Uncle Jack and Christy

My Mom's Uncle Jack is a great guy. One of the family members that reminds me of fun family reunions, when he would always greet me with a big hug and a cry of "Hi Gracie!' I always feel that he's glad to see me again. He's also a pillar of the small community he lives in, and still plays golf and volunteers. We visited Uncle Jack at his country home a while back, and the boys loved playing with his frisky, somewhat ornery dog, Christy. Uncle Jack says she's bossy, always imposing her will on Luke, his grandson's dog. They're both herding dogs lots of energy, so they loved running with the boys and fetching balls. Uncle Jack's property is on a hill looking out over farm fields and woods. Being a country girl at heart, I was happy soaking up the beautiful surroundings. We love you, Uncle Jack!

30 Day Cooking

This fall I'm working two very part-time jobs, in addition to teaching four kids at home. One job entails working from 3-5 p.m. three days a week, and the other job is one day a week from 6-8 p.m. The other day I had a head-smacking revelation that, duh, cooking dinner is really messing up my already complicated life. This may be partly due to the fact that Jim is working late almost every night during his department's busy season. A few years ago, my friends were talking about 30 day cooking, and I didn't pay much attention. I think now is the time for me to give it a try. The idea is so simple, although I'm not so sure about the execution. It involves spending a day cooking and freezing the bounty of your labors, to be eaten over the next month. Not being crazy about doing anything for a whole day, I'm going to start out small. I found this book at the library, which should help in getting started.



My plan is to cook as many meals as I can in half a day, and freeze them for the days when we're just too busy to cook. I also hope to prepare extra batches on other days, also to be frozen.
The worst part is going to be cleaning out not only our small kitchen freezer, but also the small chest freezer we have in the garage. I also need to clean out the pantry and cupboards, since I'll have a lot more ingredients to put into them. I'd love to hear if other people are doing this, how it's going. We'll see how it goes...

Cupcakes As Art

My daughter Mary created this lovely "Starry Night" from 2 dozen cupcakes. The

how-to came from this fun (but probably fattening) book:

How cute is that?



Her ten year old brother, Sam, was inspired to paint this today. Interestingly, they both made their creations while I was out of
the house. Hmm, should this be telling me something?

The Perilous Peach Pit

I love ripe, juicy, fresh peaches. The juice-running down-your-arm variety.

Slicing through one this afternoon, I actually cut through the pit, too.

Here's what the inside of the pit looked like.

Hey, how'd that almond get in the middle of a peach pit?" Did you know that peaches and almonds are related, and that there is a small bitter almond in the middle of a peach pit? Did

you also know that said bitter almonds contain cyanide? I didn't know this when I put the nut in my mouth, but the bitterness did make me spit it out, fortunately. Unfortunately, I had swallowed a small amount. I freaked out just a little bit upon reading the bit about the cyanide

on the internet. Then, just to demonstrate how neurotic I am, I called the poison control number.

The lady told me (pretty casually, I thought, while I was panicking) the small amount I had

eaten wouldn't have any effect. The experience shook me up, but we all learned something

new about peaches. I'll never look at a peach pit the same way again.

Cup Stacking

Okay, it's not official cup stacking, but I never cease to be amazed at the cool ideas kids can come up with. Besides, it kept 'em busy for about 20 minutes!

Fun Cleaning

Cleaning up the yard (especially the slide) can be fun! This was Paul's idea.



I was grateful for the 20 minutes of cooperative activity this provided. Plus, of course, the

clean slide.

We loved this classic diner we stopped at in Goshen, IN on our recent Garden Tour, the

South Side Soda Shop.

We saw this logo:

on the front door, and thought it was just their endorsement of the Food Network.
But it turns out that our favorite Food Network host, Guy Fieri, taped a segment there for

his show, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, a couple of years ago. We didn't get the Food Network

back then, so we missed the episode, but now it's one of our favorite shows. Here's the video:

I've got a thing for soda shops. I wish someone would organize a tour of those!

I didn't actually get any ice cream because we were so hungry, we just needed some hot food. The cheeseburger and fries were
great, and I took a trip back to the lunch counters of my childhood by drinking a cherry phosphate.
Check out my daughter's account of the trip, but please overlook her grammar. I think she does it on purpose.