TToT – Celebrations All Week!
I can’t even formulate a coherent introduction this week. I am just SO glad that school has finally ended and it is summertime! And so without further ado, let me dive right in with that as my first item of Thankful.
It’s summertime!
Pretty thankful for great music, too. Always. Two great versions of a great song.
This week we celebrated Zilla’s Kindergarten graduation celebration AND her birthday. We had a great graduation day and a fabulous dinner planned completely by Zilla. She chose marinated beef and chicken kebabs grilled by her Fab Dad. On the side we had Madagascar pink rice – yes, pink – in honor of Zilla, tomato, basil, and mozzarella skewers drizzled with balsamic vinegar, sautéed green beans, and a cake made entirely of fruit.
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Does this kid know how to plan a menu or what? So we are thankful that her day went well and that she enjoyed herself from beginning to end. She may have mentioned that it was the “best day ever” about fifteen or so times.
Two days later we celebrated Zilla’s birthday – an equally splendid day! She woke up to find her bedroom filled with pink balloons – she completely loved that! I had a half day of school, but Zilla spent the morning relaxing at home with her dad. After they picked me up at school, Zilla’s choice was so spend a quiet afternoon with just Mom and Dad so we enjoyed an at-home movie treat of How to Train Your Dragon and homemade hoagies for dinner. We followed up that movie with a viewing of the sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2 Saturday morning at a nearby movie theater. Both movies were great! Looks like Zilla may enjoy fantasy literature just as much as her Mom and Dad.
Today we celebrate Father’s Day with our favorite Fab Hub/Fab Dad. We surprised him with some new coffee mugs this morning. He loves big mugs of coffee but his favorite broke several months ago. He stole one of mine, but that one broke this week. Hopefully these two will last him a while.
![20140615_101831[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/20140615_1018311.jpg)
This afternoon we will take him to one of his favorite lunch spots and then (much like Zilla) we’ll spend the afternoon at home together enjoying the beautiful weather from the deck and just hanging out and relaxing.
Monday morning, I fell in the hallway at school and sprained my ankle. Talk about a great start to the week, huh? That sent me to the emerge-center to get checked out. The very short version of a long and not that interesting story is that it is sprained, not broken, and it’s running its course in pretty typical sprained ankle fashion. I’ve managed well enough all week. My only real upset is that it pretty much eliminates hiking this weekend from the activity roster – and we’ve been blessed with two glorious and perfect days to do that. But since that isn’t an option, I’ll just be thankful for the beautiful weather and a break in the horrendous humidity we’ve had all week.
I’m thankful that our deck garden is starting to sprout. Zilla brought some Zinnia sprouts home from school at the end of the year and then we planted a few of our own. We also planted some Sweet William and some daisies. So far, everybody is sprouting just a little bit. Our herbs may not fare as well, but some of the plants we re-potted are hanging in there. We’ll see how that goes this week.
A couple of weeks ago, May talked about the feeling of instant relief that comes with the first day of summer vacation. In addition to that, I am glad to have those empty and unstructured days before us to finally tackle our very large cleaning, purging, and re-organizing process. We need to do all of those things – big time – and we have to pack up our things so that the crew who is installing our wood floors can move things around. It’s a two birds with one stone approach, but the plan is to finally scale back, simplify, and reveal a more organized home for all of us. It will be a busy couple of weeks making all those preparations. Wish us luck!
Finally, I’m linking up pretty late this weekend – so I’ll add that I’m thankful that our weekend has been so full of good things to do!
I’m not certain that I have ten – and I’m not inclined to go back and count because where’s the spontaneity in that? If I have ten, so be it. If I do not, then I will turn to the Guard Virgins. They tell me that in light of my injured status, I do not have to dance for them, merely wiggle in my chair a bit.
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Cleaning, purging, and reorganizing–I need to join you in that! (Well, at my house, I mean.) Hopefully your ankle heals quickly, so you have an easier time with your project.
You know, I hadn’t actually thought about how the ankle might be a hindrance in the big project! I’ve just been so excited to get to it that I didn’t even consider that. Well, the Fab Hub and Zilla can be the runners and I’ll position myself in a good spot to wave my magic wand and make things happen!
I wish you speed and peace as you purge. A big job, but I bet you will love the result. Right now I am content to bask in the relief, though laundry is definitely a must today. I bet I never told you that Janis Joplin and I are from the same home town.
Thank you, Sarah. The purging is something I have been looking forward to. What great gift it will be to have the place clean, organized, and effectively purged PLUS new flooring in place before my birthday! I’m SO excited.
No, you never told me you and Janis Joplin hail from the same place but how cool is that???
*giggling at your conversation with the Seven*
I’m glad you have so many things to be thankful for, in spite of the sprained ankle and the no hiking.
How do you make pink rice? I’m not a fan of rice, but…it’s PINK…so…
Zilla planned a fabulous menu and it sounds like you all had a gorgeous time celebrating. Congratulations on all the shebangs 🙂
Haha – that was good use of the Guard Virgins, no? I enjoyed that one myself. And yes, it is still a great week. Heck, just getting school over with is enough for ten!
The pink rice is grown in a very particular area of Madagascar. Check it out here: http://www.lotusfoods.com/organic-madagascar-pink-rice/p/lot-501581&c=lotusfoods@organic
And now because you said “shebangs” this old Ricky Martin song popped in from the very dark recesses of my youth and has become a terrible earworm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ihtX86JzmA
You made it to the end of the school year! It included falling on your booty, but you survived the year! Hope your ankle heals quickly.
Zilla should have her own show on the Food Network. Happy birthday to her!
You need to take “before” and “after” pictures so we can see your purging/organizing and reflooring projects at work.
I hope you have a relaxing, yet productive, summer!
Yes, I made it!
Zilla is a great little chef and menu planner – it’s fun to have her in the kitchen.
Before and after photos…yeah, nobody really wants to see the before. Bleah.
Very much looking forward to summer – I’m still kind of in shock. This year has been sooooo long – having a hard time believing it’s really over!
Dyannes right…a food network show! She could do kids school lunches…”Packing it in with Zilla.” Id watch it!
Heal quickly!!!!
Oh, that would be a great show! Hmm…maybe we should think about this. Then I can retire!
Yeah, summer break is finally here! I spent the end of this week going through my son’s Playmobile toys. Yes, he is in college,but he is only just now agreeable to me “messing with his stuff”. I have dusted a ridiculous amount of Playmobile plastic with a dry toothbrush only to toss it into soapy water to scrub it with a wet toothbrush. So much dust! It is finally organized by theme, stored in a Rubbermaid tub and headed to the attic. I am beginning to catch glimpses of the floor in his tornado of a room and it has left me positively giddy! I am such a cheap date!
Apart from your ankle your week sounds so wonderful. I hope you found it healing.
I can’t tell you how good it feels! Even though I have tons of work ahead of me, it’s work I want to be doing. It’s like the words I read recently (on your blog, come to think of it) about the most important work you do being the work you do inside your home. It’s exactly how I feel right now.
One of the things we are working on this week is packing some of Zilla’s “baby toys” to send to a younger cousin. I admit I’m glad to be making some space, particularly since she really has outgrown them, but it is a little tough to pack up and move that phase of her life out of here. Time marches on…(small sniff).
I like your (and family’s) style of celebrationing… hanging out as a family unit! (With everyone always working and/or schooling, time at home is really something I suspect many people enjoy).
New wood floors! one of the cooler more instant gratification (after the incredible amount of work prepping, of course) home improvement projects… it’s always good with the improvement not only looks good but smells goodd too!
OH! I hadn’t even thought about the smell! That would be a great bonus. Yes hanging out at home is something we very much enjoy because far too many days find us having to go somewhere or do something so we just enjoy coming home to one another.
Amazing post…so much celebrating and good, good things happening! I love that cake made of fruit…it sounds like you have quite a menu planner in Zilla. Happy Birthday to her (a few days late but better late than never, right?). A lovely post, Lisa! I do hope your ankle heals well and quickly and good luck with that purging and organizing. When it’s done it will be wonderful…and you’ll have new floors :)!!
SEriously, how cool is that cake? And I absolutely love that my kid request a cake made entirely out of fruit instead of something like sugary sweets.
Even though it’s going to take quite a lot of prepping, like Clark said the instant gratification when these floors are done will be amazing. My ankle certainly makes it complicated, but I am very glad that it’s not broken and in a cast. That would be WAY worse.
Ow sorry to hear about your ankle! I hope it will get better soon.
Will there be a tutorial for the cake…it looks lovely and fresh!
The ankle is coming along slowly but surely. The biggest problem is me wanting to be totally back to normal and buzz around doing things and my ankle not cooperating.
I can do the cake, yes – although it’s not my idea by a long shot. I found it on a Pinterest pin a while ago.