Blueberry Love

I’m baaaack. We have been battling the mother of all stomach virus’s in this house the past week or so. It was bad, very, very bad. First Lenora, then me and then Grandma JoJo. It just knocks you down, but I am happy to say I can now leave the house without fear, and that is a good thing, a very, very good thing.
 

Summer is in full force here on the sweltering hot muggy east coast. And when summer rolls around I get food on the brain. I start plotting what farmers markets and farms I want to visit and what delicious meals I want to cook.

Delmarva watermelons and tomatoes, it makes me giddy.

So, when the local you pick family owned organic blueberry patch announced open picking we were on it. You have to strike while the fruit is ripe so to say, for you never know when a dry spell or too many fruit stalkers like myself will wipe out the crop. 

I think we hauled in 20lbs this year. Lenora had a blast emptying my berries into her bucket and then into Roberts bucket. There have been lots of blueberry pancakes for breakfast and lots of bags going into the freezer. There may be a crumble in my future, perhaps a paleo version, since I have a stash of almond flour I need to dig into.  

Happy summer picking everyone. 

Flannel Pants and Summer Heat

I am way behind on projects and even further behind on blogging about them. 

I do have good reason though. My goal lately is to spend all free time with Lenora and Robert mindfully doing things as a family and being outside. I guess its working because my sewing machine is silent save for a few pairs of pants I hemmed last week for my dear grams and this blog has been rather quiet. 

I did make these sweet jammie pants for Lenora few weeks ago. It was horribly timed as they are flannel and its hot and humid as out there as Maryland summers always are. 

But I bought the fabric for a specific pattern and the pattern only went to a certain size so I just had to make them, no matter how little use she really got out of them. We cant always be practical can we? 

Boys Like Fairies Too

My neighbor has a huge tree with a couple of nice knotholes perfect for a secret garden. We decided this summer to plant a little fairy garden in the holes for kids. It started out as a girls project but was quickly hijacked by a couple of grown men with tools and shovels, intent on making the best damn fairy garden this side of the mason dixon. 

You best not mess with boys and their fairy gardens. 

It turned out great and the plants have really taken off. All the neighborhood kids love checking in on the fairies and Lenora likes to pay them a visit on her way to school in the morning. 

Im in love with them too and one day we will finally have those 40 acres I have been dreaming of, complete with a couple of little fairy villages...and a pond...and a house...and a fire pit. Man those fairy gardens are addicting. 

Have you seen any fairies in your neck of the woods lately? 

Strawberry Season

I almost missed the strawberry picking season this year. A short two weeks and its gone. 

As luck would have it we came home from vacation and I was able to squeeze in a few hours of hard core picking on Memorial Day Monday with my neighbor. Robert was the lucky sitter of 4 kids while we did some serious squatting between the rows. My glutes still hurt.

Mount Airy You Pick is 5 minutes from my house and a wonderful family run operation. I was disappointed to hear that next year would probably be the last as they are ready to retire and have no one to take over. It just makes me sad and further fuels my dream of a little plot of land with a garden, some chicks and a safe place for Lenora to run wild in the wild.

Between the 2 of us we picked 36 lbs. Nothing tastes as good as a fresh vine ripe sun warmed strawberry. You just can’t beat it.

I froze most to use through the year and made a bowl of homemade whipped cream for topping the rest.

What a perfect day, great company and strawberries. 

Grief

This past Sunday was International Bereaved Mothers Day. It got me thinking about the timeline of grief and how long it lasts.

 
I am a list checker. I write things down, then cross them off. It helps me to remember what I need to focus on and gives me a sense of accomplishment when I complete the task.

The tricky thing with grieving is that it isn’t something you can just “do” then cross off the list. There is this unspoken (and often times spoken) idea that you will be better after a few months or a year. That could not be further from the truth.

There is no timeline, no date when it ends and no gold star on the calendar. It’s a forever process. I will never fully move on from the death of my sweet boy, or ever get over it, or ever forget. I will always be a bereaved mother. 

There are good days, ok days and then days where that nasty grief reaches up and bitch slaps me right in the face. It is tough work, this grief business, but I keep on working through it. One day at a time, one minute at a time and sometimes one second at a time. 

Retail Therapy

While I was off convalescing I indulged in quite a bit of retail therapy. Thankfully for our family budget my version of retail therapy usually involves the local thrift store and no more than 5 or 10$. I picked up a few treasures I thought I would share. 

I love wooden toys, especially old wooden toys. This little highchair is so sweet and lovely.  

Happy little Noah's Arc. Is it just me or does that giraffe look like a dog with a really long neck? 

I also love dish towels. Paper towels are a sin in our house (except for bacon and barf, we do have one emergency roll). Can you believe this was only a dollar? I just imagine the little lady that sat and made this for her family.

Even though I have a bazillion pyrex bowls I could not pass up this complete mixing set. A gift maybe? 

I hope you find a few gems on your thrifting adventures. 

Can Caddy

I am still sewing/crafting. That and reading are the only things that stop the insane wasp nest of anxiety inside my brian. 

But in no way can I take credit for this project. The idea is a shameless rip off from Sandi Henderson, Robert did most of the work and a friend even provided the freshly washed cans. 

We had everything but the knob feet which set us back a whopping two dollars at the local home improvement store. The only thing I did was decoupage the old maps onto the cans. I will say I did a right nice job of picking local maps. 

Decoupaging is relaxing and therapeutic. I need to do more of that. Glue stuff onto other stuff. 

I love this caddy. Its perfect to store all the markers and pens that Lenora loves to color with and easy to carry around. So get on out there and get yourself a handy husband, some cans and have at it.