Hypnotized, Mesmerized

"August is the slow, gentle month that stretches out the longest across the span of a year. It yawns and lingers on with the light in its palms." 

- Victoria Erickson

Round and Round the Garden

Don't worry, I won't be tickling anyone's under there at any point in this post, but I have been going round and round the garden a lot lately playing match-maker with my Daylilies ... In fact, I think I'm down to the last few days of this love connection before one of my flower beds turns into a full blown maternity ward. For my fellow flower pervs out there, I've been spending my time cross pollinating the deepest bordeaux red petal, and chartreuse throated Pardon Me, with Nashville Star (I believe?) which fluctuates between a gorgeous oxblood red to sparkling rusty orange with a vibrant golden throat. The latter I acquired from my dad several years ago ... I was down for a visit on a weekend he was loading up to head South for the Winter (it must've been the same weekend I got the chicken wire and bird bath stand that I turned into a mannequin, boy that really was a while ago!). Anyway, he was offloading a bunch of stuff and on his final mosey as he passed the corner of his shop he picked up this sad little plastic pot that housed what looked to be Cousin It's little sister ... "Think you can do anything with this?"

When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip!

With cookout season in full swing, I figured it was high time to share my most tried and true, time-tested dipping sauces with all of you. These recipes are incredibly low effort, full of simple ingredients, but deliver such a satisfying payoff, which sums up my cooking style 100%. I don't live to be chained to my kitchen, following a bunch of complicated steps, with ingredients I had to go on a treasure hunt for. If that sounds like you, you've found the right place ... If you like it complicated, you can still do that, and let these sauces be the easy accessories that elevate the whole ensemble! Let's get started.

Lip Service

I'm on a quest for the perfect tinted lip balm, and I have not found it ... YET! It's not that I haven't done the legwork lipwork, it's just that no one brand is delivering on all of my requirements. Why not just shut up, use a lipstick or a gloss, and be done with it already? Well because, and my 35 (nah, she was half dead, she wouldn't care), 25, and 15 year old selves can NOT believe I'm about to say this, but sometimes lipstick, or a lip gloss is just a little too much. There, I said it. I can't take it back now, mostly because it's true!

Ok, so what do I want? Oh, the million dollar question, indeed! 

Abracadabra

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

-Frank Zappa 

Happenin'

“Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wonder, 'What the hell just happened?'” 

-Carroll Bryant

I'm using Carroll's version of the notion brought forth in Nicholas Murray Butler's speech on Charter Day at the University of California, March 1931

This month I think I've been all three of these people at one time or another, and sometimes (exhaustingly) all at once. Okay, so where do I start? Where did we leave off? Well ... How 'bout I jump into it by putting it this way: If the month of June and I had a conversation, it would look a bit like this.

The Cup Runneth Over

"My father told me something when I was very small to instill confidence in me, 'Nobody in the world is worth more than you, but nobody's worth less,' it is an egalitarian view that I've carried around in my life. That's why I am for free schools, free universities, free healthcare, and free babysitting. Because our society could afford it.

In America, people think social democracy is some kind of communism. They think capitalism is freedom. It's not. It's only freedom to exploit people."

-Stellan Skarsgård

Dutch Masters

Still Life with Golden Goblet, Pieter de Ring (1655 - 1660)

FTC Affiliate Disclosure
Ok, so after burning down my life to implement The 12 Week Year this Spring, I decided this Summer I'd look into a little something the Dutch call, niksen, with the help of the book by, Olga Mecking, Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. I mean, so far so good, right? I'm digging that title already, it sounds exactly like how I want to spend my Summer!