Five on Friday

Give me all the summer produce! I'm loving eating the rainbow this time of year - it just feels good to fill up plates with fruits and veggies. Our garden is giving us lots of cherry tomatoes (yellow and red both), our basil is growing out of control and our CSA is providing everything from okra to eggplant.


For dinner earlier this week, I followed this recipe for Eggplant Parmesan with some tweaks. I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned for the sauce (since we have tons from the CSA) and just added a bit of tomato paste to it (worked perfectly). I eyeballed the rest of the ingredients and omitted the provolone (just using fresh mozzarella and parmesan since that's what we had on hand). It was a meatless meal and husby approved!



I brought my favorite peach salad into the rotation as well since we're getting lots of local peaches in our CSA boxes. If you haven't made this salad, it's a must!


This was our haul this week - does anyone know what the beans are? Also, I'm running out of ideas for corn... we have it coming out our ears. Help! 





Our little family of three headed out to Texas for a wedding shower this past weekend. This was us, nine hours deep in airport wait. The plane coming in had mechanical issues (and even tried turning back to Dallas). Our take-off time kept being delayed by an hour, half an hour, twenty minutes, another hour... the good thing was, we were not on the plane. We were in the terminal. The bad thing was, of course, we were at the mercy of the airlines and didn't know when (or if) we'd be leaving. You also can't really change tickets when your flight is pending (and we couldn't go back home because we kept thinking our flight would leave in an hour or two). I feel the more you fly, the better you are with airport drama. Max is now part of American's Million Miler program, and he was beyond chill. I was really good until about 7:30pm when I realized we were not leaving, the only restaurant had closed (Huntsville is a small airport) and that I'd be having Cheez-Its for dinner. I may have cried. Parker did the best out of everyone - this makes sense because proportionally, he's been on the most flights given his age (he's clocked in more than fifty flights!). For him it was the best day ever since he gets screen time when we fly. He watched two full length movies while we waited (Moana and Trolls, thank you Netflix streaming), which also just so happened to be his wish when he threw a coin in the fountain at Rosie's restaurant last week (the wish was to watch two movies in one week). So two movies for someone who's only seen a handful was all sorts of awesome. While perusing Netflix on hour five-something, I discovered this gem:


Has anyone else seen it? I'm obsessed. If you're wondering how the airport drama ended, after stringing us along for hours, they just cancelled the flight around 8pm (which was just as well with me because I wasn't too keen on boarding a plane fraught with mechanical issues no one could fix). Husby worked his magic and got us on the next flight out (tip - if your flight is ever cancelled, phone the airline immediately to try to rebook instead of waiting in line at the ticket counter.) We finally left HSV at 10pm, and got into Dallas around midnight (luckily the rental car shuttle and companies are open 24/7). It made for a late night, but we wanted to be there to celebrate these two lovebirds:


Max's sister and her fiancé! Also, how clever to schedule your wedding hair trial for party day!


She's just radiating happiness!


This was Parker on the way to the shower. He never sleeps in the car, but the late night did him in.


Max relocated him to a chair inside and he slept for the entire party. Sweet little guy!


Our flight back to Alabama was uneventful, just how we like them!



After devouring all of Gillian Flynn's books (starting with Gone Girl, of course) I've been very into psychological/suspense/thrillers. Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 fit the bill (though the ending was a bit far reaching and lacked the finesse of Flynn). It didn't stop me from reading Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood and now her new release, The Lying Game!


I'm only a few chapters in (I snuck in some coffee shop reading after barre class since P was with a sitter!) but I'll update with my thoughts!



We had some end-of-summer swim lessons, and I just couldn't be happier with Parker's progress over the summer! 


He started very aware of the water (and super uneasy) and is now so much more comfortable! Yay for our little Pisces!



I'm in complete denial that the start of school is right around the corner. Parker will be going to preschool five days a week this year - still only 8:30AM-11:30AM, but it's just not going to be the same without our two days of lazy mornings and doing whatever we want! The neighborhood elementary school started back on Tuesday of this week, and since we're just a couple blocks away, we saw lots of families walking there on the first day (and lots of cars on the mornings after that!). It's making me soak up our last few days of summer even more!





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18 comments

  1. I can't even imagine being trapped in the airport for that long!! I really can't. You ALL are rock stars for enduring that and staying so positive! And his jammies are the cutest! My first grader starts school next week. I'm excited but a little in denial. Haha. Happy Weekend!

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  2. Our CSA had those too...purple hull peas, I believe. I have not cooked mine yet but excited to try! Love your blog so much!!!

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    1. Ooohhh!! Thank you for the info! 🌱 Let me know what you do with yours! Also, you are too sweet ☺️

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  3. I loved Woman in Cabin 10! Best book of the year in my opinion and now I am reading In a Dark, Dark Wood and I have her new book on hold at the library! Can't wait!

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    1. I finished it in just 2 days! More similar to In a Dark, Dark Wood - The Woman in Cabin 10 is still my favorite out of the three, I think for the unique setting 📚

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  4. The same thing happened to me once. I got stuck in an airport in Atlanta for 9 1/2 hours. And just like with you, they kept telling us it would only be 30 more minutes, then 45, then 20. I'm so glad I packed a few extra books for that trip. Happy Friday!

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    1. Gah!! No fun belonging to the 9 hour club! 👎🏻✈️

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  5. Thanks for the book suggestions! I love reading suspense thrillers. Have you read Behind Closed Doors? It's disturbing but you can't put it down. Still thinking about the storyline. I am now reading The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman and loving it.

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    1. Ooohhh! I will add that one to my list! LOVED Behind Closed Doors! 🙊 All the scheming on the wife's part 👌🏻

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  6. I would hate to be trapped in Huntsville airport for that long haha! So thankful for Netflix coming to the rescue! And your eggplant parm looks so,so good! Happy Weekend!
    Sarah at MeetTheShaneyfelts

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  7. Both salads looked delish. I love fresh summer produce!

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  8. 9 hours!?!? I have you bet. We spent 13 hours in IL once. It was the most ridiculous experience. We laugh at it now but during those 13 hours, we didn't find it so funny.

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    1. I'm totally serious when I say I CRIED at one point! When we were finally boarding, Little Man pointed out that I had NOT been a good traveler because of that, lol.

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  9. We like to grill our corn and experiment with all different spices to change it up. Just add some butter, tons of spices, put it in foil and grill it! I've also grilled it and used it for corn salsa or corn dip and it's not healthy at all but so good, and an easy way to use it!! :)

    We have more tomatoes and cucumbers than I know what to do with - any great recipes for those? :)

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    1. Ooohh thank you for the corn suggestions! We are getting tons of tomatoes and cukes, too! The cucumbers I always seem to use up (sliced for cucumber water, tossed in a salad, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, added to any sandwich really, sliced thick and topped with chicken salad as an app or light lunch). Tomatoes are harder - making a homemade marinara used up a lot, and I love homemade pico de galo in the summer since we get onions in our box, too, and grow the jaleneños! (We grow cilantro too but it dies in the summer heat so I have to purchase it from the store, plus the limes.) Happy cooking!

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  10. Those are pink eyed peas!! My MIL has them in her garden and they are delicious. They taste very similar to black eyed peas! We just had some on Sunday. It's crazy becuase they start out being green and then they turn that deep purply black and get all crunchy and then that means they're ready for the picking. So strange! To me, they look ripe when they're green! Haha.

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  11. Those look like what we call purple hull peas in Texas. Very similar to black-eyed peas. I have adored them since childhood. Shell them. Put in pot with lots of water, salt well, and add some bacon or ham for seasoning. Bring to boil, reduce heat and cover pot. Cook til done -- about 1/2 hour. Given the chance, I sop up the juice with bread, or even pour pot liquor in a glass to drink!

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