I'm thinking about stuff

:: enjoying a few warm days still. I love rainy weather if it is warm rain.

:: ecstatic that my Mom will be in town in less than a month.

Mi Madre es su Madre, or something like that...

:: feeling  a little overwhelmed as I try to adapt to all the scheduling changes in our household. I am completely a creature of habit. Would that make me Nunzilla? Creature of habit, Nunzilla, get it?

:: harvesting basil and green peppers still. And ants still. argggggh.

:: wanting to go bra shopping. La ti da. Fancy.

:: enjoying eating seeds, seeds, seeds. Can't get enough of them! Especially weird little chia seeds.

:: riding MLK Blvd. through the cultural gardens every Monday to get to Wolf's music class at the Cleveland Music School Settlement. I love that drive especially now that the gardens have been getting spruced up.

:: holding  onto dreams of actually completing a pair of knitted socks. I started knitting a pair in April, I think, and after throwing away some early attempts, I am 1/6th of the way done. Ugh.

:: thinking I would love to soak in a hot spring, which I have never done. Preferably in Japan, but that might be pushing it!

:: grateful for my husband. He is my #1 partner in crime.

Not literally my partner in crime, maybe my partner in well-meaning, spirited hijinx.

:: anticipating the astronomical doctor and dentist bills in our near future. Totally worth it to go in for a tune-up though. Just wish it was more like other businesses where you could get an estimate and compare costs and service before committing to things. It always amazes me that it is all so confusing, even though I work in the industry. It must be terrible for people that really have no understanding of what their bills say.

:: itching to get creative. If I could find an extra few hours somewhere, I could really get sewing and like hide my house under a giant slipcover! With ric-rac!

:: wishing for a supremely cute vintage tear drop trailer. I can barely control myself when I see one.

I want to eat some weird jello mold and deviled eggs and then pop in for a little seista!

:: wondering if I will get my freezer emptied out to make room for home-made applesauce galore!!! Apple-picking with the Hoffbros is one of my favorite things all year. Would you believe it ranks higher than Christmas for me?!

Burnham Orchard photo circa 2010

:: hoping for more fun days spent with my daughter and grand-pumpkin! It is almost time for a first birthday which means bearing witness to a first tasting of buttercream. It's like a tribal rite of passage. Will she like it, adore it, GASP, hate it?!?!

Here is the dynamic duo!

:: remembering when Jassy was on t.v. when she was little, maybe 7 yrs.old. She was on "Brain Drain" and she was sooooooo cute.

::Imagining what it would have been like to meet my Gma-in-love, Edna. Whenever I spend time at the home of my Mom-in-love, which I was lucky enough to do today, I can't help but feel like I know her just a little bit because her memory is so lovingly kept alive by her daughter.

My sweet little pixie husband with Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Edna

what's up in our house...

****It is the 9th anniversary for Ma and Pa Hoff!  We are amazed by how fast the time has gone and how much our love has grown!  I was sooooooooo in love on our wedding day, I surely never imagined that I could actually fall more deeply in love, but yet here we are, still making googly eyes at each other.

Well, actually we are imitating carp, but very lovingly. We do those sorts of things. Publicly, apparently.

*****I got this great new toy at Educator's Market and Toy store. I am using it as a fun way to get Wolf to make some basic math worksheets, as he loathes math facts. This has helped take some of the "BORRRR-ing!" out of it. It was only a buck!

A die in a die!  

******I can not get enough of this...

p.s. my food photog is the worst.  Not even '70's cookbook bad, just fugly.

Homemade wheat and flax bread toasted with half peanut-half almond butter with sunflower seeds and chia seeds. That sounds as stupid as one of those complicated Starbuck's orders, but I swear I am just not that fancy. But this is crunchy and creamy and sweet and salty and...o.k., it is a tad complex. 

*****We went to the Early Settler's Music Celebration at the Rocky River Nature Center with a short hike to the Frostville Museum. They had all kinds of activities and displays related to Pioneer and Native american ways of life.  The boys got to see a cannon fire, saw a log with a two-man saw, make clay pinch pots, write with a quill, dye yarn, taste honey and cornbread baked over an open fire. 

The sawing took forever, so the 'rents had to assist

They watched apple butter being made and cider being pressed and sampled it more times than they probably should have. They listened to music and tried out square dancing.  It was a great tie-in for the pioneer education we have been doing in homeschooling. BTW, I am loving the series from Little House for kiddos of the younger variety, My First Little House.  The kids love the short stories and have a better time absorbing them than from the regular Little House books.  The illustrations are nice too. I cried reading the one where they leave the Big Woods of Wisconsin for the prairie. I am total moosh inside.

**** Tonight we will attempt a "date" for our anniversary.  Nothing too far-fetched, just dinner.  We will see how it goes, as our track record is not good. Past events include restaurants being closed, shoes that hobbled me, getting too drunk to drive on ONE margarita and having to spend too long in a drug store searching for products with names that made us giggle and then sobering up on ice cream... well that actually was pretty good, so you never know!