A Bento Box Day

Since I am on the go a lot during the week, and I certainly don't need fast food...oh how I love my Bento boxes. So today is a little quick Bento love. Here's breakfast in my blue Tupperware box. Turkey bacon, half a wheat bagel, cream cheese and grapes. Don't forget the coffee in a travel mug.

For lunch it's a turkey sandwich on wheat, with a few low-salt chips and salad from my garden. This is a new Bento-style box I found that folds up into a cute cube--but opens out very nicely when you're ready for lunch. There are lots of fun and functional Bento styles in the stores lately. Bon Appetit!

 

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Bento

It Was the Happiest of Mothers Days

Usually, on Mother's Day, I get up early, go to church, get to stand and be recognized with the other mothers, and then receive my carnation on the way out.

But this Mother's Day was different. It had been a lovely, but extremely hectic and busy week. I have a lower back strain--and I was sooo tired!

This photo is what I woke up to: a beautiful bouquet of roses and my morning coffee. I got to drink coffee in bed! LOVE IT!

I skipped church.

I laid in bed, drank my coffee, watched The Barefoot Contessa making brunch, and smelled my roses. I have the sweetest husband. (Sweet daughter too who bought me my favorite Body Shop Body Butter!)

Further proving his sweetness and helpfulness, my husband had worked all day Saturday to finish putting in my new raised bed garden.

To me, this fresh, new, raised bed garden is a beautiful sight and site. It is built over the old middle garden, and it is full of nothing but promise at this point. Ignoring all back pain, I had an egg, and went straight out to get busy with the first planting.

I brought along seeds, gloves, "Mater Magic" and a couple of cats.

One of my smaller raised beds is full of luscious varieties of Thyme...and my cat Minnie.

I plotted out where I would plant the first tomato starts--and drew up a little garden plot on paper so that I could remember what variety went where, and where I have planted basil and squash seeds.

 The tomatoes went in with plenty of room to grow! My back went a little numb, but a hot shower took care of that!  Then it was time for Mother's Day lunch at Heminway's Blue Water Cafe.

Hemingways is my favorite--delicious chef food! Their Mother's Day buffet had it all.

I feel blessed and fortunate to have my 86-year-old beautiful mother--and she is crazy about her granddaughter!

After we enjoyed the luscious first few courses--it was time for the dessert bar!

Best thing about Mother's Day dessert? The chocolate fountain!!!

 

Now, the last thing I need is to stuff my face with a bunch of desserts--let alone a chocolate fountain! So my plan, to enjoy all this, was to just take a little bite of a few things--who needs to eat the whole thing? But, it was my day, not to be a diva about it, and I knew the next day it would be back to a.m. oatmeal and noon turkey/veggie wrap!

My little dessert plate!

After this amazing Mother's Day lunch, we decided  to take my Mom walking around the store that houses this restaurant (Bass Pro) and check out the live alligator, and some of the fishie tanks. We had fun! And hopefully the walk helped us digest!

 

Ahhh...but now it's Monday and back to another busy week. I do have some beautiful time off this summer...I can't wait! But until then, I'll be tending to my garden, watching seeds grow, and organizing my other projects, hopefully getting some things finished up. And then there's always that crazy thought of entering things in the fair! We'll see.

Me and my sweet hubby

 EAT, WRITE, DREAM, STITCH!

 

Seven Days of Aprons--Thursday's Food Lover Shopping

Thursday's Apron Celebrates the Food Shopper. Now, we don't wear aprons to go shopping, unless we're Alice on The Brady Bunch, or Hazel the housekeeper, but in the old-fashioned weekday list of chores, Thursday was devoted to shopping, so that's the theme of today's homemade apron.

Why a little shopping therapy had to have a whole day devoted to it in the weekly chores for America's homemakers goes way back to the early 1900's when grocery stores served you. Depending on how staffed they were, a grocery store's workers had to measure out all the dry goods for a shopper, slice all the meat on your grocery list, and fetch everything from behind the counters. This was labor intensive for these assistants, and took a long time for shoppers to wait in line and be served. What a hassle. I'll never complain about going to the supercenter, where I can get so many things all at once, again! (really?)

 
 The laborious trips to food shop began to change when the Piggly Wiggly, of all places, began the concept of the self-service grocery store. Thank you Piggly Wiggly! Now we can love food shopping, get home fast, and cook it up fresh. That's why my shopping themed apron is full of heart. The bib has the front of an old toddler tee shirt appliqued to it. In fact, it was Lauren's little shirt (my model). Appropro she is wearing it in its second life as a kitchy apron now.

While I love those little quilty hearts from that old toddler tee (which is why I could never throw that little t-shirt away--I just kept it all this time in my fabric stash), I think my favorite part of this apron is the fact that the apron skirt is made from one of my mom's old tablecloths from the 1950's! That cotton table cloth is such a cute piece of vintage fabric, but so old it had a few holes in it. I patched over those with cross-stitch hearts appliqued in each bottom corner of the skirt. I found an old piece of brown cross-stitch linen, and embroidered "Food Lover" in red to make the pocket. The ties are simply wide red satin ribbon. It's all about food lover creativity!

Today I woke up early, worked out, went out in the garden, and got back to my sewing in record time. It was really nice to do today's food and flower shopping in the backyard. I heart summer!

Eat, write, dream, and stitch up a little creativity when you're done shopping!