I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)

We've discovered an amazing ice cream place in town and are going to be F-A-T...

Yes, that is every bit as amazing (and as blue!) as it looks. It might be my favorite there, though the Coffee Oreo and Caramel Brownie are also outstanding...

These are World Peace Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, author of multiple cookbooks but especially the new one I got for Christmas. Every recipe I've tried from it so far has been a hit, from the Almond Crescents which surprisingly Carrie will NOT leave alone to these World Peace Cookies which are absolutely to die for if you like true chocolate cookies and not just sugared chocolate cookies. Even the chocolate ice cream recipe with vodka in it was yummy!

Did I mention F-A-T? I'm gonna be 500 miles WIDE if I keep this up. Some of you are remembering the meme I added to my Facebook wall about my beach body being postponed this year until further notice. I'm not in shape. Wait. Round is a shape, right?

And let's be honest, all those veggies mentioned in the garden post will not be in place of the above yummies, rather they'll be in addition to. I'm a Hobbit at heart, what can I say?

So this is happening

Spring has sprung. That means it's time to get seeds ready. This is the first year in the new house that we've gotten the grow lights out and had everybody on the counter in time for a head start, haha! 

Pay no mind to the photo bombers. Damon was helping with the watering can and the big kids were goofing off at the table. 

Dada got a bunch planted: cucumbers, strawberries, basil, marigolds, cauliflower, tiny red and tiny yellow tomatoes, Cherokee purple tomatoes, I think two other kinds of tomatoes (I'm sensing a theme) and we have some spots left to fill with squashes. Everybody else can either go straight into the ground and not worry about frost (peas, beets, broccoli) or wait until after the freeze- free date (carrots, lettuce, watermelon, eggplant, nasturtium, chives, lemon grass, and, ahem, wildflowers). We have another small section of ground out back covered with pizza boxes and bricks to kill off the grass. That will be the strawberries-and-friends patch. Apparently strawberries appreciate helpful thyme, which I happen to have seeds for. I was thinking somebody else is supposed to join them... carrots, maybe? 

Dada had another week of training people last week so we didn't get him as much as we'd like. We did our usual homework and karate, had a no school day due to fog, had home group on Friday night when it was 75 and the kids were all running around outside like they'd never experienced fresh air before. Yeah, it was pretty great. Our friends even brought their dogs along, so Triskal had somebody to lounge on the deck with as well! 

We also got the first mosquito bites of 2017. Someone delighted themselves in my sandaled feet and was a bloody, gross mess when I squished her. Carrie won herself several and Damon got a great big one by his right elbow. 

This week is more of the same wash/rinse/repeat. Perhaps the weather will stay a little more consistent and we can squish in some time in the puddles Great Outdoors away from the cause of all the screaming and yelling Wii. Have a wonderful last week of March, wahoo!