Ellie@Home by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

Hello All! I am finally finished with school for the year (and what a year it has been!) As much as I want to complete my Bachelor's Degree, I am really quite resentful of the fact that studying eats up all of my reading time. Where is the justice in that?? I am well on my way with this year's collection, and am currently on book #3. I had to order 4 of the titles from Amazon, as my library system did not have them available anywhere in the state (?!?), so depending on when my orders arrive I may have to mix up the planned reading schedule a bit. However, for now we'll just focus on what's at hand...reviews!   This was an interesting read with mystery and suspense, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Timothy Schaffert's descriptions of the World's Fair are amazing, though, and you find yourself immersed in the dust and magic and hullaballoo of the turn of the century wonder. I loved this book! I started it after dinner on Wednesday ev...

eggplants! I've never seen an eggplant blossom before. Pretty!

With all kinds of weird and wild plants!                Someday I will have a lovely kitchen garden bursting with tomatoes and zucchinis and sweet potatoes, with overflowing urns of herbs lined up along a patio. In the meantime, I have an 11x11 plot in the community garden down the street from my apartment, as well as some pots arranged along my back steps. I’m still aiming for the tomatoes and zucchinis and sweet potatoes, and I do have a pot of herbs happily blooming at the top of the steps. Gardening is relatively new to me; my grandparents had a huge garden when I was a girl, but by the time I was a teenager they were living in an apartment and they had given up gardening, though my grandmother’s begonias and geraniums were always stunning splashes of color on her windowsills, and her window boxes danced with pansies and petunias. The house that I grew up in had the occasional flower patch, but never any vegetabl...

Litha: Light and Laughter : It is the time of light, laughter, and joyful abandon. It is Litha! Let us celebrate with ruby-ripe strawberries and twinkling fireflies and achingly-pure blue skies reflected in chilly streams and sun-warmed ponds. I tend to get giddy this time of year; maybe it’s the child in me that hasn’t grown up yet, or perhaps the Kitchen Witch who is so exc...

    As everyone who reads this blog has no doubt figured out, I am not the most organized person on the planet. I used to be very organized, on time for appointments, early, even, kept my house tidy, knew where important papers were, and never ever lost the kitchen table. Then I had children. And started working. And went to school. And then my organizational skills went the way of the Yangtze River dolphin.    Early last year I decided to jump on the bullet journal bandwagon, more to see what it was actually about than as an organizational tool, and being me got sucked right into it, filling up a notebook with all kinds of stuff both useful and useless, and then barely used it. Not as effective as I was led to believe a bullet journal was. There's a catch, of course. One actually has to USE a bullet journal for it to be, well, useful.     I have been known to fill pages of items to be done and then only cross off two. Trying to balance schoo...

   Hello, hello, and happy Thursday! I am in my office, enjoying a lovely view through my window, wishing I was out there instead of in here , and thoroughly envying my eight year old, who will get to enjoy unlimited nice-weather access all summer, beginning next Friday. Lucky monkey.    Sadly, I can't let his entire summer be all fun and games, partly because his father, older brother, and I are all working full-time, and his sister not only works full-time but lives an hour away, so he won't be able to live at the park of the beach (which he would LOVE), and also because we need to make sure he avoids the dreaded "Summer Slide," the loss of learning that affects many elementary-age children over the summer break. My boy has some difficulty with his reading, writing, and spelling, so my husband and I are being extra-vigilant this summer. As well, he has recently been diagnosed with ADD; we want to not only keep him on a steady learning platform, but encourag...

So, Tuesday's dinner. It was indeed a win, with everything cooking up just right, and tasting oh so good; even Littler Son ate all his dinner.  Here is the recipe from Well Plated by Erin: Baked Lemon Chicken Easy, healthy Baked Lemon Chicken with garlic, rosemary, potatoes, and asparagus. Everything cooks on ONE pan. Delicious and perfect for busy weeknights! Yield: 4 servings Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 35 minutes Total Time: 50 minutes Ingredients: 1 pound baby red potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary, divided 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided 2 pounds thin asparagus, tough ends trimmed and discarded, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 2 bunches) 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 large lemon, juice and zest (you should have about 1/4 cup lemon juice t...