The green smoothie

In an effort to get Meg to eat a leafy green anything, I fixed her a green smoothie. She adores smoothies. I put it in a blue cup so the color wouldn't bother her. But I felt really awkward about it - not so much about tricking her, but because green smoothies what Those People make.

You know, healthy people. They probably run marathons before breakfast and wear Toms and fair-trade hemp tunics while organically gardening.

Vegetables are fine, but... we don't do that to them. Smoothie them, that is. It felt like a betrayal of my roots.

However, I might as well have saved the guilt, not to mention the produce. Meg didn't care for it.

I wonder if she'd eat fried okra?

Way out west

I've been trying to work up the energy to post about our lovely trip West, which we took at the beginning of June. First there was laundry and then the moment had passed. My pictures still aren't even downloaded, which is sad. I think I'll give up on doing it justice and just post already.

We really went out for my friend Anna's wedding in Colorado. We also celebrated a triple birthday party for my sister, dad, and brother-in-law, threw a surprise mini-shower for my sister, visited the good doctor and admired his new office, and spend a few days with my grandparents. Meg has only met them twice before, so that was especially important.

A secondary goal (totally accomplished) was to eat at as many of my old favorite places as we could manage. Behold:

El Pinto - Albuquerque
Ecco Gelato - downtown Santa Fe
Joann's Ranch-O-Casados - Espanola
Mimi's Cafe - Colorado Springs
Chili Works - Los Alamos
El Rancho - Portales
Leal's - Clovis
Cotton Patch - Clovis
Rosa's - Lubbock

We also tried to get Dad caught up on superhero movies, went to the dress shop in Portales, and did a spot of antiqueing in Clovis. But really most of our time there was spent eating, getting ready to eat, getting ready for the triple birthday party and surprise baby shower, and, in approved family fashion, going to Wal-Mart every day at least once. Mission accomplished.

Happy summer

Happy summer! Yesterday was The Day, and here in Leesburg it celebrated by getting up to 97. Meg and I had a few errands to run in the morning, and for the afternoon we holed up in our lovely, air-conditioned apartment and watched Sleeping Beauty and The Incredibles.

I felt like we should celebrate Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer's Day. It didn't really happen, except for fixing nice dinners. For Midsummer's Eve we had guacamole sliders, and then last night
I tried this amazing ginger-peach chicken in a soy-sauce base - I used fresh peaches and it was excellent. The recipe called for baking it half of forever, but I think it would be nicer crock-potted or maybe grilled with the sauce prepared stovetop. Or something.

Some of our young mamas from church really miss the company of weekly Bible study, so we're getting together once a week to go out and about and do something fun. Next week we're going to the Brunswick train museum. Today, we're supposed to walk on the W&OD Trail and have a picnic after, but seeing as it's supposed to be 97 again, I'm not sure how that's going to work. But if anyone is interested in joining us for future expeditions, let me know.

Anybody do anything especially summery?

Cowgirl hat

Meg and I went to Old Navy on Friday and picked out a straw cowboy hat for her. She's been needing a summer hat because I won't let her wear fleece headgear when it's 85 out, and more impressively she's been wanting a summer hat, possibly because I have a big raggedy straw hat with roses on it that I wear to the barn and the park.

So we picked out the little cowboy hat, and she plopped it directly on her head. It came off just long enough for the cashier to scan it, and back on it went. She wore it to a cookout last night, to great effect. Then this morning, starlet-style, she wore the hat with a pair of hot pink sunglasses clear into the church nursery. That, my friends, is panache.

Any guesses?

Why do you suppose the words "Barnacled worship" were written on a piece of paper in our library book?

Now taking scenarios. :-)

Steak and mistake

Not having a grill, there are some foods that are just a challenge to cook. Like steak. So far I've got two methods.

1. Broil them. I get out my cast-iron frying pan and preheat it under the broiler, then drop in the steaks. I don't know if my broiler is underpowered or what, but if the cut is thick, it takes like fifteen minutes to get reasonably cooked, at which point it's kind of tough and still doesn't have that nice crisp caramelization on the outside.

2. Pan fry them in a little oil. This, in contrast, gets very caramelized on the outside and tends to be a leetle rare on the inside unless I joggle the precise level of heat. Also, the amount of oil spatter and smoke is really impressive. I forget it's going to fill the entire house with greasy smoke until it's too late and then usually the smoke alarm goes off.

For all that, it's totally worth cooking steak sometimes. It's also worth going out to eat it!

Meg quotes

Meg is smack in the middle of that cute, open, ungrammatical stage.

"I need cake because I'm hungry. Cake please! Cake please!"

"Women curd" (lemon curd).

"I'll bring you animals. ...I bringed them."

"Good morning, Mommy. I'm done resting now."

"See, here is an orange smile for you to bite wif your teef. It's very lovely! I bited it wif my teef. We're having orangies."

A matter of presentation

This morning at the mall, they wrapped up my purchase in pretty hot pink tissue paper and put it into a gift bag with real ribbon handles. It's amazing how it elevated that little purchase from Target-carries-it-for $.20-less to something special. I felt like I got a present.

Which is, of course, how it was intended. My compliments to the merchandizers. In fact, it made me so happy I unwrapped it and re-wrapped it at least twice before Jonathan got back, and then again when he got home!

The first step into a larger universe

We started Narnia today. I didn't quite know if Meg was ready for a chapter book, but she likes picture books and is able to follow the story  of such classics as If You Give a Pig a Party and Fancy Nancy. She'll sit with them herself, identifying the pictures and (half the time) reciting the text for that page, so I thought it was worth trying, at least. I got out The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and started reading aloud.

We counted the children - Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy - on our fingers, and talked about their riding the train to the Professor's house. We talked about the owl sound Lucy heard and made owl noises ourselves. We talked about exploring big houses and what wardrobes and fauns are and examined the illustrations closely. We made it all the way to chapter two and started having tea with Mr. Tumnus before she got restless, so we put it away and went and had a glorious tea of our own, with a fried egg and croissants with honey, lemon curd, or Nutella. All in all, it was a highly successful introduction to Narnia. I'm so pleased I could just about cry.

I hadn't ever put this together before, but I realized Lucy's meal with Tumnus was especially notable because back home in England, she was under wartime rations! A cake with sugar on top would have been a particular treat for her. I'm so glad we're not rationed these days.

No shoes. No shoes at ALL.

I don't think I've got the hang of retail therapy. Meg and I go out shopping for something specific, don't find it, keep hunting till we're both tired and crabby, either don't buy anything or, worse, get something necessary and boring like canned tomatoes -- and then we come home all cranky.

I live in Leesburg. We have an outlet mall. There are even helpful and sensible sales associates at their shoe stores. So how can there be no shoes at the outlet mall?? Truly, a mystery of life. I think my real problem is that my fashion consultant lives a third of the continent away, and I need to wait and go shopping with her. Love ya, sis.