The Best Ever Birthday Present

Yesterday morning Oliver hopped up in bed with me, giving me kisses, nuzzling and cuddling with me. So sweet. He listened attentively while I told him this story:

"Oliver, did you know that five years ago today, you came to live with mommy and daddy? Do you even remember that? Mommy remembers that day very well."

It was my birthday, middle of the week, a Thursday, and we had nothing special going on, so I worked as normal. Lewis had the day off, so I set some chicken aside in the fridge and all the dry ingredients and tools out on the counter for him to make no-peek-chicken casserole. It takes about two hours in the oven, and I wanted him to have it ready to eat as soon as I got home because grandma Gloria was expecting us for birthday cake dessert that evening.

I hadn't been feeling well all day, and I just wanted to get home, eat and rest. I called Lewis on our drive home, sitting in traffic. He was cagey, wouldn't give me a straight answer about where he was or what he was doing. I got annoyed. I could tell he was in the car, which meant there was no way dinner was ready.

Hot, tired, sick and very grouchy, I stormed into the house to tell him something like, it's my birthday, the least you could do is have dinner ready for me when I got home!

Halfway to the kitchen I stopped in my tracks. I had spotted this: A little puffball of golden fluff dashing across the kitchen floor.

"Is that a puppy?!?!"

Lewis tells me I skidded across the kitchen on my knees to greet Oli. I don't even remember. By then I was cuddling, kissing and crying into his downy fur.

My 27th birthday present:We eventually made it to dessert at grandma Gloria's. Everyone forgave us for being late when we walked in with this little guy.That night he slept in a laundry basket. Can you imagine? He was so tiny, only 7 weeks old when he came home to us. What an angel.

Violets Embroidered Pillowcases

This is the Violets pattern from Tobin.I did a pretty good job of using the thread I had on hand, and this time I matched my colors pretty closely to those recommended by Tobin. I think there could have been a higher contrast between the two shades of purple, though. And the green isn't a shade I normally use, but it worked nicely here. Overall, I am very happy with how this turned out.

I used DMC cotton perle #8 in these colors:

Very Dark Lavender #208

Dark Lavender #209

Dark Lemon #444

Ultra Dark Pistachio Green #890

The Tomatoes are Rolling In!

This is a little basket I sent over to my neighbor. She always loves my cherry tomatoes, but I don't think I'll have many this year. We had lots of volunteer plants, but I didn't purposely plant any of my favourite variety, sweet millions. That was probably a mistake.

So, we have a selection here. One each of black heirloom and white beauty, a handful of tigerellas, yellow pears and sweet millions.I guess I expected them to be bigger, but I'm kind of glad to have some snack size tomatoes. The yellow pears are nice and sweet. It is easy to see how they got their name.The white beauty is kind of a creamy yellow when ripe. You can see four more behind this one, they will probably turn over the next couple of days. It is funny, this big one was sitting on the windowsill all week and I watched it turn in just one day. It seemed every time I went to the kitchen sink on Sunday it was a little less green, a little more yellow.Ah, my black heirloom. Not really black, but not purple either. They smell amazing. Great with bacon in a blt sandwich.

Tigerella Tomatoes

So, here we have a colander of tigerellas (and maybe green zebras), in various stages of ripeness.

The one at the far bottom, the red and yellow stripey one, is the most ripe and ready to eat.
The red and green stripey one will be ready to eat in a few days.
The ones at the bottom, the white and green stripey ones, won't be ripe till some time next week.
And the three that are yellow and green stripey might be green zebra, in which case they are probably ripe. I cut one up for my salad this evening. Such pretty color.

Hmm. All those green seeds. Maybe it could have waited another day?

I diced it up and threw it on top of my salad for dinner. The verdict is still out. I thought it was a bit tangy, but I've been craving sweet stuff the last few days, so maybe my taste buds are off. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't quite ripe yet.