The veggies are in! Found some interesting tomato varieties and practiced supreme self control by not buying all of them. New tomatoes (so far) for me this year are Taxi, Chiquita, Mr Stripey. Old standbys that are returning: Sweet 100’s, Lemon Boy, Brandywine, Black Cherry, a couple of Romas. I am told by the Master Gardner in residence (my husband) that I have room for only one more tomato plant.
Things could get ugly…
Eggplant: Japanese, Italian, and new for me this year is Rosa Bianca.
I’m giving onions a try for the first time (both red–thanks, Susan!–and yellow), as well as beets (both red and gold). These and the string beans and the sugar snap peas are being grown (hopefully) from seed. We’re going to try cukes again, even though we never have any luck with them. We’re also giving watermelon another try: some from seeds and 1 or 2 are starting out as seedlings that we purchased.
Here’s hopin’.
The blueberries and the strawberries are running rampant and aren’t pictured in this slide show but will certainly show up in future ones. The raspberries are kicking butt.
My friend Susan told me to have a: “Happy Birthday!!! Enjoy the whole day and do what YOU want!!”
My response: “Well, since I’m working it will be hard to DO whatever I want, but instead I’m going to EAT whatever I want!”
🙂
So here goes: Day 2B of “The day I ate whatever I wanted”…I’m starting to fear that this is a slippery slope…better reign it in after today. This is what I did on the actual day.
I decided not to go to the gym so that I could sleep an extra hour. Good decision. I decided not to do any laundry and not to stop to gas up the car. Those things could wait. My mantra for the day: “If it’s not ‘all about me’, I’m not doing it.”
Breakfast: Decided to wait until I got to Portland then sprinted over to the Standard Baking Company (no website, unbelievably) to get a chocolate croissant. Monument Square was packed with dressed up, suited up people at 8am; usually it’s a ghost town on the weekend at that hour. I heard there was some sort of a convention going on which almost made me late for work (reference: “sprinted” to the bakery!).
Note: Around noon I started rethinking the whole shorts thing; may not have been the best idea…it barely made it out of the 50’s in Portland.
I continued to go where the whim took me. I didn’t follow any plan at all. I had two days to celebrate: the day before my birthday with my husband (which was awesome), and the birthday itself, which was kind of the icing on the (cup)cake after Friday.
For lunch, Micucci’s Pizza was a no-brainer. I was in luck too; they were just putting out the slabs of pizza when I ran up the stairs and grabbed one out from under the noses of the slower people assembling boxes to my right. When I ran down to pay I got to say “Hi” to the baker, Stephen Lanzalotta (author of The Diet Code), who was just putting out the fresh cannoli…I resisted, since I had a piece of tiramisu from my son and a chocolate coconut cupcake from Two Fat Cats waiting for me for later on. A colleague at work, Laurie, handed me a chocolate shortbread cookie chaser after lunch, which enabled me to save the cupcake for later.
🙂
Had to miss my regular yoga class (with Kristen of Windsong Yoga) in the morning so I was thrilled when a colleague Mary Ann said “Hey, want to do this yoga dvd with me at 2:00PM?” I just happened to have my mat in the trunk, so that’s what we did.
To balance it all out, I ate half the Micucci’s slab for lunch then had the other half with a salad (with greens from the garden) for supper, followed by the cupcake and my favorite (which is unfortunately seasonal) Keurig coffee that I saved from Christmas: Spicy Eggnog.
When I got home from work at 8:30PM I had a surprise waiting for me: gifts from the kids:
An adapter that allows me to play my MP3 in the car from my son Anthony that I’ve been wanting forever and
A handmade card with 3 dark chocolate covered cherries from my daughter Izzy.
What can I say? My kids know what I like. 🙂 My husband gave me my gift The Day Prior, but actually started it last fall. He got all of the raised beds ready for my fruit and vegetable gardens (not to mention most of the actual planting and watering thereof), and he bought many more lilac bushes for me (my favorite flower) and scattered them around the yard. He knows what I like too. :D.
What better day to do so than on your birthday? That was my thought process anyway. As I started planning my day’s meals ahead of time, I recalled reading about this in a book by Elizabeth Berg, entitled (appropriately) The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. I was a little disappointed that the whole book wasn’t about this; rather, it was just the title of the first story what turned out to be a book of short stories. Oh well. The book is worth reading for that first story.
I’m interested in seeing how close to the plan the day ends up going, so I’m writing a “Before” and an “After” post.
One of the meals that woman in the story ate was doughnuts (her first stop: breakfast). Not just one doughnut…one DOZEN doughnuts. (Well, she didn’t actually eat all twelve, but you get the idea). I didn’t want to be overstuffed (read: sick) at the beginning of the day!
This would not be conducive to a successful day of Eating Whatever I Want.
So here’s my problem: there are so many options!!! How to narrow it down? Darned if I know.
Breakfast: Amore Breakfast, All Day Breakfast (the one in Kennebunk), Omelette Factory, Congdon’s
Lunch: Anthony’s for tried and true good food. Maria’s for dying to try, rumored to be good food.
Afternoon snack: Bread and Roses for an amazing array of baked treats.
Supper: It’s gotta be Varano’s. My favorite Italian…unless I get Italian for lunch…decisions! One thing is for sure: it is totally all about the food, isnt’ it? At least these decisions are happy ones.
Late evening snack: Big Daddy’s in Wells or Brown’s in York for a Kahlua Brownie ice cream cone.
So, this is the before post. Will write Part 2 tomorrow to account for what I actually did end up doing for my birthday.
The other night I went to the Talent Show at my daughter’s junior high school. The cost of $5 per person was a bit off-putting at first, but when I learned that all of the money raised was for charity (to help in Japan, Haiti, and here at home), I didn’t mind. They also held a bake sale consisting of actually appetizing-looking edibles which made the $2 per baggie of chocolate chip cookies worth it.
There were many singing acts (encompassing a predominance of Taylor Swift songs), from a capella to karaoke, some singing solo and some (the less confident?) in pairs and groups. All of them were good, and two of them were excellent. Most of the performers were girls, with a few token boys thrown in like afterthoughts. In addition to singing, other talents showcased were
Hula hooping
Magic tricks
Gymnastics
Flute playing
Initially my daughter was sitting with me but soon enough she was off giggling in the bleachers with her friends (as tweens so often are). While I was waiting for the show to start, I thought back to my own junior high days and they were nothing like what my daughter’s have been like…for which I am endlessly grateful.
These girls were mostly in the twelve to fourteen year old range and they were so talented! The flautist performed an original medley of music she wrote herself, and she played what I knew to be a quite difficult piece beautifully. When I was her age, I played a solo in our band concert: Yellowbird. A medley of original music that she wrote herself? OMG! Saying “times change” is such an understatement in this case I can barely get the words out! One of the singing acts performed a song in five-part harmony… Hel-lo? Five part harmony? And they nailed it. It was incredible to see all of these tween and barely teen-aged girls trying on all of these different talents on for size, seeing how they fit. How confident they all seemed!
Back when I was in junior high school, the audience was mostly parents and grandparents of the people performing. This audience was made up of parents and grandparents to be sure, but also many of their peers, who came to cheer them on. This was a kind, generous audience that clapped every bit as loudly for the singers who were slightly off-key as the ones who were pitch-perfect. At one point, the audience opened up their cell phones in the darkened room and swayed, holding them over their heads, like we moms and dads used to do back in the day, only with lighters!
I periodically stole glances over at my twelve-year-old daughter with her friends, watching the show, cheering and clapping; a shiny happy person among shiny happy people. My heart was full.
So, I’ll close out with a quote from (who else?) Taylor Swift from her song “Mine“, dedicated to my daughter:
I have to restrain myself or I’d go to Congdon’s every day, since it’s just a few miles from where I live.
It’s dangerously addictive.
Why? Well, let me count the ways:
1. The donuts are amazing. The variety is quite extensive, and includes my favorite: Blueberry filled (see slide show below) donut. (Note: Dunkin Donuts does not have this in their repertoire). Order a dozen at Congdon’s and you will be pleasantly surprised to receive a baker’s dozen: 13 lovely donuts of your choosing. Go when you have plenty of time; it can take a while to decide. If you consult the menu of donut flavors with your family before you go, then you can make a list at home and not annoy the people behind you in line. 🙂
They have a full breakfast and lunch menu. The blueberry pancakes are excellent; I highly recommend them. The service is usually very good. The dining room is cozy and in the warmer months there is extra seating on the enclosed porch that abuts the dining room. Go very early during tourist season: the line to be seated will be LONG. L-O-N-G. (Come to think of it, the line for takeout will also be L-O-N-G).
The muffins are also great. My favorite lately is Carrot, but I have yet to have one that I didn’t want to have again.
They make a whoopie pie that is bigger than your head.
Speaking of a baker’s dozen…sign up for their rewards card now and they’ll give you a baker’s dozen of donuts to thank you. They’ll also send you coupons every month, with extra generous ones for your birthday.
Congdon’s is family friendly. Not only will you want to go there; your kids will as well (this means no whining when you tell them where you’re all going!).
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If you’re going to Wells, Maine, stop in to Congdon’s for breakfast…money well spent!
Spring has sprung me–and as they say, better late than never. My cocoon of too much food and too little exercise has cracked open. What I’ve learned this winter is this: the more I eat, the more I want to eat, and the less I exercise, the less I want to exercise.
My wake up call? Well, that’s just it; it hasn’t been just one thing. I had 4 this week:
My husband said that the way I can always be go-go-going and doing so much and having so much energy have so many projects going was something he loved about me when he first met me. Now? Not so much.
My yoga teacher said: “Are your pants on backwards? That little white triangle thing is usually in the front, isn’t it? Well, it’s on your butt right now!”
Those shorts that were loose last spring have not one iota of extra room in them now. Not. One. Iota.
When I unexpectedly had some unstructured time, there were so many things I wanted to do that I wasted some of the time because I couldn’t decide what to do!
I decided first to pause and reflect…this lasted about 30 seconds. Through my indecision I was conscious enough to note that it was 61 degrees out and sunny, and the huge snow banks had (finally! finally!) melted so that it was safe to walk my neighborhood streets again (read: drivers could see me). Before I did what I do best–that is, talk myself out of exercising, I grabbed my jacket, shoes and keys and headed out.
When I got back, I realized that it was time to eat something…not because it was suppertime (although it was: 5:10PM), but because I was really hungry. Usually I have others to cook for and feed, but tonight it was all up to me; I had only myself to please~”Party for one!” as my friend Denise would say. I had a greek yogurt doctored up with frozen blueberries, flax meal, and cinnamon and a big cup of ice water. After I finished, I checked in: yep, still hungry. I slathered a slice of my homemade bread with almond butter and honey. Yum!
Then I wrote this blog post. I wrote a book review. I made and froze some lentil soup for work lunches this week. I edited several pages of my book.
Sometimes by pausing, you get more done than if you just pushed full steam ahead.
I always wonder how best to celebrate my kids’ birthdays. Every year there is some sort of friends’ party and then a family celebration to cap things off on the actual day of birth.
This year, my daughter turned twelve: the last bastion of childhood, the threshold of teenhood.
The friends’ party was at Get Fired Up in Sanford with cupcakes from the Cupcake Fetish Bakery, also in Sanford. Both were big hits with the kids.
The family celebration was trickier this year. My son was working on her actual birthday, but for once my husband and I were both not working. Even though it was a school night, we decided to take her out for supper and let her choose the restaurant. Last year she enjoyed celebrating my birthday at Famous Dave’s in Scarborough that she said, “I want to come here for my birthday too!” and eleven months later, we did.
We had a coupon from the restaurant (Join the Pig Club and you can get one for your birthday too!) for a free appetizer; we tried the new Loaded BBQ Chips. For dinner we chose the Tuesday night special: $6 off the massive Feast for Two… which fed 3 of us with three boxes of leftovers that fed 3 of us the next night too.
I mentioned to the server Seth that it was my daughter’s birthday and at the end of the meal, a chorus of “Happy Birthday!”‘s from the out-of-sight kitchen preceded him carrying over to us a heated brownie with fudge sauce and whipped cream sporting an impressive flaming candle and 3 spoons. (NOTE: she was warned not to try to blow it out, but to let it fizz out on its own if she wanted to keep her eyebrows, which she did; a decision we fully endorsed).
Only two notes: they were out of corn on the cob (for which we could substitute another side order from the menu), which was a total bummer, and the brownie sundae would have been vastly improved by the addition of some vanilla ice cream. I’m just sayin’. The service was great. The food was great. The atmosphere was great. We were so full we could barely move to get to the car and we’d eaten less than half of the food presented to us…and we had an ice cream birthday cake waiting for us at home in the freezer.
Oy!
I may want to return here for my birthday again this year too (you know, if I’m not still full!).
Have you noticed that there has been a span of several weeks with no G-rated (or PG, for that matter) choices for movies? After a long hiatus, enter (finally!) something that my daughter and I both wanted to see: the Wimpy Kid sequel, based on the book by Jeff Kinney, which I thought I’d bought Izzy for Christmas and I also thought she’d read.
Wrong. And wrong.
I took her anyway to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules this past Sunday at Wells Five Star Cinema. This is the movie where Greg (the aforementioned Wimpy Kid) and his older brother Rodrick (read: torturer) work on their relationship to try to make it civil. This is also the movie where Rodrick (much to my surprise) becomes a human. Briefly.
The potty humor for the kids (and–dare I say it?– the men) abounds, but, thankfully, it had more than that to offer. Rachel Harris plays Mom, and many of us (moms) will relate to her asking her kids the quintessential Mom question: “Can’t we all just get along?” The answer is: well, yes…eventually. Probably. Not!
This story is about the brothers’ struggle to coexist, but is also about the Mom’s efforts to guide and support them. With Dad in the background making faces.
For food: we had nachos, popcorn, and M+M’s (her) and Peanut M+M’s (mom) from the gumball-type vending machines they have at that theater. If you’re short the approximately $15 needed to purchase a snack or two at the concessions counter, these coin-op machines can be really a good bet. Of course, you only get about 8 Peanut M+M’s for your quarter, but that’s about all a serving size amounts to anyway (about 1/4 cup), so it’s good for your wallet and for your efforts to keep your current size pants fitting you this week!
I signed up for a class through the local adult ed office: Writing Memoir taught by Katherine Mayfield. There were 8 of us registered for the class, which is held on two consecutive Monday nights. When one person did not show up on the first night it made us a group of 7.
The group started just about on time, but in fairness the instructor was waiting for the missing student (but only for five minutes). She began by having us sit in a circle and we went around and (briefly) introduced ourselves to the group. Then the agenda was presented: a short talk by Katherine about what memoir is (creative non-fiction) and is not (autobiography), followed by some questions and answers.
Then we got down to writing. A prompt was given but we didn’t have to use it. We wrote for 10 minutes (Katherine gave us a one minute warning so we could finish up) and then we took turns (by volunteering) reading aloud to the group the pieces that we wrote.
This is where Katherine’s class differs from one I took a few years ago. She offered suggestions for how to structure the feedback that we providing to each other in a safe, non-threatening way (for example, referring to the writer as ‘the narrator’ instead of ‘you’). She even went so far as to say that if the writer determined that the writing produced during the exercises was too personal, (s)he did not have to share it with the group. I found this to be tremendously freeing.
I knew that I would be reading aloud what I wrote because, after all, that was one of my objectives for signing up: to see what other people thought of my writing. Still, it was a gift to know that the decision about whether to share my writing ultimately, was (just as it always is) mine.
Katherine brought a couple of resources for us to look through but I forgot about that while I was there. This book: Writing the Memoir by Judith Barrington is one of them, which I have seen before and I may even have already; I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t remember! (Please refer to prior blog posts about clutter).So, I will be checking my bookshelves first, and if I don’t find it then I’ll check the Library’s bookshelves next.
P.S. Everyone shared their work and their nice, motivating comments with one another. It could be that 7 is a lucky number. 🙂
…is proving to be no easy task this spring. My husband anxiously anticipated the arrival of the chick catalogues, nad contacted some new (to us) hatcheries for their catalogues, and planned to get some chicks from New Mexico in March and from Texas in June. At the end of February they wouldn’t accept the March order; they wanted to send them the next day, but we learned last year (the hard way) that February in Maine is too early to get the chicks. When he called back in March (two weeks later), there were no chicks to be had…until June. He made some more calls to other vendors and was given the same verdict.
Bummer.
This is the first time this has ever happened since we first started raising chicks in 2006. Next, my husband hit the road to see what the stores in our area were offering.
We were hopeful as we entered Tractor Supply Company in Sanford…but alas, the only “peeps” they had on Monday were the marshmallow kind, just to the right of the door as you enter the store, and the stuffed kind (the ones that actually “peep” when you press on their stomachs~too cute!). On the plus side, this gave me a nudge to get going with my Easter Basket planning. Note to self: go back to Tractor Supply alone (read: without husband who doesn’t get the whole “Easter Basket” concept) to shop for the baskets.
Longhorn? They’ll have them on Monday. Tractor Supply? Has some now, but not any that we want.
The idea of hatching our own is starting to look more appealing…
Anyway, the stage is set (warming lights on, tiny waterers at the ready) in our home-made brooder (which is a 4×4 wooden box). If and when the chicks arrive, we are ready!
The veggies are in! Found some interesting tomato varieties and practiced supreme self control by not buying all of them. New tomatoes (so far) for me this year are Taxi, Chiquita, Mr Stripey. Old standbys that are returning: Sweet 100’s, Lemon Boy, Brandywine, Black Cherry, a couple of Romas. I am told by the Master Gardner in residence (my husband) that I have room for only one more tomato plant.
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