I'm a hoarder. It must come from having lived through the depression. Oh wait. I didn't live through the depression. I did have grandparents who said things like, "If we wipe off these paper plates, we can use them again." Or, "Here, let me have that wrapping paper. We can use it next Christmas." So I hoard. I buy things I love and then never use them for fear of running out.

And I love Limonata. Oh how I love it. It reminds me of Schwepps Bitter Lemon (my favorite childhood drink aside from Coke...I am a southern girl after all!) which I can't find at all anymore. When we were in California, I could get it at Beverages and More(!), but no where here. So on to Limonata. We can only get it in the can at Trader Joes (and our nearest one of those is just over 30 minutes away), so when I get it, I hoard it. For a too brief time I was the only one in our family who drank it. Callum didn't like anything "fuzzy" (his word for carbonated drinks), and Neel only drinks wine, coffee, martinis and scotch. So slowly, slowly, I would work my way through the three six packs I'd bring home from TJs every few months. This was a special occasion drink. I'd save it for a nice dinner when I didn't want wine, or a Friday lunch on my own while I watched CSI Miami. Ah, what a treat.

Then something terrible happened. Callum tried my Limonata one day and liked it. What the hell was I thinking?! Now he likes it and wants it. On all occasions. Even ones that aren't special treats. Like a regular every day lunch for crying out loud. For awhile I staved it off by sharing. Half for him and half for me. Then he wanted his own. Upstart. I said no. A lot. Only for special occasions, and lunch, just this plain old boring lunch of tuna salad and mac and cheese is not special enough. My question is this: am I raising him to be a hoarder just like me? Is he doomed to either never use the things he buys (like the Valentine's Day candy corn that I still have stashed in the pantry...not because I didn't like it or because I got tired of it, but because, well, what if I run out? Before the next Valentine's Day?) or to treat every occasion as a special occasion (like lunch on a Friday in front of CSI Miami).

These are some important parenting issues to ponder, but today we just relaxed. I'm calling it the first day of summer vacation because we've been gone and the end of last week was nothing more than recovery. Not that we're not all still recovering. Everyone is on a sleep-til-you-wake-up policy (that means 5:45 a.m. for me and 8:45 a.m. for Neel), and then we stayed in our jammies for a lot of the day. Callum and I had Book Club (he read me some Pooh, and I read him some Lloyd Alexander), and then we decided to make Neel a really nice supper.

It took all day.

The recipe is from Ina (Barefoot Contessa, at Home).

Callum chopped the cucumbers after I cooked the beets.

This part was concerning. Where we added the broth and sour cream and yogurt. And it didn't look at all like borscht.

But we soldiered on, adding the carefully diced cukes and beets, hoping things would start to pink up.

Callum used my favorite kitchen tool ever, my mezzaluna, to chop the dill.

After chilling for several hours, during which we had to check it regularly and stir it a bit, just to make sure the beets were still doing their work, we got this!

We set a nice table.

And what's this? This plate of deliciousness? I got this recipe from NPR. Their "From the Kitchen" segment did an article about cherries and this salad is from that article. Go check their site, but it's pretty simple really. The dressing blends cherries, mint, olive oil, rice wine vinegar, some edemame and salt and pepper. Mix the dressing with a cup of edemame (we used a little more actually, and that worked better), put it in the center of a plate ringed with smoked salmon. YUM.

For all of his hard work, Callum got one of these. First day of summer vacation, a special occasion indeed.

We had a much needed all-day rain on Sunday, and two nights of big storms this week as well. The energy of the earth is shifting toward summer, but with some cool days still hovering, hasn't quite made it yet. We have a day and a half left of school, and as my three or four loyal blog readers know (come on Dad, would it kill you to leave a comment now and then?) on the day after school lets out, our family leaves on a BIG TRIP.

We're winding down and winding up.

I meet with a group of women for coffee and breakfast every Wednesday...well, the group meets each week and I make it there sporadically. I've been part of these women for about three years now, and the core group has been getting together for maybe six years (now maybe I'll get a comment as someone tells me how long it's really been!). Yesterday was our last of the year, and a birthday one to boot, so I really wanted to go. I don't always do my best in groups like this. In larger numbers I tend to retreat more than engage, but oh, imagine my joy when I was first invited to come along. Finally, finally that elusive feeling of belonging (It was a real Sally Field moment for me, I can tell you that much!). Not much has ever filled that junior high school hole in quite the way that these Wednesday morning meetings have.

Being there yesterday reminded me of how groups like this have a life of their own, really. This Wednesday-morning breakfast is its own living entity, has a heartbeat almost independent of the women who sit around the table. People move in and out of this weekly ritual, sometimes the crowd is intimate, sometimes we're pushing four tables together, always we're checking in, sharing stories and making plans. As we got up from the table yesterday, six of us were in the last days of the school year while one still had some days left to go, one of our husbands is about to be deployed, two of our children were "graduating" from the eighth grade, one of us jumps head first into a new job and four of us were getting ready to leave on trips. Safe travels everyone, happy summer.

First grade did their own celebrating yesterday, with a party for the volunteers who've helped out in the room. Neel got an invitation, and I callously barged my way in under the guise of "taking pictures." The kids worked hard on this event, and it was clear how proud and excited they were to open their class to the grown-ups. What a cliche, but where did the year go? Callum's had such an amazing experience at school, and one of my regrets about spiraling out of control this week (that BIG TRIP is looming, you know!), is that I haven't been able to really savor his last days of school. I'm dying to get a picture of him with his teacher, but she's elusive...kind of like a fairy with a distinct Susan Sarandon vibe. She opened up the world of learning for these kids, coated it with a layer of glitter and tossed it up in the air for them to catch. He caught that glowing, crystal ball and took off running with it. What a gift. Safe travels everyone, happy summer.

Back to the land of snores and stolen covers. Callum staked a claim in our bed as soon as Neel got home! It was worth spending the night perched on the edge just to have Papa back.

It's another glorious May morning here. Summer seems to be sweetly slipping up on us. A hot day here and there to remind us of the baking beach days ahead, but cool evenings and mornings. Memorial Day has come and gone, and I guess that means that summer is here.

We had a good weekend. I got some work on Fetching done. One wrister almost down, one to go. This was (and knitting usually is) my morning and evening work. I've been doing some super secret sewing that will be revealed later, and a lot of cooking.

These are the Maple Baked Beans from BC: At Home.

First you assemble the sauce.

Then the bacon and maple syrup go over top. Bake for a million hours (6-8), and you're ready for a cookout.

Sometime when the needs of a weekday morning (making lunches, drinking coffee, taking showers, feeding dogs, pulling out clothes, last minute snuggles, locating karate uniforms, watering lawn...that kind of thing) aren't pressing upon solo-me, I'll tell you about my neighborhood. What a surprise and delight it is.

We started the day like this: Bloody Mary's in the front yard. (I love living in a place where my jammies are not out of place in the front yard on a holiday morning!) And then we gathered for a Memorial Day cookout, and our chief mixologoist brought the Planter's Punch (I'm linking to a recipe, but Tyler's version is more art than science. Still, this should give you the idea.)

There were salads and burgers and brats and babies (we're overflowing with babies!), and oh, browines and rice crispy treats. Perfect picnic fare. After the food there was much lazy hanging about until Callum and his buddy Zach-Man hit the sprinkler.

Zach is a bit trepidatious now, but it's early days yet.

And those beans? They were a hit.

It's re-entry and back to the regular rhythms of the week. Happy day, though, Neel returns tonight!

Me and my crocs, stare into the abyss.

My three or so readers have noted my blogging absence. I have been under a karmic cloud, that's fer damn sure. We'll start with the migraines. Six out of seven days. There's a dad of a kid at Callum's school who gets them too. We have the same triggers, and if Mike leans into me in the hallway between Kindergarten and First Grade to say, "How's your week?" I know exactly what he's talking about. We seem to be on the same pain/trigger cycle. And earlier this week, I got into the back of a friend's car after lunch (see below for more lunchtime karmic woes) and picked up her newly purchased copy of this. Flipping through, I somehow turned to a stunningly beautiful and accurate description of migraine pain. I wish I could copy the text here, but go buy the book. I hear it's even better than The Kite Runner. I love owning books, but I hate buying hard backs, so I'm going to borrow Megan's copy as soon as she's done and buy my own in a few months.

So first the migraines. Then there was the golf tournament that I've been working on with some parent volunteers for several months. It rained all day. At the beginning of the tournament, as all the golfers were lined up in their cute little carts (seriously, those carts looked just like the copper and blue version of the Mini Cooper Convertible...might need one of those) it started to pour. Not the scattered showers that were predicted, but one of those all-day soaking rains. I have to say that golfers really impress me. They really will go out there in anything and have fun. It wasn't until several days later as I was thinking back through everything that had been going wrong that I thought of that rain, but from were I stand right now, I feel sure it was my fault.

Then there was the stomach flu. Earlier that week, I'd walked into our Main Building to see a preschooler sitting on the bench by the office with a trash can pulled up next to him. Not a good sign. I suppose you could say it was good karma that I managed to hold off until after the rainy golf tournament, but sitting by the toilet for 5 hours on Friday night, I wasn't really thinking about the up side of the situation. Also on Friday, my computer broke (that's the reason for the inadvertent blogging break). Sunday my cell phone died and all it's chargers threw themselves off a cliff after it in grief. After three attempts, I still can't manage to purchase the correct charger. What do we do when that happens? Buy a new one of course! Seriously, I'm due a new phone and was planning to get it this week, so I went silent on the radar for a few days rather than buy a charger that I'll only use for a little bit.

After that it was the bad lunch karma. On Monday a group of us took a friend out for lunch at the same place we'd had my birthday lunch. Remember the deliciousness? The lovely server who, unprompted, brought us champagne? No such luck this day. Lousy service, obnoxious server. He got our soup wrong and never apologized. What's up with that? And of course, no champagne.

The bad lunch karma continued at this weekly stand-by. This little place of Mexican awesomeness. I seriously love this restaurant. But we had to sit in the hall (never good, like being sent to the kid's table), my normally sublime veggie taco was not at its standard.  It was fine, really, but I am so used to that veggie taco being the best thing I'll eat all week that it was a particular let down. The conversation was not sparkling and it felt more expensive than usual.  Don't worry, I'll consider it a personal duty to try again next week (and to get there a little early), but the karma clearly continued.

Tuesday evening seemed better until I went outside to tell Neel something and must have put my foot down wrong. First goes my ankle. And I think, okay, it's just my foot, I can get back upright. Then suddenly I'm on my knees. Okay, it's just my knees. I can get back upright. And suddenly I'm lying sprawled out on our flagstone path.  I have a bruise on my hip that looks like this.  Only purple and without the shade.  Cheaper though.

Still, things might be looking up.  I sense a shift.  Like a slow clearing in the west.  The problem is that the cloud seems to be hovering near me.  My friend Shoshana was walking out the door yesterday with a birthday cake in hand when her dog ran in front of her, tripping her and slamming the cake into a wall.  (That's some good dog karma, though.)  Oh, and she's a little concerned about identity theft right now too.  The cake was still delicious.  Then Megan was trying to get out of a parking lot yesterday when it got shut down due to a gas leak.  At first no one was allowed to start their cars.  Then a nice firefighter let Megan go ahead and leave (don't worry, she didn't trigger an explosion...it's not that bad around here).  As she was pulling out, she clipped a fire hose and another firefighter ran after her threatening to charge her with a felony.  A felony!  Who knew?

Last night, when I was on a walk with my neighbor Jean, she pointed out that perhaps I should have mentioned all of this on the phone rather than waiting until we were in person, but I'm sure things are going to be fine for her.  (Hi Jean!  I'll be thinking about you guys today with that minor surgical procedure you're heading in for!)

And really, today's the day I can get a new phone, and I think that might just do the trick.  My dad always says that if you leave electronic things alone long enough they'll heal themselves.  I'm not sure exactly how that applies, but I'm just certain that it will.  In the meantime, I think I'll follow the lead of my canine friend here and hibernate until the skies are truly clear.

One of the things that my dad and I do REALLY well together is shop. We've been busy today, and seriously, this is probably just the beginning. We somehow manage to talk each other into the most outlandish purchases. Like this: We'll be putting these together tonight, I suppose.

And like every good grandad, his only grandson (and son-in-law, note the wine glass) isn't left out!

Only 21 days until the new Pirates movie! Happy Friday everyone!