getting ready

we are waiting on pins and needles for our dear friends to arrive from atlanta. we haven't seen them in just over a year now. boy, has it been way too long.

last weekend, i scored in a major way at a local antique/vintage store called D&D antiques. she doesn't have a website, but if you are local you should go visit. her shop is on nebraska near osborne. her prices are phenomenal, and she's a fantastic lady!

check out what i got, all for less than $40:

vintage tea towel
(the table runner, 4 blue/green napkins, and the tiny sugar bowl)

plus TWO blue chairs (one is shown at the top of the post). isn't that awesome? i was high the rest of the day from these finds.

and nothing says ME more than deciding at the last minute that i want to combine 2 old windows and a florida flag we've had shoved in a drawer forever...and get it done before our friends arrive today.

i'm still getting used to the new look (we have had the same thing on the mantle for the past 2 1/2 years), but i like it. i really like the florida flag--it has nothing to do with feeling particularly patriotic for the state in which we live...i really just like the colors. (gillian thinks it looks like we now live in a hotel. i'm not sure why. maybe she just thinks hotels are fun. who doesn't?)

i have friends near and far who nourish my soul. i plan on getting (and hopefully giving!) a lot of that this long weekend.

happy thursday!

colliding on a backdrop of blue

lately my favorite music to listen to is regina spektor's new album, "far." it's amazing, as usual. she just doesn't disappoint, does she? i love that everyone in our family loves her. gillian wants everyone to be quiet for "blue lips" so she can sing every line. aedan wants to hear "laughing with" and is currently jamming to it while putting together a puzzle with his grandma.

my personal favorite is "folding chair." yesterday, in the car i told the kids, "your dad and i already did this, except we had TWO baby boys and ONE baby girl, and someday we are really going to get an airstream and tow it around the U.S." i conveniently left out that i also have a perfect body...or if i forget, i can listen to this song and remind myself. somehow, though, i think they weren't getting me, because they were fighting over a book or something while i was talking. so much for being sentimental...

so this album is my current backdrop, and with it, blue is slowly becoming my backdrop. i have always shied away from blue, because i feel like i will just make it look too folksy and not enough "me." do you know what i'm talking about? there's a fine line between awesome, inviting, hip, anthro-style blue and dorky blue. and i've just always been worried that i would be more on the dorky side of the scale than on the hip side.

but living in florida, where blue really is the backdrop for almost everything--blue sky, blue water--i have been drawn to it for a while. so lately i've been trying to work it into my palette more. like, remember the bunk beds? i love that blue. but see, that's just one color. i feel confident using that color. but also remember how my husband gently banned me from using it for a while now, for fear that everything in the house will eventually be that color?

so i had this idea. i don't know why i hadn't tried this before, but that's how it goes, i guess. we bought a rocking chair, a really comfy one with a slipcover, right before gillian was born, over 7 years ago now. i chose cream canvas, because my thought was that if it got slammed with dog prints/poop/food stains it would be super easy to bleach and get clean.

well...at first it was, but then as time has gone on, it really just looked dingy. (i know you can read that word two ways, and it just cracks me up to think of a chair that's dingy, rhyming with clingy, instead of dingy, rhyming with stingy. i'm easily amused, what can i say?)

so i thought, oh! i'll dye it! i'm sure i was inspired by one of the many amazing blogs i dare to visit on occasion. i say dare because most of the time i visit and feel simultaneously inspired and inadquate. anyone else relate to that?

ok, so i bought some blue dye and thought i would just use a little and it would turn out a beautiful light blue. now, when i went to buy the dye, i was at target, and all they had was navy blue. well, i figured rit dye had more shades of blue, but i looked at my 3 kids, who were fighting at the time (surprise! i bet you didn't expect to hear that. they are always so amazingly well behaved.), and i thought, forget it, i'm buying navy, because i am NOT going to another store.

so home we came, and when i first put the cover in, i freaked out (a little) because it was starting to look purplish. but then i thought, well, if it's purple, i'll just make it work. nothing i can do now...

and it turned out awesome, i think! of course, you know, the blue i painted the bunk beds i also used on the dresser in our bedroom, so it (really) clashed with the new color on the chair. but a little switcheroo cleared that right up. and of course, you also know how addicted i am to rearranging, so that part was fun!

the chair used to be in our living room, and i moved it to the bedroom mostly to get it out of view before i colored it, but now i'm rethinking my decision because i love how it turned out. i find myself wanting to sit in it all the time now.

i love it when i get lucky and things turn out so well!

stay a while

i grabbed the doorknob and braced myself.

as soon as the calendar pages turned to may, it's been suffocating. as each day passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe outside. like standing behind a city bus: hot air blasting, filling my lungs, unable to exhale. limbs feel like lead. one move, one muscle twitch, and the sweat pours. at least three wardrobe changes a day.

so, after changing a dirty diaper and needing to banish its smell to the great outdoors, to let it swelter in the big trashcan--we don't dare have a diaper pail in this subtropical climate--i prepared to open the door and brave the heat.

"oh my gosh!" i exclaimed to the shriveled-up tomato plants and 47 lizards scurrying to get out of my path.

the breeze, cool and dry, greeted my skin, said hello for the first time in 3 months. now, if i can just coax you to stay around for a while. a few days at least, just until i can finish all the perspiration-soaked laundry.

look at what happens...

when i leave the table and try to type an email while the kids paint unsupervised...

luckily the older two rushed to get me before this got *really* bad (although i don't know how it could have gotten much worse. i seriously thought we might not get the paint out of his mouth. EVER.)

happy almost-weekend!

he just keeps getting better and better, folks

my dear husband had another birthday a week ago (and it's taken me this long to post about it...). if you remember what number was celebrated last year, then you remember what number he turned this year. if not, i'm not stirring up trouble and posting it here. :)

we celebrated at home, with shrimp and andouille jambalaya (recipe to follow) and chocolate blackberry cake (i used the chocolate recipe and added 1 carton of blackberries and some dark chocolate shavings). YUM!

the decorations were courtesy of gillian, who worked for at least an hour cutting out all those letters (which she drew freehand, by the way...i was very impressed).

the recipe for the jambalaya was given to me by some truly awesome friends, sunnye & josh. josh's mom is from new orleans, and he read this recipe to me over the phone one day while we were all still living in boston (they still live there...we don't. boo.). i am sure he was giving me the recipe to make for another of rick's birthdays. the recipe feeds 10 to 20 people, so it's incredible to fix for any big gathering.

i love my written notes on this recipe; i copied down josh's words exactly at some points. you will see once you read through; i have copied it here exactly as i have it written down (except for the confusing parts where i stop listening and try to write my own notes while listening).

every time i make this recipe, i think of them. they are friends of a very special time in our past. if only we could see them more. they are quite possibly the coolest people we have ever known. if you know them, then i'm sure you agree.

i don't have pictures of the dish because generally speaking i have found that rice, shrimp, and sausage in a combined dish does not photograph well...if you know what i mean. so why post some picture that would make you NOT want to try the recipe? you will just have to trust me. or if you have eaten this recipe at my house before, then speak up in the comments section!

here's to another year of goodness, honey!

Shrimp & Sausage Jambalaya (feeds 10-20, i think more like 20)

(from La Bouche Creole cookbook)

*note: original recipe calls for 2 lb. sausage and 2 lb. shrimp, but this last time i used 1 lb. of each and it was PLENTY.

2 lb. sausage, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces (hot or spicy sausage, andouille. i use whole foods fresh andouille, but i wrote down a recommendation in my original notes for hillshire farms smoked all-beef)

3 tbsp. olive oil

2 lb. shrimp (popcorn size or small/peeled)

4 onions, white, chopped (i use vidalia)

2 green bell peppers, chopped (i have used red before and that is also yummy)

4-5 ribs of celery, chopped (all veggies should be chopped roughly the same size)

1 28 oz. can of tomatoes (i use diced, and don't drain them)

6 cups chicken stock, plus have more on hand in case you need it later

4 cloves garlic, chopped

4 bay leaves

1/4 tsp. powdered cloves

1/4 tsp. allspice

1/2 tsp. powdered thyme OR 1 sprig fresh thyme

1 tsp. chili powder

sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper to tase

4 cups raw basmati rice

1 bunch green onions, finely chopped (i usually leave these out b/c rick doesn't like them, and i don't think it makes much difference, but if you love them go for it!)

_______

1. in a very large stock pot (about 10 quarts?), heat oil over medium heat. when the side of the pot is hot to the touch, add the sausage.

2. fry sausage until brown.

3. add shrimp. cook until you can smell the shrimp and it changes color (turns pink).

4. add onions, peppers, celery. cook until tender.

5. add tomatoes and chicken broth. bring to a boil

6. turn the heat up. simmer 30 minutes, uncovered.

7. 10-15 minutes into the simmer (from step 6), add the garlic, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, thyme, and chili powder.

8. taste to see how it's going. toward the end, add salt, pepper, and cayenne to your taste.

9. at the end of the 30 minute simmer time, add the raw rice. bring to a boil. keep at a boil and cook 3 minutes.

10. then turn the heat as low as it will go and cover the pot.

11. cook covered for 15 minutes at low heat.

12. take cover off and stir and assess. if it seems dry, add a little more liquid (remember you made more earlier?). put cover back and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

13. take finely chopped green onions and put in during last 5 minutes of cooking.

14. let sit 5 minutes before serving. fluff.

so my fireworks photos didn't turn out...

you'll have to settle for a couple of sunset shots and a full moon shot. we watched the show from the banks of the hillsborough river, with boats going by, under beautiful palm trees and fairly bearable weather conditions. the only thing distraction pre-fireworks was someone in a shiny, tiny bikini. and no, you won't be seeing any pictures of THAT here...i'm still trying to get those images out of my head. we were trying to figure out why someone would need to have a bikini on at 9 p.m.?

more bennett shenanigans to come tomorrow. for now, i'm being summoned to drive someone in a (toy) car around the living room since it's too rainy to go out and play.