Me First! Hummus, Hummus, Who's Got The Hummus!?

I keep meaning to post this before someone else does. This has happened to me a few times...I will be thinking about posting on something specific and I will read about it on another blog! The nerve of them! Anyway....this picture doesn't do this wonderful pasta salad justice. If you are like me (for so many reasons, start praying you're not)...you love, love, luv hummus! The first time I had hummus I was eating at a little restaurant in Sydney with my friend, Kath and they served it with pita bread wedges. Since then the need to constantly have hummus has only grown. Now you might want to sit down for what I'm about to tell you. I know I don't cook, but I made this up! You know as soon as I post this there will be people emailing me telling me they've been eating this since the dawn of time. I keep trying to think of new ways to incorporate hummus into my daily meals and here is one:

Cook a whole box of rotini or spiral pasta
In a separate bowl mix a few spoonfuls of hummus with a big dollop of creamy ranch or Caesar dressing - blend them together good.
Mix the dressing into the pasta.

Now this in itself is delicious, but I usually add cut up peppers and cucumbers, or chicken, or edamame, or tuna. Really it's quite versatile....don't I sound like Julia Childs?!

So if you like hummus, try it and let me know what you think! Unless you don't like it....I don't want to know...

In Preparation For Things To Come....

I recently got together with friends and realized - mostly from the reaction on their faces I think - that I need to cut the 'ol strings a bit with my kids. I guess I know it's true...way deep down...where it will never escape into an action of actually doing so! I guess my feeling is, why take the chance that something could happen? But I guess suffocating them isn't the answer either. I guess...because people told me so. (kidding! it definitely could be the answer if it was a multiple choice question and the other two answers were "letting your 12 year old daughter go to a boys house for a party" or "letting your 12 year old girl go out with a 15 year old boy"...then suffocating would be a great answer...) Anyway, I still will not fly without my kids so Mike and I have never had the chance to go away anywhere far, just the two of us. I know, it's ridiculous. Either we all go down together, or no one goes! So a wonderful event happened the other day to prepare me for things to come. The baby robins in the nest just outside our door, flew the coop, so to speak! Jamie was actually taking pictures of them when it happened:

We thought there were only three babies in the nest, but after a week or so we were able to count 4 little beaks reaching up to be fed...

Then they grow pretty quickly and the nest gets VERY crowded. The parents start trying to get them to fly out of the nest, and then finally....

take off! Right onto the grass! After about 3 hours, all four babies had flown the coop. Quite traumatic for me...but I have to get used to it, I guess.

Birthday Bliss...9 Year Old Style!

We all know there is no handbook to raising your kids; it's definitely a listen-to-all-the-advice-use-some-and-make-up-the-rest kind of thing. One thing I have learned...and this is still a hard one for me....don't ask your children something unless you are willing to accept the answer completely. When we celebrated Bethany's birthday with just a small family gathering, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. I was flattered when she said she wanted me to make her cake....and before you get all "See, you do so cook!"...by "make", she means buy the Duncan Hines cake mix and supervise her while she adds all the ingredients to the mixer. Anyway, before I realized what had happened, I had agreed to let her decorate the cake! I do have control issues so I could feel the anxiety from sloppy flowers already creeping in. As a parent, I had to take a deep breath....then quickly think how to make both of us comfortable with this. She agreed to let me frost the cake, put on trim.....and do the lettering (the last one only because I told her if she messed up I couldn't fix it....I know, I know, that was playing dirty b/c you and I both know I could have fixed it, but I didn't think she would go for it!). So here is the result:
After all was said and done, what's a few globs of frosting going to hurt, right? It's OK that she got some on my lettering, right? So last night was her birthday party with 3 of her friends. Again she wanted me to make the cake....then she said, "Actually, I'm kind of sick of cake"....wh- wh- what? My brain does not compute. But before the look of terror completely takes over b/c I realize she must have been switched with an alien child, she removes all doubt and says, "How about we make cupcakes instead?"....I stare blankly....do I tell her cupcakes are just a big cake made into smaller cakes? I decide to keep quiet (no small feat for me) and go with the flow. I decided I wanted to try something I had seen in a magazine or two, but never had a chance. A flower cake made out of cupcakes. Here are the cupcakes with just the middle frosted:

Again, yellow cake mix and a can of white frosting can do wonders! Here is the finished product:

She chose the colors and didn't ask to help decorate this one...and I know it's my own fault they were up until 1am - with all the sugary goodness in these babies!

Holy Cucumbers, Batman!

OK, just to re-cap: we've never grown our own food before; I decided it would be a good idea to start and to do it from seeds, not plants; I didn't really go by the directions on the seed packets when I planted them, but really, what are the chances that ALL the seeds will grow, right? Oh, and I don't cook so Mike will have to figure out how to cook all the veggies we will get...that's of course if the plants don't get eaten or attacked by pests since we don't have any guinea hens to ward them off....
So here is a photo I took in May just after we planted everything. I started the pepper seeds in the house in February, so those plants are already well on their way; and we were given four cherry tomato plants; and the cabbage plant is actually a school project. Other than that, it's all seeds.
Now here is a photo Bethany took last week...look at the size of that cabbage plant! And what do ya know, it looks like ALL the seeds are growing! My next door neighbor, who has a garden every year, said one or two zucchini and squash plants are enough to feed our whole family (like including distant relatives!) ....but look at all those viable little plants! Now this photo was taken, say June 3rd....

This photo was taken only a few days later, this past weekend, and look at these zucchini plants! Those little spiky leaves weren't there in the last photo!

Here are the cherry tomato plants...

And of course our red and green pepper plants....I have no idea which is which!

And lastly, the small row of cucumber plants!

I cannot wait! We'll see if I still feel this enthusiastic by the end of the summer!

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty....

ME! Yahoo! Yes, ladies and gents, as of yesterday, it has been 40 years that I have been gracing everyone with my presence! Too pompous? Would you rather I wallow in self pity about the fact that I'm now 40 and life is over? I didn't think so. The weirdest part of turning 40 is that I still feel like it was just a few years ago that I was in college...high school, even! Technically, I know this to be untrue, but mentally, I just can't seem to grasp this concept. It started in my early 30's....I spent the good part of a year telling people I was 32 and finally Mike had to tell me I was only 31. I really didn't care how old I was. I still don't, not yet anyway...I think this is because I don't feel like I've grown up yet...I look at other people who are 40 and their lives are so organized and smart....I still live in day to day chaos...I guess that's what I get for having a "live in the moment" attitude!
Well, as luck would have it, 3 of my very best friends and myself all turn 40 within days of each other. We've known each other since 6th grade...this is when Lauren would pipe in and remind us that she and Amy have known each other since like birth or something and Kris and I would concede they win for being friends the longest. Lauren had a celebration at her home recently, and I'm sure I will catch an earful for posting these pictures, but hey, I'm in there too and I HATE pictures of myself...so no complaining.

Lauren and her husband are the ultimate hosts - everything is always spot on and fantastic. This is Lauren pouring some drink we all had to try...I'm not sure who the older woman in the photo is, but she brought the bottle with the drink we all had to try....the thing Kris and I couldn't figure out is...she showed up with the bottle and it was already half gone?! We thought maybe she just got really thirsty on her way there....she is leaning to one side...
Lauren makes a mean sangria, of which I had many, many refills by the time this photo was taken...or maybe not, I don't remember...but this is me and Kris

Amy is still in Africa but will be home soon to continue our celebrating! Happy 40th my friends!