Category: Family

Earlier today, I had a chance to meet up with someone that I’ve admired via their blog for years. We met over lunch. While we’ve chatted for quite some time via email, phone, etc. and have planned to eventually meet in person since we are only a state away.

 

Edited to add where we ate and what we had…

We ate at the Red Brick Station.

I had…

Ann’s Spinach Salad
Fresh baby spinach, mushrooms, red onions, toasted walnuts, smoky bacon, hard boiled egg & your choice of dressing. I told them to hold the bacon and they did.

This was a lot of salad for me and I could not finish all of it, it was good for restaurant food but I could not help compare it to what I get from my garden, stacked up against that it simple could not compete.

And I had this to drink…

Spooners Stout
A true Irish Ale for those of you who are brave enough to get into the darker beers. Spooners’ has a full roasted malt flavor and a perfect balance between the hops and malt. It’s smooth as silk going down and is sure to please.
ABV = 4.5%

K had…

Grilled Portabella Panini
Roasted portabella mushroom with roasted red peppers, onions, tomatoes, basil pesto and provolone grilled with olive oil on fresh French bread.

K had this to drink

Daily Crisis Drink
Don’t let the name fool you. This beer is no mistake. A light copper colored ale with an intense hop nose and a distinct hop flavor with mild body and plenty of kick. For the true beer enthusiast this beer weighs in at 55 IBU’s. A great beer with lots of flavor. Named after our friends at the Daily Crisis Dairy Farm here in Baltimore County, Maryland.
ABV = 6.1%

Today’s meeting was a bit unexpected. We only decided on meeting yesterday. I will say,the time spent in person, like in our emails flew by quickly and before I knew it it was time to go. But before we left… we swapped gifts. I don’t think either of us knew the other had brought a gift for the other person.

While I was tempted to share some of the veggie egg rolls that I’d made yesterday, I refrained and instead gave K a copy of the Lutheran Book of Prayer that I love so much. The gift bag that I put the book in was a bit of a joke shared between us, and I crocheted the “tie” that I’d wrapped around the book. If I’d thought about it, I would have taken a picture before it was given away. The yarn used was some of  my Malabrigo single ply yarn. The color is Amor Intenso.

What did K give me?

 

Well… I received two jars of raw honey from one of their beehives. If you look closely, the jar on the right includes the actual honeycomb! I noticed their honey is much lighter than honey I got from my own hive. Besides their garden, I wonder what other types of crops are around them. I’ll be sure to ask the next time we chat. With all this fragrantly delicious honey in our home, you’d think I’d dig right in… but I think we’ll hold off a bit before we do any taste testing. I’m in no rush to use the honey.

 

And I also received some of K’s homegrown Shiitake mushrooms! Wow, I’m truly blessed to have someone share some of their homegrown items with me. Next time, I’ll be sure to gift K with some herbs.

Thanks K, I look forward to hanging out with you again.

Yesterday was my birthday. For myself, it’s just another day so I don’t plan anything special on that day.

It’s business as usual. So naturally that meant yesterday I went to work, like I normally do. I did get a surprise once I arrived home with my daughter. She had made me a suncatcher ornament, a beaded necklace and a really sweet card. I have no idea where she gets her crafty tendencies! 😉 It made my usual sparkling day a bit brighter. To add to that awesomeness, C, one of her friends/classmates made me a really sweet birthday card. I’m going to laminate it and post on our refrigerator.

Of course, this gives me an excuse to make something for her friend. This weekend, I’ll be pulling out my paper crafts, Cuttlebug, pencils and markers so I can make her a really nice Thank You card. I’ll also knit or embroider something for her. I know she loves girly things.

 

Today is Labor Day in the United States…

Although I had every intention of doing absolutely nothing outside of hanging with my daughter and my six year old nephew (he’s visiting for the week) reading and maybe playing a bit of World of Warcraft today proved to be quite busy.

Let’s see… I did some gardening and the rabbit homes were cleaned. Fresh hay was put into their hay box and their old towels swapped out for clean towels. Since their homes get cleaned daily it really doesn’t take that long to complete. One of the perks of cleaning their home daily is that our home doesn’t have a funky animal smell!

Today, besides animal maintenance, our home received it’s usual cleaning. The floors were steam mopped with my Hoover Twin Tank steam mop and the kitchen received some steam action with my portable steam mop.  I washed, dried and folded three loads of clothing. Washing is done several times per week in our household. NO, I don’t always feel like doing laundry, but I do it anyway. My daughter helps too.

After those chores were complete, it was time to “rest.” Late this morning you could find my daughter, nephew and myself outside having a water fight. Since I’m an early riser all those chores were complete before 11:00 a.m. It was a lot of fun. I mainly filled the balloons with water and watched them play about our property. It turns out they wanted me to be more active in the actual water fight. Invitation accepted! Later this week, when we have a water balloon fight, I’ll be sure to play more of an active role.

Since my nephew can be a picky eater. I kept the meals simple. Today, I made hamburgers for their lunch.  The burgers were a blend of ground pork and ground beef. To that, I added eggs, finely chopped onion, roasted garlic, and freshly ground black pepper and sea salt. I mixed everything thoroughly, formed into patties and placed in a skillet. Once they were finished they had the usual condiments (ketchup, mustard, pickles) and there was also spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and raw onions fresh from the garden. Results? Well they both liked the burgers and my six year old nephew ate two burgers immediately! He ate a third about two hours ago. There’s only one burger left. I guess I should have made more.

Even though my day didn’t go as planned with the reading, knitting and gaming (such as playing World of Warcraft) when my daughter and nephew were entertaining each other, I still had a great day and I got so much accomplished. That feels awesome!

I’ve always loved this song…

 

It’s been a busy week for my daughter and me. Monday, school began. She’s now in fifth grade! If we’re friends on Facebook you’ve seen the picture I shared of my daughter’s first day of school. Wow, the time has flown by. It seems like just the other day when I was holding her in my arms.

We’re both looking forward to this weekend. My brother, Sister in Law and nephew will be in town. They’ll be leaving and my nephew will be with us for a few days.

Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

I’ll light the fire, you put the flowers in the vase that you bought today.
Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long for me, only for me.

Come to me now and rest your head for just five minutes, everything is good.
Such a cozy room, the windows are illuminated by the
Sunshine through them, fiery gems for you, only for you.

Our house is a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard,
Now everything is easy cause of you and our la, la, la:

Our house is a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard,
Now everything is easy cause of you and our

I’ll light the fire, you put the flowers in the vase that you bought today.

Well today is the last day of my daughter’s summer vacation. I’ll definitely miss just picking up and doing whatever we wanted after work was finished. Now that she’s back in school, she’ll be on a schedule. With her, she’s still learning on her summer breaks, since I give her interesting projects to do while she’s away from school. And while she views the projects as ‘fun and exciting’ they are also educational also.  Currently her favorite subjects are Writing, Science and Math. Although she does well in all subjects, made honor roll each quarter, the subjects I mentioned are the ones she likes the most.

 

Today, we did what she wanted to do…

So we played with all the furbabies and then we played with her Monster High dolls…

Of course this meant making homemade vegetarian pizza, complete with a freshly made pizza crust. The tomatoes came from our garden and I made sure I added ‘extra cheese’ just the way she likes her pizzas to be. We both took lots of pictures of the pizza making process, so we’ll be sure to upload and post pictures soon.

Then we got on Skype and chatted with her cousin (my nephew.) Since it was pretty much their conversation with me chiming in when ‘mom’ or ‘aunty Opal’ was called, I responded to email, tossed a few tidbits up on Facebook, and played a bit of World of Warcraft. 😉

All too soon her day had ended and after the daily Bible reading, I found myself reading several pages from R.L. Stine’s Goosebump series.

We had a great time making food and just hanging out together and now the day is over.

 

 

The first time I heard Cat’s in the Cradle, I was in my late teens or early twenties, and although it would be many years before I had a child of my own I made a mental note to pay attention to the message within the lyrics.

 

It’s important to make time for those you care about… Now as a mom, I can proudly say that I do make time for my daughter but if you think about it, this isn’t just a message for parents. This message can be applied to everyone who has loved ones. Quit taking them for granted. Tell them how important they are, and quit putting off spending time with them. Make the effort and just make that time!

It wasn’t until years later that I learned that Harry Chapin died in a car accident on July 16, 1981. I must say that I hoped that his song was purely a reminder of what would happen if he didn’t spend time with his own children. I do find it interesting that most of the musicians that I would love to see in concert; Harry Chapin, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake, etc., are no longer with us.

 

This weekend, my daughter wants to go to the mall. Can I just say I dislike malls… but since it’s something she likes I’ll take her and enjoy the time that we spend… together. 🙂

A few weeks ago, I surprised my daughter with Oreo, our sweet Netherland dwarf bunny.  Oreo was a little over a year old when we adopted her from the Humane Society of Harford County and she has adjusted to her forever home quite nicely.

This weekend I have a few more surprises planned for my daughter, but since my daughter occasionally reads my blog, I won’t be writing anything here, but I’ll be sure to post photos this weekend!