Seasonal Sunday

It is definitely pumpkin patch season. In Portland we have had two amazingly dry and warm weekends in a row and pumpkin seekers have been out in force. We went today and got our share. A few pics... 

Oh my gosh! I totally forgot to mention that in all my years of pumpkin patching, I have never ever seen what I saw today. I am thankful that overall Oregonians are wise about the ways of a farm (even a working one). But today there it was, a woman standing in the field full of pumpkins and stems, wearing full on fancy pointy toed high heels! It takes all kinds. 

Disclaimer... I'm not against high heels in general, just in a dusty dirty old pumpkin patch!

So smooth

Morning and night lately, I find that I crave two things. 

1) A sale in my shop & 

2) Smoothies! 

Around the same time that I added my newest photos (from the Fizz show) into my Etsy shop, I tried Dr Oz's (or Dr. Fuhrman's) supposedly great healthy crash diet. Well crash it did. I lost all of 1 pound and have in the Etsy shop made all of 1 sale - but I'll take it! 

Have a 1-day sale, make a sale. It works! 

Even my daughter is getting into it... advising me what to do or think about my shop and regularly requesting her own smoothies. 

This morning, the girl had mango/strawberry smoothie while I had banana/raspberry/pomegranate/strawberry/peanut butter/kale! Sounds truly atrocious when you get to the kale but it is delicious! 

It even looks good... I should have shot the mango one because the color was sublime and the texture perfection... but alas I did not. But here in all it's glory, is my smoothie and my sale. 

I'm hoping with enough of each I just might lose more than 1 pound by the end of the summer and be able to pay my nanny bill too! 

Now I'm going to spend some time thinking about other ways to display my photos... such as small wood blocks (ready to hang), necklaces or on canvas. Thinking, thinking, thinking... 

More soon.

July 15, 2011

Sadly, this year I have pretty much nothing growing in my garden. I am not very happy about it. I do, however, have my five blueberry bushes, multiple strawberry plants and I believe I may have marionberries too. The blueberry bushes are starting to show their true colors, ever so slowly. Nothing as delicious as a fresh blueberry or two grown in your own back yard!

Wednesday, June 28, 2011

These ruby jewels may be a bit more watery than I'd planned but we'll do our best to enjoy them anyway.

We picked these (the girl & I) and a whole lot more!

The girl's All Nature Candy Shop, featuring a fudge cake with grape flower toppings, cherry flowers, fudge balls with caramel bread hamburger, cherry flowers with pokey caramel fillings and cherry strawberry and banana flower lollipops.

Mickey Mouse Peanut Butter Pancake Sandwich

Mickey Mouse Peanut Butter Pancake Sandwich, 
  

It's gonna taste so good it makes me feel rich. 
  

Mama's silly rhyming typing is not a glitch, 

It's true, for lunch today I'm having... 

a Mickey Mouse shaped 
peanut butter pancake sandwich!

Grocery clerk to bagger:  "Careful, there are leaks in that bag!" Who knew there was such a thing as grocery humor? :-)

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.
~Hanna Rion

Give the girl a cookbook, and she makes chicken nuggets

One nice thing about my office is that people leave perfectly good items they don't want in the break room for others to have. Today when I went in to get my coffee, I came out with that along with a Kids Cookbook. 

Lucky for me, being Spring Break and all, the girl is looking for projects (but truth be told this particular girl is ALWAYS looking for projects... even minutes before bed!!!). She started to look through the book for dinners she could make and voila tonight she is making Golden Chicken nuggets. The beauty of this book is that basically there are 3 steps to every recipe! 

I admit we helped a bit. Dad thawed the chicken. I did the last bits of chicken cutting and rolling the nuggets in the fried onion mixture, but the rest was all our girl! It may not be boeuf bourguignon but it is a start. Next up... how to get my boy to cook something other than microwave popcorn!

Benefit for the Portland, Oregon Day Labor Center

Sorry used the phone camera. The soup was good though and so was the mariachi music!

At least we've got this delicious soup

keep it up

Getting back in the groove

Getting back in the groove is harder than you'd think, especially when you are trying to improve things. I have always had a hard time packing lunches my kids will actually eat. We have a pretty great lunchbox system for both kids but only one kid who can microwave their food. So now a new dilemna... if my younger child will eat leftovers happily BUT they need to be WARM and she cannot microwave them... what system works? You'd think it would be easy to figure out but so far... no. So... should I go get an interim system such as a thermos for her to take with what she already has or try to keep researching the convoluted options that appear to exist, eating up my day. Oh wait... I think I just solved my own question. Being a mother, seemingly simple things that just eat up your day.

If anyone out there knows a GREAT and not TOO expensive lunch system that keeps things WARM/HOT... I'd love to hear about it. I'm getting lost in all the information out there.

Thanks! Happy New (too many things to think about) Year from Mama Zuzi!

Fresh garden basil - what to do?

Thinking of trying out this recipe (if I have enough basil that is)... otherwise maybe a pesto chicken pasta for dinner?! Yum either way.

Fresh basil pesto recipe

Basil Chicken over Angel Hair

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What I'd Like Wednesday

Oh boy, it is finally What I'd Like Wednesday...and here's a few things I wouldn't mind having:

• My boy relaxed and less nervous,
• My girl relaxed, and tantrum free,
• My hubby offered a terrific job that pays well enough for me to not work or is flexible enough for me to work around his schedule,
• Our beach vacation to happen as planned later in the summer,
• An Italian vacation and/or Wales, Scotland, England, Ireland before I turn 50!,
• New paint in every room of my house,
• A great garden that produces lots of food for my family,
• A new president whose first name doesn't begin with either a J or a G,
• A master's degree in something I would truly love to do for the rest of my career,
• A maid,
  
• A cook,
• An on-call family consultant,
• A personal shopper for groceries and those hard to find items,
• Piece of mind.

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PS... guess who picked today's picture?

It's Find the Time Friday

Hmmmm. What can I find the time to do today and this weekend? I'm thinking, thinking, thinking.

Sometimes in our hectic lives it really is all about prioritizing, isn't it?

Today, I am going to find the time to:

• Eat breakfast in a timely fashion,
• Volunteer in my boy's classroom,
• EXERCISE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
• Pay a couple bills that need paying (even though I don't want to),
• Blog
• Watch the Final Four (Go Jayhawks)

Wierd week

It has been a weird week for certain. It is Spring Break here in Oregon and yet there has been snow on some of our beaches and elsewhere (not in Portland - yet).

It has been a wierd week here at our house as well. Normally Dad would be gone half the time but now he's here most of the time. We would normally have at least been going out to do more activities, but are staying closer to home boring the kids with TV and computer games while Dad submits resumes and I work part of the time.

It has been a weird week for me. I think I'm allowing myself to do all the wrong things for myself to get past feeling sorry for ME (cause isn't that who it is all about)? Just kidding - thinking like a kid there for a moment. Staying up late watching silly TV (there was a great bit about being the center of the universe on The New Adventures of Old Christine the other night), eating junk including ice cream, candy, and some BK the other night as a last splurge, not exercising AT ALL, and wine every night so far since last Friday. This too shall pass.

What are you NOT doing this week? What do you wish you were?

I wish I was in Italy (often do) having the vacation of a lifetime with great wines, pastas, cannollis and more.

Feels like a Monday

Was gonna post but can't upload pics right now. Hmph. It is a Tuesday, but it feels like a Monday after a very nice long weekend. More about all the things (sports, sports, sports) that kept us busy this weekend when I'm not cutting my daughter out of some hot pink yarn she's tied herself up in and get my boy to eat more than 4 small pieces of pear isn't going to give him enough energy to get through until lunchtime.

More later.

Quietness

Sorry I've been away for what seems like forever although it has only really been 2 weeks. Not sure why other than I kind of feel like I have nothing to say and I'm more focused on getting things off to a theoretical (or real maybe) good start at home in 2008. Otherwise I'd guess I'm afraid that if I start blogging again all the things that have been bouncing around in my brain just might cause it to explode!

Well... here goes with just a taste... I'm holding my head as I type this (just kidding -- that wouldn't exactly be possible now would it?).

Some of the myriad things filling up the brain of MamaZuzi:

• Trying to manage to exercise every day (if not then a few times a week),
• Getting used to a new family calendar,
• Getting used to and fine-tuning a new family notebook and menu program,
• Struggling with and trying not to stress (TOO MUCH) on getting our daughter into her brother's school next year for kindergarten and figuring out if we do get in, if we'll either want or have to pay $300/month for full-day,
• Trying to find a new carpool since our tried-and-true partner is moving too far away as of Feb.1st,
• Dealing with deadlines for preschool auctions and open houses and fulfilling my duties there,
• Working with new budget system at home and all the inevitable wierd things that come up there,
• Preparing for my baby girl's 5th birthday and our family party,
• Looking at additional volunteer hours at my boy's school to aid in hopefully having good information to be able to calculate incoming kinders and ideally getting my daughter in - in - in!,
• Figuring out how to work a new insurance and reimbursement system along with finding new doctors after years of being with Kaiser Permanente.

So ... that is just some of what is occupying me lately and which hasn't made it into the blog. Bug me some more and maybe I'll manage to post again sometime soon :-)