I'm leaving!

Happy Love Thursday everyone!

I'm excited to say, that I am leaving home! Well, not for good, but for the weekend. I am on my way to my hometown to visit with some relatives that I haven't seen in a very, very long time. I (we) can't wait. The girls and I are headed out tomorrow morning bright and early. We'll spend the day shopping for school clothes and supplies. Fortunately Miss 10 wears a uniform, and she has hand me downs from her big sis, so I will hardly need to buy a thing for her. Unfortunately Miss 15 has outgrown half her wardrobe yet again, and she needs pretty much everything. Isn't it about time for her to stop growing already? She's nearly 5'9" now. How I wish every school system had a uniform policy. (behavior wise and cost wise, it's a win/win!)

On Saturday evening we get to visit my aunt and uncle who have some of their kids home from across the nation. My cousins Je., Ja., and maybe Jo. will all be there. I haven't seen any of them for a few years, so I'm excited to visit with them and their spouses and to see how much their children have grown. It will be like a mini family reunion. Miss 15 is very excited as well. Miss 10, not so much, her anxiety about being somewhere new, meeting new people and being out of her comfort zone has her in a bit of a tizzy. So this is a fair warning to all my relatives, the Miss 10 you actually meet tomorrow, is not the Miss 10 that I know. She may be shy, she may be wild, she may be both, just know it's her way of coping. If you were to hang out with us for more than a few hours, she'd find her way back to being her normal self, but in such a short time, we can only hope you'll be able to see flashes of her now and then.

So my Love Thursday is all about the cousins. I can't wait to see you guys!

Slip Slidin' Away

Miss 10 had friends over yesterday to play on the Slip and Slide. I avoid setting up the slip and slide at all costs. I can come up with ten ideas at the drop of a hat for them to do instead of the slip and slide. I fear I am turning into my father when it comes to my grass. Do you know what happens to the grass when 3 girls spend an hour on the slip and slide? It turns to mush! And dead grass! It's sad. I don't mind the pool being set up for 3 days, they can play volleyball and badminton in the same spot for weeks, but I hate what the slip and slide does to the grass. It is such a mess, for only an hours worth of fun. Dad, what have you done to me?

Yes, they had fun, yes, it was fun to watch them, yes I remember how fun it is. But, sigh... I've been babying this grass for months, watering and fertilizing it, praying for rain that just doesn't come. Sigh...

Ok, enough, I know. I'll get over it. It's another reason why I have so many plants set in pots, (See photos on previous post!) They are just so easy to take care of that way. I can move them to keep them out of the way of water fights, volleyballs, footballs and Frisbees.

The photo above is of the girls surfing. They had already done the tummy slide, the knee slide, the backwards slide, pretty much every slide they could think of. But I think this one was their favorite.

It's been so hot here recently. I'm quite jealous that the kids are all spending time cooling off, while I'm spending my time outdoors working. So today, while I was getting set to fertilize plants, I grabbed the hose, hooked it up to a nozzle (apparently wrong) and turned on the faucet full blast. The nozzle shot half off and I was doused with some seriously chilly water before I could turn off the switch. I'm a mess, but I wasn't hot any more!

An Obsession?

You can click on the photo for a bigger view.

I've had a few requests for some pictures of my pots of plants from this year. Well ok then, I've had one request, but the rest of you have to just deal with it. These are of just a few of the pots on the back deck, and one from the front porch. Also there is one of the huge grass by my back garage door and a hanging pot on the patio out back. It cut the hanging one off for some reason, it really looks much better than this shows. If you look carefully on the upper right picture you can see a tiny bit of the fountain that Hubby made for me a few years ago. I'll take a better picture of that some time. Overall, this probably represents about 1/4 of the pots that I planted this year. I know, it's an obsession, but there are worse things, right?

I don't have many pictures of the plants from out front, the porch was a disaster of wet stain when I took these, so I will take a better picture of the entire porch another time, and then you'll have to see more plants. You lucky readers you!
Consider this my Love Thursday and my Fabulous Friday post all at once and belated. Love Thursday because I love my gardening hobby and Fabulous Friday just because I said so!

Watch Out Dracula!

This spring in my frenzy of planting 48 pots of flowers. (It's less than last year!) I also planted one pot of basil seeds. I've been waiting so patiently for the first harvest of basil. Last week I made a delicious Orzo pasta dish with chickpeas, basil and parmigiano reggiano cheese. The wait was worth it!

On Tuesday I made my favorite basil dish, fresh homemade pesto! Yum! If you have tried store bought pesto and didn't like it, don't hesitate to try homemade pesto. It is so much better than anything you can buy in the store. I love it on french bread toasts or whole wheat crackers. It even makes frozen cheese pizza taste better.

Just in case you have some fresh basil you don't know what to do with, or you can steal some from your neighbor... I'm not condoning stealing... I'm just sayin'!
Here is my favorite recipe.

2 packed cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 tsp. chopped garlic (fresh is best!)
salt and pepper to taste (I use sea salt and fresh ground pepper)
1/2 to 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.

Put basil, pine nuts and garlic in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour in olive oil while pulsing until the mixture comes together and is fairly smooth. Pulse in cheese. Refrigerate or enjoy a little immediately!

I can never wait, so I must try a little right away, but it does taste better after the flavors meld for a few hours in the refrigerator. The garlic is wonderful... but if anyone is sensitive to your breath, perhaps you are married to Dracula, you could always cut back, but it wouldn't be nearly as good!

Enjoy and feel free to share yours with me!

Bad Mother

A week and a few days back Mr 18 and some friends decided to go to "the river" for some fun in the sun, some fishing and some swimming. That's fine, I loved going to the beach, so I encourage the kids to have fun there as well. However when he came home, he took the swim trunks he was wearing and threw them in the bottom of his dirty clothes hamper, then covered them up with another days worth of clothes. Fortunately I do laundry every other day, so the mass of wet only sat there for about 36 hours. Unfortunately the mass of wet was incredibly, disgustingly smelly! The river leaves a stench in swim suits and towels that is enough to make you run and hide. Well, either that or the fact that it sat in his hamper for 36 hours might have added to it.

A little less than a week ago Mr 18 and some other friends decided to go back to the river for some more swimming and fun. Before he left I warned him about leaving those trunks in his hamper again as a nice smelly gift for me. I told him he had to promise to bring them in the house as soon as he got back and rinse them out, throw the towel outside on the deck to dry and follow up with the trunks after they were rinsed. Of course he readily agreed to this as it was the only way I was letting him go to the river.

And now today, where are those lovely trunks? Well, they are still sitting in his car, along with his towel, and flip-flops. They have been in his car since he got back from the river. Did they ever make it inside for rinsing? Well no, they did not. And today, it is 96 degrees outside and his car is sitting in the hot sun. What a lovely thought, no? I have visions of these trunks growing legs slowly, and possibly a tail. Who knows what disgusting little creatures are living in them, and rotting in them. What a wonderful smell must be permeating his car. He hasn't really been using his car much, as he's been longboarding where he needs to go in order to save on gas.

So why does this make me a bad mother? Well, because I am not going to remind him again. I've done enough of that. The smell should be enough of a reminder the next time he gets in, don't you think?

Rock On!

This weekend saw the 16th birthday party of a good friend of Miss 15, for the sake of the blog we'll call her Misty. Misty's mother decided a bit of a surprise was in order, not only for the birthday girl, but also for the guests. So she called all the parents to talk to them, but left the guests in the dark as to the plans for the evening.

Hubby and I discussed briefly whether we would let Miss 15 go, but we knew we wouldn't deny her this fun opportunity. We knew exactly where they would be, who would be there and how they would get there. We knew there would be adults there to supervise and most importantly that the kids would all be in a big group. (Wow, there are a lot of "there's" in that paragraph!)

Basically what it came down to was that a group of 10 of Misty's closest friends, male and female, would be picked up in a limo. They would then be driven nearly 2 hours to a concert performed by Matchbox 20! To say that this secret was hard for me to keep would be an understatement. I repeatedly had to bite my tongue in order not to tell Miss 15 and not to let it slip while I was warning her about how to dress and what to bring.

This concert took place at the State Fair. I used to live in the town where the State Fair is held, and I attended the fair, a lot, too much, in crazy amounts, more than is necessary, when I was a teen. I attended my share of rock and country concerts along with the midway after dark. It was so difficult for me not to set out warnings to Miss 15 about what she would see and the kinds of people you sometimes run into at events like these. I was nervous and excited for her. Miss 15 lives a somewhat sheltered life here, and this would be a radically new experience for her.

The night of the concert arrived and Misty and her friends still had no idea of their adventure. As the evening progressed I texted Miss 15 asking her how it was going, if they knew what they were doing, etc. No one had any idea until they got pretty darn close to their destination. But the limo driver was crazy, and managed to get them to the concert nearly 45 minutes after it was scheduled to start. It took the limo 3.5 hours to drive a route that takes me one hour and 50 minutes. They ran into the show, and still managed to work their way up to the front. Miss 15 texted me some fun pictures of their evening. The limo then drove the group home and they arrived at Misty's house with their ears ringing at 1:30 a.m.

The next morning Miss 15 was debriefed about her night. She had stories galore to tell us. For the first time she found out exactly what pot smells like, she learned that $5 beers and rock concerts lead to incredibly drunk adults who manage to throw and spill beer everywhere, she and her friends were able to deflect the advances of a 50+ year old lech, she learned that a rock concert is loud enough to make you lose your hearing for hours and she learned that you make your way to the back before the show is over so you can get out the door.
Despite the eye opening lessons, the entire group (minus one who's a bit of a prude) had a lot of fun, and when asked if they would do it again it was a resounding affirmative vote.

Now you tell me. How am I going to top that Sweet 16 Party next year??

Splish Splash

I know, it's out of focus, just a little protection for my children, plus I kind of like the way it looks. It's the view I had yesterday as I sat on the deck and played lifeguard while the girls played in the pool. Yes, I know they probably no longer need a lifeguard. They have both been in the USA swim club here since they were in kindergarten, and Miss 15 is a swim coach, but it was the perfect excuse to sit on the deck in the sunshine with my book Tuesday's With Morrie. Has anyone else read it? I liked it well enough, and it did make me think a little bit about how I'm living my life.

Miss 15 agreed to get in the pool with Miss 10 while she was waiting for her friends to come over. They hung out for nearly an hour and a half alternately freezing and swimming.

I sat and listened, while pretending to not actually listen. It was a fun experience. The girls discussed swimming and friends, the talked about what they like to do and what they like to eat. Miss 10 kept repeating, "Oh, watch this! Watch this, no not that, this.. oh let me try it again, watch this!" And at those points Miss 15 and I turned to watch whatever it was she was doing and watch her. She did the same things again and again, but we still watched, and commented. She was pleased with our performances.

Later when Miss 10's friends came over I repeatedly heard, "How about..." at one point I timed and counted. I heard it 16 times in 1.5 minutes. Seriously. It was funny. But then I remember saying similar things with my friends when we would play.
"How about you saw me and came running after me and then..."

When the pool is up our backyard is a loud, wet place. But it's a great excuse for me to be with Miss 10 and her friends and interact with them, discussing little and big things when they come up on the deck to warm up. Sometimes they come up as a group and we laugh and tease each other. Sometimes they come up one at a time and I can talk more seriously with them in a lighthearted teasing way. It's fun and enlightening reaching into the minds of this group of ten year olds. They are smart and funny, I'm not worried about the future if this group has a say in it, the world will be a better place.

Happy Love Thursday everyone!