late summer meals + projects

We've been pretty busy here this late August. I finally got out into the garden today, to pull some weeds and harvest some tomatoes. Those oranges ones posted above are called Orange Oxheart and they make the best BLTs! We've been gorging ourselves on tomatoes and basil and all of the wonderful things that you can make with those two food staples. I like to take equal parts real mayo and pesto and combine it into pesto mayo. This is so good on a BLT or just a cold sandwich.  The tomatoes are starting to pile up on the counter so we're due for another BLT or salsa binge this week.

I've been embroidering a little something. Not my design, but I was drawn to it when I saw it on Pinterest - making it makes me feel positive energy so I'm letting myself indulge. It can be found here.

Happy Labor Day weekend!

Jillian

august knitting

August has been all about the garden and eating fresh food. We've been having a lot of salsa because the tomatoes are ripening faster than we can even hope to consume them all. Salsa is a good way to deal with these little buggers before they get over ripe and go to waste. We've been eating it with corn chips, between browned flour tortillas with cheese and grilled chicken and on our eggs. I'm not sick of it yet, but we haven't come close to peak tomato production yet.

More knitting. August seems to traditionally be a big knitting month for me. Maybe it's because fall is just around the corner and the thought of cooler weather has me reaching for my knitting needles to make yet another shawl or wrap. Such was the case a few weeks ago. This pattern is called All About Love Shawl and you can find it here for free. Who do you think wears it best? Me or Bree?

I'm really proud of the garden this year. Last year we were coming to terms with so many road blocks about starting our family that I totally neglected the yard, flowers and garden, but this year I've been on top of things - cultivating things. There's nothing more dejecting than having a bummer of a day and walking out into the back yard to look at your dead garden. Hard times - I'm so glad we're moving forward the best way we know how. I don't ever ask for it, but we'd love to be on the receiving end of any positive thoughts or prayers. You can even contact me if you know of any connections that might help us with our adoption. I can put you in touch with our social worker - our homestudy is written for domestic infant adoption. We're coming up on our one year adoption waiting game anniversary in October. I've been hopeful that this blog might help us make a connection. Connections sometimes come from the oddest places - a hunch becomes a chance and a chance could turn into our miracle.

Feel free to share this blog if your heart moves you in that direction.

hollyhocks & waterfalls

I don't know where I've been finding the time to knit, but another little sweater found it's way off the needles. I really love this one it's made from some soft alpaca handspun that I made over five years ago. Some of the first yarn I spun, I think. I'd forgotten about it, but then found it in a bag of yarn in my sister's closet this spring. I instantly reclaimed it and started to knit with it, but it took me awhile (lots of tearing out and starting over) to find the right pattern for it. Now that it's finished I love its super pastel softness - with the streaks of pink stitches that flash thru it.

We've been out and about. Our church had an outdoor service at Minnehaha Falls, which gave me a chance to snap photos of the falls. The park was already crowded, even on a Sunday morning when we got there. We live fairly close to this park and should visit it more often - I always forget how beautiful the falls are.

Hollyhocks seem to be the fad in the community garden this year. Many plots have large stands of them, but they are starting to develop that mold that always gets them this time of year. The blossoms are still pretty.

This was my first batch of deviled eggs for the season. The dill is growing like crazy in the garden right now. We've been putting it on chicken and in salads and of course in these deviled eggs. They disappeared (into our bellies) in less than twenty-four hours.

Hope your summer is going well!

Jillian

july moon

Much to my husband's delight I have been roasting brussel sprouts this week. It has been beautiful around here, so we've been grilling out as often as we can. Just soaking up the summer sunshine. We still comment on how grateful we are for this weather, which I think says a lot about just how hard it was go get through this past winter.

Happy 4th of July! We're sticking close to home, because we have a lot of family events planned for the middle of the month. We'll celebrate then. I picked up the knitting needles again, but not with the yarn I had promised. This yarn came off the spinning wheel this week. It's kinda a funny story (funny to a spinner) but I spun my plies in opposite directions. This means that I wasn't able to ply my two bobbins together when I was finished. I had to ply my yarn with another bobbin of yarn that I had saved from two years ago (another instance of "mis-plied" yarn.) But I really love the results. One bobbin had long stretches of lavender and pale blue, while the other was multiple shades of pastel pinks, green, peaches and purples. Sometimes your mistakes turn into your best color combinations.

I did end up Navajo plying the rest of my "mis-spun" yarn. I don't think it's enough for a sweater. Maybe I can make some booties or a small hat. We'll see where my inspiration takes me.

Adoption update: there's really not much to update. Our facilitator's website has really slowed down over the summer and they say this is normal. Less placements happen in the summer. Kinda a bummer for me. Our facilitator told me not to look at the website so much and just "take a vacation" myself. I wish I could do that, but I have stopped expecting so much each time I look at the website. Things should pick up again in the fall.

Thank you to all our service men and women who sacrifice so much to serve and defend our country. I love to see the flags waving on the 4th of July. Hope wherever you are tonight that fireworks are blossoming overhead.

XOXO

Jillian

backyard garden

Lots of flowers popping up in the garden. We're going to spend the weekend relaxing and just hanging out around here.

Happy weekend, everyone!

painted fields

I went up to the farm this weekend and spent the night with my mom and dad. I like do this one of the weekends that Garrett is away at training. We usually bake a lot and spend time making things, but this time we dedicated all of our woman-power towards fixing up a rental property that my mom and dad invested in. I spent most of Saturday afternoon touching up walls and painting trim. I'm glad I could help them out. I've been kinda self-involved lately and I forgot how good it feels to pitch in.

I snapped these photos on my drive back to the city. The fields around my parent's farm are filled with wildflowers and green grasses. Soon they will be filled with big bales (as soon as this rainy weather passes over and all of the grass can dry out.) My dad told me that because of the long winter a lot of things like raspberries and hay are about two weeks behind schedule. The raspberries in our backyard here in the city are only starting to look green and plump - they haven't even started to turn red yet.

They will be waiting for Garrett when he gets home. I'm happy about that. He usually misses them. (I eat them all.) Just kidding . . . . I freeze a small portion of them, but it's just so hard to resist a homegrown raspberry.

Well, here it's already Sunday afternoon. Monday looms. Better get on the laundry and the dishes or my work week will be a chaotic mess.

Talk to you soon,

Jillian