hot

It's been so hot outside. Too hot for playing And I don't know if I can watch the Spiderman movies any more than I already have, which is approximately eleventy-billion times. So we've had to just resort to doing inside things, like going to the mall and letting Julian get on that crazy bungee thing.




And going to the Children's Museum here in Winston-Salem. Visits to the library are always good too. We're doing lots of pre-kindergarten reading this summer. Trips to Michael's have kept us occupied a bit, because we always get a project to work on. They have some really cheap little wooden kits that kids can put together, and we're into those right now. We just completed the skeleton, and next is the pirate ship.


But all this doesn't seem like enough activity for my crazy boy who doesn't ever stop moving. So we signed him up for Tae Kwon Do classes. His introductory class is tomorrow, and he's very excited. He keeps practicing moves, which are really just poses he's seen from Spiderman, and can't wait to wear the white uniform. I'll have pictures to share soon!

What are you doing to keep busy in this heat?

mela

A few days ago, we hopped in the car and made the drive West to Asheville. We had never been there before, but have been hearing so much lately from people that we would love it. That it's such a cool hippie town, and it's right up our alley. This is our first year living in North Carolina, so this summer we want to do lots of little day trips to places we've never seen.


This is just a shot of the ride over, and Julian was playing X-Men with his Legos. He was pretty mad that we had to drive through the mountains, because he said it made his ears hurt, like driving through the mountains in L.A.


We arrived in Asheville at lunch time, and we were all starving. One of the first places I noticed was Mela. I mentioned to Wade, "It's been so long since we've had good Indian food.". He agreed, but then reminded me of the times in L.A. that we went to get Indian, and would ask if it was gluten-free, but the people working didn't understand English so they'd just nod and smile. And I'd end up glutened. So we stopped eating Indian.

But because Asheville is such a cool town, and the people there really seem aware, I asked if anything on the menu was gluten-free. I was expecting the usual answer of "huh?" or just a blank stare. But right away, the hostess said, "I just talked to the cooks, and everything but the naan is gluten-free." Then I picked up my jaw from the floor and sat down at a table.


From what I noticed, most of their food was not only gluten-free, but most of the buffet stuff was vegetarian. Score! We had an amazing healthy lunch, and I am officially obsessed with Mela and crave it on a daily basis. Seriously the best Indian food I've ever had.

farmer's market

Oh, lazy summer days. Since both Wade and Julian are done with school for the summer, we've been kicking back and doing basically nothing. But it's a very good nothing. We recently went to the farmer's market in Greensboro and here are some pictures to document the adventure:

Before we headed out, we stopped at the Cloverdale Kitchen for breakfast. Most diners are pretty safe for breakfast if I just get scrambled eggs and bacon. Once, at Dupar's in L.A., I got glutened by some hash browns that I'm pretty sure shared the same griddle space with pancakes. It was awful and I can remember feeling really drunk and stupid from it. So now I mostly stick to eggs, bacon, fruit, and tomato slices. Anyway, this is Julian doing his Uncle Rico (from Napoleon Dynamite) pose.


Once at the farmer's market, Julian found this awesome booth with local wool yarn. They also had some sheepskins, and after explaining to Julian what it really was, he got all morbid and said, "This is the first dead animal I've ever seen." Except that he devoured a pile of bacon right before that, so, not really.


We bought two trays of marigolds to plant in our garden because I've read that they act as natural bug repellant. I'm all squintalicious because the sun was right in my grill. Grill means face, for those of you who aren't hardcore gangsta like me.


Has blogland ever seen the love child of John Lennon and Paul McCartney Wade? Here he is. He's simply the best husband ever. I'm quite skilled at cutting off the top of his head in photos that I take.


Julian was really captivated by this huge pot of venus fly traps. He was convinced that if he put his finger next to one, it would bite him.

In other news, I made some gluten-free saltines from this recipe and while they weren't awful, they simply weren't saltines. The dough was so gooey and was the texture of goat cheese, so I had a really difficult time rolling them thin enough, and they ended up more like really thin biscuits. The taste was good though, so I think I'm going to roll them into a log next time and slice them really thin, rather than rolling sheets out.

I've had a really crafty itch lately, but I'm just not sure how to scratch it. I do need to make a new purse for myself that has a nice padded camera pocket in it. We have some blank canvases lying around too, and I've been wanting to make some bird and tree art for a while now. There's also the project of cloth napkins, which I really need to tackle. I'll get cracking on something soon, and post it. I swearz.

garden

A few of you have asked about the progress of the garden, so here it is, in all its glory:

It looks really tiny from the angle of this picture, but it's about 15 feet wide. In this overwhelming blur of green, you will find bibb lettuce, basil, rosemary, scallions, cilantro, cucumber, garlic, tomatoes, arugula, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, and red peppers - all grown from seeds, except the tomato plants that we bought from a grocery store because they were ridiculously cheap.


The arugula was growing like a crazy delicious weed (why do weeds grow so much faster than wanted plants?) until it bolted, and then I guess all the efforts of the plant turned to making flowers instead of giant leaves. I found out the flowers are edible, so I snipped them all off and gave the row of arugula a major haircut. Hopefully this will bring back some of the leafy growth that I love so much. Seriously, arugula is my favorite of the leafy greens. I could eat it for every meal.


Cilantro going all gangbusters on me. I've heard from so many people that cilantro is a fickle herb that's so hard to keep alive, but this stuff is out of control. It still blows my mind that you can just throw seeds into the ground, and they will grow into plants. I know it's so simple, but having my own garden really makes me so much more aware of the coolness of the earth, and how important it is for us to take care of it.


Back porch plants that I hope to plant in the ground when we buy a house. Lavender, rosemary, basil, and hot banana peppers. The banana peppers were a gift from our neighbors and would have gone into the big garden, but we just ran out of room and had to pot them.

summer

Oh my gosh, look at Julian being all huge and tall! Pictures like this make me stop and go, whoaaaa, where'd my little tiny boy go? Who is this huge big boy who took his place? I can only imagine how weird (and happy) it feels to see your babies as adults.

Right behind Julian, you can kind of see the little garden we're growing that's full of awesome veggies. We made a salad yesterday mostly comprised of food from our garden. Arugula, bibb lettuce, cilantro, and basil. I also picked some onions prematurely because their tops died off. I don't know if they would have grown back or not, so I just picked them, and now we have adorable little baby onions sitting on our counter.


Today the temperature was supposed to reach into the 90's, so we bought a slip n' slide. You know I was all over that thing too, but photo proof does not exist, thankfully.


In other news, my awesome friend, Becca, just turned 30. Her equally awesome husband, Zach, sent her along with a bunch of us girls to the beach for a weekend. It was an amazing trip filled with laughing, junk food, and NO KIDS! Anyway, for Becca's birthday present, I conspired with Zach to make this Ethiopian purse. Their son is adopted from Ethiopia, so it's a special place for their family. I totally stole these pics off Becca's blog, because I forgot to take photos of the bag before I gave it to her. One side has the shape of Africa, in the colors of the Ethiopian flag, and a freezer-paper stenciled heart over where Ethiopia is located.


The other side of the bag has a little pocket stenciled with the word "love" in Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopians. The inside of the bag is lined with the same fabric as outside, but has pockets with the colors of the flag sewn in.