Meadowbrook Farm

kayla

2012-01-31T11:06:00.001-07:00

About two and a half years ago, I decided I wanted to really get serious about my photography, and specifically photographing people. Photographing people seemed much harder for me than photographing landscapes and flowers.

So, I needed to practice, and practice a lot.

At that particular time, I had only one model at my disposal on a regular basis.

You've met him before, but here's a reminder just in case you've forgotten.

These three pictures are a great representation of what I got whenever I could convince junior to let me practice my portrait photography.

He made me pay, and he made me pay big.

In case you're wondering, it's totally possible to be furious with someone while laughing hysterically at the same time.

However, angry laughing aside, after this particular shoot (which followed on the heels of several other similar shoots) I was pretty bummed. I needed a willing model who would actually behave themselves if I wanted any chance of getting better.

Kayla has been buddies with my youngest since grade school, and I'm surprised I didn't think of calling her sooner.

Like, before I'd pulled all my hair out and pinched my charming boy black and blue.

Over the next couple years, Kayla was game to model absolutely any time I had a whim to get my camera out.

Kayla was instrumental in my decision to start my small senior photography business.

And my son was instrumental in my decision to make my senior photography business for girls only.

Before I knew it, it was time for Kayla's senior pictures. We wanted to do something very fun and different. She knew she wanted flowers floating in the water and she knew she wanted pink, and we both wanted it to be soft and ethereal and dreamy. So we grabbed a boat and every fluffy, soft and cushy pink thing we could find and set out to create our floating photo vision.

I have to give a huge shout out to Kayla's mom, Tamsen. The boat had a mind of its own and Tamsen got a major workout making it cooperate.

Kayla, on the other hand, did not get any form of workout at all. I think she almost fell asleep several times. In fact, we could barely get her out of the boat when we were done, and who could blame her. Given the opportunity, I don't think I would have ever left that pillow filled, floating photo prop myself.

The pictures turned out just as we hoped.

A girl, almost grown, dreaming about all her future holds.

Dreaming about all the possibilities.

Dreaming about her life ahead.

Dear Kayla,

Thank you.

Thank you for letting me practice.

Thank you for helping me get better.

Thank you for being so fun.

Thank you for sending all your friends my way.

Thank you for being you.

Best wishes in everything you do and everywhere you go.

Love you!
Teresa

fresh apple cake

2012-01-30T09:07:00.002-07:00

Another recipe!

From the photo dump!

Won't you be glad when I'm done with the photo dump and therefore quit saying the words "photo dump"?

Me too.

I made Paula's Fresh Apple Cake last fall when I had a couple girlfriends over for coffee and dessert.

Part of me wishes it was still fall, because apple cake is more of a fall-ish dessert than a late January dessert, but I suppose apples are pretty much a year round fruit, so here you go.

This is one of those cakes that gets better and better with each day spent in the fridge.

I served it with cinnamon whipped cream, which was delicious, and my sister serves it with cinnamon ice cream. I've never had cinnamon ice cream, but I can only imagine how delightful it would be with this cake.

(Can anyone tell me why it is that when I make a long photoshop document, like the recipe above, it shows up skinny on my blog even though it's the same pixel width as all my other photos that show up full width?)

(Edited to add that I do not use blogger for my photos. I upload to Photobucket and then paste them into my post.)

(Thank you in advance, because I find this to be very frustrating.)

Have a wonderful Monday!

the picture dump continues

2012-01-26T11:35:00.008-07:00

More shop pictures. These clothes flew out the door. Poof! All gone within days of the photos going up on the wall.

Lauren and Kelsi are bff's and they were hilarious. We had a ball.

An accessory shot. This darling girl was twelve years old when I took these pictures. Whatever happened to the gawky, awkward stage?!

My adorable niece in the herb garden. This is one of the few times she saw fit to make eye contact with my camera. You've got to be on your toes when you photograph a princess!

This was not as easy as you'd think. I desperately needed an assistant to blow the bubbles, but no such luck. I'd blow the bubbles, drop the wand, grab my camera and hope for the best. We finally, finally got a decent shot. Katie is practically flying through the air to catch the bubble. The outtakes are priceless.

Stella and Ceili....sisters. I love the back lighting in these shots. Back lighting rarely works for me, but mastering the technique is going to be a major focus for me this next year.

I'm getting there! A few more recipes to share and the photo dump will be complete.

Happy Thursday!

wanna go to prom with me?

2012-01-25T11:58:00.001-07:00

I've mentioned before that I occasionally take photos for a cute little boutique in my town.

This time last year, we desperately wanted to do a shoot to promote the store's formal wear, as now is the time the girls start shopping for prom dresses.

However, try as we might, it's pretty hard to make the Montana winterscape look anything like the springtime prom wonderland we wanted for the photos.

This year, we thought ahead and scheduled our prom shoot early last fall, before Montana descended into its dreary winter bleakness.

If this picture looks a bit familiar, it's because I stole it from the cutest bride and bridesmaids ever. If memory serves, one of the bridesmaids came up with the idea and it's one of my very favorite shots of the girls.

As you can see, we had fourteen different kinds of fun, and I already have plans brewing for next year's shoot.

Thanks girls! You are the prettiest prom princesses ever!

I'll be back tomorrow with more photos from the archives, as the great computer hard drive clean-up of 2012 continues.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

baked brie

2012-01-24T09:10:00.001-07:00

I'm finally cleaning up my computer picture files.

This is a good thing, because removing one folder at a time whenever my Mac yells at me about the lack of storage space is not the most efficient form of computer or time management.

Be on the look out for lots of recipes and miscellaneous photos that have been lurking on my hard drive for far too long.

(Oh, how I wish, wish, wish that apple had a stem.)

The fact that I am doing this little bit of computer maintenance is quite impressive considering all I want to do is play Fruit Ninja on my son's new iPod touch.

I became instantly addicted last week during my very first game, and now I spend large amounts of time negotiating with Junior for usage of his new toy.

He is very stingy.

I did manage to score some quality fruit time over the weekend while he took his girlfriend home on Saturday night, but negotiations broke down as soon as he returned.

I now have plans to accidentally back my car over my Blackberry so I can replace it with an iPhone, and then there's a really good chance you'll never see me again, because I'll be playing Fruit Ninja all day, every day.

When I'm not playing Fruit Ninja, (which is all the time because did I mention that my son won't share his iPod touch?) I'm trying to finish the last book in The Hunger Games series.

I find myself saying "Katniss Everdeen" over and over in my head, and sometimes I even say it out loud. Please tell me that every once in a while you get hung up on a word (or a name....a rather strange, made up name) and it just gets stuck in your head.

And sometimes comes out your mouth.

Please tell me that sometimes happens to you.

Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss Everdeen.

(Spell check is not acquainted with Katniss Everdeen.)

Okay, we're going to move on now, and pretend that I am a very normal person who spends her days cooking and cleaning and doing her laundry, instead of a person who repeatedly says the name of a fictional character out loud and licks marshmallows in the snow and dreams of uninterrupted fruit slicing time.

I have several recipes to clear off my computer, and the first one comes from my bff. She made it for us when we were blobbing last month, and it is fabulous.

Baked brie. With fruit and nuts, no less.

Fabulous.

The recipe calls for the Costco wheel of brie, but I only had access to the 8 ounce grocery store version, so it looks a little overwhelmed by the toppings in this picture.

19 oz wheel of brie
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar - I only used about 1/2 cup
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup finely diced Granny Smith apple
orange juice - a splash

Saute all the ingredients (except the cheese) in a skillet until the apple is slightly soft.

Place the brie in a pie pan, and pour the fruit and nut mixture over the top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

I wasn't thrilled with the grainy consistency of the melted butter and brown sugar mixture, so the next time I made the recipe, I dissolved the brown sugar in a little bit of orange juice, and then added the butter to the pan.

I also put foil over the pan after about ten minutes in the oven, so the topping doesn't get too brown.

I'm not a huge fan of Table Water crackers, as I think they taste a little bit like cardboard, but in this case, they are perfect. The plain cracker really lets the cheese and toppings take center stage.

Speaking of brie, I used to work for an airline, and every once in a while I'd get to sit in first class if there was room. One of my first class meals included a really cute, mini round of brie, which I attempted to cut with my knife. However, cold brie is a little on the rubbery side, so instead of slicing, the mini brie went flying through the air and landed in the lap of a humorless business man sitting in the row in front of me. He didn't even smile when he handed it back to me, and he should have, because it was pretty darn impressive to see that brie flying through the air.

Come on, stodgy business man. Laugh! It was funny!

He was obviously not a cheese lover. Personally, I'll take my cheese anyway I can get it.

Happy Tuesday!

so it has come to this

2012-01-20T09:28:00.002-07:00

I'm photographing fruit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I actually set out to photograph a homemade snowflake marshmallow, floating in a cup of creamy hot chocolate. I made the hot chocolate, filled the cup, put the marshmallow in a baggie in my pocket, grabbed my camera, and headed out my back door into the first big snowfall of the year.

I nestled the cup in freshly fallen snow and then proceeded to accidentally dunk half the marshmallow in the hot chocolate.

Now, bear in mind that my hot chocolate/snowflake marshmallow photo vision did not include my pristine white marshmallow being covered in brown hot chocolate. In my hot chocolate/snowflake marshmallow photo vision, the snowflake stayed pristinely white, floating dreamily atop the steaming cup of hot chocolate, its edges slightly melty, but not so melty that you couldn't tell it was a snowflake. Just that perfect, blend the edges amount of melty.

But, here I was with a half white, half brown snowflake marshmallow. I tried to be open minded and proceeded to dunk the entire marshmallow in the hot chocolate in hopes that I could convince myself that brown is the new white, but I'm not gonna lie.

It wasn't pretty.

You can see my dilemma.

I decided to grab the marshmallow out and take it into the house and rinse it off in the sink.

Good plan, yes?

No.

The snowflake was already well on its way to melty, as I'd made the hot chocolate screaming hot because I knew I would be setting it in the snow, thereby potentially hindering its marshmallow melting capabilities.

See how well I plan out my photo shoots?

I bet right about now you're all wishing you could just spend a little quality time in my head.

It's a fun place.

So, since the marshmallow was disintegrating, and rinsing it off in the sink was no longer a viable option, I did what every single one of you would have done, and I tried to lick the chocolate off the top of the marshmallow.

(Don't even try to say you wouldn't have licked the marshmallow.)

Now is probably a great time to survey the audience to see how well you all think that plan worked.

You may be wondering why I didn't just go in the house and grab another marshmallow.

I didn't grab another marshmallow because I only made one snowflake marshmallow. I only made one snowflake marshmallow because it is very difficult to get snowflake marshmallows out of snowflake cookie cutters and still retain the snowflake details. In reality, my marshmallow looked more like a starfish than a snowflake, which I am going to choose to blame on the snowflake cookie cutter instead of the snowflake marshmallow maker.

As you can see by the absence of hot chocolate/snowflake marshmallow pictures, the photo shoot was a total bust, and I ended up standing in the snowstorm, drinking the hot chocolate and licking marshmallow goo off my fingers.

Drinking hot chocolate in the snow may sound dreamy and wonderful, but as I was mad and muttering naughty words in between sips, the whole winter wonderland thing was a little lost on me.

By the way, do I win a prize for using the words snowflake and marshmallow more than five hundred times in a single post?

Okay, since I love you too much to send you off to your weekend with nothing more than slightly lame pictures of citrus and a post about licking a marshmallow, I'm going to share my latest photography discovery with you.

I've always struggled with white balance. I've never been happy with any of the white balance settings (cloudy, shade, etc.), so I've always left my white balance on auto and done my best to adjust the color in Photoshop. Not the best option, by far.

A couple months ago, I hired a photography teacher to help me with a few uber technical photography related things that I wanted to better understand. We also talked about my white balance dilemma, and he showed me how to use a white balance card to correct my photos in post processing.

The top picture shows how my camera took the clementine picture on the auto white balance setting. It was a snowy, gray day, and the lighting was very cold. You can see the heavy blue cast in the picture.

Normally, I would have to warm up the photo in Photoshop in order to get the colors right, but by placing the white balance card in one of my photos, I am able to click the Camera Raw white balance tool on the white balance card in the photo, and Camera Raw then makes the adjustment for the right white balance. I can then synchronize all the other photos taken in those same lighting conditions to that white balance setting.

Clear as mud?

That's what I thought.

I use Photoshop CS5, so I'm not sure if the Elements versions have this feature, but I'm loving the little bit of help it's giving me in color correcting my photos.

So, I'm going to spend my weekend trying to find something more exciting than an orange peel to photograph.

Perhaps rocks.

Or dirt.

Hope your weekend is fabulous!

p is for palette

2012-01-16T08:43:00.002-07:00

Color palettes.

Photoshop templates.

Shopping.

What do these things have in common?

Not much.

However, as I was following my normal post shopping trip routine the other day (my post shopping trip routine includes taking everything I've purchased and laying it out on my front room floor where it stays for days and sometimes weeks until I get my act together and put it away where it belongs), I noticed that a beautiful pastel color palette was just begging to be created.

My obsession with color palettes was born last year as I was visiting blogs like Magnolia Rouge and The Perfect Palette in preparation for my son's wedding. I love, love, love color inspiration boards. They make me happy. Pretty colors, pretty pictures....what's not to love.

Several weeks ago, I was visiting The CoffeeShop Blog - a great blog for all kinds of free Photoshop goodies - and noticed that Rita had created a great color palette template for Photoshop, and all the stuff sitting on my floor presented me with the perfect opportunity to make my very own color palette.

You have to admit that seeing all those pretty colors lined up in a row just made your Monday a little bit better.

Come on, admit it.

Ice cream bowls from Pier 1.

A new ironing board cover from TJ Maxx.

I've been admiring TJ's covers for years but could never bring myself to spend money on a new one when my 27 year old, industrial gray cover was still serving its purpose. Imagine my delight when a chunk of the scary, yellowish brown foam lining landed on the floor as I was ironing last week, giving me the perfect excuse to make the 100 mile round trip to TJ's for a pretty new cover.

Pom pom trim from JoAnn's, and two fabrics that I ordered online and love. I have big plans for these fabrics. I also have/had big plans for all the other fabrics in my fabric stash, but that's a story for another day.

So there you go. A pretty pastel palette for your Monday morning pleasure.

I hope it brightens your day!

top of the morning

2012-01-09T09:06:00.002-07:00

Howdy all.

I'm road tripping this week, but I just wanted to pop in and say hello.

I also wanted to tell you that I finally got my exercise act together last week and logged some significant walking miles. However, for each mile I walked, I treated myself to a frozen chocolate chip cookie dough ball leftover from the great cookie bake-off, so I'm not sure if it counts. I think it's probably a wash, but now that I'm out of cookie balls, maybe I'll make some headway on the healthy living front.

Or maybe I'll just move on to the tub of dark chocolate cherry almond clusters that somehow made their way into my Costco cart last week.

Only time will tell.

Have a wonderful week!

fail early, fail often

2012-01-02T09:44:00.003-07:00

Yesterday, in a flurry of flapping notebook pages, I wrote out a plan for myself.

The ideas, the inspiration, the resolve....my head was in a whirlwind and I frantically tried to write all my scattered thoughts down on paper before they vaporized forever.

Photo shoot dreams.

Craft project lists and clipped coupons for a visit to see my good friends Michael and JoAnn.

Blog post ideas.

Things I need to finish up for my little senior photography business.

Major and minor home projects that I want to tackle this year.

Thoughts on better eating and an exercise routine.

I wondered just how much of my new found (new found since last January) drive for structure and health was natural and inborn, and how much was driven by the retail world and their yearly marketing of work-out clothes, treadmills and home storage systems.

I'm pretty sure it's more the latter and I'm just easy prey for a good ad campaign, although perhaps we were created with a natural, yearly fresh start instinct. I'm sure there's a chance the wise men returned home in January from their trip to see the Baby Jesus with an urge to spruce up the camel barn, and a resolution to walk to the watering hole more often instead of always riding the donkey.

I made out a daily schedule for myself, in hopes that if I scheduled in things like exercise, I would actually do it.

My schedule starts with a six a.m. wake-up call, and even though the banks are closed and the mailman has the day off, it is a Monday and therefore a perfect day to start my shiny new, organized and healthy life.

However, coming off a week of staying up late and chronic sleeping in, I instead started off my day with an hour long game of snoozies with my Blackberry. After an hour, the phone was tired of the every five minute thing and went on strike.

Slacker.

My daily date with Jillian Michaels was scheduled for 7:30, but at this very moment it is 9:18 and I'm sitting in my chair writing a blog post that I wasn't scheduled to write until 10:00, after I'd cleaned up the kitchen and started a load of laundry. Additionally, I have absolutely no clue where my Jillian dvd is currently living, as we broke up sometime last spring and I haven't heard from her since.

So, I will do what I always do, and justify my failure by telling myself that it's a national holiday and you shouldn't start a new life on a national holiday and then I'll quote Scarlett O'Hara and tell myself that, "After all, tomorrow is another day."

And, " I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

And then I'll go on a hunt for my workout dvd, and get sidetracked by an urge to watch Gone With The Wind, and end up spending the day in front of the tv eating all the leftover Christmas cookies while scouring Pinterest for some great wintertime craft projects.

Fiddle-dee-dee.

say goodbye to yester-year

2011-12-31T11:57:00.002-07:00

Happy New Year's Eve, my friends!

We'll have a houseful of teenagers tonight, so my hubby and I are going to ring in the New Year by eating pizza, (hopefully there will be some left after the youngsters have at it), watching The Help, and desperately trying to stay awake until midnight so we (my hubby, actually) can chauffeur the gang home. Most of them have their driver's licenses, but the last thing I feel comfortable doing is sending them out on the crazy, drunken New Year's Eve roads.

The girls want to make a wish on the dock at midnight, and I can't wait to see how many boys end up participating in that. Apparently, there's also been talk of sprinkling glitter as they make their wishes.

I love it!

My son is not as enthused, but the sooner the better to learn that when your girlfriend wants to sprinkle glitter.....you'd best sprinkle you some glitter.

So, how about you all?

Champagne and fancy dresses?

Or maybe p.j.s and hot chocolate are more your style.

I'd love to hear what you're doing to welcome 2012.

Cheers to the year ahead!

girls only

2011-12-29T14:00:00.002-07:00

A while back I mentioned that I was going to be taking senior pictures for some of the girls from our local high school.

I ended up photographing a total of eleven girls, and it was truly one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done.

Almost all of the girls go to school with my youngest, so I've watched some of them grow up since their grade school days.

It's so hard to believe that they are all going to be heading out into the big world in just a matter of months!

I happened to know that D'Aarion had a pretty pink prom dress in her closet, so a few days after we did her senior pictures, I texted her to see if she wanted to help me make my balloon dream come true.

We found the perfect field, and fought off a bit of frostbite, but I love, love, love how the pictures turned out.

I've been wanting to do a dreamy summer afternoon shoot on my porch for quite a while, and Rhayn was nice enough to help me make it happen!

This is truly an amazing group of young ladies. They are beautiful inside and out, and I wish them the very best that life has to offer.

The world is waiting, girls!

I can't wait to see what your futures hold!

outside my window-winter edition

2011-12-27T10:45:00.002-07:00

Outside my window.....everything is brown and dead.

I'm not a huge fan of dead. Or brown, for that matter.

I'm anxiously waiting for some snow to cover up the ugly, but in the meantime, sunsets like this one will have to hold me over until the white stuff makes an appearance.

I am thinking.....that sometimes, modern technology can be pretty darn amazing. On Christmas day, my three boys spent a couple hours playing a game together on their X-boxes. The amazing part is that one of the boys was in Montana, one was in New York, and one was in the Middle East. They were able to talk to each other like they were sitting side by side, and it almost made me want to grab my very own sniper rifle (the virtual kind) and join in the fun. Unfortunately, my video game skills haven't progressed past the old school Mario Kart level, so I've got some work to do before I'm allowed to play with the big kids.

From the kitchen.....these enchiladas on Christmas Eve, egg nog French toast Christmas morning, and prime rib for Christmas dinner.

I'm still full.

I am reading.....nothing. I just finished The Hunger Games yesterday. It was my first read on my Kindle, and I think I am officially a Kindle fan. I would like to make one tiny improvement though.

The Kindle needs a remote control.

Stick with me here.

Our upstairs is arctic in the winter. Think Siberia on a cold day. The furnace kicks on in the morning, but the rest of the day we heat the downstairs only, so by bedtime things are a bit icy up yonder. We all have fleece sheets and approximately forty pounds of blankets on our beds, but my exposed book/Kindle holding hand gets very cold during the bedtime story hour.

I'm thinking that if I could prop the Kindle up on a pillow, and then have the remote control page turner under the covers, I'd have the perfect, cozy wintertime reading scenario. Ideally, when I fall asleep, the remote would automatically turn off my light as well.

Dear Amazon,
Please make a remote control page turner for Kindle.
Thank you,
Teresa

I'm now going to stray from the designated Outside My Window format, because I have a couple other things to tell you.

First, my middle son, our desert soldier, got his package on Christmas Eve. I can't even believe it. I take back every bad word I've ever said about the U.S. Post Office, the military mail system, and the customs department of any country, anywhere.

Major guilt trip averted.

He shared that his roommates mocked him on Christmas Day as he put together the miniature Lego set that Santa had us send to him.

Obviously, Lego jealousy knows no age limit.

Additionally, he told me that he has absolutely no memories whatsoever of the Christmas card picture taking fiasco of 1995, which is good because he was by far the one that was the most traumatized by the incident at the time.

One more thing. It just happens to be his birthday today.

He's been gone since April, and I think that's long enough, don't you?

Happy Birthday, buddy!

We miss you!

Come home soon!

silent night

2011-12-24T11:30:00.004-07:00

it's a wrap

2011-12-23T12:20:00.004-07:00

My house is an explosion of tissue paper and bows.

Happy wrapping, everyone!

misty watercolor memories

2011-12-22T10:20:00.001-07:00

Perhaps a better title for this post would be, "How to torture your children and make them cry right before they get on the bus.....two days in a row."

But my blog design doesn't allow for lengthy titles, so we'll go the Streisand route.

Back in the day, I went through a brief black and white photograph hand tinting phase.

Which naturally led to a brief let's make our own Christmas card featuring our precious boys phase.

Before school one morning, we staged the perfect warm and loving scene, where-in we pretend that our grade school aged children are decorating our front entry with the help of our adorable toddler.

Totally believable scenario, yes?

We were in a rush, we only had a few minutes before the school bus came, and as a result, the first photo shoot involved both crying and threatening.

I cried, they threatened.

With high hopes that my children possessed the ability to repress traumatic memories, I ran with them to the school bus, glowing with the knowledge that my mission was accomplished.

"Have a wonderful day, boys! Mama loves you! And if your teacher asks you why you're crying, just tell her you fell down while you were getting off the bus! Mama loves you!"

This was going to be the best Christmas card in the history of the world. I just knew it.

I took the film to a one hour photo, and in the following one hour, they lost the negatives.

Awesome.

Never one to give up on a dream, the next morning we lovingly awakened our adorable children with the news that we would be repeating yesterday's fun-filled photo shoot.

Yay!

Having learned from the previous day's disaster, we bribed with ice cream and candy this time, (hence the gleeful look on my baby's face), and while some eyes may have been a little on the misty side, I don't think tears actually fell.

Awwwww. Doesn't that picture just warm your heart?

"Meeeeeem-ries, light the corners of my mind........
....misty water color meeeeem-ries, of the way we were."

"Scattered pictures, of the smiles we left behind.....
....smiles we gave to one an-uuuuuh-ther, for the way we were."

Have yourselves a Merry Pretend Happy Family Christmas Card day!

twas the week before christmas

2011-12-19T09:20:00.002-07:00

* I am now officially a Christmas package mailer.

A stand in long lines, I really should have planned ahead, Christmas package mailer.

I've always been able to avoid the Christmas Post Office Experience until now.

I just shipped my overseas son's package to him last week. I have no hope that it will get there on time. If at all. He's had packages that never show up, and packages held up in customs for more than three weeks. Contrary to popular belief, chocolate chip cookies that have spent three weeks in customs don't taste all that great.

Notice that by slipping in disparaging comments about the customs office of a foreign country, and casting doubt on the reliability of the military mail system, you and I can just pretend that my late shipping date is in no way responsible if/when my boy's Christmas gifts don't make it there on time.

Oh, who am I kidding. I have officially flunked Military Mom 101. There's no getting around it.

* I still have a list of approximately forty five projects that I would like to make before Christmas. Right now, I'm smack in the middle of a glitter, scrapbook paper and pom pom fringe frenzy.

I love pom pom fringe more than I love life itself.

I also love glitter, but a teeny tiny bit less than I used to after I had to get out of bed last night to remove a piece of glitter from my eye.

* I also have plans to make salted caramels. I've never even tasted a salted caramel, but I've been obsessed with them forever. Years ago, when they became all the rage, I knew I'd love them. I'm a big fan of any salty/sweet combination, but I have yet to cross paths with a real, live salted caramel. I finally acquired some fleur de sel, so now the only thing standing in my way are the bad memories of pretty much every other candy making experience I've ever had. I blame my candy thermometer for the previous candy disasters.

I could buy a new one, but I kind of like having a scapegoat handy, and as you've seen from paragraph one of this post, blame casting is kind of a way of life for me.

So, how about you all?

Are you on top of things?

Or, like me, are you in a project, shopping, wrapping, baking frenzy?

Happy week before Christmas!

dream on

2011-12-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

Sadly, the blob ends today, but I have wonderful news. Tyler's mama said he can come to live at my house!

I'm so excited.

Or wait. Did I dream that?

Okay. I just checked and Tyler's mama assures me that she most definitely said no such thing.

Bummer.

Dear Baby Tyler,
Please stay little forever.
I love you!
Auntie Teresa

leading by example

2011-12-09T11:20:00.002-07:00

Today is day five of my self-imposed house arrest. My goal was to not leave the house for any reason this week, and with the exception of one trip to the mailbox, I achieved that goal.

No hair-dos, no make-up, no denim. Sweats only.

It's been a beautiful thing.

My hubby made it all possible by going to the grocery store three times, and Costco twice. He even made a special stop to pick up more glue sticks for me, so I could continue my crafting uninterrupted.

The man is a keeper, that's for sure.

The ankle bracelet is coming off tomorrow though. For good reason.

I'm going to the airport to pick up one of my sweet friends, and shortly after we get home, three more friends will pull into the driveway and that will be the official beginning of what has long been known as a blob.

It started out years ago as a blob day. When my kids were little, my girlfriends and I started weekly get togethers as a survival tactic. The pc term is probably something along the lines of a mental health day. The kids all played outside, and weren't allowed in unless they could show us blood. (Sounds heartless, I know, but our kids all turned out just fine and pretty tough as a result.) We rotated houses and all brought snacks and our current magazines and catalogs and did nothing but sit around and blob.

I can't remember who coined the name blob, but it's stuck for all these years.

On rare occasions, we were able to pull off blob weekend getaways and to this day, they are some of my best girlfriend memories of all time.

Now, of course, all our kids are grown and we can blob pretty much any time we want. But there is a whole new generation of up and coming blobbers in need of training.

Back in those glory blob days, I worked with my church youth group. My bff was the youth pastor's wife and a group of those high school girls became a huge part of our lives. Tomorrow's airport pick-up is one of those girls. She is now a mother of two....a rambunctious toddler and a two month old baby boy.

Girlfriend needs a blob weekend.

She's bringing the baby and I can't wait to get my hands on him when he wakes up each morning. As soon as he's fed, I will snatch him away and his mama can take her sweet time emerging from the guest room.

There will be five of us this weekend....three seasoned blobbing veterans, and two of the younger generation.

We'll teach them the rules.

Sweats or pajamas only.
Shower if you must, but don't even think about doing your hair or make-up.
Eat often, and nothing too healthy.
Watch at least three chick flicks a day.
Bribe teenage boys to go to the grocery store for you. (That option wasn't available to us back in the old days.)

I just realized the blob rules perfectly describe my everyday life.

My life is one big blob.

I have truly arrived.

And lo, the older women shall teach the younger in the ways that they shall go.

Amen.

the great cookie bake-off

2011-12-06T10:45:00.002-07:00

Pinterest.

It's responsible for so much of my behavior these days.

The good. The bad.

The highly caloric.

Pinboard claims of the "best chocolate chip cookie on the planet", and "you'll never make another cookie recipe....ever!" got my attention.

I've got several go-to cookie recipes in my arsenal, but the fam always seems to like good old chocolate chip the best.

What if I've been making sub-par chocolate chip cookies all these years?

Perish the thought.

So I gathered the ingredients for the recipe that kept catching my eye on Pinterest, and started about the twenty four hour plus process required to produce what I'd been led to believe could quite possibly be chocolate chip cookie perfection.

I followed the recipe step by step, word by word, with the exception of the bittersweet chocolate fèves, because I don't know what a fève is and I'm going to guess that whatever they are, they're not readily available in Montucky. I stuck with semi-sweet morsels, because that's just how we roll here on the farm.

I also made a batch of my tried and true and ever reliable Nestle Toll House cookies.

I felt a side-by-side comparison was in order.

It wasn't even a contest. By a wide margin, (after much sampling and milk sipping to cleanse our palates between cookies) we discovered that we are not a New York Times cookie kind of people.

We are Toll House people, through and through.

But I think, deep down, I knew that already.

I also knew that even if I was a New York Times cookie kind of person, the twenty four hour chill time required would probably be a deal breaker. We are instant cookie gratification people above all else.

So, still on the subject of cookies, I have to share my most recent and currently most favorite way to eat a cookie.

I visited my sister last month, and she introduced me to this fantastic creation - hot from the oven, baked cookie cups. With ice cream, no less.

I love ice cream.

The process is simple. The results are divine.

Grab some ramekins and some cookie dough, and have at it.

I had a surplus of cookie dough from the bake-off, so I froze it in cookie scoop sized balls. Each ramekin had two balls of thawed and then crumbled cookie dough.

Cookie cups will change your cookie world forever.

Since I had an obvious aqua color thing going on here, I called my aqua eyed neighbor Ceili to see if she felt like sitting in an aqua chair and eating cookies and ice cream out of a pretty aqua cup.

With an aqua spoon.

She did, so we had a cookies and ice cream party on my front porch.

That's a perfectly normal thing to do on a cold winter's day, isn't it?

It was windy and our eyes were watering, but we had a date with a cute striped straw and some fun convertible mittens, so we powered through.

Thank you, Ceili! You are fun! It's not just any girl who can smile and sip milk through a straw at the same time. You've got talent.

p.s. My sister and I spent a ridiculous amount of time coming up with cookie/ice cream combinations. Here are a few that are on my list to try.

Oatmeal Cookies and Cinnamon Ice Cream.
Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. (That one might kill me.)
Brownies and Peppermint Ice Cream. My niece came up with this and said it's a winner.
Brownies and Coconut Ice Cream - my favorite sweet combination of all time.
Molasses Cookies and Pumpkin Ice Cream. Have you tried Dreyer's Pumpkin Ice Cream? Yum.
Cowboy Cookies and any kind of ice cream.

I'm sure there are many more combos that we haven't thought of....feel free to toss your ideas into the ring.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

pretty in pink

2011-12-02T13:12:00.003-07:00

Our little town has a once a month, anything goes sale at the local senior center.

The sale is organized by one of my favorite vintage dealers, and while her space is always fabulous, more often than not, the rest of the vendors are slightly less than fabulous.

You know what I mean. Don't make me spell it out.

But the November and December sales are usually a bit different. More spaces are filled, the vintage vendors come out of hiding, and I usually go home with a recycled plastic grocery sack or two of fun Christmas goodies.

This year was no exception, and my favorite find was a stash of reasonably priced, perfectly pink, vintage Christmas ornaments.

My shrieks of delight drew a crowd, - I've never had much of a poker face - so I then had to give the stink eye to anyone who even thought about being interested in my pink ornaments as I was hurriedly handing them over to the seller.

Back off, people. I saw them first.

Since I was taking them all, she ended up giving them to me for half price.

Deal of the day, for sure.

Have yourself a wonderful, slightly tarnished, vintage pink bauble kind of weekend!

the last day of november

2011-11-30T10:42:00.001-07:00

Today is the last day of November, and everyone knows that the last day of November is the day you dump all your leftover fall-ish photos, and then accompany those photos with random bits of blather that have been floating around in your noggin. That way, your brain and your blog are fresh and clean and ready to be all sparkly and cinnamony and full of glitter and Christmas cheer come December first.

Which happens to be tomorrow, by the way.

Eeek.

1. First and foremost, I finally found my sock monkey slippers.

I have been looking for my sock monkey slippers since the middle of October. I did such a fabulous job last spring of putting away my winter wardrobe that I couldn't find my slippers or any of my wool sweaters or my two favorite Target Christmas t-shirts. And believe me, I've been looking. For weeks and weeks. But the other morning, by the light of my cell phone aka flashlight, as my hubby was still sleeping, I found them tucked neatly and safely away in the trunk in my bedroom. Which is where I always put my winter sweaters and my favorite Target Christmas t-shirts, and pretty much everything else winter apparel related, so I'm not quite sure why it didn't occur to me earlier to look there for my sock monkey slippers.

I guess it's just another nail in the I'm losing my mind coffin.

Or maybe it's just another brick in the wall.

Yes, I've had too much coffee this morning. Why do you ask?

2. Dave's bread. Yes, I'm going to talk about Dave's bread again.

I'm sorry.

On my road trip earlier this month, I bought so much Dave's Killer bread that we can barely get our freezer closed. I couldn't even stock up on ice cream when it was on sale last week. That's how full my freezer is.

As soon as I got home from my road trip, I got a call from a friend who was shopping at our local grocery store, and she told me she was standing in front of a table where they were giving out samples of Dave's bread because our local grocery store was going to start carrying every single kind of bread that Dave makes.

Needless to say, I'll be holding a slightly smushed frozen Costco twin pack Dave's bread giveaway any day now.

Be watching for it.

3. I'm also going to talk about soup pots again.

I know.

Because I got such a killer deal on my 7.25 qt Caribbean Blue Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Round French Oven, I still had a very substantial Macy's credit left. So I once again popped onto Macy's site and discovered that the smaller but equally useful 5.5 qt Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Round French Oven in the lovely Caribbean Blue color was back in stock. In addition, they were offering a bonus gift of two - TWO! - Enameled Stoneware Baking Dishes - a $160.00 value!!! - if you spend $200.00.

Sign. Me. Up.

I'm a sucker for a bonus.

I'm also a person who pretty much goes by the picture and doesn't always read the fine print or even the not so fine print for that matter, and therefore just assumed that my bonus baking dishes were a 9x13 and a 9x13's little sister. Please tell me that for a $160.00 value you'd be tempted to think you were getting a 9x13 out of the deal?

You wouldn't? You'd actually read the description beneath the picture of your $160.00 valued bonus?

Well then.

I actually burst out laughing when I opened the box and found a very cute and little 5x7 baking dish and the somewhat larger and perhaps slightly more useful 7x10.

They are adorable, that's for sure. They're also a very pretty bright and shiny red. If anyone has suggestions for what one might bake in a 5x7 sized baking dish, I'd love to hear them.

I should probably finish up this story by telling you that the day after my Bonus Baking Dishes arrived, I went to TJ Maxx and saw the exact same 5x7 dish for $7.99.

$7.99.

Not 79.99.

$7.99.

Occupy Macy's!

4. Are you getting tired yet?

Me too.

I'm almost done. I promise.

5. We put the Christmas tree up on Monday, and true to form, we had lighting issues from the get-go. I amazed and impressed myself by changing out the fuses in one of the misbehaving strings all by myself. That was after I amazed and impressed myself by actually finding extra fuses in the first place. Normally, changing out fuses is a job I would hand off to my hubby, but he'd already been to town that morning just to buy a piece of fresh ginger for me, and therefore was quite behind in his plans for the day. Electrical skills don't usually dwell in my wheelhouse, and there was a moment of alarm when I almost put a screwdriver through my hand whilst trying to get the fuse holder thingy open, but the Christmas tree lights are on.

Yee.

Haw.

6. Then I had these two...

... help me put the ornaments on the tree. We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to have help because I have a lot of ornaments and it takes forever and a day to put them all on by myself.

Then, I woke up the next morning and realized we hadn't put the garland on, so I took the vast majority of the ornaments back off the tree, because they're all glass and there was just no way I could get the garland on without a pretty significant casualty count.

7. I was also going to tell you about the crazy zombie dreams I've been having lately and ask if anyone knows what it means when a middle aged woman has zombie dreams on a fairly regular basis, but I'm pretty sure most of the dream analyzers checked out somewhere between the Dave's bread and the mini baking dishes, so we'll just leave that for another day.

So, there we go! My brain is now empty of pre-December thoughts and starting tomorrow I can be all Christmas all the time.

Thank you for listening.

Happy last day of November!

on monday

2011-11-23T13:14:00.001-07:00

I woke up at nine o'clock this morning.

9:00.

Nine in the ayem.

I am discombobulated on so many levels by this turn of events. Usually, I am a wake up at six without an alarm kind of girl, and on a rare day, my alarm wakes me up at seven. This morning, I woke up with a wrinkle in my cheek that I fear may never go away, and an instant axe in the noggin caffeine deprived headache, so it's probably best if we all keep our expectations of this post making any sense at all to a minimum.

I know I've blogged about my kitchen and its remodel before, but two things happened on Monday that have led me to blog about it again today.

First, I pulled something off one of the open top shelves in my kitchen, and a shower of dust bunnies came down with it. It was time. Time to take everything down, wash it all in hot soapy water, wipe down the shelves, and then put it all back and feel good about the cleanliness of my kitchen shelves for at least a week. I remembered that I planned to do this particular project right before the wedding, but along with about 267 other projects that I planned to do right before the wedding, it didn't happen.

Since everything was all bright and shiny and clean, I might as well take a picture or two.

Secondly, again on Monday, (I feel the need to point out the Monday part again, in order to justify my post title), I was digging out my stash of Christmas magazines, and in the process I found an old and extremely tattered issue of Country Living magazine that brought me straight back to our pre-remodel, pre-Montana move days.

It features a kitchen that served as very heavy inspiration for our soon to be new home.

It was fun to look through the pages and see the ways our kitchen turned out to be similar, and also the ways it is different.

Obviously, one major difference is my heavy handed addition of lots of aqua....my favorite color ever.

Ever, ever.

But the pink was a little trickier. If it was not for the fact that I found the pretty pink bowl for a whopping five dollars, I probably wouldn't have even gone there at all.

For a while, I was really hung up on the pink. In my mind, you either go more primary with a color scheme by leaning to the red side, or more pastel by going to the pink side.

But then I took a closer look my two very favorite vintage tablecloths, and noticed that they each had a touch of pink mixed in with red, and as I love these particular tablecloths more than a person should love any sort of fabric object, I decided to follow suit and add a few pink touches here and there, and therefore overcome my pink and red issues once and for all.

(Can someone please fix that sentence/paragraph? I still have a bit of a headache, and therefore am in no condition to cure it of its run-on-ishness.)

In case it's not clear, my first favorite tablecloth is the cherry beauty in the above collage, and my second favorite is this little fella.

Believe it or not, this cloth was a bonus that the seller threw into the package when I purchased another tablecloth on Ebay. Pure craziness.

(Does anyone know what that little aqua chicken is supposed to be? He is about the size of a salt shaker, but has a hole in his back that is filled with some kind of plastery substance. I don't know his purpose, but I love him anyway.)

Almost everything in my kitchen is vintage, but back when we were remodeling, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware were really doing some fun reproductions.

Speaking of which....

Dear Restoration Hardware,
What has happened to you?
I don't even know you anymore.
Sadly,
Teresa

The wall phone was a Pottery Barn find. I also have a reproduction desk phone that I love, and while I don't miss all the sales calls since we canceled our home number, I do miss talking on the old school style tellies.

Thanks to Martha, jadeite was also making a big comeback, and everyone from Sears to Linen's and Things, to Marty herself were selling new versions of the old favorite. Butter dishes, batter bowls, ball pitchers and cake stands were a few of the new things I added to my collection of vintage goodies.

It took years and years of antique show hunting to totally outfit my kitchen, and I truly enjoyed every minute of it. I'm still on the lookout for fun tablecloths and dish towels, but other than that, I feel like my little cottage kitchen has totally come into its own, and I love it.

And now I'm off to snuggle up to my Costco sized bottle of Ibuprofin, because I have to go to the grocery store this afternoon and we all know the grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving is its very own headache inducing experience.

Have a truly wonderful Thanksgiving!

dear pinterest

2011-11-18T10:50:00.001-07:00

(source)
I finally get it.

I'm still kind of new to this pin crazy world you've got going, but I have to admit that at first you had me a bit irritated.

(source)
Now, I'm not a person who particularly enjoys being forced to do something I don't particularly want to do.

Therefore, I initially rebelled when you required me to "describe my pin". I didn't want to describe my pin. I didn't want to be slowed down. I didn't want to have to think that hard.

Or think period.

I just wanted to stay in my own little pin-board zone and be left alone to enjoy the first sweet moments of what would soon become a raging addiction.

(source)
But now I get it. I get that your search system needs our pin descriptions in order to function. I understand that when I took the easy way out and quickly typed in the * instead of typing in an actual description, I wasn't really helping you or my fellow searchers out.

I'm sorry I'm so dumb.

I hereby vow to appropriately describe my pins forever and ever.

Sincerely,
Teresa

So how about the rest of you....are you addicted? Do you have Pinterest self control? Or are you like me and once you start down a Pinterest rabbit trail, the rest of the world instantly fades away? Please tell me I'm not alone.

* My chaotic and totally unorganized pins can be found here.

* If you want to see amazingly wonderful pinboards, go visit this girl.

* In fact, just skip my pinboards and go straight to hers.

* Actually, let's just pretend that her pinboards are MY pinboards.

* Is that okay, Mary? It is? Thank you!

Have a wonderful weekend!

let's talk soup

2011-11-14T10:44:00.002-07:00

Is it soup weather at your house?

It is definitely soup weather at my house. It's snowing and windy and gray. Perfect weather for a pot of soup.

Soup which, by the way, I cooked in my brand spanking new Caribbean Blue Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Round French Oven.

The manager at Macy's gave me full credit for my four Marthas, and the 7.25 in Caribbean was on close-out, so I got the deal of the day all the way around. I still have enough of a credit to get another smaller pot if I feel so inclined. It's a little slice of Le Creuset heaven.

I'm always on the lookout for a great new soup recipe, so if you've posted one on your blog, please feel free to leave the link in the comments.

Let soup season begin!

thank you

2011-11-11T06:10:00.001-07:00

get your holiday on

2011-11-07T15:45:00.003-07:00

I love Ruche.

I love their clothes. I love their accessories. I love their home goodies.

I especially love their lookbooks. Gorgeous, gorgeous photography in dreamy locations, and pretty clothes on pretty girls.

Vintage fashion photography heaven.

Up until about a month ago, I did not know that Ruche had a blog, because I'm oblivious like that.

The day I discovered that Ruche had a blog, I immediately devoted the next 427 hours of my life to scouring the archives. Among many other delightful things, I discovered that they were accepting submissions from bloggers for a holiday guide they were putting together.

On a lark, I drug out a very large portion of my vintage Christmas collection and started taking pictures. I pretty much leveled my house. Boxes and ornaments and glitter everywhere.

In October, no less.

I wrote up a little diddy, attached some photos, emailed it to the proper folks, shoved all the Christmas decorations in the guest room, and hoped no one would come to stay before December.

Then I kind of tucked the whole thing in the back of my mind and went about my business.

Well, this afternoon, it all went from the back of my mind straight to the front of my mind because, amazingly enough, my submission made it into Ruche's holiday feature, A Homemade Holiday.

The guide is bursting with fall and winter holiday ideas, and I think you'll enjoy what each and every page has to offer. It's pretty exciting to be included in such a beautiful collection of holiday inspiration.

The additional benefit for both you and me is the fact that, at least for today, I have something besides Dave's bread and Martha's soup pots to blog about.

Rest assured Dave and Marty will be front and center again very soon, but for now, it's nice to add something fresh and pretty to the mix.

Happy Monday!

groundhog day

2011-10-24T08:11:00.001-06:00

If you find yourself scratching your head and wondering why this post seems oddly familiar, it's because it is basically the same post I wrote last week, with a few minor updates.

Whoever said that bloggers should keep their content fresh and new obviously has more happening in their life than I do.

First up, the Dave's Killer bread update.

Y'all are the best carbohydrate induced coma enablers on the planet. You've offered to go to Costco and mail me some Dave's. You've offered to cross state lines so we can do a clandestine cash for Dave's deal at a secluded highway rest stop. In the case of my friend Valley Girl, you've given me two more types of Dave's (Peace Bomb and raisin) that I need to hunt down and subsequently add to my addiction.

You understand the pain of being hooked on something, and then having it snatched away with no warning.

As my son said, "Mom, you have found your people".

Why yes, son...yes I have.

I'm happy to tell you that I'm going on a little road trip tomorrow and that road trip will take me past at least five different Costcos, so I will be able to stock up on enough Dave's to get me through the winter. If, by chance, I run out before the spring thaw, I now have a list of awesome internet friends that I can count on for re-supply.

That same road trip will take me past at least as many Macy's, so I'm taking my Marthas with me. I'm still not totally sure what my game plan is though. If I can get a full value credit for my pots, I think I could trade them for a Le Creuset without laying out any cash. My plan B is to keep my aqua blue chipped up Martha, which resides full time on my stove top because it looks so cute there, and just use it for a cookie jar or breadbox or something. Then, I'd get the Costco enameled cast iron for actual cooking.

I know you'll be beside yourselves with anticipation, waiting for me to return from my road trip so you can see how this story ends.

You're on the edge of your seat.

I can tell.

As of last night, Once Upon A Time is on my television must watch list, right alongside Revenge.

I'm intrigued. I'm confused. I had to watch it twice, and actually pay attention the second time. I think I'm hooked.

To keep up with the "update you on every tiny detail of my last post" theme, I will tell you that my soldier made it back from his field trip with out mishap, and my back-up Harvest Yankee Candle has been burned down approximately three more inches.

Or maybe it's more like four.

I'll double check and let you know next time.

Have a wonderful Monday!

fall has fallen

2011-10-18T11:59:00.002-06:00

Has fall arrived at your house? It is definitely fall around here, that's for sure. Pretty colors, crisp temperatures and cozy fires burning. The furnace came out of hibernation just this very morning.

Speaking of burning, I've already burned through my very favorite Yankee candle (Harvest - it's the best!), and have had to dip into my emergency, back-up Harvest candle. I always stock up because I don't think I could live if they ever discontinue it. Now I'm running without a spare, and that makes me a bit nervous.

While we're on the subject of discontinued items, my Costco no longer carries Dave's Killer Good Seed bread. They carried it for a short time - long enough to get me hooked - and then Poof! Gone.

Other Costcos in the more civilized parts of the world still carry it though, and anyone who comes to stay at my house has to bring at least four loaves as their entry fee.

I need my Dave's Killer. Every day.

It makes the best toast. It makes the best grilled cheese. If you are a seedy, nutty, substantial slice of bread lover, give Dave a try.

The loaves come in a two pack at Costco, so feel free to keep one for yourself and send the other to me.

In other news, Blogger is eating my comments. Every time I hit preview, my comment disappears. If I skip preview (and we all know the typographical dangers that lurk when you skip preview) and go straight to publish, my comments still disappear.

Anyone else out there not feeling the Blogger love? I guess I'll find out if there are no comments on this post. At least I'll hope that's the reason if there are no comments on this post.

At this point, can I just continue changing subjects, but discontinue the "on a totally different subject" and "speaking of" nonsense?

I can? Good.

My favorite show of the new TV season is "Revenge". I started watching because it's set in The Hamptons, and I thought maybe I could get a few tips on how to fit in during my visit there last month. I was disappointed to see that no one on the show was wearing black Converse Chucks or a blue Gap hoodie, my official daily uniform. Regardless of my Hamptons dress code issues, I immediately got hooked on Revenge. It's not my normal kind of show, but now Wednesday is my very favorite television night. I can't wait to see who Emily wreaks her havoc on next.

I'm a little bit ashamed.

My middle son has asked me to send him some "non-American" looking civilian clothes as there is a possibility that he may or may not be going on a field trip of some sort, sometime in the near or not so near future and he and his companions need to be as inconspicuous as possible if they do indeed end up going wherever it is they may or may not be going.

Now that's my kind of planning.

Dear Junior Number Two,
I've got news for you. You are a pale white boy with a military buzz cut. I have a feeling that you're probably not going to blend in, no matter what you are wearing.
However, as requested, I have sent you two shirts. One is pale blue, in the hopes that in comparison to the pale blue, your skin will look a bit less white.
I have also sent you a brown shirt, thinking that perhaps the brown will help you to blend into your sandy surroundings and disappear from view altogether.
Have fun on your field trip.
Love,
Mom

Okay, last but not least, I need your input.

Apparently, Macy's has recalled my Martha Stewart enameled cast iron Le Creuset wanna be soup pots.

This is the wording on the recall.

"The enamel coating on the cast iron casseroles can crack or break during use. This can cause the enamel to crack and fly off as a projectile, posing a risk of laceration or burn hazard to the user or bystanders."

Now, I'm not so concerned for myself, but I'd truly hate for any of my bystanders to be lacerated by hot, flying porcelain projectiles. That's just the kind of girl I am. Always looking out for my bystander's best interest.

And now that I've made fun on the internet, I'm sure to get a porcelain projectile to the eye the very next time I use my pot.

So....I went the Martha route instead of the Le Creuset route simply because of the cost difference. Le Creuset is very expensive. Martha via Macy's was not. Back then, I had no clue just how madly in love I would fall with my enameled cast iron soup pot, and I don't think I can survive a winter without one.

So here's my question. Is Le Creuset worth the price? Has your Le Creuset ever chipped? My Martha chipped on it's first use, which was very disappointing. Even if I trade in all three of my Martha pots, I'll still have to fork over some dollars to get the 7.25 qt Le Creuset.

Do I take my flying projectile chances and ignore the government's mandate to "immediately stop using the casserole"? Or do I pony up the bucks in order to instantly become as cool as Giada and Ina and The Pioneer Woman?

Please tell me what to do.

If Blogger lets you leave a comment, that is.

i didn't see ina. or martha

2011-10-06T11:15:00.003-06:00

I had fabulous plans to play Where's Waldo with you all last week and make you guess where I went on my trip.

I was going to post pictures like this....

....and give a prize to the first person who could name the location of this lovely lighthouse.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

I think it sounds like lots of fun.

But like many of my great ideas, follow through was its downfall, and before I knew it, I was right back at home. It seems a little anti-climactic to make you guess where I was a week ago, when I am currently sitting in my cozy house in my sweatpants, drinking my coffee just like every other day of the year.

But this time last week, I was visiting my oldest son and his lovely wife and cruising around The Hamptons and pretending I knew how to say words like Quogue and Ponquogue and Cutchogue.

I was also repeatedly enjoying amazing pizza and bagels, and eating my body weight in cheesecake and ice cream. I was under direct orders from my sister to eat a Friendly's Reese's Peanut Butter Cup sundae, and between that and the coffee caramel ice cream shake that is my daughter-in-law's current favorite breakfast, let's just say I'm glad I brought my fat jeans and leave it at that.

I love that I can now picture my people in their habitat. I love that I know what their house looks like, and where they go for their morning coffee.

I don't love that I will forever be extra jealous when they tell me they're going out for New York style pizza pie while I'm eating my Papa Murphy's take and bake and crying just a little.

We finished out the visit with a trip to the city.

I got to ride the subway.

I got to ride in a taxi.

We visited Ground Zero and even though we couldn't really see much of anything, I'm glad I went.

We ate dinner in a cute little Italian restaurant with Laura Dern. She was behind a curtain that the waiters neglected to close all the way, but as a result of the experience, I feel the need to watch Jurassic Park again.

I went to Radio City Music Hall and saw Cirque Du Soliel's Zarkana.

I stepped in various and assorted questionable substances in the city streets and slept in a fancy city hotel.

I made three different trips through Penn Station, and if it weren't for the fact that my son was my knowledgeable escort all three times, I would absolutely, positively still be there wandering the dark caverns of the New York City underground, with absolutely no clue how to get where I was going.

I know my trip touched only the tiniest tip of the New York iceberg, but it was just the perfect sized bite for my first visit to The Big Apple.

Dear New York Son and Daughter-In-Law,
I miss you!
I'll be back, and that's a promise.
Love,
Ma

the immaculate misconception

2011-09-26T13:00:00.001-06:00

A conversation came to my attention the other day.

A conversation between two of my new and somewhat casual friends.

They were talking about how immaculate my house and garden are.

That was the word they used.

Immaculate.

(That noise you hear is the hysterical laughter of every single person who knows me in real life.)

They were wondering how I do it all.

In the end, one of the friends said, "I am such a failure!"

The person telling me about this conversation was very sweetly complimenting me and my house and my garden, and believe you me, I'll take compliments any day of the week.

But. The conversation made me sad. Sad that a friend could think they are even in the failure neighborhood because they can't live up to an illusion.

I am a lot of things, but immaculate is most definitely not one of them. My house never has been and never will be immaculate. Yes, I'll pick up the house when I know someone's stopping by, but drop in unexpectedly, and you're likely to see a different picture.

I am not ever going to win an award for housekeeper of the year. On any given day, you can write your name in the dust on my furniture, and my broom doesn't get used nearly as often as it should. We won't even talk about my bathrooms.

As far as the garden goes, it's full of weeds. Weeds that are ready to go to seed.

I am easily distracted. Right now? Right this very moment? I should be making cookies to send in a care package to my overseas soldier. Homeboy needs some cookies, but instead I'm writing a blog post and that means that I'll be in a huge rush later today to get the package to the post office in time.

I should be editing senior pictures that are due this evening. I should be packing for a trip I'm taking. But instead, I'm blogging.

I should also be doing laundry.

My hubby gets irritated with me on a fairly regular basis, (rightly so), because he has no socks or underwear in his drawers.

I am unorganized. I love to write lists, but more often than not, I lose the list.

I'm a procrastinator. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong. I've got plenty of strengths, too. I work very, very well under pressure. I can get so much done when I've got an important deadline on the horizon, it would make your head spin. I'm like a Tasmanian Devil on steroids when push comes to shove. When company is coming, I can get my A-game on with the best of them. A wedding in my back yard? Do. Not. Get. In. My. Way.

But in the day to day, more often than not, I am a hot mess of good intentions, craft project carnage, and empty underwear drawers.

Now, if you find yourself telling me in the comments not to be so hard on myself, you've totally missed the point of this post. I'm not dissing myself in any way, shape or form.

I just wanted to tell you that immaculate perfection isn't real.

But I'm pretty sure you already knew that anyway.

I don't do it all, and I sincerely hope I've never led you to believe that I do. Of course, I have creative control with my blog. I only show pretty pictures of pretty flowers and a neat house. I'm fairly sure you don't want to see pictures of my laundry pile, but rest assured, it exists and it's a big one.

No matter what anyone's life looks like from the outside, no matter how pretty, peaceful or dazzling the photos you see here or anywhere else, real life has always got at least a few bumps and blemishes.

The gauge of life's success or failure is in how you live it, not how it looks.

Happy Monday!

yippee!

2011-09-16T13:10:00.003-06:00

Well, what a great way to start the weekend.

Meadowbrook Farm won Country Living's Blue Ribbon Blogger Awards Reader's Choice in the gardening category!

A huge thank you to all of you who voted for me.

HUGE THANK YOU!

I heard from many of you throughout the voting process, and that in itself was such a treat.

You are truly the best readers a girl could ever hope for. Ever.

I know of readers who wrote whole blog posts encouraging their readers to vote for my blog.

I know of readers who facebooked.

I have readers who tweeted.

I even have readers who did all of the above! (Yes, I'm talking to you, Sally!)

You all are truly amazing, and I'm just tickled pink that you take the time out of your busy lives to pay my little corner of the internet a visit now and then.

You. Are. Awesome.

I hereby wish you all a weekend that is practically perfect in every way!

words

2011-09-09T08:33:00.004-06:00

POPSICLE:

Pink popsicle, to be exact. It was 37 degrees when I snapped this picture early Sunday morning. Gotta love Montana girls. This darling thing had sweats, wool socks and fuzzy boots on under her dress, and that bought us enough time to get some gorgeous shots in the gorgeous morning light. What a trooper.

This young lady is the first of quite a few senior girls I'll be photographing this fall. How fun will that be?!

JINX:

Remember when I said we had been enjoying a lovely, wildfire and smoke free summer?

It would seem I spoke too soon.

Just days after writing those words, the fires started and the smoke arrived. We now have a 2800 acre fire just ten miles away, and many other fires scattered around our little valley.

It reminds me of the time I said, "I haven't had the stomach flu in I can't even remember how long", and within days I was on the couch for two weeks straight, or the time I said, "I haven't had a speeding ticket in ten years" and the next thing I knew, I was pulled over twice in 48 hours.

For the record, I don't even remotely believe in things like jinx.

Except maybe a little bit.

PINNED:

According to Pinterest, quite a few people were interested in my petunia filled washing machine, so I thought I'd snap a few more shots.

Trust me, there's a washtub in there.

Fertilizer is the key to getting your petunias to do their best. There was about a three week period around the wedding when I did not fertilize anything and my petunias almost totally quit blooming. Once I started feeding them again, they graciously forgave me and started showing off once again.

DEAD:

Something in my refrigerator, and I can't figure out what it is. I have personally smelled every single item that resides in there, but so far there is no obvious culprit.

Between the fridge and the smoke, this place stinks.

FOUR:

The number of my kids....including my brand spanking new daughter-in-law....who are currently under contract with various branches of the United States Armed Forces. Junior number three just signed on the dotted line last week, and leaves for basic right after he graduates from high school next June. My oldest is almost done with his four years in the Coast Guard, my aforementioned daughter-in-law is also a Coastie, and my middle son is currently off sunbathing in the desert with the National Guard.

It's just for a short little window of time that things are this way, but for me, it's kind of a big deal, kind of nerve wracking, and kind of hard to wrap my brain around. My daughter-in-law was out in the middle of Hurricane Irene doing her Coastie thing just weeks after she joined our family. She's one more to love, and one more to worry about, too. My youngest is five and seven years younger than his big brothers, and while they were out blazing their trails, it just kind of felt like he was our back-up kid. The one who would always be around. And now, lickity split, he's almost ready to leave the nest and head into the big unknown. What will the world be like during his years of service?

Now is probably a good time to pull a Scarlett and just plan to think about that tomorrow.

Or the next day.

REMEMBERING:

Ten years ago. A Tuesday morning. My kids had just hopped on the bus and I came in the house and turned on the news. We had contractors working on our house and invited them in to watch the horror unfold on the tv screen.

I'll watch the specials. I always watch the specials. I'll cry a little. I'll listen to the stories, and feel yet another surge of pride in my fellow countrymen. Normal, average Americans just going about their mornings. Some not knowing it would be their last morning ever, and some not knowing they would be unimaginable heroes before the day was over.

REMEMBER.

garden love

2011-09-03T00:30:00.002-06:00

I have a picket fence garden.

I love my picket fence garden. It's quaint. It's cute. It screams cottage, and I love pretty much anything that screams cottage.

It also happens to be home to my Princess Diana clematis entwined birdhouse, and I love my Princess Diana clematis entwined birdhouse more than a person should love anything that's made out of a chunk of wood.

I also have a greenhouse garden.

I love my greenhouse garden. It's my newest garden, and this year it really came into its own.

Right next to my greenhouse garden you can see part of my vegetable garden. I actually don't love my vegetable garden at the moment because a good portion of the plants are smack in the middle of a strike. Apparently they are protesting a hostile work environment, ( a massive grass invasion and fertilizer neglect), and while we've attempted several sit down negotiations, so far neither of us is willing to budge and do what is required of us to get our relationship back on the road to productivity.

And by neither of us, I mean me.

But enough about my sad squash and pumpkins. I really want to talk to you about my very favorite garden of all.

The raised bed herb garden.

I love my raised bed herb garden beyond all reason.

Raised bed gardens are easy to take care of. They are easy to irrigate. They are also extremely easy to weed, not that I have any recent, first hand experience on that front. Things have gone a bit downhill since the wedding a month ago.

Very far down a very big hill.

It all still looks pretty good from a distance....but up close it would definitely not pass the garden club smell test.

The herb garden has a few herbs....rosemary, parsley, several mints, thyme, dill and sage, as well as some onions and jalapenos, but the vast majority of the plants are annuals, and the vast majority of the annuals are zinnias.

Did I ever tell you the final zinnia count? Out of the eleven hundred and ten zinnia seeds I planted, eight hundred and sixty eight made it into the garden.

Yes, I counted.

Several times.

Not all of them germinated in the greenhouse, and then quite a few more just shriveled up and died for no apparent reason before they made it in the ground, which actually didn't hurt my feelings even a little bit because it was all I could do to find eight hundred and sixty eight spots to plant my zinnias let alone eleven hundred and ten.

Oh, and then there are a few of these poor little fellas out there, too.

I still count them among the living, but I'm beginning to think a mercy killing just might be in order.

Our low tonight is supposed to be thirty five, so I'm all of a sudden feeling a bit sentimental about my zinnias and all their garden friends. It won't be long before I wake up one morning to find they've gone to the great zinnia farm in the sky and that will just be sad.

Most of the perennials I've planted in the raised beds have not been able to survive our harsh winters above ground, but a few have not only survived...they've gone completely over the edge of sanity.

The Monarda. Is. Out. Of. Control.

I originally planted four different colors, but the only survivors were the fuchsia/magenta-ish fellas you see here. Over the years, they've gone from a four inch pot to reach out and grab you size, and every year they expand by leaps and bounds. They truly need to be dealt with sometime soon, as they have blocked off all the paths that surround them, but I have a hard time messing with a plant that has that much vim and vigor.

You can see them off to the right in the photo below. They now take up almost all of their 4x8 foot beds.

All this to say, raised gardens are the cat's meow, and if you have ever tossed around the idea of a raised garden bed or two, or ten, I say take the plunge. You won't be sorry.

So, speaking of gardens, Country Living just announced the finalists in its Blue Ribbon Blogger Awards, and it just so happens that a blog y'all might be familiar with is a finalist in the garden category. Rumor has it that the author of this particular blog is pretty darn excited and honored and humbled at this turn of events, and has been seen walking around in a bit of a daze since this information came into her possession. Country Living just happens to be the one and only magazine she subscribes to, and she currently has the most recent three issues sitting on her coffee table. There's also a slight possibility that during the short period of time that she let her subscription lapse several years ago, she may or may not have ~~stolen~~ borrowed two issues from the waiting area of her local Department of Motor Vehicles.

A panel of judges will be picking the winner in each category, but in the meantime, Country Living is holding a Reader's Choice contest on their website. The Reader's Choice voting is already underway, and will continue until September 15th. Readers can vote once a day.

The problem is, the author of the aforementioned blog is a bit uncomfortable asking her readers to pay a visit to the Country Living page to vote for her blog. She's not totally sure just exactly what her problem is, but for whatever reason, it is just a bit awkward for her. After talking it over with her BFF, who very sweetly (or not) said, "Oh, get over yourself. This is cool!", she decided to post the link to the voting page in case any of her readers feel like popping on over and placing a vote.

She has also decided to refer to herself in the third person for this portion of her blog post, because she feels that it somehow eases the awkwardness she is feeling just a teensy little bit, but she hopes that by doing so, she does not cause any form of confusion for her readers. She herself is very easily confused, so she is always a bit sensitive to others who occasionally find themselves in that same boat.

In addition, she has visited the voting page several times during the writing of this post, just to make sure that her blog is indeed one of the finalists. She is a bit worried that she might discover that she dreamed the finalist part and that would take the awkward thing to a whole new level once she hit the publish button on her blogger dashboard.

She would also like to thank the readers who nominated her blog for the Blue Ribbon Awards. She knows of two readers who did so, and thinks that it's just about the nicest thing ever.

Have a truly delightful Labor Day weekend!

stella

2011-08-29T12:31:00.002-06:00

Remember this girl?

When I took those pictures last October, Stella had just started her senior year. Now she's just starting college, so we got together a couple weeks ago to snap a few fun shots before she left.

We chatted about clothes and hair and then Stella mentioned that she found a dress that reminded her of my love for all things vintage and offered to bring it along.

Not only did she bring the dress, she brought hats and pearls and gloves and shoes. Jackpot!

The only thing we were missing was a proper vintage backdrop and since I'm assuming the Mad Men set is somewhere in California, my dock had to do.

I think she looks like she stepped right out of the past.

Processing was extremely fun and I still don't know what I like best, so I'm glad no one's making me pick.

Hey, maybe I'll just make you pick. Which one stands out as your favorite? Fresh and bright? Grainy and muted?

Share with the class and then go on and have yourself a fabulous Monday, retro style.

outside my window

2011-08-22T09:12:00.004-06:00

A couple months ago, Amber did a 'finish the sentence' post on her blog, and I've been waiting for the perfect day to borrow the the idea.

Today just happens to be the perfect day.

Outside my window.....One of my very favorite summertime sounds is the clickity swish of our front wheel line. It spends the summer making a journey, (with my husband's help), back and forth across the front field, and on this particular day, it is as close to our house as it can get.

(I didn't like the reflection on the window in the first shot, so I went outside and took another shot, but by the time I got around to it, the sun had disappeared. Since beggars can't be choosers, I'm just going to pretend this shot is also taken through the window and has beautiful golden light. Please feel free to pretend right along with me.)

(Okay, since the light was gone last night, I felt the need to take just one more shot in today's early morning light. I think I'm a bit obsessed with my wheel line and am feeling a desperate need to accurately convey it in all its rolling water pipe beauty.)

I'm a white noise girl, and always have a fan on at night. But when the wheel line is this close, the fan stays off and I fall asleep to what I consider to be the Sound of Summer. With the fan off the last couple nights, I've discovered we have an owl in one of our trees. His "whoo whoo-who" was kinda cute until about midnight on the first night. After that....not so cute.

He whoots all. night. long.

I am thinking....I'm thinking that I wish summer could last forever. It has been beyond gorgeous here. Sunny, warm days, and cool nights. Our Augusts can be really smoky from forest fires, but so far, we've dodged that bullet and every day has been absolutely beautiful.

From the kitchen.....Oh dear. I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it may let you all know just what a slacker I've been on the cooking front...all summer long. My hubby has been grilling quite a bit, and if it weren't for that and the Costco frozen buffalo wings my youngest is currently obsessed with, we'd have all wasted away to nothing. Good thing we have ice cream to keep some meat on our bones.

The last couple days I've actually had a hankering for chili. Can you make chili in the summertime? Is it allowed? I need to know.

I am wearing.....Shorts and a tank top.

Every day.

Shorts and a tank top.

Shorts.

And.

A.

Tank.

Top.

Pretty exciting, eh?

No?

Oh, and flip flops if by chance the day calls for some sort of footwear.

I am reading.....Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman. My sister gave it to me right after the wedding, and it's been the perfect summer read. It kind of reminds me of The Secret Life of Bees and it's been extra fun for me to read because it is set in Savannah, where my sister, my nieces and I visited last spring.

Good book.

I am hoping....That summer lasts forever.

I love summer.

I know I already used this one, but it bears repeating.

I am hearing....the aforementioned clickity swish of the wheel line, kamikaze bugs flying against my window, and the well kicking on and off with what was an alarming frequency until I realized I left a sprinkler on full blast all night long.

Some of my favorite things.....Fireworks. Did I tell you we had fireworks at the wedding? Actually, after the rehearsal dinner. It was awesome and I sat through the whole show with a big, goofy grin on my face.

Fireflies. I've only ever seen one firefly in my whole life and it was here in Montana of all places. My hubby found it and put it in a jar and brought it to me while I was in bed sleeping. It was just about the coolest thing ever and well worth waking up for.

Ice cream. Every night. Tillamook Peanut Butter and Chocolate, vanilla with a broken up Reese's mixed in, and Dreyer's Chocolate Fudge Brownie with coconut and slivered almonds added are a few of my favorites.
I love ice cream!

My Princess Diana clematis.

She just keeps on growing and blooming. I love her. I'm so glad I planted her by my birdhouse...they're a match made in gardening heaven.

A few plans for the rest of the week.....Clean my house - whoo-hoo! Go to Costco and stock up on all the things I didn't know I needed until the Costco coupon book convinced me otherwise. Fold and put away the laundry that's been sitting on my couch for the last five days. Not cook dinner.

Don't hate. It's not as glamorous as it sounds.

Have a wonderful Monday!

the irish dress

2011-08-18T10:32:00.002-06:00

This lovely young lady was one of our wedding guests.

One of our invited guests.

Not one of our wedding crashers.

Did I mention that we had wedding crashers?

So weird.

Anyway, as we sat chatting over dinner at the reception, the conversation naturally turned to the adorable dress that little miss was wearing. Turns out, girlfriend was fresh off a plane from Ireland, and the dress was one of her souvenirs from the trip.

A week or so after the wedding, a vision popped into my head.

Visions pop into my head on a fairly regular basis.

No, not those kinds of visions, silly! Photographic visions. I see a picture in my head and I have to make it happen in real life.

This vision included the aforementioned lovely young lady, the Irish dress, my purple coneflowers and some gorgeous, hazy summer evening light.

The girl was game. I love teenage girls. I have yet to have one turn me down when I call them up and ask if they want to model for me.

It took a little convincing, but I finally got the dress, the flowers and the summer light on board too.

Fun, FUn, FUN!

Now that this vision is out of the way, there's plenty of room in my head for more and I can feel them brewing as we speak.

I see....a forest. Wait, no.....a deserted country road. Or, maybe it's a mountain lake?

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

In other news, I saw The Help yesterday and loved every minute of it.

I almost had a date, but at the last minute my hubby took a raincheck. It may have had something to do with the fact that I told him that the movie is about a girl who writes a book and contains no action, no gunfights, no aliens and no Clint Eastwood.

I also told him he can't talk, rattle the ice in his drink cup, or crunch his popcorn, and if he by chance falls asleep, he can't snore.

He asked if he could breathe, and I told him I'd get back to him on that one.

Don't I sound like a fun date? In my defense, I was totally geared up for my first ever solo movie experience, and after rattling off my list of date requirements, that's exactly what I got.

The theater was filled with ladies - lots of groups, a few other solos like myself, and one single solitary fella.

I admit to spending the ten minutes before the movie started in a text conversation with the very girl pictured in these photos, and therefore avoided any feelings of awkwardness whilst the lights were still on, but all in all, it was a fine experience and one I'll have no problem repeating again.

And if you haven't seen The Help, get yourself to the nearest theater ASAP.

It's a good thing.

Happy Thursday!

let's make this short and sweet

2011-08-16T13:24:00.002-06:00

I cannot for the life of me seem to be able to come up with anything even remotely interesting to talk about today, so I'm going to just pop off the first couple things that cross my mind whilst you gaze at these lovely little red cherries.

First off, I need to let you know that I am officially out of my post wedding funk. I am happy to report that my life is no longer a birdhouse of hopelessness. In fact, it has very quickly turned into a birdhouse of lazy summer afternoons and gluttonous quantities of ice cream consumption.

But, it's true. I am completely over missing my family and my friends.

Completely.

I honestly don't even know why I missed them so much in the first place. Truth be told, I don't really even like them all that much anyway, and it's really hard to miss people you don't even like.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

For today anyway.

(Please feel free to email me if you're ever in need of a totally dysfunctional coping mechanism or two. I've got quite the collection going.)

Second, I'm going to go see The Help tomorrow.

By myself.

Have you ever gone to a movie by yourself?

This will be my first time.

I will be wearing my "I am not a loser, I could have come to this movie with any one of my zillion friends if I'd wanted to" t-shirt.

I'm already having flashbacks to the one and only time I ate alone in a restaurant. It was at least 25 years ago, and I still haven't totally recovered from the experience.

Thirdly, the main thing that has helped me come out of my post wedding tunnel of darkness is my camera. I've had that puppy working overtime, so get ready for the photo deluge. It's coming soon.

You've been warned.

Fourth.

Fourth....

Hmmmm.

See, I told you it was slim pickins today in the old noggin, so I think I'm just going to set you free to enjoy the rest of this lovely summer day.

TTFN!

(Photos processed with Florabella's Cosmopolitan action.)

the crash...a poem

2011-08-08T14:25:00.002-06:00

My life is but a barren wasteland of colored flower petals and grasshoppers,

Grasshoppers who hop away before I can take a picture.

Solitary zinnias reaching skyward,

Empty day after empty day.

My life has no purpose.

No direction.

My life is a birdhouse of hopelessness,

Flowers twining,

Choking.

My life is a sea of flower arranging skills that I do not possess,

Possesionless skills,

That I do not possess.

My garden cries out, "Hey lady, you can't get us hooked on Miracle Grow and then expect us to go cold turkey just because that whole wedding thing is over."

But I turn away,

Deaf to their cries.

Lonely onions sit in clay pots of solitude.

Why?

Why!!

Who in their right mind plants a single onion in a clay pot?

Meanwhile, their siblings shout out from their raised garden bed prison,

"You promised to thin us when you planted us too closely together way back in April!"

Promises broken,

Broken.

I ignore their voices,

Numb to their pain.

The screech of magpies fills the air,

Magpies, magpies, everywhere.

But still, I refuse to put a picture of a hateful magpie on my blog,

So they screech...and mock,

Hateful, catfood eating vipers of despair.

They haunt me.

White cosmos hug my birdbath

The birdbath in which no bird will bathe,

Birdless bath of emptiness.

Big Mable floats on the pond....a big, orange platform of loneliness.

She has no purpose,

No direction.

Her Adirondack chair moving glory days are over,

Floating,

Floating,

Aimless drifting.

The zipline of death sits silent,

A lonely cable, stretching to nowhere.

Zipping soldiers, gone back to the desert.

Zipping husbands, gone back to work.

Zipping grooms, no longer upside down.

No one died on the zipline of death.

Alas, even yours truly lived to tell the tale.

The tale of a groom who wouldn't let his mother back down the tree when she had second thoughts and saw her life flash before her eyes,

The very mother who gave birth to all nine pounds of him and lovingly protected him from all danger,

Yes, that is the mother that he would not let back down the tree.

The tale of a husband who promised to love and to cherish and to catch me when I got to the other end.

Thank you for catching me, dear husband.

No, I did not die on that fateful day,

Dare I say, it was actually kind of fun.

Big, huge sigh of relief for all who lived through the zipline of death.

The Bride zips,

Zips in her wedding dress,

Twice, no less.

Tiny droplets of water bead up on her pretty white train,

Droplets that say, "This girl is awesome!"

Talking droplets.

But droplets are not enough,

We must find a fountain.

These droplets do not bead up on her dress of loveliness,

But we hang it up on the back porch and it is good as new in the morning.

Zipping, dripping, fountain dwelling bride of beauty.

Rings.

Rings on fingers,

Rings on fingers that are driving Eastward.

Away,

Away,

Far, far away.

Come back, ringed fingers!

Come back, desert soldier!

Come back, friends and family!

I miss you!

The end.

the big day

2011-08-03T08:10:00.002-06:00

The knot is tied.

The deal is sealed.

The relationship status on two Facebook accounts has been changed.

It was beyond perfect.

While I happily played the part of mother of the groom for most of the festivities, I did manage to get my camera out here and there to capture a few moments of the big day.

The goat cart wedding altar....

The happy couple....

A beautiful wedding party....

The handsomest groom on the planet.....

All my fellas.....

The gorgeous, gorgeous bride and pretty blue flowers......

It was the wedding they dreamed about.

The weather was perfect, the food was amazing, and we even had our very own wedding crashers. Every wedding needs some crashers, right?

We met wonderful new friends and family, and every last one of them is a keeper.

Good, good people.

It was a whirlwind, and I'm pretty sure there were a good three days where I didn't speak a coherent sentence, but we all had the time of our lives.

The bride and groom say it was all they hoped for, and what can be better than that?

Nothing could possibly be better than that.

(A good percentage of these photos were hijacked over the shoulder of the wonderful wedding photographer. She was kind enough to say she didn't mind and I tried not to be too obnoxious. Her work is beautiful and we all can't wait to see how she captured the day.)

the final countdown

2011-07-26T09:43:00.004-06:00

Four more days!

the week in words

2011-07-21T10:40:00.002-06:00

Within the last week....

My hubby flew to New York, hung out with the groom and bride-to-be, had a ton of fun without me, ate dinner in Times Square, went for a ride in a Coast Guard boat, enjoyed authentic New York pizza pie, saw an amazing fireworks show, went water skiing, blah, blah, blah.

Did I mention he did all this without me?

Doesn't that seem so very, very wrong?

But, there was a catch.

After all that fun, my hubby and the groom hopped in a truck and pulled a big, heavy trailer from New York to western Montana in two in a half days.

As in, they left New York on Sunday morning, and were at my house on Tuesday afternoon.

If you are at all familiar with the geography of The United States of America, you know that this is no small feat.

It's plum craziness.

Did I mention that I am so very, very happy that they did that part without me?

The very same time they were blazing a trail across the country, my middle son was making his way across the world, and I got to pick up my very tired and very hungry soldier at the airport on Monday night. We went straight to the closest restaurant where he ordered more food than either you or I could even think about eating and made it disappear in record time. I'm always impressed by just how much food my boys can put away.

Impressed and sometimes a little appalled.

As Junior was plowing his way through plate number three, the manager of the restaurant came over to say that an anonymous diner had already paid for our dinner and dessert if we wanted it.

(We all of a sudden wanted dessert.)

While there is certainly a downside to wearing the same Army uniform for three days as you take five different flights to get home from the desert for your two weeks of leave, the upside is that there are wonderful people who buy your dinner, and other wonderful people who come up to you and thank you for your service while your mama stands beside you obnoxiously beaming with pride.

(The obnoxiously beaming mother probably belongs in the downside part of that scenario.)

The diner was already gone, so we couldn't even say thank you. My son really wanted to say thank-you.

He also wants to thank all of you for your support and your prayers. It really means a lot to him.

And me.

Okay, enough of that mushy stuff.

The last few days have been filled with Pinochle games, ultimate frisbee, (two frisbees already went into the pond), and the construction of a zip line.

Yes, you heard me.

A zip line.

A zip line across the pond.

Because no reunion of the Meadowbrook Farmboys is complete without a trip to the emergency room.

Speaking of the Farmboys....

Yes, Junior Number Three cut off his curls. I'm still so mad about it I could spit, but he somehow seems to think he should have some form of say over his hair. And his clothes. And his life.

Kids these days.

The Bride flies in on Saturday and we all can't wait to see her.

Dear Bride-To-Be,
Please hurry!
I am over run by testosterone once again.
I need you!
Love,
Meadowbrook Mama

the week in pictures

2011-07-12T06:26:00.002-06:00

yesterday, today and tomorrow

2011-06-30T07:10:00.001-06:00

A raging thunder storm drove me into the house today, so instead of doing laundry, I decided to blog. But then I fell asleep while my photos were uploading so I'm going to bet I don't get this post done until tomorrow when it will no longer be Thunder Storm Day.

It bothers me to say "today" in a post when it's really tomorrow by the time I get around to publishing. At the moment it's still today, but by the time you read this it will be tomorrow, and the Thunder Storm Day will be yesterday.

Capiche?

It's been just like the movie Groundhog Day around here for the last couple weeks.

With a few exceptions, every day is the same.

I truly don't know how to make endless days of gardening sound even a little bit interesting, so I won't even try.

Dirt, flowers, water, fertilizer, sunscreen, filthy overalls.

Living the gardening dream.

I'm getting close though...hopefully I'll be all done by the end of the week.

It hasn't been all gardening fun and games though. I managed to sneak in a couple more photo shoots for the clothing boutique in town.

This first shoot was on a gorgeous, gorgeous evening, and we were just killing time on the dock waiting for the sun to mellow out a bit.

The lighting was harsh, but I still love how they turned out. (The above photos are processed with Florabella's Retro Lollipop action.)

For the store, we needed to pick photos that really show off the clothes and accessories, so the following three shots are the ones that made it into the boutique.

Katy was the easiest model ever.

Every single shot was a keeper.

It was hard to choose, but I love the combination we ended up with.

This was so much fun....I could do it all day.

All day, every day.

But then, who would do my gardening?

And put off going to the post office to return my six extra dresses?

Most importantly, who would not cook dinner for my family?

Happy Day After Thunderstorm Day!

time is ticking away

2011-06-14T08:58:00.002-06:00

We have now officially gone from having months until the wedding, to having weeks.

Just over six weeks, to be exact.

It's not quite time to panic, but it is time to start getting organized, start making lists, and start making a plan.

It's also time to revert back to the bullet point blog post format.

~ I ordered seven different dresses for the wedding, and thank goodness, one of them is going to work.

Big, huge check off my list.

However, Part B of this bit of good news gets a bit tricky. I now have to return the six dresses that didn't pass the test. I hate, hate, hate returning things by mail, mainly because it's somewhat complicated what with the paperwork, plastic bag re-packaging, did I save the box it came in, printing the return label, and am I out of packing tape again?! And then, of course, there's the whole Post Office experience.

Not a big fan of the Post Office experience.

This is why the items I need to return by mail usually end up sitting on the floor of my closet way past the ninety day return period, when I finally ship them back and just keep my fingers crossed that the company will accept them.

Procrastination....it's a beautiful thing.

~ The greenhouse is about halfway cleaned out. Some things are actually planted, but most are sitting in flats in about six different locations around my house.

They are just sitting there.

Mocking me.

~ The greenhouse is green. As in, the walls and windows are covered in green slime/algae/funk. I am soooo looking forward to getting my scrub brush and bucket of bleach and making it all pretty and white again.

Not.

~ Dinner is currently sneaking up on me almost every single day. Seriously, it doesn't even cross my mind on most days until about four thirty. Or when my hubby or son walk in the door after a hard day of work and ask me what's for dinner.

"Dinner?"

I've got the blank look down pat.

~ I need to do one of those meal plans where you spend a whole day cooking and then have meals for a month in the freezer. So far, I've bought the Costco size package of ground beef, but then I hit a dead end.

Apparently, I'm struggling with the "plan" part of meal plan.

~ My zinnias have aphids.

Do you know how long it takes to de-aphid 1110 zinnias?

~ Our weatherman is a big, fat liar. Today is supposed to be sunny and seventy. In actuality, today is windy, gray and rainy.

Dear Al Gore,
I want global warming back.
Sincerely yours,
Teresa

~ I am absolutely, positively making a batch of this delightful nectar ASAP.

~ Then I'm making this.

~ Then, I'm ordering a bigger dress for the wedding.

sources

2011-06-07T10:55:00.002-06:00

Sources.

Sourcing.

Such professional sounding, back pages of the magazine terms.

A few of you have asked where I found the vintage sodas and striped straws that were used in the photos for this post.

I found the sodas at Cracker Barrel.

But, at the moment, I'm mad at Cracker Barrel.

I could tell you the whole, long story of why I'm mad at Cracker Barrel, but I'm pretty sure I'd just end up sounding a bit petty, a little bitter, and somewhat vindictive and since this is the internet and things you write here last forever, I'm going to make a sincere effort to avoid petty, bitter and vindictive.

I will tell you that if you go to Cracker Barrel to buy vintage sodas, you might want to avoid the All American Vintage Soda variety pack. The sodas inside that particular (boxed and sealed) variety pack have very cheap, peely paper labels and the bottle caps say "vintage soda" instead of the name of the actual soda. However, right next to the All American Vintage Soda variety pack, they have The. Exact. Same. Sodas. in handled, open, (you can see the bottles), cardboard four packs, and those particular sodas have non-paper, non-peely decal labels, (and can therefore be placed in a tub of ice), and their bottle caps actually say "Bubble Up", or "Cheerwine", etc.

I will also tell you that if you were to naively decide to go back to Cracker Barrel and foolishly try to exchange the still securely capped and boxed, peely labeled, lame-o capped, All American Vintage Soda variety pack for the very slightly higher priced, decal labeled, non-lame-o capped, four pack bottles so that you would be able to sink your vintage sodas in a tub of ice, you would be disappointed in the results of your efforts.

Aren't you all glad I'm avoiding petty and bitter?

Cracker Barrel said that they weren't able to exchange my still securely capped, still boxed, (packing tape off though, so that they could see that the bottles are still securely capped...that I didn't replace the soda with colored water), peely labeled, lame-o capped, vintage sodas because they're a food item, and they can't take returns on food items.

The FDA won't let them.

Now, perhaps the FDA wouldn't let them re-sell them, but I'm pretty sure the FDA doesn't dictate Cracker Barrel's return policy. Especially their return policy in regards to having a display that might possibly, in some circumstances, lead a somewhat naive customer to believe that the sodas contained in the All American Vintage Soda variety pack would be the same as the exact same sodas in the open four packs sitting right next to the sealed variety pack box.

Whew. I'm so glad I decided to take the high road on this one.

:)

The most painful part was going ahead and buying the decal labeled sodas, (which I wanted even more now), whilst still in my snit. And then hauling the big, heavy, non-returnable twelve packs back to my car. They offered to help, but I declined because I'm very mature like that.

Moving on.

Stewarts also has a great variety of old fashioned sodas and I've found them at my local grocery store.

Also, Wal-Mart has cute bottles of orange, grape and strawberry Crush.

Now for the straws.

Etsy has zillions of them, and I bought mine from HeyYoYo. They have every color imaginable. The shipping was instant. I think they were here in three days. Very, very fun.

There you have it! Your very own, back of the magazine source-athon. With the added bonus of a rant.

You won't get that in Country Living!

And now I'm off to pick at the edges of my paper soda bottle labels.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

blue skies

2011-06-04T06:39:00.002-06:00

"Blue skies,
Smiling at me,
Nothing but blue skies,
Do I see."

We are going to have a glorious weekend.

Finally!

Sunshine and warm temps. 76 today and 82 (gasp) tomorrow.

One thing I can promise - you will never, ever hear me complain about the heat.

Ever.

I'm getting ready to put on my dirty overalls and go play in the dirt.

Have a wonderful weekend!

blossom time

2011-06-02T09:00:00.001-06:00

The crabapples are in full bloom here in our little Montana valley, and boy are they gorgeous. As in, I almost drove off the road several times yesterday when one would catch my eye. That kind of gorgeous. All shades of pink and gorgeous whites.

Last spring, we planted two weeping crabapples in front of the greenhouse, and this year they are putting on an amazing show.

Time to break out my Florabella actions and textures and have some fun.

A little texture......

I'm still not sold on my texturing skills, but they are so fun to play with.

I love the pink blossom/whitish blush bloom combination.

A little pink sky....

Who doesn't love a pink sky?

My youngest brought home his art portfolio yesterday and we had a discussion about how to add the surreal factor to your artwork.

This is my contribution to the world of surreal art. A pink sky.

Speaking of pink.....

Water droplets anyone?

I love them all, but I think the first shot is my very favorite.

Here it is again, so you don't have to scroll all the way to the top. I always try to help a sister out any way I can.

Do crabapples do well where you live? Or are dogwoods your spring showstopper? Perhaps the beautiful redbud?

Name your favorite spring tree!

(Disclaimer....I realize for some of you that spring is long gone, and you are currently blazing your way through summer, but for today, pretend you're a northern girl and your blossoms are still doing their springy thing!)

it's a jungle in there

2011-05-27T11:45:00.003-06:00

The greenhouse. By request.

The greenhouse is bursting at the seams.

Bursting, I say.

You have to see it to believe it, so let's take a stroll around.

I know you're all wondering how the zinnias are doing. They are doing well, thank you very much. A few of them even have flower buds on them, but I'm pinching them all back so they'll bush out a bit. It's painful to pinch off a zinnia bud before it's bloomed. It's an ugly job, but somebody's got to do it. They'll be heading out to the garden shortly, and if we actually get some weather that even remotely resembles summer, they should really start to take off.

Next on the tour...geraniums.

This is the third year we've overwintered our geraniums. After the first year, I got smart and instead of planting each geranium in its summertime oak barrel home, I simply left the geranium in its pot and sunk it, pot and all, right into the dirt. That way when the first cold snap is upon us, I just pop the pot out of the barrel and whisk it away to the safety of the greenhouse. Much easier than having to dig up and then re-pot the plants before they are moved inside.

We ran out of room in the greenhouse approximately thirty seconds after it was built, so the geraniums spent the winter on a makeshift table. The size of the makeshift table required to hold all the geraniums means things are pretty cramped in the greenhouse.

Side note:
It would seem that a person's intake of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, Oreos and Snickers has a direct effect on the ease with which a person is able to navigate their way around the cramped greenhouse these days.

Just sayin.

We overwintered quite a few of our petunias last year, so we were able to take cuttings this spring. Cuttings are so fun. You take a tiny stem, dip it in rooting hormone, place it in the dirt and before you know it, you've got a whole new plant.

Once they're well rooted, we transfer them to four inch pots and then they really take off.
When I say take off, I really mean that they pretty much turn into a wild and crazy tangled petunia mess. Petunias need a lot of room, and as previously mentioned, space is a bit lacking this time of year.

Eventually, we place the petunias in two gallon pots and sink those right into the ground, just like we do with the geraniums. Knowing we'd be taking fresh cuttings, we didn't need to overwinter all the petunias, just enough to get cuttings from each color. Since they're in such big pots, my hubby built a shelf so they wouldn't ramble all over our other plants once they kick into high growing gear.

(Please ignore the ugly yellow sticky bug catcher.)

In the background of this next shot, you can see our tomatoes in their cedar baskets. This is the second year we've planted them upside down and it seems to work very well. The tomatoes are the only thing that will stay in the greenhouse all summer. We'll keep all the windows open and they are on an automatic watering system, so other than a weekly fertilizing, they are pretty much care free.

Deliciously carefree. And delicious.

June first is the earliest we're comfortable moving things outside, so come next Wednesday, we'll be in a planting and moving frenzy.

Then it's Mother Nature's turn to take over.

Dear Mother Nature,
Please, please, please send Summer to Montana this year. She gave us the cold shoulder last year, so I'm thinking maybe we've somehow offended her?
Whatever we did, we're sorry. Very sorry. Very, very, very sorry. If there's anyway you can put in a good word for us and talk her into an extended stay, I'll be forever grateful.
Forever.
Sunshiny Love,
Teresa

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

hold on to sixteen

2011-05-23T09:42:00.006-06:00

Hold on to sixteen, as long as you can.

(I was sixteen when that song came out.)

(Please don't do the math.)

(Pretty please.)

My baby.

In a few weeks, he'll be a senior.

In a few weeks, he'll be seventeen.

Say it ain't so.

I have found the key to getting my boys to pose for pictures.

Can you guess?

A cute girl. And seriously, could this girl possibly be any cuter?

When a fella gets double-teamed by the cute girl and the mom with the camera, he stands no chance.

It worked with his big bro, and it worked again yesterday.

Adding a vintage soda to the mix doesn't hurt either.

Junior loves the vintage sodas.

Life is good.

Summer's coming.

School's almost out.

They have plans for picnics and swimming and ice cream.

(He has plans to make her play Nazi Zombies on the X-box, but I think for each game she plays, we should get a photo session in exchange.)

Hold on to this time, kids.

Real, grown up life is right around the corner.

It will come soon enough.

Just. Hold. On.

numbers

2011-05-19T09:15:00.002-06:00

I am currently in love with the list format for blog posts. It's much easier (for me) than trying to form coherent sentences that somehow then magically turn into paragraphs, which then transition into a cohesive and succinct post that ultimately leaves the reader both informed and at least somewhat entertained.

See? I'm already exhausted.

So, since we did bullet points last time, let's go with a numbered list this time.

Sound good?

1. I went on a road trip last week.

2. My brake line broke in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho.

3. My brake line broke while I was sitting at a stop light.

4. Mere minutes before my brake line broke, I was hurtling off the freeway at seventy miles per hour.

5. Okay, probably about seventy eight miles per hour, if we're being honest.

6. It would have been very, very, very bad if my brake line broke while I was exiting the freeway.

7. Very bad.

8. Thank. You. Lord.

10. My road trip was more than 500 miles each way.

11. I used to be able to do this trip without batting an eye, but these days, Ye Olde Bod starts screaming in protest somewhere around mile 350.

12. It takes several hours to de-pretzel myself after I arrive at my destination.

13. I'm getting old and it makes me sad.

14. My camera lens is back.

15. The diagnosis was that the auto focus assembly had suffered traumatic shock damage due to impact. The remedy was replacement of the auto focus cam barrel assembly.

Say what?

16. I also sent my 24-70 in for calibration because the focus has really never been that great.

17. I have taken approximately fifty photos of my son's eyelashes to test the focus. Eyelashes are a great way to test your focus.

18. My son does not enjoy having me take numerous photos of his eyelashes.

19. Cry me a river, bud.

20. He loves it when I say "cry me a river". It makes him happy.

21. Speaking of my son, he found my Oreo stash, so that takes care of that little problem.

22. I've moved on to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

23. And Snickers.

bullet points

2011-05-03T11:10:00.002-06:00

* I dropped my camera.

* I said a bad word.

* My favorite lens is going to the hospital.

* It didn't appreciate being dropped so hard that the lens cap got wedged into the lens itself.

* I think my camera is okay.

* Time will tell.

* We finally had a sunny, warm day.

* I need about 10 more days just like this one to get my yard ship-shape.

* But that was yesterday.

* It snowed at my house this morning.

* I found some leftover zinnia seeds from last year and you know what that means.

* I'm planting them, oh yes I am.

* I cleaned out my drug cupboard.

* I found cough syrup from 1995, several Costco sized bottles of Dimetapp from 1997, and some really good prescription pain killers from 2004.

* I need to clean out my drug cupboard more often.

* I finally finished watching The Kennedys.

* I can't stop eating Oreos.

greek bread salad

2011-04-28T11:40:00.003-06:00

I go to Bible study on Thursdays.

Well, not last Thursday.

Or today, for that matter, but generally speaking I do go to Bible study on most Thursdays.

(These photos have absolutely nothing to do with this post. In the editing process, I realized I ended up rambling quite a bit, and large chunks of rambling text without pictures to distract you from the rambling nature of the text makes me uncomfortable. Hence, we now have distractionary pretty pictures from my archives for your viewing pleasure.)

I've been to a lot of Bible studies in my day, but this one is far and away my favorite. Ever.

Why is it my favorite you ask? Three reasons.

A Bible Study Trifecta, of sorts.

First off, there is the study itself. It's been a great one. Really, really good.

Part two is...the people.

As I said, the study itself is wonderful, but the interaction between the participants and what I've learned from each of them is truly the highlight of the study for me.

What started out many months ago as a very diverse group of ladies, some of whom were perfect strangers, has ended up as one of the closest knit groups I have ever been a part of. Each and every lady there now permanently owns a pretty large chunk of my heart.

I love these ladies.

Part two of the trifecta actually has its own two parts.
A. The aforementioned lovely ladies.
B. One of my very favorite short and smushy people on the planet, Baby Tyler.

Baby Tyler is not a little baby anymore, he's a Big Baby. Immediately after his very first photo shoot last summer, I invited myself to become his honorary Auntie Teresa. I didn't really even ask his mom or grandma if that was okay with them, I just used the assumed sale approach and so far it seems to be working.

If it's not working, mom and grandma are too nice to tell me so.

I've been a shameless baby hog during every single study, and as such I got to enjoy one of my very favorite pastimes ever.....giving a sleepy baby his pre-nap bottle.

Baby Tyler and his mama Jess aren't going to be able to come on Thursdays anymore, and they will be missed in a very big way. It just won't be the same without them. My lap will be empty, the seat next to me on the couch will be empty, and no one will be trying to rip my Bible study book to shreds.

At least I don't think anyone else will try to shred my book. A couple of these ladies do look like they've got a little wild side hiding under the surface, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In an attempt to fill the hole left by Tyler and Jessica's absence, I will now move on to the third Bible Study Trifecta factor.

The food.

Oh, the food.

When we started meeting way back when, I'm pretty sure the food was supposed to be on the snacky side. But, very quickly it evolved into full on lunch, and not just typical lunch....fabulous lunch.

The last time we met up, it was my friend Delia's (Tyler's grandma) turn to wow us with her culinary skills. She did not disappoint. Among other delicious things, Delia made a Greek pita bread salad, and I found myself going back for seconds, thirds and fourths.

Delia shared the recipe, so I made a batch the next week and proceeded to eat the entire thing in two days.

I made another batch yesterday, and this time I had the good sense to take some pictures before it vaporized before my very eyes.

This is one of the few recipes without cream cheese that I've deemed worthy to share on this blog. It is delicious, and when you go to the store to buy the ingredients, make sure you buy enough to make more than one batch because I guarantee you'll be making this more than once.

Greek Bread Salad

1/4 cup chopped jarred pepperoncini, plus 1-1/2 tablespoons pepperoncini brine
1-1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano - I didn't have any oregano
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved - I used Campari tomatoes from Costco
1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
cucumber, peeled and sliced. I didn't peel mine. Lazy.
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
3/4 cup sliced kalamata olives - I think Delia used black olives and it was equally delicious
1/2 small red onion, halved and sliced thin - I left this out

2 (10-inch) pita breads, (not pockets), torn into 1-inch pieces
1 garlic clove, minced - I left this out
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley - I left this out, too
Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine pepperoncini brine, vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, and mustard in medium bowl. Slowly whisk 5 tablespoons oil into vinegar mixture. Add tomatoes, chickpeas, cucumber, feta, olives, onion, and pepperoncini and toss to combine. Let sit 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, toss pita, remaining oil, garlic, and remaining oregano in medium bowl.
Bake pita on rimmed baking sheet until golden brown, about 10 minutes, stirring halfway through baking.
*The second time around I baked my pita at 350 and stirred them every four minutes. They got away from me the first time:(
I also cut up all six pitas in the package and just tossed them in olive oil and sprinkled them with Kosher salt. Why toast two pitas at a time when you know you're going to make the salad at least fourteen more times.

Stir toasted pita and parsley into salad. Let stand 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Since I wasn't serving the entire salad at once, I added the feta and pita to the veggie mixture each time I made a bowl for myself. Soggy pita is not happy pita.

I have no doubt I will eat this salad on a very regular basis until I make myself sick and never want to see it again.

Greek Bread Salad....an entire batch every two days will do ya good.

a garden confession

2011-04-22T09:10:00.006-06:00

I have something to tell you. There's really no way to soften the blow of what I'm about to say, so I'm just going to spit it out.

I planted my zinnia seeds last weekend.

I planted a lot of zinnia seeds last weekend.

I planted a shocking number of zinnia seeds last weekend.

Can you tell I'm stalling?

Okay, are you ready?

I planted one thousand, one hundred and ten zinnia seeds last weekend.

There, I said it.

1110 zinnias.

Eleven hundred and ten.

Eleventy ten.

I am a sick person.

I truly don't know how it happened. How can there possibly be that many seeds in those little packets? I just kept opening packets and planting seeds. I didn't count the holes in the seed trays as I was planting. I didn't even think to count the holes. About three quarters of the way through my seed packet stash, my guess was coming in around five hundred, and even that was pretty alarming, but when I did the final count (I finally did the seed tray count....seven across and fourteen down...ninety-eight per tray), I about fell off my chair. I'm using the wedding as my justification, but deep down I know I passed ridiculous a good six hundred zinnias ago.

Keep in mind the seed tray holes are very small and the zinnias will have to be transplanted into bigger pots while still in the greenhouse. Then I have to find a home for them all out in the gardens. That means I have to handle 1110 zinnias two more times.

Houston, we have a problem.

I wonder how many days it will take me to plant them all. I wonder if I have room to plant them all. June just may find me setting up a roadside zinnia stand, peddling my extras to passersby.

Actually, I think I'm going to look at it as a challenge. I'm going to find a place for each and every one of those zinnias if it's the last thing I do.

Please. Send. Help.

Truth be told, I'm a bit embarrassed by my zinnia numbers, so in an attempt to distract you from my zinnia gluttony, I'm going to totally switch gears and try to tug at your heart strings just a bit.

Just yesterday, I said my goodbyes to my middle son. He's heading off to a very hot place, very far away.

Then, last night I had a great talk with my oldest. He's getting out of the Coast Guard in three months, planning his wedding and he and his bride-to-be are mapping out the next phase of their lives as a married couple.

They're all grown up. I'm loving my grown up boys.

They are extremely cool people.

But, occasionally I miss these little fellas.

A lot.

I found these photos just a couple days ago. We had just moved into a house that had no grass, and each and every day was spent in their version of little boy heaven. They each got a hose that was turned on with a trickle of water, and they spent hours and hours playing in the mud.

Simple days and good, clean fun.

Then I found this picture and it made me laugh to see that even though it was taken five years later, the expression on my younger son's face is pretty much the same.

Of course I can't leave out my youngest....my baby. My 6'4" baby. Look at those curls and those cute little bunny teeth. Fourteen long years ago.

"Sunrise, sunset.

Sunrise, sunset.

Swiftly, fly the years.

One season following another, laden with happiness and tears."

*

*

*

Did it work?

Did you forget about the zinnias?

perennial favorites - redux

2011-04-14T11:41:00.002-06:00

The Meadowbrook Farmer and I have been out working in the garden this week. We did absolutely no fall clean-up last year and so we are paying the price now. Leaves everywhere, nasty, crispy flower stalks half bent over. Weeds, weeds and more weeds. It is fun though, to see the perennials popping up here and there, knowing their gorgeous glory days are right around the corner.

I thought I'd re-post my list of favorite perennials in honor of their amazing ability to survive these very long, very cold Montana winters.

Is it cheating to re-post? I hope it's not cheating to re-post.

This was written last March when all my plants were still in full lock-down mode.

Ready? Let's dream some summertime flower dreams together.

Perennial Favorites - from March 1, 2010

Are you making your garden plans yet? I know we still have a way to go, but I have just started really thinking about what I'm going to be doing in the garden this year. Flower successes that I'll repeat again, and things I'd like to change. I'm making lists of seeds, and thinking about bare spots that need filling in the perennial bed.

Bleeding Heart is one of the very first bloomers in my garden. They are so pretty and old fashioned. Last year, we planted some white ones too, and I can't wait to see how they do this spring.

Hardy geraniums are one of my very favorites. Some varieties get huge, leggy and out of control, but this one, Birch's Double, is one of a few varieties that know how to behave.

Peonies. Good gracious, the peonies. I always want to bring bouquets inside, but mine are absolutely filled with ants. I'm always afraid I'll wake up the next morning to find the kitchen crawling with the little buggers.

Dianthus. Pinks. Whatever you call them, they are a treat. Their sweet smell is so fresh and a little bit spicy. Yum.

Black Eyed Susans are everywhere in my herb garden where pretty much anything goes as far as color. Nice because they bloom a bit later in the season after most other perennials are done.

Delphiniums are quite possibly my favorite perennial ever. They have a couple strikes against them where I live, the deer love them and the wind can topple them, but they are so worth the hassle. And usually if you're a flower in my garden you have to be able to totally fend for yourself or you're outta here. Not delphiniums though. I'm willing to coddle those baby blues a bit. They're the favorite child. Shhh. Don't tell.

I'm very torn about what to do with my hollyhock patch. When they are good, they are great, but more often than not, the foliage gets very nasty looking and the ugliness overpowers the beautiful blooms.

Last year I vowed to tear them all out, but of course now I want to give them a second chance. All of my fall tough talk is gone. The birds sing, the bee's buzz, and I am deluded once again, that this year my hollyhocks will be beautiful for more than five minutes.

Another later summer bloomer is Purple Coneflower. It took a long time for me to really start liking this plant, but it blooms till frost, and you just can't say that about your average joe perennial. That reason alone earns it a spot in my heart.

There are many, many new varieties of Coneflower, and I have tried quite a few of them. Big Sky Sundown is a great color and fades to a pretty pinky orange. Very fun.

I could ramble on forever about ye olde garden, but at some point I should probably wrap up and save some for another day. A few last favorites....

Columbine, Sidalcea and Trollius.

As you can see, the "less is more" philosophy has no place in my garden. When it comes to flowers, more is more. That's my story, and I'm stickin to it.

Every year I try at least one new thing. What are the must have perennials in your garden?

Be an enabler and share your favorites.

hello cupcake!

2011-04-07T09:07:00.005-06:00

Okay, are ya'll ready to talk photography?

I think this time, I'll just grab some of your questions and take it from there. I've edited them down a bit, but for the most part, I think the main questions survived the cut.

Here we go.

Q. The biggest question I have during these gloomy, sunless days of winter is how to take good photos inside when it's light, yet not bright.

A. Well, first off, let's say a word of thanks that I've put off answering these questions so long that it's actually spring now instead of winter. Other than that, I try to keep my subjects as close to a window as possible. The vast majority of my indoor photos are taken in my dining room where the light is usually plentiful. Using a wide aperture is also helpful for low light situations.

Q. Thoughts on composition?

A. Composition. I have to say, I struggle with composition. I like things symmetrical, so my natural tendency is to center my subject. Sometimes that works great, but more often than not, a photo will be more interesting if you shake things up a bit composition wise.
For the most part, the cupcake photos in this post were photographed in a very standard way, but I cropped some of them in photoshop in an effort to make them more visually appealing. Google "rule of thirds" and you'll get tons of information on photography composition.
When I find a photo I fall in love with, I take note of where the subject is placed, the other elements in the photo that I like, elements I don't like and then sometimes I'll set out to create a photo that is similar in look and feel.
Also, background is a huge factor. Huge. In fact, background is almost as important as the subject. For me anyway. If I have the most awesome subject, but no good background, I don't even want to take the picture.
If at all possible, I'll change my angle until I get the very best background for the shot.

Oh, and speak of the devil. Here we have a perfectly centered, symmetrically composed cupcake photo.

This photo makes me sad. I made 24 cupcakes, but at the time that seemed a little gluttonous for just the three of us, so we gave them away to anyone who happened to stop by the house. But now they're all gone. What were we thinking?

Q. I was wondering how you post process your photos.

A. I use Photoshop CS5. I previously used Photoshop Elements, and that was a great program as well. Scott Kelby has a book for every single version of Photoshop and every version of Elements. I highly recommend that you get the book for your version.

Q. What f-stop do you use the most?

A. Hmmm. I'm willy-nilly, here, there and everywhere with my f-stop. I would say I'm in the 2.5-3.5 range the most, but that varies so much with what I'm photographing. The following cupcake photo was shot at 2.5.

In photographing people, I would say that 3.2 is the widest I would ideally want my aperture to be, but I do open up more if I'm losing my light.

Q. Do you shoot in RAW?

A. I do not shoot RAW. We'll just pretend I have some issue in my childhood that is preventing me from shooting in RAW, because there truly is no other valid reason that I'm not shooting in RAW. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Q. How do I take a half decent picture in my house....after it's dark?

A. I don't take pictures after dark! :) If we have a family gathering and want some photos, my hubby or kids grab their point and shoots and use the flash.

Q. What suggestions do you have for accentuating motion in photography?

A. I don't think I've ever tried to accentuate motion. I've frozen motion (trampoline shots, etc.), but never accentuated it.

Q. I have read online that you MUST MUST MUST shoot with natural light and absolutely never use a flash. But how do I get good pics of my sweet daughter or an interior project or whatever if it's cloudy out? Or what if it's just dark in my house?

A. I choose to use only natural light. But. I don't have sweet little children whose adorableness I need to capture on a moment by moment basis, so I can choose the time of day and the specific (best natural light) location in my house for what I want to photograph.

When I took these photos of Kayla, it was a gross, dark, snowy, gloomy Sunday.

But, we shot at noon and while she wasn't actually facing the light - it was coming from the side - my front room has a window that faces south, so we had enough light to make the gloomy day work for us.

Hey, she matches the cupcakes perfectly! Now I want to re-do the shot and have her eating a cupcake.

Kayla - come back!

Q. Do you always set a custom WB?

A. No. I almost always have my white balance on auto. (Cringe).

Q. Do you change your ISO settings often, or do you rely on Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority?

A. I always, always shoot in manual. I definitely change my ISO as much as I need to in order to keep my aperture and shutter speed where I want them to be.

Q. I'd love to know how to nail pictures shooting wide open (especially children). I love the look, but it always seems that I don't get everything that I want tack sharp while letting everything else fall out of focus. Also, how do you choose your aperture when dealing with multiple subjects?

A. I would suggest bumping up your f-stop a bit. I've had that same situation. I used to shoot people wide open, but not anymore. I want their whole face....eyes, nose, etc. in focus, so these days, I would say 3.2 is as low as I'd ideally like to go. (I break that self-imposed rule all the time though!!) You'll still get beautiful background blur at 3.2.
Choosing aperture for multiple subjects? I. don't. know. I try desperately not to shoot multiple subjects! I did, however, just shoot six handsome high school fellas in a group. They were on stairs, at different levels and distances, so I shot at 7.0. I knew I'd have my hands full with their .... ummm, shall we say vibrant personalities? ... and I didn't want to have to worry about my depth of field. I just crossed my fingers hoping 7.0 would be enough, and thankfully it was.

Q. I have a 28-135mm lens. I'd like one that will do macro photography - real close up. Any recommendations?

A. I have yet to take the macro plunge. One day! Macro opens up a whole different world, doesn't it?

Q. Would you say most photos are pretty good straight outta the gate, or is it best to edit them? Maybe a simple question, but I'd love to know what percentage of pictures you edit (beyond cropping) as opposed to just letting them be what they are.

And....

Q. Can you let us know if your pics are SOOC (straight out of camera) or do you do any post-editing on them (even minor color saturation tweaks.)

A. I always, always do at least a little tweaking, and sometimes I do a lot of tweaking. At the very minimum, I bump up the contrast a little. I like to use an action called Daily Multi-Vitamin on my people shots, and I use The Pioneer Woman's Boost action on my stills and landscapes. (But never at 100%). With the exception of Daily Multi-Vitamin, I don't think I ever use any action without fiddling around with the different layers at least a little bit.

Action sets I love:

Itty Bitty Actions - from the ultra-awesome JinkyArt
Totally Rad Actions
Pioneer Woman's Actions - these are free - whoo-hoo!
Flora-Bella Collection - so, so fun. Love these. LOVE.
Kubota Image Tools

Q. Have you noticed that there is snow on the ground at your house this morning?

A. Why yes, yes I did notice that lovely little gift from mother nature.

Q. Did you, within the last 24 hours, spend a rather large amount of time looking for real estate in both Florida and Arizona?

A. Yes again! Wow, I don't know who you are, but it's like you're living my life right along with me! Spooky.

Okay, so there you have it. Hope this helps, and if I missed anything just give me a shout out in the comments. Remember, it's a journey. I'm in a totally different place than I was this time last year, and I certainly hope to be in a totally different place this time next year.

Have a great day, and if you happen to live in a place where it's warm and sunny today, please pick up a local real estate guide for me and pop it in the mail, okay?

the long road home

2011-04-04T10:50:00.005-06:00

I'm not good with quiet. I have the tv on in the background - usually the news - almost all the time. When I work in the greenhouse, more often than not I take my laptop out with me and have a tv show playing to keep me company. (Gilmore Girls and Friday Night Lights are current faves.) For some strange reason though, I absolutely detest listening to people talk on the radio. Music only please. The dj saying that was 'such and such a song' from 'so and so' pushes the limits of just how much radio talk I can handle. The other day as I was driving home from a shopping trip, it just so happened that the Christian radio station I listen to was on a fundraising bender. Fundraising lends itself to an overly abundant amount of talking by anyone's standards, and for various and assorted reasons I didn't have anything in my cd player. You can see my dilemma. Silence vs. a radio station begging for money.

Silence won out.....for all of a minute.

I had a one hour drive ahead of me, and in a desperate attempt to entertain myself, I started calling members of my immediate family.

I called my hubby and told him I was bored and would he please entertain me. To his credit, he gave it a good try, but we'd already talked three previous times that day, so it was pretty slim pickings. Plus, he was actually engaged in some lame money making scheme....I think he called it working?

Work, schmork.

I'd already had a very pleasant conversation with my oldest while I was shopping earlier in the day, and my youngest was still in school where apparently they frown on phone calls during algebra class.

My future daughter in law was at work, so that wasn't an option, although I know in my heart that she would have kept me company all the way home. She's cool like that.

Time to move on to my middle child. He's getting ready to deploy, but I knew that on this particular day, he had some time on his hands.

However, it was our second phone call of the day, and all valid conversation topics had been thoroughly depleted in conversation number one. So in order to fill the awkward silence, I asked him if he knew any classified military secrets, and if he did would he tell me what they are?

He said no.

No? How can you tell your mother no? It is common knowledge that you should tell your mother absolutely anything and everything she wants to know.

So, I asked him what if I offered to pay him. Would he tell me then?

He said no again.

We then proceeded to argue over whether treason has to include a foreign government, or does selling classified government secrets to your overly bored mother qualify you for a lifelong visit to Leavenworth?

This went on for a while, I mentioned something about waterboarding, and then he laughed a lot and said he would love to see me try, and then he told me he was hanging up, which was a little on the rude side, but it was probably just as well, because by now our conversation had most likely attracted the attention of the CIA. Or the NSA. Or whoever it is who listens to all our phone conversations.

Come to think of it, this post has probably attracted the very same folks.

The upside to all this is that America can rest assured. Your national secrets are safe with my middle child. For that matter, they are also safe with my oldest child too, because we had an eerily similar conversation several years ago about Coast Guard secrets, which had the exact same end result.

I have obviously failed as a mother.

At this point, I had no choice but to call my husband again, but I won't bore you with those details except to say that the only topic we had not thoroughly exhausted was whether or not the garbage man had picked up our garbage that day. Sadly, my hubby showed absolutely no interest in popping out to the road to check, and at that exact moment, my youngest swooped in to save the day by innocently calling to ask what was for dinner.

Now, I can just hear you asking yourself why, why, why is she telling us this?
You're wondering what the moral of this rambling story is? Surely, there must be a life changing, earth shattering truth about to be revealed? Certainly, she wouldn't waste an awesome post title like "the long road home" on a story that is truly only about a long ride home?

Truth be told, I just had some sunshiny daffodil photos to share, and a raging case of writer's block. You get the benefit of the former, and the brunt of the latter.

But now that we're on the subject, I'd love to know if you enjoy a bit of silence, or are you like me and hate to be alone without some form of auditory company?

Love talk radio, or despise it with every fiber of your being?

Are you a phone talker, (like me), or a phone call avoider?

Happy Monday, everyone!

flower power

2011-03-23T14:19:00.002-06:00

Pretty, pretty flowers. The greenhouse is full of them. They are good for the soul.

I am making a determined effort to appreciate the fact that I have these gorgeous beauties at my beck and call.

(Even gorgeous beauties that are covered in aphids. It would seem this batch of lady bugs are pooping out on us. Perhaps it's time to call in some reinforcements.)

I'm making a determined effort not to succumb to the late winter (even though it's technically spring) dreary and depressed doldrums.

Easier said than done, right?

Today is our first sunny day in weeks and weeks and boy, does it do a winterized heart good to finally see some blue skies.

On a totally different, non-flowery note, we recently re-discovered a jello recipe we haven't had since the 80's. It's quite scary to think that the last time I had this I was probably wearing acid wash jeans and sporting very big Aussie Sprunch sprayed bangs.

Dear 80's,
Why?
Love,
Teresa

It's a recipe for raspberry jello with a pretzel crust. It is one of the wackiest combinations out there, but there is something truly delightful about the saltiness of the pretzels, the tartness of the raspberries and the creamy sweetness of the cream cheese layer. I promise, strange as it is, it's worth a try.

This is also one of the messier food photos I've ever taken. It would be much more appetizing if I'd taken the time to primp the subject even a little bit, but alas, it was not to be.

Raspberry Pretzel Jello. It may not be pretty, but it sure is good.

feed a fever chocolate pudding

2011-03-15T12:41:00.002-06:00

I never get sick.

Never say never.

Today is day eight of what shall forever be known as Sickfest 2011.

Good times.

So for today, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either hear all about my sickness, or I can talk about chocolate pudding.

You pick chocolate pudding? Good choice!

Sometime on Sunday evening, I got a hankering for chocolate pudding. After a week of nothing sounds good, nothing tastes good, I all of a sudden needed chocolate pudding and I needed it bad. It was too late to go the homemade route, and I've never found a recipe I really liked anyway, and I came up empty handed in my pantry search for a box of instant to hold me over, so in a phenylephrine/dextromethorphan/chlorpheniraminemaleate induced fog, I went to bed puddingless.

The next morning, I was gazing in wonder and amazement at these adorable Lego cake pops, and they made me realize I had not visited Bakerella and her cake pop wonderland in ages.

Are you a Bakerella fan? My boys were pretty much past the cake pop stage when cake pops came into fashion, but I still think they are about the coolest treat on a stick imaginable.

As I was catching up on Bakerella's latest happenings, I came across this pudding cup post, complete with a delicious homemade pudding recipe, and knew I had to get up off the couch right that minute and give it a try.

So glad I did.

It is smooth and delicious, rich and creamy. Pudding perfection.

You can find the recipe here. I wasn't in a peanut butter mood, so I left it out this time, and substituted a few tablespoons of butter instead. Butter seems like such a strange pudding ingredient, but every pudding recipe I've ever seen calls for it, so who am I to argue.

I started feeling better from the very first spoonful, so I think chocolate pudding will forever be my very favorite sick food.

Chocolate pudding....it cures what ails ya.

tales from the cow keeper

2011-03-08T17:15:00.002-07:00

Okay, so I totally stole that title from my good bud, Jayme.

But she doesn't mind. She's cool that way.

Plus, she consulted her lawyers and they said she couldn't stop me without extensive litigation.

It's true though, I am a cow keeper. For the moment anyway.

More on that in a minute, because I found a surprise in the greenhouse yesterday. A fully blooming, lush and gorgeous bleeding heart. It was in my old potting soil bucket under the bench. Apparently this bleeding heart was going incognito last fall when I was dumping out pots of dead, shriveled up flowers. I'm pretty sure I didn't purposely try to kill one of my very favorite plants of all time.

I love, love bleeding heart.

Bleeding heart is also one of my favorite plants to photograph, what with row after row of adorable little hearts all lined up and waiting for a photo shoot.

See? Adorable.

But, back to the keeping of the cows.

The Meadowbrook Farmer has been gone since Saturday, which leaves me in charge of the farm. Sounds like a big job, right? Are you envisioning lots of chores and tractor driving? If you are, you would be mistaken.

Basically, my job consists of taking a walking tour of the back field to make sure everyone is present and accounted for, and also keeping an eye out for any mama who might be entertaining the crazy notion of having her calf a bit early.

At least that's the official job description. My version adds the task of keeping an eye on the bull at all times, (without making eye contact), while dodging cow pies and keeping my daisy boots mud free.

Here are my daisy boots a year ago. They do not look like this anymore.

So sad.

So, even though I failed miserably on the mud front, the upside is that the bull didn't even look my way today. Yesterday, he looked my way and that always makes me nervous.

I don't like the bull. I don't like the look in his eye.

I'm pretty sure he's up to no good.

But I do like my bleeding heart, and it doesn't make me nervous even one little bit.

In other farm news, my refrigerator is dying. It's freezing things that aren't in the freezer, and in case you were wondering, frozen lettuce is not happy lettuce. Apparently, this is a sign that its days are numbered, so I'm in the market for a new one.

Any thoughts on the french door top, freezer drawer in the bottom style? It seems like a pretty good design, but I'd love to hear from someone who actually has one.

With my hubby gone, it's just been me and Junior Number Three. Which pretty much means it's just been me. Junior has quite the social life lately and if he's not with his friends, he's at five hour play practices (opening night is next week).

He was sweet enough to turn down a Saturday night invitation to spend the night with a friend because he didn't think I'd want to spend the night all alone in the house. I guess he didn't know I'd made my peace with the Boogie Man years ago. At this point, I'm all, "Bring it on, Boogie Man! Give me all you've got, because I'm tired and I'm going to bed."

It did, however, make me think back to my babysitting days when I'd get myself so freaked out that I'd sit in a corner with a fireplace poker in my hands. That level of paranoia may directly correlate to the fact that after the kids were in bed, I'd watch all the scary movies that my parents were smart enough not to let me watch at home.

Word of advice to any highly imaginative teenagers out there....don't watch baby sitter themed horror movies whilst baby sitting.

You will pay a very high price.

You will also pay a high price if, as a newlywed, you choose to watch The Shining with your new husband. Because you know what? Those new husbands? They go to work the next day, and it's hard to get Jack Nicholson and his axe out of your mind even in broad daylight.

For the most part, I stay away from the scary movies these days. However, a couple years ago, my bff and I did go to see the new version of "When a Stranger Calls" just for kicks and ended up watching the whole movie through our fingers.

Did you know it's scientifically proven that if you watch something scary through your fingers it makes it less scary?

Okay, maybe it's not scientifically proven, but it sure sounds like a study that Congress would spend our tax dollars on, doesn't it?

Well, I have no earthly idea how a post that started out with flowers and cows ended up with boogie men and scary movies.

But now you've got me curious.

Are you a scary movie watcher?

Do you let your imagination get the best of you when you're home alone and hear a noise?

Or, are you brave and strong and down to earth and no nonsense about such things?

This will be fun!

spring dreams and carrot cake

2011-03-01T11:37:00.003-07:00

It's March!

Even though Spring usually doesn't even consider making a real appearance here in March, the calendar makes its arrival official and that's all I need to start thinking springy thoughts.

I have snow on the ground and more on its way, but still I dream of green grass, pink blossoms and temperatures that don't take your breath away.

My seed catalogs get a second glance....and then a third and fourth. I can safely let my mind wander down the garden path and those wandering thoughts have the hopeful feel of possibilities. (As opposed to the somewhat dramatic and desperate January and February garden thoughts wherein I am absolutely convinced that I may very well die from an overdose of gray and brown long before sunshine salvation arrives.)

The plants we overwintered are coming out of hunker down mode.

We'll be starting the petunia cuttings later this week and then it's game on in the greenhouse.

I made the best springy carrot cake this weekend when my company was here, and if you're needing your own dose of cream cheese laden springtime goodness, you might want to give this cake a try.

Carrot Cake

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups oil - I substituted 1 cup applesauce for 1 cup of the oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots

Combine sugar, oil, (and applesauce if you choose to substitute), and eggs. Sift together flour, soda, cinnamon and salt. Add to
sugar/egg mixture. Mix well and fold in carrots and pecans.

Pour into a greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake at 300* for one hour.

Cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 - 8 oz package softened cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Cream the cream cheese and butter, then mix in the vanilla and powdered sugar. Spread on the cooled cake and lick the beaters and the bowl clean.

This, my friends, is a bit of heaven in a 9x13.

So, how about you. Are there any signs of spring in your corner of the world? Are you still in the depressed doldrums of winter, or are your thoughts turning toward the equinox?

I need to know.

working together

2011-02-22T09:45:00.001-07:00

Did you all have a wonderful President's Day? I wish I could show you photos of the delicious cherry pie I baked in honor of George Washington, but the closest I got to cooking all weekend long was the pizza box I opened on Saturday night. It's difficult to take pictures of something that doesn't exist.

I have not been feeling the cooking love lately...at all, but I have a house full of company coming later this week, so my kitchen and I will be getting reacquainted very soon.

But enough about me, let's talk about you. Have you had your camera out?

Have you been shooting in manual mode?

Yes? Good.

Many, many different factors come into play when taking pictures in manual mode, and today we're going to talk about two of the biggies. At least they're biggies in my book.

Aperture and shutter speed.

Instead of fumbling my way through an explanation of the two, I am going to pass the buck in a very big way. The Pioneer Woman does an amazing job explaining both aperture and shutter speed in the photography section of her world famous blog, and I could not possibly say it any better than she already has. She's titled the four part series, "What the Heck is an Aperture", and it is well worth your time to pop on over and read all four parts.

Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

Waiting.

Okay, you're back? Good.

Did you also read "What the Heck is an Aperture, Part Two?" Because you really should. And Part Three? How about Part Four?

Just making sure.

Do you totally understand aperture and shutter speed now? Yes? Awesome!

If not, you're in very good company. Bookmark those posts and read them again. Then play with your camera and come back and read them again.

I took these pictures with my 50mm f1.4 lens, and hopefully they will demonstrate how aperture and shutter speed work together.

I started with my aperture wide open....f1.4. That gives us a very shallow depth of field - you can see that only the flower and a narrow stripe on the table are in focus, and it's hard to tell just what the rest of the objects in the photo even are. That wide aperture also lets in a lot of light, so we need to have a very fast shutter speed or we'll end up with an overexposed photo.

(aperture 1.4 ~ shutter speed 1/640)

Now I'm going to start closing down my aperture, (remember that the bigger the number gets, the smaller the opening - 2.2 is a smaller opening than 1.4. I know, it seems backward), which will let in less light than before, so to make up for the smaller aperture opening, I'm going to slow down my shutter speed, which will let in more light.

At an aperture of 2.2, everything but the flower is still pretty blurry.

(aperture 2.2 ~ shutter speed 1/250)

At 4.5 things are starting to come into focus.

(aperture 4.5 ~ shutter speed 1/60)

The aperture keeps getting smaller, and at this point my shutter speed is getting very slow in order to let in enough light. I used my tripod for all of these shots, but if I was hand holding my camera, things would be getting pretty blurry by now.

(aperture 9.0 ~ shutter speed 1/15)

Now my aperture is as small as it can go.

(aperture 22.0 ~ shutter speed 0.4)

Side by side, the range is pretty impressive.

(f1.4).................................................... (f22.0)

Now, if that doesn't leave you with more questions than answers, I don't know what will!

I encourage you to do this exercise yourself. I am a hands on learner. I can read something over and over, but it doesn't usually click until I put it into practice for myself. This will help you see how aperture and shutter speed work together. Start with the widest aperture your lens is capable of (different lenses have different aperture ranges), and take it from there. Keep in mind that your shutter speeds will vary from mine depending on your lighting conditions.

I'll leave you with a couple quick tips.

Experiment to find the slowest shutter speed you are comfortable using while hand holding your camera.....and don't go below it. Many, many times in my early days I would get caught up in shooting and forget to keep an eye on my shutter speed. You may not see the blur on your camera screen, but you will see it when you load your photos on your computer. It doesn't matter if you've got the best composition or you've captured the most precious moment, if your picture is blurry, you will be sad.

Moving subjects need a faster shutter speed than stationary subjects. ( I know that seems like a given....but it wasn't for me.)

Many of you have asked how to achieve a dreamy, blurry look to your photos. As these pictures show, it's the wider apertures that give you the pretty background (and foreground) blur. (Also known as bokeh.) Experiment with your f-stops (aperture) to see just how much blur you like for your own shots.

Remember.....practice and read.

Get out your fake spring flowers and make them model for you.

Google and read and practice.

Borrow your neighbor's children and make them model for you.

Read, practice, read, practice.

Rinse and repeat - and have yourself a little bit of fun while you're at it!

tgif

2011-02-18T09:22:00.002-07:00

My usual blogging computer died in a blaze of glory earlier this week. Fortunately, they were able to salvage the hard drive, so hopefully I'll have my weekly photography q and a post up early next week.

Until then, I thought I'd share a few very fun shots.

A friend of mine has a clothing store in town. She has recently started offering formal wear in her store, so we thought it would be fun to do some photos as a way to spread the word with the high school set. Prom is just around the corner, so we brought out some gorgeous spring dresses and had Kayla play dress up in my front room.

Now that was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Have a wonderful three day weekend!

tie a yellow ribbon

2011-02-15T07:00:00.001-07:00

Dear Department of Defense,

So, it has finally come down to this.

Back in September when I first got wind that Junior Number Two was going to be deployed, I really wasn't too terribly concerned.

For one thing, my way of dealing with worrisome subjects is to swiftly scoot them to the back of my mind. That makes plenty of room for the fluffy bunny, sweet baby chick, rainbow and butterfly thoughts to live up front. Oh, I know those pesky thoughts are back there....they pop to the front every once in a while, and niggle and nag a little from the back row, but generally speaking the rainbows and bunnies have the dominant spot. Now you may be tempted to go all Dr. Phil and want to chat about the psychological ramifications of that way of thinking, but that's not what I want to talk to you about today.

The second reason I didn't immediately start to dither was the assurance I'd been given that deployment orders are known to change with the same frequency as Lindsay Lohan's hair color and incarceration status. Why get my knickers in a twist about something that very well may not come to pass.

Thirdly, the deployment wasn't scheduled to happen until Spring, and back in September, Spring was still a very loooong way away. A lot could change before then. Perhaps the bunnies, rainbows and butterflies would all head on over to the Middle East and work their magic there. Problem solved.

It could happen.

Last? In my mind, Junior Number Two still looks like this.

And everybody knows you can't send a cute little baby overseas.

But.

Last week I became the proud owner of my very own yellow ribbon pin. It's just a little pin. A subtle, little yellow pin. But when my husband placed it in my hand, that's when I finally acknowledged that this is going to happen.

For real.

Oh boy.

Now, don't get me wrong. I wholeheartedly approved of Junior's decision to join the National Guard, knowing full well he would be deployed at some point. And I have the utmost respect for all our men and women in uniform, and I was proud to the point of sinful pride when I attended his graduation from boot camp. They told us we were joining the biggest family in America. I am proud to be a part of that family. I get a lump in my throat whenever I ponder all the wonderful men and women serving our country and the huge, huge sacrifices they make on my behalf every single day.

The fact that Junior volunteered for this particular deployment just fits in with a slightly alarming pattern I've noticed around here for the last couple years.

You see, my mama princess bubble was burst years ago when it became clear that these boys of mine were actually going to have the nerve to lead their own independent and somewhat dangerous lives. My dreams of my oldest becoming a quiet country veterinarian, or my middle son becoming a mechanical engineer quickly went poof in a cloud of testosterone fueled smoke.

My hope now firmly lies in my youngest, whose aspirations to become a waiter in Hawaii sound better and better with every passing day.

But back to the subject at hand.

It has finally sunk in, Department of Defense. This is happening, isn't it. I reluctantly acknowledge that the sweet little baby pictured above has grown into the man you see here.

A man who will serve you well.

He always has been and always will be in God's hands, but for now, you're going to be playing a major role in his life.

Please take good care of him.

And make sure he drinks plenty of water. I've heard it's hot over there.

Sincerely,
Meadowbrook Mama

Oh, and p.s. I don't know if you read my blog or not? Anyway, if you do, then you know we're having a family wedding here this summer. If by some slight chance you get a bee in your bonnet and want to just pop Junior home for a quick visit around the end of July, that would be awesome! I don't want to put you out or anything, but just in case you don't have anything else going on right then, I thought I'd mention it.

happy valentine's day

2011-02-14T07:55:00.002-07:00

Thanks again Kayla, for going along with my crazy ideas!

I hope all the glitter left in your hair brought you good luck in Wii bowling yesterday. Did you win?

Oh, and sorry again for stepping on you. I hope I didn't do any permanent damage!

You can bill me for combat pay.

manual is a must

2011-02-10T08:52:00.003-07:00

When I got my Rebel several years ago, I immediately had buyer's remorse. I was not even remotely impressed with my photos. The point and shoots that my husband and boys were using were producing much better photos than my Rebel. I had obviously been under the impression that my new fancy pants camera would automatically start spitting out beautiful pictures, but it very quickly became clear that an expensive camera does not a good photographer make.

That's your first profound photography revelation for today.

Not one to give up without a fight, I hit the internet, and I hit it hard. I followed every single photography rabbit trail I came across. I read everything that crossed my path. I stalked the blogs of photographers whose work I admired and I quickly became convinced that I needed to learn to shoot in manual mode if I had any hope of producing the kinds of images I dreamed of creating.

So, I put my camera in manual and immediately went from being unimpressed with my photos to being extremely unimpressed with my photos. I would flip some dials willy nilly, take another shot, change some settings, take another shot, and on and on and on. Occasionally, I would come up with a keeper, but I had no clue how I got it. More importantly, I had no clue how to get it again.

So, here's profound photography revelation number two.

Ready?

Shooting in manual mode is technically complex and the willy nilly method just doesn't cut it.

Unfortunately, at that time my head was a certified technical free zone. It's true. Just ask any of my junior high or high school math teachers. Or my dad, who thought I should know how a carburetor worked before I was allowed to drive a car.

That side of my brain has been on vacation in the Bahamas pretty much all of my life.

But my free for all button pushing, dial turning days were numbered. That approach just wasn't working for me. There very well may be those who can pick up a camera and make magic happen without a thought, but I wasn't one of them.

There are several different technical aspects to shooting in manual mode, and if I hadn't pushed myself to figure out how it all worked together, my Rebel would be on a shelf right now, gathering dust.

It was not an easy journey for my noggin.

It made my head hurt.

However.

I survived.

I learned. And learned some more. And slowly it started to make sense.

Very slowly.

Next time, I'll get into just what those technical aspects are and how I wrapped my brain around them.

Till then, here are a few suggestions to get you headed down the road to fabulous photos.

*Read every single thing you can get your hands on. Read your camera manual. I know. Snoresville, right? Read it, then go out and practice and then read it again. Every time, a little bit more will make sense.

*Get a good photography book or ten. I have Scott Kelby's Digital Photography series. He has a very user friendly style - good information without a lot of technical detail.

*Take a million pictures. Or more. Get familiar with your camera. Very familiar. When you first start out, you have eleventy seven things to think about before you click that shutter. The more you know what button does what, what dial does what, the more you'll be free to focus on other more creative aspects of photography.

*Lastly, if you are frustrated, don't give up. I'm here to tell you that you can do it. You can learn this. If I can, you can. Promise. You've found your people here. Or at least your peep. I'm living proof that those who are struggling to take better photos really can make sense of it all. Well, maybe not all, but at least a good chunk of it.

So, go forth and take pictures in manual mode, shout from the mountain tops that manual mode is from the devil, come back next week thoroughly frustrated, and we'll take it from there!

p.s. I was needing some Valentine photo ideas, so I took a skip through Flickr. It's a great place to find inspiration....all of these photos were heavily inspired, if not flat out copied, from photos I found there. I wish I had thought of making a heart out of my buttons, or making book pages into a heart shape, but I didn't. It seems the right side of my brain occasionally visits the Bahamas as well. And when that happens, tell me just what is left up there in my head?

Don't answer that.

weather wonder

2011-02-07T10:55:00.001-07:00

I am obsessed with the weather.

I check the seven day forecast. I check the ten day forecast.

I check the weather in New York where my son and future daughter-in-law live.

I check the weather forecast for my Midwest friends. I want to know what kind of meteorological day they are having.

I don't check the weather for my Pacific Northwest friends because I know what it's doing there at any given moment.

It's raining.

I know it's raining because I lived there for the vast majority of my life and that's what it was always doing.

I love storms. Big, loud summer thunderstorms. Lots of snow winter storms. I'm obsessed with hurricane season. If one is headed toward the states, I am checking the storm tracks with the same frequency as someone who lives on the Gulf Coast. I've been in Florida during August storms with thunder claps that could stop your heart. I've been in Kentucky driving down the freeway with tornado warnings all around. Being a former Pacific Northwest girl, I thought I knew rain. Ha! You don't know rain till you've driven through a severe storm in the South. And we won't talk about why we were driving down the road whilst tornadoes were swirling all around. Let's just say it starts with 'S' and ends with 'tupid'. Northern girls. We had no clue.

This has been a winter for the books, hasn't it? Ours has been colder and snowier than usual, but nothing like most of the country has been experiencing. Right now I only have a dusting of snow and my temps are in the 40's. Not very exciting.

So, indulge me. I would love to hear what's happening weather wise in your neck of the woods. Are you a Texan with snow on the ground? A Midwesterner encased in ice?

I'll grab a cup of cocoa and get my weather fix through all of you.

first things first

2011-02-01T11:38:00.004-07:00

Oh boy, now I'm nervous.

It's one thing to think about sharing photo information and tips, but it's a whole nother ball game to actually put it out there on the internet for all to see. While it's true that I've learned a lot about photography over the last couple years, I am still very much flying by the seat of my pants on a regular basis.

That said, I am happy to share what I do know. For now, I think I'll try to do a photography q & a post a week and if nothing else, this little series will no doubt serve as a high form of entertainment for any real photographer who happens to find their way here.

So, since you have to have a camera before you take a picture, it would seem that photography equipment is the logical place to start.

Up until a year ago, I was shooting with a Canon Rebel XTi. It came with an 18-55mm lens which I used for a while, but before long, I knew I wanted something better. After much research, I decided on the Canon 50mm f/1.4. I love this lens and still use it most of the time. I eventually also added the Canon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS. This lens is always on my Rebel, and most of the landscape shots you see on my blog are taken with this setup.

Like this one....

Last January, my hubby was kind enough to buy me the Canon 5D Mark II. It is an amazing camera. I am head over heels in love with what this baby is capable of. I also recently bought the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. I'm still getting used to this lens, so I'll keep you posted on my thoughts there.

The latest Canon Rebel is the T2i. If you are looking to upgrade from a point and shoot, that's where I'd start. My Rebel has served me very, very well. I learned so much with that camera. I understand Nikon has something in the same range as well. There are many, many comparisons online and I would check out as many as you can before you take the plunge.

So, is that all clear as mud?

Good.

Shall we re-cap? Yes?

Okay.

Canon Rebel XTi - my secondary camera
Canon 18-55 lens - came with my Rebel and I never, ever use it
Canon 18-200 - always on my Rebel and used for landscape shots

Canon 5D Mark II - my best friend
Canon 50mm f/1.4 - use this most of the time
Canon 24-70 f/2.8L - need to get more comfortable with this lens

I have a tripod and I hate using it. However, on a rare occasion, I will haul it out to get still - not people - shots in the house on a gloomy day.

A couple last thoughts.

First, read as much information and as many reviews as you can possibly absorb before you make any camera or lens purchase. Here is one of the review sites I used each time I made a new purchase. There are many more out there.

Second. When purchasing lenses, buy the highest quality your budget allows. I'm sure that's stating the obvious, but lens quality makes a huge difference in your photos.

Huge.

Well, how was that for information overload?

Let me rephrase that. How was that for very dry and somewhat boring information overload?

Yeesh.

Next week, we'll chat about the picture taking process.

Prepare yourselves to be totally underwhelmed.

a call for help

2011-01-27T08:54:00.002-07:00

I'm working on a photography information page for ye olde blog.

I haven't made much progress.

So far, I've penned a lengthy disclaimer telling you in great detail why you are probably going to want to go elsewhere to get your photography related information.

However, there's a slight chance that a good photography information page should do a little more than simply discredit the person who's writing the page in the first place.

But, it appears I'm a bit stuck.

That's where you come in.

If, by chance, you happen to have a photography related question that you would like me to answer, please ask away in the comments.

I'll do my best to share what I've learned along the way.

And when I don't know the answer, I'll simply make one up.

Thanks for helping a sister out!

lentil soup

2011-01-26T07:30:00.003-07:00

Let me start by saying, I should not like this recipe.

It has lentils and generally speaking, I am not a lentil person.

It has sausage, and I believe I've mentioned several times before that sausage makes me nervous.

Aesthetically speaking, this is not a particularly pretty soup. It's gray. I've tried to disguise that fact with a chiffonade of spinach and some finely grated parmesan cheese, but the bottom line is gray is not a happy food color. Gray food tends to bring back bad memories of your junior high cafeteria.

All that to say, against all odds, I love, love, love this soup. It's in my top three favorite soups of all time, and that's saying something.

Lentil Soup

1 pound bulk Italian sausage
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/4 cup diced celery
1 1/2 cups lentils, rinsed
4 cups chicken stock
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt - or less, depending on the saltiness of your chicken stock
1 cup cream
1 cup finely sliced spinach
grated parmesan cheese

In a large stockpot, brown and drain sausage and set aside. In the same pan, saute carrot, onion and celery in butter and olive oil till they start to soften. Add lentils and chicken stock. Simmer on low for about 30 minutes, until lentils and vegetables are tender. I usually add about a cup of water at this point as a lot of the liquid has been absorbed or evaporated. Add mustard, vinegar (both are vital to this recipe) and salt. Stir in cream and heat through.

Garnish with spinach and parmesan cheese, and you've got yourself a perfect meal for a cold winter's night.

Ina's Parmesan Crackers are the perfect accompaniment to this soup.

My sister is my Parmesan Cracker supplier, sending me a box every Christmas, so I've never actually made these myself. Sister adds an additional two tablespoons of butter to the recipe, as the dough tends to be pretty dry. She also highly recommends baking them on a Silpat so they don't stick to the baking pan. Oh, and she cuts the pepper back to 1/4 teaspoon.

They are a savory slice of shortbread heaven.

Make some today!

But only if you want to.

I don't want to be bossy.

a little of this, a little of that

2011-01-24T08:29:00.002-07:00

Remember when I told you I was participating in a 52 week photo challenge?

I think I lied.

It would seem that I am a bad challenge participant. Very bad.

I am also very bad at balancing my checkbook, but that's a post for another day.

I am, however, a very good flower buyer. I'm pretty sure these gorgeous ranuculus will back me up on that. Please join me in pretending that this week's photography theme is pretty pink flowers.

While we're on the subject of my bad self, last week I came to the undeniable conclusion that I have officially been living in the country for too long.

On Friday, I spent a day in the city. Part of that day took me downtown.

You know. Downtown.

Where the one-way streets are.

We don't have one-way streets in the country. We have one lane streets, but not one way streets.

Apparently there's a distinct difference.

Or so I've been told.

While I was downtown, there also may or may not have been an incident involving the opening of a car door at the precise moment that a bicyclist just happened to be speeding by my newly (and expertly, if I say so myself) parallel parked car.

You might be tempted to think that particular scenario would be a bad thing, but apparently it wasn't that big of a deal because he just kept waving at me as he was riding away. Although in hindsight, I suppose he could have been doing something besides waving. It was kind of hard to tell though, because he was wearing mittens. And then there's the fact that he was also yelling something that I couldn't understand. Or maybe I simply chose not to understand.

Hmmm. I'm probably going to have to rethink the whole waving thing. And quite possibly the whole driving downtown thing.

Dear Bike Cyclist,
I'm sorry.
Country drivers are not used to having to check for bikes before they open their doors.
There are no bike lanes in the country.
I promise that I have learned my bike awareness lesson.
Sincerely,
Teresa

Did I mention that he was wearing mittens?

That pretty much sums up the exciting events of the last week, unless you want to talk about the fact that my hubby and I are currently in the middle of knock down, drag out ping pong tournament. Until my recent slump, we've been pretty evenly matched.

Yes. I said ping pong. Meadowbrook Farm is a happening place, people.

Have a wonderful Monday!

three guesses

2011-01-13T08:50:00.003-07:00

I have news.

Big news.

Good news.

Actually, it's about the best possible news, and I'm going to let you guess what it is.

(It won't be hard, I promise.)

Here's a hint....

(photo by Suzi Q via Style Me Pretty)

Another hint....

And, one more....if you need it.

(All gorgeous inspiration boards from Magnolia Rouge)

Now, pop over here, and the story will be complete.

But hurry back, because my friends....we need to talk.

It's true. There's a wedding on the horizon.

My first born is going to be my first married!

Can I get a squeal of delight from my invisible friends?

My boy has found his girl.

She's perfect for him.

She's perfect for our family.

I can't imagine anything more fulfilling as a mom. To watch my son get ready to start his very own family with the girl of his dreams....what could possibly be better.

But wait! There's more.

The wedding is going to take place this summer, right here at the farm. A small family wedding by the pond.

(Feel free to squeal once again.)

I absolutely can't wait to see what they come up with for their special day. I can't wait to do my part to make their dream wedding become a reality. I'm ready to be their worker bee.

One thing I know for sure...the Bride has fabulous taste. I've seen The Dress and it's gorgeous. We've chatted about colors and flowers, cakes and decorations. This girl knows what she likes and it's going to be beautiful.

Oh, and all these dreamy photos? They are just the things that caught my eye whilst perusing a few of the many gorgeous wedding blogs out there. Wedding trends have certainly changed since I got married many, many years ago, and all for the better as far as I'm concerned.

My friend Jen brought this next group of photos to my attention a long time ago. My reaction when I saw them? I told her I was headed to the courthouse to divorce my husband just so we could get married again.

(Photos from the Style Me Pretty blog.)

But, the things that catch my eye? They're not important.

This day is theirs.

And boy, is it going to be fun!

around the house

2011-01-10T07:08:00.002-07:00

As a way to keep my photo mojo going this winter, I'm playing along with MCP Action's Project 52. It's a low pressure, join in when you can, photography challenge. My favorite kind! Last year, I used my blog and a self-imposed Photo Friday commitment to keep me clicking through the winter and it really worked. This year, I'll let the project tell me what my subject is. I think it will be fun to have someone else set the guidelines this time around...less thinking for my pea brain!

This week's subject is "Around the House". So, that's just what I did....took a little tour around and shot what caught my eye.

If you're wanting to improve your photography skills, I highly recommend this project or something similar to keep you motivated. Practice really is the key to taking better pictures.

This last week also found me repainting my front room yet again. For those of you keeping track, this makes paint job number four. I really think I've got it this time.

In fact, I'm sure of it.

I think.

I have big plans for this room. These photos give you a little sneak peak of what's in store, and I can't wait to show you when it's all done.

Our front room has no tv, so I grabbed my laptop and my Gilmore Girls dvd collection and the time flew. Painting is much more fun if Lorelai, Rory and Kirk are keeping you company.

Especially Kirk.

This next photo is to motivate me to finally get a camera and photography faq page added to my blog. It's one of my goals for early 2011.

And here, the last stop on the around the house tour, we have a card sent to me by my bff. It sits on top of a cupboard in our family room.

I love this card. It makes me laugh. I put it away when my nice little old lady friends come to visit me because they truly wouldn't get it, and for the sake of maintaining a potty mouth free blog, I did a little photoshop magic on the donkey word, but this card cracks. me. up.

It further cracks me up because my bff, the card sender, is a pastor's wife.

I think we should pray for her.

Have a great Monday!

chicken noodle soup

2011-01-05T07:05:00.001-07:00

Sometimes when I post, my pictures are my subject.

Sometimes, my pictures have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm writing about.

One way or another though, I always have pictures.

But not today. I've been waiting all week for some awesome pictures to drop into my lap, but so far, it's a no go.

It's that time of year. The time of year when I struggle to find subjects. Struggle to find inspiration.

It's all good though. I'm up for the challenge. I'm just going to have to step out of my usual box and put a new spin on the way I look at things.

Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, today is as good a day as any to share this soup recipe.

While this is actually one of my very, very favorite soup recipes ever, I should probably offer a word of warning for those of you who are morally opposed to Velveeta. Velveeta is scary. I know. But for today, we're going to embrace the Velveeta and pretend it's really not plastic's first cousin. Or plastic's half brother. Or full brother for that matter.

I won't go so far as to say that I'm a Velveeta lover, but I am also not a food snob. Far from it. In fact, it really rubbed me the wrong way when Martha trash talked Cool Whip on her show, and I think it's safe to assume that Cool Whip and Velveeta probably have a chemical composition or two in common.

But everyone knows chemicals are the cornerstone of healthy living, so it's all good.

For those of you who decide to soldier on with this recipe, the pay off will be a pot of hearty, satisfying and delicious soup that takes next to no time to make.

Ready? Let's go.

Chicken Noodle Soup

3/4 cup chopped onion, saute till tender in...
2 T butter
6 cups chicken broth or stock
2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
16 oz frozen mixed vegetables - I use the mix with peas, carrots, green beans, corn and lima beans.
8 oz frozen broccoli - half of the 1 pound bag...sorry to state the obvious
8 oz dry egg noodles - ditto
2 cups milk
1 lb Velveeta, cut into chunks

Add all but the last three ingredients to a large pot. Once the soup reaches a simmer, add the noodles. Cook for five minutes, then add the milk and the pasteurized processed cheese product. Stir till the cheese is melted and you've got dinner! Easy.

So, let's hear it. Are you a Velveeta lover or a Velveeta hater. Or do you, like me, just see Velveeta as a necessary evil. It's time to come clean.

for auld lang syne

2010-12-31T09:10:00.002-07:00

Can you believe it's the last day of 2010? Where did the time go?

I will be bringing in the New Year in my pajamas and have my doubts as to whether I will even make it till midnight. The excitement never ends here on the farm, that's for sure.

As I was going back through my archives gathering photos for this post, I realized what a truly great year this has been. So many good things, so many blessings.

I'm not a resolution person. I don't vow to make changes. Resolutions only lead to disappointment...for me at least! But, this year I am going to make a conscious effort to appreciate life. Appreciate those I love. Count my blessings and not take things for granted.

On that note, I'd just like to say that I appreciate you. I've come to know so many of you over this last year and it has truly been a treat. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to visit my little corner of the internet. It means the world to me.

It's really pretty strange, this blogging thing, if you think about it for very long. Perfect strangers really can become friends.

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't experienced it for myself.

Happy, Happy New Year to my friends!

six days

2010-12-28T09:24:00.003-07:00

Six days till I....

*Start my post-holiday diet.

I know January first is actually only four days away, but nobody starts a post-holiday diet on a Saturday.

Nobody.

Six days till I....

*Resume regularly scheduled programming of my exercise routine.

Please know I'm playing a little fast and loose with the word 'regularly' and the word 'scheduled'.

Actually, let's just go ahead and rephrase that last one just a bit.

Six days till I...

*Resume regularly scheduled good intentions of having some form of a regularly scheduled exercise program.

Six days till I....

*Start the deep clean/re-organizing of all the dark recesses of my home. Last winter was my first mega purge-the-junk extravaganza, and it was a great feeling to get rid of the boxes and boxes of stuff I'd been storing for years. I won't have nearly as much to get rid of this year, but I know there are plenty of odds and ends that haven't seen the light of day since I closed the closet door on them a year ago.

Normally, just the thought of January in all it's bleaky grayness would send me straight into a mental survival mode that would last until the first green of Spring.

I used to think I wanted to live in eternal Summer. Summer weather and a Summer state of mind. But more and more I find myself looking forward to each and every turn of the calendar page.

This year, I'm looking forward to January.

It will be a time for organizing and planning, for projects big and small.

A fresh start. A blank page. Endless possibilities.

But....

Till then, I'm still in vacation mode.

That means I'll be sleeping in, watching movies, and making a serious dent in the batch of Cowboy Cookies I made yesterday.

Heaven knows, I'll need all the energy those cookies can provide for the great things that 2011 holds.

merry christmas

2010-12-24T23:19:00.002-07:00

kiss the girl

2010-12-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

About a week before our oldest came home for his Christmas visit, we had a little text conversation.

Ma ~ Are you going to let me take pictures of you and that adorable girlfriend of yours when you come home next week?

Junior ~ I was wondering when this was gonna come up....it will be on a case by case basis....don't push your luck though.

Ma ~ Well, just fyi, whether or not you get peanut butter pie or prime rib or a bed for that matter is also on a case by case basis.

Guess what.

I got my pictures.

And it was fun!

I think it helped that there were a few smoochie shots scattered throughout the day.

But the real deal sealer was the fact that the aforementioned adorable girlfriend/smooch recipient also wanted these pictures, and seriously, what fella could say no to that.

It's going to be really hard for me to resist the urge to gush, because mom or not, I think these two are so stinking cute.

See what I mean?

Cute! Beautiful! Handsome! Adorable! Gorgeous!

(Done gushing.)

(More smooching.)

We had hopped in the car to find some snow and a hill for these next shots.

This was my son's idea - I had never seen it done before and it was hilarious and very fun to do.

Very Gulliver's Travels.

Then back to a very muddy farm for a few more pictures.

True to form, as we were walking back toward the house after my claims that we were done, I found about eight more perfect spots for those last perfect shots. After the seventh time saying that we were done, and then the seventh time saying, "oh, just a few more shots over here!", I knew I was really pushing my luck.

But I just pulled out the old tried and true.

"Junior? Can you please kiss that pretty girl one more time?"

Okay ma, if you insist.

christmas 2010 - part two

2010-12-16T08:00:00.002-07:00

Let me start by saying that this post may be a bit on the all over the place side.

Brain = all over the place.

Post = all over the place.

I set out to photograph my Christmas decorations and very quickly realized that I had photographed every speck of Meadowbrook Christmas Cheer in great detail last year.

As there is not much new on the decor front for this year, (with the exception of the guest room), I resorted to a few new pictures that ended up being extremely heavy handed with the shallow depth of field, (most of the photo blurry with a small part in focus), and pretty darn heavy on the processing front as well.

Just a word of warning.

I was in a mood. Not a bad mood, just an extreme makeover photo edition mood. (See heavily processed and heavily staged, heavy on the out of focus Christmas cookie paraphernalia shot.)

The ribbon photo below is another perfect example of extreme, with a side of extreme thrown in for good measure.

But, I like it. At least for today. I may very well replace it at a later date and pretend this particular ribbon photo never happened.

It's been done before.

(Here are the links for last year's Christmas posts...click over to see more photos of my Christmas tree, my dining room, or if you're feeling ambitious, here is the link to all things under the Christmas label.

I'll now move on from obsessing over my photos to the real reason for this post....my son's visit and our family Christmas celebrations.

It was as perfect as it could possibly be. I loved having my oldest home for the week, and his girlfriend fit in just like she'd always belonged here. The week would not have been nearly as fun without her. We played games, ate, watched movies, ate, played lots and lots of ping pong, went out to eat, and came home and ate some more.

I gained four pounds in one week.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk. I needed fresh air, and some type of movement other than the movement required to make some form of cream cheese infested food item, or the movement required to consume the cream cheese infested food item.

The fact that I used the word infested in the same sentence with my beloved cream cheese lets you know just how extreme the food situation was around here. We went through ten packages of cream cheese last week.

Dear Cream Cheese,
I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. You are the scum between my toes.
Love,
Alfalfa

(Sorry, that was one of many, many movie quotes heard repeatedly over the last week. We regularly communicate through movie quotes around here.)

Dear Cream Cheese,
I'm sorry. I don't hate you. I love you. I just think maybe we need a little time apart.
Love,
Teresa

The fellas set up a huge tent in our back yard, complete with a wood burning stove inside. The night of our Christmas party, all the guys went out to the tent and just hung out.

No chairs.

No lights.

Just standing in a dark tent, shooting the breeze.

With an awesome fire burning.

I chose to stay inside, and that's probably just as well because questions like, "why are we standing in a dark tent?", and "hey, did you know there's a real live house right over yonder?" probably would have have killed their tent buzz and that would just be sad.

I know my place and it's not in the tent.

It's in the kitchen with the cream cheese.

One quick non-Christmas note. Last week, I got a comment from a dear reader named Erin. Back in September, when I shared about my very favorite, very holey sweatshirt, Erin actually did an Ebay search to find me a replacement. Lo and behold, the exact hoodie in the right size popped up just last week. Erin sent me the link and before you could say "Why didn't I think of Ebay," Paypal and I had sealed the deal. My brand spanking new, mint condition, perfect shade of blue hoodie arrive safely just a few days ago.

Who. Would. Have. Thought.

I bought the original almost five years ago. Where has this one been all that time? I need to know.

Erin - if you read this, please email me!

Between my new blue hoodie, and my very first ever, extremely dreamy fleece hoodie, (a gift from our very special guest room occupant), I'm in hoodie heaven.

So, that's our Christmas in a nutshell. It will be a Christmas Eve church service for us, and we have a few gifts left to open on Christmas morning, so it's pretty smooth sailing from here on out.

Nine days to go, my friends. Are you ready?

peanut butter pie

2010-12-08T14:21:00.002-07:00

In yesterday's post, I mentioned the Peanut Butter Pie I'd had for breakfast.

Just to refresh your memory, here is a picture of that very piece of Peanut Butter Pie.

Not to be confused with the piece of Peanut Butter Pie I had for breakfast this morning.

I did not take a picture of that particular piece of Peanut Butter Pie, because that would just be ridiculous.

(Okay, I actually did take a picture of it, but didn't like how it turned out, and since I didn't check the picture before I ate the pie, the only way to remedy that situation would have been to slice and then dress up yet another piece of pie and then at that point the only viable option would be to eat it as well to hide the evidence and while I'll do a lot of things for a good photo, even I get a little nauseous at the thought of two pieces of Peanut Butter Pie for breakfast. I have my limits. Although in hindsight, Peanut Butter Pie is really just a lovely combination of dairy and protein and everyone knows dairy and protein are good for you, especially at breakfast time, so I really don't know what my hang up was.)

But back to my story.

Yesterday I mentioned Peanut Butter Pie, and that pie got a shout out or two in the comments, which is totally to be expected because, hello, it's Peanut Butter Pie.

One comment in particular, in fact this very comment....

.....caught my attention, because I happen to know that Valley Girl is expecting a baby.

Now I had every intention of posting the Peanut Butter Pie recipe sometime in the near future, but when a Pregnant Sister Friend is wanting your Peanut Butter Pie recipe, you give that girl the recipe and you do it sooner rather than later. It's an egregious violation of the Sisterhood Rules to make a pregnant girl wait for anything food related.

It's downright mean.

So for all of you and especially for Valley Girl, here it is.

Peanut Butter Pie

1-1/4 cup chocolate cookie crumbs (I use Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
Mix and press into a 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 375* for ten minutes. Cool completely.
(Please make this from scratch. It is a million times better than a store bought cookie crust.)

1 - 8oz cream cheese, softened - dairy and good for you
1 cup creamy peanut butter - protein and good for you
1 cup sugar - no comment
1 tablespoon softened butter - dairy and good for you
1 teaspoon vanilla - vanilla bean=bean family=protein=good for you
1 cup heavy cream, whipped - speaks for itself
Beat first five ingredients and then fold in the whipped cream. Spread over cookie crust and chill till firm.

Lick beaters clean.

Peanut Butter Pie....it's a good thing.

christmas 2010 - part one

2010-12-07T11:43:00.002-07:00

A text from my oldest yesterday afternoon...."Touchdown in God's Country. I need a lift".

Always one to oblige, I skedaddled to the airport to pick up my son and his adorable girlfriend. Poor things had to get up at one in the ayem to catch a train into New York to get their flight yesterday morning. Amazingly enough, they were up with the rest of us this morning. I was very impressed.

I'm pretty excited to have another girl in the house. I've been outnumbered for the last twenty three years, but for this week at least, the balance of power won't be quite so lopsided.

The infamous red dresser is tucked away in its new home. I'm hoping the fairy lights and the vintage Christmas tree take attention away from the fact that it takes a body builder to get the drawers open. They used to open and close like a dream, but I think the eight coats of paint I put on them had a detrimental effect on their smooth operation.

There are still a few large, blank walls in the guest room, but when in decorating doubt, just add more fairy lights and a couple cute baby pictures of your guest's boyfriend and you're good to go.

One final touch....I found these adorable Christmas Paper dolls at The Graphics Fairy.
Check out this site when you have at least four hours to get lost in all manner of vintage clip art goodness.

It looks like our week is off to a good start. Everyone has safely arrived, the kitchen is stocked and I had leftover Peanut Butter Pie for breakfast.

It's Christmas at Meadowbrook Farm.

snow day

2010-12-04T06:24:00.002-07:00

I always think I'm just popping out for a picture or two.

I pass the coat closet on my way out the door.

But I don't need a coat, or gloves for that matter.

Certainly not gloves.

I'll just be out for a minute.

However, I'm a grass is greener girl, and the best pictures are always just a little bit farther. I get there, wherever there is, and see an awesome picture....just a little bit farther.

Frostbite is my friend.

i'll be home for christmas

2010-12-01T05:24:00.006-07:00

December first?

December first.

It's December first.

I had such a jump on things this year, or at least I thought I had a jump on things, but as The Season is officially upon us, maybe not so much.

Our Christmas will be early this year. Really early. My oldest will be home on leave from the Coast Guard next week, so our Christmas dinner and gift opening will be December 7th, and our big friends and extended family Christmas Eve dinner will be on the 10th and all that, my friends, is right around the corner.

Dates don't matter much though, as long as the house is full of my people. I haven't seen my first born in over a year, and that's Just Wrong.

Dear Junior #1,
I can't wait to see you next week!
Love,
Ma

The decorating is about ninety percent done, the Christmas shopping is about sixty percent done, and the grocery shopping is about zero percent done. I've started the list and so far it covers the page front and back, double columned, single spaced. Food will be a focal point next week....we'll have prime rib, enchiladas, manicotti, soups, breads, salads and pies and cakes and cookies and on and on.

Cream cheese, butter and sour cream will reign supreme.

Sugar highs will rule the roost.

Carbohydrate comas will abound.

Yum.

This is the best.

Better than a tropical vacation.

Better than winning the lottery.

My whole family together.

Friends old and new.

A cozy house.

Snow in the forecast.

A kitchen that smells of casseroles and cookies.

Lots and lots of chaos.

Sounds perfect to me.

old man winter

2010-11-22T08:15:00.001-07:00

How was your weekend?

Mine was good.

And cold.

And snowy.

And involved lots and lots of paint.

I'll address the weather first.

We've been in the single digits and there's a vicious rumor going around that we're headed well below zero by midweek.

I don't mind the cold and I love the snow, but it just so happens that our furnace has decided to be a bit temperamental.

Perfect timing.

On the painting front, I'm painting a dresser for the guest room. I'm painting it red. Have you ever painted anything red? I don't recommend it even one little bit. For reasons my paint store friend explained, but I quickly forgot, red doesn't cover well at all. I lost count, but I'm pretty sure it took at least eight coats of paint. I wish I was kidding.

I also painted my front room for the third time in as many weeks. I'm very, very picky about paint color and I'll keep repainting till I get it right. I painted my family room four times before I was happy, and I'm not talking about a few swatches on the wall. Every corner of a room has different lighting, and in my world, you have to find a color that makes all your corners sing a happy color song. In the case of my current project, I thought paint color number two could hold me for a while, but I just couldn't bring myself to leave well enough alone. I have a big bucket, several different gallons of paint and my biggest kitchen whisk and play mixologist till I get it right. I think there's a good chance that the third time is the charm, but I'll have to see what it looks like in the full light of day to know for sure.

Regardless, once the Christmas tree goes up, I'm done for a while. I'll do a lot of things for my walls, but maneuvering a ladder around a decorated Christmas tree while carrying a bucket of paint just seems like a bad idea.

The last item on my weekend list was vacuuming. After a month in the repair shop, I finally picked my vacuum up on Friday. You can only imagine what my floors look like right now.

But, instead of vacuuming, I played with photos and textures and more textures until I'd textured the poor pictures within an inch of their digital lives.

It's common knowledge that when you're actively shirking your vacuuming duties, it's hard to exercise texture restraint.

And just for fun, I'll leave you with this....

Have a great Monday!

the guest room

2010-11-18T11:51:00.002-07:00

For the first time ever, Meadowbrook Farm will have a wintertime guest.

(Can I just tell you that I giggle a little bit every time I type the words Meadowbrook Farm? It makes me feel a little like Scarlett O'Hara talking about Tara... perhaps a wee bit pretentious, don't you think?)

Moving on.

The guest room is getting a makeover.

I've been in the makeover stage for a little over a year now. Last fall, we upsized from a double bed to a queen and that was pretty much the extent of my progress for about six months. As in, the mattress was leaning against the wall for that six months until I had a houseful of girlfriends visit and then the mattress was placed on the floor along side the old double bed for a charming mattress superstore effect.

I had an idea of what I wanted for bedding, but of course it didn't really exist anywhere but in my mind.

I knew I wanted to go fairly bright and cheery, and I knew I wanted these pillows to be able to do double duty when they weren't holding down the fort on the porch swing.

I finally found some Pottery Barn bedding that was in the right color family, and while I liked it well enough, I didn't love it. In order for it to work for me it needed to be cottaged up a bit.

Enter gingham sheets, vintage pillowcases and the quintessential cottage ingredient, a quilt. Add an old clock and some fit in with the color scheme books and I'm off to a good start.

I still have a long way to go, but having the bed finished gives me a focal point to work from. I have an eye out for architectural items and some form of artwork to bring it all together.

The cute gingham sheets will be swapped out for a set of Costco's fleece sheets so my wintertime guest will stay cozy and warm. Do you have a set of Costco's fleece sheets? If you live in a chilly climate, they will change your life forever.

Oh, and the walls are painted a color called Margarita. While it didn't photograph well at all, the color is perfectly named. In fact, when the sun shines in, you truly feel like you are in a Margarita....all glowy and green and a little bit woozy if I'm perfectly honest. The color may/will need some tweaking down the road, (I'm a chronic re-painter), but for now, Margarita it is.

raspberry jello

2010-11-15T07:38:00.004-07:00

Are you a jello fan?

I am a jello fan.

Is jello out of style?

I just don't see a lot of jello recipes making the rounds, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

Or, maybe I'm not even looking at all, and should do some research before I start a blog post about the lack of jello related conversation on the internet, because I just this very minute spent some quality time with Google, and there are in fact entire blogs devoted to jello.

Will wonders never cease.

Any time I make a full blown, company's coming dinner, it includes some sort of jello. More often than not, it includes this very jello because it's quick, easy and very, very good.

Raspberry Jello
1 - 6 oz package raspberry jello
1 cup boiling water
1 - 20 oz can blueberry pie filling
1 - 20 oz can crushed pineapple
****************************************
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl, pour boiling water over jello and stir until totally dissolved. Stir in pie filling and crushed pineapple with juice. Place in refrigerator to cool.
Soften cream cheese in the microwave and stir with a whisk until smooth. Stir in sour cream, sugar and vanilla.
(Make sure you get all the lumps smoothed out of your cream cheese. Lumpy cream cheese does not a pretty jello make.)

Back in the day, I used to let the jello set up quite a bit before I swirled the cream cheese mixture through. Nowadays, I usually just blend the two together right away. It's not quite as pretty as having the cream cheese swirled throughout, but it's just as good.

You can also substitute raspberry pie filling. It's every bit as delicious and kind of pretty to have on your table at Christmas as it makes the dish red instead of the purple you get with the blueberry pie filling.

Are there any other Jello Junkies out there? If so, shout out your favorite jiggly recipes.

Unless it's the one with the cottage cheese.

That one makes me a little nervous.

once upon a time

2010-11-08T07:10:00.003-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a lovely young lady who lived in Montana.

One day, while minding her own business and living the normal life of a high school senior, she got a call on her cell phone.

As luck would have it, it was her fairy-godmother-photographer calling. (Fairy-godphotographer just doesn't sound quite right.)

Fairy-godmother-photographer had just been to an antique show where her buddies, the vintage prom dress fairies, were obviously looking out for her because she scored a gorgeous vintage dress for a gorgeous vintage price.

This fortuitous event set into motion dreams/scenarios/photo shoot visions that the fairy-godmother-photographer could not. get. out. of. her. head.

Something must be done.

Thus, the aforementioned phone call to the aforementioned lovely young lady.

Now, the fairy-godmother-photographer, living in a house full of prince charmings with nary a princess to be found and therefore not much frame of reference for young ladies and dress sizes, nevertheless could not have been more on the money with this one. This girl and this dress were made for each other.

It was a last minute proposition, only one day could work, but girlfriend was game. She actually had some housecleaning to do with her non-evil, non-step mother, but in an act of sheer brilliance, the lovely young lady volunteered her little sister for the job, so all was well. (Except perhaps as far as the little sister was concerned.)

So, off they went.

Now, it just so happens that this particular location is one that FGP (tired of typing out fairy-godmother-photographer) has been dying, and I mean dying, to shoot at. She had even seriously considered ignoring the no-trespassing signs, but so far had been a good girl and was now being rewarded for that good behavior because the non-evil, non-step parents of the lovely young lady just so happened to know who to call to get permission.

Score.

After being drug around this awesome location and leaning against pokey, prickly old barns and walking barefoot in places that were a case of tetanus just waiting to happen, the lovely young lady took a little break in the hopes that Prince Charming would come and rescue her.

Waiting.

Waiting.

PC was a no show, so the lovely young lady had no choice but to go with FGP to location number two.

FGP is torn between loving the contrast of the lovely young lady in the dilapidated setting, and the lovely young lady in this more formal, beautiful setting.

FGP is also extremely impressed at the lovely young lady's willingness to toss leaves in the air repeatedly and even twirl whilst tossing leaves even though FGP and her camera were not able to master the art of capturing twirling girl/falling leaves/blah blah blah.

So sad.

The lovely young lady also repeatedly ran up these stairs until FGP was able to finally capture this shot, quite possibly her favorite of the day.

But alas, all good things must come to an end and the lovely young lady's carriage was turning into a pumpkin right before their eyes, so they had to call it a day. If it was up to FGP, they'd still be out there taking pictures.

She has a little problem with knowing when to quit.

But, the story of the lovely young lady in the vintage prom dress will live happily ever after on the internet for ever and ever.

The End.

back in the saddle

2010-11-05T07:55:00.001-06:00

So, when one takes a three and a half week long, totally unintended blog break, does one need to make the first post after returning from said blog break earth shattering, mountain moving and rivetingly interesting?

If the answer to that question is yes, then we are all in big trouble.

The longer I stayed away, the harder it got to jump back in. I started several different posts, one of which was about cantaloupe and another that in a very round about way told you how I used to have a lavender kitchen. Neither seemed publish worthy, so I just continued to give the blogger dashboard the cold shoulder.

I will say the blog break included a road trip, on which I listened to the audio version of The Help. Fabulous book and the CD's give you the added benefit of having three different actresses read the parts and they did an absolutely amazing job.

Good book.

On my blog break I also went to Costco....hungry. Have you every gone to Costco on an empty stomach? Don't do it. It results in buyers remorse over a cart full of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Costco cinnamon rolls and quite possibly a few other items I'm not willing to share on the internet. I know better, and I'm pretty sure it cost me at least an additional $100.00. At least. I already have issues the second I walk through the Costco door, such as the panicky feeling that if I don't buy the 48 pack of cream of mushroom soup and the jumbo 487,000 square foot box of plastic wrap, the world as we know it may very well come to an end.

Is it just me, or does everybody get Costco Fever? I have a suspicion I'm not alone.

(And here I was thinking this post was going to lean toward the boring side....who could be bored reading about my trip to Costco? This post is already screaming Pulitzer and I'm not even done yet.)

My blog break included lots and lots and lots of pictures. Brand new Baby Harlee paid me a visit....

She's about as precious as it gets.

I also had a date with this handsome fella.....

....and a batch of puppies. What a great combination! These were the final four of a litter of ten. Cutest things ever.

Do you think he'll be this happy to rake leaves when he's sixteen and it's one of his chores?

Fall is still doing its glorious thing around here. Crisp mornings, beautifully sunny days and shiny liquid gold leaves everywhere you look.

I just need to take the time to stop and smell the roses while I still can.

falling for fall

2010-10-12T08:04:00.002-06:00

It's official.

Let the record show that I am hereby a Fall Girl.

I've spent my entire life boldly proclaiming my love of Summer.
I have lived for Summer.
Longed for Summer.
Had God given me a daughter, I would have named her Summer.

But.

Yesterday, as I hurriedly harvested the pumpkins and gourds that survived on Pumpkin Island, and even more hurriedly arranged them in a wagon, and then hurriedly took some pictures, before I hurried off to a birthday lunch, I fell in love with Fall.

I fell in love with the crisp bite in the air.

And the leaves on the ground.

I fell in love with perfect little curlicues.

And the cute little in-betweens that are no longer blossoms but not yet gourds.

I fell in love with green and orange and yellow.

I fell in love, once again, with the wagon that hauled my boys around when they were little.

And most of all, for some odd reason, especially odd since I almost never opt for white when there is color to be had, I fell in love with this little guy.

I didn't want to leave my little wagon of all things Autumn. I wanted to spend some time, time that I didn't have, just enjoying the beauty and the color and the vines and the tendrils.

But, I had places to go and people to see.

I think my issue with Fall, the reason I can't let myself just relax and enjoy it, is the ever looming feeling that the axe could fall at any moment. There's that chance that we may not get another glorious, golden lighted, blue skied, brisk and beautiful day. This year has brought the best Fall I can ever remember. Snappy mornings and warm afternoons all glowing in the slanted rays of a sun that's headed south for the Winter, a Winter that can come quickly here. Once it comes, it's usually here to stay.

But this year, I'm letting my guard down and for now anyway, my heart belongs to October and spiced apple cake and mums.

I so wish I could leave you here, ready to rake some leaves and bake a pumpkin pie. However, circumstances demand that we go all double subject today, because an update is in order and it just can't wait.

I told you about the visitor/visitors we had on the farm last week, right? Well, Sunday morning, my husband got the call that there were three young bears in our next door neighbor's tree.

After all three of the men that happened to be present (one of which promised to love, honor and sacrifice himself to save me, till death do us part) promised to run interference for me if mama showed up, I grabbed a couple shots of the apple stealers.

Way up high, away from me, I have to admit he's kind of cute.

(It goes without saying that I used my longest lens and cropped big time for these shots.)

I liked this. I liked seeing them on my terms. I liked having them way up in a tree. I liked having three cars right next to me should I need to make a quick exit.

However, should we unexpectedly meet face to face, I will die on the spot.

Never to be heard from again.

Until then, I'll just be pondering my future career as a National Geographic photographer.

From the safety of my comfy chair, inside my cozy house.

simple homemade applesauce

2010-10-07T08:02:00.002-06:00

Have you ever made applesauce? It's the easiest thing ever, and so worth the little bit of effort you put into it.

Back in the day, I used to pick apples from any tree offered, but now I'm lazy. I admit, there was something special about using local McIntosh apples, but honestly, buying the huge, beautiful apples at the store is so much easier. Peeling one big Honeycrisp gives you about the same amount of apple as peeling four of the little home grown fellas.

These days, I'm all about getting the most bang for my peeling buck.

I know.

Lame.

Let's just pretend I picked my apples off a local tree because we'll all feel much more Mother Earth News if we do.

So. This year, I used a combination of Honeycrisp, because they are the aforementioned huge, Gala, because they were on sale, and Granny Smith. I always use Granny's - they have a flavor that can't be matched for applesauce.

Peel and chop. I've used the stove top and crock pot, but this year opted for the microwave. Which is probably just adding insult to injury. Store bought apples cooked in the microwave.

I don't deserve to live on a farm.

Let's just pretend I built a fire out in the yard, hung a cast iron kettle and cooked my apples in that.

I stirred them every six minutes and after about twenty five minutes, mashed them with my potato masher. We like our sauce pretty chunky, but if you like yours smooth, an immersion blender would work really well also.

I add sugar to taste after the mashing is done, cook for just a couple more minutes, and here's the final nail in the applesauce coffin.....I don't even can my sauce. I put it in jars and freeze it.

This year, the apples did double duty. Little Miss Zailey got to pose with, (and drool on), them before they met their maker.

That alone will make this year's batch the best ever.

good news/bad news

2010-10-04T08:41:00.004-06:00

The good news....my favorite model came over to my house last week for some practice shots. It was a beautiful evening, the light was gorgeous and I couldn't be happier with how the pictures turned out. I had spray painted a cruddy old bike earlier this summer and finally found the perfect opportunity to sneak it into a photo shoot.

The bad news....Kayla and I aren't the only ones who have been enjoying this pretty spot lately.

It would seem we have a bear on the farm. I won't go into details, but I found the evidence, and The Farmer in all his outdoorsy wisdom confirmed, that a bear is indeed hanging out under the apple tree in the background of these pictures.

Now yes, we do live in the country, but not that far out in the country. It's not like we back up to a national wilderness or Jellystone Park. We have deer by the bushel, coyotes, foxes, and on one occasion, a moose. But never a bear....that I know of anyway.

Normally, my gut reaction to this type of situation would involve villagers, torches and pitchforks, but I'm trying not to over react. My hubby claims Yogi will run away if he hears me coming.

Um, hello? Meadowbrook Farmer? Have we met? That's not going to be good enough to get me out in the woods again.

Actually, there's a small, very small, part of me that wouldn't mind a glimpse of him...from a distance of course.

But for now, I'll just hope my hubby is available to chaperone any future photo shoots, and I'll also be keeping my doors locked.

Because everyone knows...bears can open doors.

And Kayla? I don't know about you, but I think these pictures were worth the risk.

You're gorgeous, girl!

it's all about me

2010-09-30T15:23:00.003-06:00

One year ago today, after much hemming and hawing, I got up the courage to publish my very first blog post. My blog had been up and running for quite a while, thanks to the Fabulous Kelly over at Fabulous K Creative, but I was too scared to actually use it. I'm always a bit timid about the unknown, and this was a very big and potentially very public unknown.

To be honest, I thought there was a very good chance blogging would be like so many other projects I've tackled....start strong, but by the time a month passes, only a distant memory.

I thought I'd celebrate this milestone by sharing ten things about myself that you don't know.

Or need to know.

Or even want to know.

Actually, I've secretly been hoping someone would send me one of those "tell five/ten/a million things about yourself" tags, but sadly, no one ever has.

Don't worry though, I'm not taking it personally.

Okay, here we go.

1. I can drive an excavator. Impressive, right? Now it's important to note that I said I can drive an excavator, not operate an excavator. Because there is a big difference. I can drive the beast from point A to point B without incident, however getting it to do what I want beyond that is futile. Picture your toddler trying to get that very first Cheerio into his mouth and that's pretty much what happens when I try to pick something up with the claw-bucket thing. It's highly entertaining, yet kind of pathetic at the same time.

2. I eat almonds hand over fist. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only have one food, almonds would be it. I buy them at Costco and eat many, many handfuls a day. I eat them raw, even though I prefer them toasted. Here's why. If I toast them, I like them better and will eat more of them. If I don't toast them, I still eat a lot, but not as many as I would if they were toasted.

Don't even pretend that doesn't make sense to you.

It makes perfect sense.

It does make sense, doesn't it?

Because now that I see it written out, maybe not so much.

3. I have plenty of clothes, but I wear this hooded sweatshirt almost every single day.

(My hair and makeup people have the day off, hence the headless picture.)

(Why is my neck so wrinkly?)

It's perfect. The perfect size, the perfect length, the perfect weight, and definitely the perfect color. Plus, it says "Sunshine" on the back. I love it so much I even wore it on the plane when I flew to meet Jen, despite the fact that it now has huge holes in it.

Did you notice, Jen? I was obviously not too worried about your first impression of me, and it was a lost cause anyway considering I'd spent twelve hours on planes, but I'm still kind of hoping you didn't notice my holey sweatshirt.

Dear Gap,
Please make this exact sweatshirt again. I will buy twenty of them.
Love,
Teresa

4. When I put on a light switch or outlet cover, the slot on the screw absolutely has to be perfectly up and down or the earth will surely stop rotating on its axis.

5. The very first outing I went on with my future mother-in-law and sisters-in-law was a craft night at their church. The tables had candles on them, and while leaning over to do my craft, my bangs caught on fire. I kept seeing these little black ashes drifting before my eyes, but had no clue what it was until someone said they smelled hair burning.
Just the perfect first impression you want to make on the new in-laws, don't you think?

Wow, did I say ten things? I think I'm going with five, because I'm out. I'm sure I'll think of more over the next year, so maybe we'll make it an annual event, but for now, there's nothing but a snowstorm swirling around in my head....white and very blank.

I have to say, blogging over this past year has been so much more fun than I ever thought it would be. It truly is a special community we all belong to and I've really enjoyed all the new friends I've made.

If you've never commented here before and feel like giving a shout out, I'd really love to meet you. And if not, I totally understand....before I started blogging, I was the biggest lurker out there. I never commented. Ever.

Thanks for sticking with me and making my first year of blogging better than I ever dreamed. Ya'll are the best blog buddies a girl could have.

meadow brook dairy

2010-09-29T07:55:00.002-06:00

Months ago...June, I think...I got an email from Michelle at Between Cottage and Cabin. Michelle had found a vintage Meadowbrook Dairy milk bottle and wanted to know if she could send it my way.

Um, yes please, Michelle!

Isn't it just the cutest thing?

The fact that our little farm used to be a dairy back in the day makes this gift even more special.

It has had a prominent place in my kitchen since the day it arrived and has the privilege of being the second item in my Meadowbrook collection.

Thank you, Michelle for thinking of me! I love my Meadowbrook milk bottle.

Love it!

homemade mac and cheese

2010-09-28T16:03:00.003-06:00

Word on the street is that mac and cheese season has officially arrived in blogland and as I'm always game for a little pasta throwdown, I'm going to throw my recipe in the ring. I actually have a whole list of unhealthy recipes I'm planning to share this fall and winter. I'm trying to decide if they get their own label in my side bar, something along the lines of *call your cardiologist* or *heart attack on a plate*. It's sad, but it's how we eat on a pretty regular basis. Gooey, cheesy, creamy, hearty, casseroley. That's how we roll. Throw in a salad a couple times a month, and we're good.

This recipe hails from my sister....a fabulous cook if there ever was one. It's a dangerous one for me to make because I eat twice as much as I should and end up in pain for the rest of the evening. But...it's worth it.

Macaroni and Cheese

2 cups macaroni - boil 8-10 minutes
6 T butter
4 1/2 T flour
2 1/4 C milk
6 slices American cheese
1 1/2 C shredded cheddar
1 tsp salt - adjust to your taste - we like things salty
1/4 tsp pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Whisk in flour and stir till bubbly. Stir in milk and continue stirring until thickened. Add cheeses and salt and pepper.

Stir in cooked macaroni and place in a casserole dish.

Topping
2 slices bread, crumbled - I like to use whole wheat and I crumble it in the blender
1/2 cup grated parmesan
3 Tbs melted butter
Combine and spread over macaroni and cheese.

Bake 35-40 minutes at *350. I usually put foil loosely over the top for the last ten minutes or so as the topping gets pretty brown.

I also usually dice a ham steak and stir that into the macaroni and cheese. I get the ham steaks from Costco - they come in a three pack and are wonderful to have on hand in the freezer.

Oh, invisible friends, this is good stuff.

Serve with a Lipitor chaser and you're good to go.

i am have an island

2010-09-27T08:17:00.002-06:00

Have I ever told you we have an island?

Well, we have an island.

Not a private Caribbean island like Johnny Depp, but an island is an island, right?

I'll let you decide that for yourself in just a minute.

But first, when I posted this photo....

I got some questions on how I captured the shot, so I thought I'd give you a few more details.

The bright blue sky combined with floaty areas of fog got me outside early that morning. It was really pretty, but I could tell the first couple pictures I took just didn't do it justice. If I exposed for the sun rays, the herb garden was very, very dark, and if I exposed for the garden, the sky was no longer pretty at all.

Not very impressive, right?

I turned around to snap the alfalfa field....again, much prettier in real life, but it didn't really make for a spectacular photo either.

When I turned back around, it was as though the heavens had opened up and amazingly enough, I was able to capture it fairly well.

Having the sun behind the tree helped me expose better for the whole scene than in the first picture above where the sun was straight ahead, and the sun was now starting to hit the flowers in the foreground which also evened out the lighting situation a bit.

It was purely a case of right place, right time.

I wandered around and snapped a few more, but nothing compared to that one shot.

I also wandered over to our island.

We usually refer to it as Eyesore Island - here it is last spring.

Lovely, yes?

In the past, I have tried in vain to turn it into something a little more easy on the eyes. Like the year I painstakingly sprayed all the weeds, watered and sprayed again and again, and then planted thousands and thousands of poppy seeds I had collected. It was going to be a pink and red and white oasis in the middle of the pond.

Poppy Island....a place where magic happens.

Well, the only magic that happened was the lightning speed at which the weeds took over once again. It was a complete failure and the poor flowers never had a chance.

This year, The Meadowbrook Farmer had the brilliant idea to cover it with landscape fabric to keep the weeds down, and plant the whole thing with pumpkins and gourds.

Voila - Pumpkin Island was born.

We are really happy with how the plants are doing.

So are the muskrats, or raccoons, or skunks or whatever nocturnal animal is eating all the pumpkins and gourds that are growing on the island.

Dear Eyesore/Poppy-not!/Pumpkin Island,

You are annoying.

Sincerely,

Teresa

the post that wasn't

2010-09-24T05:43:00.002-06:00

When I flew to Indiana last week, I spent quite a bit of time in airports. Knowing I would have lots of time to kill, I had great plans to do a blog post while I waited.

I was going to show some photos I'd taken in the past month....

I was going to tell you how I brought an extra pair of socks so I could throw away the ones I wore through security. I hate walking sock-footed through security and then having to put my shoes back on.

And then I was going to tell you I was not as grossed out by my small town airport's flooring condition as I thought I would be, and I was brave and kept my socks.

However, as a follow up, I should probably tell you that I came home and washed my shoes, because they did have a little bit of airport security scunge in them.

I could feel it.

I was going to tell you that my goal in life is to avoid ever having to use an airplane restroom.

With three fairly short flights each way, I'm happy to say I achieved that goal.

I was going to tell you that the revolving seat covers in the restrooms in the Chicago airport are highly suspicious.

In case you've never been, the seats have a plastic wrap that revolves when you wave your hand over a sensor. I would imagine it's a great idea, but I (and I'm sure everyone else who has ever used one) really wondered if it just keeps recycling the same old plastic.

Maybe next time I pass through the Windy City, I'll take a sharpie, write my name on the plastic seat cover, and then see how many sensor hand waves it takes for it to come back around.

I'm going to sincerely hope it never comes back around.

So, between the seat cover obsession and the sock story, are you seeing a pattern here?

I was going to tell you that they don't even serve pretzels or peanuts on the airplane anymore. But they do let you buy overpriced snackboxes.

Awesome.

But.....after I'd spent my first two flights putting together the photos for the post, the Chicago airport internet let me down.

It kept telling me it would be back in a second, but it lied.

It's hard to upload photos and draft a post with no internet.

So here we are, almost two weeks later.

Not that it matters, because these faces were worth the wait, don't ya think?