I just took the last "First Day of School" picture I'll ever take. Sob! I cant believe my baby girl is a senior this year.

My (middle, youngest daughters) were up on time, they had their backpacks packed, their clothes laid out, breakfast smoothies in the fridge, their lunches made, their water bottles filled and in the fridge and were in bed with lights out by 9:30. They got out the door about 10 minutes early this morning.

Snort.

They really did all that stuff, I just wonder how long it will last. These first days/weeks of school maybe, then the darkness will settle in and the reality of summer being over will bowl them over and they'll be rushing around in the mornings trying to get out the door on time. Soon they'll be dragging.

There's a bit of summer left to squeeze out with Labor Day weekend coming up and our trip to Vancouver Washington for the anime convention Kumoricon. I think next Tuesday is when their reality will come crashing down as the alarm goes off to get up for school again, "Are we still doing this?"- THIS IS FOR REAL!

Today I find myself rushing around while trying to take in the reality of it all myself. We've gone from three people living in the house to five in a matter of a few weeks. My oldest moved home and has put school on hold while she figures out what she really wants to do and pays her school loans, my youngest's best friend (who I am referring to as my middle child) moved in to finish high school.

I'm trying not to throw all my eggs in one basket here by making my life all about the kids this school year. I was just starting to get used to the idea of an empty nest at the endof the last school year when our lives were turned up on end. But I know, in a few short months, the youngest two will graduate and probably be off to college. My oldest will be working and trying to be as independent as she can be while living at home or not

They'll just all run off and leave me. I must be prepared.

Resistance is futile, they will be educated and they will grow up whether I'm ready or not.

To prepare for the big remodel of his shed, my husband cut down my swath of dandelions. It was the only green in the backyard, following the path of the septic's drain field. A table sits over the area where it enters the yard (the grass is always greener and all) and the animals have enjoyed lying under it, out of the sun, like African savanna, wild animals.

I don't mind that he cut it down, but I had actually been enjoying it. Every morning I sat on the patio, especially on the chillier days when the sun wasn't beating down, I kept thinking, "I should cut it down today," but I didn't because I was hoping the magic would happen again.

One morning when my Florida friend was here, there was what we thought was a swarm of bugs swirling around the table like a tornado. We realized it was dandelion seeds swept up in a funnel wind circling the table. It was breathtaking and gone in a few seconds.

It was like fairies taking flight to spread fairy dust over the land, blessing us with their presence. I admit I was waiting for the phenomenon to happen again. It never did; at least not while I was sitting out here.

Does a tree make a sound falling in the forest if no one is there to hear it? Does magic happen if no one is there to see it?

The raising of a new shed will have to be magic enough.

Yesterday was the biggest example of "Life goes on" I think I've ever had. Often when someone close to us dies, there is a point when we wonder why the world doesn't stop turning; at least for a few moments so we can breathe in their memory.

After my tears and prayerful moments over my Cooking Buddy's death yesterday morning, I hit the ground running. I was in and out of the house more than I've been in months or even years.

I left around 9:30 to take the dog to the groomer around the corner. I came home, made a shopping list, then went to Costco and Fred Meyer. I came home, ate some lunch, then picked up the dog.

I had a hair appointment at 3:00pm, came home, then we went out to dinner. After we got home from dinner, I remembered Converse were on sale at Fred Meyer (Y's favorite shoes), so we headed out to buy her and M a pair each. After I got home from that, the kids and I helped raise the wall to my husband's shed. It looks better already. Then my mother called and needed the kids and me to paint the trunks of the trees that died in front of her home and that she had my sister cut all the branches off.

I think it's supposed to be an artistic statement, but she couldn't find the green paint, so she had us paint them black to seal them from the winter weather. Now they look like a monument to the fires in Eastern Washington. God bless her soul. Most of us would've just cut them down.

That's seven times out if you're counting.

Finally I made it home for good, only to find my husband was in bed already. Was it really that late? It was; it was after 8:00. Sigh. I couldn't even remember what I'd accomplished.

Now I must run to Costco today for cat food. Apparently, I bought the wrong kind for my mother's cat and he's refusing to eat it. Hopefully, I'll only have to go out once today.

The world doesn't stop turning for anyone, I guess.

I'm sad to say that my Cooking Buddy passed away at 12:30am. It was peaceful and she was with her husband.

She was an amazingly strong woman. The doctors expected her to die five years ago, before her 50th birthday. I had an unusual relationship with her. I met her many years ago when she worked at my parish. She and my father, who worked there at the time, were the best of friends. She would often tell me these past few months the story of how he gave up his spot to see Andrew Greeley in person. 

She was devastated she couldn't see him as she was his biggest fan. My father was a full-time employee and received a ticket, she was only part-time and wasn't eligible. My father, knowing how important it was to her, offered her his ticket. She was forever grateful. Now she can tell him in heaven how his gesture gave her much strength and peace in her life.

She's been my blog's biggest fan ever since I started it and she requested my presence as one of the people to look in on her while her husband was at work. After taking on shifts as a Conversationalist (the name her husband came up with those of us who sat with her) last October and talking about food, I began cooking with her in January. It was a love of cooking we both shared, trying new recipes, adjusting old ones and making them better.

I saw her last Friday. We hadn't cooked in awhile because of her declining health, but she had decided she was going to only do things she enjoyed. Cooking with me was one of those things.

She had just been diagnosed with renal failure in addition to all her other ailments and was able to go off the meds she'd been taking that were killing her appetite. She had been avoiding eat skins of foods she loved. She was making up for lost time this last week.

We made Pasta Pomodoro and turkey meatballs.

The Pasta dish was prompted by fresh garden tomatoes she received from a friend. Ironically enough, the meatballs were her own creation and she wrote out the recipe from memory; it's the only recipe I have that she wrote in her own hand.

Breaking from my Good Food Friday in her honor, here are the recipes:

Pasta Pomodoro (from Iowa Girl Eats website: http://iowagirleats.com/2015/08/12/pasta-pomodoro/)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 large, very ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 cup packed fresh basil, chopped and divided
• pinch of sugar
• salt and pepper
• 2 Tablespoons butter (I used Earth Balance Vegan Butter)
• 1/2lb gluten-free spaghetti

Directions

1. Heat extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic then saute for two minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, half the basil, and the sugar then turn heat up slightly to bring to a boil. Turn heat back down to medium then simmer until desired consistency is reached, 20-30 minutes depending on how juicy your tomatoes are, smashing tomatoes against the side of the pan with a spatula every so often.
2. Meanwhile bring a large pot of water to a boil then add a generous amount of salt. Add pasta then cook until al dente. Drain then return pasta to the pot to keep warm.
3. Season sauce with pepper and lots of salt then stir in butter and remaining basil. Taste then add more salt or pepper if necessary and then mix with cooked spaghetti and serve.

Turkey Meatballs ala My Cooking Buddy

1 lb ground meat (1 1/4 lb ground turkey)
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp light worchestershire
2 tsp ground garlic
3 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/2 to 2 cups panko
1tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup ketchup
salt and pepper

Blend all ingredients well, line 9x 13 pan with parchment paper, roll mixture into meatballs (I used the medium Pampered Chef scoop size), bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until done.

After the head of the Conversationalists called me this morning to tell me she had passed, I woke my youngest, who cleaned house for her, to tell her. We had our moment of tears, admitting we felt relieved she was no longer in pain, no longer tired. We said a couple rosaries together, then my daughter went about her day and I went to the grocery store. For some reason it seemed like the right thing to do; my Cooking Buddy would hate to think she kept me from going by stopping to write about her.

I feel honored to have been a part of her life these last 11 months and so glad we found a strong common ground with cooking. She was my biggest fan of this blog and championed me in my writing. She always shared how much peace my baby girl gave her with her gentle soul while simply vacuuming and dusting for her.

I will leave you with a passage from the Bible that is in the Fourth Glorious Mystery: The Assumption, and as I recited it this morning I thought, ":YES!":

"You are the Glory of Jerusalem... you are the splendid boast of our people... God is pleased with what you have wrought. May you be blessed by the Lord Almighty forever and ever." (Judith 15:9-10)

Rest in peace my Cooking Buddy. Cook up a storm for me in heaven.

It was an interesting weekend; not our run of the mill lazy one.

I scrapbooked on Saturday. I don't usually go on Saturday because I prefer the hostess's Wednesday session because there are less people. But I needed to get away from the house after all the craziness around here lately. I apparently missed more of it.

The biggest event that took place was that my husband decided to (finally) rebuild the shed leaning against his shop. I've been trying to get someone to do it for a couple years now. I think my husband's ultimate motivation was that his shop is too crowded and he needs to put some junk back in the shed (that's what it looks like to me).

He cleared it out when my neighbor was laid off from his job a couple years ago and was available to rebuild it. However, it was January and the neighbor was reluctant to start it because of the weather. The weather ended up being perfect, albeit cold; he could've rebuilt it half a dozen times by the time he was called back to work.

Said neighbor thought perhaps that summer he'd get some free time. It has come and gone and we've been talking about it ever since with my husband scheming different ways he could rebuild it himself without too much work on his part. So he came up with a plan and it didn't involve tearing the whole thing down.

His first concern was how to get all the lumber home. So I went online and renewed the tabs on his flatbed trailer. The neighbor just happened to also be at the DMV and they got to talking and the neighbor said he had some time on Sunday.

When they congregated in the yard, as my husband was pulling off the roof, my neighbor came over and listened to my husband's idea. As often happens when we are trying to get away with the least effort, someone tells you the error of your ways.

What started as a quick fix in my husband's head (which was wrought with all sorts of bad things that could go wrong), ended up with the whole structure coming down. My husband was justifying to me why he now had to take the wall down too, like I had somehow instructed him otherwise. I'm really to the point I don't care, I just want it rebuilt so we can pull ourselves somewhat out of our white trash movement.

While he was fussing over the wall (that's what he does best) I decided to clean up the patio. I'm still chasing the debris from the BIG REORGANIZATION (not to be confused with the BIG RED CHAIR). I whipped OY into action to help me. M was babysitting.

Now the patio has sloughed off most of its white trash appearance, but my backyard looks like we're hoarding rotting wood. I'm pretty sure it won't go easily as I start the argument with my husband about what to do with it; "No, we can't burn all that in our piddly outdoor fire pit. Besides, we can't burn right now. You're going to have to suck it up and go to the dump."

I may, however, rig up a smothering technique with the black plastic the kids used for painting and the rotting plywood on a continuing quest to rid myself of the Japanese knotwood in the back forty.

Sigh. My struggles to be free of our white trash tendencies live on.

I'm not succumbing to fall yet, although I did have to put a sweater on this morning for my morning patio session. It's a comin'!

Back on Wednesday I was bragging about having cooked dinner a whole seven days (weekdays, mind you - now I'm up to nine). I also mentioned I had some slightly used basil on the back patio which was calling out to be made into pesto.

I love fresh basil, although I don't use it often, mostly because I haven't taken the time to figure out what to do with it. I finally found a great place to grow it, though. As every chef knows, it has to be somewhere where you can just step out your door and pluck it to add to your gourmet creation. 

It wasn't sunny enough in the front yard near the house, which was fine with me because the front door isn't near enough to the kitchen to indulge my "plucking fresh herbs from my own garden" fantasy. But the backyard got the hot, evening sun, which made them wither under its intensity. So instead of a hanging basket full of flowers hanging off the end of the back patio this year, I planted the basil. It loved it there. It got regular water from my drip system and just enough sun and the right amount of shade to flourish.

The only issue with it was the humming birds didn't have a plant to enjoy on the patio. There were other plants in the backyard for them, but not in view of my morning coffee place. Not only did my Florida friend mention the lack of humming birds on the patio, but the hummingbirds gave me a piece of their minds several times - hovering right in front of me, chirping their displeasure. In fact just yesterday I got a buzz-by.

I think they are nested in a tree in my neighbor's backyard and they apparently wanted their favorite croissant from the bakery next door. Next year, birds, next year.

Anyway, back to pesto as my brilliant idea for a Wednesday morning - I've never made it before, so I Googled it. I didn't know it called for pine nuts, although you can substitute walnuts. Even though they were expensive, I wanted my first time to be authentic, so I bought them.

Then I Googled a chicken recipe. Originally I was going to just made pesto pasta and grill some chicken, but I found this fantastic pesto chicken recipe to go with my first pesto experience (making it, not eating it).

There's a first for everything, right?

Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe [from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/fresh_basil_pesto/ - although they are all pretty much the same]

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Yield: Makes 1 cup

Basil pesto darkens when exposed to air, so to store, cover tightly with plastic wrap making sure the plastic is touching the top of the pesto and not allowing the pesto to have contact with air. The pesto will stay greener longer that way.

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed (can sub half the basil leaves with baby spinach)
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Romano or Parmesan-Reggiano cheese (about 2 ounces) [okay, I confess, I used the kind of Parmesan in the plastic shaker]
  
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts (can sub chopped walnuts)
• 3 garlic cloves, minced (about 3 teaspoons)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste [It really didn't need more flavor, maybe the shaker Parm has salt in it?]
  

• Special equipment needed: A food processor

Instructions

1. Place the basil leaves and pine nuts into the bowl of a food processor and pulse a several times.
2. Add the garlic and Parmesan or Romano cheese and pulse several times more. Scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula.
3. While the food processor is running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady small stream. Adding the olive oil slowly, while the processor is running, will help it emulsify and help keep the olive oil from separating. Occasionally stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor.

Easy Recipe for Baked Pesto Chicken (low carb, gluten free) [just a coincidence, I'm not gong to the dark side] from http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2010/09/easy-recipe-for-baked-pesto-chicken.html

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup basil pesto [I used a cup, cuz I really like pesto]
• 2 oz. (1/2 cup) grated low-fat mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375F/190C.

1. Trim all visible fat and tendons from chicken pieces, then cut each chicken breast lengthwise into 2 or 3 pieces.
2. Spray a 9" x 12" (or 8.5" X 12.5") baking dish with non-stick spray, then spread 1/4 cup basil pesto over the bottom of the dish.
3. Lay chicken strips over the pesto, then spread 1/4 cup more basil pesto over the chicken.
4. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil (or use a baking dish with a tight-fitting lid) and bake the chicken for 25-30 minutes, just until chicken is barely firm and cooked through. (Don't cook too much at this point, or the chicken will be overcooked by the time the cheese is melted and browned.)
5. When chicken is barely cooked through, remove foil and sprinkle chicken with 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese. Put dish back into the oven without foil and cook 5 minutes more, just until cheese is melted. (If your broiler is separate from the oven, start preheating it when you take the chicken out.) After I melted the cheese for 5 minutes I switched my oven to broil and broiled for 5 minutes more, just long enough to get the cheese lightly browned.
6. Serve hot. There will be some flavorful juice in the bottom of the dish when this is done, so you may want to serve with rice, couscous, or quinoa to soak up the juice, but if you're eating this for phase one, just spoon the juice over the chicken. [I served it over Quinoa]

_So when asking yourself "To Pesto or not to Pesto?" you should always Pesto!

It was just an innocent trip to Costco to get my pictures developed. I wouldn't have even gone yesterday if Costco's photo website hadn't been compromised and their site unavailable.

I don't know how long the problem has been going on, but it won't be up for another week and a half.  It's rather inconvenient, because I need the pictures for scrapbooking on Saturday. Rather than downloading all the pictures online, I had to go into the store to do it, which means I had to download them from my camera and phone to the computer then to a flash drive.

As I headed for Costco yesterday morning, I thought I'd be there awhile because I figured I'd have the option to crop and edit them like I do when I'm at home. But it just loaded them all in, submitted them and I had to pay to get them released for printing. There you go, all finished, I should've just gone home.

I wasn't planning on waiting for the photos to be finished and I certainly wasn't planning on shopping. It's payday today, so I was going to wait until today. But we were totally out of milk and I needed spinach for my morning eggs, so I charged in figuring I could just pick up those couple things and be on my way.

I made my way to the veggie department and ran into my Cooking Buddy's husband. We were talking and he was loading some grapes into his cart. I started thinking about grapes and I put some into my cart too. I should've resisted getting a cart at all, then I probably would've been free and clear.

Then I figured while I was at it, I may as well get some peaches. The last time I got peaches, I inadvertently got white peaches. They aren't my favorite and I was really hankering for some yellow ones; in the cart they went.

I picked up my spinach walked by the lunch meat department on my way to get milk... well since I'm here... that was the moment of defeat and I texted my oldest daughter for the short list on the grocery blackboard.

"Get more Gouda (Have you ever noticed many cheeses are capitalized? Were they named after cities where they were invented or something?), burgers, soy sauce, milk, lemon juice. And we just opened the last packed of ham if you wanted to get that too." As noted above, I was way ahead of her.

I also needed pine nuts because of the pesto I planned to make for dinner out of the basil on my back patio calling out to me yesterday. Costco had them. They were rather expensive, probably because it was a pretty big bag for pine nuts, but I figured I'd use them making more pesto for the freezer before the basil was vanquished by the fall weather. (I did, however, announce that pine nuts were not for snacking to all the current residents of my home.)

To throw another wrench into my wheel of failed intentions, I was getting hungry. I tried my best not to buy things just because I was hungry. Fortunately Costco samples saved the day and I stuck to the list.

Then I ran into another friend who has been battling leukemia. We talked for about thirty minutes. I figured I was in so deep by then and may as well go pick up my photos.

By the time I got home it was after noon. I ate my lunch while the girls unloaded and unpacked the few groceries. I rested for a half hour or so, then got to cooking dinner for my husband; remember, I was making pesto and all. I found a couple good recipes, which you'll just have to wait for Good Food Friday to see (you know they're about pesto, though). When all was said and done, I was ready for dinner by the time it was ready at 3:30.

Very little of what I accomplished yesterday was what I had intended.

You never know where milk will lead you.

I just now realized I totally forgot to blog yesterday. I was up early and out the door with O (oldest daughter) for an appointment and had intended to do it when I got home. But that appointment led to an opportunity to take care of another appointment since we were in the area (Bellevue). I didn't get home until after one at which point I had to cook dinner for my husband who was due home in an hour.

It was all good, but I just forgot I hadn't blogged. Needless to say, because I've said it every year by this time, I really have no idea what day it is. It's always like this by the end of the summer and it's a shock to my system when I have to shake off the lethargy of the summer schedule and start a routine again.

I have been better this summer with going to bed and getting up around the same time because my hubby has to get up and work still and I kind of follow his time frame. It's even a similar time to my school year schedule; bed around 10:00 up around 6-7. But the lack of routine with the rest of the family is what throws me off. I haven't walked all summer either, because of the heat and the bright orb in the sky so early in the morning.

I sit on the patio every morning and have my coffee and breakfast, then blog. Now the morning air is beginning to feel like fall even as Mother Nature squeezes the last bits of heat out of an uncomfortably hot summer (Go away and give me back my rain, I say!) and the intense orb is waning.

I could probably walk as soon as I get up, but with my morning patio sessions drawing to a close probably within a month, as will hanging my laundry outdoors, I'm just not ready to get back to it. I've warned MY (middle/youngest daughters) that I'll still have to hang jeans in what is now their bedroom, because I have no where else to hang them. The laundry hall is too small for jeans and they have the pellet stove in their room.

Everyone has to sacrifice something for the greater good now that we've gone from three people to five in a matter of a few weeks. Dad has to live with four women, O had to move to a smaller room, MY not only has to live with laundry in their room, but have to share a room and I have to come up with something to make for dinner every night. We can't afford to eat out much at all this year with five adults in the family.

I want to point out that I've cooked real food for seven whole days (I don't cook on the weekend, but they eat leftovers). It's not easy to figure something out for dinner every night. I probably should start pre-planning our meals for the week. That way, O could start cooking some of them and learning to feed herself in anticipation for when she moves out again someday. 

I remember when my mom lived with us and she and I put our heads together for meals, but the kids were small (three and five) when she moved in and they didn't eat much (especially Y who was a picky eater until about 13 - although she'll tell you she was younger when she came to the foodie side). Now they eat like, well, adults, because they are, plus we have an additional one.

Everything in the freezer is packaged for four, because that's how many people were here when I packed it (well, O was not here, but I was sending her leftovers). Last night I made pork stir fry, because that's how you make four pork chops feed five people, plus I had to use up the power veggies I bought at Costco. It really was a win-win all the way around.

Y exclaimed, "I love stir fry with ramen noodles!" They ate it all, even the leftovers before the night was out.

What's for dinner tonight? I have a slightly used basil plant on my back patio that is just calling out for pesto; a new and exciting thing for me to make. I wonder how I'll top it tomorrow?

Sigh. It's going to be a long school year sacrificing for the greater good and all.

I didn't even need to resort to hot dogs on Friday. My oldest daughter and I got to talking about the ham pasta salad recipe that my Cooking Buddy and I made last month. I had even taken a ham out of the freezer the day before in anticipation of using it for a meal. I didn't have the ham salad in mind, but it really was just the ticket for a rainy Friday.

It was my night at my Cooking Buddy's last Friday, but she cancelled because her son was in town and was willing to cover the shift. So my husband and I stole off to the movies. We saw "Trainwreck," which is a bit raunchy to start off with, I think to show what a trainwreck the woman's life was, but turned out it was a sweet chick flick.

We went off to the movie, but didn't have cheap tickets from Costco or get my milk duds from the store to make them less expensive - we laughed because we are apparently out of practice, not having had a date night for several months. Our summer camping without kids has given us many moments, but the recent frenzy of activity in the house has left us little time to connect.

It felt like we were trying to catch up with each other this weekend. Sunday morning we determined to pick up the family room and patio. I told O MY! the night before that it was time to take the family room back, but looking at it, I realized a lot of the stuff was mine.

So my hubby and I removed the items to which belonged to us, then started shuffling the patio. We have a lot of extra shelves; that's what I'm left with after this experience. As we studied the shelves, we tried to figure out where they all came from, the biggest mystery being several white, particle board shelves that may or may not be a whole bookshelf if it was put together.

There were some shelves I had to save because they go to modular IKEA units and although I don't see anytime in the near future when I'll be using them, I've said that before. I can't begin to tell you how many times they've been shuffled, reorganized and re-purposed. I can't get rid of them because the reality is, I don't know what they're/my future holds. Plus they are made out of solid wood. So I suggested we clean out a shed where I have a few gardening tools.

Can you even believe it? There were more random shelves in that shed that I didn't even know we had nor did I know what they were/had been for. We already knew no Goodwill or St. Vinny's would take random shelves, nor would they take our metal desk, so out to the free pile it all went.

We'll see. My husband said he would start putting the particle board ones in the garbage one by one if no one took them and when the weather turns rainy again, we'll burn the solid wood ones. That really made me laugh, it's like the cartoon with the snowman being threatened with a hair dryer:

Take the shelves or we'll do away with them one by one until our demands have been met. I have a weird sense of humor, I know.

So we did a shelf shuffled (keep the ones we know what they are for, dispense with the ones with the unknown origins), then loaded the metal desk (before we knew no one would take it) and more give-away bags from the kids rooms and headed off to St. Vinny's. Before we left we decided to see a movie since we'd be down in Kent. They had "Ricki and the Flash" playing at 10:45.

St. Vinny's didn't open until 11:00,  so we went to the movie first. What's the world coming to these days when you can't even trust people to steal stuff from the back of your truck while you're at the movies?

"Ricki and the Flash" was fantastic. It's a good one in the theater because of the music. I'm hoping they have a sound track for it. And did you know the AMC at Kent Station's movies are only $5.76 at that time of day? I don't know if it's a before 11:00am price or because it was Sunday or what, but we were pretty stoked. It made up for our full price night on Friday. Not only that, but I had Costco tickets and the gal at the box office told us to save them for a night movie because of the price.

The weekend felt like we were making up for date nights past, plus we got a few more things picked up. The whole reorg is technically over and the house reclaimed, but we'll probably be picking up remnants of it for months to come (kind of like when I accidentally spilled a container of dry beans I had soaking on the counter all over the floor - we found beans for years after that).

However, I'm happy with our progress thus far. Okay, I'm really happy I have the whole clothes line back instead of hanging the clothes around the patio debris. I'm also glad to have reclaimed date night.

And sticking with the snowman theme - just because I thought it was funny. Who doesn't need to just laugh sometimes?

It was Wild Waves day for MY (Middle/Youngest daughters). I can't even begin to express the relief I have that they are old enough to not only drive themselves there, but to be there without adult supervision. As a parent who doesn't like sun, hot concrete or riding rides anymore, I'm not a fan.

I do notice that once a year seems to be enough for them, though. O (Oldest daughter) didn't partake, feeling the need instead to go grocery shopping with me, but they were joined by three of their friends, so it was still a party. 

I haven't been on a big grocery shopping trip for months. I'm not sure what we've been eating lately, but I haven't needed to for whatever reason. But with five of us in the house now (from three to five in a matter of weeks) and school right around the corner, it's time to focus on cooking again. So it must be time to resurrect Good Food Friday and get my cooking juices flowing (no pun intended, but didja see what happened there?).

I was proud of myself on Monday for throwing together a tuna noodle casserole of my own invention. Really, though? How hard is  tuna noodle casserole anyway?

Gretchen's Tuna Noodle Casserole:
2 cans tuna
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 can kidney beans [just because I was craving them]
1 can green beans
1 cup of shredded cheddar or whatever you want
1 package of egg noodles
Grated Parmesan [you know, the kind in the sprinkle container]

Boil the noodles, mix the first 5 ingredients together, mix in noodles, put in 9x13 casserole dish, sprinkle with Parmesan and bake at 350° for a half hour.

Tuesday I made tacos, Wednesday I threw some frozen pork ribs in the crockpot with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and served it with rice and broccoli.

Yesterday I resurrected my favorite recipe for this time of year, which I posted back in 2013 before I had a Good Food Friday, but so worth re-posting. It was so yummy that M thanked me for introducing her to it:

_Summer Vegetable Baked Chicken
2 peppers (red, yellow or green)
1 small zucchini
1/2 med onion
1 cup salsa
1 cup cheese
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
[I use double or even triple of the veggies because they are so good]

Slice vegetables, then in olive oil saute peppers, zucchini, and onions. Mix in salsa. Pour over chicken. Bake covered in a 350 degree oven for 1/2 hour. Uncover, bake another 30 minutes. Top with cheese.

I have to say I've been rather impressed with myself this week, cooking every day and all. I'm not sure yet what's for dinner tonight, although I'm not sure I can top it. I may have to resort to hot dogs and regroup for next week.