Busy Doing What?

Sorry, no Wordful Wednesday poem this week, this post is much too long already!

While I was away from blogging I've kept myself occupied with a few things:


Ray had a bounty from his tomato plants, so from this...


...we got...




...this! ~



Anyone who knows me knows that no meal is complete without bread!

And I have to have tons of Parmesan cheese on my pasta!
Oh, I really loaded up this plate, someone come and share this with me:


(Nevermind, I wolfed down the whole thing myself! Every bite, and then I mopped up the sauce with the bread! Well, how else am I going to keep my fluff and my womanly curves, I ask you?!)

Now, let's see if my little man here approves:

(Well, I know he loves the bread, he takes after his grandmother that way!)


Now let's try the pasta and the meat sauce made with the tomatoes that Jayden and 'Paw' planted.



Okay, he's abandoning the fork (I guess that's a good sign) and using his thumb (which fits perfectly into the rigatoni):


He sure seems to be enjoying it!



And I got a nice messy thumbs up! Yaah!



And we've been having very strange weather, it had been pouring rain during the day with the sun out! That evening the sky turned eerie and this is what we saw:

At first a very pretty pink and lavender sky!


Then the sky turned very dark and...

...in this red sky there were black clouds, there was thunder, there was lightening, there was rain, there were stars, and there was a rainbow!




The next day we had this:

Hurricane Bill ruined our fishing plans because all the beaches we usually fish at were washed out. One beach was open, but not for swimming or fishing, the water was too rough.




What a mess!


There would be no picnic lunch this day!


Always clowning around!




The waves that day really were scaring me!


And here's Susie trying to throw me in! (Like that skinny little thing had any chance of throwing me in, although when I am laughing like that, I am much too weak to fight her off! And she actually is freakishly strong!)


Donald and his son Christian waited beyond the danger zone with Donald protecting Susie's pocketbook.


But he didn't do a very good job of protecting her flip-flops!


The news cameras were there all along the beach.


It was much calmer on the bay side.

A little update on Donald's beach forts: He said the hurricane waves completely washed away his 'Summer fort', and the ocean also practically destroyed his 'Spring and Fall fort'. But his Winter fort that he made in the dunes is still safe and sound.

The next day Ray was off work, he had a doctor's appointment in the morning and decided to take the whole day which was nice for me and Jayden!
When he came home we went to shop at Ikea, and Jayden had to stop and try every sofa, and he had to sit at every table and chair we walked by (and he even got into one of the beds and tried to pull the covers up over himself! No, we don't have a picture of that, we were too busy yelling at him to stop the nonsense!):


We saw a beautiful sink there, one that I think I love almost as much as my big outdoor sink! If I had seen this sink when we had our kitchen renovated, this is what I'd be washing my pots and pans in now!

Well, we didn't buy a sink, and we didn't come home with any new furniture, except for a cute little chair that we picked up for Mia so she and Jayden can sit together at his little table for lunch. And we did get lots of things for organizing, I bought some more bins for Jayden and Mia's toys, and we got a 'pirate treasure chest' to keep some of Jayden's things in too, and I got a few baskets to keep in the living room for quick pick-ups. I also got a few things for the kitchen.

Mia's chair:

We also stopped in the cafeteria and had a delicious lunch of Swedish meatballs, potatoes, and lingonberries! It was so good that on our way out we decided to pick up two bags of the meatballs and a can of lingonberries to make for the family over the weekend.

(It was a very quick and easy meal! And the meatballs tasted almost as good as my mother-in-law's recipe!)


And of course I had to have bread! To be an authentic Swedish meal it should have been Wasa Bread, but I was happy to settle for 'Pillsbury Grands' biscuits!


When we were leaving Ikea 'Mr. Funny' had to pretend to be Grandpa in the driver's seat!

Jayden: "Paw, give me your keys, I want to really drive!"
Me: "Jayden, get in the back seat right now!" (Grandma has no patience.)
Jayden: "Okay, Umma, it was just a joke!"

When we got home we picked some more tomatoes (they are ripening at a rate of five to twelve a day now!):


(I used some of them to make Mozzerella Pomodoro)

And then while Jayden and Grandpa were busy swimming in the pool, I was busy in the kitchen:
No, I didn't bake from scratch AT ALL! These are actually made from pre-made dough (chocolate chunk cookies from Omaha Steaks), and they are the best I've ever tasted other than my own Grandma's Chocolate Chip recipe (Erin, if you're reading here I didn't forget that you want Grandma's recipe, I'll email it along with the picture of Grammy's actual handwritten recipe).


And this blueberry cake is from a box mix for blueberry muffins (but I did wash and add some 'real' blueberries instead of using the canned ones that came with the mix!), and this actually taste as good (better!) than the recipe I make from scratch so I am not going to knock myself out anymore!



After the pool and showering, Jayden ate some of the tomatoes and cheese, and he ate his dinner, and then he enjoyed some of the cookies too:

(This kid is the messiest eater!)
And after the cookies, he had some more dinner! I guess swimming makes him work up an appetite!

The next day my oldest son took off of work and he spent the day with Jayden while I spent the day with my friend Barbara, strolling, shopping, eating lunch out, having girl-talk, it was really a wonderful day! And we promised each other we would be good for each other and not encourage spending too much money, and also not encourage too much eating. Well, we were half-hearted on those promises to each other! When shopping these were the words that came out of our mouths "Yes! Buy that, it fits you so well, it looks great, you can't leave that jacket behind here in the store!", and, "It's a bargain at that price, you'll be kicking yourself if you don't buy it!" So much for helping each other curb our shopping addiction! But lunch, we were golden! One of Diana's (Welcome To My World) post had me so in the mood for a beer, and when I mentioned it to Barbara she had to have one too, so we did do light beers, but then we split a grilled chicken sandwich with a side of apple slices! And we only had coffee for dessert! So I think that makes up for the shopping slip-up (although I don't think Ray agrees, I think he'd rather have me fat than to have us in the poor house).
While shopping we stopped in Barnes & Noble and I got myself two journals. One already has Bible verses in it, so I will do those each day. And the other I will look up Bible verses on my own to ponder:


And then we had a 'Mia Day' as Jayden calls it! She stays with us while her Mom is at work, and Jayden always looks forward to the days when Mia comes! It was very hot and they wanted to go play in the sand box, but I convinced them to play with water instead, well, it didn't take much convincing, they were eager, so I got them changed into their bathing suits and we went outside on the little side deck.


Then they both decided they were going to clean their little kitchen:


And I devoted a day to cleaning out things (refrigerators, cabinets, kitchen drawers, etc.), and I got Jayden's school clothes ready for him for next week.
While cleaning out one of the cabinets a jar of gravy fell out onto the kitchen counter and shattered into what seemed like a million pieces! Gravy and glass all over the counter top, all over the floor, into a lower drawer that I had opened, the metal lid to the gravy ended up in one of my coffee boxes, gravy was dripping down the cabinets, and all over my jeans and shirt! How can one little jar of gravy do so much damage?

I had just emptied the bottom shelf of the cabinet, made myself a cup of coffee, and was starting to empty out the middle shelf, I turned and bent down to put a box of coffee away and I heard this crash behind me, I thought something fell on the cup of coffee and thought I was going to see coffee all over, but instead I saw gravy. Jayden came running in wanting know if I had spilled soup! And he said it smelled good!
I had to waste a perfectly good cup of coffee as I was afraid I might be like Diana and end up with slivers of glass in my mouth if I dared to drink it!


Gravy and glass all over my coffee and tea drawer!



And here the lid shot across the room and fell into one of the boxes inside the drawer.



Bits of glass and gravy even got underneath the boxes of coffee!




I tried taking before and after pictures of the fridge, but the battery went on my camera. I could take pictures of my now pristine and empty refrigerator, but you wouldn't appreciate it without seeing the before pictures!

On a positive note, I started walking with my daughter in the evenings, I think I'm cramping her style as she's been doing it for a few weeks now and I've only just started, so we just walk to the park, and then do the track there a few loops around, and then walk back home another way, and that's enough for me, but I'm sure my daughter would like to be doing more!
The park we walk to has a nice view of the bridge and I took a few photos last time we were there.
I'll have to do a post about this park and the story behind it sometime, it's an interesting story.

This picture was taken up near the entrance to the park:


This one was taken down by the beach area:


And while away from blogging I made a new recipe that my friend Jill @ Grandma Honey posted. It was quick, it was easy, it was delicious, and my family loved it! In fact, those were Jayden's exact words! I asked him if he liked it and he said, "No, Umma, I love it!" And my family raved about it and thanked me for a wonderful meal!
So, I in turn thank you, Jill!

If anyone is interested you can find the recipe here.


And yesterday was another trip to the beach, this time the beach we fish at was open, and we had it all to ourselves!



But in the morning it was cold and jackets and pants were a must for some of us (but not for Ray who is usually in shorts and flip flops year round)!



Donald teasing us 'girls' (as usual!):


Later the sun came out and it did get warm, and I was wishing I had shorts or a skirt to change into, and I'm sure Donald was hot in those blue jeans, especially while doing all that digging!






Here's Jayden, happy to be taller than Umma!


AND ~ here's another bounty of Ray's tomatoes! So I'm off to make some more sauce! And I'm ending this post with the same way I began it!



Well, there you have it, all my cooking, and baking, and cleaning, my mishaps, my praying, my journaling, my shopping, my eating, my family and my friends, and my new exercise routine. That was my week, not much excitement, but that's my life!

Okay, Blogger really cooperated with me tonight, and uploaded all these pictures easily and quickly! I may stick to a once a week posting from now on!

(Rachel, if you're reading here: Happy Birthday & Good Luck on your new job!)