Cook. Eat. Repeat.

It started last night.  I made spaghetti for me and my daughter, while my newly licensed son went out with friends, driving solo for the first time.  Yes, I was nervous, but I do know that he's a good driver.  Still, it's different when you're by yourself.  Or when you have another teenager riding shotgun.  I sent them off with the following admonitions:  Don't do anything stupid.  Keep your seatbelts on.  Don't play the music too loud.  Don't drive too fast.  Put gas in the tank. Don't answer your phone while driving. Be home by eleven. Don't do anything stupid like take your seatbelts off, play your music too loudly, get a speeding ticket, bring my car back on "E", answer when I call you to make sure you're not answering, or have me look out the window and NOT see my car in the driveway at 11:01.  While I wondered which rule he would break, I ate spaghetti.  While cleaning up, I realized that the two pints of strawberries I'd just bought two days before were already eeking past the "fresh" stage.  When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.  When life gives you overripe strawberries, you make strawberry sauce to put over vanilla ice cream.  

Fresh strawberries, mint, ginger, sugar, sea salt, basil.
Marinate overnight.  You'll be glad you did.

  
This ended the day's eating.  It began with cleaning and getting the house "company ready", all because a contractor was coming by the check out a crack in the ceiling. (Doesn't everyone clean when the contractor is coming?)  I finished early, and decided to make kale chips.  No, I have no idea why.  I still can't get them nice and crunchy like the packaged kind, but homemade is so much cheaper!  In the end, I ate some then gave up due to the lack of crunchiness.  I should have made a salad.  BTW, I missed a party because of the aforementioned ceiling crack, but with the clouds looming, it wasn't looking too good for a barbecue anyway.  

Next up, I finished some photo editing that I'd been putting off all week.  I do sell vintage, you know.  Sometimes I get caught up in other stuff and forget that this is a business.  My daughter is a total trooper who does quick change after quick change so that I can do these marathon photo shoots.  Some of the week's best:

So pretty!  Everything is vintage except for the silver formal and the little black dress.  I'm so glad that I birthed this beautiful child...I live out my fashion dreams vicariously through her.  We even included a tribute to my personal heyday, the 80's:

And she rocked this under $20 look, thrifted, gifted and free!  

Now both "kids" had social engagements this evening, so I was home alone.  The leftover spaghetti moonlighted as today's lunch, so I was without dinner.  Before I let the teenager out with my car, leaving me stranded, I grocery shopped, so dinner really wasn't a problem, I just had to cook it.  Chicken and pasta, with lots of parsley and onions hit the spot.  And then of course, there was dessert...but we already talked about that.  And no, I didn't eat it first.  I just talked about it first.  And I thought about eating it first...

The food made me sleepy, as did the nagging headache I still have.  I started to make chocolate chip cookies, but changed my mind.  But as soon as I started to contemplate sleep, I remembered that I have a potluck to attend on Sunday, and I promised to bring pasta salad.  I have no pasta.  (Remember the spaghetti?)  I do have rice.  And beans.  Gee, I hope no one is too disappointed when they take the lid off my bowl and see red beans and rice instead of pasta salad.  It tastes good, it's filling, and I put the rest of the kale chips in there for good measure because I couldn't figure out what else to do with them.  

So to recap:

Teen gets license.

Mom gets worried.

Mom cooks.

Mom eats. 

Mom eats.

Mom eats.

Daughter tries on clothes.

Mom tries to sell them.

Regardless, mom blogs about everything. 

That about sums up my week.  And how was yours??