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In their latest Happier podcast, Gretchen and Elizabeth discuss their yearbook quotes and challenge listeners to pick a yearbook quote.  This episode connected with me, as I am a huge quote lover.  Is it normal to ask for Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations as a Christmas present in high school?!   While I still own the book, I have to admit that it’s been collecting dust from lack of use.  Nowadays, I am more apt while reading a book to jot down a sentence that really resonates with me, rather than flip through the quotations book.  Besides my food related boards, my Pinterest Quotes board has some of the most pins.

This podcast seemed very timely, as my husband’s chosen yearbook quote had recently come up in discussion between us.   “It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”  – Samuel Clemens.  Oh how relevant this quote continues to be today!

I couldn’t remember if I had chosen a yearbook quote and if I had, what it was.  So, this led me to dig out my high school yearbook to check.  My husband will be humored to know that I was “Nancifiying” words even back then (his term for my frequent substitution of song lyrics and quotes with similar, but not quite the correct words!).  My yearbook quote was “Moving on is simple, it’s what we leave behind that’s hard” which should actually read “Moving on is simple, it’s what you leave behind that makes it so difficult.”  (See, that is a perfect example of me “Nancifying” something!)  

What I find even more telling of my love of quotes, is that unlike in many school yearbooks, we were not required to have a quote.  In my husband’s senior biography section of his yearbook, he had to provide specific information including activities, awards and a quote.  In contrast, the senior biography section of my yearbook was a free for all.  Reading through the biographies is like a cryptic puzzle of initials and inside jokes and memories between friends.  However, I am one of a handful of people who added a quote to my bio.  At that point in my life I was excited to begin the new adventure that college brought but also sad about being separated from the only friends I had ever known, as well as a serious boyfriend.

Fast forward almost twenty years and this quote doesn’t quite resonate with me the same way.   Instead, this quote seems more appropriate for where I am today.

I ended up deciding while in college that I wanted to be a teacher.  I went on to graduate school and earned my Masters Degree in special education.  After spending over ten years as a teacher, I realized that I did not want to continue teaching.  After a couple of years dabbling in some other fields I have decided to take some time off.  Now, I am basically a stay-at-home mom, while also assisting my husband with his business.  Career-wise, I am not quite sure what or where I am headed.  For now though, I am embracing this quote, and believe that where I am now is where I am meant to be.  This means spending time with my kids and enjoying our summer together, creating memories.  I believe that everything will end up working out and come together in time.

So, now it’s your turn!  What was your yearbook quote?  And what is your current quote?!!  

It’s Monday, which means it’s time for another weekly meal plan.  Last week included a dinner date and some lazy, but tasty dinners.  We are supposed to have another super hot week here in New York this week, which I am NOT looking forward to.  Today I am planning this week’s menu and am looking for easy recipes that require little to no heating elements!  Hope everyone has a great week filled with tasty food! 

Saturday: We spent the day at the Victory Polo Match.  We had this amazing Lobster Grilled Cheese Sandwich as well as an Asian Pulled Pork Sandwich both from the Clocktower Grill’s food truck, Fork In The Road.  We were hot and tired so when we got home, we ordered a pizza and some garlic knots from a local pizza place.

Sunday: We celebrated my son’s 8th birthday with the family.  We grilled hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken.  We also made a Mediterranean  Tortellini Salad, Broccoli Salad, a Blue Cheese Potato Salad, Marinated Cucumbers and Slow Cooker Baked Beans.  Can you believe I took not a single picture of the food?!!!

Monday: The kids were at their grandparents, so my husband and I got a date night in.  We went to The Hudson Room.  It’s a local restaurant that made OpenTable’s Top 100 Restaurants.  They have a special Prix Fixe menu Monday through Wednesday, where you can get an appetizer, entrée and dessert for $29.95.  So we of course had to do that!  This Sriracha Seared Gulf Shrimp appetizer was my favorite of the night!

Tuesday: I made Spicy Grits with Chorizo, Leeks and Corn.   Look for my adapted recipe in Wednesday’s CSA spotlight post!

Wednesday:  I cooked up some ham steaks and served with roasted purple and pink potatoes (from the CSA) and roasted purple eggplant (from the CSA).  My husband sautéed Swiss chard (from the CSA) as well.  The kids didn’t particularly enjoy the eggplant or Swiss chard, but tried some of each.

Thursday:  I made spaghetti and meatballs.  I used jarred sauce but made homemade meatballs.  I didn’t use any particular recipe.  I sautéed some onion and garlic and added that to some ground beef along with Penzeys Pasta Sprinkle, an egg, salt, pepper and bread crumbs.  I thought they turned out tasty enough.

Friday:  It was so hot on Friday and I didn’t feel like cooking.  But I had already defrosted the pizza dough to make homemade pizza.  I used a white eggplant from our weekly CSA which I roasted to make this Roasted Eggplant, Fresh Mozzarella and Basil pizza.  No recipe, just put the fresh mozzarella and roasted eggplant on the pizza dough.  After it was cooked on the pizza stone for 12 minutes I then sprinkled fresh basil on top.  It was very good!

Today is the first Monday of summer vacation for us!  Follow along on the blog as the kids and I enjoy our 69 days of summer!  Menu planning has gotten a little more challenging since we have our weekly CSA pick up on Tuesday.  I am trying to use everything, but I don’t know what I get until pick-up.  Here is a look at what was on our menu this past week:

Saturday: My husband had a fundraising dinner to attend, so the kids and I went to Moe’s and then watched Zootopia.  Mom was not cooking tonight!

Sunday: We celebrated Father’s Day with my husband’s family.  He grilled some london broil which he marinated the night before.  I made sauteed spinach and a Caesar Salad and my brother-in-law brought macaroni and cheese and roasted potatoes.

Monday: I was going to wait until later in the week to have leftovers from Sunday night, but the fridge was packed and I need to make room for our Tuesday CSA pick-up.  So, leftovers it was tonight.  

Tuesday: I made Curry Turkey Naan Bread “Tacos” from Everyday with Rachael Ray, with some roasted broccoli from the CSA.  This dish was a bit  messy, but really tasty.  I omitted the red jalapeno pepper so it wasn’t too spicy for the kids.  From the pics you can also see that for toppings I only used plain Greek yogurt and tomatoes.  I did not add lettuce or toasted sliced almonds.  The meat was sweet from the mango chutney and the kids loved the naan.  I used boxed garlic naan that I found in the freezer section of the grocery store.

Wednesday: I made Thai Basil Chicken Stir-Fry from Cooking Light, June 2015, which I served with some rice.  I added bok choy and mizuna from the CSA to the stir fry.  This stir fry had more flavor than the one that I had made last week.

Thursday: I made Cowboy Hash from SimplyPotatoes.com.  I adapted the recipe quite a bit….and not for the better.  I used regular Simply Potatoes diced potatoes and sauteed my own onions.  I didn’t add the can of diced chilies and used fresh garlic instead of garlic powder.  Instead of spinach, I used escarole from the CSA.  This dish lacked flavor and we added hot sauce to pep it up a bit.

Friday:  I used the leftover ground turkey meat from the Curry Turkey tacos from Tuesday on one pizza, and added caramelized onions and mozzarella cheese.  I roasted the beets from our CSA which I added to the other pizza and added the rest of the caramelized onions and some goat cheese crumbles.  Both pizzas were delicious!

Yesterday, I attended my daughter’s moving up ceremony.  She is officially a 5th grader and will be heading to middle school in the fall.  I share the sentiments of many parents that time is going by too quickly.  It seems like yesterday, that I was putting her on the school bus for her first day of Kindergarten and today she walked across the bridge to middle school.  My baby girl is growing up.

I am so proud of all that my daughter has accomplished in her five years of elementary school. Her teachers have nurtured her love of learning and she is constantly seeking knowledge.  She has made many friends throughout the years, and this past year in particular, she has developed friendships that have the potential to become life-long relationships.

Like Shonda Rhimes, 4th grade was my daughter’s “Year of Yes.”  She embraced her last year in elementary school with enthusiasm, wanting to participate in everything.  The Gym Show, the school musical, the Tae Kwon Do club, the spelling bee, book club, the school newspaper, band and the science fair…..she did it all.  Plus she had outside of school activities  including piano lessons, Girl Scouts and religious education.  While it was not always easy for her to fit everything in and get her homework done, she somehow managed to do it all.  It wasn’t always easy, with early mornings, late nights and little free time.  But she never gave up and stuck with it all.

I will admit that I’ve been a bit over-protective of my daughter; not wanting to see her fail at anything and to always be prepared and have whatever she needs.  I am learning that I need to take a step back and start letting her spread her wings.  In his speech to the parents, my daughter’s middle school principal noted that his job is to help our children become independent.  Mistakes need to be made so she can learn from them.  And as her parent, I can help guide her towards making good decisions, but ultimately, she needs to make the final choice. And as difficult as that may be for both her and me, I think we will be okay.  Because we both know that I will always be here for her.

My daughter’s official last day of 4th grade is tomorrow.  Then she is home with me (and her younger brother) for the summer.  Neither of the kids wanted to go to camp this summer and since I am home, I didn’t push it.  I’m  hoping to spend some quality time with the kids while they both still want to do things with their mom.  As excited as I am for my daughter to start this next chapter in her life, I know that middle school will change her (and I’m hoping that it’s for the better!).  I know that pretty soon spending time with her friends will be more important than spending time with her family.  So, as elementary school is ending for her, I am hoping that this summer we will be able to make memories that both she and I can look back on with fondness.

Happy Friday!  This was a nice short week that was filled with lots of fun.  The weather is getting warmer and the kids have three more weeks of school that are jam-packed with lots of year-end fun.   We ended up spending Memorial Day Weekend up in Rhode Island.  Here are some of our favorites (if you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen most of these pics):

1.  Letting our butterflies go – Our butterflies broke out of their chrysalises last Wednesday and Thursday.  Our cats were going crazy trying to catch the poor things.  Since we left Thursday night to head up to Rhode Island we ended up letting the butterflies go.  There was no way they’d survive the cats’ wrath while we were gone.

2.  An empty beach – While it was 90 degrees in New York, it wasn’t as hot in Rhode Island by the ocean.  Saturday evening we took the kids to the beach for a walk.  It was chilly enough that we needed sweatshirts and the water was freezing!  It was nice to have the beach pretty much to ourselves though.  We even went geocaching near the beach and found two caches!  The next time we are at the beach in July it will be much more crowded, so it was nice to enjoy the emptiness while we could.

3.  Miniature golf – The kids love playing miniature golf and they are at great ages to play.  They are a bit competitive but don’t cry when they lose!  One of my son’s top things he wanted to do this past weekend was go and play.  So, Sunday before we headed home we went to a local place and played a round.  My husband ended up winning.

4. Memorial Day – For the past five years my daughter has participated in our local Memorial Day parade and ceremony with her Girl Scout troop.  Since joining Cub Scouts, my son has also participated.  This year was no different as we honored all of those who died protecting our country.  My son even got up early, like he did back in November for Veteran’s Day, to go place flags on the veterans’ graves at our local cemetery.

5. My knock-out roses – I bought three mini knock-out rose bushes on super sale several years ago.  This is one time where I have not killed my plants (knock on wood!).  I planted the bushes outside and they have started blooming this past week.  I love walking into the house and seeing these!

ICYMI this week on the blog:
Tuesday I shared 5 Packaged Foods to Make Dinner a Breeze.
Wednesday I joined the Currently link up.

I’m linking up with Tif, Amanda and Andrea.  Have a great weekend!

If you were unaware, this week, May 2 through May 8, is Screen-Free Week.  It’s a yearly, international celebration of unplugging from digital entertainment.  In theory, this sounds like a great idea.  Between television, video games, iPods and iPads, children today are inundated with electronics.  My daughter’s teacher was really promoting screen-free week in her class and she brought home a form that I had to fill out as to whether our family would be participating.  There was an option for our whole family to participate in screen-free week, an option for just my daughter to participate and an option for us to not participate at all.  I told my daughter that she could choose to participate in screen-free week, but I was not going to have the whole family join in.  This created a bit of a disagreement between us and she got upset that we were not all going to do it.  I explained to my daughter the reasons that I outline below, as to why I did not think the family needed to participate.  She ended up deciding not to participate and we sent the form in.

I explained to her that some children play on their electronics all day after they get home from school.  For children like this, a break from screen time is beneficial.  However, my husband and I already limit our children to 30 minutes of screen-time a day.  To me, moderation all the time, is more important than abstaining from electronics for just a week.

My kids are active and involved with after school activities.  Add in homework and playdates and there are some days when my daughter especially, ends up with no screen time at all.  Before my son is allowed to have his thirty minutes of screen time after school he needs to have completed his homework and have read for at least 20 minutes.

We enjoy plenty of time together as a family.   A couple of times a week the four of us get to eat breakfast together and I always eat dinner with the kids.   Although weekends can get busy with everyone’s activities, sports and parties, we always try to spend at least some time engaged in quality family time.

Yesterday, my daughter’s teacher sent a reminder text regarding screen-free week.  I told my daughter that if she wanted to change her mind and participate that she could let her teacher know and I would send in a new form.  Ultimately, this isn’t a decision that I want to have to enforce.  If she wants to abstain from electronics, I want it to be her decision and not something that I’m “forcing” on her and her brother.

Is your family participating in screen-free week?

I am happy to be joining Stephanie from Wife Mommy Me and the other ladies hosting The Kids Behind the Blog linkup again this month.  It’s always fun hearing my kids’ responses to the questions and they like being part of the blog!  To give you some insight to their responses, my daughter turns 10 tomorrow(!) and my son is 7 1/2.  As you can tell from the responses, my daughter has a difficult time naming just one answer and my son is a little video game obsessed!

1. What is your favorite thing to do with your friends?

D:  Make something, like bracelets and art projects or just talk.

S:  Play Xbox.

2.  Who is your favorite person?

D:  My favorite person would be mom.

S:  You and dad.

3. When playing outside, what do your ideal sunny day plans look like?

D:  Play outside or go to the park.

S:   Throwing a ball with dad.

4.  What do you like to do when it’s raining?

D:  Watch a show or read a book.

S:  Play Xbox.

5.  If you could plant a garden of anything, what would you plant?

D:  Candy!

S: Video games.

Yes, it’s time once again for Steph and Jana’s Show Us Your Books linkup.  March was a pretty decent reading month for me with a total of eight books read.  I have ordered them from least to most liked and surprisingly, most of my books this month were 4 star reads.  A very good reading month indeed!  Looking forward to stopping by lots of other blogs today and adding to my to read list!

2 Stars

Pretty Happy: Healthy Ways to Love Your Body by Kate Hudson – I have always liked Kate Hudson.  I’ve seen an increasing trend of celebrities writing books and unfortunately, like this book, they are not always very good.  I didn’t really get much out of this book, which touches on cleanses and the four pillars of health.  I borrowed this book from the library, but if you own it, it is very interactive with questionnaires and other writing activities.  I also didn’t like all of the pictures of Kate in the book.  They seemed a little unnecessary and didn’t seem to serve a purpose.

The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich – Elise and Scott are taking care of her dying father, Victor at his house in the Hamptons.  After seeing the neighbor’s bedroom light come on at the same time every night Scott becomes obsessed and ends up breaking into the house.  He eventually convinces Elise to come with him and things get crazy from there.  Strange? Absurd?  Twisted?  These are some of the words that come to mind after reading this book.  This was so not my type of book and am not sure why I finished it.

3 Stars

My Fringe Hours by Jessica N. Turner – I first learned about Turner from a podcast in which she was a guest on.  Even though I haven’t read it, I recommend reading The Fringe Hours, versus this book, My Fringe Hours.  This book was more of a journal.  It’s a great resource for those who are trying to find more “me” time in their lives, which amazingly, isn’t me at this moment in my life.

4 Stars

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian – The only other book by Bohjalian that I read was the Midwives, which I didn’t really like.  This book was surprisingly enjoyable.  Richard Chapman offers his Bronxville home to host his younger brother’s bachelor party.  Spencer, the organizer of the “entertainment” unknowingly hires two Armenian sex slaves.  The night ends with the shooting of the girls’ guards which ends up being a nightmare for all involved and greatly impacting Richard’s marriage.  The book is told through three different points of view – Richard, his wife Kristen, and one of the Armenian girls, Alexander.  The book takes place in New York City and Westchester County, so I was familiar with the setting, living in Westchester County.

No Ordinary Life by Suzanne Redfearn – Struggling with money problems, Faye Martin’s 4 year-old daughter Molly is “discovered” on a YouTube video at just the right time.  For Faye, who is jobless and abandoned by her husband, this feels like a dream come true.  But Faye has two other children who are greatly impacted by the move and changes their sister’s fame brings.  This was an enjoyable read and I enjoyed the glimpse into the world of child acting and the work that goes into producing a television show.

Party Girls by Rachel Hollis – I read this book for Cait’s monthly book club read.  You can read my full review here.

The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth – Anna Forster is 38 when she’s diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s.  She’s put in an assisted living facility where there’s another young person, Luke, with a form of dementia.  Eve Bennett ends up getting a job at the facility as the cook when she’s left in a desperate employment situation and needs to support her daughter.  The book is told through Anna and Eve’s alternating points of view and takes place in both the present and flashbacks as we see the events leading up to their current situations and what happens after.

Year of Yes  by Shonda Rhimes – I have been a huge fan of all Rhimes’ shows so I was excited to read this book.  And it did not disappoint.  This non-fiction book details her year of yes, which ended up being life-changing for her.  This book was written like she’s having a conversation with just you, the reader, telling it like it is.