Today was a ponytail kind-of-day. A day so long that the lines as to where it began and ended are increasingly blurry. But am sitting down (for the first time today) enjoying a nice cup of fennel & peppermint tea and posting this entry before going to bed.

After 7 grueling weeks of restorations & renos; we are finally back in our home! The first floor is still in disarray; and we have quite a bit of furniture that was damaged by the flood & that we need to replace. But at the end of the first floor, facing the greenery of our deep backyard- my beloved, sunny yellow kitchen is alive again to the sounds and smells of my cooking! And as long as the kitchen is functional, our house feels like a home again.

I woke the house up this morning to the smell of baked bacon (yes, a post on this is a must!) and I made my little tribe buckwheat chocolate chip pancakes with farmers market maple syrup. The Little Hands in my life were beyond delighted. I truly hope that as they grow up, they will always look back wistfully and with content at their childhood. We also went “apple picking” in our very own backyard, one of those odd things that is made possible by our neighbors crab apple tree and it’s generous branches over spilling across our fence. The kids each had a basket, and as you can see in the above image; right behind me is little Grace in a pale pink dress avidly making a go for her share of apples.

And… I worked on a cake, rather a pie. Bu not just any pie… Raw Key Lime Pie! If you follow my Instagram feed, there’s a few pictures on the actual “behind the scenes” pie progress. The final product will be ready to eat tomorrow evening; and let me tell you something, I made cream cheese filling sans any actual cheese- believe me… lots of good, healthy stuff coming to the blog this week! And since it’s peak watermelon season, I leave you with the “Watermelon Pizza” idea I posted on Instagram last weekend. All it takes is a sprinkling of organic goat feta, fresh mint leaves, & virgin olive oil!

Good night, world! xx