this moment

A Friday ritual. inspired by Soulemama

A single photo  – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Our new feathered friends

 

Welcome Cathy, Peg, Deb, Celia, Lucille, and Chicken Lill!  

We are now the proud owners of 3 rhode island reds, and 3 araucanas, and we have been really enjoying getting to know our new feathered family members!  

(I found George perched next to their box on the porch, reading them a story the other day) 

Birds are a brand new thing for us, and we have been doing our best to make them feel welcome... we made them a chicken treat to hang in their brooder (a temporary home which they are FAST out-growing),

and Mike (and his father) are hard at work making a fantastic chicken coop (which they'll be inhabiting soon).  

Can't wait to have eggs right from our own backyard!

When the times are tough

... apparently I blog.

 

July is kicking me while I'm down, and I'm having trouble getting "up"

eh.

thought it might do me some good to do my usual Monday gratitude post.

So here we go.

1.  I am ever so thankful to have just been hired by the same hospital where I delivered my beautiful boy George.  It seems like it's going to be a great environment to work in, with a great group of people.  I'm so lucky to have a new job in a time when new jobs are hard to come by.

2.  I am grateful to be a mama.  Even though I am finding it an extremely hard job right now.  Almost too hard.   In that "my heart is walking around outside my body" kind of painful way.

3.  I am grateful for the chicken babies.  They are making me smile and laugh, as we watch their strange chicken behaviors.  Better than TV, these chicks are.   And why are they always pecking my freckles?  I wish they would stop that.  And also grateful for a husband and father-in-law willing to devote an entire weekend to building these chickens not a coop, but an outright luxury chicken condomineum.  This coop is sort of fantastic!  (more on that soon)

4.  Grateful for swimming pools on days that are ridiculous-hot.   105 degrees in New Hampshire.  That, for sure, is ridiculous!

5.  Gratitude for my friend Sam who clued me in to a local super market that is uber-cheaper than the ones I had been shopping at.  yay for saving money!!   My groceries cost me about $65 less than they normally do.  I wanted to clap my hands and do a dance in the checkout lane, but I didn't (I'll save that for my elder senile years... they're coming.  Oh yes, and they're going to be a hoot!)

6.  Grateful for yarn.  It comforts me in my times of need.  And pretty new fabric (a surprise from my husband on a day I really needed a lovely surprise)

7.  Grateful for my husband.  He too, comforts me in my times of need.  Perhaps he should have been #6, actually. 

8.  Grateful for my mother-in-law who comes to visit, and is willing to watch the children so that #7 and I can go out for a much needed date night.  This week, that entailed gobbling down a pizza in the car on the way to see Harry Potter #7.   It was awesome.  And super scary, I think.

9.  Wow, I'm at #9 already, and I am feeling better.  I'm not saying I will smile today, but it's now seeming more and more possible.  Ok #9 -
           I am thankful for iced tea, and watermelon, and hot dogs on the grill.  And corn on the cob, and tomato/mozzarella/basil salads.  And nutella.  On warm bread. 

10.  Lastly, thankful for the beautiful mountains here in New Hampshire, as I find myself continuing to look out my office window, and daydream about how beautiful they are, and wishing I were there right now.   Soon, I think.  We'll have to go back soon, or I'm frankly going to lose it.

It's Too Hot to blog

So we've gone swimming.  Or we're fanning ourselves on the couch.  Not moving much.

See you next week when we're back into double digits (hopefully)

And if I haven't said so lately -

Thank you for stopping by to read.  I really appreciate you coming by, and I promise to be back soon.

XoXo,

Crystal

Here's a picture from first snow last year :)

This Moment

A Friday ritual. inspired by Soulemama

A single photo  – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Yarn Along: Socks and Chocolate

Not a whole lot of knitting progress to show for myself this week - but that's the way it goes with the second sock.  the first sock is terribly exciting, and then the second sock is... well,

it's just the second sock.

So I'm plunking along.  the 1x1 rib is becoming a little tedious, but I'm determined to finish by the end of the week.

And my organic cotton just arrived for Elijah.  Many Elijah's actually.  A request from a friend for a new baby... and I am much more than happy to oblige!  Because how cute is Elijah?  And I'm going to put a little jingly bell in his butt, just for kicks, when he's all done and stuffed up.

And lastly, on the reading front, big exciting news!

We are reading aloud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Johann loves it!  I'm so thrilled to be reading these more involved chapter books together now, I can't even tell you how great it is to read at night and have him so engaged in the story.  He was really excited when Charlie Bucket got that golden ticket.  And so, so was I!

Whatcha making and reading this week?

Posted as a join-along with Ginny over at Small Things. 

Monday:: Just call me Pollyanna

I'm OK with that.

 Here's my version of the "Glad Game"

1.  Homemade Blueberry Icecream.

2.  Watching the children spin on an old-fashioned metal merry-go-round and tire out their dad with cries for "faster, faster!"  while I knit happily on my bench in the shade, and munch on farmer's market kettle corn and fresh-squeezed lemonade.  Summer Saturday mornings don't get much better than that.  Do they?

3.  Town clocks that still chime out the hour.  Love to hear bells.

4.  A good swing, the kind that are HUGE, with really long chains, on the top of a hill, with a nice hard seat, not the sling kind that squinch you in and make it all uncomfortable-like to swing for a while.

5.  A good half-hour of laying-in-the-grass, cloud-watching.  Or more.

6.  Boys with their own lemonade stands.

7.  Sunshine peeking through our beach umbrella.

8.  The beach.

9.  The waves.

10.  The breeze.

It's so hard to be unhappy in New Hampshire.  Especially in the summer.  Come visit and I'll show you :)


Now - what makes you glad?  Please share if you want - I love to read your comments! 

:: This Moment ::

A Friday ritual. inspired by Soulemama

A single photo  – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

In the kitchen:: Strawberries, Lemons, and Oranges, Oh My!

Our trip to Maine brought with it a quick trip to a local strawberry patch where we picked 8 quarts of organically grown strawberries for $16.00 (!)  That price is sort of unheard of down hereabouts in New Hampshire.

So I made jam.  MMMM.  Jam.

and then I ate jam.

Mmmm.  Jam.

and now - I must stop eating bread with jam or I'll have really too much exercising to do to make it worth all that jam eating.


On the same trip, I was introduced to a new parent/child conflict called "The Scary Blue Sugar-filled Slushy Assault" which every gas station, super market, and rest stop from here to Canada seems to be pushing like crazy on impressionable kiddos and their road-weary mamas (no - I didn't give in)  But I did have to repeat a hundred times at least "in our family, we don't eat things that look like they might glow in the dark"

But I do recognize the appeal of an icy slushy in the hot hot summer, my dear blog friends.  I am not a mean mama, in spite of what you may have heard from my 5 year old.

So this week - when the temperature climbed and we were all feeling rather hot and sweaty,

we made our own slushies.

And they were a big hit.

***  The Junkin's Citrus Slushie ***

Ingredients:  3 oranges and 2 lemons, 3/4 cup simple syrup, and 3 cups ice cubes

To make:  Juice the oranges and lemons

2.  Add ice cubes, 3/4 cup simple syrup (dissolve granulated sugar into an equal measurement of water) and the juice from your citrus.   Pulse.

3.  Pour.    AHHH!     Liquid Summer!

(and it's not even blue!)

4.  Clean up.   Hello?  Anyone?  Clean up.   Where did everyone go!?

And lastly.

(This is for my sister and mother)

Look what I found in my back yard!!!

Yarn Along Wednesday: So Colorful Socks and my First Crochet Project!

My first Wednesday yarn post since the beginning of the summer I think.  It would seem I'm not knitting much at all, but I am.  Once again, I find myself knitting behind the scenes on a project I'm excited to show you, but cannot - quite yet.  In the meantime, Here are some happy summer socks.  I lovvvve to knit socks in the summer, and take them everywhere with me.  It would be great to finish 5 or 6 pairs this summer.  I wonder if I could do that ....

And I thought I would show you my first "finished" crochet project.  "Finished" is sort of a dubious distinction, because really - it started out as a hat.  This one.  And if you know about me and my sad hat disability, then you already know that the hat came out quite on gauge, and yet freakishly large.   There was no other way for that to end for me.  

I have some sort of HUGE HAT curse upon me, and I cannot shake it.  Mike says I should knit hats for 3 - 6 month old infants and then they may fit a normal adult.  I am doubtful.

Anyway - when I started to rip back my sunny yellow crochet hat (no I wasn't crying.  Who told you that?!)

I realized that at some point it began to look like a sunny yellow doilie.  

And I quite liked it.

So I'm keeping it like that, and pretending that it was my intention all along.

I am very easy to fool.

And on the reading and books front:  I finished The Help this week, and really enjoyed reading.  I have already passed it on to my mother-in-law, and I recommend you read it if you haven't.  Right now I'm going through a Willa Cather kick.   I finished Oh Pioneers!  a couple of weeks ago, and then waited and waited for My Antonia to be returned to my local library.  It still has shown up, so instead I took out "The Song of the Lark" which I've only just begun, and then Mike got one of those new Pad things, and it has a Kindle App on it, so I was able to download (for free!) a copy of My Antonia to the Kindle.  I can only read it when he puts the Pad down himself (which is almost never) so that's been going slowly.   But I really like her writing.

Happy Wednesday to you!

Posted as a join-along with Ginny's Wednesday's with yarn and books over at Small Things.  Please feel free to link to your current projects as well.

Print by Caryn Lynn Duncan... an uber-talented artist I met at the Squam Art Fair last month.  She's amazing!

Starting the week off with a boom!

A return from a lovely, blissful even, holiday weekend at home (my favorit-est place to be) and BOOM!

The week's off and running.

We went as a three-some this morning (minus the J dude) to the pediatric neurologist, and got a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy for little-G.  I have mixed feelings.  Relief (because that diagnosis has been hanging in the air for a while and it's a relief to know what's happening for sure) and worry (because of course - it's also a frightening diagnosis in a lot of ways) but back to relief (because both M and I loved the Dr. - she spent an hour and a half with us, because her next patient was a no-show apparently) and had a personality (so rare in our experiences with Dr's. lately) and a pleasant one at that, and genuine, and very relate-able.   She gave me a lot of reading homework for our next visit.  M and I both left feeling really good - so for that I'm glad.

And then as we were heading back to work this morning, I had a voicemail from a big job I applied for last week.  And I spoke with the woman and ended up setting up an interview for tomorrow morning (!!)  She said I should plan on being at the hospital for at least a couple of hours and taking a test (dread) - so now I suddenly have to mentally prepare myself for an interview.  I don't interview well, so I'm feeling anxious a teensy bit.

So - BOOM.  This week has begun in a big way.  Hope I can keep up.  At least I had 5 summer-fun-filled lazy days at home to fill my heart/soul/body with energy to return to the world.  To hit the ground running :)

Hope your week is off to a great start.  I'll be back tomorrow.  This time with some knitting (yes - I still do knit, even though it's been absent from the blog lately) and I'll show you the books I've been reading, and maybe I'll even share the new ice cream flavor we made yesterday with you :) 

P.S.  The photos above were taken during our recent trip up to Maine; the inaugural trip for our pop-up camper, a family reunion, and a visit with some friends in Belgrade.  Isn't that farm lovely?