what's on the table

this is my first contribution to the august domestic arts challenge recently posted here. what better way to start than with some lovely sunflowers from the farmer's market? actually, i wish i could say that these were from our yard, but no dice. next year, i think i'm going to plant one of the crazy, giant sunflower varieties next to our fence and see what comes up.
this pint of sun gold cherry tomatoes went into the checca sauce for this "veggie meatloaf" recipe from "everyday italian" which we're eating for dinner tonight. here you can also see the ladybug-covered clear table covering i'm using to protect the linens from a certain unpredictable two-year old eater. hobby lobby was having a sale on "home decorating fabrics" and i guess vinyl qualifies as a fabric. all i had to do was cut it down to size a bit.
drawing more inspiration from ms. de laurentiis, i made this italian style chili (with fennel seeds alongside the cumin, topped with parsley and parmesan cheese) for dinner the other night with sweet corn and swiss chard from the farmer's market. giada called for ground chicken, but there was none to be had at the store, so i went with ground turkey instead. pretty tasty and lighter than the typical ground beef and tomato-based chili, which made it a good summer supper.
i baked up some cornbread with thyme from a recipe in this month's cooking light, but might have gone a little overboard with the thyme, which is growing in a pot on the deck. the bread had a really strong herbal flavor and i think it tasted a little like soap. maybe aveda soap, but soap nonetheless.
a proper post about our new rain garden is long overdue, but i'll leave that to rob, who was the mastermind behind the project. on monday evening, we found this hawkeye caterpillar (black, gold and white! does anyone know the proper name?) eating dinner in our garden--devouring whole leaves and flowers in seconds. it seemed appropriate that this little guy was plowing through butterfly weed in order to fatten up and become...well...you know. so we left him alone. twenty-four hours later, the same caterpillar was in the very same spot and he was still eating. most of the flower buds were gone by this point and that made me a little sad for our fledgling garden. i apologetically remover the hungry little (big) caterpillar to a big weed forest under the deck. we'll see if he finds his way back to the garden...

a new challenge for august

though most of the blogs i keep tabs on belong to friends and family members, i have also fallen in love with some that are created by people i don't know who write about cooking, baking, gardening, crafting--the domestic arts. i know that most of the regular/semi-regular readers of this blog are resourceful, creative and talented in some or all of these areas and i, for one, would like to read about it. so, in the spirit of samantha's post-a-day challenge for the month of june, i have a new challenge to propose. it won't require daily blogging attention, but you'll probably find fodder for posts on a daily basis.

here it is: once a week during the month of august, create a post about your own forays (successful or not so) into home-based arts and/or crafts. how's the garden looking? what did you make for dinner? how did you keep your kid/s entertained at home on that rainy day? what's on the needles/crochet hook/table saw/lathe/embroidery hoop/sewing machine? how are those home-improvement projects coming along?

please announce your participation in the domestic arts challenge in your first post so i/we can keep up with your at-home adventures!

animals!

last weekend, we took E on her first trip to the brookfield zoo with my parents. here's the obligatory sign-plus-stone-lion shot.
the brookfield's giraffe exhibit is pretty awesome. does it look like we just pushed aside these plants to check out these giraffes at an african grasslands water hole? well, we didn't. but doesn't it look like it?
eleanor contemplates a mbuti hut in the african forest section.
this hingeback tortoise is older than you!
at first, i thought it was a little strange that rob wanted to take photos of this guy spray-painting rocks onto a wall using, maybe, a car mat, but it was pretty interesting.
watching the grey wolves chew on some bones. eleanor said, "just like oscar!"
E and her grandpa check out some penguins and other sea birds.
i love how this polar bear is sitting with his legs out in front like that.

it was a lovely, sunny morning at the zoo!

a big splash

okay, so our two weeks of swim lessons ended last week, and i neglected to post this day one photo when it was still fresh news. rob came to class with us this day and i thought he'd be able to get some good action shots, but there was a little spiel before lessons started about how taking photos poolside or through the fence is not allowed. ever. i get it, but it was still kind of a bummer. we snuck in this shot before heading into the locker room.

overall, E took really well to the pool. this was probably in no small part because lessons were kind of like music class in the pool. lots of little songs and rhymes. she now knows what the hokey pokey is all about as well as what the mommies on the bus say (she loves to shush. maybe there's a library career in her future?). her favorite was "humpty dumpty," which we used to get into the water ("...had a great FALL!") . we probably did this at least 15 times each class. in and out. in and out. by the end of the two weeks, she was a lot more daring with her "jumps" in, but i'd still make sure that her head didn't go under. it was clear that this would not be okay with her. lots of the kids in class were closer to three than two, so i think we'll go the parent-and- tot route again next year. in the meantime, we hope to make it to the pool at least a few more times before the end of the summer to keep up her comfort level. rob was hoping to go this past weekend, but with IC temps barely into the mid-60s, we had to pass. this brush with fall weather has been great, but it also reminds me of just how quickly these summer months are passing.