Every year I see a huge spike in traffic from people looking for free Valentine’s so I guess this is me giving the people what they want. And yes, there is a ninja valentine in there. It’s a ninjatine! I wanted to make them all ninjas but that would have taken me a lot longer and I have actual real paying work I’m supposed to be doing. That and I’m using these for Bug’s class and I’m just not sure they are ready for the ninjatines yet. Maybe next year.

Happy Printing!

Here are last years and the year before and the year before!

I was working on a craft for Alpha Mom and I had these plastic ornaments hanging around. They are the best invention ever. We used them for bubbles once in an under-the-sea themed baby shower. Well, now I can add one more use to their list! Fairy orbs!

It’s really simple. All you do is open them up, place a battery-operated tea light (another item of many uses) inside and close them back up again. Hang them from a black thread and you’ve got instant non-flamable magic!

We hung them from the trees outside.

And some in the windows inside…

They are so cheery and bright! Perfect night lights, really.

Perhaps we’ll make them at Bug’s upcoming fairy-themed sixth birthday party in January. We could add some spanish moss, a mushroom or two, some fairy dust…who knows!

Just some photos from our thanksgiving this year… So much to be thankful for.

Waiting for dinner…

We had made pies the morning of. Bug made her own mini pies.

Pumkin for us.

Cherry for my Dad. He loooooves cherry pie and will rave on and on about it even if you use store-bought pie crust and canned cherries.

Everyone was so thankful he made it home for the holiday. It was a close call. The trucking industry can be brutal sometimes.

My cozy couch-less living room.

Nobody seems to mind.

It’s television-less too so we watch documentaries on Russian Ballet on Netflicks on my laptop instead. Football Schmootball.

Both my Aunt Keren and Bug have studied ballet. They discuss the finer points.

Poor Holly had to stay outside. Not because we didn’t want her in but because my mom brought her hyper crazy herding dog, Spreckles, over and the hyper crazy dog needed company so she didn’t dig a thousand holes in my backyard. They dug five together instead and chewed up my red rubber boots. Stupid crazy hyper herding dogs. But you already know how I feel about Spreckles. She is NOT Holly.

We LOVE Holly. There really is nothing better than a chilled-out seven-year-old black labrador. I wish she would live forever.

Dinner finally ready! Everybody come sit down!

It’s so good to be together. My brother and his family even joined us via skype.

Hello rainy wet backyard garden. You are so pretty and overgrown.

It’s going to be a citrus-tastic spring I see. Your branches are heavy with fruit and we still have months to go until Spring.

So green, so lush, so in need of some tender-loving care. If only I had the days to while away with you…

The tangelos are turning color already.

The tomatoes are sadly draining of color. I miss them already.

I might get a few more slices for breakfast here and there but they just aren’t the same as summer…Oh summer, you were so good to us this year.

Someone needs to let Mt. Cherry Tomato know that summer is over. That’s a whole lotta effort for nothing.

Oh Hello Beauty! What are you good for? I do nothing and you thrive and thrive and thrive. If only I could make jam with your berries.

My little helper will miss you too. She will NOT like being an apartment kitty I think. Maybe we’ll leash train her. Ha.

Sigh…Oh Garden, I’m going to miss you when I move. It’s hard to get excited about you now that I know that you won’t be mine forever. I hope whoever has you next loves you as much as I do.

I went on a field trip with Bug’s class today to the pumpkin patch. It was really fun outside of the five thousand times I stuck my foot in my mouth with the other parents. I don’t know what my problem was. Nothing too terribly serious but I did wish I would just not ever talk again.

Thankfully, Bug is still young enough not to be embarrassed by me. That time clock is ticking though.

She loved feeding the goats. They were so cute. Until a big one put his front legs up on Bug and knocked her over. That wasn’t so cute.

Baaaaaah nanny nanny.

They had some pretty great pumpkins. Of course we didn’t make it out of there without buying two. We are having a fall party this coming Monday after all. We have to decorate!

I think my favorite part was the corn maze. After waffling quite a bit, Bug decided to stay with me instead of riding the bus back to school so we got to stay and do a few more things that her class didn’t. Like the corn maze. I have to admit I’ve been in a bit of a funk (book tour jitters? gloomy weather? pms? probably all of the above) and it was nice to just spend time with my girl.

I don’t think any other kid is as patient as she is. So many times I get frustrated with her because she won’t keep up with me but the flip-side of that slowness is that she is perfectly content to walk a corn maze with me for 45 minutes. Any other kid would be whining and complaining of boredom. Not Bug. We walked and walked and walked. We did the whole thing twice and then left, perfectly content that we had seen everything there was to see.

Sometimes when a craft works out really well, you just gotta do it again and again. In fact, I think I’m going to make this a tradition for us.

It’s just fun and CHEAP! All you need are some cardboard boxes (which I have plenty thanks to a super fun backyard Angry Birds game—hope you didn’t want that guitar box back Carrien), paint, maybe a box-cutter and some box-cutting skillz.

Cut them out, paint them, let them dry and you are set for Halloween.

Put them in your window and let the creepiness take over.

This one really gets me. I keep thinking it’s a real cat out of the corner of my eye. That’s Bug’s handiwork. I guess she knows how to draw cats pretty well.

The cool thing is: as it gets darker and darker they just get cooler and cooler.

And creepier and creepier…wooooooOOOOOOoooooooooh……

As you can see (by my banner and all these pictures) we are in full tomato production out here in the sticks. Tis the season! I’m surprised I haven’t turned red, I’ve been eating so many.

For breakfast I have a bagel with cream cheese and a giant slice of tomato and then a slice of muenster cheese on top. It’s soooo delicious. I could and do eat this every day.

Then I have a tomato sandwich for lunch. Pretty much the same thing as breakfast just minus the cream cheese and bread instead of a bagel. Mmmmmmm….I can’t believe I’m not sick of this yet.

I have them for dinner a lot too. I should post a picture here of some delicious spaghetti I’ve made with fresh tomatoes but I haven’t figured that out yet. My mom has convinced me that it is easy but I’ve yet to try it. One of these days…

My mom canned a lot (this is only half of them) so I can make spaghetti with them even easier. It’s going to save me so much money this winter. Well, maybe not. It’s not like jars of spaghetti sauce were breaking my budget but it does make me feel super frugal and less wasteful when I see all these jars lined up so nicely in my pantry.

Tomato plants are a pretty good investment, especially if you count the water bill as therapy. Yes, I water my garden to calm my nerves. You should try it. Now you know the secret to my green thumb.

Tomatoes,

tomatoes,

tomatoes!

We’ve got them coming out our ears.

There’s only one problem.

Somebody else likes my tomatoes.

Somebody who doesn’t even bother to pick them.

They just walk by and take a big ol’ bite out of a slew of them in the middle of the night when nobody’s looking. And then they just leave them there to rot. How rude!!!

I’m talking to you Mr. Possum! You might look cute and cuddly but YOU ARE NOT!!! You are a snarling, growling, evil tomato-eating menace.

Even Holly is afraid of these guys. We camped outside the other night and I thought sure that Holly would finally catch one, she barked enough. But no. Apparently Holly is a big wuss dog. Though that might be a good thing because I really don’t want to take her to the vet to get possum teeth removed from her nose. Have you heard possums growl in the dark? They are scary!!!

So does anyone know how to get rid of possums? I’ll pay you in tomatoes.

* * *

In other news: Please check out my review for REI.

We had so much fun with them!

You know what brings all the kids to my yard? Popsicles that’s what. I’m keeping the whole neighborhood regular with these fruity yogurt pops. They are so delicious and good for you! Well, not counting the sugar in the vanilla yogurt I add… but the fruit! Delicious summer fruit!

This week I added apricots to the mix since we have so many of them. They are so tasty all blended up!

And pretty too!

It’s popsicle o’clock!

Now go make some. Here’s my official recipe:

Cut your ripe juicy fruit up (maybe a cup or two). Add two heaping big spoons of vanilla yogurt, blend in your trusty blender, pour into your popsicle mold of choice, freeze for a day and EAT!

I think it’s safe to say that summer is here but then who knows, it is still June. The mornings are still chilly. But the fruit is here!

And my garden is exploding!

I’m such a happy farmer. I’m sure my neighbor thinks I’m a genuine nut with all the watering I do and the walking around crouching down taking pictures of things. It’s like they are my babies.

The kids are doing great. They are properly bored as they should be so their imaginations can grow, grow, GROW!! We have no television (it’s a godsend, believe me) and they spend almost 100% of their time outdoors making up complicated games and cluttering up my yard. But I don’t mind. I’m just happy that Bug has playmates. We’ve come a long way from being bored in the beach-house living room and watching Nickelodeon all day.

Of course I still have the internet so we struggle with that. I’m probably going to have to start clocking how much time the teenager puts in on Facebook.

There are swimsuits hung on the line…

…movies to be watched in the living room where the daylight seems to last forever.

And I’m wearing my hair up! A sure sign of summer.

It started because I signed up to bring “veggies” to Bug’s preschool Easter Party. There’s always a list on her classroom door asking parents to participate with these parties and the cookies section is always taken by some other early-bird eager-beaver parent. Who is that parent anyway? I thought it would be super fun to make homemade sugar cookies and decorate them with hot pink icing but noooo, I’m stuck with veggies.

That’s okay. I’m creative. I can come up with something fun with vegetables other than the pre-cut plastic tray you buy at the grocery store.

For Valentine’s Day, Bug and I arranged carrots and celery and tiny grape tomatoes in the shape of a heart. I think it went over well. I never really get much of a response from the teachers at her school when I drop things off. I think they’ve all been-there-done-that a thousand years ago and my earnestness wearies them. But the vegetables were mostly eaten when I went to go pick up the plate.

So off I went to Walmart, my latest least favorite grocery store, to pick up some vegetables. I thought I could find something fun and creative, like say maybe I could carve an easter basket out of a jícama or something.

Who am I kidding!!!! Walmart doesn’t even know what a jícama is! They might grow them out here in the sticks but they do not sell them. Why? Because nobody is fool enough to buy weird funky food that doesn’t come in a box with cheese all over it and microwave directions. Okay. Sorry. I’m just a little bit bitter. They probably do sell them, they were just out of them like they were out of everything else. Can you tell I hate Walmart with a passion now that I live out here in the sticks? They are the evil empire who has put all the mom-and-pop stores out of business and if they didn’t carry cute white Jackie-O sunglasses for $10 I don’t know why I would ever shop there.

Oh, right because they carry Tassimo T-discs for eight dollars when everybody else sells them for ten. Ugh.

Anyway, I was thoroughly disgusted with Walmart’s produce selection. They didn’t have any jícama, their asparagus were dried out and moldy on the ends and their avocados looked like they were two weeks old. I walked around the two aisles that made up the produce section four times and I couldn’t find anything to be creative with for Bug’s Easter Party. Everything was old and awful and sometimes even rotten. I was just about to give up and go to another store when I got a brilliant idea.

Why not just take carrots and only carrots? Kids love long whole carrots when all they ever get are the small “baby carrots” that are actually regular carrots whittled down and marinated in chlorine. I know I do. There’s nothing more fun that munching on a great big carrot. They just taste more like garden to me.

Bug especially loves them but when I showed her the two big bags I picked up at Walmart she was sorely disappointed. “They don’t have their tops, Mom!” Of course. I should have known. Carrots need their tops. We’ve been spoiled by farmer’s markets.

So I devised a plan. Bwa ha ha ha! I’ll make carrot tops. They’ll be just like cupcake toppers except without the cake and frosting!

I cut out a bunch of paper leaves (doubled), stuck a toothpick in between the two pieces and then stuck them together with a quick swipe of a glue stick. It was a brilliant idea! Never mind that I didn’t get the after-dinner dishes done and Bug went to bed an hour an a half late, she’s going to have the BEST Easter Party veggie contribution ever.

Some wine may have been imbibed during my mad, late-night, carrot-topping.

But it was worth it. Bug loved the carrots. She ate two whole carrots before bed and then refused a poptart this morning in favor of another carrot. I was feeling bad about sending her off to school with such a limited breakfast but then I thought about all the cupcakes and cookies she’d be eating at the Easter Party and decided that maybe a carrot was a good start to the day. She couldn’t wait to deliver her carrots to all her friends.

Our car ride conversation this morning:

“Mom, I wish our house was made out of carrots.”

“Because then we’d have a carrot phone. People could call us on it and then we’d deliver carrots to them in our carrot car.”

I think my job is done here. I just hope the other kids are as excited about the carrots as Bug is. Her teachers didn’t seem to be when I dropped them off this morning but then again, they’ve probably seen this before a thousand times.