One mama tries to do it all. Adventures ensue.
Holy shit!
I’ve been nominated for one of the Top 25 Family Blogs over at Circle of Moms!
Aw, shucks me hates to be bossy – but . . . Head on over and vote for us!
Disclaimer: I haven’t won anything since the 5th grade D.A.R.E. essay contest. We all know how well I internalized drug avoidance behaviors, but hey – at least I learned I liked to write.
Voting ends October 31st. Vote early and often!
xoxo
Heather
Here it is, friends.
It’s a long story with few words.
Thursday, September 5th
school, soccer practice, drum lessons, back to school for a 7 p.m. parent meeting and photocopying, home by 9:30
Friday, September 6th
coffee, flowers, flowers, flowers, snacks with our wonderful neighbors, flowers, flowers, rehearsal, pizza, cotton candy, beer; bridesmaids hem my dress with safety pins because it’s too small for me to wear my petticoat under.
Saturday, September 7th
Snuggles with a very-pregnant bridesmaid and her baby belly, coffee and breakfast, Xanax, hair
12:45 p.m.
I really, really, really didn’t want to be there early.
Do you know how terrifying it is to have that many people looking at you!?
Sunday evening, September 8th, Millinocket, ME
Home. The honeymoon’s over, but we are still far from recovered. It was lovely and fun, but so very much work for us, our friends and our families.
One word of advice friends: Elope.
I needed a break from this .
We’ve all been sick, one after the other, and there is no end in sight. I won’t be surprised if our dogs start sneezing and leaving dirty tissues in the couch cushions.
A trip to Southern Maine for a travel soccer game was the perfect excuse to get away without exerting too much physical or mental energy.
Colby and I decided to make a day of it. We woke early Sunday morning, packed picnic lunches and hit the road. We listened to the first 1/3 of Atul Gawande’s Better (I had read it and thought Colby would like it – I was right for once!) and watching the sunshine peek through the fog as we drove.
We hit Freeport by 10 a.m. and made our first stop at a real donut shop.
I thought Colby was finally old enough to appreciate the Maine mecca of shopping, and I was correct. We had a day of sunshine, street music, good conversation and great deals.
We wrapped up our shopping just in time to head further south. It only took twenty minutes to get to the field. We were starstruck with the beautiful facility until I realized the portable toilets were not quite so sparkling (I saw cleaner ones at a Phish show, and that’s saying something).
We met up with my parents in Augusta for burgers and milkshakes (and a quick trip to Dick’s for a new pair of soccer socks).
While we were there we received a text from my husband: “guess what I bought at a yard sale for $5”. With him, you never know, so I asked for a clue. He sent this picture.
It’s a friggin chicken plucker. A chicken plucker. Apparently “she needs some work”.
It was a beautiful late-September day, even if I did return home to find a chicken plucker in the driveway. Colby and I both had a relapse (fevers, general yuck, etc.) today, and are wishing for a nice, germ-free stretch in the near future.
Stay tuned for . . . the wedding report.
I’m thinking about empathy today, friends.
And about how we pretend like we know what others are living through, and how we can fix it.
Most of us don’t know how it feels to be an addict.
We don’t know what it’s like to feel un-loved.
Most of us have never been truly starving.
Or homeless.
Or utterly alone.
This makes it impossible for us to opine, with any authority, about the origins or solutions to any of the above problems. Scholarship be damned – if we haven’t felt it, we don’t know it.
I judge and hypothesize as much as, if not more than, the general population. Today, I’m remembering why that’s not okay. Every court news story, every mug shot, every obituary belongs to a person. A person with a story. The person may be someone’s son, a favorite student, the kid next door.
A person is more than the sum of their bad decisions.
Friends, I’m happy to introduce you to a former classmate and newly-found friend of mine, Catie Joyce of www.theapproximateyogi.com. You will remember her as the person who taught me how to get rid of excess greens in my morning smoothies, and whose writing on Rebelle Society and Elephant Journal I’ve been sharing all summer. I’m so happy to have a guest post from her here. I plan to make this Caprese Grilled Cheese for supper tonight. Enjoy!
I had this amazing idea for a decadent grilled cheese sandwich the other day. Luckily, I blog, so I had the perfect excuse to indulge. That, and I had a willing accomplice. Hence, the capresé grilled cheese sandwich was born.
So for those unfortunate souls who have never had capresé, I’ll enlighten. It is the perfect summertime appetizer, so fresh, so elegant, and a perfect use of some really great garden ingredients. You start with a base of mozzarella, a nice round thick slice, add a slice of summer-ripe garden tomato, top it with a fresh basil leaf, then drizzle with olive oil and a good balsamic vinegar. Done. Place the whole thing in your mouth, and wait for your taste buds enter into heaven!
Why not put this into a grilled cheese sandwich? I thought. (I think the original inspiration came from trolling Pinterest, looking at other grill cheese spin-offs.) So I did. You really can’t go wrong with grilled cheese anyway, but adding these extra ingredients, heating them up to make that mozzarella just ooze –heaven in a sandwich. Plus, with those fresh garden ingredients it is a little healthier than your average grilled cheese.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Good Italian bread, sliced
The freshest looking tomato (also really fun to try different colored heirlooms)
Fresh basil
Soft mozzarella
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic vinegar (splurge on a good one)
Butter
Frying pan
Here’s what you’ll do:
Slice everything up –bread, tomatoes, and mozzarella. Butter your bread slices on both sides (or just the outside if you want to reduce the fat). Place in hot frying pan that’s on medium heat. Add mozzarella, tomato, and basil leaf. Then carefully drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Salt if you’d like. Place other buttered bread slice on top of this. Cook for a few minutes, until bread has that lovely brown, toasted, melted-buttery quality, then flip and do the same for the other side.
Now you’re ready to enjoy. It tastes best if you have the pleasure of sharing it with a good friend, and a view of a lake on a sunny afternoon, as I was fortunate enough to have. However, it will taste great on a rainy day as well.
What happens when you are planning a wedding, renovating a barn for said wedding, wrangling produce and an unruly flower garden, driving to soccer practice and planning for seven classes?
This:
See how fluffy and pretty Bella is here? She escaped and found (last night) something dead and (today) a large pile of cow shit (Sorry Mrs. Thompson!!!). Summer lovin’.
I haven’t worn pants all week. Also, I told my friend’s daughter that the best thing about running shorts was that the underwear are built in, and much more comfy than regular undies. She looked at me like maybe it is not socially acceptable to tell people that. Whoops.
If I were a cartoon character my name would be Ms. Webb No Pants.
It’s no pants week because I said so. In a few days I will be forced to don teacher clothes. They are itchy and pinchy and no fun. My abdomen and thighs are enjoying their last week of freedom.
While the end of soccer season always brings a visceral, and bittersweet, relief, the beginning sneaks up on us. A practice here, a game there, until BAM. It’s October and everyone is out of clean underwear (either wearing dirty ones inside out or none at all) and you haven’t had a hot meal before 9 pm in two months.
This is what the beginning of this soccer season looks like for me:
I change into my running clothes before every practice. I pack one work-related activity. I spend the first 30 minutes working or reading, and the rest walking or running. I was feeling pretty smug about this until I realized it’s only August. Actually, I’ve written this post before, haven’t I?
I guess the good news is that we always survive to see another season. I do have a few tricks up my sleeve this season though.
PBJ suppers- no whining allowed.
Cereal always trumps Pizza Hut. No restaurants after games.(Playoffs excluded). This will easily save us an hour and a half each game night.
Freezer meals. I’ve already planned out meals to put away for busy game/week nights.
This is my least favorite: morning work outs. I’ve been practicing since July, and think the habit is setting.
Thursdays and Saturdays are for grading (and soccer games). I will find the nearest Tim Horton’s or McDs and use their Internet while waiting for C’s game.
Piece o’ cake, right?
Xoxo
Heather
I’m sitting in my car, parked outside the music studio where Colby takes drum lessons.
Mother Nature decided I was tired, so she’s watering my garden for me.
It seemed like a good day to spend a paycheck. At Target, on school supplies. The irony.
I had allergy testing done earlier this week.
Now I will know what is like to live in Maine and not eat any seafood.
Matt and I got our marriage license. I kept thinking they were gonna say no, but it turns out as long as we’re not first cousins we’re all set!
I have painted my kitchen twice in the past two weeks. *facepalm*
The sea foam green was good in theory. I like the present khaki MUCH better.
I got a college ID much different from those I’ve had in the past. I think I look better in this one too.
We’ve been canning and freezing in the middle of all of this wedding planning kid carting new (extra) job ruckus. I think I can I think I can . . .
God, Universe, Serendipity:
Thank you for the weather, a lazy summer lunch, and the kid who is listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers and cleaning the kitchen.
xoxo
H
from midnight oil 