Slow Saturday

Today was perfect.  The weather was warm and we had a date to visit with some friends in the "country" who we haven't seen in way too long.  We met at their house for lunch and it was delightful.  Warm air, embellished grilled cheese sandwiches, mimosas, chicken chasing, and good conversation made up our afternoon.  I had filled the crock pot with butternut squash apple soup before we left so the afternoon was dinner prep stress free.  On our way back to the "city" we stopped at Cookie Love and treated ourselves to a late afternoon snack.  We came home and enjoyed some family Rock Band time and devoured the soup with some crackers and good cheese.  It was nice to step away from the usual chore filled Saturday and enjoy some time with good friends.

I'm here. I'm really here.

I started this blog in 2001 and at one point it was my lifeline.  I felt alone as a mother for the longest time.  This blog helped me through my years of being a working mother and a stay at home mother.  Last year after being home full time for 4 years I went back to work full time and it all became too much.  Between being a mom, working full time outside of the home and running my own indie craft business I just couldn't keep up.  Before Facebook and all the other social media sites this blog was my lifeline to the outside world.  Facebook changed all that and blogging took a back seat.  I want to change that.  I am attempting to enter back into the blogging world.  I hope you will come back and join me for the ride.

Sicilian Orange and Fennel Salad

This recipe comes from one of my new favorite cookbooks called Sicilian Feasts. I have always been in love with Sicilian culture since it is where my mother's family is from. I received this cookbook last year as a gift and it has quickly become one of my favorites. What I love about Sicilian cooking is that it is simple and flavorful. I made this dish for the first time tonight and it made my taste buds jump for joy. The entire family loved it.

Ingredients:

2 oranges
1 fennel bulb
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:

Peel the oranges, and cut them into a bowl in chunks. Remove the feathery leaves from the fennel bulb and reserve for soup. Cut the fennel bulb into quarters and slice thinly through the core so that the bulb remains attached. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and mix well. Drizzle with olive oil and mix again. Add the lemon juice and mix for the last time before transferring to a serving platter.

enjoy!

germs, guilt, work

Being sick sucks. Missing work sucks even more. One of the best things about my 4 years as a stay at home mom was not having to worry about call out of work when they kids got sick, I got sick, or for the numerous vacations and days off from their school. Now that I am back to work full time I am remembering this dreaded, awful part about working. Perception. Perception at any job is key. Regardless of how open companies claim to be they still live by the old perception rule. I am lucky that my husband and I both have jobs that can easily be done from home. This makes it better because we can take turns taking "work from home days" when kid illnesses or days off come up. Sometimes though they hit all at once and the timing doesn't work so well. Take this past week for instance. My littlest was way too sick to go to preschool, but my husband couldn't get out of some meetings he had so I worked from home for two days. By the end of the week though I had picked up on the germs and found myself going into the office on Friday (something I used to swear I would never do when I was sick) all because of perception. Because I had been out of the office (even though I was working from home) for two days I felt like I had to suck it up. Suck it up I couldn't, so they sent me home.

It is so difficult being a working parent. I love my job and I love working, but this full time both parents out of the house situation is very difficult. So here I sit, or rather lay - in my bed on a Saturday afternoon. A bowl of acorn squash soup by my bed, computer snug up with me in bed, trying to heal. I already missed out on my husband's birthday which was last night, had to cancel tonight's birthday plans, and will most likely be in bed early again tonight. I feel so guilty. Why? I got sick. I didn't mean to. I certainly would never plan this, but as mothers I think guilt just lives inside of us like a parasite that has leached on to our souls.

hello again

Where have I been?
Where have I gone?
I've been changing
and growing
and living
and learning
Crying and sighing
stressing and doing.

My life has changed
so much
in the past few months
I wouldn't even know where to start.

I thought about
staying away.
I thought about
hiding
but then I decided
to try.

This isn't the first
time I have gone through
a transformation.
A girl
became a mom.
A mom became
an employee.

I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend.
I work full time now while trying to keep my life at home in order.
I have put my creative endeavors on the back burner for now.
I am trying to work it all into an already over booked day.

I struggle
I cry
I succeed
I fail.

But I keep trying.

This blog has seen me through many changes in my life.
I need it again.

I'm coming back soon . . .

Because of my new status of full time working mom, my craft has recently taken a back seat. I had already decided when I took the job that I would not be participating in the Art Hop. Then I met Lorraine Reynolds who is a co-worker at Burton. She was heading up the employee show at Burton for the Art hop this year and told me there was still space in the show if I wanted to join.

Life has thrown me a curve ball and I have found myself back to work in the real world. I recently took a job as an eCommerce analyst which means I am once again a working mama. I have been home with my kids full time for the past 4 years. It has been wonderful and I have loved every minute of it but it was time for many reasons for me to go back to work outside of the home.

I have been avoiding my blog because it was a way for me to not deal with the big question hanging over my head. What will become of my craft business? I am currently still producing and plan on continuing but at a different pace. I look forward to the challenge or working outside the home and running my little business. The key to keeping it going is to finally decide what has been working and not working for me. I plan on sticking with earrings and fiber arts. I have had a great summer selling my wash cloths at the Burlington farmers market through the wonderful Missy Bly of Clean City Soap. She created a super cute display incorporating my wash cloths with her handmade soaps. My new fiber necklaces and scarves are selling well at Trinket on Church St in Burlington and the response from people has been great so I plan on keeping those going also.

I am excited to announce that I will have work from my fiber arts collection on display at the Art Hop this year as a part of the Burton employee show. Kick off the Art Hop this Friday 9/11 at the Burton reception from 5-8pm. Food, drink, music, and lots of art. Read more about the event here.

Blueberries

I picked a lot of blueberries today. I had my two kids with me but they ate more than they picked. I love freezing blueberries and having them for the winter. I did this last year and I had enough frozen berries to last me through March.

Weekend upate

I am back from a wild weekend away by myself. This was only the second time I have ever left my family since becoming a mom almost 8 years ago. It was a much needed break. Two nights of reconnecting with lost friends. Some I haven't seen in 15 years. As much as I missed my family it was wonderful to be on my own for three days. No kids to watch, no butts to wipe, no one to feed but myself. I missed them madly but it was worth it. The trip also made me miss home a lot. A place I couldn't wait to get away from when I was younger, a place I now find myself wanting to be in again. My life seems to sometimes be one of always living in the past and future. Never the present.

This weekend was all about living in the moment, enjoying, reconnecting, remembering, wondering, reliving, and just plain being.

Let there be lettuce

Let there be lettuce
Originally uploaded by subsixstudios

I harvested lettuce from my garden yesterday. I love lettuce. I wait all winter for fresh grown. There is nothing like it.

Every summer I wait for the famous Claussen's All-You-Can-Carry Cart Load Sale. Basically it's $25 for all you can carry or $50 for a cartload. The carts are two levels and you are allowed to pile them as much as you can. I have been going to this sale for three years now and I have it down to a science. I was on a mission for tall grasses so I had to be ok with giving up a lot of space in order to fit the 8 pots of tall grasses I loaded on my cart. That's ok thought because I also managed to get about 10 pots of periwinkle, two large pots of impatients, and about 4 flats of various annuals I picked out. Overall I think I easily scored hundreds of dollars worth of plants for $50.

I wait all year for this sale. This year due to budget constraints I didn't spend a dime on gardening in the spring. I am lucky to have a May birthday and even luckier to usually get gift cards to Gardener Supply which allows me to get the early spring gardening needs that I have. This usually includes compost, mulch and seeds. Instead of buying all my spring flowers I grow them. I started seeds indoors this year. I planted sunflowers, zinnias, lavender, basil, oregano, chives, Italian parsley, and snap dragons. I love planting from seed because it allows me to start indoor gardening in March which really helps me get over the last of the winter weather. Planting and caring for the seeds starts in March and goes through the spring so it keeps me busy and eliminates my need to buy lots of expensive plants.

some of my seedlings early spring.

So I wait and wait for the announcement of this sale and then I pounce. After so much garden thrifting this is my day to finally let loose and have fun shopping for plants. Now I have to just figure out where I am going to put all those grasses. I am wishing now I had grabbed more of them. Will my front yard get them as a fence of sorts or will they become a wall for the children's garden? I have some thinking to do.

Since buying my house 5 years ago I have been on a super tight budget. I have a long list of house projects I would love to do but no money to do any of them yet. Working in my yard has provided me an outlet to transform my surrounds but without spending a lot of money. Sure gardening can be expensive but it certainly doesn't have to be. Most of my projects include reusing plants and materials I already have.

My front yard has always been a problem. Super sandy dirt combined with a big ol' pine tree smack dab in the middle = not so good grass. I don't like chemicals or even using lime so I have just suffered with a nasty front yard so far. Last year I decided to rip up a small corner of the yard and turn it into a garden.

front yard last year after creating just a small corner garden



This year I decided away with the lawn! I ripped out all the grass (what little there was) in a section which included the pine tree and mulched it all.

front yard before - ripping it all up


This created a rather large empty garden space that I had no budget for so I decided to move as much as I could from my back yard to fill it in and put in a patch of flat stones I also moved from my back yard.


front yard after


I also used some old stumps that have been in my driveway for years by ripping off the bark to show the beautiful wood grain underneath and moved them in.

One became a bid bath by using a stump and placing a large teracotta
planter dish I had in my shed to hold water. Take that you $80 bird
baths. This one was free!

bird bath stump



The other holds another piece of a tree and a small bird house.
They look great and it was so much better than trying to haul them off
somewhere.



It is a work in progress but I love it. The only cost to this project has been about $40 in mulch. I could probably use another layer. I could see spending another $20 to cover it the way I want. Ok wait I did buy one plant for this garden this year. But I bought it with a gift card I was given to Gardeners Supply (my favorite place on earth) so I still didn't actually pay for the plant. Other than that all the plants, stones, and garden accessories have been recycled from my back yard. It will take some time to fill it in but it will be well worth the wait.

Every spring my in-laws come for a visit from Alaska. My father in-law is usually in need of a project to work on so for this visit we suggested helping us paint the lattice work that surround my back deck. We spent about an hour painting before deciding to just rip down all the lattice walls instead for a more open feel. We are always talking about how beat up our deck is and in desperate need for new boards. the kids can't even walk on them barefoot for fear of splinters. My father in-law (the true DIY master) suggested later that day that we give the deck a face lift by prying up the existing boards, flipping them over and reattaching them. Brilliant!

The boards were put in with old nasty nails in need of being removed anyway so our plan was to use deck screws this time to attach the boards. Our only cost in this project was about $30 - $40 in deck screws and the cost of a new crow bar to replace my neighbors which we broke.

painting the lattice walls before deciding to rip them down.

tearing down the lattice walls.


ripping up the old boards. yes we actually pulled up each board, flipped it over and reattached them.




figuring out what boards to put where.



The boards were not perfect on the flipped side but they were in a lot
better condition than the side we had been using. A little bit of
stain and they look brand new. It was a lot of work but so worth it.
I love that the whole family worked on this together and that we saved
a lot of money and lumber.

a full set of pictures can be found here.

miss you MJ

miss you MJ
Originally uploaded by subsixstudios

Yes I was a Michael Jackson super fan. Is that so hard to imagine? You may have your opinions about his music, you may have even more opinions about his private life, but Michael Jackson was a major influence in the music industry and he will be greatly missed.

Food, Inc.

How much do we really know about the food we buy in the supermarket and serve to our families?

I am very excited about this movie. Please watch the trailer, watch the movie when it comes out, and get involved. I truly believe that food (or the lack of real food) is the biggest health crisis we have in this country. We have to open our eyes, read the labels, educate ourselves, stand up and say no more!

Curve ball

4 year ago I wrote this post when I was about to quit my full time job to stay home with my children full time. I had a budding jewelry business and high hopes of getting my childbirth education certificate so I could start teaching. Here I am 4 years later contemplating the opposite. I am actually interviewing to go back to work outside of the home. How did I get here? Well the economy went to shit, my husband had to take a pay cut this year when his company had lay offs, house taxes went up, and the list goes on and on. We were skimming by for the past 4 years but now we are beginning to sink. I never finished my childbirth certification class like I wanted, my jewelry business gives me some spending money from time to time, I have had some consulting work on and off, but nothing that provides the steady extra income we now require. It sucks. I am sad.

I can't help but think perhaps if I had just finished the things I had set out to finish I would be in a different place. I am excited about new challenges, but nervous about all I will be giving up at home. At this point so much is up in the air. I am doing lots of interviewing right now for several very exciting opportunities. I am hoping that the right one will fall into place. I will choose to think positively and keep moving forward as I always do.

Monday harvest

CSA Farmshare
Originally uploaded by subsixstudios

I love Mondays now that summer is here because it means my weekly pick up of my CSA farmshare. This week I received two heads of lettuce, salad mix, garlic scapes, pint of strawberries, dill, scallions, and cilantro.

Ever wonder what to do with garlic scapes? There are many possibilities but my favorites are to add them to stir fries, make garlic scape mashed potatoes, or garlic scape pesto.

Here is a recipe for garlic scape pesto.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ingredients:
1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes), top flowery part removed, cut into ¼-inch slices
1/3 cup walnuts
¾ cup olive oil
¼-1/2 cup grated parmigiano
½ teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste

Directions:
Place scapes and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor until well combined and somewhat smooth. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until mixed. Scoop pesto out of bowl and into a mixing bowl. Add parmigiano to taste; add salt and pepper. Makes about 6 ounces of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

Mustard greens

Mustard greens
Originally uploaded by subsixstudios

It was time to harvest my mustard greens today. My first summer harvest. I love putting mustard greens in my salad. Gives it a nice spicy kick. In other garden news my starwberries are growing and turning red. I can't wait to pick fresh berries from my plants this year. I also can't wait for my garlic to be ready. I am really sick of buying garlic from Argentina.

Eat good food: Baked ziti with roasted peppers

The original recipe comes from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics I have altered it slightly and put my version here.

Ingredients:
Tomoato sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 28 oz can of crushed tomoatoes
1 tablespoon of dried Italian seasoning

2 Red peppers, seeded, and cut into long strips
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound penne
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 cups grated provolone cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon dried oregano

Directions:

In a saucepan, warm the oil and saute the onions, garlic, salt, Italian seasoning, and black pepper on medium heat until the onions are very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the broiler. Lightly oil a baking pan. Breing a large pot of salted water to boil.

In a bowl toss the peppers with oil. Spread them evenly on the baking pan and broil for about 10 minutes, until soft and slightly brown. Set aside and lower the oven temp to 350 degrees.

When the water boils, add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 7 minutes. While the pasta cooks, stir together the two cheeses, the garlic, basil, and oregano. When the pasts is al dente, drain it and stir it into the cheese mixture.

To assemble, spread 2 cups of the tomato sauce in the baking pan. Layer on the pasta and cheese, the roasted peppers, and finally cover with the rest of the tomato sauce. Bake for 20-30 minutes until piping hot.