A Picture is Worth...

Some weekends are made to be remembered. I have a whole basket full from my childhood. Most often they involved spending the days out on our old boat till my skin was tight and prickly form the sun, lounging next to our old springer, Maggie, who I would use as a pillow despite the fact that she smelled of lake water and wet fur.
This was that kind of weekend.
The kind when nothing eventful happens beyond catching a crayfish (which I'll tell you I thought were called "crab heads" when I was their age, I'm not really sure why), and life is all the better for it.
And then we got to come home to a really, really clean house, which was kind of blissful I have to say. Not that it's clean now, because, you know, we've actually been in the house now, but to walk in the door and know that nothing really needed doing, at least not today. Ahhhhh.

The perfect weekend.

Boots and Saddles

"Boots and saddles kids" was a line we often heard growing up. Any time we went anywhere. I didn't realize it's origin till I was in college. At the time I just thought it was a my dad kind of thing.

I find myself saying it these days. Including today. The tour is started. The car is back, packed and hitched up with the trailer and we're heading out.

We'd hoped to get of earlier but after the stomach big took me out for the day yesterday and between last minute to-dos (oh yeah. We need porch lamps to cover the wire hanging out of the side
Of the house, and business cards, and flowers,and,and,and...) and just plain Saturday lethargy we're only heading out mid day. Still cards and games
And good food and great friends and mountain air await. Ahhh. Cant wait. See you Monday friends. Have a great one!

Sunchoke Harvest

When Will, Briton and I (Evie wasn't born yet so sadly she missed it) lived in Dublin, we were devotees of the local farmer's market that was held every Saturday morning in the play yard of one of the local elementary schools. And I say play yard because it was just a yard, no play equipment. I guess Dublin children don't need play equipment at school. They're tough. Or maybe just more imaginative.

Anyway, back to the farmer's market.

This market was wonderful. WONDERFUL. To the extent that farmer's markets here in the US, nice as they are, just can't quite compare and tend to be a let down. To be fair, this market was more like the street markets that are in Paris than a normal farmer's market. You could just about buy everything you needed food-wise for the week there. And we often did. Fresh meat and fish, cured sausages, pesto, mustards, muesli, dried fruit, cheeses that would make a gourmet shop here weep with joy, hot samosas, cold bottles of cider and vegetables...oh the vegetables. Specked eggs sat out in a shallow box nestled in newspaper and you had to know to bring your own carton to carry them home. Truffles, the first I'd ever seen in person, were kept safe in a rice filled container (we splurged and bought a teeny one for risotto..ummmm) and a whole table was filled only with a zillion varieties of potatoes, tiny ones, huge ones, blue ones, faintly pink ones.

Not everything was familiar. I had no idea, for example, what to do with celeriac, wasn't quite sure what a quince was and was a little baffled by those bumpy, ginger looking things called Jerusalem artichokes. But the stall owner, a sweet older man who knew his customers by name and could tell you just the thing to do with that particular variety of potato, was patient and filled me in as I bought something new on each visit. The celeriac wasn't bad, although Will wasn't a big fan, the quince were pretty darn yummy, but kind of a pain to deal with, but the Jerusalem artichokes, now those were a hit.

We ate them quite a bit over the almost two years we were there. Mashed, roasted, pan fried, in soup. They appeared almost as often as potatoes on our table I think, which, given that this was Ireland, is saying something. But in the years since we've been back, I haven't really had much chance to indulge in eating them since I almost never find any here. So when I was puttering through seed catalogs during the snowy evenings last winter and came across some tubers, I had to try growing some.

When they arrived I read a little more about their growing habits and decided that their height (8-10 feet) would be a little cumbersome in the veg patch, and as they are part of the sunflower family (news to me, but OK. Although that explains their other name - sunchoke) I planted them with the flowers.

All summer they grew, and grew and grew. And drove Will nuts because they kept falling over onto our gardenia (which I think they killed, but we're hoping for a comeback). I would tie them up to the fence and they would get bigger, and heavier, and the string would break, and down they'd go again.

Today Evie and I were sprucing up the yard for this weekends home tour when I decided I'd had it with propping the stupid things up. I knew they weren't done growing but oh, well, I'd just go without Jerusalem artichokes this year, and cross them off for next too. Because really, they did fall over all the time, and ten feet of plant splayed across the flowers isn't very pretty. So up they came, and with them, about ten POUNDS of tubers. Holy cow! After forking out all the tuber from the first two plants I pulled, I decided to leave the third (I mean, wow, 10 pounds out of two plants is a lot!) for later.

Evie and I bagged them up. Then she tried to haul the bag behind me as I went to the compost heap which caused the bag to break, so then they got loaded into the doll stroller until the doll needed it when they went back into a pile on the ground and finally back into a bag that I promptly put on the counter in the kitchen, just in case she got any more ideas.

I scrubbed and sliced up a few to saute for my lunch and they were divine, just as I remembered. Nutty and rich and somewhere between a potato and an artichoke, which I know sounds strange but there you go, it's the best I can do to describe them. If you get a chance this fall, pick up a few pounds and give them a go. I know they look weird and knobbly but you don't need to peel them, just give them a good scrub and your ready to get cooking. And if anyone out there is already a fan, got any recipes? That is one big bag in my fridge, I'm open to suggestions...

Care Package Love

When I was, oh, I don't know, maybe eight or nine, I was at my grandmother's house in California and someone in our family returned from somewhere back east (or maybe Canada come to think of it, I'm obviously very clear on the details) and with them came a box of maple sugar candies. Honey colored and shimmery and shaped like a maple leaf, they mezmorized me. I couldn't wait to try one, to bite into the sweet and crunchy and wonderful thing that sat on the napkin next to my plate. But being a firm believer in saving the best for last, I resisted. It was hard, but I did it. And after finishing up my inevitably healthy (but delicious I'm sure, my grandmother was an excellent cook) meal, I was ready to dig into my dessert.

Which is when my usually quiet and reserved grandfather pointed out the window and said "look at that!" I turned to look, he ate my maple sugar leaf. I. was. pissed.

But I learned two valuable lessons that day.

First - never EVER leave your dessert unguarded when grandpa is around. I literally put my hand over my dessert whenever he came near me after that day.

Second - sometimes, it's ok to eat dessert first. In fact, sometimes it tastes better when it comes first.

So yesterday when I pulled a small box out of the mail box containing a little care package from my mom and found, amongst the unpainted stacking doll (I'll show you that project when I decided what I'm doing with it) some wooden doll parts and some maple lollipops from their recent trip to Vermont, two little boxes of maple sugar candies, I unwrapped them and ate one on the spot.

Umm, delicious.

Then I hid them from my children. They wouldn't really appreciate them anyway.



Evil mommy.

I'll probably give in and share. But not until I've had at least one more all to myself. Or maybe not.



Do you have treats you don't like to share?

6:09 PM - In The Backyard

Sometimes all you need is a little game of catch.
With your sister.
Wearing her flower hat.
Because that's what baseball players wear, naturally.

One Thing

One of the reasons I began One Thing is that I was starting to feel that the fun little things I want to do were getting lost in the grind of life and work and renovation and parenthood, and I needed a reminder to do those things. Because if you don't do things for yourself, how can you be happy doing things for others, right? Sometimes I find myself in need of a recharge. For me, personally, the easiest way to get my head back on straight is to go off for a long walk somewhere where I can't see houses or power lines or roads or cars. Something about being swallowed up by trees and long damp grass and crunching underfoot revives me. Will and I have tried to make it a habit to go for these long walks on Saturday mornings and I can't tell you how much we all enjoy them, and how much nicer they make our weekends. But as our car has been in the shop for, basically, four weeks (where it is once again despite the fact that it was supposed to be all fixed as of Friday, grrrrr.....) we haven't gotten to go one one of our little escapes for a while. I know this sounds sappy, but I can feel the lack of these walks in my bones. Like I'm missing some vital nutrient.

Luckily next weekend we are spending two days at a cabin with some of our dearest friends with nothing on the agenda other than card games, good food and beautiful walks. I can't wait, but until then, and fully expecting that our car will remain in the shop for at least another few days, I've decided that I'm going to have to find another way to refill my soul a little. How, you ask. I'm thinking puzzles, tea and some good old fashioned kid time.

Briton is a big fan of puzzles, and not just the basic, 100 piece puzzles. He like them complicated. Actually, he just likes puzzles in general. He even does puzzles online when he has computer time. It's that little engineering brain. Evie is a little young to actually figure out the bigger puzzles, but she enjoys watching and occasionally helping put pieces together. And over the past few weeks, all of the things that have come down on our head have meant that we haven't had a lot of time to spend with the kids just being mom and dad. They've done brilliantly through the whole thing. Thankfully they play well together (most of the time) and can keep themselves entertained, but it's time for some snuggle on the couch with a big mug of tea and do a puzzle time. I have to say, I'm really looking forward to it.

So there it is, my One Thing for this week. What's yours? What are you planning to do this week to put the bounce back in your step?

One Thing
A new Monday habit. Share the one thing that you want to do this week, just for you. Click to enter below and link back to your blog so we can see all the fun things you do!
So, what will you be up to this week?

Three Phrases You Don't Want To Hear in a Week

I have to say, we've had a rocky few weeks here. Let's set aside the horribleness and sadness of last week which, in and of itself is going to take a long time to recover from.

But on top of all of that, over the past three days I've gotten three phone calls delivering news that just shouldn't all fall in one week, let along the week after losing a beloved family member. I'm trying to keep a light heart about all of this, so I'll share them with you, just so you can marvel at the wackiness of the universe.

Phone call 1: "Your car has catastrophic transmission failure instead of just minor transmission failure after all. The whole thing needs to be rebuilt."

Phone call 2: "Your (four month old and took me forever to talk him into the concept that Macs were so much more reliable) Mac needs a new hard drive."

Phone call 3: (which, coupled with the fact that our only car has no transmission at the moment made things all the more dicey) "This is the school. Your son just threw up, can you come get him?"

Nice, eh?

Like I said though, I'm trying to not let my head explode over all of this. I keep telling myself "This too shall pass." And it will. The transmission is almost fixed, the computer has been sent back to Apple (for two weeks @&*#%#!!!) and Briton is snoozing on the couch and will feel better by tomorrow. But really, when things just keep coming at you, how do you get over that hump and shake the bad mojo off? Will says we need to air out the house (although maybe that's because all the rain over the past few days has left our basement a little damp) My inclination is to spend a few minutes laughing maniacally and then getting back to work because, you know, deadlines still have to be met.

I'm curious, what do you do when things just keep piling up like this?

*edited to add*

This addition may prove my insanity but... after my work was done and while Briton napped and Evie played, I got busy with some serious house cleaning. Floors have been swept, vacumed and mopped, trim and been scrubbed, medicine cab has been organized, windows washed, desk wiped down, kids drawers sorted and yes, even the silverware has been scrubbed down piece by piece. And wow do I feel better. Do I belong in the loony bin or what :)