"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. " ~ James 1:2-3

I’m A Big Boy Now!

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Tom, Harper and I played outside on the church playground while waiting for a meeting to start. Luckily, I had the camera on me to take photos of our adorable little boy playing on the wooden train and a picture of my handsome husband sneaking some playtime on a big plastic dinosaur. The first picture I caught was more candid, but I love the look he’s giving me here!

Trial and Error: Eggplant.1

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This is my first trial dinner. I’ve never eaten eggplant (to my knowledge) and certainly didn’t know how to cook it. I checked out allrecipes.com and found a highly rated, easy, “oven fried” eggplant recipe.
The verdict? Tasty: Yes. Texture: Blech. I’m not sure if it was mushy because it was overcooked or if mushy is the expected texture of baked eggplant. We’ve still got another eggplant to go, so we’ll be trying a new recipe on that eggplant.
Got any good recipes for me?

Local & Seasonal…

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I recently ordered produce from The Veggie Wagon, a local, family run business that delivers fresh, local, and seasonal produce straight to your door on a weekly basis. I was actually quite impressed with the price too. Hopefully such a good idea will not catch on too quickly and the price will stay nice and reasonable.
As you can see from the spread (I took this picture on our kitchen table) we’ve gotten a colorful and lovely selection that includes squash, green beans, peaches, apples, green peppers, pears and tomatoes. We even have a few items that I have NO IDEA what to do with, like muscadine grapes and eggplant. And even okra! I don’t believe I’ve ever had okra in my entire life, let alone ever cooked it.
But thanks to the wonder of the Internet, there are millions of recipes at my fingertips. Tomorrow we will tried baked eggplant, and later this week a tomato/okra stew. I’ll let you know how it goes :)

Three Years Down, A Lifetime to Go…

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Last Saturday, Tom and I celebrated our third year anniversary. We tried a a Italian restaurant downtown for the first time (I haven’t had lasagna in the longest time!) and then went to a pool hall.
One of the nice things about having a son is that our date night started early so we avoid all the Saturday night crowds and we were home in time to put Harper to bed.
Sometimes you forget how badly you need some husband/wife time until you finally get it. Good news, we’ve finally got ourselves a trustworthy babysitter!