On the Edge of Seventeen

 It began with some recipes I wanted to remember. Seventeen years ago I already had a personal blog but thought I needed a place to record what I was cooking. Over the years it has gone through a series of changes but for one reason or another I never abandoned it. Even now, as blogs are rapidly being replaced with photo sharing and video sites it still feels relevant to keep a blog. If nothing else the blog provides concrete evidence to myself that I haven't been idle for the last seventeen years. Not that there would have been anything wrong with being idle. I'm too old, and too conditioned to do otherwise. Thanks, Mum. 

If I didn't have a blog I'd have forgotten about this. It wasn't Dan's birthday, I just thought blowing bubbles deserved party hats. This was during a rather bad heatwave when we were looking for anything to keep a toddler happy indoors. Blowing bubbles indoors always seemed fine to me-it is soap after all. 

Or going "fishing" for a toy bunny with a carrot as bait. I know myself-that carrot probably ended up in dinner!

Trick or Treating for the first time. It must have been warm as we're not wearing coats. In the Midwest you can almost predict what sort of a winter it will be by how cold it is at Halloween. Some years there's a foot of snow. 

The botanical gardens. We had a membership when Dan was small and we'd go as often as possible. It was definitely beyond our budget, but we figured it would be so easy to spend money on other things here and there a bit at a time without noticing, that we went ahead and splashed out. Here we're looking into a pond/tank for the koi that inhabit it. 

The blog turned into much more than recipes, and honestly I almost never revisit things I made for the blog. Tastes change, diets change, and hopefully over the last seventeen years I became a better cook. I don't really enjoy cooking/baking anymore and meals are more of a chore than a pleasure, but it is all here if Dan ever feels motivated to cook something. 

Before smartphones 😀

A coat I still regret giving away. I foolishly thought it wouldn't be appropriate for someone over 40. What on earth was I thinking?! 

Remember how bad digital cameras were in 2004? We've definitely progressed but then this photo wouldn't be as fun if it weren't making me look like a ghoul getting a roller set. 

 

The "classroom" was our dining room table during the day. Nine years of officially homeschooling, but really I was teaching him from the day he was born. I could have done some things better, and I'd do them differently if I could go back, but generally speaking it turned out okay. I always had Dan get dressed for school even though he wasn't leaving the house. He didn't always wear a sport coat though! These days he's more of a jeans and tee shirt guy. 

I was the mother that packed sandwiches to go out with. I'd shop while the boys sat in the dining area of the store (I think this was Target) eating. If I was alone with Dan we'd eat lunch first and that usually gave him enough energy to get through the chore. I wouldn't do this if the place was busy because it would be wrong to take a seat from paying customers, but I rarely shopped during busy times, and not with a child in tow. On very rare occasions though...

...we let him get something to eat at the store. This was his fourth birthday (they even gave us the #4 to put on the table) and Dan wanted one of each type of doughnut they sold at Hy-Vee. As I recall he took a bite or two out of each one and we ended up binning most of it, but he was so excited and it wasn't terribly expensive. He's not much of a doughnut person now (unless they're homemade) but at least he can say he's tried all the doughnuts at the local store. It felt more extravagant than it was.

Not to brag but my homemade potato doughnuts are better. 

Without a blog I'd have forgotten that I used to make a strawberry pie every spring, but that I haven't made one since 2011. I wonder why it fell out of favour? 

This year I baked a cake from almond meal and served cut up strawberries atop it. I have to say, it was much easier. They ate it, so I'll take that as having found it acceptable. I didn't take photos. 

Back to the present

I'm...not good. Part of that's post surgical adventures (I think adventures sounds better than complications) but a good deal of it is chronic stuff that picked a rather lousy time to be, well, chronic. But that's how it goes, and on days when I bother to wear proper clothes I photograph them because it cheers me up. So here's something I wore earlier this week-a vintage barkcloth Hawaiian dress. The waistline is high enough that it doesn't press on my stomach or incisions and it is just a delight to wear. 

I even have matching shoes

And bracelets

and earrings too. You can see the hyper-pigmentation on my face in this photo despite the heavy use of concealer and heavy coverage foundation. I'm not going to worry about it. At some point it will either fade or I'll see a dermatologist but for the moment it is a low priority. But look at the crab earrings! Aren't they fab?

This gorgeous, heavy cotton embroidered dress is by Ivy City a woman owned company specialising in what I'd describe as,  modest dresses. Okay, that's not typically something I'm concerned with but when I found the dress, brand new with the $150.00 price tag still on, I wasn't going to leave it for $5.00. It is a bit big, and there's a LOT of fabric in the skirt, but this is a beautifully made garment. I suspect it will give me years of use. I don't make a habit of buying things retail, but if I needed a special occasion dress for something like a wedding, I'd absolutely buy a dress from them new. For now I'm very happy with this dress because it would be an understatement to say I'm not feeling terribly pretty at the moment, but a beautiful dress definitely helps. 

Ignore my expression-I'm really quite happy with the dress. 

This is a very thin, lightweight dress I bought from the sale section at Hey Viv Retro last year. I need a better strapless bra for it, but it was still cute and comfortable to wear in the horrible heat. If you don't already know Viv (or follow her on Instagram) let me introduce you! She has fun reproduction pieces that won't break the bank, and the BEST accessories. I have so many fun earrings from her. If you want to find cool stuff and support a lovely person running a small business (for decades now) go have a look around Viv's site. 

Halter dresses are easy enough to dress up as well. 

My running days are over for now. I try to get in a 1 mile walk each evening but that's been a struggle too. To go from distance running to struggling to walk a mile is sort of frustrating, but it likely isn't forever, though running might not be something in my future. I have a pile of stuff like these bike shorts that don't get worn for anything except exercise, but I thought I'd give them a go with a vintage swim cover-up after seeing people doing similar outfits on Instagram. I like it! The shape of the cover-up worn with the slim shorts looks vintage and modern at the same time. I probably need some vintage "boy shorts" or swim trunks for a more authentic look. The cover-up has a long zip in the back that goes all the way down. I guess if you didn't mess your hair up swimming, the 60s woman wouldn't want to be pulling a shirt over her bouffant hairdo. Makes sense to me! 

The garden is abloom with beautiful flowers

I harvested the last of the kale today, and now I have loads of chard, tomatoes, basil, other assorted herbs, and lettuce to keep us through summer. I harvested quite a lot of the chamomile and dried it for tea this winter, and I will have enough oregano for years to come. For whatever reason it is growing really well this year. The sage has been slow and steady, the thyme slow but finally getting settled, and my rosemary is alive but doing nothing. Oh well, perhaps it will do better once things cool down a bit. The lemongrass is also growing well though the stalks aren't thick enough to harvest yet. I'm very excited for it. We are expecting some severe weather this evening, but hopefully the garden won't get clobbered with hail or high winds. Rain, we could definitely use. It feels so strange to be talking about tornadoes in July, but it isn't unheard of and we've had such a strange year of weather anyway. 

I'm still cooking every night, but nothing new that you haven't seen before. Plenty of salads in this heat, and I pickled some blueberries and cherries to make things a bit more interesting. If you've never tried pickled fruit, you're in for a real surprise. In the past I've pickled peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes, cherries, and even melon. There's nothing better than pulling out a jar of home preserved summer fruit in the dead of winter, and pickled fruit goes so nicely with everything from meat to a cheese plate. 

So that's about it from here. Seventeen years is a long time to maintain a blog, and even longer to keep reading one (and I know some of you have been around here almost from the start). I appreciate each and every one of you taking the time to visit-well that's not true. Whoever keeps searching for "Granny Tits" to find my blog, I don't appreciate you. And why on earth don't you just bookmark it if you're really so interested?! But everyone else, including the visitor who found my blog by searching for "Therapy to finally get over Watergate", I hope it has been as entertaining for you as it has been for me, and I hope Watergate Reader has found what they needed. 

Stay well.