I spent some quality time in the garden today and it is looking pretty good. I was able to harvest beans, carrots and several different types of squash. It makes me feel so self sufficient to head out to the garden and chicken coop and come back to the house with the ingredients for dinner! Remember that show in the 80’s about the mountain man who lived off the land and had a big, scruffy beard? I don’t remember his name, but I can totally see him, can’t you? Anyway, I’m like that guy – except I don’t have such a scruffy beard!

Yesterday was such a wonderful and special day- the only thing that could have made it better was if Alex could have been home :(.

The day started out just the way I like it: a quiet house because everyone else is sleeping and me drinking hot, yummy coffee. Donald mowed the lawn while Jordan made my favorite breakfast and Travis traipsed across the property to come back with a beautiful bouquet of wild calla lilies.

The Mother’s Day breakfast was my all-time favorite breakfast, EVER. A plain (or sesame seed) bagel, lightly toasted, primered with butter, slathered with cream cheese, and topped with crispy bacon. Oh, and just to throw in something remotely healthy, fruit. After our luscious breakfast, we went to church, and then drove to Solana Beach for a wonderful meal at California Pizza Kitchen (in case you’ve been deprived of this amazingness- FYI, it’s amazing). From there, we headed north up the coast for some fun shopping and a stop at the St. Tropez Bistro for coffee and insanely decadent chocolate desserts (unfortunately, we were too busy enjoying our heavenly cocoa pastries to take a picture for our currently salivating readers).

We came home planning to go on a hike, however we stalled for a while because it was about a billion degrees (seriously, it was like 95. I know, we are total wimps when it comes to anything above or below 75*- we live in Southern California for a reason people!).

So since we couldn’t go for a hike yet, the darling daughter washed my car. I appreciated this to an almost ridiculous degree- guess it just proves that one of my love languages is acts of service. After this, a delicious and delectable dinner was consumed: Thai pasta salad, grilled chicken and vegetables  and avocado to top off the whole shebang. As Jordan put it, “today was a good eating day”.

It finally cooled off enough for us to go for a walk…

The dogs had a blast, despite the fact that we had to turn around a little sooner than normal because of the sun setting.

All in all, it was a wonderful ending to a great day.

P.S. I just had to throw in a picture of my three little cuties (circa 1999).

What’s up in the garden? Not too much going on yet, but we did have our first grilled veggies a couple of nights ago. We are getting zucchini, yellow squash and a couple of beans and snap peas. Yum! I can’t wait until we hit full production! The kids are already moaning about zucchini overload…zucchini in bread, pancakes, cookies, meatloaf, taco meat, spaghetti sauce etc. etc. And, my favorite, grilled veggies.

We planted wheat grass for the chickens and they’ve been enjoying it greatly. The other benefit to the wheat grass is that the long rows of lush, green growth make the garden look a lot more successful 😉

Callie, the helpful garden doggie…

A couple of days ago, Donald, Callie and I were out in the garden, admiring our tiny asparagus (asparagus? asparagi?) spears, when suddenly, Callie leaned over, grabbed one of the beautiful green sprouts between her teeth and yanked the entire thing out of the ground. Gasp! Groan! Oh, the horror! Considering how long it takes for an asparagus plant to produce, I don’t think they’ll have much of chance with Callie around. Our sweet Callie, an asparagus murderer?? We think that she actually might make a good vegetarian because of her daily apple-core eating habits- her fondness of gophers might get in the way though 😉

A bug I actually like having in the garden! Stay tuned for more garden updates, hopefully we’ll have more to report soon!

For some reason this week has been particularly grueling in the workout department. It could be because I stayed for a second torture session, I mean boot camp session on Monday. Or, it’s just that I’m getting so old my body just isn’t recovering the way it used to. In any case, today, when I got home from torture session #5 for this week I could barely walk. So what did I decide to do? Clean out an upper cabinet above my oven. You know the one? Where everything you never really need or use gets shoved up there and because the cabinet is high and deep, you just sort of forget about it. Well, that is the one I decided that I MUST clean out today. It required me getting up and down on the chair so I could dig out all the treasures in this cabinet! Ugh!

Seriously, this ALL came out of the one cabinet. I didn’t even recognize most of it…

A perfect example of the junk that got stuck up there…so many lids, so few jars! It’s worse than losing just one sock.

Jordan got such a kick out of this one: the rosy mug without the saucer (I found the shattered remains deep within the cabinet) is a Happy Birthday mug that has a wind-up music box inside. Seriously, Happy Birthday is printed on the side and the teacup sings. When would you ever need a singing teacup? I guess though, it could come in handy for a stage production of The Beauty and the Beast 😉

Travis said that his “life was made complete” when he found out that we own a milkshake maker, and all Jordan had to say was “What!?! How come I’ve never heard of this??” I foresee many milkshakes in my future…

Despite the copious amount of  junk unearthed, I was able to find a whole box of stuff to donate to our church’s rummage sale, and obviously I also re-discovered some treasures.

Ahhhh…the beautiful sight of an empty cabinet is so worth all the pain I experienced clambering onto the chair countless times.

I have to confess – I got into bed last night at 7:15. I know, pathetic, right? It seemed crazy to actually go to sleep before it was even dark outside, also my kids would have mercilessly harassed me if I had, so I decided to read for a bit.

I have several great books on my nightstand ….

but I wanted something different. So I went to Jordan’s bookshelf and chose one of my favorites! One of her favorites too – that’s why it’s in her room.

Anyhow, the book is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Don’t let the title scare you – it’s worth the read! The book was recommended to me and as soon as I heard the name – I was not interested! Then I started hearing great things about the book, so I gave it a try. I’m so glad I did. It is an epistolary novel, meaning that it is all in letter form. The authors do an amazing job developing the characters, I got so attached to Juliet and Dawsey that I wanted them to write to me and it made me wish that I was a better letter writer!

A brief description on Amazon says the following, “January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.”

Ok – so that’s not really an intriguing description – but I promise, it’s a great book. I was so sad to see the book end that I started looking for other epistolary novels and found Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy, both by Jean Webster. I think I will save that review for another post!

So the end of my sad story is, that I lasted until it was dark and then went to sleep (by 8:00)!
Sweet dreams!