A walk on the river

We went to the greenbelt on the river this evening. The leaves were just right and the walk was exactly what we needed.

I took a few pictures. It was nice to have my camera back in my hand. I haven't been so good at taking pictures in the last few months. It's sad really.










Yes I threw a midnight sepia filter on this one. I couldn't help myself. I'm a tasteless girl who loves midnight sepia even though it's totally out of style now.We were getting ready to head back and I turned around and saw this:
"what are you doing, Libby?"
"Praying."
"how come?"
"Because I wanted to think about Jesus."
Isn't she the sweetest thing ever?
The picture above is Steve and Sarah waiting for a leaf to fall. They were trying to catch them. Sarah eventually managed it.

Honey Mustard Dressing

I got to have a day out with two of my sisters and my mom on Friday. It was a great day and I had a lot of fun. While we were having lunch we talked salad dressings. They were all interested in the honey mustard dressing I use. So Mom, this is for you:

Alton Brown's Honey Mustard Dressing

5 T honey
3 T Dijon mustard
2 T mild vinegar (I like white wine vinegar, but plain white distilled works fine)

Wisk all the ingredients together. Makes about 2/3 of a cup of dressing.

That's it. I like to make it in the small bowl on my food processor. A blender would do a nice job with it as well. It's really quick to whip up and it works for just about everything. Alton recommends plain Dijon, but I found that grain mustard makes a delicious change. I bought a squeeze bottle to hold it for a buck that's perfect for drizzling a little dressing on my salad.

One goal down

I've been trying to get healthier and loose weight for a long time. This spring, my friends and I stepped it up in our walking routine and we've been moving faster. I've done a few little things here and there. I haven't seen a lot of progress.

Steve says my stomach is smaller, which is a good thing. I don't really see it personally.

The really nice thing is that the scale told me today that I have officially lost ten pounds. It's taken me since early April to lose it, but it's gone. Maybe because I've done it so slowly it will actually stay off this time.

All I know is that it's very hard for me to lose weight. I know I can't do things drastically because it all falls apart after a few weeks. Then of course all the weight comes right back. My body seems to want to stick at a certain weight and stay there. As I've lost this weight, it's been done in very up and down, stop and start increments. It's like my body is slowly picking a new favorite weight each time. It's frustrating beyond belief to watch my weight fluctuate by five pounds over the course of a week. Slowly, however, I've made progress.

I don't actually expect my weight to stay at this ten pound loss for the rest of the week. I expect it to go up and down again. But a new low is a good thing. This means that eventually this will be my set weight and I can work from there.

I'm trying not to think about my ultimate goal weight. When I think how long it's taken me to lose 10 pounds, I just want to cry and give up to think of my weight loss journey lasting years and not months.

So I think a pound at a time. One new set weight. One pound more eased off. The next ten pounds by Christmas.

Wish me luck.

A Young Tim Burton

Joshua's good friend introduced him to stop motion animation the other day. They used Lego people and a camera to make their films. Josh came home from his friend's house all fired up to make films of his own.

Thankfully Windows Movie Maker software is pretty easy to use. He spent an hour or so putting this together today:



Hopefully this new obsession will get him through the late summer boredom stage. I can't wait to see what the ogres do next.

My Creative Girl

Rilla is my artist. She takes little pieces of paper and glues them into notebooks as collages. She loves to cut up construction paper. And best of all she loves to write poetry.

This is her latest:

Keep a poem in your pocket
and a picture in your head.
and you'll never feel lonely
at night when you're in bed.

A little poem will sing to you
a little picture will bring to you
a dozen dreams to dance for you
at night when you're in bed.



She's nine. Yes, I'm very proud.

Fun with synonyms

Last night Sarah and Joshua called us all to dessert. "who wants pie?!"

So we hustled ourselves to the table for the pie. Sarah stood there with a large cardboard sign that said: 3.14159265 . . . .


Luckily, she also really had a chocolate pie, so she didn't get beat up.

The Danger of Modern Children's Literature

Matthew loves Duck For President. He's been reading it a lot this weekend.

This morning he sat down at the table with a pile of paper, crayons, and our copy of Duck for President. He told me it was a surprise and that I wasn't to look at what he was doing.

A couple of hours later, Matt announced the elections. He's running against Steve for boss of the house. He has election posters ready and even created a sign tent to hang over his torso. "Vote for Matt for no chores!" they proclaim.

His siblings are trying to convince him that running a household is too hard and someone has to clean so if there's no chores he'd have to do it all. I told them to lay off. Hey, if Matt wins, I can get him to pay the bills and cook dinner.