The View Around Here ~ The Week in Photos

July 20, 2012

That was fun last week, to recap the happenings with photos and a few words. I don't think posts like this will become habit, but I'm going to give it another go this week. 

Our driveway in the morning. This isn't the best morning photo, by any means. Mornings are my writing hours so I don't take time to stalk and compose beautiful photos. But this one will do.

I write, holed up in our bedroom, in a little green alcove. Bright green. Some day I'll show you but I haven't yet figured out yet how to photograph green walls.

Our house is full of bright colors. Green, blue, orange, red, yellow - colors I would honestly never think to paint on walls. But it works. The fact that I love bright colors is a good thing.

Color indoors, color outdoors. I look out our bedroom window (right this very moment) onto our very quiet, green canopied driveway. 

We visited the local fabric and craft store this week, and spent a long time talking with the owner. He remembered us from our last visit early this spring. The kids had their handmade dolls with them on that trip and apparently that made an impression.

Craft and fabric stores are my children's toy stores. This of course delighted the owner and so I took out my computer, used his ethernet cable to access the internet and showed him the kid's crafting I've featured here at FIMBY. I am one of those embarrassingly proud parents. But honestly, he was interested!

Crafting was one of our usual routines that we missed in Montréal. The kids have wasted no time in our new home in getting back into their creative groove.

In our mountain "neighborhood" there is a river. If you follow that river (which you do when you drive to town) it leads to the beautiful Baie des Chaleurs. We are a 20 minute drive from the ocean beaches. 

We've only explored the most common and easily accessible beaches so far. But this week, when our friends came over for supper, we found out where the really cool beaches are and how to get there. (If you want to know about the kid's swim wear read this.)

There is just too much (never!) nature stuff to do around here. Mountains, rivers, ocean. We'll only experience a fraction of all that goodness this summer, but even that fraction fills us up. I'm already starting my "next summer I want to..." list. 

A salad e-book is forthcoming - July 30th. I'm working through the edits now.

Meanwhile, we are loving our farm panier (basket). The produce is gorgeous and plentiful. The farm also bakes bagels and pitas - which I buy for the kids and myself, as Damien doesn't do wheat. Buying food directly from the farmer is my happy space. Buying beautiful, organic food from a family farm (three kiddos, one on the way) is my over-the-moon happy space.

I'm fairly removed from the goings-on of society at large in our mountain home but I've heard about the heat waves in other parts of the US and Canada. I don't think the Gaspé gets those, being out on the ocean as it is.

We've had some hot days (enough to make these peaches, "fresh" out of the fridge, sweat on the countertop) but nothing remotely unbearable. I'm guessing the only thing extreme around here is winter. And we can handle that as long as we have skis, a wood burning stove, and someone to plow the road.

I'm going paperless in my kitchen - all the way. I have three recipe binders full of my cooking repetoire. I've grown these binders over the years. I regularly cull and clean out the recipes I no longer prepare but now it's time to get rid of them altogether. During our moving over the past two months, I haven't used them once - the binders that is. 

I've cooked from memory, from Heather's e-course offerings, other recipe e-books I have, and from the few recipes I already had in our recipe software - MacGourmet. I am slowly adding all our family favorites to that software. In this way I will eliminate the need to store three huge binders in my kitchen. Not to mention seriously de-clutter all those recipes I never cook anymore. 

This is what the chef's view in MacGourmet looks like. Want that recipe for yourself? You can find it on this post as a printable.  

There is much more to the program than just this view. I've used it for years, very casually, but I'm starting to use it regularly now. Whenever I cook something that isn't in there, I add it while I'm cooking. This takes a bit more time but is worth it since I am building a great digital resource that's easily searchable and replaces cumbersome binders.

Digitizing my recipes will also allow me to easily produce cookbooks (digitial no doubt) to give our children as they contribute to more of the cooking in our home and eventually start their own kitchens. I love using technology to meet my needs. 

Hard to think these little twerps will someday have their own kitchens. 

I never get tired of this view from our main living area. Last night at supper we talked about how living here, so close to nature and yet not very far from civilization (twenty minutes to town where I do all my shopping) and in such a beautiful home, is raising the bar pretty high for our family.

This morning the kids will be taking a morning hike with Damien along the river. I don't want to think about the next step but we love living in the woods and the mountains and for now, have found "home". 

I love this little nook in my kitchen, directly over the sink. The dark blue wall behind makes for stunning contrast against white daisies.

The left wall of this nook is a chalkboard. I plan to paint the right column into chalkboard as well. I'd love to write lists, notes and inspiration here. But I think I will always be negotiating with my resident artists for space.

Have a great weekend everyone but do check in both Saturday and Sunday since I have posts planned for both days.

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