OK, so now the blonde has been pushing ‘refresh’ on my blog link for 5 days and she keeps seeing the same ole’ post, so she emailed me to ask whu’zup?….

Just kidding.  But I haven’t posted since July 1st, with our Convergence gathering goings-on taking place all last week (see June 28th post) attended by lots of precious friends, plus all our kids (YIPPEEEE!!!!!) from the Seattle area and way too much sun to ignore having water fun during the free times…then a huge and relaxing holiday party on Friday, July 4th, then the tears fell as, one-by-one we had to say good-bye to our dear friends and family and now, we’re holding tight to our last visiting son for the next few days until he departs.  Plotting our moves and planning some fun stuff.

Today we de-flated air beds and gathered sheets and towels and assorted laundry to be done, tidied the flop-house living room and found stuff we forgot we had hiding under extra pillows and blankets.  Cleaned the refrigerators and organized this and that.  Pulled out the assorted bags of leftover veggies from the freezer and packed the crock-pot full to simmer some homemade beef stew as I pondered my meal menu for the upcoming week.  LOVE feeding my kids - they’re always hungry and nothing’s ever wasted since they’re constantly grazing.

About food.  We always had a team in the kitchen, which is not only fun, but also cuts toil and time by at least half.  I baked an organic turkey I’d purchased on sale over the Christmas holidays (freezers are great!).  We roasted it on the gas grill to avoid heating up the house - summers here are scorchers.  Using the oven to bake for several hours can make the whole crew miserable…not to mention, sweating profusely kills an appetite.  I knew a turkey feast would be a hit and we could feed on it for days I did cheat and made Stove Top stuffing to save time and energy and it all came together beautifully…we also made lots of fresh wraps, rolled on soft whole wheat type tortillas which were tasty with fresh basil, thinly sliced turkey, Vidalia onion, tomato, havarti cheese and anything else that caught our fancy - avocado is always a winner and horseradish cream gives a sandwich such ‘pop’.  We grilled the best cheeseburgers in town and I did make a huge batch of homemade potato salad just because it’s sooo good, and sort of rare these days with all the store-bought stuff.  I made a quadruple batch of my Arrabiatta sauce with sauteed chicken breasts and fresh mushrooms over whole wheat spaghetti, stewed some of the best roast beef I’ve ever tasted and created some amazing french dips…we really had some culinary fun!  For the last 15 years or so I’ve always searched out a farm who raises natural beef and we buy a half or whole cow for the freezer.  It’s high quality and low cost and knowing it’s safe to eat makes it taste even better. 

But tonight it’s bake-your-own pizzas from Pappa Murphys, with salad ’cause Mom’s tired and Dad’s sweet :).  “Let’s order pizza, babe,” is music to a tired Momma’s ears!

Happy Monday everyone!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm and is filed under No Ordinary Child. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.