I just love Sundays. Every weekend they come around and I know my husband and I get to go to the farmers market bright and early to get our weekly fill of locally grown produce as well as fill up on local artisan food trucks for lunch. We go to this farmers market every sunday and have been eager to get to know each of the vendors and where and how their food is grown. I think I enjoy going to the market so much because we now are known by name by most of the vendors. Today one of them presented us with a new fishnet bag for our berries and peaches. He said he was thinking about us and wanted to add to our collection of reusable bags. I just love that we have finally found some sense of community in this town we so have mixed feelings about. Sundays always make me feel better about living in a place I don’t especially love. One of my favorite bloggers wrote about loving the place you live today too and it really reminded me of the feelings I have for our home right now. Since it is sunday today and that happens to be my favorite day of the week these days, I thought I would end it nicely by using up some of last weeks farmers market blueberries (We were not going to get anymore berries but of course one of the vendors had a new variety that we just couldn’t pass up), so we had an excess of blueberries. I thought I would take a stab at making blueberry muffins with them and ended up with an adorable blueberry banner cake as well. I told my husband is was to celebrate a Happy sunday!

I chose a recipe from http://www.joythebaker.com and changed it up a bit since I didn’t have all the necessary ingredients. Here is Joy the Baker’s originally Oatmeal Blueberry Applesauce Muffins but for me adapted to be,

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins:

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cup oats (I like steel cut oats)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup unsweetened applesauce (I didn’t have any so I replaced it with 1 cup plain yogurt)

1/2 cup lowfat buttermilk (I also didn’t have buttermilk, so I replaced it with 1/2 cup milk)

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 tbsp canola oil (I used regular olive oil)

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 375

grease a 12 cup muffin tin

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients and mix, in a medium size bowl combine wet ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until moist. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes. (I had a little leftover, so I greased up a little ramekin and made a little muffin cake as well and added a little homemade sunday fun day banner I made myself too- that’s a dusting of powdered sugar on top).

These muffins and the cake turned out lovely! They were so yummy, moist and light. What a perfect way to end the weekend!

I have not been tending to my container garden all too well this year. Being seven months pregnant, I’m finding myself doing a lot of other things instead. But, I have been trying to at least keep up with watering. The miraculous things about plants is that they tend to be very forgiving even if I find them wilty or yellowing. I am vowing to do better next month with this years container garden and also vowing to get more posts up about the progress of my garden.

The thyme seems to be happily growing.

The beans and peas did not fair too well in this container but I am getting some cucumber blossoms that I am training up some sticks to the trellis. I did pretty well last year with some persian cucumbers and I’m hoping I get the same effect with these two plants.

Getting my first tomatoes on that amazing Home Depot tomato plant I bought like five years ago! That plant seems to die every year and then it comes back like magic and usually produces the most fruit of any tomato plant!

Mint is growing wild, although I think its stretching out to try and get more sun. Not sure if I should leave it where it is or move it or cut some of the mint back to get it to grow in closer to the soil. Last years mint was a sad disaster so I am wary of doing anything to jeopardize this small crop. Loving how it looks in that old seven up box I found at the antique market though.

The ground cherries are needing to be planted outside. They are already sporting some cherry blooms. That’s something I need to put on the list for sometime this week.

And last but not least, I had to share a picture of my husband’s new addition to our container balcony garden. He has been very busy brewing beer in the garage and has been extremely interested in really delving into the whole beer making process, including the growing of the plants involved in beer making. So, he’s now growing hops on our balcony. They are neat looking little plants and popped up out of the ground quickly from rhizomes. Supposedly these little guys can get quite large and viney, so hopefully before that happens our little balcony garden will become a backyard garden soon…

Happy Gardening and Happy May!

Before the rain started today, it was chilly but lovely outside. Jeff and I made it to the Farmers Market, had some breakfast from the food trucks there and bought our weekly bounty of produce and bread from the wonderful vendors we have come to know so well.

I love productive sundays when laundry gets done and baked goods get made. I didn’t quite mind when the rain rolled in. My newly planted herbs and beans seemed to almost get greener as the rain came down.

I planted my bean sprouts and pea sprouts last weekend and bought some arugula, mint, thyme and parsley at last week’s farmers market (from the local nursery plant stand) and planted those to start off my 2012 garden. I still have my vegetable seedlings growing steadily on my window sill and if the weather gets warmer I will plant those on the balcony soon too.

I finished the evening with some banana bread (I used this recipe), some Mama-to-be Peaceful Tea and a glance at the calendar realizing this month is almost over and spring is finally here in so many ways.

This will be my second container/balcony garden. Last year was somewhat of a success and somewhat an experiment. All of the lavish and lovely gardens I had been seeing pictures of and reading about on my favorite blogs made me want to grow vegetables too and so I thought I would have a bounty of produce and save us hundreds of dollars in Farmers Market costs and I could write about my own amazing success being an urban gardener, blah, blah, blah… however, my bounty didn’t quite turn out the way I dreamed. I had maybe ten tomatoes, several beans and peas, about five mini peppers (which grew to be not quite mini but more micro mini) and three cucumbers. Our bounty was probably enough for one week’s worth of veggies. But, that being said, it was a lot of fun, I learned that I do not get enough sun on either balcony to plant many types of vegetables no matter how many times I move the container and herbs grow very nicely in certain areas and other herbs do not grow well at all, in fact they bring bad bugs and then die on me. So with all these lessons in mind, I am trying again (after a small burst of confidence I could plant and grow an amazing winter garden with absolutly no success at all)… I bought some herbs and have begun planting them and I planted my seeds inside as well and have already gotten some seedlings sprouting up out of the soil.

I plan on doing a lot differently and hopefully this year with my expectations set a little lower about yield, I will enjoy the process more and hopefully understand it a little better as well. Hooray Spring 2012! Looking forward to a new growing season!

This post is a long time coming. I know, I have been away for too long, but I had news that I wanted to share and just didn’t know when the appropriate time actually was. I think it was this blog who finally made me feel- “just do it, you know you want to tell everyone.” So here I am, telling the world (or the little fantasy world I have created of people from all over who are patiently waiting for my next posts) that I am expecting! My husband and I are expecting a little girl in August. I don’t like posting pictures of myself but I thought for documentation purposes I would share with you a belly shot. For my belly is growing rapidly, sometimes staying smallish on some days and other days feeling a lot larger than my 19 weeks…

So there’s the big news… the news of my life really. I have been waiting for this for a very long time. I’m anxious, I’m excited, I’m anxious, I’m happy, I’m tired, I’m anxious, I’m dreaming up all sorts of things and did I mention I’m anxious. 🙂 My Grandmother tells me if I feel anxious, I will have an anxious baby, so of course I am trying my very best to NOT be anxious, but when something you have been waiting for your whole life finally comes along and you’re having to grow it inside of your body, I dare you not to be a little bit anxious too.

My husband is excited too. But men are different. He may be feeling anxious, but he never shows it or talks about it. The whole pregnancy so far has been come what may, he’s cool as a cucumber. I caught him reading the other night (thinking it was a book about beer or Sherlock Holmes) and instead it was a book about becoming a father I had picked up at a yard sale. It made me smile. And I had to document it of course.

This is going to change a lot in our lives. But we are ready and we are excited!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve visited this space. It was quite the busy holiday with lots of surprises and lots of colds and flus. I’m hoping after this last bout, health will abound and I can get on with plans for an exciting new year. I don’t have much else to say yet, but I felt I needed to get something out there in fear I would never return to this space again. But, I did it… I’m here, it’s a new year and I plan to be in this space much more often from now on…

xoxo, Summer

My husband surprises me sometimes. I mentioned it would be fun to have our own Thanksgiving on the last day of our four-day holiday weekend and guess what, we did. We bought a turkey, made mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and gravy. Then we sat down for another Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us. It was incredibly romantic and incredibly delicious. A wonderful end to the lovely holiday weekend.

I have to say how thankful I am for not just my wonderful husband but for my wonderful family and friends. It started out quite busy with the making of many pies to bring to my parents.

Jeff made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie.

I made my first sweet potato pie with this recipe. It turned out wonderfully!

Thanksgiving at my parents house is always a busy, hectic day filled with lots of people, kids and dogs (we had a whopping five dogs and two cats in the house this year). It was a very nice dinner with a busy after dinner walk with the large group and even a fun late night sisterly trip to see Breaking Dawn. The day after Thanksgiving we took the dogs on a really great little hike to try and walk off some of those slices of pie.

Friday night was spent with good friends, drinking beer and tea, talking about babies and playing with babies. Another reminder of how thankful I am to have wonderful, caring, interesting people in my life.

The next day was Saturday and Jeff and I took two very tired dogs home…

I got inspired after cleaning the house and started decorating for Christmas.

The bedroom turned out the loveliest. I added some really simple lights as a head board and replaced old towels on dog crates with some sheep skin throws. I put some festive branches in an old wine bottle to create a centerpiece for the dresser. It’s so much calmer and quieter in the bedroom. I’m loving it.

And of course we ended the night with our very own Sunday Thanksgiving dinner. It was a fantastic weekend and I am certainly ready for the winter holidays approaching. I am so thankful to have had such a nice weekend to reflect upon. I hope you did too.

I’m in a dollhouse rut. I had a vision and it didn’t quite come out the way I wanted nor did I finish several things I wanted to and were coming down to the deadline…

I thought I would share with you what I have accomplished even if its not much more than what I shared with you last time.

I did some painting of furniture and also received these vintage bathroom pieces that I placed. I still need to close that gap to the bathroom and finish painting certain pieces.

Moving into the living room, you can see that I began painting these beams white (originally brown). But I have not found my dream living room set yet so not much else has been done in this room.

This is part of the upstairs bedroom. I painted the side tables and I’m still deciding whether or not to paint that bed. What do you think? The fabric laying on the bed is what I am planning on using for bedding. I am also struggling with what to do with that wall. I love the pattern but it does not fit in with the rest of the house. Still deciding…

I had grandiose ideas for the child’s room but lack of dinero has left it sad and lonely looking. It almost looks like the family who once lived there moved out and left what they couldn’t carry. My goal this long Thanksgiving weekend is to finish up and make it look like some one (even if its just wee little dolls) live here. I also would like to paint the floors white. But I keep going back and forth with this one too. My inspiration for the white floors and the white furniture comes from here. Her house has always been something I know I could never have in real life, but maybe in doll house life its possible.

So there you have it… my doll house update. How are your doll houses coming along?

{This moment}

Inspired by SouleMama– A Friday ritual. A Single Photo. No words. Capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, remember.