Siblings

 Was flipping through my phone photos thinking of something to blog about. And these two photos were right next to each other. I used them to post for "National Sibling Day" and it struck me that the birth order of me and my sisters are exactly the same as my boys in these pictures. Oldest in the middle, middle child to the right and baby of the family to the left. I've always been close to my sisters and we're very close now. I can't imagine doing life without them. I hope my boys feel the same way about each other. It will be interesting to see how their relationships grow/change through adulthood. My second one is finishing up his senior year and headed to college for the first time leaving my little guy home all by himself. It's going to be so strange going to just three people in the house. I would give anything to go back to the years of them all being little and under one roof every day. But...that's not how life is supposed to go. 

I'm thankful every single day for everyone in these pictures. :)

Top photo was taken in 1990 (I think) on our camping cross-country trip. Our family traveled for 30 days pulling an airstream camper across the country. I think this picture was taken the night we were going to see the rodeo. I loved those wooden lizard earrings!

Bottom photo was taken January 2022 the night before we took our oldest back to college. I'll be picking him up this week to spend the summer at home. Year two went quickly!

Weekending

The weather was beautiful on Friday and I took full advantage of it over my lunch hour. I took all the little boys (which is funny because they're not that little anymore!) to the park. I had my knitting and they played for a little while. I miss the days that I could just take them to the park and knit a while, talking to moms, enjoying the sun and not worrying about my lunch hour running out...BUT I'm also thankful that I had so many years being a stay at home mom and having those times. But still...I miss them.

Chase has baseball every Friday and when I drop him off I've been heading to the beach for a little bit. The weather was nice so I enjoyed a short walk on the beach at the Manasquan Inlet.

After practice and dinner, Chase and I headed out to fish in the pond, say hi to the alpacas, Little Dude and my apple tree that is in bloom.

This is one my favorite places on the farm, the kid's "fort". It's a treehouse built by my brother in law and my dad. It's perfect for wine sipping, knitting, reading and watching Chase fish.

We have been letting Sox out a little bit with us. He doesn't go far. It's fun to watch his natural instincts kick in. The alpacas were very confused!!!

He really is the best. He's such a snuggly cat (also a little whacky at times!)

On Saturday morning I hit the local library book sale. It was PACKED in there. Insane! I grabbed a few books including some for my nephew and one for my sister. I was excited about the Carmine's cookbook. We enjoy their restaurant in NYC and AC and my favorite dishes are in the book. So I whipped up the Country Rigatoni for dinner. Easy to heat up while I was going to be doing our Patreon Cocktail Hour Night. It was delicious.

We had a fan visit! So much fun meeting Mary Ellen and her husband. They traveled down for a weekend in Asbury Park and made our farm part of their travels. We laughed so hard! So much fun!!!

The barn swallows are back. Every year they return and it's always a favorite message I get from my dad. "The barn swallows are back." It signals home, summer, longer days and warmer nights. 

My sister, Liz, gave me an early birthday present! She wanted me to have them for my trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool in case I wanted to pair them with something for a color work project.

The yarn is from Barnyard Knits. Her yarn is soooo pretty! I'm excited to have some of my own now.

Between all of these moments, I also cleaned, grocery shopped, cooked meals, went to baseball games and all the boring stuff. LOL. I topped off the weekend with our first spring concert of the season. I'm a member of the Greater Shore Concert Band. Every time we play I am thankful to have a group like this to play with. Everyone is talented and dedicated. And I think we're pretty darn good :) 

It was a busy weekend! Now for a busy week...

 

What's for Dinner?

I cook a homemade dinner almost every night. I have the usual suspects in my line up but I always try to throw something new into the mix so we don't get bored. 

I made this recipe Roasted Veggie with Pasta and Feta and we all loved it. It was quick and easy and made for good leftovers. I highly recommend it!

My youngest son and I have been watching Master Chef Jr on Fox. Somehow we've completely missed this show!!! My co-workers tipped me off about it and we haven't missed a week this season. Also, we found it on Hulu and have been binging it together. Chase has shown interest in cooking for the past few years and enjoys helping me. For Christmas he got a bunch of cooking utensils and his own knives. 

When he asked me if he could pick a recipe and make dinner I was ALL IN. 

Gordon Ramsey is the host of Master Chef Jr and Chase really likes him. He's much nicer to the kids than he is to adults! We went to the library and took out one of his cookbooks for some ideas.

He picked out a scallop dish and I took him to Whole Foods to do the shopping.

The employees at Whole Foods were wonderful. I told them that he was cooking the whole meal so he ordered the scallops and the man helping us was very excited for him. When we looked for mache, the produce stocker told us they didn't have it (and also commented that it's very bitter and we might not like it anyway) He recommended arugula and we had some at home. 

Picking out the perfect Granny Smith apples.

All set and ready to cook!

Sawks wanted to help. Oh this cat...he's a character.

 He did everything himself. You can see how proud he was. The meal was delicious!

In our house, whoever cooks dinner does not have to do dishes.

I always cook dinner so the kids always clean but Rick and I kept the deal and did the clean up.

Chase was very happy about that part too.

He's already thinking about his next recipe and I'll encourage that any day!

Looking Back on Maryland Sheep & Wool Festivals and Plans for This Year!

The countdown to Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival is on!!! Only 16 days until I'll be in the car headed to Maryland, yarn, fiber friends, food, wine, sheep, inspiration and fun! It's one of my favorite weekends of the year. We haven't been able to go for the past two years due to Covid. I am thrilled it will be happening this year. Typically it's been a sister/mom and Paige trip. One year we had some friends join us. I have been attending Maryland for many years. I don't remember how many but I know for many years we had babies with us, some years one of us was pregnant, it's been while!!! This year a small group of us got a house because the big rooms at our normal hotel were already booked. How rude!!!

Just for fun, here are some past year blog posts:

MDSW 2011 (my second trip! Pre-alpacas and Chase!)

MDSW 2012 (Chase joined the party!)

2013 was when all my photos disappeared on the blog! :(

MDSW 2014 (Just me and my friend Tara)

MDSW 2015

MDSW 2016

MDSW 2017

MDSW 2018

MDSW 2019

Can't wait to add 2022 to this list!

If you've never been, I highly recommend it. I believe it's $5 a day to enter. It takes place the first full weekend of May. This year it lands on May 7-8 (it's Mother's Day...which I don't love, but I'll head home early Sunday)

I usually head to the festival with patterns and yarn in mind. I like to get some yarn that I use in for my Rhinebeck sweater. Here are the things I have on my list...

I love this shawl and I'm going to be running a Knit Along through our podcast this summer.

Pressed Flowers Shawl

I'm going to look or a natural main color and a speckled lighter color for the flowers. I want it to be super natural looking, nothing bright. I've been finding myself wearing my neutral, natural colors lately.

Next up: 

Showoff Boomerang

This shawl uses one skein and it's perfect for those fun speckled hand-dyed yarns. The pattern was suggested to me by one of our podcast viewers. I always love the fun yarn but never know what to do with it. Thought this would be perfect.

I saw a woman wearing this sweater at Rhinebeck and I fell I love with it.

Sandoval Sweater. I think I want to do the background in a natural yarn I made my everyday sweater with and find a fun yarn for the color work.

That's it for my list right now. I'll keep checking Ravelry for ideas. I also want to stop by some of the new vendors, especially this one: Mindful Folk Farm Here website and Instagram are so pretty!

I will be there on Saturday all day and possibly Sunday morning. Say hi if you see me!

Happy Mom

(I did have to share my kid...but it's ok because I love his girlfriend! This was at her parent's house Saturday night)

 My oldest was home for a few days. I'm a very happy mom when all three boys are under one roof. It was short lived because the middle son left for spring break with his best friend's family. The weather warmed up a bit (now it's freezing again!!!!) but it was nice to get outside while it lasted. I took the little boys down to the pond to fish to give Liz a break. She's recovering from ACL knee surgery. They caught lots of fish and were content just goofing around. I started a Rose City Roller sock with my leftover Urth Yarn. I love how the colors gradate. It's a quick project and I finished the one sock over the weekend. Now working on sock #2.

My oldest loves my sourdough bread and it's a treat for him when he's home. So of course, I HAD to make one for him. My starter is almost three years old now! I can't believe I've managed to keep it alive this long. We all love it. I would make it more often but we would eat too much! We don't have willpower when it comes to the bread. So, it remains a special treat.

We had a very low-key Easter. I was lazy and didn't go to Easter sunrise service. I've been so busy lately that I just wanted to sleep in a tiny bit. We hung out, watch the Yankees and went over to my sisters for a last minute dinner. The boys had fun and finished up the night playing Wordle unlimited on their computers. Are you playing Wordle? I do The NY Times one every morning and I enjoy it. I'm sure it's just a fad that will eventually go away but or now I'm doing it every day!

Maryland Sheep & Wool is getting close and I'm so excited. I'm looking up patterns and vendors and dreaming of yarn, friends and food. Hope you are all doing well!

Cheers!