beachy

On the kitchen windowsill.

games, hodge podge & two requests

We're all about games in our house. During the first summer after we were married, Adam and I had a running card game of Dame des Piques that lasted at least three months. (I believe I won, incidentally). We started our game collection even before that, and have quite a selection in our game cupboard. Adam took Phillip to a yard sale a few weekends ago, and they found a treasure - a 2nd edition Wheel of Fortune game from 1986! It combines everything Phillip loves - puzzle solving, spinning a spinner, letters and words, and rules! Oh, this boy loves rules.

We stopped at Value Village on our way home earlier this week, and found a like-new Rush Hour game (99 cents!) that Phillip has also been enjoying. Thomas has been playing with Operation a lot lately, which I found at Frenchy's.

Do you have any game recommendations for us? Either for the boys or us grown-ups, or even better - something that we can all play with in some way. I'll keep my eyes peeled.



It's late in the season now, but if you can manage to find some fresh peas (I saw some at the market last week) you can make some Hodge Podge. Rachael's recipe is perfect. We made it a few weeks ago, and it was so. delicious. If you've never had hodge podge, it's a sort of vegetable chowder using the perfect little carrots and new potatoes that are available now. 

The in-laws are here, which is wonderful. I'm hoping to get out and take some pictures very soon. I'm really enjoying having my iPhone for quick pictures, but it's not like a real camera. I need to play with it some more; I have to figure out how to capture things a little bit better. Any tips on iPhone photography? Speaking of which, you can find me on Instagram - I'm Sherrie_birchbarksoap.

Happy Thursday!

the view

We've been away for a few days, and it's felt like a month. In a very good way. We drove for many hours to Antigonish, stayed with some wonderful friends (who are amazing cooks, yuuum!) at their cottage and slept in tents with this view. This was actually the sunrise, which I found disconcerting. Here in beautiful Yarmouth, the sun sets over the water, in the west. There, the water is east, so the sun rises over the water, which is magical and kind of surreal. Definitely my kind of way to start the day.

Phillip had so much fun, he could barely contain himself. It was the first time that he and Thomas:

- slept in tents
- went to late-night bonfires on the beach
- stayed in a hotel (When Phillip walked in, he stopped and said, very excitedly: "There's a TV! In our room! A TV!")
- rode a pony (and visited Oaklawn Zoo in Aylesford)
- went down a waterslide (well, Phillip did once before, but was completely traumatized. This was his first positive experience, and Thomas loved it, too.)
- swam in ocean water and were able to stay in without freezing

I'm sure that there were more firsts, too, but those are the standouts tonight. The boys traveled beautifully. It was great.

P.S. Waking up next to snoring Phillip in a sunrise-filled tent was very, very sweet.

humming along

Things are just humming along merrily over here. (After a couple of days during which I felt irritable and exhausted by the boys and was responding decidedly unlike myself, I decided that regardless of how I felt, I was going to choose to delight in them and dive right into the middle of their conflicts and mess, and guess what? It worked. I'm feeling like myself again.) So things are flowing along smoothly once more. Just a little bump in the path, and as always, I've learned something to take along with me for the rest of the road.

I watched this video a few days ago. I almost cried at the part where she's washing her (beautiful) eggs. Not because there's anything particularly heart-wrenching in the video itself, just because I was imagining the day (and it will come!) when I'll be able to say "I am standing at my sink, washing my own hens' eggs." And that will be a very, very happy day.

This is a happy day, too. I have been enjoying my own little thankful moments at the sink yesterday and today as I was preparing meals. They went something like this: "Oh, shoot. We're out of onions. Oh, wait! I'll grab some from the garden!" and "This soup would be perfect with carrots. Shoot. We're out of carrots. Oh, wait! I'll grab some from the garden." The results have been delicious.

I've been dehydrating more herbs, too, which is super fun. Pictured are stevia and chamomile. I'm going to intentionally plant more chamomile next year to have a year's worth of tea - this year's plants were volunteers from last year's plants. I do love a cup in the evening. Speaking of which, I'm off to have some right now.

Oh, but before I go, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your sweet comments over on Phillip's new blog! He is so funny about the whole thing and was perfectly and absolutely beaming with each comment that rolled in. And he insisted on replying to every one, so if you left one, there's a reply for you in the comments.

Goodnight!