What’s shaking around here.

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As if Betty’s departure and the beginning of school wasn’t enough to shake things up, Mother Nature has really thrown us for a few loops around here this week.  The little earthquake over in Mineral apparently had quite an impact all over the place.  We’ve felt a few of them before, but were absolutely shocked that it was felt so far away this time!  I think the 4.5 aftershock at 1 a.m. the next night threw us for more of a loop than the ‘big’ one, especially with the weather report as we were heading to bed predicting widespread destruction from Hurricane Irene. (or maybe because I was at the pool with a gaggle of girls for the first one and sound asleep in my bed for the big aftershock, which is infinitely more jarring in my opinion).   Thankfully for us, she stayed east, and we got to stay on the western most fringe, which meant a rainy, breezy day that felt like it should have been a college football Saturday.  One more week….
Meanwhile, school started, soccer practice started, I attended my first PTO board member meeting, I vaguely started planning the year for our Girl Scout troop AND, inspiration has happened on my plan to not really go back to work for someone else!!!  Turns out reality has thus far been quite kind. (See, I knew if I ignored it, it would be fine. It always is.) Although, I am sort of not too pleased that I am suddenly back to waking up every morning at 5:30 again.  I suppose it will make it easier to get back into that early morning gym routine that I swear I’m going to get back into one of these days…
And that’s not all that we’ve been up to.
We dog sat our favorite old, brown dog this week, who handled the earthquakes much better than the hurricane.  (Although he certainly dilly dallied on our walk in the middle of the storm on Saturday, which bothered a certain someone to no end.)

I braved the muggy, windy, rainy morning to haul my rear to market early Saturday morning and picked up this case of scratch and dent tomatoes for $10 and spent my Saturday canning ‘maters.  I got 18 pints out of it, bringing my stash to 3 full cases for the upcoming winter season.  Not too shabby.
I also whipped up a wicked roasted salsa the other night and then canned the leftovers (after adding vinegar to maintain the acidity).  I’ll open a jar this week to see how it fares. 
Saturday night, we had friends over to try this out for dinner.  We let the kids roll their own and they loved it.  I added some marinated tofu to the mix, which just hit the spot.  In this cookbook there is an eggplant teriyaki recipe that has a quick and easy sauce that is my go to.  Basically, it’s equal parts sesame oil, OJ, and tamari, with some garlic.  Boiling your tofu beforehand makes it firmer, and I’ve heard that it also makes it more amicable to soaking up a marinade.  I use Twin Oaks tofu, which is local and infinitely better than any other tofu I’ve found in any grocery store.  It’s one of those things that’s always in my fridge.
And last, but certainly not least, the squirrels finally decided to back off the garden and I picked a whole bowl of tomatoes!  Okay, so it’s a candy dish and it’s grape tomatoes.  Still, on principle, I’m pretty darn tooting happy about them.  I broke out the china for them!

Denial is the name of the creek running through my back yard.

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12 years ago when we moved to this neighborhood, I wondered if I could ever be friends with the women that lived around me.   Back then, I couldn’t imagine what a difference motherhood makes.  When Edie was born, I found myself at the park, every afternoon, no matter what, and I seemed to always be there with the same group of neighborhood women, who were also there with their kids, everyday, no matter what, because you just had to get those kids out of the house.  Those women have over the years become my dearest friends, my motherhood mentors, my support group, my family.   Betty, in particular, who lives just 2 doors down.  When her son, 3 years older than Edie, started school, we’d see her walking to the bus stop to wait for the bus every afternoon.  At some point in Ben’s kindergarten year, it became a thing for us to walk out and wait with Betty, so that for years before Edie started school, the highlight of our day was sometimes sitting and waiting for Ben to get home from school.  Maybe because that was when all the neighborhood kids would gather at the park.  But it was also our daily check in with Betty.  In time, Edie got on the bus with Ben, and then it was just me & Betty waiting for the bus.  And then Ben moved up to the Upper Elementary school, but we’d still pass each other in the flurry of the morning, Edie off to the bus stop, Ben off to school up the street…. and Betty and I would still end up having coffee together at least one morning a week.  And maybe lunch one day,  happy hour another….We spend holidays and birthdays together, we can together, how many times I’ve helped her rearrange her house, I can’t count.  She is a big part of my everyday world.  When I have news to share, I generally pop over there first, especially if Pat’s away or out of cell phone range, as has been known to happen.   When I need a dash of this or that, I run down to her house and vice versa.  She is my friend, my neighbor, my family, and a big part of my everyday world. 

And she is moving to New York City.

I’ve known this day was coming.  She announced the news when we came back from our big June roadtrip.  She had been chattering about it for some time as a possibility, but of course, as I do when I don’t really want to deal with something, I pretty much tuned it out.  She said it would happen at the end of summer, that it’s just for a year or two, she’s keeping her house here, and going to return often.  She’ll still have work here and it won’t be that different.  Except that I won’t see her every day, won’t have coffee with her, won’t be having afternoon tea with her on a regular basis, won’t her have her popping in to borrow a can of black beans….it will be different.  My reasons for not wanting her to go are all about me, all about the hole her leaving is going to create in MY world, which in my mind, is making it all about me.  And since that is something my mother does, and a behavior I desperately want to not follow, I have pretty much kept mum about her upcoming move.  I have tried to be supportive and whenever anyone asks how I feel about this (which has come up with pretty much everyone when they hear the news), I just smile and say I’m just trying to be supportive.  Of course, I’m also known to deny things are happening until they actually happen – and yes, I’ve done that with this move.  But then, in quite alot of ways, I’ve done that with my entire summer.  I told myself and everyone around me, I’d have figured out my job thing by the time school started.  That I had all summer to figure out what I wanted to do and how I was going to do it.  That I was just going to relax and enjoy the summer.
School starts tomorrow.   And Betty came down this morning to tell me she’s leaving today.  This afternoon. 
My world is going to be vastly different come tomorrow morning.  These lazy days of sleeping in, of taking my time at getting things done, of throwing something together for dinner at any hour, of wandering down to Betty’s for a quick cocktail……done. At least for the time being.   I can’t wrap my head around it, nor do I want to until I have to face it. Which is what I do.  And it always seems to work out for me.  I’ve known for some time reality is going to kick in tomorrow and I realize it’s going to kick in HARD.  Thankfully, I’m pretty sure everyone around me knows it’s going to be hard, so I’m going to hope that my little bubble continues to somehow protect and insulate me.  Or is that just part of my ongoing denial?   Either way, tomorrow will bring a brand new day with plenty of changes.  At least I know this going into it.   And I also know, that no matter what, I will adjust and get used to it  and face it head on.  In the meantime, I’m going to continue to enjoy today for what it is.   I’m headed to the pool, we’ve got a host of friends meeting us there, and I’m going to watch a gaggle of girls have one last afternoon of pool time, until it’s time to head home and whip up dinner and then, reality will slowly start to hit us, as I’ll have to have a real dinner on the table at a decent hour and have Edie in bed at a decent hour, because we will have to be up at what right now seems like an ungodly hour of 7 am in order to catch that big yellow angel.

Ugh.

Pickled.

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I had quite the simple plan for Saturday – get up early, hit market, buy up a bunch of green beans and head home to pickle them.  Only by the time we got to market at 8:30 Saturday morning, I was hard pressed to find any green beans. It’s August.  I know they are in season and if I had only listened to my husband and planted pole beans like I usually do, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.  Oh well, next year.  This year, since I’m already buying tomatoes from local farmers for canning (yes, I’m complaining about the squirrels yet again, although to their credit, they have seriously chilled out, which may or may not be related the food I’ve been throwing at them out the back door they keep attacking), it wasn’t that much of a step to buy green beans for pickles.  And I’ve had a number of requests for them this year. 

At any rate, Double H farm came through with the beans and so I gladly headed home to hunker down to spend my weekend pickling and recovering from pickling by the pool.

When I took the class where I learned to can, we sampled these green bean pickles and the recipe came in the packet we took home from the class.  I liked them and since then, have made them almost every year, generally about the point where we can’t give green beans away anymore and we’re pretty tired of eating them ourselves.  Not that we eat alot of the pickled beans, but we know plenty of folks that love them and will stand there and eat the whole jar within minutes of opening it.  Last year, I experimented with Leni’s lemon basil in the beans and the response was overwhelming that I should ONLY use that basil in them.  So I planted my own this year.  Definitely put it your list of plants to consider for next summer’s garden.  As someone who is very conscious of where all our food comes from,  I love the citrus zest this plant adds to any dish and that it keeps it very local indeed.  I especially love it in my homemade tartar sauce. And in Caprese salad?  Seriously, seriously divine. 

I put up 14 jars of pickled green beans on Saturday and after soaking all night Saturday (in a punchbowl I decided could do double duty instead of buying myself a new glass mixing bowl and saving myself some cash),  and simmering all day Sunday, I yielded 13 jars of watermelon rind pickles.  The weather cooperated for pool time on Saturday, but Sunday, as I loaded the car with a gaggle of neighborhood girls, we heard the rumble of thunder and of course raindrops started falling….  which meant I ended up with a squealing basement full of little girls, their sisters and their cousins until dinner last night.  And the power didn’t go out with this rain, which is something slightly unheard of around here.  Although I’m pretty sure the gaggle of girls would have had a great time anyway.

Last year I posted my watermelon rind pickle recipe and this year I thought I’d share my green bean pickle recipe.   I know the original recipe was in an unnamed magazine article by Andrea Chesman, dated 1996.  I’m not sure if this recipe was in any of her cookbooks or not.  She suggests using tarragon or dill instead of basil as well.  I suggest lemon basil. 

Green Bean Pickles
1 tsp. pickling salt
2 cloves garlic, cut in half
1 spring fresh basil (about 8 leaves)
Green beans, cut to fit in jar
3/4 cup vinegar
Boiling water
In clean jars, place salt, garlic and basil.  Pack the beans on top of that and pour boiling vinegar over.  Top with boiling water to the rim, leaving headspace of about 1/2 inch.  Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. 
Pickles need about 6 -8 weeks to fully develop their flavor and should be stored in a cool, dry place.  Unsealed jars should be stored in the refrigerator and I’ve noticed they keep for quite a bit.

(Mis)Adventures in Gardening, August Edition

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This is the state of my garden.  Slightly overgrown, slightly unkempt…

Some hints of yellow here & there from the recent dry spell (and the fact that it’s August), along with some holes from the insane microburst we had on Sunday that tore some of my plants in two.  I’ve neglected my garden here lately, neglected documenting it as well as weeding and sometimes even watering it.   You see, while it looks luscious and fruitful, the neighborhood squirrels have feasted off of most of the bounty of it. (I’ve talked much of this, both here, in person and on Facebook).   Despite our efforts to hold them off, at one point, they had stripped EVERY tomato plant of every green tomato.  Even the smallest ones.  The squash never did do much, sucumbing to the squash bug way too early in the season. I went with bush beans instead of pole beans this year and remembered why I prefer to grow pole beans – they yield more.  Much more.

My peppers have done well though.  That red one is my first pimento pepper, not quite ready to pick.  I think another day and it will be fully red and ready.  I have visions of making pimento cheese with my own peppers this year.  (I’m a cow away from making it completely homemade!).  My tomatillo plants are hearty and starting to fruit up nicely.  The brussel sprouts I planted last spring that I thought would just be a spring crop (turns out they can go for a loooonnnnnggg time) are looking good.  Good to the point where Edie is talking about how good they are going to be roasted.  I still have some chard and some kale that have weathered the heat beautifully.  The new sage & thyme plants I planted this year have taken off.  The fennel I planted is doing nicely too.  And bonus, I discovered a volunteer golden cherry tomatillo (also known as a pineapple tomatillo) plant!  I harvested some seeds from some last summer and while they sprouted up, they never did anything this year.  I was quite pleased to find it, as we really enjoyed them last year and were bummed to think we wouldn’t get them.  They were a most pleasant surprise.

While my kitchen counters haven’t been overcome by my tomatoes,  I have been lucky enough to have generous friends share their bounty, so that we have still been able to eat homegrown tomato sandwiches for as many meals a day as we care to.  Thankfully, tomato plants have growing season, and the blooms I saw a few weeks ago are now green tomatoes that are weighing down my plants again.  And I got to pick a red one yesterday!!!  A very small grape one, but, a red one nonetheless.  Perhaps the battle has turned in my favor?  One can only hope…..

Home again.

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 Yesterday morning, we picked Edie up from camp.  Three weeks ago, that amount of time seemed so long.  Somehow, it flew by.  I didn’t get everything accomplished that I wanted to, but I also knew that it was quite likely that was going to be the case.  There were roadtrips to be taken (3 in one week), concerts to be attended (2, with a third being turned down), friends to be visited with, a house to be cleaned, canning and sewing to be done and much quality time to be spent with my husband.
We knew when we decided to send her that this would be a really great experience for her.  As an only child, she spends a good bit of time alone during the summer.  She goes to various day camps, but she still has a sizable amount of unstructured time on her hands.  Summers are tough and I think they are even tougher for an only child.  She generally is bored to tears by the beginning of August and so the last 3 weeks before school starts are brutal around here.  Most of the fun, creative day camps are over with the end of July and  it seems everyone clears out on vacation. It’s her & us.  And it’s hot.  By the time the first day of school rolls around, she’s so happy to see the big yellow angel, she’s singing Hallelujah. 
Her first letter from camp said she was having an okay good time.  She asked us to please send candy and she included specific instructions as to how this was to be packaged and sent.  Over the course of the 3 weeks she was gone, we got exactly 5 letters from her.  Each one sounded like she was having more fun than the last one. I kept hearing how it was good we weren’t hearing from her – that meant she was doing well.   She wrote about how she was enjoying archery.  We got a letter from her counselor, telling us what a joy she was to have and how she was doing well with riflery.  I immediately started thinking that she was going to take care of that little squirrel problem we’ve been having.
When we arrived at camp yesterday, she ran out to meet us and burst into tears. She later told us it was not entirely because she was happy to see us, but rather because she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to go home. Our already sweet, way cool, confident girl had blossomed. Oh yeah, she likes to shoot things. She’s a little bit good at it too and is willing to consider some target practice on the squirrels that have been giving me trouble. She gave us a tour of camp and showed us where they did yoga.  Her dad, who’s been doing yoga with her since she was a wee one asked very excitedly, “Did you do yoga?”  She shrugged and gave us a very nonchalant, “oh yeah”.  Later, during closing ceremony, when she was recognized for her excellence in yoga (as well as crafts and drama), we giggled about her coolness.

That’s the inside of the ‘craft’ cabin at camp.  It seems our sweet gal not only learned how to shoot things, but also got to play, supervised, with power tools.  And in her own, very cool way, is taking it all in stride.  There is a whole list of things she learned to do, not just shooting things, but horseback riding, how to play tennis, how to deal with outhouses and pond bathing for 3 weeks.  She grew on both the outside AND the inside. She definitely has a new, bigger perspective on life that is amazing to see.

Will told us we’d get sick of camp stories around December.  We’re on day 2 of camp stories and already Daddy is rolling his eyes….we only have 11 more months of hearing them before we can drop her off again.  Because yes, she’s already waiting for next year.
And quite frankly, I’m looking forward to another 3 weeks with my husband.
Summer camp may be the best thing ever invented.

Gumbo!

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 Gumbo is one of those dishes that there are as many ways to make it as there are cooks.  I love to make a great big pot of it during the summer, when there is loads of fresh produce available to make it with.  I have a tendency to throw everything but the kitchen sink in my version. I use both a roux AND okra to thicken mine.  
 I like to have everything chopped and prepped before I start, mainly because  I  like to throw the vegetable scraps in a pot with the shrimp shells, fill the pot with water and simmer it to make a nice broth which I use in the stew.  As I start sauteing the vegetables and making my soup, I also start my roux on the burner next to it, which cuts my overall cooking time.  I use peanut oil in my roux, which has a higher smoke point, and it allows me to turn the heat up a bit higher, which can make your roux brown faster.  I just heard about this microwave method, where you  start off with it in a glass bowl for 3 minutes, then stirring it every 30 seconds until you get the proper color.  I haven’t tried that, but I might next time. 
My gumbo is more than just seafood or meat, it’s also a darn tasty vegetable stew.  In addition to onions, peppers and celery, I like to throw in tomatoes, carrots, corn, squash, beans and any other vegetable I have on hand.  My last batch of gumbo had kale in it as well. 
I use a locally made Andouille sausage from Double H farms in Nelson County.  It is good stuff and tastes like the sausage you can find down in Lousiana.  I have tried other andouilles and I will only use Double H’s in my gumbo.  (I keep a stash of it in the freezer, next to my butter, bacon & bread.  You know, things you never want to run out of.).   Good sausage really makes a difference.
I cannot emphasize enough how much a good dark roux can add to your gumbo.  Despite every recipe you’ve ever read that says you need to stand over it stirring for a long time, you don’t.  Yes, you do need to pay attention to it, don’t walk away for too long, but, if you have it at the right temp and you know what you’re doing, you can be a little bit loosey goosey with it.  Or try the microwave method.   
Gumbo
For the Roux
1/2 cup oil (I prefer peanut, but you can use whatever you like)
1/2 cup flour
Heat the oil in a heavy pan, preferably a cast iron or stainless steel. When oil is hot, add the flour a little bit at a time and blend into a paste using a wooden spoon.  Cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly until it reaches the desired color.  It will gradually deepen in color from beige to a dark brown. 
4 tablespoons butter
One to two chopped onions
One to two chopped peppers
A few stalks of celery, chopped
(a few carrots, chopped)
One hot pepper, or more
One pounds of Andoille sausage (or more), sliced in rounds
1 pound sliced okra, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
handful of fresh thyme
3 bay leaves
salt
pepper
2 cups chopped tomatoes
6 cups broth 
1-3 pounds of shrimp
1 pound crab meat
Optional and variable:
a few ears of corn, chopped from the cob
green beans
black beans or red beans or both!
a nice summer squash or two, chopped
a handful of greens from the garden, such as kale, chopped finely
a good sturdy whitefish, such as catfish
Combine vegetable scraps and shrimp shells in a pot and cover with water.  Add a bay leaf and bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 20 minutes.  Strain and set aside.  You will need 6 cups of broth, so if you don’t have enough of this, use a little chicken stock in addition for some nice flavor.
Melt the butter in a large stockpot.  Add the chopped onions, peppers, and carrots.  Cook until the onions are softened over medium-low heat, about 6-8 minutes. 
Add the sausage and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add okra & garlic and cook until the okra stops producing white ‘threads’.  (This can take about 15 minutes or so). 
Add thyme, bay leaves, salt & pepper.  Stir in 6 cups of broth and the tomatoes.  Bring to a boil, then simmer over a low heat, slightly covered, for 20 minutes.  Add any other vegetables you want and whisk in the roux.  Raise the heat and bring to a boil, whisking well.  Simmer over a lower heat, uncovered, for 40-50 minutes.
Stir in fish, crab and shrimp and cook until the shrimp are pink.  (Sometimes I add my fish first, let it cook and then add the shrimp.  It depends on how long the fish takes to cook.)
Serve over white rice. 
This should yield you one large stockpot of deliciousness that will taste even better over the next few days.  It freezes beautifully, so I always like to stick some in the freezer for one of those winter nights when I don’t want to cook.  Frozen okra will work instead of fresh, if you can’t find it or want to make a pot during the winter months.  You can also add cayenne pepper and/or hot sauce.  When I make this during the summer, I am generally looking to utilize some of the hot peppers I have collecting, so my gumbo gets it’s heat that way.  Feel free to add chicken, oysters and anything else you can think of to it! 

Of Tomatoes.

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Tomatoes are where the whole foodie thing started for me.  I realized back in college, some 20 years ago, that they were really only worth eating when they were in season where I lived and not trucked in.  Since then, not only have I almost always had a little spot of tomatoes growing somewhere, I’ve learned how to put them up, so I can eat my tomatoes all year long.  I started canning well over a decade ago, having scooped up a canning pot at a rummage sale for a song, then took a food preservation class up at Monticello one Saturday morning.  I’ve taught countless friends how to can over the years too.  I’m really uptight about knowing where our food comes from and how it’s packaged, so canning is essential to me. 
When Edie & I visited Pete and  Renee in June I mentioned I was in the market for a new canner – mine was starting to get some rust spots.  Renee pulled hers out of the shed and gave it to me, as well as bunch of jars. Mine was quite a bit larger, but I realized, they hold the same number of jars! (I think my big old one is meant for quart jars, while I prefer to can in pint jars.) Yesterday was the first time I used the new canner, and while there were some adjustments to it, I really liked it.  For starters, my old one was so big that it took over an hour to get it to come to a boil from the time I filled it up and set it on the stove.  I  would center it over 2 burners and crank them up and that would speed up the process, but it would make the kitchen just ungodly hot.  With the new one from Renee, it fits beautifully on one burner and takes about half the time to heat up.  Of course, canning is a hot process, especially tomatoes, because you have to process them in a hot water bath for 45 minutes. Which means, boiling them for 45 minutes.    It wasn’t quite as hot as it has been here, but it still is August and this is Virginia, so putting up 27 pounds of tomatoes wasn’t the coolest thing I could have done, but come January and February, when I open some of those jars, I’m going to sniff in the smell of August and remember how hot I was, how hot the kitchen was that day.   As someone who is always freezing during the winter, it generally raises my inner core at least 5 degrees to just smell that jar.

That’s what 27 pounds of tomatoes look like, in a box.  They were ‘scratch & dent’ tomatoes at the farmer’s market,  which is the way to go if you are buying tomatoes to put up.  Last winter we went through not quite 4 cases of tomatoes.  I yielded 18 pint jars yesterday – a case and a half, so I will need to spend at least one more afternoon in the kitchen, maybe two before the end of the growing season, just for tomatoes.  I still need to put up some peaches and I’m getting requests for more of my green bean pickles. 
I usually do supplement what we grow, as our garden is small. This year though, the squirrels have been completely & totally out of hand.  I suppose it’s how hot & dry it’s been (dry as in, no rain, not dry heat), has been a factor, although their crawling up the screen doors and yelling at me while I’m standing in my kitchen does seem a bit over the top.   They’ve stripped all my tomato plants of any fruit, leaving me pretty ticked off.  They also got everything off the peach tree and I’m sure a good portion of the cherry tree, although they did have to battle it out with some birds who kept attacking them everytime they went near the tree.  (That was pretty funny to watch too and kept us entertained for a few weeks.).  It’s man vs. nature here these days, as we curse the squirrels.  I grabbed the very last green tomato off the vine the other day for us, but it’s August, there are still blooms on the plants and I am still holding out hope we can eventually triumph over the squirrels.  Sadly, living in the city means we can’t shoot them, but I’m hoping Edie’s picked up enough archery skills at camp this summer to want to practice on them when she gets back. 

Granny had a point.

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My Granny was not what you would call a sweet old lady.  She drank, she smoked, she cursed like a sailor.  She had a number of phrases that her grandchildren recall, most of which are quite savory, like where exactly to look for sympathy.  (In the dictionary….between, well, two not so polite words.). 

When my Aunt Loretta was 8 and a half months pregnant with who would be my cousin John, she ran to the grocery store.  As it was July and she was incredibly pregnant, she wore what had to have been the most comfortable shoes – flip flops.  Walking in her front door, she tripped and fell and shattered her ankle, landing her in a cast from her toes to her hip.  In July.  Did I mention she was pregnant as well?  My not quite 12 year old self was shipped down to help her until at least the baby was born.  This was when I learned to make coffee and heard my grandmother, on an almost daily basis, rant about the dangers of flip flops.  She had never been a fan, but now, clearly, we could all see they were life threatening.

Of course I haven’t heeded her warnings over the years and yes, I’ve had some flip flop incidents.  I have a tendency to get plantar fasciitis thanks to my ridiculously high arches and my complete hatred of wearing shoes during the warmer months.  For the last 3 months, I have worn nothing but flip flops (except of course when at the gym.).  I know better and now that my foot is really bothering me, going all the way up to my bad knee and I’m having to wear good supportive shoes ALL THE TIME in this ridiculously hot weather when really all I should be wearing is flip flops, I can hear my Granny telling me I should know better.  Yes, I should.  I do.  Still doesn’t mean I listen to her. 

Granny was right.  Flip flops are dangerous. 

So pleased with myself.

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Instead of throwing things away or donating them to say, Salvation Army, I seem to be rich in friends who instead think, Oh, I’ll give this to Becky and she can do something with it.  Over the years, I’ve been given an assortment of goodies- old aprons, quilts, quilt tops, shower curtains, sheets, duvet covers, and so on.  Some of them I pass along.  Some of them sit in a pile, awaiting inspiration.  And some, like today, actually get used.
I bought these black linen capri pants at Old Navy eons ago.  I loved them.  They were comfortable, fit well and went with everything.  I have worn them out, but can’t quite bring myself to part with them yet.  I have attempted several times to remake these pants with no success.  I can do skirts with no pattern, but anything else, forget it.
A friend gave me an old duvet cover a few weeks ago.  I dumped it on top of a pile in the happy corner and debated what to do with it.  The fabric was light and seemed like it might be really comfy during hot weather.  And there was alot of it.  Today, while trying to figure out what to do with myself (unemployed stay at home motherhood when your kid has been shipped off for 3 weeks is a strange place for me to be in), I decided I was going to attempt to make a pair of pants out of the duvet cover, using my treasured, tattered old navy pants as a pattern.
Voila!  The finished result.  I cheated and cut the pants out on the seam instead of the fold.  Same idea really, yes?  Since the original pants are a bit too big these days, I didn’t add a seam allowance, hoping that would fix the ‘baggy’ problem.  It did for the most part, but I definitely need to make some adjustments. However, for a new pair of lounging pj bottoms, they work.

I love this fabric – a floral paisley?  Yes please.  I had a pair of pants in high school out of a similar fabric that I adored, so I was really sort of excited about a new pair out of this fabric.  The duvet cover is pretty big – I think it’s a queen or a king, so I have alot more fabric to perfect my pattern.  They are as comfortable as I thought they would be.  I started and finished something in an afternoon – not such a rarity for me these days anymore I’m proud to say.  And, I successfully made my own pattern.  Yes, I need to tweak it, but it fit! I’ve not always had such successes with sewing without a pattern.  Hell, I’m not always successful with a pattern.  But that’s another story….

Sleepaway camp.

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Sunday, we dropped Edie off at camp.  She fought the idea of 3 weeks away at camp at first.  Admittedly, I had my reservations too.  Although I tried not to let her know that.  I knew it would be good for her.  I knew it would be good for me.  It’s been a big subject of conversation around here.  Uncle Kevin told her that he got sent to camp when he was her age and he was terrified, and then, about 2 hours after his parents left, he realized it was the best thing they’d ever done for him.  She heard a few stories like that.  She seemed to warm up to the idea.  She at least stopped bursting into tears at the mention of camp.

We’ve heard about this camp as long as we’ve known Will Smiley.  He went there every summer starting about the time he had been Edie’s age.  And then he worked there for another 10 years or so after he was too old to be a camper anymore.  It was a formative experience in his life and he really wanted to share it with our girl.  I’ve said here before that Will & Mollie are the sort of friends you consider family, no matter how often you see them.  Not only did Will want to share camp with Edie, he helped make it happen.  And then, to help ease mama into not having her gal around for 3 weeks, insisted we come visit with them at Granny’s cabin at Smith Mountain Lake.

That’s the view from the dock.  We showed up and Will had the boat ready and waiting for us.  Breakfast, lunch and dinners were made without me having to do a thing.  We had a few lovely days of just doing nothing but playing.  It was divine.  Will kept us up to date on what Edie was doing at that very moment, since he knows the schedule there inside and out.  (Sixteen summers at camp will do that to you.)  Abigail talked about how she thinks Edie is so lucky to be old enough to go to camp and she cannot wait until she’s old enough to go with her in 2 years. 

A friend had asked if we could dog sit this week, so when we came home from the lake, we came home to a dear old, stubborn dog eager to see us.  I miss my girl, but I’m so very grateful to our friends who have all stepped up to help ease me over this transition.  I know she is having a great time – as we drove out of camp on Sunday, we saw her bopping down the hill with one of her cabin counselors, taking her allergy meds to the office, and I could tell, she was already settled in.  When we dropped her off and I made her bed, there as a little girl her age in the bottom bunk next to her, with that “We are going to be friends” look on her face as she looked at Edie.  You know that look.  She had a Harry Potter book under her bed, so I’m pretty sure they will be. 
I’ve been asked numerous times, what am I going to do while she’s away?  I have alot of uninterrupted time on my hands, time where I don’t have to worry about dropping what I’m doing to go pick her up or go take her to do this or that.  I intend to work on my business plan.  I want to do some serious house cleaning and purging, including the princess lair, while she’s away.  (She actually left me a list of helpful ‘cleaning options’.)  There is the chicken house project, a few sewing projects to wrap up, some canning to be done, and most importantly, lots of quality time with my husband….

I think I’ll be okay.  After all, it’s only three weeks.