My kids don’t know how good they have it

The girls both had major braces work yesterday and were complaining (rightly) about how much their teeth hurt this morning. Now I remember how much that hurt and how you couldn’t eat anything harder than a piece of bread.

So after reviewing contents of freezers and pantry and consulting the after school schedule I came up with … Parmesan panko crusted tilapia baked with leeks and herbs and pastina with butter and Parmesan. (Pastina was a girl request)

Just about to go into the oven …
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My mom made us soup

{this moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

 

This moment 0419

Photo bombed

They think I don’t know but I do lol. As I’m editing pix while the girls hurl themselves down three story water slides… There it is, the photo bomb

Haha. Gwen I know it was yoooouuuuu! You not only found the “keep calm” app in the App Store but begged me to install it on my phone. Busted! You can run but you can’t hide. Mom always finds out (at least for now)

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Though we could use some levity today, it’s been a long week already and we are only at Wednesday

Peace Grace and Light my friends

for boston tonight

 

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today was a normal monday

until it wasn’t

i love this town,

i love New England

my ancestors came here on the mayflower

my ancestor was a preacher killed as a witch in Salem

my ancestor hung the lantern in the old north church to warn that the british were coming

my ancestors fought in the revolutionary war, were sons of liberty, fought to build a new nation

my ancestor was the wife of a president and the mother of a another president

my ancestors were patriots and brave did not cower in the face of terror or injustice or tyranny

WE are patriots

WE are brave

WE DO NOT COWER IN THE FACE OF TERROR OR INJUSTICE OR TYRANNY

we do however pray for the victims and weep for the fallen and hold our loved ones dear tonight

Good night Boston, we love you…

…and I know we’d be best friends!

For your Friday morning…I thought I’d share one of my favorite blogs/shows/best-friend-but-she-doesn’t-know-it !   I introduced my sister to Ree Drummond with this email this morning, it pretty much sums up why I love her blog and her show…

“Hey guys!
I’m emailing you this link for several reasons…
1.  Love Ree…if I lived in northeastern Oklahoma, I know we’d be best pals ;-)
2.  The food she makes is totally delicious, and doesn’t use super crazy ingredients that most people don’t have
3.  I love “the lodge” where she shoots her shows, when you guys were talking about building a house, this is what came to my mind.
4.  There are horses
5.  Just saw that you can watch full episodes online (!) so you don’t need tv food network on your cable!
I know you guys will love her as much as I do!
Love
Big
Sis “
From me to all of you!  If you haven’t visited Ree, go over and say Hello!

…for the days i’m not feeling up to snuff…

This is what I do…

clean screen

Quiet work, “busy” work, organizational work, cleaning out and up work, paper work, family work.  Where I can keep my tea at my side and not have to move very much (much to the dog’s dismay).    A little under the weather today, achey, stuffy which is migrating to tired and woozy.  yuck, spring is trying to spring and it’s all i can do to get out of my bathrobe.

desk

As Scarlett said….”but tomorrow is another day!”

Hope you are well my friends!  Let’s hear it for quiet busy work, what is your favorite kind?

good-bye our sweet Ginger girl

Last week, we had to say good-bye to our wonderful lapsitting girl after almost 17 years.  Ginger (and her brother Fred, who is still with us) came home with us a month after we bought our first house and spent the next 17 years sitting on laps, receiving belly rubs, and living a very good and well loved life.  I put together this remembrance of our sweet Ginger girl.

Sweet GingerGirl

Good-bye sweet Ginger, we will miss you very much.

around here

Just when you think they are going to pull each other's hair out...

Bedtime Hangman…Just when you think they are going to pull each other’s hair out…

Baking…Cookies and cupcakes for school Valentines Day party tomorrow

Memory Keeping…a layout a day for the month of February (at least)  loving this challenge and so happy to get the stories and photos onto paper where everyone can enjoy them.

Cleaning up…after the big snow storm last weekend

Planning...big house projects, little house projects and everything in between

Cleaning out…the organizing of my studio continues…the girls rooms are next this weekend….sssshhh..want it to be a surprise!

Knitting…What I’m hoping will be a warm soft cowl out of some beautiful hand spun and dyed wool I’ve been hoarding.

Sewing…clearing out old projects and mending to make way for home projects and spring clothes!

Thrilled…that the days are now measurably lighter later, no more darkness at 4:30!

Reading…The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan, really good…it would be awesome if I read it other than when I’m completely exhausted at the end of the day and falling asleep after a few pages!

 

LOAD 0213

Yes, because I am completely insane and don’t have enough projects jumping up and down and calling my name….

I’m participating in a scrapbooking layout-a-day challenge for the month of February.  yep. insane.  This is actually the 4th time (or 5th can’t remember) time I’ve done this and it is a challenge to keep it going for the whole month.  Sometimes life gets in the way and that’s OK…the point is the stories are getting told.

So without further ado…here ar

LOAD213-01-CapeCod2011Day one’s challenge was a layout without writing a story (or “journaling” in scrapbooking parlance).  I’m working on a series of pages about our Cape Cod trip in 2011 (and also 2010) and needed a “cover” page so…voila.  The only words are the Place and Date.

02-The Best DayDay two’s challenge was to create a layout about your perfect day.  Not content to just keep all the fun to myself, I hounded my family for their “perfect” days.  Charlie was awesome (but had to be admonished to keep it clean, it’s a family show after all)  The girls had tons of questions but managed to settle on a few of their most important items.

Both layouts are digital layouts, done completely on the computer and I’ll have them printed out to put in an album.  I also scrapbook as a “paper” scrapper but with doing a layout a day, it’s much quicker to pull something together on my laptop which I can take anywhere (including the cafeteria at Nashoba Valley where I’m waiting for my girls to come rocketing down the slopes any minute).

If you’re interested in learning more about the layout-a-day challenge click here to go to Lain Ehmann’s “Layout-A-Day” site.  It’s fun, challenging whether you follow the suggestions for layouts (or “prompts”) or not and the other “Loadsters” are a really nice community.

Cheers!