:: This Moment ::

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.

A single photo  – capturing a moment from the week.   

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

If you’re inspired to do the same,

leave a link to your ‘moment’ over at SouleMama for all to find and see.

Shalom Knit-Along

Ok, I said I wouldn't be back this week - but here I am.

I decided to join a knit-along yesterday, which is something I have never done before with Linda at Natural Suburbia.   In the past I have always heard about patterns and knit-alongs LONG after the "moment" had passed - but this one I happened to catch right at the beginning.

I will be knitting the Shalom cardigan, which you can find on Meghan's blog for free, and I will be knitting it along with a group of knitters from all over the world.  I queued this simple and lovely pattern in my "to be knit" line up a long time ago and then never started it, so I'm looking forward to knitting it now.   We will each blog about our Shalom's on Wednesdays, and check in on each other for advice, modifications... and just to see each other's progress.

I will be making mine in a softer than butter organic cotton from BlueSky Alpacas, in the color "spearmint".  It's a lovely variegated light blue/green, that I can tell already is going to be darn near impossible to capture in a photograph.

I started last night after the kids were asleep and before I knew it I was on the second repeat of the yoke, so I think this is going to be a quick knit-along!

I thought I would also share a little about the books we've been reading this week too, as part of Ginny's Yarn Along, since that's what I normally do on Wednesday's.    We just got Sarah O'Leary's book "Where You Came From" and we all love it.  It is such a cute story - we love to look at the pictures of Henry and giggle.

And I just got the book "Above All Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times" by Zoe Weil.   I've seen this one on some suggested reading lists and wanted to read it myself.  I ALSO finally started Oh Pioneers, and now I cannot put it down!  I was enrapted in the tale from the first pages.



So that's all for today - and now you probably won't see me back here until Monday.  But I could turn up tomorrow - I never know what I'll do.  I am a mystery unto myself.

Taking a Spring Break

We are taking a bit of a Spring Break together this week.  I'll be back maybe on Friday, but definitely will be here on Monday.  Until then, I'll be enjoying a week at home with the kiddos, doing kiddo stuff.   Modeling clay - mud walks - muffin baking - tents with sheets, etc...  no time for blogging :)

A little sewing... Dish drying mat

Well, I don't have terribly much to show or tell today.  Over the weekend, I had about 15 minutes to tuck away into my room and shut the door and do a little bit of sewing at my machine.    So: this is what I came back out with -

a new dish drying towel to leave beside my sink for "overflow" when washing... cups and big pots and pans...etc.  As you can see - I couldn't be bothered to iron my fabric first... I just started pulling out fabrics and cutting.  Sewn together inside out, flipped right side out, and then I went a bit crazy with the red thread on top...  Oh well.  Amazingly, with very little to NO accurate measuring what-so-ever, it turned out  about 14 x 20 and close enough to a rectangle that I'm not embarassed to have it out there on the counter.

The back is recycled from an XXXL terry cloth robe I was given at the hospital (after delivering G) and never wore.  Before, I had always just thrown an old dish towel beside the sink when I do dishes, but this is much lovelier.  :)  I got the idea a while ago from this post, and then again from seeing my sister's during my visit.    Eventually I said to myself  - "you should probably just make one of these instead of using a dingy old dish cloth"

so i did.

now - i'm going to make another.

A new dinner recipe: Salmon in Parchment

I have always wanted to try to bake fish in parchment, and finally did last week for Wednesday's dinner.   I wish I had tried this sooner, because I loved it!  And it was so easy and quick -

You basically cut up some veggies, (I've seen this basic recipe done with radishes, asparagus (that's what we used this time), with sliced zucchinis, squash, green beans... ) and lay them on the parchment paper.  Then you lay on your fish (we made salmon) and you season it with salt and pepper, and drizzle on a simple dressing (this one used lemon rind and juice, onion, vinegar), wrap them up in their little parchment pouches, and bake in the oven for 11 minutes.

Whalah!  Dinner!  And no clean up  - Super Whalah!!

That's all I've got today for you - but really - go out and buy some Wild Sockeye tonight and have yourself a nice dinner :)

Here's the recipe we used:

http://www.wholeliving.com/recipe/lemon-tarragon-salmon-over-asparagus

Gratitude Monday

It helps to count your blessings on a Monday morning -  some Monday's in particular sort of require it (like LAST Monday), but then there are some beautifully sunny Monday's where it's sort of easy..

1.   I'm thankful for a restful, restorative weekend at home.  We were all healthy, all outside enjoying the days.  We got dirty, we got sandy, we got sweaty... we cut down trees and stacked wood (well - Mike did), we made a bon fire and burnt the scraps.  We checked the compost, we took long bike rides...  It was good to be OUT.

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2.  I'm thankful for the first sunny Wash Monday ... on which I hung out the first whites on the line.   Missed my washline this winter, and I'm remembering today how much I love the smell of our lavender wash soap :)   Love spinning the pulley and hanging each piece up while I listen to my lovely windchimes and the nearby birds.

3.   I'm thankful for 2 growing boys - one grew an inch and a half in less than a year (!?).   G was SO proud of himself - wizzing by me on his bike without ANY help this year.   He was going so fast sometimes around corners he was up, completely off of one trike wheel.  He was a happy kid this weekend.

4.   I'm thankful for a young man who will come to me while his brother is napping and ask if it's craft time?  Yesterday he wanted to do embroideroy (rhymes with corderoy), so we got out our wooden frames and thread and sat in the sunny dining room together quietly sewing up and down and chatting about school, and friends, and robots (always robots!).

5.  I'm thankful to see the clearing grow between our house and the water... thanks to Mike's tireless efforts this weekend and last.   I now have a pretty lovely view from my craft room upstairs of our neighboring pond, and the geese, and the occasional beaver.  

6.  I'm thankful for a welcome invitation to go away for a bit next weekend, and have dinner with friends!!!  And coincidentally thankful that my teacher gave us an unexpected week off next weekend for the holiday, even though we were scheduled to have class! 

7.  Lastly, I'm thankful for the big basketload of sock yarn I'm expecting to arrive any day now from Happy Knits.... LOVE Happy Knits.  If you find you need more yarn (and who doesn't) go shop - they're wonderful!!  And so is their yarn selection - Delicious!

Happy Monday to you :)

Breakfast Time: Puffy Oven Apple Pancakes

Good morning!  I don't usually show up here on Saturdays, but I wanted to share with you a favorite breakfast treat.

A few weekends ago, I had a lovely morning with my sister baking puffy oven pancakes and drinking coffee, and  chatting in her sunny kitchen.  It was such a great morning!  I wish I could sit in her kitchen every weekend and have coffee and talk.  :(    Mom would take us out for breakfast at least once a week when we were young: the three of us would wake up early and hurry out the door to get to the breakfast place before we headed off to school and mom headed off to work.   Of all the things I miss, having moved so far from my family, the simple morning breakfasts together are what I miss most of all...

But every now and then, I get to enjoy a morning with them again!

This particular morning, Cori and I decided to make Puffy Oven Pancakes.  Some people call these Dutch Babies.  We both use the recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook.  If you don't have that cookbook, the recipe is on-line here.

These are the perfect breakfast, easy to whip together, and made with ingredients that are in everyone's kitchen all the time.  The only drawback is that you have to wait 25 minutes or so for them to cook, and that tries my patience a bit.  

We discovered that she typically makes hers in a cast iron skillet, beginning on the stove top and then transferring to the oven.  I usually bake mine in my glass pie dish, with no stove top part involved.  We decided to try both pans side by side to see which we like best.  Of course cast iron won, --- cast iron always wins, so from now on I'll be trading my glass dish for my cast iron one.  However, we decided to skip the stove top part and go right to the oven.

We made ours by:

1. melting butter in our pans in the oven while it preheated.

2. layering thinly sliced apples, and then sprinkling with 1/4 c. brown sugar and cinnamon,

3. pouring the pancake mix on top of the apple/sugar layer

4.  and baking in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes while it got all puffed up and golden brown and delicious !

When they're done, you flip them over onto a plate so the caramel-y sugar-y, apple-y side is on top and slice them up.  Top with powdered sugar, pour some coffee and sit down to enjoy.

The recipe says "serves six", so be sure to make 2 if you'll be eating with your sister.   Six servings is just about right for me.  You may find you can eat more or less than that.

Happy Weekend!!