catch up

after bee's birthday i decided to "trim the fat" for the remainder of the week. in doing so i managed to read a few magazine articles, exercise and in turn did things like update this site less. what follows is a basic outline of the highlights of these post-birthday days.

this week i amazed myself and my family by making my own vegan fake meat sausages. (no picture!) and they were the bomb. i used this recipe, with a few substitutions. i didn't have all the spices on hand that he uses, so i just used a bunch of what i had from the farm (rosemary, oregano, thyme & sage). it was a bit crumbly, but after being fried in a little oil they were nice and firm and crispy. up next: fake sandwich meat. 

also this week i had THE WORST experience at the registry of motor vehicles that one can have, i'm certain. my experience included: a trip first to the insurance company, a partially skinned knee in the parking lot, long wait at the rmv, a four year old who forgot what "no running around" means for every minute of said long wait, the realization that they rmv doesn't take credit cards followed by the realization that my checkbook was devoid of checks, a sprint down a VERY busy street with no sidewalk to an atm, sprint back to the rmv (5 minutes before closing!) only to realize as i dig through my bag that somewhere along my sprint route i dropped the VERY IMPORTANT paper from the insurance company.

BLAH. i'm sweating now just from writing that. needless to say we ended up eating cookies all the way home.

thursday was brighter and saw the ups truck delivering me this goodness....

it's mostly sweet bento stuff from this very cool store. there are all kinds of soy sauce bottles and cute molds for rice or hard boiled eggs. i can't wait to blow bee's mind with those! there is also a few bento boxes and that flowery thing on the left is the cutest shopping bag. all this stuff set me back like $12. and look what it says on the top of one of the boxes. so great....
happy fruits is very delicious. i will eat this and will become fortunate all together!

in other retail news. i scored all this for $5 at a sweet church crafter sale. now i need to get craftin'!!
finally, i feel like the weekend has helped me breathe a sign of relief not only because we aren't planning or executing a party but because we have done some great family things, with just us. the highlight was tonight, when we went to a hot air balloon festival!

we are major hot air balloon enthusiasts here. we see them all summer and fall flying through our backyard and have had the chance to go to a few hot air balloon fests. this one was the most laid back and really so fun. the best part was that they had an old hot air balloon set up for everyone to go in and walk around. the kids went crazy, running all around, it was such amazing fun. what a good looking family, don't you think?