thought snap shots.

More on Random Tuesday…(ed note: I wrote this last night, must not have hit publish, and now it’s Wednesday so please forgive any day of the week confusion that it may appear that I’m having.)

You might remember that Asher is extremely particular about shoes.  As it turns out, that extends not just to his footwear, but to mine as well.  Feeling emboldened by our recent (and long gone) warm spell, I ordered some summer sandals for myself.  They arrived in the mail yesterday so of course I pulled them out of the box and popped them on to give them a little test run.  Asher took one look at them and burst into tears.  In fact, he would not stop crying until I took them off and returned the offending shoes to the box.  This morning I put them on again in the privacy of our bedroom, walked into the room where Drew and Asher were and again…waterworks.

I guess he’s not a fan.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Asher’s extreme disgust with my shoe purchase but I’ve now hatched a plan to get in touch with Christian Louboutin’s mother (mostly likely via the big red phone connected to the sky) and ask at what age he started demonstrating a love of footwear.  We just might be on to something here.
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I love this:

(from here)
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My daily commute is now marked with little shivers of delight as I start to see color returning to the world again.  While it may have snowed this past Sunday (so uncool, Ma Nature!) the white only served as an even more lovely backdrop for the green and pink buds emerging and the insanely cheery daffodils that are dotting the Virginia landscape right now.  It was also the perfect excuse to hunker down and do a whole lot of nothing in our house all day on Sunday.  You’ve probably never seen so much laundry get ignored in your entire life, but it felt good to be together making oatmeal cookies and taking naps and saying goodbye to what will hopefully be the last week of wintry weather.  I also made some tomato soup, likely the last batch of the season…or at least the last batch with grocery store tomatoes.  I know, I know, I might be getting a little ahead of myself there.

(tomatoes from last year’s garden…be still my Summer-loving heart)

This is my tomato soup recipe, with the caveat that it’s probably different every time and that I don’t actually know the proportions for any of it, so if you would rather have a real recipe, I defer to Ina and her love of all things done well.  Her recipe is here.

Amelia’s “Ugh It Snowed” Tomato Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
2 TBS Olive Oil (or butter, why not?)
small-medium white onion, chopped
3 cans diced tomatoes
as much garlic as you can handle, crushed
4(ish) cups veg or chicken broth (remember we use Better than Bouillon and love it)
Celery salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
herbs galore (I use an italian mix with extra dashes of basil and oregano…can’t wait to have those fresh again!)
Bay leaf

OPTIONAL:
-grated zuchinni, carrot, squash or any other veggies in that general family that sound good in soup to you and need to be used. Just remember that the carrots will make it pretty sweet, so if that’s not your bag, take it easy on those.
-red pepper flakes or siracha for some heat
-heavy cream/sour cream/plain yogurt to dollop on top.  Yes please.

In a heavy pan heat olive oil, add onions and sautee until clear.  Add crushed garlic and toss around.  (Add any other veggies that you might be using at this point and continue to sautee until all veggies are soft before adding tomatoes.) Dump cans of tomatoes, with juices, into pan and cook an additional 3-5 minutes.  Add broth, celery salt, pepper, herbs, and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer approximately 30 minutes.  Taste.  Do you like it?  What’s that?  It needs a little more salt?  Ok, do that now.  Remove bay leaf and blend either with an immersion blender (assuming that you haven’t broken yours by almost blending off your thumb as I recently did) or transfer to a blender or food processor in batches.  Drew likes it chunky, I like it smooth smooth smooth, best of luck sorting that out in your home.

Serve with the gooiest cheesiest grilled cheese/cheese toast that you can muster and turn into a 5-year-old again for a hot second.  Divine.
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I know most of you already saw this, but let’s go out on a high note.  I’m the luckiest lady in the entire world (in my completely unbiased opinion) and here are the two main reasons why:

Happy Tuesday!