Flowers are life.

I’m not exactly sure how my flower-love started. Maybe it was because when I was a kid, all my grandmas and my mom grew beautiful flowers. I think it was my mom’s garden that really captured my imagination, though. She has always planted the kind of garden kids love because it’s colorful and wild and jungle-like. She loves whimsical accents like a tipped over pot with the flowers planted like they’re all spilling out. Just a few years ago, I spied a gorgeous teal and rusty wheelbarrow in a dumpster and rushed straight over to get my dad’s truck to pick it up and give it to my mom for her garden. She planted it with sweet potato vine and succulents and Egyptian Papyrus grass. Dreamy. My mom’s landscaping method drives my dad crazy. There’s no plan, there’s no design, there’s no evenly spaced anything, and there’s certainly no constraint with color. Just writing that makes me laugh because a garden like that is just pure JOY. Part of the magic of my mom’s garden had to be that I never had to do anything to make all that beauty happen. I can only imagine how much work it was for her now that I have my own gardening experience.

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An Eggs-tremely Easy Summer Meal

A few weeks ago on the way home from church, Brian asked me the dreaded question: “what’s for lunch?” Normally the thought of cooking when I’m hungry and hot (our air conditioner in the car is broken right now) makes me agree to picking up tacos…but I’ve been trying to 1. Eat healthier 2. Stick to the budget 3. Not break rules 1 and 2 just because I’m hungry and hot. So I had to think fast. What could I cook in a hurry that would be satisfying and delicious? I started remembering the things I had: farm fresh eggs…homemade bread…tomatoes… and it hit me…I said “I’m going to make you the BEST fried egg sandwich you’ve ever had!”

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