What Is Going ON?

I don't know if it's the end of the school year, or it's just me, but I'm feeling crazy busy right now. My calender is PACKED. I'm probably just worried about getting everything finished up and ready before we leave for our summer trip. Ah, the summer trip. (sigh) I had this idea last summer to travel to a new city over the this summer for an extended stay. The idea stemmed from my fear that if I don't start traveling now, then I will never travel, EVER. This fear is rooted in the fact that we decided to have our children young, before I did any major traveling, and since kids sometimes make it a little more challenging to take life on the road, we occasionally avoid travelling altogether. I'm kinda concerned that if I wait until I'm older to travel, I'll be too wimpy to leave my comfortable community. Enter--Cleveland Summer '07, (aka.,the trial run.) One of my finest pals lives there and has a spare room , so we can see how this idea pans out. I really can't imagine becoming MORE meek than I already am, but I fear it could get even uglier unless I take some preventative measures to combat my bovine nature. Inevitably, Kurt's death has forced me to be more venturesome, and I'm grateful for that. I don't know how I got onto this tangent, I guess I'm just trying to remind myself why I decided to add a travel element to our already kooky household. It'll be good...

In other news, my peas are up to my shoulders now, that's the tallest I've ever had. I'm very excited about them, and we also harvested our first strawberries of the season this weekend. they were delicious. Our out of town guest extravaganza was wonderful as always. The girls got the cutest little gifts from our Friends who visited. One of which was a little unfinished Matryoshka doll for M1. She painted it and penciled it and marked it with a face. She did an excellent job as usual. It also gave me an idea for the Lumpkin Shop...more details to follow;)

Today, we went out to the depot and wrangled up some strapping for a bunch of basket orders. I found one coveted blue strap. Ahhh. Mostly a million shades of green, which are all very lovely as well. Construction will have to begin tomorrow though, because I'm beat. Literally, M2 just gave me my nightly mental bruising, with her usual fit about tuck-in time. I should have taken a picture of her grimy tear-streaked face, but it would probably inflict upon you the same nightmares it does me. What? You can't take it?

Ohh ohh ohh, I almost forgot something good. I had the happiest little dinner tonight. Fake Mac and "Cheese" and a Fake "dog" with salad and applesauce. It was a very comforting meal- a way better version of a childhood favorite of mine (Kraft Mac and Spam) That's right I said SPAM! What, that's vegan right? Here's a new favorite salad dressing recipe I created:

Flowery Balsamic Dressing
Wisk the following ingredients together and use as dressing or marinade
1/4 c. Balsamic Vinegar
1/3c. Oil or Flax oil
1t. spicy beer mustard
2 t. fresh chopped chives
1 purple chive flower fresh from the garden and broken to bits
salt/pepper to taste

Now that's a good note to end on. Goodnight!