Jello Saves a Mom

$1.25 box of Jello vanilla pudding = 20 minutes of Mommy free time and 20 minutes of post clean up.

oh yes, and Michael is happy to be "painting" with edible tasty paint.



Don't think he got messy enough:


I am not going to go into how many different spots I found vanilla pudding.
P

Oh How My (or rather My Husband's) Garden Grows

Brian has been busy getting Lyme disease because of his latest hobby:
I ran around and took some pictures about a couple of weeks back (mid July-ish). Here are the starts of things.

Sweet sweet eggplant

I love the colors in nature:

What? You don't like sideways broccoli? Yea, I thought so.

Eat that raw, baby:

Arugula - my fav

Some kind of what ended up to be funny shaped yellow tomatoes:

I just love the atmosphere in this picture. I'm not done editing it, but I have an idea of what I need.

My sacrifices for my husband. Brian asked me to take some "good pictures" of his garden. So while he was away on business, I went out there to do just that.

Pretty proud of myself because I had to brave the elements to do this.

First, we ran into a snake. I, calmly, yelled "MICHAEL RUN TO THE RIGHT QUICK QUICK QUICK A SNAKE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Nature - 1. Me - 0.

Then, the bloodiest mosquito bit me on the leg. It started something like this:
And quickly morphed into this:
It ended up about 2 inches wide.

Mosquitos love me. What can I say? I have very sweet blood. If you have me around you, you don't even have to put Off on yourself because the mosquitos will just bite me and leave you alone.

I want to think it's because I'm so terribly sweet. I know better.

Fruits of his labor. Now THAT my friend, is a nice sized zucchini:
Brian's forearm is not a good unit of measure for you? Perhaps you prefer a quark, or an iphone for reference:
Or a Michael length:
Or a Michael width:
More posts to come. I've finally decided to get back on the computer. Summer is over.

Love,

P

Gone Golfin'

Brian had today off so we filled it with all sorts of fun nonsense after VBS ended today!

Brian wanted to take Michael to the driving range so off they went!

Here's Brian. I like this picture because Brian's body is in focus, but his swing is in motion and a bit blurry. I was trying to get this shot, but wish I had a cooler angle/composition:

I love all that farmland there as a backdrop for the driving range.

Something about this picture just makes me laugh. Can't put my finger on it:
Brian teaching Michael how to aim his putt. Michael wasn't too terribly interested until Brian sank an awesome putt from like 20 feet away. And so it already is beginning - Michael thinking his parents don't know anything.
Sand bunker practice:
And a picture for me. You know I'm gonna post something not too terribly normal to take:
It's been so fun being outside. Yesterday, we met Brian at the tennis courts and played all together after Brian finished his work tournament match. I am happy to spend outside time/playing time as a family. It promotes healthy living and promotes real quality time with one another.

And I'm a huge fan of that!

VBS has been so fun! My friend, Heather, has been posting pics/videos on her Facebook site.

Brian found out today he has Lyme disease. As my Thermo I prof, Dr. Hall, used to tell us: "Mother Nature - she's a B**T#"

I agree.

Data

This is hilarious to me. My number of blog posts from the last 4 years:

• 2011 (65)
• 2010 (79)
• 2009 (166)
• 2008 (120)
• 2007 (158)

2010 was DEFINITELY a bit short on posts. 2011 is shaping up a bit better. I was a postin' FOOL in 2007-2009. Had a lot to say! Or rather - not much else to DO - so I actually had time to blog about my life!

Makes me think of 2 things:

1. I really do need to make a blog book. I've been wanting to do this, but 2007 ended up being 193 pages and costing around $250.
2. I just do not have as much time to blog as before. Having a house is a beast of burden!

I remember in Paris, all I wanted - was to own a home. And now that I have one, I really miss the days of renting! All my free time nowadays is utilized cleaning, tidying, painting, if not painting - then picking out paint samples, picking out fabric samples, googling how to fix a loose sink faucet, weeding, watering plants, organizing something, looking at new toilets/vanities for my powder room -picking out said paint for my new powder room -

THE LIST GOES ON AND ON.

So whatever free time I do have - is spoken for! Until I have my house all in line. You know how you move in somewhere - and it just doesn't feel like your place yet? Yeah - that's where I am in this house.

When we moved into our apt in Austin, I decorated in about 2-3 months. We had no money - but that was ok because I had a ton of time (newlywed and no job and all) - scoured garage sales, sewed a bunch of stuff and shopped sales. And I decorated our 2 bedroom, 2 bath apt in no time flat. Got a job - and on went our lives.

Then, we moved to Paris - and while I had no more free time (introducing MICHAEL!) - we were well taken care of by Uncle Air Liquide and I outfitted our apt within 2-3 months as well.

NOW - we are in our HOME - and it has been over a year - and it STILL is a work in progress. Something about the fact that I can do WHATEVER I want - paralyzes me for the whole affair. And the fact that now I have no time and little excess money (thank you PA Tax Man, my water softening tank breaking, replacing 2 windshields in one month, maintaining 2 cars, paying for out of network doctors who implied that they were in network, tuition for Michael - THAT list goes on and on as well).

SIGH. So I haven't blogged. Because I am busy taking care of my family - and taking care of my house. Somehow I thought I could start a business in all of that - but now is not the time with Michael being home for the summer. And me needing a new camera. And my house feeling like someone else's house.

Good grief. Am I being a whiny melodramatic drama queen tonight. Really should not have watched my chick flick of Made of Honor.

I'm done now.

P

iPhone Download Time!

About once every quarter, my iphone makes it down to the depths of the basement. Known to Brian as "The Man Cave." Known to me as "The Meat Locker." It's pretty cold down in our basement.

And when this happens, we get the Blog - By Phone Pictures - Fire

Let's begin.

Leftover Picture from Strasburg. I did NOT feed this train any of my coins:

Michael and I playing chess while eating:

Michael wanted to get in the laundry bucket. Made me nostalgic for a similar picture I took of him in Paris when he was less than a year old. I tried to find it to post it here, but can't.

In June, we went and picked strawberries at Walnut Springs Farm. Here is the result of our efforts:

Tarte aux fraises - courtesy of Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. One of my favorites.

This guy loves cheese even more than Brian. This was taken at -none other than- DUNKIN' Donuts:

Brian ran into this guy on our wood pile:

I would not have remained calm enough to take a picture of it. But I LOVE this one that Brian took. Such a nice contrast between the texture of the wood and the texture of the snake. And how the colors are definitely complimentary. I don't know - I just love this shot.

I DID GET ONE PICTURE FROM JULY 4th WEEKEND!

Our picnic blanket with the Gaglianos at Freedom Fest

Michael climbed on these bouncy houses suppled by : Date with a Tramp (see sign on image)

And Brian's latest harvest. Had to put that GLAD COSTCO sized Press 'n Seal box next to 'em so you could get the scale of these bad boys:

As my dad would say - Grown to about the size of a forearm.

AWESOME. I am off to take "good" pictures of Brian's garden. He has requested them. And then of Michael's hair cut.

And up next - videos of Brian and Michael re-enacting Wimbledon in our driveway.

Love,

P

July 4th

Last year, I think I took about 400 fireworks pictures. This year? Big Fat Zero.

Like I said before, we had no plans for the weekend except to paint the bedroom! And we ended up:

Friday - Brian had off. He went to the dr for a physical exam (insurance gives us $500 just for doing this! ). We got painting supplies at Lowes and spent the rest of the day hanging out at home.

Saturday - BBQ at our place with the Gaglianos and then went to Freedom Fest at Nottingham State Park put on by Herr's Potato Chip Corporation (like Lays, but local). The fireworks were great, but the 45 minute wait for a shuttle back to our car afterwards was NOT. Luckily, there was no traffic and it's only a 20 minute drive back to our house.

Sunday - Our neighbors invited us over for some steamed crabs covered in Old Bay! DONE AND DONE! We had a great time hanging out with my neighbors and her family! Stayed until 11:00pm eating, playing games, roasting s'mores in their fire pit, and eating Rita's water ice.

Monday - had lunch/dinner at my friend, Tami's, house! We ate, hung out, and then drove over to the University of Delaware for another round of fireworks. She had these awesome glasses that make the fireworks look like a kaleidoscope. Pretty sweet!

Exhausted. Officially. With Monday actually being Tuesday - I was confused all week and didn't work out at all. I went in today and counted down nearly every single second of my ONE mile run. Stark contrast to my 2 mile run last Thursday before I stuffed my face full of food all weekend!

This week, nothing much happened. Saw Legends of the Guardian with Michael. The kids in the theater and Michael, ALL loved it. I thought it was the scariest animated owl movie I've ever seen. The owls had like armor and swords on their talons. It was like Braveheart meets animated owls.

Brian and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary on Wednesday! My friend Jamie come over and watched Michael for us so we could go to Fair Hill Inn for dinner. It was AWESOME!!! Best food I've had in America since we've been back!

Brian had amazing beef medallions (cooked to medium rare) - with truffled cauliflower puree. I had a roasted quail with roasted fig/peach AND an amazing crab cake that was somewhere between crab cake and crab souffle on a bed of giant couscous with apple. It was all to die for. Seriously. For dessert, I had this cherry clafoutis (one of my favorite French boulangerie items) that was the best I've ever had (and I used to live in France) - covered with creme anglaise. With a cherry/sherry ice cream. I nearly passed out.

That's it. Maybe pictures next time. I've been meaning to go out to Brian's garden with my 50mm and take some pictures of his efforts! And also been meaning to post some video of Brian playing with Michael in the driveway.

Love,

P

A whole lotta nothin'

We get asked a lot from friends and family who are catching up with us - "What have y'all been up to?"

Which leads to a lot of - "Uhhh...nothin' much. Tending the garden. Playing lots of bean game. Hanging out at home."

There's the end of that conversation!

But seriously, this is all we are really doing. We are hanging out with friends in our neighborhood and eating from time to time. You know, spending the time to develop relationships and real friendships where we are. Especially since we have no close family around.

No other earth shattering news - which also leads to empty voids in the blog, which you can probably tell.

And sometimes I get the impression that I SHOULD be running around - going all sorts of different places and doing all sorts of things all the time so I have something to say.

But honestly, we are so perfectly content in our little country home in the middle of nowhere.

Do we indeed get out from time to time? Yes - and you can see the frequency in our blog. But it is NOWHERE near the pace we used to have in Paris. And I realized that we are SO very ok with that.

Why?

Well, we bought this house in the country because it reminds of our most relaxing and wonderful vacations in the countryside in France.

Which we associate with a whole lot of doing nothing, eating well, and occasionally seeing a site or two but not at a breakneck pace.

Because that's one of the things we learned while living in Europe, the ability to take things slowly, enjoy great food, and really relax. So we're not always concerned about the "things to do." And our house shows it!! We could really use a bit of fire under out butts to spruce things up! :)

I never realized how MUCH of a toll our lifestyle - day in and day out - really took on our family in Paris. I remember feeling so stressed, tired, and just over run most of the time. Asking me for a favor was like the end of the world. We were just exhausted traveling, buying groceries, speaking French, and raising a young'un ALL on our own with no family around.

So much so - that now, all we want to do is relax. That's it. Maybe in 5 years when we've recuperated from 3 years of living in Paris - we'll go back to that crazy lifestyle where we're running around.

But for now, we are happy to be at peace here in the country. Quietly living our existence.

Forgive me for being absent on our blog. There's just not much going on.

This weekend was a busy one though. We went into the weekend with NO plans except for me to finish painting my bedroom.

Instead, we filled all 3 days with friends, food, and fun. And my bedroom just has a coat of primer on it. That's it!

But we'll blog about our 4th of July weekend later. With no pictures as I am tired of my camera. I am so at -odds with it that I don't even want to take pictures.