Dear Mom,

Today is Mother’s Day, and,  just like birthdays, I never really understood how special a day it was until I had my own kids. It’s not about breakfast in bed or preschool craft projects or a card Dad bought and I just wrote my name on because I was too busy planning how to best get into trouble with my friends to remember which Sunday in May was supposed to be for you. It’s about saying how much I appreciate everything you did for me.

Thank you for all the homemade cookies and for never telling me I probably shouldn’t eat another one because I needed to be thin to make people like me.

Thank you for reading to me and for doing funny voices when we read The Hobbit. You were a better Gollum than that guy in the movie ever was.

Thank you for being so strict, because without your rules and boundaries I might have grown up too fast.

Thank you for telling me it was OK to change my mind if I didn’t want to be a marine biologist anymore after I went to college, because Holy Cow did I NOT want to be a marine biologist anymore after I went to college and it was such a relief to switch majors without worrying you’d be mad.

Thank you for showing me what a good marriage looks like – it’s amazing you and Dad are still so strong even though you got married at 22.

Thank you for being excited when I told you I was engaged, even though I was only 22.

Thank you for totally agreeing with me on every detail of my wedding and for laughing at mother-daughter pairs who fought over things like flower arrangements and plated appetizers.

Thank you for coming to help when I had my babies – I honestly don’t know what I would have done without you.

Thank you for being an amazing grandmother to Evan and Caroline and for always respecting my parenting choices.

I’m sorry for all the times I made you worry, the times I yelled at you, the screaming and crying and throwing myself on the floor (both as a toddler AND as an over-dramatic teenager), the broken curfews, the secrets I tried to keep, and that time I stopped speaking to you (even though I don’t think you even knew about it). I had to be a mom to understand how much your children can hurt you and how much it means to hear them say they didn’t mean to.

Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being my mom.

Love, Your Daughter,

Suzanne

Warning: DON’T READ THIS POST IF YOU LOVE THE INTERNET. Because if you’re as addicted to blogging and tweeting as I am, the last thing you need is another online way to waste time.

But if you like: art, food, home decor, dessert, crafts, photography, fashion, happiness, make up, tutorials, jewelry, etsy, joy and being inspired on a daily basis, I highly recommend you get on the Pinterest bandwagon as fast as if your pants were on fire and the wagon was covered in hot firemen.

My friend Brigid actually sent me an invitation months ago, because genius that she is Brigid knew it was a brilliant next-big-thing idea and also the sort of something I would love. I should send her a fruit basket. Maybe I’ll go look for creative fruit basket ideas on Pinterest. Because there are probably FORTY BILLION of them. I procrastinated for a few weeks, thinking I’d check it out when I had time and surly it wasn’t some sort of life changing website.

IT IS A LIFE CHANGING WEBSITE.

Here’s the overview: When you sign up, you create pin boards (like digital bulletin boards) where you can stick ideas you find online. The easiest way to pin is to add a shorcut to your toolbar following the instructions here. Then all the stuff you like is in one convenient, organized, neat-looking place. It’s  like a visual representation of bookmark folders in your internet browser. Here’s a screenshot of my recipe board, where I’m keeping all the recipes I’ve meal-planned for this week. It’s so much more fun SEEING the food than just reading about the food that I am actually more inspired to cook:

The second stage of Pinterest is following other people and their boards, so you can find inspiration right there on your homepage. You can follow all of someone’s boards or just one or two, based on what you’re interested in seeing in your feed. When you click on something that’s been pinned it takes you back to the original website, where you can get the info you need to make/cook/buy/try/read about the thing that was pinned.

This is what mine looks like right now:

Food, tutorials, fashion, all in one place. And here’s another shot, if I scroll down my page a little:

Home decor, a playhouse, tutorials, crafts, more recipes, things to buy…really, there are PLENTY of things to look at on a minute by minute basis.

Have I convinced you to sign up yet? Or do you have an account you’ve been neglecting because you just didn’t really “get it” yet? Here’s some Do’s and Don’ts to help you understand how to get the most out of your boards:

Pinterest DO’s:

– DO follow lots of people. The more people you follow the more stuff shows up on your homepage.
– DO follow people you don’t know. I promise it’s not creepy or stalkerish, so if you find a board that you’re in love with always add them!
– DO repin when you love something.
– DO use the search option to find more of what you want. I searched “polka dots” every day for a week to find inspiration for Little Evan’s birthday.
– DO check in often. Your friends will go on pinning sprees and looking at several days worth of stuff at once means you might miss something.
– DO unsubscribe from a board before a person. Maybe you love your friend’s sense of style but you don’t like pictures of babies or celebrities or quilts. Keep following their fashion board but unfollow the board you don’t like.
– DO use Pinterest to keep track of stuff you find in magazines. I do this a lot with recipes – if there’s an online version it’s so much easier to pin it than hold onto ripped out pages.
– DO check out the “staff favorites” boards and the ones Pinterest suggests you might like. It’s about expanding places you find inspiration, not looking at stuff you’d see on your friend’s blog anyways.
– But DO pin stuff from your friend’s blogs when you love it. I’m not going to lie, being pinned feels nice.
– DO be my friend on Pinterest!

Pinterest DON’TS:

– DON’T just repin stuff from other people’s boards. Add new content to the Pinterest community when you find it online, whether it’s from blogs, shops, websites, or friends.
– DON’T pin stuff to multiple boards. Pick the category it fits best and pin it just once.
– DON’T forget to label your pins with helpful tags and explanations, especially when pinning recipes. “Yum!” isn’t as helpful as “strawberry shortcake cupcakes”. For stuff from shops, adding prices is nice.
– DON’T just pin stuff from your blog. You can pin your own some sparingly, but follow the social media 80/20 rule: Promote other people 80% of the time and yourself 20% of the time.
– DON’T think Pinterest is just for bloggers. You don’t need anything besides an email to sign up and you don’t need online friends.
– DON’T post EVERYTHING you pin to Facebook or Twitter. I accidentally put my pins in my Facebook feed and was super annoying for a few hours before I noticed.
– DON’T forget that just because a picture is on Pinterest doesn’t mean it’s not subject to copyright. You cannot just take and use them on your blog without checking with the owner.

Seeing all the things I want to cook/make/buy all at once makes my life so much easier and more organized. I can actually re-find stuff I saw on the internet and thought “oh, I should do that!” Now I CAN do that. I’m also slightly addicted to checking what’s been pinned from my own blog. It’s reaching an unhealthy no-there’s-nothing-for-dinner-can’t-you-see-I’m-busy-looking-at-recipes-on-pinterest-WHAT-DO-YOU-MEAN-THAT’S-SUPER-IRONIC??? levels of time consumption, but I don’t even care. I love it.

Are you going to sign up now? Are you addicted yet? Do you have any suggestions for ways to make the most of Pinterest?

I’m going to join my friend Audrey for her new inspired-by linky today with a recipe for scones that I made up slash adapted. I’m never sure with recipes how much you have to change before you can call it YOUR recipe. I mean, all baking is just science and math with proportions of wet to dry ingredients, so no matter how original your recipe for bread or cake or cookies or whatever is, there’s a good chance someone else has a nearly identical recipe somewhere.

I was inspired by these Cheddar-Chive Scones I found on Epicurious. (Sidenote: I am OBSESSED with Epicurious.) Wait, no, scratch that. I started with these Jalapeno-Cheddar scones from smitten kitchen my friend Sarah suggested more than a year ago. I made them, I ate them, I was underwhelmed. But in my MIND they were totally delicious and I’ve been thinking about finding a new scone recipe ever since. Scones sound fancy and you can put almost anything into them – sweet, savory, salty, cheesy, fruit, herbs, vegetables, whatever. I wanted to make the Cheddar Chive scones from Epicurious to bring to Easter dinner but I didn’t have any chives (and am too lazy to go to the store). So I replaced the chives with rosemary, the cheddar with Parmesan and added a little lemon peel to make them spring-like. Then I adjusted the rest of the ingredients to make it work (tm Tim Gunn).

Brunchy Lemon Rosemary Parmesan Scones

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon peel, grated
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy cream plus extra to brush on top

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except for cream. Add in the cream 1 cup at a time, making sure to stir up everything from the bottom until you have a sticky dough. (You could use a mixer if you want but I did it with a spatula and it was easy.) Turn out dough onto a floured surface and kneed approximated 10 times. Divide dough in half, roll out each half, flatten into a long rectangle and cut into wedges.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, brush the top of each scone with a little heavy cream and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Delicious warm but travel well.

Notes:
1. I used the cheap Kraft cheese in the green container because I didn’t have any real Parmesan and *I* thought they turned out a little on the salty side. None of my taste testers were bothered by it, but you could probably use half as much salt.
2. I actually ran out of regular flour and used whole wheat for the last 1/2 cup. You couldn’t tell at all, so if you wanted to use more whole wheat – say 1 1/2 cups – I don’t think anyone would know, PLUS you could call them healthy! Just don’t mention the cream.

Happy Baking!

I am currently less than 50% of the way through two separate adult-sized sweaters (one for myself, one for E) so of course I’ve spent all my spare time this week starting brand new small projects instead of working on them. I am a fickle knitter who gets bored with the same yarn and the same pattern over and over and little extra projects keep me from quitting altogether.

Here’s what I’ve made in the last week and a half:

Reusable coffee coozies

I finally finished up the last 2 of these I wanted to send to friends. All I need now is time to get to the post office. I’m glad these are the last two I’ve promised to make because I am sick to DEATH of them. (Original pattern found here, but I’ve changed a lot of it)

My first attempt at baby socks

I have always said I hated knitting socks and I’ve only ever knit one before. Not one pair, one SOCK. The second one is less than 1/2 an inch long and still on my needles. But BABY socks are baby sized, and these took only a couple of hours. I made a counting mistake on the first one that I just fudged and a couple of knit vs. purl mistakes on the second one that I had to rip out and do over but even with the frustrating parts they are so adorable I don’t even care. I see a lot more tiny socks in my future. (Garter stripe baby socks pattern found here)

Blanket buddy rabbit

This was SO EASY and SO CHEAP to make – it’s done in dishcloth cotton, which you can buy at Walmart for only a couple of dollars and takes less than 1 ball. It’s all seamless so nothing can be pulled apart and the face is stitched on with yarn so there are no choking hazards which makes it perfect for babies. I had this yarn left from the very first time I ever bought yarn (EVER!) and found the pattern in one of my 1-skein pattern books. If you’re a new-ish knitter who only makes hats and scarves this would make a great next step project.

Baby and toddler bibs

More dishcloth cotton AND a pattern I made up myself. Well, ok, I modeled it off a nearly identical bib my friend Megan gave me as a baby gift but still – no pattern. You are only impressed if you’ve never knit a stitch in your life. Otherwise you know it does not get any easier than a garter stitch square. These are gifts for someone who happens to be a knitter so I hope she knows they were made with LOVE even if it wasn’t with hours and hours of time.

Tiny bunny

Finally, I present OH MY GOD the cutest little 15 minute knitting project ever from Mochimochi Land. I stumbled onto these on Ravelry this afternoon and made this one approximately 30 seconds later. Then I spent two hours squeeing over their other patterns and wondering why I hadn’t been knitting these adorable little things for months and months already?

You know your husband loves you when he'll pose with your tiny bunny

I have already made another, slightly larger one for the toddler to play with and plan to make a few more. They keep multiplying like…well…rabbits. I will build a bunny army!

And now I guess it’s time to get back to my sweaters. Sigh. At least I have all summer to finish them.

I have three actual blog posts 75% written and was planning to finish at least one up last night but I went to bed at 9 with a horrible pain in my kidney (AGAIN) and woke up with a fever (AGAIN) so I’m going to spend the day popping antibiotics and chugging water in bed. Because I am single parenting Tuesday and Wednesday I NEED to get better by tonight so I don’t lose my mind. (Call me spoiled if you want but the best part of my day is when my husband gets home from work and is actually excited to spend time with the toddler I’m 30 seconds away from selling to gypsies.)

So instead of words today, please enjoy these pictures of the kids.

It's like a game - can you spot two kids in this picture?

They found each other!

She's topless, he's pantsless, together they're almost a fully dressed kid!

This is how we amuse ourselves - playing "how long can we let go of the baby before she falls over?". Don't worry, we catch her.

Love

Apparently Dada is a lot more interesting than I am.

If adorable feet were a cure for illness, I'd be the healthiest person in the world.