Busy, busy, busy

I've had a fabulous week full of all the things I love to do.  Monday:

My sweet young friend wanted me to teach her to sew.  Being extremely ambitious, she wanted to start with pj's, but I thought I'd learn about her by starting smaller.  She's such a quick understudy that we'll start on the pattern for those pjs next week.  Yeah!!!

Tuesday:

Isn't this the ugliest looking dish?  If you look real close, you can tell that the sauce is purple.  Personally, I've decided that the uglier the dish, the better it tastes.  These were some amazing pork chops!  Make your own using this recipe.  I did use grape jam instead of plum.  Do they really even make plum???

And to go with:

I've discovered the joy of balsalmic vinegar and have been shelacking my veggies for the last several days as a delightful treat.  I can't believe I like this almost better than butter.  Almost.  I used the recipe from the Proud Italian Cook but added several veggies instead of just the onions (which we are thoroughly enjoying).

Wednesday:

FINALLY!  Summer is half over and I can enjoy my family full time!!!  Lalalala Celebrate good times! Lalala

Also, we discovered that our cornerpost bird, now known to be a House Finch, has returned to her nest and deposited another clutch:

Thursday:

I've wanted to create something special for my friend that recently had a baby and decided to go with

"A Star is Born" theme:

Less than 5 minutes after I took this shot, the star gracefully laid itself down the side.  Please someone tell me how to create filigree chocolate art in this HEAT!

I also received a surprise invitation to the Butterfly House.  Can you say STUNNING!  I cannot even begin to capture on film the beauty we were able to see as the butterflies fluttered around and the caterpillars munched.  My little people didn't even want to leave, though they did appreciate the air conditioning when we finally went inside.  Do you know how hard it is to catch a butterfly NOT flapping its wings?  Impossible!  Look really close to see the butterfly's tongue:

Friday:

We must now rest! and it's not even Sunday yet:-)

Italian day

If this is what it takes to be Italian, I'd love to add that to my heritage.  I tried this: 

from the Proud Italian Cook and thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  Before you go comparing pictures, understand that I love to improvise.  With no strawberries in the house, blueberries was a realistic replacement.  Also substituted were:  almonds chopped into little pieces instead of almond flour and almond extract in place of amaretto (only use 1/4 of the amount the recipe calls for or it will be WAY too almondy). 

It was so very scrumptious, I hated to eat more than one.  Only the scrumptious foods have calories:-)   I truly would have felt guilty eating them all by myself, so I called a girlfriend (Hey Missy) and shared.  (Thank you for saving an extra slathering on my hips!)

Independence Day

Yesterday we celebrated our country's independence as a free nation.  As truly patriotic people, I loved cooking up ribs, tater salad, baked beans, etc.  My boyz even spent some time decorating the house with some red, white, and blue and we ate off the red and blue plates.  If I'd been thinking, we'd even have sung the patriotic songs that I so love.

My youngest was especially exhuberant and chose to exert his independence in an unexpectedly age-appropriate way:

I can't believe I'm going to have to cut the rest of his hair to match this landing strip in the center of his head.  Not only did we take his scissors and explain to him that bald isn't THAT beautiful, but we had to take them a second time as he snuck away to finish the job.