Life ¤ Love ¤ Laughter ¤ Linds

IThe oldest monkey asks "Mommy what is today's holiday all about?"  Hmmm... I'm not really sure.  It's a holiday just for a break."  My less-than-knowledgable answer works for him and we declare it a lazy day! We searched for close-to-home and inexpensive activities, but nothing really struck a chord.  We lazed in our pj's until early afternoon and then headed into town. I absolutely love "downtown" Port Perry.  The shops are quaint, the people are friendly, and it's easy to find Kawartha Dairy!  The kids don't mind walking around as long as our loop finishes at Palmer Park.  They take advantage of the playground, we check out the lake, and when the weather cooperates, they can romp in the splashpad. Today, as we reached our wandering limit, we opted to eat out in celebration of Kev's birthday.  1 vote pizza, 1 vote Thai food, 1 vote Mexican and one indifferent - mom's vote won today because we managed to convince the pizza vo...

Last week, I impulsively decided that a CSA Farm Share program was a great idea for our family.  I say "impulsively" because I stumbled upon the concept through one of the local farms while looking up U-pick berry info.  I then posted a question in regards to CSA programs on Facebook, and one of my friends replied that her parent's farm (also local) was just starting up a program.  It's a $400 investment with a weekly full-share - enough veggies for a family of four - over a harvest season of 20 weeks.  At $20/week for fresh colourful veggies and fruit, I thought it would be worth it and just sub for what we need at the local farmer's market and grocery store... and in minutes decided we should give it a go. Thus our jump in feet first adventure in CSA Farm Shares.  We're buying our produce from F&M Farm  in Columbus (N. Oshawa) and Kevin picked up our first "basket" today. Is it not a beautiful bounty of goodness?!?  We've got beets, zucc...

Because I don't have enough to do... I've decided to write a secondary blog.  On books.  Just books.  All things books.  It will probably actually be updated a million times more often than this one. Check it out:   http://novelteasereview.blogspot.ca/p/welcome.html I promise I'll add an update to this blog this week.  Maybe... after we sign the boys up for the summer reading program at the library, after I get 3 orders completed, after I clean the house, after I hit the Peterborough Zoo with my mother-in-law, and after all that regular stuff that fills up a week. P.S.  Anyone here eat beets?  What's the best way to serve them?  Let me know!

Eavesdropping on my boys this morning... (After another petty argument) Justin:  Well, you're not real! Kaleb:  If I'm not real, then no one would tell Mommy that you fell off the deck.  You'd still be lying there and couldn't get up. You'd just be lying there crying.  No one would know where you are. (It's funny and mean all at the same time...not to mention it happened more than a year ago....boys! )

Just a quick post.  Busy weekend ahead! Today started way too early with a kid having nightmares, snowplough lights flashing on the highway, and all the fun electrical sounds related to the power flashing on and off multiple times through the night.  Kevin had fun manually emptying our close-to-overflowing sump hole beneath the stairs - it doesn't work so well when the power goes out and the power tends to go out when it's stormy.  We got hit with a (pretty) ice storm that wasn't nearly as bad as they claimed it would be!  The boys got a snow day (in April?) out of it and among the regular Friday house cleaning blitz and endless laundry, we tackled the dungeon (aka the basement.)   Do you know how annoying it is to do laundry when the power keeps flickering?  We cleaned and tidied and even found a long electric slot car race track thingy - that took waaaay too long to put together - but resulted in lots of giggling.    We ran off to church...

Chicken dinner. When Kevin & I went to Atlantic City for our anniversary a few years ago (hello cheap ocean front time share!), you couldn't walk through any of the hotels, restaurants, or lounges without hearing that cry from the casinos.  I can always hear the dealers' exclamations in my head, their sing-song chant, everytime I think about chicken.  I know it's strange, but that's just a free little peek into the wonder known as my mind as I present yet another recipe related post.   A few weeks ago WalMart had whole chicken 2 packs on sale.  I had no real use for them in my meal plan at the time but the price was right so I tossed them in the freezer. I will often use the crock pot to skow cook boneless, skinless chicken into a fall apart mess of yumminess - just toss it in frozen with some herbs, spices, and water, and have juicy shredded chicken to toss into soups, salads, wraps, and more without any fuss. I am hoping that the process will work similarl...

Every holiday seems to be be an excuse to feast.   With the various family celebrations, a bird is likely to turn up at least once... for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  So here I would like to set the record straight and state unequivocally... birds get boring, and eating the same meal as leftovers is just uninspired!  Don't get me wrong, I've had some fabulous turkey... my brother-in-law-in-law (sister-in-law's husband) brought one amazing bird to a family celebration last year and it had a delicious pimento gravy.  So good!  I throw turkey into our meal rotation regularly but all-in-all, a big carved turkey can be just kind of blah - but the left-overs, ah, the left-overs - that's where things get fun! Thinking of all the yummy things you can whip up, I'm a little disappointed I didn't raid my mom's fridge before we left last night.   There's the usual but comforting hot turkey sandwich.  We've baked up some tasty turkey enchiladas.  We...