good things to come home to...

I think I might have to go away more often. Although maybe it's a bit like childbirth--you quickly forget about the contractions and the pushing and the pain...or in this case the laundry and the packing and the whining and fighting in the back seat of the car.

But in reality, it was good for me to get away for a few days. I came home itching to get back to our routine, to laundry (yes, to laundry), to cooking in my kitchen, to picking tomatoes and watering flowers, to good naps and normal wake-up times for my children.

I also think I need to start leaving my husband home alone more often. I returned to find many projects that he completed while we were away. I knew he was up to something because when we would talk on the phone and I'd ask him what things he was working on, he'd always answer: "Oh, just a bunch of different stuff..."

So I came home to a simple, tall, painted headboard that he built for our bed. Very nice. I love it. A new mantle for our dining room fire place the design of which he copied directly from the mantle in the back living room at my grandmother's house, a desk/sewing/work space set up for me in the guest room, hooks finally hung in our bathroom for towels, and a great new laundry system for dirty clothes--much better than a big pile on the floor in the corner.

He's a good man. When all the projects have their final coats of paint and I clean the twelve inch pile of stuff off my desk, I'll take a few pictures...

I also came home to exciting mail--some I'll share in the next few days, but the other is something I've been dying to share with all of you.

I am in the September issue of Wondertime magazine!!

Thanks to the help of a dear friend, I've been able to submit a few things that will be showing up here and there in the magazine. Though there's no byline to circle and show to all my friends :) the recipe for "Power Balls" is one from our Balint family kitchen that I wrote up for this issue. It was fun to go through the process, hear about the recipe being tried out in the Wondertime test kitchen and passed around to staff for a taste test. Everyone I've worked with at Wondertime has been easy-going, encouraging and sometimes downright funny.

I feel privileged to have a tiny spot in this wonderful magazine.

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Thank you to everyone for your well wishes, shared experiences, and good advice for our dog. He still doesn't seem quite himself the past two days. But your encouraging, understanding words have really meant a lot to me.
xo.
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