Let's GO

I am a confused person.  I loooooooooooove being at home (read the name of this blog--it's true!).  I revel in having my stuff all around me.  My comfy couch is by favorite place in the world.  And nothing makes me happier than when a plan to (gasp!) go somewhere gets cancelled.  For the most part, I like my people to come to me. But I also long to travel to places that are decidedly different than my home with an ache inside that feels very real.  I want to see how other people live.  I want to eat with them and talk with them about their families.  I want to GO.

In short, I want to be [Anthony Bourdain].

I started traveling at a young age when I was lucky enough to be best friends with a girl who was an only child and who also traveled every summer with her mom and godmother in a de-lux motor home.  Because she was an only child, her mother thought it would be much more fun for her to have a friend along.  ME!

So, three summers in a row I traveled for the better part of a month with them.  Across the US to California.  Up New England and down South.  It was awesome.  I did go through bouts of homesickness (one time calling my mom from a pay phone in South Dakota and snotting myself crying so much I threw up) but mostly I loved it.  I was seven years old when I started traveling with them and I still remember so much.  Remembering the traveling was almost as fun as the traveling itself. And no American kid should get to grown-up age without seeing the [Corn Palace] or the Badlands.  This country is awesome.

That, on the outside of the building, is corn. I shit you not.

Now I want to travel abroad.  I've been to Europe once, on a whirlwind trip in high school (5 countries in 9 days!), but it was only a taste.  A tease, really.  Standing on the street in [Verona, Italy] I thought oh yeah.  I could get used to this place, this feeling of being foreign and interested and excited about everything around me.

There is almost no place I don't want to go.  Of course I'd like to hit the hot spots like Paris or London.  I would love that.  But I'd also like to go off the beaten path.  To go to places where food is cooked over a fire or cars are a luxury.  I want to really get a feeling for where I am with the people who live there.  

Okay, maybe not here.  Yeah, I think I could do without a jungle experience because the idea that something alive  could drop off of something above me onto me is waaaay too freaky.

 That, my friends, is Madagasca TREE boa.  That hangs in trees.  *shiver*

But here.  YES.  I would love to go [here].

  Is it Russia or is it China?  It's more like BOTH.  Feast your eyes on Harbin, China.

Or [here...]

Or, holy crap, [HERE!]

In my fantasies I have a [fixer] like Tony or [Ewan] do on their adventures.  A fixer would make the most foreign places a teensy less scary simply because he/she would know the local language and be able to speak to me in English.  Tell me which meat-on-a-stick in Harbin, China is the chicken and which is the ["baby butterfly."]  Paying for a fixer would be money well spent.

But I'm not going to let not having a fixer stop me from going. My husband can talk to ANYONE.  I'm hoping that his talent for gabbing and mine for making-the-most-of-it will translate to good traveling when these damn kids move out.  And the we'll come home to talk about it.

Completely Gratuitous

I'm stealing the title of this post from [this guy] because it says it all.  Did I need to buy some way cool markers for my chalkboard wall?  No.  Was there a rational reason  I couldn't use Actual Chalk even though it made [grody] dust and didn't look "perfect"?  Of course not.  Did they make me a teensy bit happier in this, [The Second Summer of Sad]?  

You bet.

It's hard to tell but the tea green in the **[Earthy Colors pack] 
that I picked matches my kitchen wall perfectly.

*swoon!*

love that!!

thanks for the tip, [Finny]!

**I found out about these from Finny, but I found them online for a bit cheaper than she did.  Click the Earthy Colors link above--first time buyers get free shipping!  Now you have to buy them.

Things that Made Me Happy Today

seeing these dimples

(thanks, {Mel!})

being allowed to kiss the cheek of the boy in the middle

being given a spontaneous hug by this girl

a

and baking this pie just because.

At our house we encourage rough play.

late {planting}

We like to start out each Father's Day by filling his arteries

with bacon fat and butter.

Krispie Treats with {blue stars and green clovers} (etc.) 
and the

 {Best brownies EVER}

As Judy said, "Adorable, but I feel as though I can smell them from here."

Impressed.  And exhausted just watching.

Yes, I've taken two pictures of meat.  I'm a simple girl.

I love stockin' up.

4th of July tradition

Hello

I know, I know...they're {painted on}.

I know, I know...{I'm 40}.

Whatever.

Maybe for Next Father's Day?

Oh, {etsy} ...why??!!

I Obviously Have a Problem with Commitment

I really had the best of intentions in starting this 365 project.  Really.  And then, in the middle of life being awesome, {life got sucky again}.  And, feeling sorry for myself, I didn't take pictures.  Or clean.  Or do anything much at all. And then I shook myself off and kicked myself in the ass.

So, not having much to say really (right now at this moment), here are some pictures that I did take.

poppies are cool.  and somewhat like {alien pods}.

really blackened chicken.  good thing HH likes carcinogens with his protein.

less freaky poppy form.  so beautiful and heart-breakingly short-lived

I know, I know.  those ****ing eggs again.  but they're so beautiful.

brownie batter.  enough said.

when a recipe says "to stiff peaks," this is what is meant.   
you're welcome.

cuban black bean ingredients with {dukka}.  damn good.

graduating 8th grader being humiliated by his mom.
again.

{garlic scapes} which I used to make an utterly vile pesto.  

note to self: always cook garlic scapes.

my favorite dutch american.  also known unfairly as "poor Pat"

steve did not love {these}.  I didn't care (more for me!)

Ruth was right.  

a neat edge makes even the weediest garden look neater.

roses from my garden (thanks, Ray!) and lavender too

"what? I wasn't supposed to eat that tampon?"

I love the concept of {volunteer plants}.

imagine this lovely saying "oh! Oh!  I'll grow there!"

and then being expected to keep coming back.

yeah, I know these were already pictured but I froze the base

(sans tequila) for another day and defrosted just until slushy.

this is two servings (hahahahahahahahaha)