell you all you need to know when she describes herself as awesome. I may be slightly biased, but I couldn’t agree more. 

Scenes from a weekend.

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Hot air balloons overhead, market, soccer, the Fiber Festival and Sheepdog trials (where I left the camera with Edie, only to find yet more photos of her toes), an unwilling photo subject,  inspiration for new projects,  a fermenting class at the cooking school, visit with grandparents and a grown up field trip on a dreary Monday to one of the nearby wineries.
Not pictured – new orange yarn that’s already being knit up into a yummy scarf, a home run on a homemade pizza crust, a sublime batch of sourdough bread served with the last of the bacon jam & melon jam, and confirmation that the okra pickles need a few more weeks before they are prime for eating.

Random.

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My left hip has been aching all summer.  It gets worse when I don’t work out, don’t wear proper footwear and don’t stretch it, but even doing those things, it’s been aching for months.  I’m starting to think I should have it looked at by a professional.  I’m convinced I have arthritis in it and that this is my long, slow decline into old age and frail health.  The instructor of the pedal & kettle class I take a few times a week keeps talking about this fabulous yoga class that she swears is almost as good as a deep tissue massage.  Pat & Edie do yoga, but I have always dismissed it, because I like cardio and only cardio. But this instructor made a convincing argument, so I thought, why not?  Yesterday, I took my very first yoga class at the gym. She did a good bit of Yin Yoga.  Holy moly did it cure what ailed me.  Hip pain?  Gone.  Tight IT Band?  Loosened.  Sore lower back?  No more.  I’ve become a yoga convert.  I will definitely be doing that more.

I had to buy Edie new soccer cleats last week.  Did you know the cheapest women’s cleats start out $20 more expensive than the most expensive kid’s cleats?  Of course she really liked the $105 ones.  And the $95 ones.  But settled on the $40 ones (as if she had a choice).   And then proceeded to leave them on the front porch in the rain, so even though they’ve been worn for exactly one game, they have that wonderful cat-pee like smell her soccer shoes never fail to develop emanating from them already.

Awesome. 

Her Language Arts teacher asked her if she knew what a Thesaurus was and if she had one at home.  Edie had no clue what the teacher was talking about, but as the teacher started explaining it to her, she volunteered that it sounded an awful lot like the word book her mother had bought and put in her bathroom, for when she ‘needed something to read’.  The teacher then told her it reflected in her vocabulary and to keep on reading it.

That’s my secret for having a smart sounding kid – leave a thesaurus in the bathroom for her to read.

I’m not even going to speculate on what that teacher thinks of our family.  At least I pulled out what Edie considered the owner’s manual to her parents.  That’s how I got the idea for leaving a thesaurus in her bathroom, as she really will read anything we leave lying around and if she’s going to walk around quoting things she read in ‘the office’ then, it had better be good.

Since I did the piece on The Festy working on becoming a zero waste music festival in last week’s Green Homes and Living, I am now on the press list for the event. I’ve gotten several offers to interview bands playing there this weekend.  I’ve decided this means I’m a food, wine, green living AND music writer.

I might be a music writer, but I had to turn down the free passes that I was offered for the festival.  Pat’s working Saturday, I’m working Sunday, his folks are coming, Edie’s soccer game is out in Crozet smack dab in the middle of the day Saturday (ugh, I hate schlepping out there), the Fall Fiber Festival is this weekend and I haven’t the slightest clue how I’m fitting that last one in.  Edie will not hear we might not make it to the sheepdog trials this year, so I suspect it will be another one of those GO Saturdays from start to finish.  Sigh.  I’m already exhausted from the weekend and it’s only Thursday.

We’ve gotten the next swap lined up for Sunday, November 11.  The Charlottesville Cooking School is swapping us to use the space.  I’m also trying out a new website that organizes your event for you.  I think I was able to link it to Cville Swap’s Facebook  page.  Technology can be challenging.

We had company last evening, who requested we watch the debate.  I’m over this election – the rhetoric, the vitriol, the multiple nightly polling questions (they love to call on Tuesdays.  Tuesdays we are guaranteed a minimum of 4 polling calls) thanks to the fact that we live in a ‘swing state’, the canvassers knocking on our door all weekend, all of it.  I’m ready for November 7th already. I successfully avoided both conventions and was hoping to do the same with the debates.  No such luck. Thank goodness for bourbon and knitting to distract me so I didn’t fully have to pay attention.  Even though I’m pretty much over it, I found myself liking the post Patience put up this morning.  Good food for thought.

It happens.

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I used to hear women say they hadn’t had time for shower that day and I would wonder to myself, how freaking hard is it to take a shower?  Especially when it was women with older kids – you didn’t have to worry about what they were doing while you took a few minutes to lock yourself in the bathroom with hot running water.  And most especially when it was women who didn’t work outside the house.  Really, what were you doing all day that left no time for a shower?

I now find myself among those women and I sincerely apologize to all of you that I had previously mentally judged.

Take yesterday for instance.  I got up, got Edie off to school.  I had made plans to meet Nancy at the gym for a class at lunchtime, so I ran some errands and got dinner started and figured I’d take a shower after my workout.  No need for two showers really. I sat down and put together the schedule for my Girl Scout troop for the year, having had a mom’s gathering the night before to finalize our details, and got it sent out.  I realized I wanted to take Snapfish up on their 99 prints for 99 cents deal that expired yesterday because I haven’t printed out any photos in eons and I really should.  So, I started going through photos and uploading them, finding the process much quicker than I had anticipated.  I took off to go to the gym, dinner halfway done, photos halfway loaded, feeling pretty good about things.

And then, somehow, my day got derailed.  I spent a little more time than I had intended at the gym, when Nancy convinced me to try doing pull-ups with her after our workout and stretch.  She’s in great shape and I have noticed a difference in my clothes since I started working out with her on a regular basis, so if she asks me to try something, I figure why not?  Instead of paying for my own personal trainer, I just work out with her.

So I came home and thought I’d finish uploading photos which shouldn’t take too long, because the first round didn’t take long. First the website showed I’d loaded them, then it didn’t, so I went back through and reloaded, only to discover that the first process had gone through, so then I had to edit and sort through which photos I wanted to print.  We’re talking over 100 photos and next thing I knew, it was almost 3 pm.

It was a night I was doing Dinnaah, my meals to go, and I had quite a few orders, as I was serving a very popular curried sweet potato, spinach and quinoa dish.  I went out to the garden to harvest some of my spinach and somehow managed to clip my finger with my clippers while I was harvesting.  I finally got my main dish going on the stove when Nancy showed up, having just picked up her youngest from after school clubs, wanting to know if I could put some books I’d promised her on her Kindle.  So, dinner’s on the stove, and I’m looking on my hard drive for those books when Edie comes through the door with a friend, looking for a snack.  They have exactly 25 minutes to grab a snack, get their gear and head back up to school for soccer practice, so I hand Edie a loaf of baguette I’d baked the night before, tell her there’s cheese and fruit in the fridge, make a fruit & cheese plate.  Her presentation was flawless and even if she didn’t clean up the cutting board and knife, she did wrap the bread & cheese back up and put them away.   So, the girls are chattering away, nibbling on bread & cheese and fruit when Betty comes in, announcing that when I heard her son Ben yelling the afternoon before, it was because he had broken his arm again, the second time since June.  (Edie & I had heard him yelling for his mom and I had started out to check on him because I could hear in his voice something was wrong, but by the time I got up there, Betty was pulling out in her car and now I know they were headed to the ER).  So, while she’s telling the story of Ben’s latest ER broken arm adventure to Nancy & myself, Edie & Claire & Alayna were chattering away, I’m trying to figure out where that book is on my harddrive and making sure I don’t burn dinner.

Just as quickly as my living room filled up, it emptied out, as everyone had places to be.  I finished dinner, got orders wrapped up and was getting ready to start baking cupcakes for my friend Rebecca’s birthday, as I had invited her & her daughter down for dinner in celebration that night.  The phone rang and it was Rebecca, asking if I was ready for her to drop Charlotte off.  She’d asked if Charlotte could come down and play when they first got home when I had invited her to dinner on Thursday, as they were getting ready to go on a trip and she wanted to get packed.  I had somehow forgotten that Thursday was Thursday, meaning that Edie had an after school club followed by soccer followed by an immediate playdate that I had set up for her with Charlotte, only she wasn’t home yet and she had homework she hadn’t done because she’d had yoga club followed by soccer practice and Thursday is THURSDAY.  So I told Rebecca to go ahead and drop Charlotte off, Edie wasn’t home yet, but Charlotte could help me make Rebecca’s cupcakes.

Meanwhile, people were stopping by to pick up dinner and commenting on the fact that we had an empty keg sitting by the front gate.  (We are cleaning out the basement – Pat had intended to use it in brewing beer at home, but then realized that just wasn’t going to happen, so he posted it on Freecycle and left it out there to get picked up, making the entrance to our house resemble the entrance to all the houses I lived in college. The universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go straight along enough you’ll wind up where you were.) Charlotte was helping to man the door, help whip up chocolate truffle filled cupcakes (the recipe is one I’ve posted before from Cook’s Illustrated, it’s damn good and quite easy) and write some last minute photo descriptions as part of wrapping up my big free lance project.  Pat had to attend a public meeting on behalf of work last night, thankfully, this one was in town which meant he was only gone but a few hours, but it still meant he wasn’t home and Edie had a question about her math homework that I was totally unable to answer.  Edie surpassed my math skills at some point in second grade and why not ask Betty’s son Ben, who’s good at math. So we ran down there, saw the new cast and after a few eye rolls, both of them expressing complete disdain for me admitting to my shortcomings and making them actually speak to each other, Ben was able to answer Edie’s question in about oh, 5 seconds.

I’m really pretty sure she gets a good idea of what it would be like to actually have an older brother in her exchanges with Ben. 

By the time the homework was done, frosting made and on the cupcakes (again, with a huge effort on behalf of 9 year old Charlotte, who can whip some egg whites by hand I tell you), and I had finally managed to sit down to breathe with a glass of wine, Rebecca walked through the door and it was time for dinner.  We ate, had dessert, the girls put on a show and suddenly, it was 8 o’clock and I was still in the clothes I had worked out in, unshowered.  Cleaning the kitchen took the very last of the energy I had – I was cold, I was tired and I was sore – not sure if it was from my workout and my  big 5 pull-ups earlier in the day or leftover from an earlier workout in the week that I didn’t stretch enough after – or my marathon day that had gone off rail or if I was just sore from being cold, because I now get stiff and sore from just getting cold.  Awesome.  If this is September and I’m 42, I cannot wait for January when I’m say, 60. 

At any rate, by the time I finished arguing with Edie about bedtime and had delivered Ben some cupcakes, I was too tired to bother with a shower, so I just crawled into my own bed, realizing that when I worked in an office and had a younger child,  I had way more time to take a shower.  I’m not sure how I got to this point in my life, but here I am.  I really didn’t have 5 minutes to take a shower yesterday.

Plan B.

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The plan was for an group playdate at the park for my Girl Scout troop after school yesterday.

Despite my saying we weren’t going to continue once they left their elementary school, they all asked if we could please do Girl Scouts again this year.  They have so many other activities, I hesitated to say yes, until I realized that what they wanted was the social aspect – they wanted to know that they had time set aside here & there for their old pack of friends in the middle of making new friends at a new school.  So I said yes.  I’m a sucker for those girls.

We’re not officially starting it off until they are more settled in school, but I thought a get together would be good for the girls.  I thought they could all walk down to the park, I’d have a nice snack and they could play together until they had to run off to their other activities.

I knew there was a chance of rain in the forecast, as there has been all week.  But for the first time in days, the sun was actually out yesterday.  Until about 10 minutes before the girls were due to be released from school.  The clouds rolled in, but I perserved, having packed my little red wagon with a cooler of bottled water, tablecloth and napkins,  a big bowl of grapes and a very special treat, what we call “Uncle George’s O’Henry Bars” – named for the fishing buddy of Pat who gave me the recipe after I downed about half a pan of them at his house one night.  One of the very recipes in my repertoire that isn’t completely from scratch and super healthy. 

Normally, I ask that parents send a healthy snack.  I specifically request fruit, no sugary treats, because I don’t give a rats behind what any study says, you put sugar in that group of girls and get ready to peel them off walls.

As the some of the girls came up the street, thunder boomed.  I had the girls break down the park set up and bring it back to the house.  I ran around my house, totally unprepared for nine 10 year old girls.  I moved the coffee table out of the living room, spread the tablecloth and declared it a ‘floor picnic’.  They devoured their snack, piled on my sofa and started crawling the walls. 

My living room is exactly eight and a half feet wide by eleven feet long.  It is not big enough for 9 girls.  It’s definitely not big enough for 9 girls who are crawling the walls thanks to the sugar I had just fed them because I thought it’d be nice to give them a treat and because I thought they’d be running it off at the park.  Rain plans are never my thing and usually, it works out for me.  Not so much here.

I tried capturing the sweet moment of all of them piled on top of each other on my sofa with a very nice camera I’m currently borrowing to see what I want to upgrade to.  Apparently that plan didn’t work out so well for me either, as I really don’t know how to use a nice camera, only my fancy point and shoot.  I have a whole slew of pictures that look like that. 
Sigh.
Finally, it stopped thundering, the anticipated downpour never happened and the girls asked if they could go outside.  So, back to the park we went and they happily spent the rest of the afternoon running around in the misting rain. Alls well that ends well, even if you have to scramble to get there.
Thank you all for your comments and emails after my last post.  There seems to be some bumps in being able to put my uncle to rest – things like no will – so for the time being, we are on hold as to when we will have to go up for any sort of service.  In the meantime, life goes on, even when nothing seems to go to plan. Which seems to be the plan.
Uncle George’s O’Henry Bars
1 cup sugar
1 cup light Karo corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter
Combine over heat until smooth.
Stir in 6 cups Special K
Spread in pan.
Melt:
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 bag butterscotch chips
Spread on top.  Chill. Serve when hardens.

The Big Yellow Angel is Back!

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Well, sort of.
In our case, it came in the form of the neighborhood 10 year old girls knocking on the door at the ungodly hour of 7:25 (the hour to which we’ve been accustomed to getting ourselves out of bed most mornings for the last 5 years) to walk the two blocks to their new school. Which I realize is way later than every other neighborhood in town where the Walker bus comes through at the ungodly hour of 7 am.
I am lazy and spoiled.  But at least I admit to it.

The Big Yellow Angel is a phrase I picked up from my friend Virgina.  I fully embraced it after Edie’s first Christmas break back in Kindergarten, when I realized how much my child thrived on the structure she got at school all day.  Structured I am not.
She seemed to have a good first day yesterday – she’s been anxious about the change of schools for some time and I knew as soon as she actually got it over with she’d be in much better shape. Her BFF moved to Guatemala a few weeks ago, so a new school is not the only big change in her life.  We’ve known about this added change since last Christmas.  Waiting for them to both actually happen has been like very slowly pulling a band aid off.  Now that it’s finally ripped off, we can move on and find her new normal.  Thankfully, she’s got her crew of neighborhood girls that are right there with her, so she is in good company.

In the mail.

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We are just over the halfway point of Edie being away at camp.
She’s been gone exactly 11 days.  We got one letter the first week she was gone.
She has since mailed two more notes and a list of things she needs sent, ASAP.
Four pieces of mail, one “I miss you” in the bunch.
Oh, and this:
One of her target practice sheets.

Not a bad little shot, is she?
 

Staycation.

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Sunday morning, we dropped our girl off at Camp Lachlan for the next three weeks. It’s an all girls camp outside of Rockbridge Baths, which is outside of Lexington.  It’s winding country roads once you get just a few hundred yards away from I-81 to get there and it’s just absolutely beautiful.
The part of me that has spent the last few weeks being full time stay at home mom is a little relieved to have a staycation from my ‘job’.  But part of me misses my buddy.  My schedule is already pretty loosey goosey during the summer with no big yellow angel coming every day, no regularly scheduled activities like soccer or girl scouts or piano to keep me (us) straight.  We have spent the last few weeks just hanging and losing track of exactly what day it is. Sleeping in, hanging out at the pool until time to go home and figure out what’s for dinner, then sitting up late watching movies….summertime and the living is easy around here. Not having a kid to be responsible for means I get even looser with it, if that’s possible.  Popcorn & apples, nachos & beer, wine & cheese are already regularly served dinners around here, only now we eat them while watching “Game of Thrones” episodes back to back.
We had a “Game of Thrones” marathon the day we dropped her off at camp. I have no idea what we’re gonna do when we finish the whole series off, which at this rate, will probably be by the weekend, at the latest. 
I’m still trying to sort out exactly how I’m going to be spending my three weeks free from motherhood other than catching up on TV.  There are things to do around the house for sure. I might actually clean. Maybe paint. Maybe some sewing. Definitely pickling some more peaches. I’m teaching a canning class this Saturday (it’s sold out, but my pickling class next month still has some open spots). A few roadtrips, some with my hubby, some all by myself. I have some meetings set up in regards to some upcoming projects I have lined up. Mostly, I’m going to savor the alone time. Today, for instance, Pat left early for work, and he’ll be home late.  I’d have tagged along, but I had to go to the dentist this afternoon.  Ugh.  I really hate going to the dentist. But I do get a whole day home alone. 
Speaking of my husband’s job, here’s a great article about him from the Lynchburg paper.  It’s hard to describe what his job as a Riverkeeper entails, but I think the piece did nice work of it.  Gives you much better idea of what he does than my answer of calling him “The old man of the river”. 

Oh,  Lesli is doing a painting giveaway.  She’s an amazing artist with a great eye for color and design and her blog is full of decorating ideas and DIY projects.  If you haven’t seen her blog before, definitely go check it out.  Maybe one of the things I do with all my free time is actually get out to her place and meet her in person.  I do need to head out that way for peaches soon….

Second Wednesday in June.

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During the warmer months, I block the second Wednesdays of each month off on my calendar, for those nights my dear friend Leni hosts a gathering on her front porch, simply known as “Second Wednesdays”.  There are always interesting people to meet and good conversations to be had, mostly revolving around gardens and food, two of my favorite subjects.
Leni is one of those people that I firmly believe the universe dropped into my life for a reason.  She’s an amazing woman.  Her website is currently down right now, but I can share this wonderful article published in Virginia Living two years ago about her.  I’m proud to not just call her friend, but a kindred spirit.  Through my friendship with Leni, I have made connections that have literally, transformed my life, starting with the discovery of lemon basil and how it sends my green bean basil pickles to a whole new level. 
Yesterday was the second Wednesday in June.  It was one of those perfectly beautiful sunny June days, not too hot, breeze just right.  I enjoy the drive out to Leni and her husband Kip’s almost as much as I enjoy my visits.  Beautiful views of farmland and rolling hills nestled up against the Blue Ridge give way to windy, narrow country roads as you make your way there.
While wandering through Leni’s garden, I had a serious case of Romaine envy.
How gorgeous is that?  I have never had romaine look that good, not for lack of trying.
She also had a new batch of chicks.  I only stopped to ooh and aah over them briefly, as our chicks are expected to arrive sometime after Sunday and I am saving all my baby chick love for them.

The piggies however, were another story. 
How cute are they?  Edie suggested naming them Wilbur & Babe, but Leni had already thought of Prune and Pork Chop.   Seriously adorable.
When I asked Edie what she thought about us getting a pig though, she shut me down fast with a firm “No”.  This as she was nibbling on some of Leni’s freshly baked bread spread with some of my Bacon Jam.   Seems she’s content to leave it to our friends to raise pigs while we visit them and enjoy them in other forms later on.   
Also quite lovely to take in were the poppies.  One of these days I’ll get around to growing some of my own.  Until then, I’ll make myself content to admire those grown by my friends.
There is something in the combination of landscape, conversation and company that always leads me feeling realigned in a way that I don’t always know that I need after an evening at Leni and Kip’s.  Last night was no exception. As we made our way back into town, we couldn’t help but notice the sky to the west beyond the Blue Ridge still had a glow about it, which I like to think was the universe smiling in agreement as well.