Tag Archives: summer

july.

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june was busy in all the best ways. we took a short weekend trip to kansas city. we went on our long-awaited vacation to san francisco. i saw my sister graduate from high school. i got to see all three of my very best friends. we got to show off our not-so-new-anymore house to my dad and sister. and we got to celebrate the first birthday of our beautiful niece, tianna. june was full of adventure and i’m so happy it happened.

but july. july is what my dreams are made of.  july is for adventures of a completely different kind, like figuring out how many sets of string lights we need to go all the way around our yard and finding inspiration for our next grilled pizza (obsessed). july is for sipping cocktails in the backyard at sunset and getting all the bug bites (the true mark of a summer well spent). july is for shakespeare in the park and jazz on the green and picnics galore. july is for setting off my first ever fireworks and mastering the art of backwards running while watching them go off. july is for making myself this birthday cake…and probably this one, too. july is for catching up on reading all the books i’ve neglected while binge-watching orange is the new black instead. july is for harvesting san marzanos and sun golds and finally figuring out how to can tomato sauce.

storyboard005july is for not worrying about the basement that still isn’t done, that baseboards and decorating can wait, because there’s no reason to be inside anyways. july is for not worrying about the possibility of not having a single well-functioning car, because we don’t need to go any further than our own backyard. (and because it’s reduced bus fare month).

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july is all the reasons why i always dreamed about having my own house someday, and all the reasons why i’m feeling 110% grateful that dream became a reality 10 1/2 months ago. july is for living the slow life, the good life (#nebraskahumor).

i love you, july.

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from the garden / 01

lettuce

last night was the first harvest from our first year of backyard gardening – a few leaves of red romaine lettuce. there is something so wonderful about growing your own food, particularly when you can be harvesting something one minute and eating it the next. it doesn’t get much fresher than that. everything else is growing and flowering, so i’m looking forward to tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatillos, and – if the bunnies don’t eat it all first – kale, very soon!

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our summer manifesto.

our summer manifesto | hk in love

i saw a summer manifesto over on another blog earlier this week, and i loved the idea so much that i decided to make our own. even though i’m already whining about the humidity, there is just something so special and perfect about summer in the midwest, especially after a long, cold winter. this is the first summer in a long time where we’ve felt settled and know that we’ll be staying in the same place for awhile and can actually enjoy ourselves. this summer, we’re turning off the oven, heading outside, and grilling everything we possibly can. we’re eating outside on our new patio picnic table, and having drinks and catching up on reading in our backyard adirondack chairs. we’re taking a couple of camping trips, hopefully exploring parts of nebraska and iowa that we haven’t seen much of yet. we’re playing on a sand volleyball team with some of my coworkers and their partners, something we’ve always wanted to do. and we’re spending time working in our garden, growing and eating as much of our own food as possible, and laying plans for how to make it bigger + better in years to come. cheers to summer! 

[image via death to the stock photo]

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from the market (and garden) / june 30

we didn’t get a whole lot from the farmer’s market this week…we’re still transitioning into our new apartment, and the kitchen is still in a little bit of a disarray, so we’re starting back up slowly. i made sure to pick up tomatoes and cucumbers this week so that we could make these sandwiches for lunches this week. the broccoli will be going in this recipe for broccoli-almond pesto with rice noodles. and the carrots and fingerling potatoes…not sure yet, but will probably just be roasted or put into a hash some night this week when we can’t decide what to make.the community garden we belong to has a few community plots that garden members can harvest from, which we think is pretty awesome. we swung by this weekend to harvest some rainbow chard and couple different kinds of kales. i was feeling a little sad that we didn’t decide to plant kale in our own garden, but i think the community plots will have enough for us all summer. and, the chard and spinach from our own plot are going to be ready for harvest soon, which i’m pretty stoked about!

what did you all find at your markets this weekend? what are you making this week?

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from the market / may 26

this past sunday we only got three things at the market: a bag of mixed red/yellow tomatoes (quickly become a market staple for us), a beautiful little bundle of swiss chard – which was among the first greens i’ve seen yet this year, and a bunch of the most colorful easter egg radishes. we’re going to california this coming weekend, so we kept our grocery and market shopping light and got only what we knew we could eat and meal plan with this week.

k snapped a few photos at the market this week, so i thought i’d share those here, too. it was kind of nice to not have to worry about carrying around a bunch of stuff so we could spend more time just enjoying the ambiance and taking pictures. afterwards we went for a nice walk along the keystone trail and even did a little bit of geocaching.





p.s. we made this tomato and goat cheese tart for lunches this week with the tomatoes we bought!

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