7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

Today was rough.  I mean really REALLY rough.  Like mommy-yelling-at-three-year-old-a-lot-over-small-stuff-crazy-crying-I-NEED-CHOCOLATE-NOW!!!!! rough.  So what did I do? As soon as naptime officially started I began inhaling my "secret" stash of dark chocolate and called my hubby to tell him to bring me MORE on his way home.  Chased that with a couple glasses of pomegranate/black sun tea and sat down to start reading through the {P.H.F.R.} posts from yesterday.  Then I felt better.  Because chocolate and blog reading make everything better, no?

2.

Which brings me to my next point of interest. I am officially back on the NFP bandwagon (like you couldn't tell from all the chocolate scarfing. Right.) It is a bit sooner than I expected since it didn't happen with my first until she was about 13 or 14 months old, approximately a month or so after we started night weaning her.  Baby boy has been night weaned for about a month now... hmm...

3.

I am trying to get back to not eating meat on Fridays. I know it isn't lent but here's the thing: if I don't do this I never remember to make any sort of sacrifice or do any penance of any kind on Friday. So if anyone has any great fish/vegetarian recipes I would love to hear about them because I need some inspiration. Just ask my family about dinner tonight, they'll tell you.

4.

Deer are eating my garden. I love to watch cute frolicking fawns out in the field. I even thought they were cute when they were munching the weeds under my asparagus. Now that they are destroying my tomato plants I think I need to get out a shotgun. Well, maybe we just need to build a fence, I could be overreacting a bit (see #1 and #2). Did I mention they also ate the strawberry plants down to the ground? Grrr.

5.

Speaking of wildlife our yard seems to be teeming with exotic creatures.  We have seen hummingbirds, gigantic wasps (shudder), carpenter bees, huge dragonflies of every color, some kind of large cat (domestic or bobcat, not sure which), at least 3 kinds of tree frog plus regular frogs and a few toads, a painted turtle, deer, rabbits, chipmunks by the dozen which my lazy and intellectually challenged cats simply watch blankly, a garter snake, many different kinds of birds (including bluebirds!), the biggest squirrel I have ever seen, and a giant white fuzzy caterpillar we found near the garden this morning. I can't tell if we are seeing more than an average amount of wildlife or if we have just been living in cities too long and all this is pretty normal for country livin'.

6.

I. Love. My. Compost heap. Now that you know I am a huge dork let me tell you why. I love knowing that food and remnants of food I would previously have thrown in the garbage is going into a big ol' pile in the back yard that is slowly turning into super duper rich and nutrient filled earth to feed the garden, which will feed us, which will give us more fuel for the compost heap. Now if I can just manage to get some chickens... Compost heaven.

7.

Say a prayer we will get some rain around here will ya? I checked weather dot com and they said we have gotten about 1/4 inch of rain since the beginning of JUNE. It is making me so sad because several of the beautiful trees around this house are starting to drop leaves like crazy from all the drought. :( I don't know much about how trees survive dry weather but I am hoping they don't all die. Man, didn't mean to end on such a downer. It is sprinkling right now as I am writing this, but we need a good rain, more than just a sprinkle.

Now if you will excuse me I am off to have a beer and play guitar with my wonderful husband. :) Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!