oh shenandoah!

A couple weeks ago we celebrated Larry's birthday. It was a very important birthday - worthy of several days of celebration - but I'll write more about that later.

On his actual birthday, I convinced him to play hooky from work and we headed west to Shenandoah National Park for a day in the mountains.

I imagine that people who have never been here envision Virginia looking like this. 

If only the whole state was this beautiful!

By June in Virginia, it is often already too hot to hike. But if you are lucky enough to get a temperate day, it always amazes me how green everything is in June - after a rainy May and before the inevitable droughts in July and August, for a few weeks everything is growing like crazy and eye-poppingly green.

We hiked the White Oak Canyon Trail. We didn't bring the dogs with us, so we were able to stop for lunch along the way and hike at our own pace without two male dogs needing to pee on everything.

The best surprise was that the mountain laurel were in full bloom. I have a near obsession with mountain laurel (so much so that See Mountain Laurel in Bloom was an item on my Summer List! Check!). I have a vivid childhood memory of hiking somewhere surrounded by blooming laurels and I've been obsessed with recreating that experience. I still don't know where the memory is from, but I was ecstatic when we drove into the park and the woods were just full of it. Beautiful.


It was frustrating to photograph. Mountain laurel doesn't really show up well in pictures, but the woods were just full of it as far as you could see.


As for the rest of the hike, I'll let the pictures do the talking...

gravy vs. pig

Larry: "I bought these new *super-tough* dog toys. They're supposed to be *indestructible* with double layers of fabric and reinforced seams!"
(15 seconds pass)
Me: "Where did all that stuffing come from?"

Me: "What are you doing, Gravy?"

Gravy: "I'm making a cloud, Mom."

< stink eye >

Me: "Gravy, why did you rip that pig open?"  
Gravy: "I was looking for bacon, Mom. And also because it was fun."

Gravy: "You're not the only artist around here, Mom. I call this piece Pig, Deconstructed. You could sell it on Etsy for twenty-five cents."

RIP Pig.

iGiveCards

Earlier this year I alluded to the fact that I have been working late nights for a freelance gig. In January, I signed an artist's contract to design cards for a new internet-based greeting card company. In February, I designed 50 cards for them and was rewarded with an iPad.

That company is called iGiveCards and the website just launched a few weeks ago. iGiveCards isn't your typical online card company - what's unique about the iGiveCards concept is that $0.40 from the purchase of every card is donated to a charity or non-profit group, and an additional $0.05 is donated to an environmental group to offset the carbon footprint of the card (and the cards are printed on 100% recycled fibers). Not only that, the cards are extremely affordable ($2.10 for a typical bifold card and $0.95 for a postcard) - that's less than the cost of an ugly drugstore card and much less than the cards that you can find at a fancy paper store (some of those run $5 or $6 per card - and they aren't donating anything to charity!).

Do I sound like an infomercial yet? I'm really excited to be a part of this company and to add Greeting Card Designer to my resume. You can check the whole thing out on your own on the website (it's free to create an account). There are some pretty neat features - you can add a custom message to any card, you can set up a calendar with reminders for important events (birthdays, anniversaries), and soon you will be able to purchase a gift card to be mailed with the card. And you can do all this from the comfort of your own home - perhaps even while wearing your pajamas. (I'm a big fan of online shopping and wearing pajamas...)

Anyway, on to the eye candy! A few favorite cards that I've designed over the past few months:

There's no way to search by designer on the iGiveCards website, but if you're interested in any of the above cards, you should be able to search by descriptive keyword (such as walrus, dodo, strawberries, or peace sign) to find the card. 

Also, since I retain the copyright to all my designs, I am hoping to make some of them into art prints which will be available for purchase in my Etsy shop. I'm loving that dodo bird - any other requests?

weekend iphone pics

It was one of those weekends where we did absolutely nothing productive. Lots of cooking and eating, hundreds of pages read from our books, and a little of this:

Friday night beers in Clarendon:


And a treat from the (artisan) ice cream truck. Fancy. And delicious. (I had Mango Rum Sorbet):

The Farmers' Market:

Weird shaped carrots:

Dogs who want to eat weird shaped carrots:

Briefly contemplating spending time in the yard, snapping a few pics, deciding it was too gray/humid/buggy, and returning inside to the A/C and our books.

sunday puppy love fest

marvelous may!

So, it's mid-June, and I'm just now coming off of May's sugar high...

May flew by and we ate quite a few store-bought treats - the world's biggest flan, crullers from our local hole-in-the-wall bakery, the new JUMBO MARSHMALLOWS (roasted both over our fire pit at home and over a bonfire on the beach). Have you seen JUMBO MARSHMALLOWS at your local grocery store? If you do see them, I recommend running the other way as fast as possible, unless you're trying to contract diabetes.

I've also been pigging out on strawberries. Every year I'm shocked by how quickly the strawberry season seems to fly by, so I'm trying to stuff my face with as many berries as possible before the end of June. They were awesome in Strawberry Shortcake Cookies (which are more like a breakfast cookie or scone) and on top of Smitten Kitchen's German Pancakes.

Oh and guess who else loves strawberries? Gravy. Sneaky beast has been raiding my strawberry patch. Here's how many homegrown strawberries we've eaten: Me - 1. Gravy - all the rest.

We took our annual trip to the Outer Banks over Memorial Day (see photos of White Peach Sangria, Duck Donuts, and hot dogs for lunch!) which has become rather competitive at meal times over the past few years. We go with a big group of friends and alternate cooking each night and each year the recipes we try get more and more difficult and the meals more elaborate and delicious. Unfortunately, I didn't photograph any of these fabulous dinners, but our friends made things such as pork tenderloin with cherry-jalapeno salsa, roasted corn soup, shrimp & guacamole appetizers, several types of fancy quesadillas stuffed with goat cheese and chorizo, and white chocolate cherry mousse pie.

On our night to cook, Larry and I totally copped out and made our favorite Grilled Turkey Burgers with Cheddar and Smoky Aioli. But Larry was also dying to try a new wing recipe, so he made Spicy Apricot Wings and they were killer. (In fact, they were so good, that as soon as we got back from the beach we made them again for ourselves and scarfed down 20 wings between the two of us.) I also made Blueberry Boy Bait for dessert which I loved. I'll definitely be making it again this summer.

What we were eating and cooking this month: sweets, strawberries, beach food, and a Spanish feast for our international meal of the month. Oh, and donuts. Have I mentioned I love donuts?