summer – Page 3 – Peaceful Reader

Weekly Recipes 14

I love to cook in the summertime. The fresh flavors, the amazing produce, the tomatoes plucked right from the vines in my backyard, the craft cocktails to cool you down…it’s all perfect.

(this into that)

I’ve made a few spectacular meals the last few weeks that you might like. I’ve cooked meals and I’ve done some canning. My mother brought me 3 large boxes of tomatoes from her farm and I turned those rosy reds into about 24 jars of salsa. She also brought me two buckets of fresh-scented basil that I churned into pistou (pesto w/out nuts). I will love pulling that fresh green sauce out in the winter to enjoy with crackers or over pasta; bringing summer rushing right back.

One of the meal’s that I had fun planning was a vegan meal for my son’s girlfriend, Heather, who is vegan. On One Green Planet I found a delicious recipe for Stir Fried Brussels Sprouts with Ginger and Curry leaves. I love all those ingredients and luckily I knew Heather like brussels sprouts from a previous meal around our table. I was excited that I even had curry leaves on hand from other Thai meals. I love it when a rare ingredient like that is actually inside my cupboard already. The stir-fry was good and pretty easy to put together. I would add more sauce next time, more tomato to keep it altogether.

Groovy Girl and I experimented to make an interesting vegan dessert: donuts! Never made donuts before-why not give them a try right before a celebratory meal! Yes, yes that’s just what we did and for first-timers it turned out great. Next time we will spray the nonstick pan first. It was a fun recipe to try and they enjoyed eating them even though our second batch stuck mostly in the pan. Thankfully Tristan just poured almond milk over and ate them like cereal or in our family, just like chocolate cake. Here is our donut recipe and the sugar glaze we used for some while others we just sprinkled with a cinnamon mixture. Groovy Girl loved helping me with this meal, especially the donuts, and I think I love that she may move into being a talented sous chef for me.

I had book club last week and we discussed Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things, which we loved. I had a large amount of bell-shaped yellow tomatoes from our garden and I used them to make these little mozzarella bites. I laid my tiny skewers on a bed of fresh greens and very peppery arugula and then drizzled a balsamic/olive oil mixture over the top. Getting to book club on time is always a major feat for me so no photo exists. And we ate them all. Love that.

Besides cooking I’ve finished my summer with voracious reading; I finished The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney and Chris Bohjalian’s The Guest Room; both excellent reads.

Where does the summer go?

At this time of the month I begin to wonder what I did all summer? Where did the time go? In just one week I will be back in school. I haven’t blogged nearly enough over the summer. I didn’t finish writing any of the 3-4 stories I’m invested in finishing. I didn’t get enough closets cleaned out. It’s like panic mode. I’m not done with my summer homework…

On the other hand I’ve taken an awesome vacation to Asheville, NC where we floated down the French Broad River, ate at many wonderful places, listened to bluegrass at Isis, toured the Biltmore, and tried many of the local breweries. We accomplished a lot in the short time we were there.

I’ve cleaned out clutter-what feels like a constant life job-and helped Groovy Girl and Best Friend host a garage sale. I’ve helped a friend out by nannying her three children while she works this summer so I’ve been able to take them to the water park, the beach, and the library just to name a few fun days. I have spent some mornings writing but it is few and far between. How do I set up a practice of writing on a real regular basis? This question has plagued me for years. I don’t even get enough blogging done.

I’ve just gotten back into a good rhythm of doing some yoga in the morning and when school begins again I need to be ready to seriously get up out of BED and continue this yoga practice to stay with what I’ve built this summer.

I’ve read a ton which has been an amazing journey. Many summers I just try to keep up with books for school and this year I was introduced to the app @Litsy (thanks to @Librarydady) which has raised my reading to a new level. @Litsy gives me many adult titles to look for and order from our public library. I picked up a few from my own piles at home also and one of them was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is my favorite book this year now. I recommend it to anyone who loves good fiction and isn’t concerned about 720 pages. It flies by.

It’s been a good summer. I may never have a summer where I write every day. I have several stories that are important to me though so I’m going to have to find a way. I did take time to play this summer. I’ve enjoyed time with Groovy Girl -a ninth grader this year. I did spend time in my beloved orange hammock. I’ve spent time exploring nature, eating good summer food, picking tomatoes out of my garden, had frosty summertime drinks on the patio, and basked in the glory that is summer, my favorite season.

And in one week I need to be ready for school.

(Photos: Looking in at Lake Lure, Groovy Girl and me, The Biltmore, Prescott kiddos and me, former student Julia and I, Crosby walking)

#24in48 Readathon

Over the weekend I had fun participating a mini-readathon that I found on @Litsy. I read more than usual on both Saturday and Sunday and still didn’t make it to 24 hours. I did have two lunch dates and a 2 year-old birthday party to attend but still…

I finished two books in this time period and that was my true main goal. On our Asheville trip I’d started A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and I was anxious to finish it. The book brought out a lot of emotions and mixed feelings for me.

Her writing is brilliant and I can see why it’s the talk of the town. I loved how deeply she explored the idea of friendship. The entire book revolves around four roommates, Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm, that form a bond so tight that it lasts throughout their lives. Hanya gives us different perspectives through a few alternating chapters but Jude takes center stage. If you haven’t already read this I want to leave Jude’s character unexplained and even though I had a few criticisms of the Hanya’s story I would encourage everyone to read this book to the end. Don’t be frightened of the 700+ pages- you will turn the pages quickly and you’ll be halfway through before you look up. When I finished on Sunday morning I cried a little and then danced a little.

I picked a much easier book for my second read for the weekend readathon. Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper. I love the cover; oddly the cover on my library copy is very different-it shows a more modern-looking Stella-which doesn’t fit the era. In Bumblebee, NC Stella and her brother witness a cross burning across the pond very near their black community. FDR is about to be elected and a few members, including her father, want to register and vote for the first time. Stella is asked to make the journey into town to go with them. Of course they are treated unfairly, have to pay the poll tax and take a test while several white men wander in and only sign their name to a piece of paper to register.

The KKK strikes out and burns a house right down the street from Stella’s house. The community bands together to help and are surprised when several of their white neighbors come out to help. I thought the civil unrest brought out in this book are not properly finished. The book ends with a Christmas pageant but no finish to the voting unrest or the KKK.

I did enjoy Stella’s quest to be a better writer and thought it probably reflected a bit of Sharon Draper’s own story. This is still a worthwhile story and can serve as an introduction to young readers (3rd-6th grade) of how difficult the civil rights journey has been and continues on today.

I really enjoyed participating in the #24in48 readathon sponsored by @Litsy. I’m happy I had the weekend free and even though I didn’t get in 24 hours I did complete two books. And now I’m reading New Kid by Tim Green. I have to balance in books from school with other books I’m interested in reading.

It's June, It's June! {jumping up and down}

Summer has started. School has ended. Teachers and students need to rejuvenate. That said we are all still working. Students, hopefully, are still reading something (books, cereal boxes, road signs, etc.) and teachers are truly resting but in the back of their minds they are planning. Next year always looms ahead like a beacon. What can I do differently? How can I implement that into my classroom next year?

We all do it. Well I don’t know that for sure; I just know that I think that way and I’ve heard tell from other teacher friends that they plan that way as well. As a librarian I have the whole upkeep of the library to take care of and summer is a major cleanser for me. I’m working on inventory and have just started nonfiction. I finished fiction chapter books yesterday. They are all in the right order now, inventoried and reorganized. I’m taking out old copies, weeding, as I move through the shelves. It’s thrilling stuff.

I’ve also started working out with someone named Jillian Michaels who has kind of a fast mouth and likes to push it. Working out is something that gets pushed to the back burner during school and my mission is to get some strength back and to combat all the lounge treats I ate of the year.

I have lots of other plans for the summer and the first thing up on my travel agenda is coming up this week. We are heading to the Blue Ox festival in Eau Claire, WI with some friends. Camping, music, festival food, fun cocktails, sun dresses, and possibly some rain…all sounds like the perfect way to begin summer.

I’ve been lucky to have a few moments to spend in my parachute hammock reading. I’m in the middle of three great books; The Doctor’s Wife by Elizabeth Brundage, Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, and The Marvels by Brian Selznick.
What are you reading?

Happy June!

Swiss Chard Jamboree!

{source}

I have a huge bunch of swiss chard thanks to my mom. What do you do with swiss chard? That’s what I asked. I google and checked Pinterest for suggestions. I found bunches of recipe to help me out. One discovery was that I could use the brightly colored stems as well. I made this egg dish and it was delicious (Groovy Girl would not eat it though) but husband and I loved it. I could have added other veggies as well and I like that flexibility.

{From Martha’s website}

Swiss Chard Frittata (Martha Stewart)

1 large egg
10 large egg whites
1/3 cup fresh part-skim ricotta, pressed through a fine sieve
1/2 tsp course sea salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 leaves of swiss chard, thin slices of stems and leaves
1/2 large onion, sliced thinly

Preheat oven to 375*. Whisk together egg, whites, ricotta, 1 tsp of salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large oven proof 10-inch skillet over medium high heat. Add swiss chard stalks and onion and cook until onion is tender. Add swiss chard leaves and cook about 2 minutes until leaves are soft. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tsp of salt. Add egg mixture and stir once or twice to disperse vegetables evenly. Place skillet in oven and bake until eggs are set about 13 minutes. Serve immediately.

Okay, I choose not to run to the grocery store so I did a little substituting. I didn’t do the egg white ratio-I used our delicious farm brown eggs with glee. I did not happen to have ricotta so I used sour cream-close enough, right? Also I did not have an onion (we were just back from vacation) but I did have a red pepper which I used and it added nice matching color with the red stems of swiss chard. Done. I could make it again correctly-I would like to see how the ricotta cheese would taste but no big deal.

Other swiss chard recipes to try:

Swiss Chard pesto from Jeannette’s Healthy living blog
Swiss Chard Vegan rolls from Meet the Shannon’s blog (I am making these this week!)
Gemelli with sausage, swiss chard, and pine nuts from Martha (again)
and a great demonstration from Cooking Light on how to prep swiss chard.

Also I discovered this little doozy of a summer cocktail at Nutmeg Nanny and I love it as much as my rhubarb-basil treat. Yum! Perfect for sipping on the patio at oh, about 5 pm. Lemons and cucumbers are easy ingredients.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Take a look over there and see many other food-related posts.

Literary list from Groovy Girl

Today is a little like the first day of summer for the two of us. The first real part of summer was all about cleaning up Highland Library, planning our trip out west, and summer arts camp that now we are truly in the state of RELAXING. I read in bed for 45 minutes before emerging from my bedroom. We lazily watched two shows on her favorite HG-TV. I’ve folded a little laundry and we cleaned out the dirty pond that needs a new pump but it has been essentially a lazy day.

So she pops this question off to me as she is eating her noodle lunch:

“Mama, what’s your favorite kid books-

chapter books only-like books that people my age read?”

She asked me for my top three which quickly became five.

The quick list off the top of my head was

1. From the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
2. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
3. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. Wonder by R.J. Polaccio

I quickly added Maggie Steifvater’s The Raven Boys series even though it is YA. Too old for now she says. Just books I would have read.

And once I listened to her list I wanted to add some of hers on as well such as The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle-I had to really push her to read that book which was a school assignment and then once she got into it she couldn’t stop.

Then I asked her for her choices:

1. 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass
2. Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
4. Wonder by R.J. Polaccio
5. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
6. Crash by Jerry Spinelli
7. Pegasus series by Kate O’Hearn
8. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
10. The Quirks by Erin Soderberg
11. Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret
12. The Land of Elyon series by Patrick Carman

And her 13th title is one we cannot remember title or author. It involves a troupe of traveling actors, a crow as her spirit animal and when she cannot kill her spirit animal she is banned from her community. For some reason I do not have it listed on my Goodreads account. If this synopsis rings a bell to you please let me know!

Happy reading and maybe our lists will inspire you to read one of our favorites.

Back-to-school

Usually my school begins before Groovy Girl so I miss the first day send-off. This year it is reversed so I was able to be here and take just a few photos. Allow me to share my little love:

{this is about when she got tired of the paparazzi}

{6th Grade Beauty}

Now I have three days to get a summer’s worth of work done!
I can honestly say though that this has been a very relaxing summer and
I’ve spent a lot of my time hanging out with her. #love

Hanging in the City; NYC.

We’ve driven cross country to visit my in-laws for two weeks. For something completely different we took the bus from DC to New York today. It was College Boy’s last vacation request before he leaves his home roost and heads to the great West.

We walked a lot today; from Madison Square Gardens through Times Square and Broadway trekking all the way over to Central Park West (through the park) and to our hotel, The Milburn.

Tomorrow we will head to Greenwich Village for lunch at Lupa owned by Mario B., which will be our only sit down meal for the most part. We ate at a Pizzaria for dinner close to the hotel. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up bagels, cream cheese and fruit for breakfast in our room. The hotel is old but refurbished and has a lovely but tiny kitchenette in the corner.

It is exciting to be in the city. I was lucky enough to come several times while I was a teenager but my kids have never been. It was fun to watch College Boy melt right in with the crowds while Groovy Girl was left hanging with her mouth open for many sites including the huge billboards and lights in Times Square.

Also it is Freezing here so the weather is pretty much the same as Iowa.

Where has the month gone?

Oh, yes, my blog…

Sometime during August I completely forgot for days that a blog is something I do, or did. I love writing and getting responses and some weeks are busier than others but August-truly you slipped away from me.

My attention has been at school. My school began with teacher work week days creeping up on me like a bad cold. One minute your happily waking up late, making breakfast for everyone, and then sitting down and resting for like two hours with a book in your lap and then BANG-time to go back to work.

My attention has also been on getting Groovy Girl prepared for 5th grade. Mostly that’s me sulking for a few days on the fact that she is even old enough (how could it be!) to be in 5th grade. Where did that time go? She is sassy and smart and totally prepared for school days. She has a new backpack from Target with a matching lunch box. She has folders matched to notebooks in 5 different hues. She has new colored pencils, markers, a big box of Kleenex and a medium sized scissors for her 5th grade fingers. She has everything but a best friend ready for school. I don’t know why she has such trauma with friends she just does. Mostly many of the other girls are already bossy tweenagers while she is insecure and small-ish. She wants to play make-believe while other girls prance discussing training bra sizes or whatever and the others play kick ball. One or the other no in-between. She doesn’t like kickball. Yikes. It’s been a rough couple of years for her in the friend arena but that’s another story.

My attention has been on Teenage Boy who is going to grow out of his blog name soon. He started at a local community college on Monday. His high school began the process to close (big tears-me, not him) while he was a junior last year and he made the smart decision to graduate with the last seniors by taking two on-line courses. He finished on the last day possible to graduate and began his first week at HCC with four classes. Wow. That’s just about all the mother can say. Wow.

My attention has been on working out more as I’ve added ten pounds to my smallish frame. The summer of turning 50gave me an unusually shaped waistline and I’m not happy about it. My kids still say I’m the
“skinniest mom they know” but I can feel this lump like a perpetual baby bulge. I am trying to walk more and bring full time yoga back into my life. For now I’m wearing multi-colored muu-muu’s to school.

In other news:

My car was rifled through while I was volunteering at the Democratic office for two hours. The important objects taken were a very nice water bottle, my black sunglasses, a bag of quarters (about $18), and our Garmin GPS!! The strangest thing they took was a pair of Bob’s striped size 3 of Groovy Girl’s that we had ordered and then needed to return because she discovered a small tear in the canvas. “They” got a brand new slightly ripped pair of shoes-tags still on them! I hate the idea of someone going through my stuff and I’m not happy with myself about forgetting to lock it but they are just objects Lesson learned.

I finished Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn in like 3 days! Review will be forthcoming but know that it was GREAT. My women’s book group read James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a young man. I couldn’t get through it and don’t know if I will ever go back. Joyce’s stream of consciousnesses was not enjoyable. It was my first free download to my Kindle Fire so there’s that to celebrate!

Most of all I’ve been paying attention to my blessings. This blog is one of them and I will bring myself back to it now. It was nice taking a short breather but I could tell I missed it the last two days.

What’s grabbed your attention this month?

Happy Monday from sunny Colorado!

We’ve had an excellent trip to Colorado. Teenage Boy and Greg returned last week. Groovy Girl and I have been lucky enough to stay for an extended time to help my brother move into a new house and we are happily spending a lot of extra time with my dearest friend, Jen and her four kids. These photos share Teenage Boy and Groovy Girl’s trip to Grand Lake to fly fish. Teenage Boy has lots of experience as every summer he has been able to fly fish with Grandma Janice and Grandpa Dean but it was Groovy Girl’s first time. She caught a 10-inch brown trout but that didn’t get captured before being returned to the stream. You can see they saw a lot of wildlife while fishing!