Pizza & Sneaks

Today's haul from the farmer's market: a bell pepper, yukon and fingerling potatoes, onions, leeks, green leaf and romaine lettuce, plums, and apples.

Today was another great dry one for gardening. It was time to debean, depea, and debroccoli the garden patch. Those pumpkins needed room to take over.

This afternoon, we had lunch with friends and then found a new pizza stone and grill pan. So guess what was for dinner? Homemade pizza with grilled garden veggies. We also finally found new shoes for Anni. She picked very cool boy's sketchers! They suit our sporty girl.

Tomatoes and Pumpkins, Oh my!

Tomatoes in the window and pumpkin on the vine ripening. There are tons of tomatoes on the vine, but the vines are looking sickly due to last weeks rain. The peas and beans are done for the year. We have 9 pumpkins growing like gangbusters. The one in the photo is already turning orange!

Today was another busy one. Anni had three appointments. I had my chauffer's cap on, zipping her around to speech, OT, and the pool. Alex and I had a chess game this evening. He's getting good! Ari helped to track down the organic fair-trade hot chocolate. We're giving it a test run at breakfast tomorrow.

We made veggie tostadas for dinner tonight. They were yummy and used lots of veggies. Alex is busy checking the cookbooks for recipes for next week. He's our coordinating chef!

Cats demand equal time

The cats are demanding equal photo time. They feel the dog has been getting all the attention. See the prissy, jealous poses they are pulling as they occupy all the chairs in the computer center. So here are the felines, Alchemy and Dusty.

Today was another beautiful sunny day. It's like summer has finally arrived in September! We took a long walk with the dog (sorry kitties). We picked blackberries along the way and were purple by the time we arrived at the park. We saw lots of blue jays and a garter snake among the bushes.

We had a fun cooking afternoon. We made two kinds of bread, Oaty oatmeal and salsa-cheese-corn bread, in the bread machine. We're venturing beyond wholewheat! We made a veggie chili in the crockpot for dinner. It had 11 veggies in it. The kids ate it all! Not a single bean left!

Demonic dog takes over chair

Barkley, the wunder hund, exhibited a frightening side of his otherwise friendly nature. He turns into demonic dog while sleeping, with stiff limbs and wild eyes and intermittent grunts and whines. We all love his silly long legs!

Today was another sunny one. Yahoo! a couple in a row. The garden is smiling. It was another busy day. Anni had appointments all day!

Then we did some weeding and plant clean up in the front yard. Tomorrow we tackle the weeds in the garden (yet again!). The tomatoes are coming in like gangbusters now! Anni and I are in tomato heaven! Yum!

The results of the MRI on the bumbling bicycler (me) are in, and ...(building suspense and awe)...I have a fractured radius, right at the wrist and major inflamation and -itises in three parts of my shoulder joint. Well, that explains the ouchies and why one should never mix speed with rapid encounters with gravity and ground. So, I'm off to see the bone doc and more PT - oh joy!

This evening's local meal featured Cod from the WA coast, a pasta salad full of garden tomatoes, market peppers, and CSA celery, and a fruit compote of CSA mango and market plums. It was tasty and light. My cholesterol level is smiling (and hopefully heading downward!).

A minor correction: the brown sugar listed as one of this month's exceptions should have been brown sauce, a very British concoction that we all dearly love on breakfast potatoes.

School Time and Soccer Balls

Barkley planning a sneak attack.

Anni and her soccer ball

Today was the first day back at our homeschool. Hear Anni and Alex groan! Of course, it was a beautiful sunny day! Anni worked on her reading program, played a touch game and a vision game, and worked on social studies today. Alex choose a science project, started a reading novel, and mailed back his old course materials. We had afternoon PE at the park - Soccer, with Barkley. He's such a ball hog!


Tonight we made a great veggie dinner. We curried eggplant slices, had a heirloom tomato salad with golden peppers, sauteed rainbow chard with garlic, and spicy chili-cumin potatoes. All the veggies came from our garden, CSA basket, or the farmer's market. The family is getting used to the veggie dinners 4 times a week.

Flowers and Fairy Cakes

A flower in bloom.

Trees in bloom

Pictures from our morning walk at the park. Enjoy.

Today was a sunny, cool, breezy, and cloudy day. Guess we covered most weather conditions by noon. We made a pilgrimage to the mall today for some new baking ware. After 28 years of marriage, ours were very worn out. We decided to add 1-2 pieces a month until we've replaced all the old rusty stuff. We'll reuse that stuff for storage, crafting, etc. Our first replacements were a glass bread pan and a fairy cakes pan. Anni loves fairy cakes! She wants to test this pan out tomorrow! Mmmm, almond fairy cakes!

Today is the beginning of a whole new month which means we had to decide on our 3 family month exceptions. For September, they are organic hot chocolate, organic canola oil, and organic brown sugar. We had a couple of e-mail asking about our individual weekly exceptions. So for August here they were: Anni-hot chocolate, pizza, french fries, & a cheeseburger, Alex-tortilla chips, chili, enchilada, & hot chocolate, Ari-mocha, mocha, mocha, & mocha, David-coffee, hamburger, coffee, & coffee, Julie Ann-mocha, dark chocolate, mocha, and chocolate cake. Notice a junk food and coffee theme here? Glad, they're our exceptions!

Barkley Speaks!

Julie Ann reading up on bug info

Anni having fun at the top the slide.

Today the sun peeked itself out of the clouds. Barkley had a great time taking us for a walk. He was very excited to finally get to the trail after a week's worth of rain. I'll let him tell you about it.

Barkley: "Woof, woof, woof (I saw a squirrel, squirrel, squirrel!), Wag, wag, wag (another dog, and another, and another), Grrrrrr! (Bicyclist in tight spandex pants coming too close to Anni.) We saw lots of salmon jumping in the river and a very inquisitive hummingbird.

It was a good day for quality gardening time. We cut back the peas today to make more room for the pumpkins. We also set up a ripening tray for the tomatoes in the kitchen window. We used the trays from the seedlings. The weather forcast did a reversal on itself from a few days ago and is now predicting another week of sun. See my tomatoes smile! We harvested another bunch's worth of baby carrots and a couple more squash.

Tonight for dinner we made a crockpot full of tomatillo veggie stew with pork. It was full of goodness from our garden, CSA basket, and the farmer's market. We served it up with a salad full of our Black Kir heirloom tomatoes. They're rapidly becoming the family favorites!

Market Time

The Seedling Trays

Today we loaded up the kids and headed to Pike Place Market. Lots of other folks had the same plan, including the thousands of folks on several cruise ships in town. It was so crowded! We did manage to find some bell peppers, eggplant, hot Italian sausages, local clams, spices, ginger herb tea, and lentils. Everytime we go to the market, we have to grab a hombow. I practically lived on those things for lunch when I was a student at the UW. We also visited the trivia shop and the bead shop. I finished up a couple of necklaces I'd been working on this evening.

This afternoon was kind of a lazy one. We restaked the sagging heirloom tomatoes, harvested some squash, and weeded the flower bed. We used the squash along with our clams in a pasta for dinner, with a bowl of cherry tomatoes from the garden and plums from the CSA box.

I took a trip out to the Soulfood bookstore early this evening, my favorite spot for inspirational reading. It's a great spot to pick up goodies to counteract bad vibes and negative juju. I found petroglyph magnets for the fridge and all natural harmony bath products. They smell great and are full of essential oils. I tried the shower gel this evening and feel so M-e-l-l-o-w.

Definitely not claustrophobic

Ferocious Alchemy Kitty defends against equally ferocious toy snake.

Today the sun came out for an hour or two. The tomatoes smiled, and the slugs retreated. The kids are also smiling at the thought of less green tomato dishes.

I had the MRI's on my wrist and shoulder today. I didn't look at the needle going into my shoulder which is probably a good thing because the hole it left was really big! I spent a total of nearly two hours in the MRI! So, I know for 100% certain that I am NOT claustrophobic. What was the result? I'm not quite sure. The tech wanted to know when I was seeing my doc again and then suggested I make it sooner. The he said I shouldn't use, put any weight on, or pressure my wrist in any way. I asked if it was broken. He said, "I'm not allowed to say, but don't use it." Guess I'll find out next week??? He didn't say a word about the shoulder which is what has been bothering me the most. Go figure!

A piece of sun pi

According the local weather forcast, summer may be over and fall arriving. Aren't we supposed to have nearly another month of summer? Apparently not. The forecast for the next week calls for almost another week of rain and cold evening temps. We are contemplating harvesting all of remaining tomatoes tomorrow. We may be relying heavily on our CSA for fall/winter produce.

We picked up our CSA box yesterday afternoon. It was another good one with plums, nectarines, peaches, a mango, chard, celery, corn, carrots, cucumber, lettuce mix, cauliflower, mushrooms, peppers, and green onions. We made a terrific stirfry for dinner last night with a mix of CSA veggies and garden veggies. It was spicy and delicious.

Alex was our chef this evening. He made a yummy quick pasta with bread. Ari and I had our writing group this evening. It was nice to have a break after all the medical appointments this week.