I am finally sitting down in a moment of near peace, which have been scarce since school ended.  Rob and I are trying to catch up on all the neglected projects that have piled up during the school year.  And, he will be spending the summer looking for a new teaching job.  He has decided to leave his private Montessori school and will transition back to public school education with the upcoming school year.  If there are any public elementary/middle school principals out there looking for a teacher with great education, experience and references….

Rob just left to help a friend assemble a backyard play structure for his daughter for her birthday tomorrow.  We will be attending the party tomorrow morning and I just finished a new quilt block tee as a gift.  I will post the photo once it has been gifted.  Henrik is in his room for quiet time listening to A Bear Called Paddington and I have 5 minutes until it will be time to rotate the pound cake.

I have never made an Independence Day feast before, but I felt a little inspired and decided to take the plunge.  We harvested our first green cabbage from the garden yesterday and I made some Coleslaw late last night.  It is mayo based with red onion, black pepper, dried ginger and mustard.  The ginger and mustard are seasonings I use for salmon burgers, which is also on the menu tonight.

I am pretty sure I got the inspiration from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, but I had only checked the book out from the library and can’t double check.  I own How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, but salmon is not included in that edition.  The salmon is in the fridge marinating with Worcestershire, tamari, red onion, fresh garlic, fresh ginger and mustard powder.

I already squeezed the lemon and grated some more fresh ginger for lemonade.  It is also chilling in the fridge.  We will also have fresh corn with the burgers and slaw.  I had initially thought I would make biscuits for a shortcake style dessert.  We had breakfast yesterday Sweetness Bakery.  I bought a Groupon a while ago.  I saw their brunch menu online on Friday night thought it sounded great.  We had scrambled eggs with caramelized onions and roasted mushrooms, house roasted potatoes and a patriotic biscuit with strawberries, whip cream and blueberries.  It was so good I thought I would repeat the biscuit combo at home for dessert tonight.

We rode to Sweetness, had breakfast and then rode on to Mt. Tabor.  Rob and Henrik played on the big toys and I schlepped myself up and down three times on my road bike.  I am on a mission to return to my pre Henrik fitness and I keep encountering my arch nemeses, hills, on my journey.  I used to ride a lot.  We are trying to figure out a better way for me to ride with Henrik right now so that we can decrease our car use even more.  We have a trail-a-bike, but I don’t have that much seat post real estate for the attachment and it chafes my inner thigh.  I would like to get an Xtracycle, but that isn’t in the budget now.  It is a situation that lacks resolution currently.

I also have too many craft projects going right now that lack resolution.  I have quilted the baby quilt.  I got a little too intricate and it took hours.  The binding is the last thing to do and I hope to finish it soon.  I had taken a break from the quilt to start the washcloths for Craft Hope.  But, my serger needles started protesting at the thickness of the fabric so I decided to change them.  That was a huge mistake.  Something happened when I clipped my needle threads and the stitch is completely off now.

This is the first time I have used the serger since we moved to Portland and I couldn’t find my manual to recheck the threading sequence.  I had to take a break from that project so I decided to go back to the quilt.  I eventually located the serger manual, but I wanted to finish quilting the baby quilt.  I also squeezed work on the birthday tee in there somewhere.  I keep hitting roadblocks and keep getting bounced from project to project.

I think that since I have so many unresolved projects in the works right now that making a good dinner seemed like a creative project that I could actually complete and enjoy in a timely manner.  I still have strawberries and blueberries to wash and cream to whip.  New Seasons will be switching from Straus to a local dairy next week.  This may be our last round of Straus whip cream.  Sigh….I hope the new dairy’s milk is just as delicious.

I used a Lemon Pound Cake recipe from The Grand Central Baking Book.  It is excellent.  I thought that I would make biscuits like we had had at Sweetness, but I didn’t have any buttermilk.  I came up with the idea of the pound cake and, even though I ended up needing buttermilk anyway, the idea stuck.  I think the combo of the Lemon Pound Cake with the berries and the whip cream will taste great.  Well, the cake is done and I am going to tackle my serger.

Enjoy your Independence Day!  I hope you are able to celebrate our national freedom and your personal freedom to pursue whatever inspires you today and in the future.