Memorial day in a little town in New England.

I love that our little town has a little Memorial Day celebration, just like yours.

You can walk from the Town Hall to the old cemetery where the memorials to the different wars are. I don't have pictures of that because dogs aren't allowed in the cemetery, of course.

This year, because we brought the puppy, we stayed off to the side a bit. But the speeches and the Benediction were good and heartfelt. The middle school and high school bands did great on the music.


The 3-gun salute was loud and scary.

When veterans have awesome cars it's parade nirvana.

They look happy, don't they? I love them.

I love our little town, and I'm happy to have taken to this service a girl, a puppy, and a flower to lay on a grave. Thank you, all who served and gave the sacrifice of your life for us to live in peace. May we be worthy!

I told you I was obsessed with Eggplant Obsession.

So last night I decided to follow my own recipe, aka what I told you (not really the same thing, is it now? Hmmm, girls?? They will tell you that my recipes often wildly vary from what I actually do, which is why I'm testing the amounts, which some people might do before they publish the recipe).

I used one medium-large eggplant, which I forgot to take a picture of.

I decided to grill it, because no way was I turning on the oven, it was that hot out. Obsession has its limits.

So here is the truth: I told you to make more saucy stuff than is strictly necessary for one eggplant. I think it would be a good amount for two medium-large eggplants.

See, what I told you yesterday makes 3/4 cup of sauce. I was left with 1/4 cup of sauce when all the eggplant slices were on the grill, although, of course, to give myself my due, if you had made small cubes with the eggplant there would be more surface area and you might need that much sauce.

Anyway, I can't do that math to make it work out to the right amount.

I mean, I can, but what's the point. The measurements will end up silly.

Just use two eggplants or keep the leftover sauce for the next time you crave this, which will be soon!

After pre-heating the grill, I turned it down to medium-low and let these succulent morsels do their thing.

As the little bubbles came up, I flipped the pieces over.

Keep flipping and moving around. There are vastly different levels of heat on my cooking surface here...wish I knew how to clean up the burners so they will heat evenly....

You can see that no way does this yield enough. I would have been much better off with two eggplants. Clearly.

What food are you obsessed with? Do you have a favorite thing to grill that your family loves, that is also economical? Another one around here is Vidalia onions...oh my goodness!

Do dish in the comments!

Eggplant obsession.

Here is a way to cook eggplant that will result in your inability to think about anything other than this dish. You will have to make it over and over. Your mouth will get cut up and you won't care (does this happen to you with eggplant?).

Toss together equal parts olive oil, tahini, and honey -- for one large eggplant use about 1/4 cup of each. Add salt and pepper. Chopped green onion is lovely too.

Slice or cube the eggplant -- it doesn't really matter which, and you will have ample opportunity to experiment and see what you really like, because you will not be able to stop making this -- and toss in a large bowl with the mixture, coating thoroughly.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, spread out the eggplant pieces, and roast at 400-425*, turning and removing done pieces, until it all looks like the picture -- about 10 minutes, I think.

Don't get smart and think you don't need parchment paper. The honey is going to burn and make your pan a mess. Tin foil will stick to the eggplant and you will spend dinner peeling it off. Wax paper will burn at that high temperature. It's worth getting some parchment paper just for this, trust me.

~~~I'll answer questions here since I realize I have a tendency to think you aren't that interested in my recipes and already know all about them.

Tahini is just plain sesame paste. Ground up sesame seeds! I think I might try this some time with peanut butter and see what happens...

As for other flavorings, you can embellish at will. I would suggest a smidge of mustard (dijon or powder, doesn't matter), a little cumin and coriander, some garlic. A splash of soy sauce...

Eggplant does make some people's tongue and throat feel itchy, cut up, or otherwise weird -- mine included. But I just go for it.

This is a fantastic side dish to any meal. It's only slightly sweet and just lovely hot or cold. 

With your usual grilled meat, asparagus, and potatoes, it's a rocket ship to another planet. 

In a tossed green salad it's that little amazing touch that takes you to a new level, and if you throw some feta cheese and pistachios in there, you will only have the smallest portion of lasagna, to make more room for it. 

In a sandwich the next day you won't know how you lived without it. You'll be sneaking it into every meal and taking out stock in the parchment paper company. I have six eggplant plants out in my garden that can't grow fast enough for me!

In the comments, Jessie suggests salting to avoid the mouth weirdness, which of course is what most recipes tell you to do with eggplant. I've never found that salting makes a difference (although I appreciate the thought and the link she provides), and being hasty by nature, stopped doing it. Ditto peeling. I find that cooking thoroughly helps the most.

For hot and spicy food lovers out there, by all means try adding cayenne. The recipe that sparked this one was in an old issue of Martha Stewart's Living (from the library!) and she did the eggplant with Thai peppers, which a) who has lying around and b) I can't take hot food. So I morphed it (considerably) into this recipe.

Prosperity.

Sometimes there are little surprises in life, like when a peach iris comes up amongst the white ones.

A secret that only some people know -- I wish more did -- is that you can live on one income --even a journalist's ;) -- and prosper.
 
Those few of us work hard at not frittering away hard-earned money. The focus is on raising our family, even if it means going without and making do for years and years. A lot of the things we do have come from yard sales...or were even free.

We use a lot of spray paint.

We put off buying new things, and very often we find what we need in a thrift store.

Yet we prosper. I don't mean we get rich and have a lot of stuff.

I mean the prosperity of love and enjoyment.

Yesterday evening we had a simple supper on the deck -- just leftovers after all who were leaving caught their respective planes.

The temperature was perfect.

{These days seem to be rare, here in the rainy zone.}

The lawn needs mowing, but we're pretty tired.

We were in that magical, elusive moment between the mayflies and the mosquitoes.

The sunlight slanted on the wood, under the picnic table.


Thank the Lord we have a table to sit at and enjoy our food and each other's company.

And yes, this is a Knight of Malta Playmobil guy.

Sewing chitchat.

I got this soft, thick cotton seed sack at a yard sale last summer, along with another, which I am using for a little bag for all my log cabin scraps which were in sore need of corralling.

 The printed side is facing away, unfortunately, but you get the idea.

This one is bigger, and I had a brainstorm one day when I was making an extra-large loaf of bread for which I had no plastic bag large enough. I know, I'll make a bread bag! {I really needed something, because I'm bartering bread and futures on honey for free-range chickens from my friend Susan.}

Gardening chitchat.

First, old business. The Reuben casserole (small) that I froze for a later day turned out just fine, although I spaced the fact that I put it in the freezer in a raw state, so I could have baked it a little longer. Perhaps a little note to future forgetful me on the package would not have gone amiss...but there is no reason not to freeze.

 

Next, my veggie garden is finally getting to where I want it to be. 

Dear Chief put an addition on the compost, using the extra-heavy-duty pallets that our compressed wood logs arrive on. They are truly pallets of mighty construction -- not your regular pallets that you normally come across, although those will work. These are just roomier and stronger.

 

Using a few little pieces of scrap wood to tie them together (in the back, you can't see), he made this very sturdy bin, last year using three pallets, then adding the two from this year and cutting the middle one down for easy compost turning. 

Hopefully by next late winter we will have one more bay, and that will be that. Even with two, it works much better, because with only one you are always tossing new material on top, and never getting to use the finished product. {For reasons that will become clear further down, I couldn't be happier at having re-purposed these pallets this way.}

I think it's just amazing that every March volunteer pumpkins climb out of the compost and do their thing. Since now I can turn the compost and actually use it, I dug the emerging plants out and put them in this tub. Since then, even more seeds have sprouted! I have just the spot for them. Next week.

For now they are still cozy in their warm corner. It keeps getting cold here!

Do you keep a stash of old towels for spills and old sheets for the many miscellaneous uses an old sheet serves? 

 

This one and a couple of others came in handy for the frost last week. Toss them over the tender plants you couldn't resist putting out (with a stake or fence for support, of course).

After all these years I am finally getting gardening. I can't tell you how big a fail I have been in this department. I'm talking about when the kids were little and it would have been important, in so many ways, to succeed.

It would take so long to go over all the reasons. Some of them are a little...odd.

First, I don't like going outside. I like being outside, but I don't like getting from inside to outside.

Then, I'm always cold (except in the warmest weather and then I'm always hot) and I have a thing about changing my clothes (which is made harder by usually having to wear so many to keep warm) -- I consider it a sign of weakness to change my clothes! I have no idea why, and I'm overcoming this weird complex in my old age. 

But to garden, you really need to change your clothes, and in the past, I always felt like no sooner would I get dirty than someone would need to be nursed, or run in to go potty --or I'd need a nap, or the phone would ring, or whatever -- all things that you need to not be coated in mud to accomplish. 

Then, another issue is the initial spending certain activities require. In a possibly not completely informed mind-state of "What Would Ma Do?" I consider it wrong, just wrong to pay for lumber and other materials to produce food. My over-frugality can't help calculating just how much those tomatoes end up costing...

I guess I just feel like you should be able to make most things out of other things (and now you see about the bins!).

I've always wanted raised beds, but could never stomach the cost of the wood. I've tried using young tree trunks, stones, discarded planks, what have you -- but the weeds win.

This year I told my husband  -- a man who, for whatever reason buried in his deep psychological past is not too interested in gardening -- that he needed to read up on raised beds and make it happen for me. Please. 

 {He loves beekeeping, though! and I think it's helped him want to help me. 

I mean, he was always willing to help, but not with his head, necessarily, and communicating what I wanted wasn't easy when he wouldn't get the picture on his own. But now he does. He's a good guy.}

And he did. And all I can say is, I'm glad I wasn't there at the "hardwood store" (as Nick dubbed the hardware store when he was about 3) when the cash register sang out, because I would have gotten into my covered wagon and headed for the prairie.

Now (and by "now" I mean gradually in the past 15 years or so) I've learned something -- a revelation!

It makes me happy simply to step into the garden. 

Unlike a messy room, which just fills me with dread, stepping into even a messy garden elates. I never knew that about myself.

 

I still have to figure out what to do about the paths...but I'm very happy so far with my beautiful raised beds. They are plunked down more or less where the raised (un-constructed) beds were last year (hence the parsley and a few other plants), so the soil there is already fairly deep with leaf mulch, wood ashes, and grass clippings. I put newspaper over the weediest areas and we piled new topsoil over all. The compost will go in there too.

I guess if I could go back and speak to myself about the whole gardening thing, I would say this: 

Keep a set of old clothes handy to jump into, and don't bother washing them too often. Layer up and I promise you that in a few minutes you'll warm up so much you'll be stripping out there.

You can do a lot in an hour or two, between nursings or whatever else is calling you. The baby will do great out in the fresh air.

Stop reading so much about it and just try it. {Blogs are so much better, though, for reading, than books, which have to present everything in its ideal state. The internet has made doing so much easier, at least for me!} 

Don't worry, there's always next year. It doesn't have to be perfect now!

I hardly know WHAT to say!

You are all so very sweet!

Sukie (we all agree that we can't decide whether she's our little Asian child -- Suki -- or our French child -- Suzanne aka Sukie, not that I have any clue that a French person would have that nickname -- so even though I'd say we have definite house style rules on most usage points, we just can't land on one spelling for her --at least I can't), you really surprised me.

I sat down to write a post and BOOM! There I was...

And then so many kind friends sent me birthday wishes, here and on facebook and by email, that I'm really overwhelmed.

I want to say that we all really enjoy comments so much, so I'm happy about that post because it brought you out! Some of you visited the comments for the first time, I think, yesterday, and hearing from you made my day.

Some of you are regulars, and trust me, I look for you! I love when you visit.

Having my son-in-law chime in -- secure enough in his inner Marine to be the lone guy in a sea of ladies!! was awesome. My mother is so sweet, isn't she?

Although, some of the things you say show you have the wrong end of the stick, like when you assume my house is incredibly tidy or organized, or that my children or marriage are perfect.

You know that can't be, right?

As to the people, they are absolutely wonderful, and I love them to pieces.

They unload the dishwasher, placing one more baking dish in the cupboard up above the stove, and say stuff like "I'm going to take a picture of this to show your online friends just how organized you are! NOT!"

The point of what I try to do here can be found in what my friend Nancy says: that everyone has a spectrum they operate on, with lame at one end and fabulous at the other.

The lame end serves an essential purpose: if SHE can do it, so can I!

My mother is really a genius at planting flowers. Do not think that this is my handiwork. 

I specialize in plunking raised beds down on top of clumps of chives. See above.

That's truly what got me motivated to write for you.

Which is the fact that I really don't have it together, but I do know this: how to function with a measure of peace, or at least a strong sense of what I'm doing it all for, while not really having it together.

That is very different from having it all together -- but maybe no peace, and no clue where it all ends up.

Do you see?

Call it the story of the education of a girl who didn't know how to sweep a floor. I thought it might be more helpful to share what I've learned, just in case you are thinking of re-inventing the wheel, than all that fabulousness at the other end of the spectrum, telling you to re-fold your linens on a schedule (I'm sorry, Martha is such a scapegoat. She really has amazing taste. There are many, many like her, with less panache and true design sense, but just as much drive, and they are not helping those of us with novels to read and people to feed).

Or for that matter, making you feel like if you don't re-style your house all the time, live in a certain place with a certain lifestyle, or otherwise be the person you are reading about, you aren't much. (Never letting on that someone else is taking care of the children or doing the cleaning.)

It happens that God has blessed me with a somewhat photogenic, if repair-needy, house (I mean, it's basically in the condition you'd expect from wildly impractical dreamers with a minuscule, nay, non-existent, remodeling budget); and a truly lively, smart, and loving family (and yes, I admit it, they're photogenic too :).

They are perfect for me, all right, not least because they make me look good and like I sort of know what I'm doing. They'd probably drive you crazy.

But do you believe that God has sent you the perfect people and situation for YOU???

Because He has.

And as I wandered around the internet I realized I want you --other dedicated but perhaps frustrated moms -- to discover this fact, rather than be made strangely discontent by all the supposed fabulousness. I found that I didn't like reading a big long list of things I could do to get "it" right (whatever "it" is -- cleaning, homeschooling, cooking, organizing, being a good Christian). Too much information at once gives me an anxiety attack.

And beyond getting some order into this daily life with family, I have always wanted to communicate the sense of wonder, too, to struggling friends -- the knowledge that sometimes the space to be silent is the best way to pass on the most valuable gifts -- the assurance that we don't always have to be actively teaching, talking, instructing.

When Rosie started this blog, I found the means of getting my thoughts down on virtual paper, if only to be sure my children know a bit more about the journey they are on.

The fact that you respond makes me happy, especially because I've visited some of your musings, and I know that where I dabble, you excel. Where I try to plant a few tomatoes, you have a farm; where I store some jars of pickles, you put up food for a year. Where I try to smile, you are extraordinarily cheerful in adverse situations.

You are so nice to come here, and wait patiently for me slowly to work through all the steps of all the various things I have to tell you, and appreciate our different pace -- what a very sweet gift to me and to my whole family.

Thank you!

Big Day!

Dear Readers,

Today is a very special day.

On this day, our dear Auntie Leila (or, as some of us are fortunate enough to call her, Mom) came into our world.
This year she's turning a big number.
Of course, you understand that I mean big in importance, not in age. My mother is extremely young.

This number, though...it's number with a zero at the end. It's half of a very important number, one with two zeroes at the end.

So, please join all of us here at LMLD in wishing this cheerful,

adventurous,Surveying uncharted territory...or else maybe the Kennedy Compound.

diligent,We'll pretend this is her writing something profound, rather than doing a seating chart for the wedding.
I don't have many pictures on my computer!


dignified,

lovely

woman a very happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom! I love you.

A little tutorial to relieve stress from sewing thousands of tiny stitches.

I just want to show you a method I developed (well, I've never seen nor read about this anywhere) when I got in a panic because my hand really, really hurt after quilting. It hadn't hurt for the first couple of quilts because I was young. But one day...pain was just radiating up my arm!

The fact is, when you hand sew, especially patching and quilting, you are doing a repetitive motion literally thousands of times, and if you are gripping and tightening those muscles, you will end up not being able to do it at all. Not when you're twenty-five, probably, but by the time you are forty-five you'll feel it.

And I know that some of you have told me that you'd love to sew but it hurts. So maybe this can help you!

You want to get yourself two kinds of thimble. 

Please don't tell me that you can't use a thimble. 

My friend Nancy who sews up an 18th-century storm with her beautiful authentic museum-quality dresses, jackets, shirts, waistcoats, corsets, shifts...you get the idea -- didn't use a thimble when I met her, and I browbeat her into using my method because, yes, her hand started hurting even though she isn't forty-five yet.

Eventually you will figure it out.

I bought new rubber thingies to do this post, because my remaining old one was truly gross. Nancy buys something else, maybe from an office supply store? 

Hers aren't red. {These are sold for machine quilting. I tossed the package, of course, so I don't know their exact name, but you will recognize them when you see them.}

The point is that it needs to be rubber and soft. You can snip off its tip if your finger starts to get hot and sweaty.

To show you what to do, I used a much larger needle than I usually do (the one on the left) and thick linen thread. Normally I use a #10 or #12 "betweens" needle, which is really small and takes getting used to. However, if you can swing it, it's much easier to push a small short needle with the thimble than a needle that sticks way out.

I also use a thimble that has a little rim on the tip and is magnetized.

This makes your hold on your needle a lot more secure. Not to mention that when a needle does fall to the floor it's a lot easier to pick up! I recommend this kind of thimble over the rounded silver ones you usually see. I agree, they are clumsy.

Think about how you sew when you don't use a thimble. Your fingers grip the needle from the side. You can't push the needle from the back because you'll poke a hole in your finger! So you start gripping.

{Click on any picture to enlarge it.}

If your hands get sweaty or you've put on lotion, your fingers start to slip and you grip even harder.

Now, with the thimbles things are different. Your hand can relax. You can exert just a bit of tension to do what you have to do, but without gripping and pulling.

Here the photo shows what it looks like for real as I go into a stitch (note that there are several stitches on my needle, which I can do because I'm not going to pull them or thrust them through, I'm going to push from the back, and that also leaves more room on the needle for the stitches).

But to show you what I really am doing with that third finger, I moved my rubber-capped finger out of the way. Normally, though, try not to have your fingers flexed like this. It just adds stress. Keep relaxed.

 

See how my metal thimble is pushing the needle through? (That is my third finger -- my second finger is out of the way.)

Now push that needle right to the hilt. Don't start pulling until you have to.

You might be able to do that twenty times with your bare finger on a needle this size, but with a little quilting needle, you certainly will not! You will bore a tunnel right through your flesh in short order!

When you do pull, you are using the sticky surface of the rubber thingy to do the job, not your slippery skin.

Okay, so that's it! Get yourself a thimble and some rubber thingies and get sewing! If you want to, that is!

And thanks to Bridget for the good photos!

*** And let me add: when you are out sewing with these things on your fingers, be sure to explain them to any little children lurking nearby. It kind of freaks them out! :)