An Ode to Summer

A beautiful short film best viewed in full screen.
Happy (almost) summer weekend.


An Ode to Summer from Kinfolk on Vimeo.

Summer Produce

Summer food! I'm so glad that my joy of cooking developed in the summer - it makes meals so easy with all of the in-season fruits and veggies. You can make delicious meals without much effort! I made some spinach edamame hummus yesterday - a bit more than anticipated - so I'm trying to think of creative ways to eat it. Any ideas? Please let me know if you have any ideas (or WANT some of it) because I have a giant tupperware full of it! Below is my first meal made with it - a sandwich flat toasted with the hummus and some cheese and topped with tomatoes. Eaten with a side of (more) spinach and some watermelon (I can't get enough watermelon)!

One of my favorite summer combos is this little dish of sauteed zucchini, summer squash, onions, garlic, and tomatoes.

It's delicious roasted as well. You can do so much with it - eat it with poached eggs and toast in the morning, as the insides of an omelette, on its own, over pasta with a little parmesan, a topping for pizza... the combos are endless! Yum.

Corn Dog

Puppy is corn dog.

He even ate it across the cob like a human.

It was almost as fun as watching him eat watermelon down to the rind.

Almost.
Hoping we see some of the watermelon-eating pup this weekend at the LAKE!

Change - it feels so good

You know how we've been looking for a house for the past year? Well, we're done looking for now. After nearly ten contracts written and two houses that got to the inspection stage only to find something we weren't comfortable with buying, we're through. We're staying where we are. We've been feeling really down about the house-hunt and it has been painful. So we quit. A year is enough.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." - Maya Angelou

Over the past week, we have started talking about a new life path - something that is making me feel lighter already. We're changing things... and where we can't change them we're changing our attitude:

We are going to learn to love our little apartment. We're clearing out crap that we've been gathering in anticipation of moving which made our 600 feet feel a lot smaller like boxes and packing paper. We're going to get rid of our futon and replace it with a comfy couch. I've delivered a few (more) boxes of things I don't want to part with but don't want in the apartment into my childhood home (thanks, Al!). We'll probably buy a new bedspread, some curtains, and shelves to organize our things better in the space we have. 

We're enjoying the nice weather. No sense in dreading summer. It's not here yet. And really, the summer isn't that bad. Last summer I said I'd try not to hate it so much, and that little bit of effort really made it so much more enjoyable.

We're enjoying each other. We've been walking Rufus together each day instead of each of us doing one walk alone. Instead of having separate mornings where I lay in bed until Jason is out the door, we get up a little earlier to walk Rufus together. It's a great way to wake up and start slowly and a great way to decompress after each day.

We're bettering our health. Two walks a day instead of one with Rufus. Gym trips for Jason (a train I need to jump on too). Less takeout, more home-cooked meals. Water in our spankin' new stainless steel water bottles that don't make us feel like we're drinking plastic or BPA.

We feel better already. Rufus feels better already.

What do you do to make yourself feel better when you're feeling down?