Summer Tradition: Blueberry Picking

It was a beautiful summer day so the Church family did something we absolutely love to do: pick blueberries.  

We also fed a couple goats, and grabbed some wine. 

All in a day's trip.
 Fun.

Last summer, I made a blueberry mojito that was to die for. This year, I baked up some blueberry banana bread...

and the most perfect blueberry crisp. Good lord blueberries make everything more amazing.

Feel free to print out the recipes, they're the perfect addition to your recipe box.

xo

That One Valentine's Day When I was Half-Naked and Completely Drunk. By Myself.

I've been awfully quiet about Valentine's Day, have I not? Usually I'm on the next morning with butterflies and rainbows and pics to prove it. 

But ah, not this time. Let's recap shall we? Remember how I mentioned in my last post that I had an "off-the-wall surprise" for Clay? Well it was of the more ... intimate ... variety.

Family, you're probably going to want to stop reading now.

We rarely do gifts on Valentines, usually it's just a bottle of wine and a card. Well I guess just a card, since the bottle of wine is a pretty normal occurrence. But I wanted this Valentine's Day to be memorable.

So I decide to act out something I read about in Cosmo many years ago: rent a room in a seedy by-the-hour motel and greet my surprised husband wearing nothing but a smile and heels. (Well, and knickers, because to be completely honest, I was nervous about my bare lady parts actually coming into contact with any thing in that room.)

I called Clay that morning, and mentioned how I just dropped our daughter off at school and oops, looks like she does have a Valentine's program. At noon. Can he make it? Wink, wink.  He's sorta flustered because he's already leaving early to make our son's afternoon Valentine party, but yes, he can rearrange a few things and make it.  

Did I forget to mention that I'm trying to plan a sexy romp immediately prior to our son's ice cream social? I wasn't really thinking logistics at this point.

I call a couple places beforehand to reserve a room, and run into a bit of trouble here; I come to the conclusion that establishments of this nature may not have big advertising budgets because their presence on google is nonexistence. Thanks to the help of my bestfriend, I finally track down a motel that does, in fact, rent rooms by the hour, but they don't do reservations; it's a walk-in kind of thing. Ok, that's fine. I get ready, pack extra sheets (because you just never know), load up the ipod, grab the wine, and head out.

I get to the ... interesting ... motel on the ... interesting... side of town, and walk into the office, trying to look as unembarrassed as possible. HI. I'M HERE TO RENT A ROOM. BY THE HOUR. FOR ME. AND MY HUSBAND. WE'RE MARRIED. TO EACH OTHER. I'm babbling, which is ineffective considering the very very old man at the desk apparently speaks very very little English.

I  hand him my debit card and I'm pretty positive I'm his only patron who's ever tried to pay for a by-the-hour room with a card.  He stares at it for a full minute, runs it, then tells me it was declined. ARE YOU SURE? HOW MUCH DID YOU RUN IT FOR? Twenty dolla. THAT'S HOW MUCH YOU RAN IT FOR? OR DID YOU INCLUDE INCIDENTALS? CAN YOU RUN IT AGAIN? I HAVE MANY TWENTY DOLLAS IN MY ACCOUNT. He now stares at me for a full minute, repeats "twenty dolla", re-runs the card, and again, declined.

In hindsight, I fully believe this was a message from St Valentine himself, trying to stop this train before it fully derails.

But not knowing this, I trudge on. I run to an ATM, easily withdraw $20, return to the office, give the man my money, and he leads me to the room where the magic is going to happen. Cue cheesy porn music: brownchickbrowncow.

I text Clay's coworker, asking her to stall Clay from leaving for (what he thinks is) our daughter's program until I call him. She texts back that he's already left. Of course the first time in his life that he leaves for something on time would be today... Next I text Clay, I need help, I have no signal and can't call, but I have a flat tire at this address, please come pick me up. Now. First. Before Em's party.  Then I start changing into my Valentine knickers. 

That's when I notice the room is unnaturally bright, like highschool-gymnasium bad-florescent totally-unflattering bright. And there's no lamp, just that one god-awful overhead bulb. For $20, I expect a damn lamp, thankyouverymuch.  No worries though, I brought a candle. But no matches. WHO FORGETS THE MATCHES? Anything is better than this light though, so I shut it off and am engulfed in total darkness. I open the curtains in the room's only window slightly and find that this one window faces the motels bustling "courtyard", which is filled with all sorts of interesting patrons engaging in all sorts of interesting things. 

WHERE IS CLAY. It's been ten minutes since I texted him and have heard nothing back. What if I really had a flat time? Or WHAT IF I'M NEARLY NAKED WAITING IN A MOTEL ROOM FOR A ROMP? I open the wine, pour myself a healthy glass, and call him. No answer. I call Emerson's school, and explain that when my husband shows up for our daughter's made-up Valentine program, please tell him to check his messages because his poor wife has a flat tire.

I wait another 20 minutes, texting and calling Clay, drink another heaping glass of wine, and try to figure out how to shut off the room's decrepit heating and cooling unit because it's a nippy 58 degrees in the room.

At 12:40, forty minutes into our allotted sixty minute "date", guess who shows up? My long lost husband. He's greeted with a half naked, drunken crying wife.

After his initial confusion with all his what-are-you-doing-on-this-side-of-town, but-what-about-Em, and where-are-your-clothes questions, he realizes that this was an impromptu rendezvous, but to be completely honest, I WASN'T FEELING IT ANYMORE. You just don't keep a half-naked lady waiting, folks, you just don't.

He spends the next few minutes consoling me, explaining how he was sitting in the parking lot of Em's school, waiting for me. He couldn't answer my calls because he was on the other line with work (a meeting he was phone-conferenced in since he had to miss it physically to make Em's "party") and his piece. of. shit. first generation iPhone is so old, it no longer buzzes when he gets texts.

Right when we decide to salvage our last ten minutes, someone walks by - and briefly peeks in!  MOOD. RUINED.  We get dressed, pack up, and head out.  I don't even have to check out because I was never given a room key!

My apologetic Valentine then takes me for coffee to sober up a bit before we have to party with 26 kindergarteners at 2pm. We laugh, I fix my tear-streaked mascara, and he makes me promise that I plan this again, only with him knowing in advance.

Lessons learned: Cosmo may not give the best advice, spontaneity is best implemented when it's fully planned and agreed upon by both parties, and Clay is getting a new iPhone. ♥

Valentine DIY: Wine Cork Heart

Need a reason to drink more wine? Um, no. I know, you don't. I don't either. Great day? This calls for wine (happy face). Bad day? This, too, calls for wine (sad face). But how about making a super easy Valentine craft? This definitely calls for wine, and the wine cork.

Clay and I have been saving our corks for years. We were talking last night, and we guesstimate that we probably drink about a bottle of wine a week, so we literally have hundreds of corks. Some of these have got to be from our early days, making them at least ten years old. I wish I would have thought to write the date on them as we added each one to our collection; I must remember to do that from now on.

This is like the easiest craft ever. And it's fairly quick. I whipped it up last night while Clay took the kids to karate, and I was finished by the time they got home so it's definitely do-able in an hour.

You'll need something sturdy to glue your corks onto (I used cardboard from a pizza box), lots and lots of corks (I think I ended up using about 75), hot glue, and ribbon. Add some wine to make it fun. Maybe some paint, too.  When I was planning this in my head, I thought I'd paint the cork tops a festive red to pink ombre, but honestly? I liked the natural result better. We drink a lot of red wine though, so many of our corks were stained deep purple to light pink already.

Cut out your heart,

then start gluing on your corks.

When doing the outline of the heart, keep the wine label on the outside; it looks great and it's fun to reminisce about all those delicious wines. Some of the labels may be upside down because you'll want to keep the destroyed part of the cork (where the corkscrew entered) from showing on your finished project. Assure any arising OCD that this is ok.

Ohhh, Estancia. A big favorite in our house.

Try to glue in between the corks as you go; that will sturdy up your finished project.

Hot glue on a big ribbon, let the glue dry for a few minutes, then hang.

Maybe pour another glass of wine as you admire your finished project.



Hell, open another bottle.

Just remember to save the cork.

Running 4 Wine

I'm proud to say that I completed another - my second! - 5K. 

Seriously, this one was just as amazing as the first, because you know, WINE.  

I even placed 12th in my age group, which kind of blows my mind. 

Photo taken by Ryan Litwiller from I Run Flint.

Blueberry Pickin'

 

A summer must-do.

Lainey Love

I feel fortunate to still be friends - really good friends - with the girls I loved in high school.  A group of us get together every month for dinner; we rotate houses and whoever hosts that month cooks the main dish, and everyone else bring a side/dessert/appetizer/drink etc, and we catch up and let our kids play and it's always the best time.  We've been doing it for years now and it's something I look forward to every month.

Well this month it was at my house and I made an amazing vegetable lasagna using fresh veggies, homemade sauce and whole-wheat noodles ;) and there was wine. Lots of wine.  It was a great dinner that turned into a long evening and I'm low-to-moderately buzzed and the kids are being silly crazy people running all through the yard & house and of course it'd be at this precise time that the shelter would call, saying they were dropping by for a home inspection, the final step in our adoption process of Lainey. 

Somehow we pass. 100% thanks to Clay and his patience and 0% thanks to me and my girlfriends as we avoided looking at each other so we wouldn't burst out laughing and bit our tongues trying to refrain from responding to the shelter lady's advice to "always make sure the fence gates are closed" while in the backyard and how a puppy "is a huge responsibility". (Really, tell me more about supervising and raising a puppy as I supervise and raise my children. Puppy adoption = serious business.)

And now we have a dog. Lainey Love Church, our 15wk lab doberman mix and the sweetest puppy you ever did meet. The kids adore her (Narls handcrafted his puppy mask to help Lainey feel at home) and even Snowmeow approves (from a slight distance).

Contemplating Life Over Cupcakes

Today's ring said to bake cupcakes. Narls and Em are overjoyed. Me? Not so much. I'm tired and cranky and just got home from work and want nothing more than a delicious glass of red wine and an evening spent on the couch.

Clay is gone, filming for a basketball game.  I can't do this alone.  I ask (beg) the kids doesn't a movie sound better? We can watch a Christmas one!

They're undeterred. They just watched a Christmas movie yesterday, remember?  I start a pot of coffee as I briefly contemplate my guilt of being the mother that sticks her kids in front of the tv for some precious moments of time where she doesn't have to do anything for anyone.  

I listen to them talk, excitedly, hurriedly, as they line the muffin tin with decorative wrappers.

I sip the first precious tastes of my coffee, flavored with a bit of peppermint creamer.

And I feel myself relax.

Inspired even.

We bypass the box mix and break out the flour and butter and sugar; we're doing this from scratch, babies.

We measure and mix and scrape and lick. 

And while our kitchen fills up with the lovely scent of vanilla, I watch my kids and marvel at them. 

My girl's hair is getting so long; when did this happen?  And my boy just said certainly; when did he learn that word? 

I work, I come home worn out, I complain about how busy I am, and I wonder when life will slow down.  But life is still happening in the meantime. My babies are growing.  And there are precious moments like that I'm missing.

Homemade frosting, too.  There are big things going on in our kitchen.  Delicious things. Heartfelt things.

It's during my busiest times when I need need the simplest things the most.

Things like baking with my babies.

Sipping a perfect cup of coffee.

Dancing to Christmas music.

Eating a perfect homemade cupcake.

And Clay walked in the door just as we were decorating.

Perfect timing, DaddyO.

The simple things.