Saturday, The beginning

On an early Saturday morning in June, you know where I'm heading....

And this morning, I was accompanied by The Boss. We headed out later than usual...it was almost 8am. Usually, I try to leave the house by 7am at the latest for two reasons. One: the earlier you get there the better in order to get the best pick of whatever vegetables you're searching for. Two: the Farmer's Market is a very trendy place to go on Saturdays. By 9am, all the trendy beautiful people start showing up. I'm not sure why, because it doesn't seem like they buy many vegetables and truthfully, they probably couldn't identify a cucumber from a zucchini. More than likely they show up on Saturdays to buy fresh milk from the Amish dairy farmers. Mostly it seems that they just stand around and talk to each other. And take up parking spaces. I try to go early to avoid all of that!

Of course, you know who I went to see first. Tomato Lady!

This is Tomato Lady and her husband. Are they not the cutest little couple ever? Tomato Lady is not this short. She is sitting on a stool because "ever since my knee-cap replacement surgery in December, my knee jes gets tired out so easy. I hafta sit up on this stool. That knee gave me fits all last summer long, I tell ya." Bless her heart. I wanted to take her a casserole or something.

When I asked them if I could take their picture, Tomato Lady kinda looked at me like I was crazy and I was afraid she would think I was a psycho. But she smiled and said, "Aw, that's fine honey." I waited until after I'd spend $20 at their stand to ask her permission. Smart, eh? After I took their picture, Mr. Tomato Lady grinned and told me he sure hoped my camera still worked.

Cute, cute, cute, I tell ya.

This is a picture of a portion of their produce stand. I can hardly stand the fact that she has a picnic cloth as a cover. Other vendors have table covers but they ain't got nothing on the Tomato Lady and her Mister. The display with their beautiful produce not to mention their good looks is just a WIN-WIN.

Don't you agree?

From them I purchased string beans, squash, cucumbers, blackberries, and potatoes. I freely admit that one reason why I love them so much is because they remind me of my own Mimi and Pop and the time I spent with them in their garden. They look nothing like my grandparents, but they grow the very best vegetables around. No tomatoes today. She hopes she'll have some within the next week.

We also got some "Flippen's peaches" which are the best peaches around. Middle Man has been asking for some Flippen's peaches for over a week. The Boss was so excited to see those peaches and to know she had a surprise for her brother.

Our next objective was to search for fresh herbs.

My fabulous mother-in-law, The Pastor, grows herbs each summer that she uses all summer long. She has a great place in her yard to grow them. We don't. Today I was searching for herbs for The Pastor. I hope to go back and get more herbs later for us that I can grow in The Pastor's yard because let's face it. Even without the lack of sunlight, with 5 kids, 2 dogs and a cat, it's a wonder we even have grass.




Herb Lady didn't have her usual abundant selection. She said that last year she ended up with such a surplus of some herbs, she had to throw them out and having to do that about killed her. My heart stopped briefly too, at her words. We got lemon basil, oregano, peppermint, and parsley to start off the summer. I'm looking forward to some mint tea!

(The blue thing you see in the lower corner is a market tote and yes, it is mine. And yes, it is monogrammed. Yes, it's trendy. However, I'm not skinny enough or well-dressed enough to qualify as a trendy beautiful person at the Farmer's Market.

In my own defense, I am a southern gal born and bred and I'm really shocked that God has yet to decide that we should just come into this world with our initials already monogrammed on our chest and be done with it.)

Our next stop was here!

While we were at the Farmer's Market, The Boss kept asking me what kind of store we were going to next. She was completely overly-excited about a birthday party that LaLa was taking her and Dogos to at 11am and was greatly concerned that we wouldn't get home in time.



She kept asking if...the next store had toys?



No, Boss.



Food? No, Boss.



What does it have for me? Nothing, Boss.



Then I don't want to go. I have to be home for LaLa.



We have to go to Lowe's, Boss.



I don't see why. They don't have anything.

In case you're also wondering why we went to Lowe's, I'll just have to keep you in suspense until my "Saturday, The Middle" post. Unfortunately the reason isn't because of any clever blogging tactic. It's because I forgot to upload the picture of the object of my quest when I was uploading the others and I'm such an idiot when it comes to computer stuff and blogging that I have no idea how to include it at this point, so there you go. Plus, I didn't utilize my purchase until the middle part of my day anyway. I feel sure no one will lose any sleep over not knowing what I found at Lowe's.

Fortunately for The Boss, she discovered that Lowe's really did have something to interest her. Thank You, Lord. A red Gatorade.

The Boss asked if we could get a drink for Middle Man too but then reconsidered and said, "No, Mama. He's gonna be so excited he has peaches he won't even care about anything else."




So with the red Gatorade firmly grasped by The Boss and the mystery purchase in Grandma Sandy's possession, we were off! Next stop? Home!







Upon our return home, we got out all of our Farmer's Market purchases for the other children to see. To say that Middle Man was overjoyed at the sight of that bag of peaches would be an understatement. I have to say that I take great delight in my children's pleasure over fresh fruit and vegetables.



Ok, so they aren't usually that excited about the vegetables but they certainly love the fresh fruit!






My next task was to fluff up the little girls for their birthday party date. And oh my, what a birthday party it turned out to be. They had so much fun!
That will definitely be an upcoming post. The party had ponies, a jumpy thing and ELMO.







I found something cute enough for them to wear to a summer birthday party outside during a heat advisory (seriously), hairbowed 'em up, and....












.....sent them off!!!



And now for my favorite part of the morning. Upon our return from our errands this morning, Middle Man was waiting for us at the top of the stairs. He had a piece of paper in his hand and I could tell by the way he kept standing in my path while I'm trying to drag in sacks of potatoes, peaches and the like, that he intended that piece of folded paper to be for me.




I have to preface this by stating that each of our children has certain chores that are age-appropriate. Peanut does her chores daily without question, with no prompting from us EVER. We have to tell Guitar Boy and Middle Man every. single. day. every. single. time. that it's time to do whatever is the task at hand.

It gets exhausting, to say the least.

In a family of 5 children, it would be most helpful and definitely less stressful for a 14 yr old and almost 8 yr old to just do what they are supposed to do. It's also not an unreasonable expectation.



So at least 2 weeks ago, The Chef had a discussion with the boys stating that part of being a responsible person and one with integrity is doing what you know you are supposed to do, even if no one is watching or telling you to do it. That includes chores. You know what you have to do, so just do it! Middle Man's chores are not so hard: get the newspaper in the morning and empty the clean silverware from the dishwasher. It's something he has to do every day. It never changes. Newspaper, silverware. Next day? Newspaper, silverware. Guess what...next day? Newspaper, silverware. Never ever changes.



This isn't the first time we've had this conversation.




I assumed it fell on deaf
ears until I read Middle Man's note to me today.








YEA for Middle Man! Of course, the newspaper was still in the driveway, but I'll take what I can get! See why I love this kid? Ah, I was so proud of him. He took initiative AND wrote me a note about it!



The thing that really tickled me about this note was that he referred to himself as "Middle Man." This is not his nickname at home. It's only how I refer to him on this blog and he's never even seen this blog, but he must've overheard me say something about Middle Man. Note to self: Middle Man DOES pay attention to some things so be careful what you say.



I also love the self portrait. It actually looks like him with the glasses and everything. Gosh, how I love this kid.




So that was the beginning of our Saturday. This sure did end up being a long blog
post and it only covered the first 3 hours of our day!!



Stay tuned for Saturday, The Middle, when the mystery purchase will be revealed!