Linky Love: Friday’s Child Is Loving and Giving

This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of my favorite blogs.

When I learn that a young family member or friend is going to have a baby, I think to myself, there goes twenty years of your life. It’s not easy giving up the self and couple-centered activities that young people enjoy, and I’m not sure that everyone who chooses to have a baby is actually ready for the just-plain-hard work that goes along with being a parent of a young child. Thank goodness the joy of having kids usually outweighs the bad. I’ve been blessed to see my two children grow up to be wonderful adults, but there were moments along the way that I would have easily sold them to the gypsies (JK, kids). Images like this one make me remember those first steps and that first Easter egg hunt. These were times when I loved my kids so much I could barely hold it in — and I still do.

Today I’m featuring the blog of my niece, Jessica, who writes as Vanderbilt Wife. Her honest appraisals of her life as the mother of two toddlers have made her popular among “mommy bloggers” but she is more than that.

As the nursery rhyme goes, Friday’s child is loving and giving, and I think that Jessie epitomizes that in her relationships with her little family, with her sister, with her father and mother, and with her many cousins and aunts and uncles. She was a dedicated and thoughtful granddaughter to my mom and dad, and in her role as houseparent to boys in a private school, she is a mother figure as she bakes her way into their hearts.

If you want to connect to a real person who writes about real life and is honest about the trials and joys of being a parent, try out Vanderbilt Wife. She also shares a lot of recipes which are all delish! And then there’s the photos of my adorable grand-niece and nephew. 🙂

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Linky Love:Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go

This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of my favorite blogs.

I follow Jillian at A Room of One’s Own because she truly has far to go and publishes lists of what she’s read, what she’s reading and what she plans to read. She has just recently started reading classic books and is a perceptive reader and thought-provoking writer. I don’t always agree with her, but I am always interested in what she and her readers have to say.

Jillian is fearless about changing her blog template and finds images that exactly fit her content. I never know what I will encounter when I open her blog post of the day. If fact, while I was writing this post, she changed her template twice! Make that three times…

If you love classic literature, you’ll love Jillian. I encourage you to visit her — you might get hooked into one of her challenges!

Linky Love: Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe (and Joy)

This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of some of my favorite blogs.

While not precisely about woe, Mike’s Look at Life is a very personal blog that he says is “communicating issues around life including horrific loss and overwhelming joy, and many things in between.”

Mike writes beautifully and takes interesting photos; I encourage you to visit him.

Linky Love:Tuesday’s Child is Full of Grace

This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of my favorite blogs.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I love Michelle at The Great Read. Not only are her book recommendations for families spot on, I’d like to be her best friend as she is truly a child of grace in her online personna. She also takes beautiful photos and uses photo editing tools with inspiration.

I have read several of the books Michelle has featured, and I’m so glad MY library has this one! I’ve put it on reserve already.

Linky Love: Monday’s Child Is Fair of Face

This week I’ve decided to hook you up with blogs that I follow and love EVERY day. Using the ancient British nursery rhyme, I’ll take you on a tour of my favorite blogs. Everything about Mike’s photos are “fair of face.”

Monday’s Child is Wilden Marsh: Another Year of Living With Nature at Hoo Wood and Wilden Marsh Nature Reserve. Mike’s photography is crazy good — and I’m hooked on his stories about life at the reserve.

In addition to being funny, witty, occasionally sarcastic, and all around entertaining in a low-key kind of way, Mike teaches us about the beauty of flora and fauna in his role as Warden of this Nature Reserve in Worcestershire, England.

After having followed his blog, I am enchanted by his stories (especially about the foxes) and want to visit the next time I am in England!

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Flower Stories: Bridal Veil Spirea

Today would have been my father’s 89th birthday — 05/11/23. He loved plants of all kinds, but he especially loved flowering bushes and perennials. Happy birthday, Daddy.

I wait somewhat impatiently every year for the bridal veil spirea to bloom. It’s not actually in my yard; the roots are in the garden of the abandoned house next door.

We had a punishing rain last weekend and lost some of the fresh glory of the blossoms, but most survived. This post makes me realize that I need to plant my own spirea on my side of the fence, because when the bulldozer comes, I’ll lose all of this beauty.

I do my best to honor Oksana’s memory and to take care of her garden; it’s time to go to the nursery again in honor of my Dad and Oksana.

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Flower Stories: First Peonies

Peonies are synonymous with Dad in my family. My dad became enamored with peonies and soon we had every variety he could find. We visited peony farms and he got them through mail order. You can imagine my happiness when our new house had mature peonies already planted — and we also brought some from our old house that have traveled from Dad’s garden through several houses with me in the Chicagoland area.

What’s not to like about peonies? They are dependable and gorgeous — the perfect companion to May’s beautiful days. We always used to expect our peonies to open just before Memorial Day, and took armloads of them to decorate the family graves at the cemeteries. This crazy early spring, while welcome, is wreaking havoc on the normal plant cycles in our area.

Remembering that I just got a new camera and have mostly used the automatic settings, I tried to take a photo of the peony in my cobalt blue vase against the outside door. This one’s not bad, but there were lots of others that were. 🙂 I’m loving the challenge of creating a new artistic expression in my life.

I’m also loving that my husband came home from the store with a bouquet of white roses and alstroemeria, our wedding flower. Insert double smiley face here. 🙂 🙂

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Food Cult: Sweet Home, Chicago

It’s plastered all over my media; it’s on my lips pretty much constantly. We’re going back to France next spring and I can barely contain my excitement and anticipation of a very good time.

Every chance I get, I’m looking for French inspiration around me in my suburban Chicago “real life.” While friends were visiting last month, we discovered a new-to-us French restaurant one of Chicago’s trendy downtown neighborhoods. Kiki’s Bistro was fabulous.

The Thursday special was bouillabaisse…

And the salads were fresh and also creative…

From the minute we walked in, dressed in our mixed bag of work and tourist clothes, we were treated as friends. Kiki helped us choose wines, and our waitstaff could not have been friendlier or more knowledgeable. It was a wonderful experience; put Kiki’s Bistro on your bucket list for your next Chicago visit.

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