A new entertainment center for the den gave me the chance to do some re-arranging in there recently. In addition to moving around the furniture and artwork, I realized we needed another lamp to really make the room work, ideally a floor lamp. I just so happened to have one in the basement I’d been wanting to work in somewhere up here, but it needed a new lampshade. I have this habit of finding cool old lamps for a song (or less) and then topping them with some uberly expensive lampshade – Exhibit A in this would be the very cool lime green ‘gloworm’ lamp in the living room found in the basement of a college boyfriend’s apartment building back in the day currently sporting a three figure silk lampshade. I assured my dear husband this would not be the case in this particular lamp, one that my friend Bonnie had sitting by her front door one day, awaiting drop off at Goodwill. Because I cannot walk past a free lamp without bringing it home, I grabbed it of course. I had a shade that had once been custom made for a lamp that had been mine as a girl, that is currently housed in Edie’s room. The shade had seen better days but I knew, with some love, would work fabulously on the floor lamp. Take a look :
There you are.
After months of being over-committed and months after I said I was going to stop being so over-committed, I’ve finally, FINALLY, reached the point where life has slowed down somewhat, where I don’t have to be somewhere seemingly every minute of every day, where I’ve gotten through all my commitments without adding anymore on. That in itself, my learning “NO” is pretty stupendous. That this has just so happened to coincide with the first frost of the season, pretty much wiping ‘deal with excess produce’ off the to-do list until next spring as well as trying to keep up with two gardens means that I have suddenly found myself with something called ‘free time’ that I’m not exactly sure what to do with. Of course, the holidays are fast approaching, so I have no doubt I’ll busy myself with that, but that’s fun busy – making and baking and visiting with friends and family? That’s definitely the stuff life is made of, much more than lots of ‘work (no matter how enjoyable and meaningful it is) busy’. Continue reading
The latest version
Pizza night is a family favorite, a dinner always in the rotation and never exactly the same way twice. What tops our pizzas is an ongoing experiment as I use pizza night as a way to clear out the fridge while adjusting the recipe for the best crust. Our pizzas can be seasonal – roasted asparagus is only served during the spring – but also feature things I’ve preserved either in jars or in the freezer. Continue reading
Living in Wild Kingdom
My garden looks rough. There’s no way around it. Granted, it’s the middle of October and everyone’s garden looks rough. August and it’s lack of rain combined with September and early October’s deluges have just left everything looking rather unfortunate. Partially inspired by an article I recently submitted for publication on the topic of how to winterize one’s garden and partially inspired by the purchase and renewal of the house behind us that has sat vacant for well over a year (and had slipped into neglect the last few years before that), I found myself with a few free hours the other day and decided to do a little bit of a clean up in my sunny perennial bed, aka, the ‘down by the side of the road’ garden. Continue reading
Celebrating Mollie
My friend Mollie turned 40 last week and over the weekend, her husband Will threw her a party. Saturday afternoon, after Edie’s soccer game, we headed over to Urbanna to help her celebrate. I’m not sure if the party was a surprise, but our showing up, along with Mollie’s friend Ro, definitely was.
Dave and Wade
Pile of kids
Captian Will
Teal!
Pat lights a fire
Party!
Briar, in the middle of the action
Tuesday Jam
Tuesday afternoons, I lead an after school cooking program at a county middle school for PB&J Fund in conjunction with the local Boys & Girls Club. It’s my second semester doing this and I really enjoy it. All I have to do is show up and teach the kids – PB&J fund does all the lesson planning and ingredient shopping and I swing by their kitchen on Market Street Tuesday afternoons on my way home from my day job to pick up whatever is needed for the day’s class. Continue reading
Fading Fast.
It’s a grey, rainy Monday morning here. Summer is fading fast – the cherry tree in the front yard, always the first to drop her leaves, has been bare for a few weeks and the dogwoods are quickly changing color. It seems as a good as any to catch up on posting pretty summer flower pictures.
Variations on Hot Pepper Sauces.
My friend Cynthia is always generous with both her pepper plants as well as her peppers. For a few years now, I’ve made a hot pepper sauce using her peppers (or peppers from plants I’ve gotten from her which I still count as Cynthia’s peppers) that gets rave reviews from those who’ve had it. My secret is that I ferment it, which is how Tabasco is made and that was the hot sauce I wanted to replicate.
About how many peppers I harvest a week thanks to the 40 or so plants I have this year.
A workshop with the master. And a festival!
It almost escaped my attention that Sandor Katz was speaking at the Heritage Harvest Festival up at Monticello this past weekend. Upon discovering this news, I immediately booked myself a spot in his morning workshop that was billed as a ‘premium workshop‘, meaning in addition to forking out money for a festival ticket, I shelled out money for the workshop as well. I mention this because I pretty sure I haven’t paid to attend any sort of food or wine related event in a solid 15 years or so, with the last one I paid for also held up at Monticello – a canning and food preservation class (which yes, was THE class that began my canning odyssey), managing to get into all the events I’ve attended over the years for free. I found out later I probably could have finagled a free entry for this, but in the interest of karma, I figured it doesn’t hurt to actually pay for something once in a while. Continue reading
Prairie Life
It was sometime last winter that I first heard about “Pioneer Girl“, but from what I gathered, I’d be hard pressed to get my hands on it. Then, last March, Patience blogged about the copy she’d borrowed from the local library. I immediately put my name on the hold list and a few weeks ago, I finally got the notice my time had come.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 