annie blog

I want to thank all of you who have been wishing/hoping/praying for my boys and the beginning of their school year.  It’s gone okay.  Fine, really!  There are kinks to work out, of course, and perhaps some swapping to do — but that is life.  Kinks and swapping should be expected.  We’re are just going to be flexible and do our best.

So, boys are in school.  Dear Jon is at work.  I find myself at home with the dog and the bird and a lot to be done.  Did I mention that this house is a bit of a project?  Yes, and how.  I have many things to do to make it look better.  But, we’re only talking about cosmetic, cheapola (since it isn’t mine and I don’t care THAT much) changes.  So, I’m going to be posting those when I get around to figuring out how to make my camera work with this computer.

Meanwhile, I find gorgeous kitchens like this one.  Just so lovely.  I like everything about it.  Much of it is doable, too, but not in my house.  I shall dream about it and bookmark it for later in my life.  Just look at it and you’ll see how this alone diagnoses me as an optimist.

I hope y’all are well this Tuesday!  Have a good day….I’m off to spruce up and unpack my last box.  Yay!!!!!!!

Each day, now that school has begun, I drop off my youngest, 8-year-old Eli, first and then take the others.  He is also the first that I pick up from school at day’s end.  So we get a chance to chat on the way to get  the others.  Oh, the things he says.  He is an optimist and a dreamer and a schemer.

For example, today he gets in the car…..

Me:  Hi babe!  How was your day?

Eli:  It was great!! I found an Indian arrowhead on the playground!!!

Me:  Really? (I can’t turn around and look at the arrowhead at this point…so I just keep asking questions.  I’m thinking…well, we live in Oktibbeha county, so it’s possible.)  Are you sure?

Eli:  (Enthusiastically) Yes!!  It’s carved out of the kind of mineral that Indians used to use.  I had no idea that my playground was the site of an Indian battleground!!!!

Me:  Well,  I don’t know.  We’ll have to show Daddy when he gets home.

Uncharacteristic silence from the back seat….but he is not discouraged.  No, he is dreaming big…because next, he says…

Eli:  (Very excited whisper) You know, I think that Squanto carved this arrowhead.

Me:  What? No, hon, I don’t think he was ever in Mississippi — he was the one who helped the Pilgrims.

(He is not to be deterred, no way.)

Eli:  Well, you know,  they were in tribes back then.  They moved around A LOT.  This arrowhead is so cool!!! It’s probably worth 50 bucks!

I should note here that I could not stifle my laughter after each of his declarations.  These boys keep life interesting!

Happy Friday, y’all!!

You know, I’ll never forget the time James was telling some of our good friends goodbye.  They were leaving St. Louis and had come over for a farewell dinner.  James doesn’t like change and, just to emphasize how much he didn’t want these folks to move, told me, “You know, it is really going to whomp (totally a James word — but a good one, don’t you think?) around here without them!”   Then he proceeded to put his arms around the couple and told them, softly, before releasing them from the group hug, “Okay, now, remember, you must always remember to breathe…in and out, in and out.”

Good advice, that reminder to breathe.  That’s advice that I think I’ll probably have to take on more than one occasion over the  next few days.  Why?  School starts tomorrow.

We’re excited but anxious.  Totally.

It would have been preferable to have a peaceful day before it all begins tomorrow, but I instead had  meetings.  Those, plus several open houses at various schools, a monsoon to endure, quite a bit of stressed out traffic situations, and more parallel parking that I’ve done in the past four years combined.  My second son knows me well….when I whipped by home to pick up he and some of his brethren to take them to yet another tour and meeting he brought me a cup of coffee and some dark chocolate.  He is a keeper, that one.

Okay, I’m off to watch some Jane Austen or other.  Sometimes a distraction is in order….don’t you think?

Y’all have a good Tuesday!

Okay, I knew that this would happen.  Last week, it was Bhi Bhiman and Josh Ritter.

This week?  It’s Tab Benoit.

So much good music in my used-to-be-home-city, St. Louis, sniff.  I am a very jealous girl right now.

Do you live in St. Louis?  Go see Tab.  I wish that I could.

In other news, a certain darling man and I have been married for 17 years today.  Love him!!!

Happy Sunday, y’all. I’m off to find a local honky tonk or something.

Well, y’all, I think that I might be halfway settled, now.

Where have I been?  Well, here’s a twenty second recap: in the first 2 or so weeks of June, my dear Jon accepted a job in Starkville, Mississippi!  This was great news for us but sort of mind-blowing news, too.  We attended Mississippi State as undergrads, it’s actually where we met, and we never thought that we’d be headed back here.  Not that we didn’t want to go, you understand, it just seemed unlikely.  Over the years, we had many thoughts of where we might go…some of them, recently, were very specific thoughts of somewhere else…..but then this opportunity just landed in our laps in a meant to be sort of way.  So, we found ourselves headed where we were headed 20 years ago, only instead of heading here alone to attend college, we’re arriving with 4 sons and each other and the changes 20 years have wrought.  Starkville is the same in all the great ways as before, though, and we feel sort of like we are home again.

But, oh, the furious packing.  It was crazy and rapid.  We said many goodbyes (and left many unsaid, unfortunately) to our wonderful friends in St. Louis and we said goodbye to the city as well.  I told my boys it was okay to miss St. Louis — how could we not miss it?

They are happy here, though.  The boys are being comforted by the food, the presence of reptiles, the closeness of family, and, in the case of James, the prettiness of every girl he sees.  Not that there are no pretty girls elsewhere — it’s just that his awareness of them occurred around about our moving.  He has since declared love for our waitress at the Starkville Cafe — among others.  That she has 30 years on him and a husband is not at the forefront of his mind.  No, she was sweet and pretty and she brought him Coke.  He has since asked me if he is permitted to marry……yikes.  I’ve been changing the subject.  I have  to find my courage to take that thought on…surely I packed it…it must be around here somewhere.

So, that’s where we are.  Settled (sort of) in a rental house that has attributes and things we’re working on.  The things-we’re-working-on list is longer than its list of attributes but we’re hopefully going to switch that around.  After lots of mopping and cleaning and arranging and unpacking it’s showing some promise despite having more wood than I really care for in a kitchen, a detached laundry area, and possibly one of the ugliest bathrooms in the state.   The house is a blessing, though, in that it has hardwood floors and abundant storage.  It is super convenient and I like that my husband can come home for lunch.  Also, his commute is a whopping 6 minutes. We are close to the boys’ schools, too.  You know how a little town is — you’re like 5 to 10 minutes from everywhere.  No Trader Joe’s or Target or TJ Maxx or Goodwill, though.  Oh, well.  I’ll manage.

That’s the news from here.  I hope that the month of July treated y’all well and that you find this new month of August to your liking.  Our August is ramping up for school that starts on the 7th.  How crazy early is that?  Anyway, y’all know that my interesting folks make the beginning of school a time for me to break out my Lamaze breathing.  So, that’s up next.  Maybe it won’t be a bumpy transition….but I think that I’ll be wearing my seatbelt — just in case.

Y’all take care and have a great Friday!

I think that maybe one of the things that I most like about the internet, besides being able to hear all kinds of music and being able to look up facts, and buy things for sale all over creation, is that I can look into the homes of ordinary people.  Yes, these are stylish folks, but their homes are not in magazines (well, sometimes they are…).

Anyway, I’ve run across some home tours lately that I’ve loved and wanted to remember.  They are:

Anne’s house tour from Little Green Notebook.  I really like how they hang their artwork.  It looks pretty, pulled together, and personal.  Very nice and doable.

Love, love, love everything about this cottage.  Love all the white and natural wood.  Love the simplicity. Love the built in seating and the wall of books.  I would take it in a minute.  My mom, Susie, told me that I needed something just like this.  Susie totally gets me.

This is a delightful little cottage.  There is a lot going on — and I wouldn’t be comfortable with all of the “stuff” if this were my house.  But, the organization is evident and it looks cozy and wonderfully colorful.  Also, I would be happy to have all this gal’s jewelry.  Any? All? I’d take it.

Finally, I love just about everything that I’ve seen of AB Chao’s house.  The girl has style.  However, this image of a corner of her dining room?  Adore it!!  I love the paint color, like her drapes she made from dropcloths, and the covet the modern art behind her.  Not to mention the Bertoia chair.  I feel the need to paint something….maybe I’ll start with this color?  I think that it’s Hague Blue, from Farrow and Ball.

Hmmmm.

Happy Thursday, y’all!  (How can it be Thursday, already?)

Actually, though, even with the high temperature today, I should note that I was cold for all of three minutes at 7 pm when I got in the pool in the shade.  Yes, three minutes, max.  But, I’ll take it.

When we have weather like this, do you know what you need?   You need iced coffee.  You might also need cold beer,  but I don’t have the recipe for that.

I do have/know of a good recipe for iced coffee, this one.

I adjusted the proportions so that I could use my extra-large french press.  So, I think that I had to third this recipe.  It turned out great and I can’t wait to try it with some coffee with chicory.  That’ll be even better, I think.  We used  sweetened condensed milk in ours — tasted awesome!

The coffee steeped (is that the right word?) during the night last night.  This morning, I pushed the plunger  and then I poured it from the French press into a large mason jar to store in the fridge.

Good for your 106 degree day tomorrow, St. Louisans!

I hope that you’ve had a great Wednesday!!

We recently had a boy with a birthday here and he didn’t have a special request for his birthday breakfast.  That is, until I mentioned that I could make blueberry muffins.  That sounded good to him.

I’m not a great planner, ingredients-wise, though, and so many of the recipes that I have wouldn’t work considering the bare nature of the cupboard.

Then I remembered this one.

It’s a keeper.

Originally, it is from Joy the Baker.  It is in her cookbook, too, I think.  I got it from Shutterbean, though.

I’m going to reprint the recipe with my modifications here.  The only other note that I want to make, besides extolling the yumminess of this here muffin, is to say that these took longer to bake than the recipe says.  Not critical info, to be sure, but nice to know, none the less.

For the muffins:

• 7 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoons salt (don’t use if using salted butter)
• 2 cups frozen blueberries

For the topping:

• 3 tablespoons salted butter
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar

Place the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Set aside.

To make the muffins, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Keep an eye on the butter. It will melt, froth and begin to crackle. That’s the water cooking out of the butter. The crackling will subside and butter will begin to brown fairly quickly. Remove from heat when butter solids become a medium brown color and butter smells slightly nutty. Immediately pour hot butter into a small heat-proof bowl. Let the butter cool for a bit because you’re going to be combining it with the egg/egg yolk and don’t want heat from the butter to cook the egg.

Hey, y’all, I hope that you’re having a great Monday!

If you’d like an enjoyable little challenge today, you should try this fun little test  that I saw on Apartment Therapy.  It is a color IQ test and really a lot of fun.  You should take it!  It is by the folks who own the Pantone color system.  A bunch of the commenters said that it made their eyes hurt but that wasn’t the case with me.  When you’re done with the test they score it (a 0 is the best score) and tell you where your areas of weakness are.

Overall, I got a really good score.  My only area of weakness was in seeing cool blues and violet hues.  You know, I’ve never really liked those colors all that much.  I guess that I’ve always just thought that it was a preference but now that I think of it, maybe I never liked that range of color so much because it is hard for me to distinguish.

Hmmmm….chicken or egg.  Interesting.

This, here, is a great dessert for your summer party or for the Fourth or for something like that.  Hooray for the desserts that don’t require baking!  Your kids will think that you are awesome when you pull these out of the freezer.  Also, there are so many variations that you could do, too, that would be oh, so very yummy.  I’m thinking that a dip cone made with coconut ice cream, dipped in chocolate and then rolled in tiny chopped up cashews would be delighful but, you know, a strawberry ice cream version with sprinkles would be pretty awesome, too.

Get the recipe here!  Also, chocolate cardamom coffee ice cream sandwiches?  Be still my heart!

Happy Thursday, y’all!