Little Notebooks

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for popping by today! We hope you had a restful weekend and are feeling ready for what this week brings you.

It's hard to believe that the Fourth of July is already coming up this weekend, but the family dolls are getting their costumes and decorations ready for the annual Doll Parade, which we will have to share with you. It promises to be fun!

Where do you jot down notes to yourself at your house? Here we have quite a collection of little notebooks, many without covers, which we have used over the years for to-do lists, grocery lists, ideas for songs, stories, etc. We have tried day planners and binders, but somehow keep going back to the little notebooks, which are found in convenient locations throughout the house. Sometimes our little notebooks disappear in the strangest ways, only to turn up under the bed or behind the couch, months later! It's always like a reunion with a friend we have not seen in a while, as we go through and read all the things that we thought were important enough to write down. I still have my little notebooks from college French class and from my mission (which was served in Pennsylvania).


We don't know why we didn't think about it before, but we finally came up with the sensible idea of housing our little filled-up notebooks together, instead of being scattered in various boxes and drawers throughout the house. Eventually, we'd like to find a nice wooden chest to keep them all in, but this hat box will do for now!

Oh yes, we wanted to share with you the yummy salsa recipe we made up this weekend (Here's a picture of Frankie and me feasting on it with chips outside)~we filled the food processor with 3 big tomatoes, 1 avocado, two home-grown onions (greens and all), and lots of arugula and viola flowers and stems (quite peppery). Oh yes, and a dash of salt and vinegar. Then we processed it till smooth, filled a bowl, and "ate ourselves full"! We should have taken pictures, but it didn't last long enough to get the camera out! Yesterday we made a concoction of pitted Kalamata olives, violas (whole plant again), onions, salt, and half each of tomato and avocado. We wrapped it in lettuce leaves and served some on cucumber slices. Mmm! (Just don't make a smoothie with violas, as they become a little TOO peppery!) It's fun to experiment with foods, mixing up flavors that you'd never find in the grocery store.

Peace be with you today,

Love,

Marqueta

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"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou art at length free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"

~Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Chambered Nautilus"