This week!! I completely jinxed myself last week when I said we didn’t have any garden pests. Both the zucchini and the pumpkin started wilting and after an inspection and a google search I realized they were lost to the squash vine borer. (Ewwww.) Supposedly they only hatch once a year, so we replanted with fingers crossed that I’ll get some zucchini and Violet will get to carve her very own garden grown jack-o-lantern. Since we were planting we put in some more fava and bush beans and carrots.
Over the weekend we went to the cabin and swam and swam and swam. Swimming off the boat is my favorite. Violet floated and took pictures. She’s responsible for the black and white one up there and I love it. She turns thirteen tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be the mother of a teenager. She’s an awesome one. I’m pretty grateful.
Knitting: I finished my first Evergreen sock on Tuesday night as promised and now I’m about half-way through the chart on the second one. I want to get that sock finished this week so I can cast on this scarf.
Watching: Unsolved Mysteries is still on my list. I’ve had next to no screen time to myself this week. Instead the kids and I have been watching Doctor Who. I started them with Christopher Eccleston because that’s where one should start when watching the Doctor for the first time.
Reading: I finished Roxane Gay’s Hunger and I’m glad I read it. It was a hard book to read. Not because of the writing, I liked her writing. Now, I feel like I want something frivolous. Honestly, I’m craving a day curled up on my gram’s davenport with a Danielle Steele novel in one hand an ice cream sandwich in the other. I can’t have my gram or her davenport, but I may just make the other two things happen this week as a treat.
Making: I have been IN the kitchen this week. We had kale and blueberries this week in the CSA so I preserved the kale for winter soups and made sour cream blueberry muffins that didn’t last 24 hours. If we get more blueberries this week I want to try a blueberry pudding cake. Tracy’s recipes are always a hit. In the land of sourdough, I made English muffins and they turned out!! Next time I make them, I’m going to try putting them in the fridge for 24 hours to get a bit more sourdough flavor. I also attempted to make the cinnamon raisin loaf I’ve made three times before to use as french toast for Violet’s birthday breakfast but it stuck in the pan and made a giant mess. I was really feeling myself until that happened.
So that’s what I’ve been up to this week! Hope you’re all staying safe and staying healthy. What are you -ing?
I eat up these posts like the cheesecake I made last night….without a crust because of course, it gives me a headache, don’t get me started.
Watching-finished Unsolved Mysteries, thank you SO much for reminding me of that. You need to watch it! Patrice’s episode will be the new Tiger King. Mark. My. Words. Also watched the Anne Frank documentary on Netflix which is always heartbreaking but just a good watch and I am also using that in homeschool for Ella this fall as well.
Reading- nothing but I have been working on my book, so I am considering that as my reading material until the end of September, which is pretty cool when I think about it. 🙂
Making- yesterday I made the biscuit no-yeast bread which was really yummy but you can’t toast it (I learned the hard way), as it crumbled in the toaster. I also made homemade sweetened condensed milk and homemade cheesecake (no crust). Today I am making homemade fried fish for dinner in the air fryer.
One day at a time, sweet friend. Keep on writing. 🙂
Thank you, Kari! I have loved hearing about all the things you’re making from scratch! Sorry about the crumbles in your toaster, but it looked so good! And I’m jealous of the cheesecake! I really hope this way of eating (which is probably a lot more work) helps keep your pain at bay.
I’ll have to google the Anne Frank doc. It sounds really good. And I’m really trying to get to Unsolved Mysteries, but this c19 has REALLY cut into my home alone time!!
I’m so excited/impressed about the book!
My favorite picture is the colorful stripes with the white flower sun glasses!
That might be mine too!!
I’m with you about curling up “on my gram’s davenport with a Danielle Steele novel in one hand an ice cream sandwich in the other.” That’d be the life!
I’ve never tried to make English muffins, so that’s a fun idea. I have a recipe for a blueberry pudding cake that’s similar to the one you link to. Go for it. I’m convinced there’s no way to ruin a dessert of any name that involves blueberries.
Not much going on here. Husband continues to work from home. I continue to sort through old paper files, shredding as I go. I putter around in the garden, then come inside and drink gallons of iced tea. I read. I research home improvement ideas. One day melts into the next now.
I loved when I could go to her house. I was the oldest of four and Gram’s house was quiet and she never asked me to help or do anything. In return, I didn’t ask her to entertain me either. I just laid on the couch and read books and watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with her. It was the LIFE.
Your days sound very pleasant and melty. Like summer vacation when we were kids – but adulting. Except for the husband working.
Happy birthing day! I have been advocating for years that birthdays are as significant for the mothers as the children (and so therefore should also get presents). I know I felt like I began living an almost entirely new/different life when my kids were born. My children disagree with me about this whole idea, but I’m sticking to it.
Your Danielle Steele desire took me back to my own early teen years. I only read one of her books–her very first one, I think. About a perfect couple who get in a car crash, and then his evil mother offers to pay for reconstructive surgery on her face as long as she never contacts him again–an offer she feels compelled to take because he couldn’t ever love her with a destroyed face and she is certain he will find her–but then the mother tells him that SHE DIED. Very compelling stuff, and yes, best consumed with ice cream.
My week has been made better than last because of what I’m not reading more than anything else (lots of news). I’m off FB and Twitter, and I think my new platform might need to be Instagram. It’s mostly people I know sharing pictures of their lives, which makes me happy. I am reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I love it. Danielle Steele for the literary set, perhaps.
I’ve also been painting (laundry room and house trim) and organizing and planning a re-do of my home office. And cooking real food. Oh, thank you for the blueberry recipes! I have blueberry bushes in my yard, and I’ve had such a bounty in the past two weeks! I made a berry crisp with them that was so good. I’d share the recipe, but it’s one from a book (not online). Imagine that.
Hope the rest of your week is wonderful–
Thank you so much!! I agree with everything you say about birthing day and I bet your kids will agree with you if/when they choose to have children themselves. Of all the life transitions I’ve made, it’s arguably the largest.
Your Danielle Steele novel sounds about right. I still remember my favorite – a woman journalist who went to Vietnam after her love interest was conscripted and then died and then fell in love with another journalist while there who also died…it was very tragic. I really enjoyed Literary Society a lot!
Isn’t crazy how breaks from social media can completely change how we feel? And yet, we keep coming back.
I have these great cookbooks and I still always just look for recipes online (though the muffin one I first found in a cooking magazine) so I love that you actually used a real cookbook.
I’m glad the rest you’ve carved out for the soul has made for a better week! I can hear it in your comment and that makes my heart happy!
Hi Kate,
I’m so sorry I missed this post. Normally I get an email notification, but for some reason I didn’t for this one.
Love all your photos, as usual (are you seeing a shark or fish in photo #4, or is it just me?). Your cabin is beautiful—what a wonderful place to spend your weekends!
Rita said “Happy birthing day” for Violet’s birthday, and I’ll (belatedly) second that wish. It’s a Dutch tradition to congratulate mothers (and fathers) on their children’s birthdays, and while it’s something I hated when I was growing up, once I became a mother myself, I understood the reasoning behind it.
Watching: My 15 yo son and I have been motoring though Star Trek DS9. Once we finish (we’re on the last season), I’ll have to see if he’d be interested in Doctor Who. I’ve only watched one or two episodes myself (years and years ago), and yet it seems as though it would have been a good fit for a Trekkie.
Reading: Charlotte BrontĂ«’s Villette.
Knitting: A third pair of socks for my husband. (My sweater yarn is taking forever to come in; thank goodness I had a few balls of sock yarn on hand.)
Baking: I think sourdough bread is more than my brain can handle these days. We’ve baked the Zero-Waste Chef’s sourdough discard chocolate cake a couple of times, but while I’m certain I can keep the starter alive (in the fridge) and occasionally bake things with the discard, anything more is going to have to wait until things settle down.
Cleaning/organizing/purging: My older son moved to Toronto this past weekend, and we’re now back down to three people in this house, so I’ve spent the past few days scrubbing, shuffling, and swearing.
Gardening: The caterpillars on the kale may (fingers crossed) have moved on to the next stage of their life cycle, as I’m now seeing new growth that isn’t being eaten.
I hope you’ve had a good week, Kate 🙂
The shark cloud is actually why I took the picture!!
I love that cabin. It was Jesse’s grandmother’s and now it’s his parents’ and we’ve had so many good family memories there! It’s been hard to not have us all together.
We seem to have somewhat similar taste in shows and I LOVE Doctor Who but I haven’t made it to the most recent couple of Doctors. I’m looking forward getting there with my kids.
Is the swearing because of the shuffling and scrubbing or because your son is in Toronto? I hope it’s better soon.
I hope your week is going wonderfully, Marian!! I’m going to go look up that cake!
The swearing is mostly due to the shuffling. At the end of April, my son had to vacate the house he had been living in for three years. If it weren’t for COVID, he would have moved directly from that house to the house he had rented in Toronto and then started his co-op. Instead, all the stuff came here. I didn’t want to be on his case about getting things sorted because I figured his circumstances were hard enough without me making things worse. He’s my most sentimental kid and has a hard time letting go of things at the best of times, and although he did a bit of sorting, he left quite a lot of stuff that I’ve now had to deal with. (I think it’s important to respect another person’s things, and technically, this is still his permanent home, but clearly he and I need to have a conversation about him respecting my feelings and expectations when it comes to the cleanliness/organization of this house.)
I get that! I’m not a sentimental stuff person and I hate clutter so I would be cranky and having a conversation too!!