Monthly Musings: Getting Ready For Summer

It's the last Thursday of the month and time to link up with with Holly at Pink Lady and Patty at Good, Better, Best for their "Monthly Musings." I love this link up so much and am so thankful that Holly and Patty continue to host it.

1) What are you looking forward to this summer?

Since I'm a middle school secretary I get six and a half weeks off. I'm looking forward to some fun travels but also lazy mornings at home, drinking coffee-hot chocolate with Dave, and making fun memories with our family. I hope we have afternoons of eating popsicles and reading and fun at the pool with friends. Those lazy days of summer are calling my name and I am ready for them!

And I'm really looking forward to my and Dave's trip just the two of us!!!!!!!!!!

Last time we took a trip just the two of us, Iceland, July 2018 

2) Favourite summer traditions.

I love, love, love our "strawberries and ice cream for breakfast on the first day of summer break" tradition! I started this with the kids in 2016 and we've done it every single year. On the left is our strawberries and ice cream breakfast in 2017, right before we flew to Kenya for our summer vacation. On the right is our strawberries and ice cream breakfast last year.

3) Favourite summer recipe. Please share!

I really love the kale salad recipe found here. Although I skip most of the salad ingredients (hahaha!!!) and just use peppers, green onions, shredded carrots, kale, and sometimes cucumber. I really love the dressing though. We get so much kale in our CSA that I almost always have this on hand in the summer. It's sooooo good!!!

4) Summer vacation plans?

Besides Dave and I getting away for a bit, we have a family vacation planned. It's a road trip and will include many of our favourite things! I can't wait and am really looking forward to having some time just the four of us, exploring new places, and making new memories together!

 

Previous road trip memories: left, March 2024: a stop at Panera Bread (one of our favourites!) and right: the ocean in Florida, March 2023

5) Cole slaw or potato salad? Recipe to share.

I make the potato salad recipe I got from my mom. It uses 1 1/2 hard boiled eggs and 1 boiled potato (sliced thinly) per person. Then you mix half sour cream and half mayonnaise (maybe 1/2 cup each for six eggs and four potatoes), with some (maybe 1tsp) yellow mustard and a little milk to thin it. Add a lot of pepper and chives. This is a delicious potato salad.

You can see the potato salad in the top left of my plate.

6) Favourite ice cream or frozen treat?

If I can't visit our favourite local ice cream shop, I love taking regular lemonade, throwing some berries in, and making popsicles.

7) Favourite summer beverage?

Whatever my dad is making! Hahahahahaha! He makes a great G&T but I also love all his experiments! We've ended up with some really great drinks that way!!!

8) Beach, lake, or mountains?

I really love all three. Why do I have to choose!?!?!?! Our summer this year will include some beach time but probably not mountains or lakes. Sadness :(

9) Best ways to beat the heat in summer?

Sit in the shade, eat a popsicle, go swimming, hang out in the basement, and be really thankful for air conditioning!

10) Favourite sunscreen?

I don't have one. I really need to get better at wearing sunscreen but it always feels so greasy when I apply it. I'll have to read through all your suggestions and find one I really love.

Okay, now I'm more than ready for summer -- bring on summer nights, popsicles, G&Ts in the backyard, and having fun with my family!!!

What's Up Wednesday: May 2024

If you read my blog regularly, you will notice that I haven't posted much this month. That's because May has been kicking our butts. We've had a full month topped with very few days when all four of us have been healthy and it's been a struggle. So this post reflects "all the things happening" combined with "someone is sick...again."

I really do love answering the What's Up Wednesday questions every month. I like how they help me reflect on the past month and I love having a monthly record of what we've been up to. I go back and re-read these posts often.The questions come from Shay at Mix and Match Mama and Sheaffer at Sheaffer Told Me Too.

image from here

 

What we're eating this week... I don't remember exactly how I found it, but Tanya who blogs at "The Other Side of the Road" linked to a bread recipe on another blog of hers. I baked some at the beginning of May and now I "can't stop, won't stop." I've baked this bread three times already this month. We all LOVE it and it's a super easy, fast, recipe. And since the recipe only makes two loaves, we gobble it up before it goes stale. You can find the recipe here. I highly recommend you make some!

What I'm reminiscing about... I'm reminiscing about when we were all healthy! Hahaha! No, I don't really know what I'm reminiscing about this month. Except for the illnesses we've been dealing with, I am loving life right now and not thinking about the past.

What I'm loving... We randomly ended up with some rhubarb (long story) and so I made some rhubarb syrup for St Petersburg Burros -- a drink my dad invented one summer. It's basically a Moscow Mule with the addition of rhubarb syrup and it's sooooo good! I've been loving having these to drink this month!

 

What we've been up to... Besides all the sickness, we've been up to a lot.

We belatedly celebrated my birthday with a yummy supper and by going to get ice cream.

 

I volunteered for Rachel's dance performance rehearsals and the first show but, sadly, didn't get to actually watch the performance because I came down with the stomach flu :( Boo.

 

 We celebrated Mother's Day at a "pick your own tulips" farm!

We belatedly celebrated Sam's birthday at a Toronto FC soccer game with two of his friends, a sleepover, and a waffles and bacon brunch.

 

We've done a bunch of yard work. These are two of my current favourite spots in our yard.

We enjoyed our first pool visit...

...and our first food trucks visit.

We didn't enjoy an ER visit but are thankful for good health care and for the hope of better health soon. (Posted with Sam's permission, in case you were wondering.)

I tried throwing pizza dough, somewhat successfully!

And in moments of calm, we've been enjoying morning coffee and reading outside in the afternoons.

What I'm dreading... As I mentioned above in "reminiscing," I'm loving life right now (except for the health stuff) so I'm also not dreading anything this month.

What I'm working on... Well, I bought 73 annuals and I've only planted five of them thus far, so I should be working on that this week! Hahaha! There's also always more weeding to do as shown in the picture on the right :)

We've also been working on "deep cleaning" our house, one room at a time. This month we've done our bedroom and Rachel's room. We only have a couple of rooms left and we've been working on them when it rains. I'm loving having more time to get things done around the house now that we have a bit of a dance break!

 

What I'm excited about... I went on an Art Walk to highlight public works of art in our downtown. It was really interesting and fun. Best of all, our city has produced a guide so that we can tour the art on our own. I am excited to take my family on a guided walk of all the art in our downtown. I know I only got to see a small portion of it on the walk I took. Best of all, one of my co-workers has a few pieces featured!!!

What I'm watching/reading... During Covid, our library got rid of overdue fines. While I appreciate the principle, these past few months I've been considering asking them to reinstate fines solely for me! Hahahaha! I have so many overdue books right now so I've been working on getting them read and returned to the library. I am the worst.

 

Not all of these books are overdue, just more than the library appreciates :)

 

As for watching, Sam's soccer season has started but he's been too sick to play :( Hopefully he'll be able to start soon. I'm looking forward to watching him on the soccer fields, rather than just in our back yard, and not only because soccer in the back yard leads to the breaking of my solar lights and various plants in our flower beds :) 

What I'm listening to... As I write this I'm listening to our ice machine making ice. Three of us love ice and the fourth person doesn't understand our obsession! My favourite thing to do in the afternoon when I come home from work is put some lime juice in my Guinness glass, fill it with ice, and dump in a can of Coke. YUM! And every night I take a glass or two of water, ice, and lime to bed. I really love our ice machine :)

What I'm wearing... I had been wanting a pair of denim capris for a few years and I finally saw a pair at Costco! Hahahaha! I snatched them up and I have been loving them! They have a bit of stretch and are so comfortable. So I've been wearing these a lot this past month.

What I'm doing this weekend... We're going to a baseball game, a birthday party, and possibly an art show. It's going to be a full weekend and I can't wait!!!

What I'm looking forward to next month... We still have a full month left of school (and work for me) but I'm looking forward to celebrating Rachel's birthday, a fun baseball experience (I hope!), and some special visitors :) Dave has another work trip but this time he won't be gone over our anniversary so I'm looking forward to that as well.

What I bought on Amazon... I didn't buy anything on Amazon this month.

So that's what's been up with us -- more sickness than we would like, more housecleaning and yard work than I'd anticipated (but I love it), some belated birthday celebrating, and some fun exploring. This is one of my favourite times of the year so I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible.

Happy Wednesday!!!

Friday Favourite Moments #20/10 On The 10th: May 2024

I'll be honest with you. Last week was hard. I had the stomach flu last Saturday and missed Rachel's dance performance (except for the little bits I caught while watching rehearsals). Thanks to the flu, I felt a little "off" all week -- slightly nauseous and exhausted. And my issues felt small compared to the sudden death of a man at our church. We are connected with his family -- Rachel is friends with his granddaughter, we know several of his siblings well -- I've just been so sad for them.  So when it came time to write a "Friday Favourite Moments" post last week, I just didn't have a lot of good to share.

The one bright spot in last week is also going to serve as my "10 on the 10th" post for May. Technically, on May 10th, we were still in the middle of Rachel's dance but I shared pictures of that in this post here. However, on Mother's Day, I felt mostly better and we had a fun experience planned. So these ten pictures are from May 12th instead. Earlier in the week, I'd found a recommendation for a "pick your own tulips" farm and I was hooked. I immediately bought tickets for the four of us to go as a Mother's Day experience for me.

And then an hour before we left, Sam said, "I don't really want to go." I was disappointed but, rather than pushing the issue, we asked my mother-in-law to join us (very last minute) and she said, "Yes!" So come check out the tulip farm with us :)

They had lots of pretty tulips to choose from.

Every person got a black bucket and the price of admission included ten tulips.

Our four buckets of tulips lined up.

I had so much fun doing this!!!

Me and Rachel with so many tulips!!! My mother-in-law doesn't love pictures so while I have some of her, I am not sharing them on the blog. Also, Rachel picked our coordinating outfits so we'd look good for pictures! Hahahahaha!!!

How Sam feels about going to a tulip farm, and the reason he stayed home :)

This was a really fun experience and something I had never done before. If you ever have the chance, and love flowers like I do, I would highly recommend it.

 

And while last week was hard in various ways, this weekend (a three day one for us here in Canada - YAY!) has been amazing so come back later this week, when I share about that! Things seem to be looking up over here and I am so grateful.

Share Our Lives: 5 Favourite (And Least Favourite) Foods

Today with the Share Our Lives bloggers, we're talking about our 5 favourite (and least favourite) foods. The Share Our Lives bloggers are Sarah, Dara, Joanne, Adrienne, and Jen. (Click on each name to go their blogs.) Some of my favourite foods are very specific and others are just general categories. And these are in no particular order.

Favourite foods

1) pizza 

Dave said I should put this for three of my top 5 favourite foods. Hahahaha!!! But I do really love pizza. Except for one memorable week in March 2022, when I had pizza four times that week, I almost never get sick of pizza.

Two memorable pizzas from this past year: left: Mushroom and black pepper pizza in New York City, August 2023; right: mushroom, basil, and pickle pizza in Stratford, Ontario, January 2024

 

2) salad

 

Another food I almost never get sick of is salad. I love it in many forms -- green salads (especially with edible flowers!), chickpea salad, pasta salad, potato salad, Greek salad -- just bring on all the salads!

3) cheese, especially wine cheese

Cheese is the main reason I could never be vegan. I don't like strong cheeses like Blue cheese or Swiss cheese but I really love smoked cheese, wine cheese, and really good cheddar cheese.

4) French Onion Soup

For some reason, I have always really loved French Onion Soup. I do make it at home sometimes but it's never as good as they make it in restaurants. There's something about all the cheesy, oniony goodness that I just love!

 

5) Farmer Sausage and vereneky

This is pretty much my favourite meal ever. Unfortunately, I only get it when we visit my mom and dad but that might be a good thing because, with cream gravy and fried onions, it's very rich but oh so delicious!

 

My least favourite foods are much less exciting. Since I never eat them, I don't have pictures of them. Again, these are in no particular order:

1) cilantro

I don't like the taste.

2) eggplant

It's slimy.

3) melons -- honeydew and cantaloupe

Ugh -- they're just yuck.

4) anything spicy

I can't taste anything because my tongue and throat are burning. It's just painful.

5) pancakes, especially for dinner.

Once in a very long while, I will eat pancakes for breakfast. Maybe.

Thanks to the Share Our Lives bloggers for a fun link up. I can't wait to read what everyone else enjoys (and will also never eat)!