Yet another beach photo.  But–it is a photo of a different beach.  I love that my children get to know all of the beaches in our area.  They always want to know which one we are going to, and each has its own perks.  This one happens to be the closest to our home.  We [...]

It’s hard to believe that summer is already upon us.  In some ways (the culinary ones), I am delighted that summer has arrived.  Temperatures in the mid-90’s make me not so glad that summer has arrived.
It’s about this time of year that I begin to get twitchy, thinking about how much worse the heat is [...]

Oh hello there.  I’ve missed you.  I am still here.
We went tomato picking at our local farm today.  One dollar for a full plastic bag.  That equates to about 14 pounds of tomatoes for a dollar.  How could I pass that up?! I spent a total of five dollars on 73 pounds of tomatoes, which [...]

It was The Daddy Monkey’s birthday yesterday.
The kids played with their grandparents while we saw priceless works of art and ate sushi.  Then we went toy shopping (of course).
It was a rare treat, being alone together for that long. (Our longest ever without kids, I think.)
I made this coconut cake. I made only a [...]

I’ve been wanting to organize my very favorite recipes into a very special place.  I could only imagine my happiness if someone handed me a box like this, filled with cherished recipes.  I would probably explode with joy.  So the journey begins.
The Daddy Monkey gave me this box for Christmas and I love it so [...]

Well I sort of disappeared from this space for a while there.  I’m sure you can guess why:  I came down with the flu the kids had. Somehow The Daddy Monkey was spared.  But today we are all sick with some sort of sinus cold.  So rather than focus on how much sickness I’ve dealt [...]

When the homeschool day begins to get stale, and I’m going a little cuckoo from being the only adult in the house, I like to put on some loud music and dance around.  Sometimes the kids think I’m crazy, sometimes they join in.  Today’s song was “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles.  Actually, almost [...]

Lately I’ve been feeling like my little corner of the interwebs has been getting pretty heavy.  Too serious.  I love that I can come to this space and let it all hang out, so to speak.  To get my thoughts out of my head and speak my peace.  But my original intention here was to [...]

I do still have lots to share from our holidays.  Snow, snow, and more snow.  It was a fun Christmas, but it’s always good to be back at home. We’ve never travelled during the holidays before, and it had its own set of challenges. I’m wishing things had been a bit more relaxed.  And while [...]

Since our children have never seen snow (and The Daddy Monkey and I haven’t seen it in thirty years) we decided to take them to New York for Christmas.  Everyone said that we would probably not see snow this early in winter, but we were optimistic.
We saw our first snow in Virginia, and it was [...]