Missy's blog: May 2023

I saw this hot honey and jalapeno cornbread on my Instagram feed. I love the random recipes I have tried thanks to the algorithms of social media. At one point I was calling them TikTok/Millennial recipes but that was during covid and by now its just the things that social media brings me.

Keep them coming Algorithms.

Megan decided to shave the side of her head again. David does the best job with the hair requests.

She was very pleased and started planning out colors.

May the 4th happened. We had a big meeting with Kiernan's school about how to handle his anxiety next year.

I want sure how long it would take or how i would be feeling afterward so I took the day off.

David also too the day so after the meeting we had a day long date until it was time to pick up the kids.

I asked him if I could just take him out blind.

He said yes so here is my custom designed date for May the 4th.

I took him to fancy coffee.

Then a great used bookstore where we found several good books.

I was particularly smitten by this one of Shakespearian insults.

Then we went to the fancy movie theater with the recliners and bar. This here is a baby grojito.

We saw The Return of the Jedi

Then we went home and watched Star Wars Visions and I dressed up in my Jedi robes.

It was lots of fun.

Kiernan and I got up at the crack of Dawn to join the Haven Fishing club at two col trout spots.

It was chilly and sunny and beautiful.

I'd actually driven right by one of thes pots before and will definitely go back to it with Kiernan's great plan of having a picnic at the table washed up into the trees.

A nice thing a bout the fishing club is that they are done by 9 or 10 so you can do a whole days worth of stuff after.

My whole days worth of stuff involved going to the CSA.

I then cooked or prepped fresh veggie things and sort of wished we had been ale to sign up for every other week instead of once a month.

Yumm fresh radishes.

I made radish top soup again.

Good gracious that is delicious!

We also did our last big Camino preparation hike.

Everyone carried the weight and gear that we hoped to take on the trip.

We took our time this time. We took pictures and ate snacks and evaluated our shoes and our injuries.

My feet were not great. Mom had just pulled her back. Michelle seemed ok but was feeling cautious about her knees.

It was a beautiful day.

Our gear preformed pretty well.

The nature was out in full force.

Michelle took this picture that I absolutely loved. I made it the first picture for the Camino blog .

We walked into town and got some tasty Beans in the Belfry lunch.

We headed home feeling hopeful and a little apprehensive.

I ordered a Camino sticker for my car and a pin for my hat.

Self hype.

I made some very successful CSA meals.

This is one of the prettiest.

I started planning outa Christmas project that requires a horse skull.

We did a hardcore yard attack.

We needed to do this for Spring cleaning reasons and we needed to do it immediately because Kiernan and I would be gone for almost a month.

I even got out the chainsaw and brought the branches up higher. This is one of the real pieces of wisdom I got from my dad about landscaping.

Brining the branches up high makes such a beautiful difference n the look of the yard.

David even took down some of the higher and hard to reach dead branches of the oak by the fence.

Only a few hours later we had David's and sister over.

I wanted to see them before we left so despite the tired and rushing to the shower nature of the timing we made it work.

Its so great that David's dad is out here now.

Just look at this beautiful moment.

Printing commenced.

Megan and her friend Ayra did a song in the school talent show.

I "volunteered" and helped set up chairs.

(all groups were required to have a parent volunteer)

The girls did well and I am very proud of them.

We weeded and planted the garden.

I checked on my winter wheat and felt like I might get more than a cracker out of it this year.

Pax luxuriated in the freshly turned earth.

I started working on a big 3D print project.

This is a horse jaw.

The flowers bloomed.

Mom bought some seedling tomatoes,

I made pie and cobler from some beautifully fresh strawberries.

I went to the podiatrist and got some steroids in hopes of fixing my feet.

I made more CSA foods.

These are Bok Choy greek cabbage rolls with lemon sauce.

Then it was of the the final band concert of the year.

Megan says she dosent want to take violin again next year.

I am not surprised but I really will miss hearing her play.

I love having music in the house. I love hearing the kids play things that I cannot and being amazed by them.

I hope she keeps doing music in some form. She's got so much natural talent for it and you can tell from her singing in the shower how much music is moving her.

So I enjoyed this whole concert in a bitter sweet way.

I think they did very well.

If you want to hear more of these go here to my YouTube channel.

The first horse skull finished beautifully.

I took an SCA class on silk banner painting. I learned a lot about dyeing vs painting on silk and (once again) about the wonders of Dawn Dish soap for all crafting.

I thought about not taking this class as it was super close to the Spain trip but then decided that I would need as much distraction as possible before flying.

I traced a pattern using a pencil on a silk handkerchief that was held in an embroidery hoop.

Then there was a resist and some color and some warm sun sitting and some chatting with my friend who arrainged for me to do that SCA feast last November. They work in museums and told me about something to look for in Spain.

They said that back in the 30's lots of little villages in Spain started selling off their historical murals (from the roman age and through the middle ages), to make money for infrastructure because the economy was in the toilet.

Some collectors got great deals and the government decided that the country was losing too much heritage so they bought the rest. The National Art museum of Catalunya is currently displaying many of them.

It was one of those great chance conversations that led me to something beautiful that I totally would have missed.