I warned you it would be random

Summer is rolling along. Estee's at camp, Miss V is making plans for a big adventure, and I'm counting down to the start of the school year. 36 days people!! that last part is a great thing because T1 & T 2 are bickering non-stop and I just threatened to duct tape them to trees on the opposite ends of the yard. Its kind of a shame that they know I'd never do it but it did buy me 15 seconds of silence before they started giggling.

I got to skip cooking yesterday because we went to a wedding. A really wonderful wedding. The reception was a potluck, everything was made by friends or family, the whole thing was low key, low budget- and totally fantastic. This young couple chose to plow money into a 3 week European honeymoon instead of a catered wedding and thousands of dollars in floral, photography, and clothing expenses. It was still a joyful celebration with fantastic music, hours of dancing, and great food. I hope my kids choose to go that route- not that there is a lot of choice since I can't imagine squeezing a big wedding into our budget.

Tonight I also get to skip cooking and enjoy my guests- Miss V is making the chicken pot pie recipe from the Bobby Flay showdown with the Casserole Queens. She watched that months ago before we exiled the TV and has wanted to try it ever since.  The chicken is already cooked and most of the veg chopped so it should go right together for her. Add a little salad, maybe a pan of brownies for desert and we're done!

Also on the cooking front, while digging around the 'net for a marmalade recipe to make best use of our 4 woody little organic oranges from the last CSA basket I came across a reference to a red onion-cranberry marmalade from Thomas Keller's "Ad Hoc at Home" cookbook. Now that I've read more, I want this cookbook. Our library system doesn't have it so I'll be putting in an inter-library loan request today. My orange marmalade search yielded a recipe which left me with weird chunky syrupy stuff. I'll be opening those jars and adding more pectin and re-processing later in the week. It's my own fault because I threw in a little rum for flavor and didn't adjust the pectin.




All the medical bills are finally in along with a little surprise from the IRS- as in "Surprise! you messed up your taxes 2 years ago and we want more money" so I sat down and figured out what we need to do to pay this stuff off. I also have to factor in brake work, winter tires, school supplies and activity fees, and Miss V's upcoming adventure....and we are now back on the envelope system. I'm also going to need to sell some colonial clothing but we should be out of the red by Christmas. Mostly. I think.