Mid-(ahem)-week post - in which Pooh loses his mind and wants to hibernate

...because he has too many things to do, and too little time to do them.

Dang - I'm projecting again. It's actually me, and not Pooh.

Got a whole bunch of random photos to share anyway, but not a whole lot of writing (mercifully for all of you).

Ds#1's gardening pick this year was a purple carrot. They turned out pretty well (see below with a "normal" carrot on the right for color comparison), but I'd advise against growing them as they tend to stain everything, much like beets do. The thing is, there is no good substitute for beets, but there are fine substitutes for purple carrots.
Here are the carrots, roasted up with potatoes, and served with fried chicken:
Dh has always wanted a good hammock so we finally bought one from Gaiam.com. The boys tested it out and pronounced it a great fit.
Lorie (Be Different Act Normal) posted about bandana aprons and I got inspired (because our bandanas had secretly procreated like rabbits in the drawer and we now have a hundred of them). This is my attempt. I wore it today to brown the pot roast. The pot roast was pleased, I could tell.
Have any of you ever tasted paw paw? It's native to Indiana. The animals have always gotten to them before we did, even though we have a good bit of paw paw trees on our property. This year, dh and the boys managed to snag a couple. So, we tried it, and I think it is incredibly foul. Andrew Zimmern (on Bizarre Foods) could not stomach durian. Obviously, he had never eaten paw paw because that would have prepared him for the durian experience. Yes, it is that foul.
On the other end of the gastronomic spectrum has to be this tofu curry that dh makes. It is the current love of my life!
Tofu curry in my bowl...and in my dreams!
These next couple of photos are specially for Sara (Schooling From the Heart). This is the potter's wheel I bought from her before they left for Europe (*sniffle*). Ds#1 has been working on it regularly for a month now. It takes a long time to master, but I'm glad he seems to be enjoying it.
Sara gave us this table that her dh made; it is sturdy and excellent for wedging clay (which is what ds#1 is doing here, before he threw it on the wheel; my photos are out of order).
Ds#2 is taking a short break from ceramics right now, but will start back next week. He's been practicing sketching while ds#1 works on ceramics. I love art days!
And last, but not least, here are the goodies from Amber (Amber's Ambry) that I got for swapping the hat I knitted. Is the package adorable, or what?
Here are the soaps she sent me. I've started using the Blueberry one, and it smells soooo nice! Thanks much for bartering/swapping with me, Amber!
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

A birthday wish, and a bevy of goodies

Firstly, it's dh's birthday today...47 and every bit as adorable as when I married him 20 years ago. And he's such a hard working dude too. It may be his birthday, but instead of sitting around wanting to be treated like a king, he spent the morning weeding and harvesting with the kids, and, now, after lunch, he went to the office to work for a couple of hours even though he didn't have to teach today.

We'll probably go out for his birthday dinner tomorrow, but tonight, I'm making him one of his favorite desserts: creme caramel (recipe courtesy of our wonderful neighbors...have I mentioned yet how glad I am the previous owners moved to the East Coast?).

We've been having lots of fun with ceramics lately. We made some new and different things that we're quite happy with. I created a tree shaped container:You lift the leaf lid and the trunk of the tree is a cavity in which you can store jewelry or whatever treasure you want!

Ds#2 made, with his teacher's help, a pen/pencil holder; the Old Brick glaze is quite attractive:
Ds#1 decided to make a stylized earth star bowl. For those of you not mycologically-inclined, earth stars are a type of fungus (puff balls, in fact).
Not to be out-done by us, dh cooked up some wild Alaskan salmon for dinner on Saturday. He made his own charmoula sauce, and whipped up his usual yummy Greek salad:
I know you never get tired of looking at our tomato photos...hah!And from these tomatoes, we canned another 14 quarts of sauce.What else have I been working on? Well, after seeing the cutest post at Lorie's Be Different Act Normal blog, I decided to whip up a bandana apron myself. Haven't gotten too far yet. I put some pleats in the black bandana for the bodice and attached it to bottom half. I am a messy person in the kitchen, and if I didn't have a bodice on my apron, I may as well not wear one at all.
And speaking of aprons, go check out and enter Amber's Ambry's 200th post giveaway!

All right, last but not least, and then I have to get back to reading the biology textbook and lab manual (for the lab class that I'm leading for some homeschool teens, including ds#1...again, many thanks to Meg!!)...we made and froze another 9 pints of pesto. Here the boys are, "de-foliating" the basil that dh picked and I washed:
I hope those of you who have Labor Day off today are having a wonderful holiday weekend! Are you doing something fun and out-of-the-ordinary?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams