food connection

last night i made dinner for 12 people with most ingredients culled from the garden. homemade pesto with the basil, eggplant caponata with japanese long and lavender eggplant, tomato and cucumber salad, and zucchini bread. there is something so satisfying and primal about being connected to the food that we eat, and i'm so blessed to have a family to garden with, to cook with, and to share meals with.

the really, really happy things

sometimes, when i need to feel more like a superhero and less like a hot mess (literally and figuratively), i focus on the things that make me really, really happy.

you know, things like:

fresh veggies from the garden, and kids underfoot

family. and love.

nature. and dirty feet.

color.

art.



relaxing. and drinks.

the meetings with creative friends in this beautiful art space.


aaaah. what are your really, really happy things lately? xx

circus love

lulu and puppa--
they
could
start
a
circus
act.

xx

dear tomatoes...

dear tomatoes,

you know you have always been my favorite food. since i was little, living on nanu's farm, i would wait for you to show your beautiful red faces. and when i saw your beautiful red faces, i would bite them off and love every second of the summer because of you. i'd swig back a little red wine vinegar and call it a day. some of my fondest memories are of you. loading up the back of nanu's station wagon with bushel baskets of your goodness, and then driving around peddling you.

have i mentioned that YOU ARE MY FAVORITE FOOD?

i admit it, i can get a little excessive when it comes to you. one is never enough. i get greedy and before i know it i've enjoyed a whole family of you and your friends. but then i chill out a bit and eat just a few. every day. a couple times a day.

but as i got older, my body began to speak to me. and here's what it said: "DUDE, THE WHOLE TOMATO THING (oh yeah, and oranges, too) JUST ISN'T WORKING FOR US. BACK OFF!"

i ignored it.

with every passing year i would ignore the random sores and blisters and mildly annoying things that made me realize that my love affair with tomatoes from the garden was coming to a close.

but this year...oh this year.

i'll make a long story short and just say that my body has staged a major revolt. it started a couple of weeks ago when i was in the lovely jungle that is our family garden. picking veggies, brushing up against the lovely foliage. then my legs burst out into what can only be described as itchy, burning, ugly, bumpy nastiness. and then it spread systemically and covered my arm and armpits. it wasn't pretty. strangers were (and still are) stopping me and asking me what on earth is going on. loved ones are begging me to go and get help.

but here's my secret, tomatoes, i'm not going to stop. you won't keep me away from the garden! yesterday, after picking a couple of baskets of fresh veggies for dinner (tomatoes included), i went home and felt sick. i was itchy and felt woozy. but then i bit into a cherry tomato and tasted summer again, and all those wonderful memories came flooding back. sounds crazy, tomatoes, i know, but this is how much i love you.

i'm still not 100% sure that it's YOU that's causing all this trouble for me. a more normal person would go to the doctor's or the allergist to figure things out. but i'm still holding out hope that maybe it's one of your less-delicious friends that are making me this way...you know, like squash?

xx

good friends are friends for life

we are blessed that when johnny was in the military, and we were living six hours away from home up in watertown NY, we made some really good friends. mostly everyone that crossed our path there was kind, and we have maintained many of our friendships even after moving away and leaving the military. the charltons are our very special friends from that time, and we are lucky enough to vacation with them once a year. even with our total of five kids, we have managed to get together through pregnancies, newborn-stage, etc! we either go to them, they come to us, and we have gone to burlington, VT and lake george, NY together. this year they were nice enough to come to us (good thing because i'm still a little scarred for life from lulu in the car for a total of 12 hours last year).

the good thing about the charltons is that we can pick up exactly where we left off, which pretty much means that johnny immediately farts and burps all over jen. and then we have a dance party to lionel richie records and pretend to dance on the ceiling. and then we just sit around and eat food and drink. we did make it to boston for a duck tour and some lunch and some dancing in the rain. the kids thought it was pretty rad that a mermaid drove our duckboat- and then gave them each a chance to drive in the charles river! and the kids make a big obstacle course and we laugh and then the weekend is done. time flies, and we say goodbye for another year. it's the best kind of friendship, if you ask me. easy, breezy, beautiful.

thank you to the charltons for another great year!

here are some of our highlights from this year:













(evidently "steamahs" from our area are much different and scarier that the littleneck clams from northern NY! unfortunately the charltons had to learn the hard way)

naked joy

today
i am channeling
the pure
joy
that is
swinging on a tire swing
naked
for a couple of hours
on one of the
hottest summer days.

xx