Vacation is a wonderful thing. We recently got to go back to PA to see some family and friends, the Bloomsburg Huskies play (the special teams coach is my father-in-law), and attend the movie premier for “The Mighty Macs” (about my mother-in-law…check it out here and here). It was a fun yet very exhausting trip. I’m still glad we took it. It’s very difficult to squeeze everyone and everything into a 6 day trip, but we made it happen! If there’s one thing I’ve learned about travel and family it’s that you can never make everyone happy so you might as well make the best choices you can considering all and move on with that choice. In any case, I wanted to bring a piece of Pennsylvania home so we could talk about our trip and what we did. So, as we were pulling away, I grabbed some moss from the grass by the fence and threw it in a bag, hoping security wouldn’t snatch it away. I threw a few orange and red leaves in for good measure. Thankfully, it made it all home with no questions asked, just a few raised eyebrows.
At Papa Ed and Grandma Trudy’s house. We all loved the green. Look at my sweet boy :)
All of us with Gram.
All of us with Papa Ed and Grandma Trudy.
Back to the fantastic moss. Isn’t it lovely? To make sure we could enjoy this moss for a long time, I decided to make a terrarium.
To make a good terrarium, you have to make sure the moisture is balanced enough for the moss to be alive but not grow mushrooms. Mushrooms are cute, but the kind that grow in this dirt are very much not. You’ll need soil, small rocks or pieces of gravel (about the size of aquarium gravel), charcoal pellets (to keep odor at bay), and your moss of choice.
Of course the project lady herself was involved. I can’t think of one thing I have done, of late, that has not involved this girl. Am I creating a monster? If so, at least she’ll be a productive monster.
So, we layer the materials as follows. I realized afterwards that my rocks should go on the bottom for drainage. Sorry.
R O C K S
1/2 D I R T, moist
C H A R C O A L P E L L E T S
1/2 D I R T, moist
M O S S
The idea is for the moist soil to keep the moss wet enough, while not getting moldy and soggy. I spray mine every now and then with a spray bottle.
Here are the layers and Miss F adding the finishing touches. This mushroom is actually from my super-cute pincushion from Hi Tree. It is a felt tree stump, like below.
Cute, right?
You shouldn’t need to re-moisten it for a LOOONNNG time. If you do see moisture on the lid, remove it for a day.
Enjoy your vacation!
I missed InstaFriday so I changed the name to suit my needs :) This is where I make use of some of those camera pictures few people see.
Last week we had the privilege of going to the premier of “The Mighty Macs”. It was pretty cool because it just happens to be about my mother-in-law, Cathy Rush. The movie is the incredible story of her time at a little school called Immaculata University, as their women’s basketball coach. This was a time when women’s basketball was still an afterthought. Cathy managed to take a team with no gym and no equipment and turn them into a 3-time national championship winning team! Pretty amazing, huh? It just so happens that my husband was conceived during the first season, which is a fun little tidbit for our family. It was great to experience the energy of the premiere and 2,000 people filled to the brim with excitement. We all are excited to see what happens with this movie.
So, go see the movie!! We just took 20 people on Friday :)
Heading into Downtown Philadelphia.
At the premiere, standing in front of the team bus from the movie.
Cathy in one of her many interviews.
Miss F getting ready for an interview.
Telling everyone how proud she is of Gram.
The radiant Cathy Rush.
The actresses who play the team members: Katie Hayek, Kim Blair, Meghan Sabia, Kate Nowlin, Taylor Steel
Marley Shelton who plays Sister Sunday
David Boreanaz as Ed Rush, Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia, and their families
Carla Gugino as Cathy Rush
Miss F gets a better view from one of daddy’s buddies.
A sweet girl asks for an interview
Visiting with some of the nuns.
Miss F and Miss Immaculata
Getting ready for the movie! We are excited!
Miss Gugino and Miss Shelton being recognized for their work in the film.
Mayor Nutter
All of us with Cathy and James Malinchak.
Ed Rush/ Papa Ed talking with Tim Chambers, Director and Writer
The two fashionable ladies.
Some of the refreshments, pictured here in our parking garage. We had to get our 6 year-old home, but managed to snag some soft pretzels and mustard and a few mini cheesecake sandwiches.
So, lately I have been in a soup funk. I guess it’s not really a funk because everyone around here seems to be happy with it. Basically, I seem to be only thinking in soups these days when it comes to cooking. I even convinced my newly minted 3-year-old to have 2 kinds of soup for his birthday party. It was a “soldier” birthday party and I wasn’t really lying when I said it was perfect soldier food, ya know? In the past few weeks, I’ve made tomato soup, roasted tomato and fennel soup (x2), potato and leek soup, potato soup, roasted vegetable soup, and this asparagus soup. I can’t help myself. It is perfect for lunch or dinner, whether it’s cold or hot.
I wish I had made this today and not last week because we caught the not so very elusive airplane cold on our trip back east this week. It started with me last Wednesday and now it has 5/5 of us. Needless to see the mood is a little irritable amongst the troops. Soup would be awesome right now. I was supposed to go to a food truck gathering tonight to get a butter-poached lobster grilled cheese, but I decided taking 3 kids with runny noses to such an event would be a bad idea for us and the people around us. Too bad because it’s the first time this truck, Devilicious, was going to be at this otherwise quiet get-together. We don’t get the good trucks down in south San Diego very often. Instead, I threw together a tomato and goat cheese tart. I guess it worked out.
Yes, it’s not your computer. The picture is a little weird because it was late and the sun was down. I’m only saying that because I don’t like looking at this kind of lighting but really wanted to share the easy recipe. I hope that’s ok.
I love asparagus so very much. My Mom even knows how much I love it because she put some in my fridge for our return home.
Thanks, Mom :)
Start by sauteing all of the veggies, except the asparagus, in olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 10 minutes or until soft.
While that is cooking, prepare the asparagus by trimming the ends. The best way, I’ve found, to remove the ends is to hold the woody/hard end with one hand and grab the whole spear halfway down with the other. It will just snap where the tender part meets the hard part. It just lets you know because it’s that fabulous.
You can add it to the other veggies.
Add the vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Then, puree in the blender or with an immersion blender and season again if needed. I tried this with the immersion and the consistency ended up being a little coarse for me, but I’m sure it would have ended up fine in the blender.
I made up a bunch of grilled bread (with olive oil and salt and pepper) and a few poached eggs for everyone. I love me some poached eggs!
Asparagus soup
(adapted from Jamie Oliver)
2 onions, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 leeks, chopped
2 lbs of asparagus
2 liters organic chicken or vegetable stock
sea salt and fresh pepper
Gluten-free bread or rustic bread, sliced and grilled
poached eggs
I love this picture because it demonstrates a lot of what I’ve been feeling lately. You might see this pumpkin pirates arm and see strength and determination. You might see the cute little potted plant and see order and neatness. When I first look at this picture, I see the pumpkin that had all of his pieces torn out over and over, got rolled down the entryway steps, and then went rotten just a few short days later, making this sight no longer existent. For the most part, I am a happy person. When things get bad I don’t usually mention it to many people, I try to move on and focus on the good points if I can. Lately, I’ve been feeling like this pumpkin. I feel triumphant in many areas of my life that God has allowed me to grow and learn in. However, sometimes I feel like I have had my arms torn off and somebody tossed me down the stairs. I mean that figuratively and literally. I have 2 boys, ya know. When I look at this picture for while longer, I see this pumpkin pirate put back together and whole again. This makes me smile because I know that’s the way God sees me. Whole. Even when I am feeling broken, he sees me whole.
Now, I feel pretty thankful.
“Perhaps we shall best use this wonderful power of reasoning by giving it plenty of work to do, by asking ourselves what is the cause of this and that; why do people and animals do certain things. Reason which is not worked grows sluggish; and there are persons who never wonder nor ask themselves questions about anything they see.”
*Charlotte Mason*
One thing I am very thankful for right now is the time to teach my sweet girl. With all of the difficulty that has come from my boys, I think it’s such a great privilege to see her light up as she learns right before my eyes. When I sent her off to school last year with hesitation, I started doing the math of how much time we spend in the car driving to and from school, how long she was at school, how exhausted she was when she got home, and how much she missed being a part of the learning that we do every day a home and in our city. I remember during the first week of school, I was told over and over that I would “get used to it”. What? God put this child in me to grow for 10 months, she grows 5.5 years and I send her away for the next 13 years (with the exception of college) to go to school for 7 hours, 45 minutes in the car (1.5 hours for her brothers and mom), and nothing left at the end of the day. I was looking around at everyone saying, “Doesn’t anyone else find the evolution of the school-day a little unsettling, to say the least?” I’ve been talking about this with so many people for the last year (read: for as long as I can remember really). Everyone admits there is a problem but no changes are being made, in fact it could be getting worse. Think of the phrase, “Yeah, ___ had a bad teacher last year and ___ is going to have her next year. Oh well, what can you do.” Craziness. Yes, you CAN actually do something. Nobody said it was an easy solution(it’s been rough for me), but we have to make change. For now, I intend to teach my kids at home and continue to be as much a part of my communities as ever…if not more. I have to make the choice that the “we” has to become “I”. I have to make change. I don’t want them to be a statistic from 2011 that could have been changed but wasn’t. I know there are exceptions. I have friends who are just wonderful teachers. There are also great schools across the country. Just think about it and try not to look at good change over your shoulder as you walk past it, even if change means difficulty.
With all of the difficulties, Miss F is full of life in her learning now and doesn’t have a dead part to her day. The only exception would be when she is so disappointed we don’t read another chapter of what we are reading or we haven’t seen a Black Phoebe bird in the yard that day.
For this date, my husband had taken the boys on a camping trip so we had the whole day to ourselves. We went to the museum of art to see some of the paintings from the artists we had studied that week.
Matisse, Monet, and Degas were 3 of them so we were excited to find this Monet here for a short time. We don’t get a great showing of famous paintings here but this one was lovely enough for 2 giddy girls. We have LA to go to for the famous ones.
My little ballerina was thrilled to find this Degas since we had read the very interesting story of how these paintings came to be. The girl in the most famous sculpture was a very talented dancer. She said she was going to be “the most famous dancer in the world”. Her family could not keep up with their payments for her classes. She started posing for Degas to earn some extra money but could not continue to attend. Eventually she grew up and her sculpture had become the most famous dancer in the world. So sweet. Too bad Degas was a grumpy, angry sort of man. It was a happy ending though.
We also got to see the Stickley exhibit which was sweet. It was cute strong and adorable, just like the furniture is. I loved that they had pieces of the wood to fit together so they could understand the way the furniture was made with no nails. It was pretty cool.
I loved this carpet and this clock. My picture is a little blurry because I was taking it 5 seconds while the security guard was around the corner. I never saw a single sign about not taking them, but their body language was suggesting serious business so I didn’t tempt trouble. The Louvre had less security surrounding the Mona Lisa, for crying out loud.
Visiting some of her favorite fish.
These are special days.
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