Because Momma Says So

Fresh Kale

2010-10-17T19:52:00.003-04:00

I picked up some fresh kale tonight at Farm to Family. I fell in love with kale last winter and have been impatiently waiting for kale to make an appearance at my favorite farmer's market. I squealed with delight when I saw it come in last week!On my way home from assisting on a photo shoot this afternoon, I stopped in and picked up some veggies for the week and almost forgot my beloved kale!!

Maniac

2010-10-15T17:42:00.002-04:00

Any other children of the 80's with a certain song stuck in their brains right now?Remember the scene... she's dancing like she never danced before... sweat pouring off her... a force of physical power pushing through the pain to be the best...Now, imagine me at my sewing machine.Stop laughing.Stop! It's true! I'm a sewing maniac lately.I made a queen size quilt for my son, a full size quilt for

Veggie success!

2010-09-21T18:08:00.002-04:00

I really don't like brussell sprouts. Really don't like them. At all. When my mom made them, I would drown mine in A-1 Steak Sauce to make them tolerable.Despite my intense dislike for brussell sprouts, tonight for dinner I made Sausage and Potato Roast and brussell sprouts marinara (minus the marinara). The key to the brussell sprouts is the bacon fat. I cooked up three slices of bacon (and

Following a few giveaways

2010-09-03T10:30:00.002-04:00

I'm always excited about blog giveaways and always hope I'll win. But this time, I AM winning. I am going to win these fabrics and make some amazing quilts!Feather & Cloth is giving away a full set of Amy Butler fat quarters. Look at all this loveliness! I see one or two pinks in there that I'd pull to make Shaggy's pink girlie quilt. But the rest will be incorporated into the modified

L5 S1

2010-08-03T19:07:00.002-04:00

That is the location of my ruptured disk.That is where the doctor sliced open my back yesterday morning and removed the ruptured part of the disk.That will - hopefully - no longer be the epicenter of pain that has ruled my life for the past three years.Yesterday morning I had a lumbar laminectomy. After years of anti-spasmodics, narcotic and non-narcotic pain killers, anti-inflammatories,

Farm to Family Veggie Potatoes

2010-07-27T12:42:00.003-04:00

I always try to find ways to sneak extra veggies into my family's food. I haven't been on top of this so much lately but I'm trying to do better - especially now that I have so many veggies from Farm to Family that I wouldn't normally buy. F2F has been a big part of helping widen my ingredient base.Little M literally begged me to buy more vegetables this week. In particular, he asked for red

Butter Bean Burgers

2010-07-25T22:53:00.002-04:00

I LOVE lima beans (aka butter beans). My kids, however, aren't very interested in trying new vegetables. I picked up some fresh butter beans today at the Farm to Family market and came home wondering how I could entice my kids to eat them.A quick Google search on "how to cook butter beans" brought me to a recipe for butter bean burgers.Interesting. I'm intrigued.I modified the recipe to better

Celebies and Veggies

2010-07-25T19:26:00.003-04:00

Did you happen to pick up the Carrie Underwood issue of People Magazine? Go grab it and turn to page 96. People wrote an excellent article on Farm to Family, a super cool, mobile farmer's market here in Richmond. We've been patronizing F2F since February and have come to adore Mark and Suzi, the owners.Then if you happen to glance at the full page photo on page 97.... yep, that's me and my

Wordless Wednesday

2010-07-14T06:48:00.000-04:00

Little Miss Smarty Pants

2010-07-12T12:49:00.004-04:00

"Momma, I'm gonna make your computer SPARKLY!""Um, no.""Can I make your purse sparkly?""No.""But girls LIKE sparkly.""No, sweetie.""Momma, I'm gonna make your camera sparkly!""No!!""But MOMMA! I NEEEEEED to make things SPARKLY!""Okay. You can make my sewing machine sparkly.""YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!! I love sparkly.""MOMMA!! WHAT TIME IS IT??""I don't know baby. I don't have a clock in the shower

Sad tooth with a cavity

2010-07-07T17:13:00.001-04:00

Diagnosis

2010-07-07T14:08:00.008-04:00

Since my son was about six months old, we've known that something was "off". The first sign was his inability to make eye contact with the person holding him. Then as he reached nine months and was crawling around, he had very limited interest in the typical toys his peers were playing with. He was very interested in watching how gears and wheels moved. At eighteen months when his vocabularly

Harvest

2010-06-16T18:00:00.005-04:00

Yes, harvest already!Tonight I picked three Early Girl tomatoes, one Roma tomato and a singular, lonely green bean. All of these will be blanched (yes, even the green bean) and then puree'd in the food processor, then frozen to be used in chili in the winter. Yes, with the green bean in it too. What else am I supposed to do with just one green bean?? My bell peppers are growing. I thought I

Time for an update

2010-06-11T16:50:00.003-04:00

Since my last post --My part-time, seasonal job has ended. Boo hoo at the loss of the paycheck. But there's hope for future work with them so that's great.We have celebrated my daughter's 4th birthday in style at Chuck E Cheese with lots of friends, an overwhelmingly garlic scented party, and a blue caterpiller cake.I have forced my dear friend to square up my quilting blocks because I was too

2010-05-21T21:33:00.003-04:00

I started doing some seasonal part-time work about three weeks ago. It's only going to last for another two weeks. In the mean time, my kids aren't adjusting as well as I hoped they would. My son has been acting out aggressively. He's never been an aggressive child but he has been hitting his sister a lot lately and he's been more apt to hit other children and push them out of his way. I know all

Dirty under my nails

2010-05-14T17:26:00.004-04:00

... and my hands smell like tomato plants.I love it!I have added three more hanging tomato planters this week. One, the Roma, already has a tomato on it!These plants are hung in two milk jugs and a vinegar jug. I felt like the 2 liter bottles weren't giving my Early Girl enough soil to hold moisture. I have to water that one twice a day and I'm concerned about it surviving the summer heat.These

No one should be this excited about a tomato

2010-05-03T16:06:00.016-04:00

But I am!I was squealing on the balcony trying to dial everyone I know to tell them the big news: I HAVE TOMATOES!!Sure, they're smaller than a penny and they're green and they still have the flower on them, but they are the start of my first two tomatoes!Never in my life have I succeeded with any plants. Heck, I'm shocked I've kept my kids together for so long! This balcony garden is a huge

2010-04-25T17:54:00.003-04:00

I'm so sick and tired of people minimizing my concerns about my son. I am SICK TO DEATH of it!! Every single time I hear someone say, "Well, that's just how kids are", I want to SPIT. So what are you saying?? That I'm stupid and over reacting? Hey, thanks for the confidence in my parenting abilities and for really supporting my son. There is a problem here. Why am *I* the only person who sees it?

The sweet smell of earth and vegetation

2010-04-23T08:37:00.002-04:00

Every morning when I get up, I head out to my balcony to investigate all the overnight changes. The cool, dampness of a sunny morning reminds me of mornings on my grandparents' farm over twenty years ago. The morning sun peeking over the hills of their farm, creating acres of sparkling grass and plants as the dew caught the sun's rays.I don't have much dew on my balcony, but I do have that

My balcony excites me daily

2010-04-22T09:04:00.003-04:00

My urban gardening experiment is well under way. So far, I've made four hanging veggie planters, including a multi-strawberry hanger, and have quite a few seedling plants growing in various containers. This project started as a tiny seed of "what if... I wonder if I could..." sometime last fall. I held onto the idea all winter and did my research. I scoured the internet for balcony/hanging

Something positive

2010-04-13T10:51:00.003-04:00

It's been one crummy thing after another around our house for the past few years. If I were to list all the bad things that have happened, you'd think I was making it up. Layoffs, illnesses, car trouble, etc, etc. But when something positive comes along, I really try to celebrate it and revel in the fact that good things do happen and you have to keep having hope.I got a phone call today that my

Sundried success

2010-03-18T23:58:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog Reader, take a moment. Pause. Take in the sight of my homemade success. That's right, yours truly has made sundried tomatoes... and they're tasty and delicious!Alright, they aren't actually SUN-dried. I dried them in my oven for almost 18 hours. But they're dried. And they're yummy. And I did it all by myself. I'm quite proud of this!Enough typing! There's mozz and maters to be eaten!

Day Two Post Trauma

2010-03-13T12:43:00.003-05:00

I think I'm still in shock. Not clinical shock, but stunned at what we have all been through over the past few days. My daughter, however, seems to be a human rubberband and has bounced back and is completely back to normal.We (my husband actually) rearranged the bedroom so that a tall chest of drawers is in front of the window now. It looks weird, but it's safe and I'll take safe over chic

Ease up, wouldya?

2010-03-11T23:30:00.002-05:00

2009 was a rough year for our little family. I just *knew* that 2010 would bring brighter and better things to our lives.Yo. 2010. Ease up on us, would ya please? Throttle back, m'kay?So far...My husband lost his job in January. The restaurant completely shut down and operates no more. He's pretty much still unemployed although he'll be working waiting tables again next week.We were informed that

Seeds!

2010-03-03T18:00:00.007-05:00

Today, the kids and I visited the Farm to Family traveling farmer's market bus. This was my second trip to the farm bus; my first trip was to purchase the sausage and kale for the amazing soup I made last week. I want to make more of that soup and can't imagine making it with a different brand of sausage.On the way there, I tried to explain to the kids that the school bus had been changed into a