This post is sponsored by Blue Apron.

We’ve been working hard lately at finding time to be together just us, me and Brett, away from the kids, talking about things other than the kids. Let me rephrase that: We’ve been working hard lately at catching a unicorn. Finding time just doesn’t happen because finding infers those magical blocks of time already exist–and they don’t. But creating time requires responsibility. What in our schedule can we actively change to connect? How can we get creative with this little family of ours so that we aren’t staring at each other across a table of grown kids someday, thinking, “God, we used to have so many things to talk about. What happened?”

If I’ve learned anything from years of watching nature and survivalist shows with Brett, it’s that moving toward where you want to go out there in the big world begins with using your resources. Earlier this week, that meant kids in school and a built-in houseguest sitter while the two of us headed to joint doctor appointments. As we quickly slid into the car (no car seats! no buckling! no kids kicking the back of our seats!), I made a note of how quiet it was.

“Did you get the insurance cards?” I asked.

“Yep,” Brett answered. “Wow, this never happens–a daytime date.”

“Dear God Brett, we’re on our way to read old copies of Woman’s Day in a doctor’s waiting room. This DOES NOT COUNT!”

So there are ground rules for what constitutes a date, and holding hands does not always a date make.

But good food and wine in your own kitchen while your best friend takes your kids–that’s a date. Heidi offered to take all of our kids to her house on the day of our last Blue Apron delivery so that we could have a cooking date in our own home, and it turned out to be the perfect thing we needed. In fact, I don’t know that we’ve ever, since kids, been alone in our home together for that long as dates usually mean we leave our kids at home and we’re the ones who take off. But it was nice to have a quiet meal, connecting just the two of us, in the control tower of our very busy life–our own kitchen.

Cue candles. And good wine. And our go-to dinner music–Diana Krall Pandora station. And nothing but the fun part left of preparing a meal. I’ve written several times before about Blue Apron meals–farm-fresh ingredients delivered right to your door, in all the right proportions, and chef-designed recipes with step-by-step instructions. Our Blue Apron meals are always so colorful–look at that food rainbow!

Our date night meal was Seared Salmon and Salsa Verde with a Summer Vegetable & Quinoi Salad–healthy, light and delicious.

The step-by-step instructions and photos make cooking super easy.

My favorite part of preparing meals is setting the table and creating a cozy space to eat. Now that we’re knee deep in September, I’ll be allotting some good time for Pinterest Tablescape Porn. Also, this is a good place to note that yesterday I bought a cornucopia and made sure to answer Brett’s “What are you doing?” question later in the day with “decorating my horn of plenty.” He didn’t even proceed with further questioning, and I am severely disappointed.

Seared Salmon & Salsa Verde with Summer Vegetable & Quinoa Salad

4 Skinless Salmon Fillets
3/4 Cup Red Quinoa
6 Ounces Cherry Tomatoes
3 Ounces Arugula
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Ear of Corn
1 Large Bunch Parsley
2 Tablespoons Capers
2 Tablespoons Sliced Almonds
1 Tablespoon Red Wine Vinegar
1 Shallot

Heat large pot of salted water to boiling on high. Rinse quinoa and add to pot of boiling water. Cook 18-20 minutes or until tender. Turn off heat, drain thoroughly and return to pot. While quinoa cooks, wash and dry fresh produce. Peel and mince garlic and smash with flat side of knife until it resembles a paste. Husk corn and cut kernels off cob. Have tomatoes. Roughly chop the parsley leaves and stems. Roughly chop capers. Finely chop the almonds. Peel and mince shallot. 

Place minced shallot in a medium bowl with the red wine vinegar and add parsley, capers, almonds and half the garlic paste. Stir in enough olive oil to create a paste and season with salt and pepper. 

Cook corn for 2-3 minutes in a large pan with olive oil. Add tomatoes and remaining garlic paste. Season with salt and pepper and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes or until softened and fragrant. Transfer cooked vegetables to pot of cooked quinoa. 

Pat salmon fillets dry with paper towel. Season with salt and pepper on both sides and place in hot pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook 3-4 minutes per side or until golden brown. Remove from heat.

Add arugula and a drizzle of olive oil to pot of cooked quinoa and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Dived salad between dishes. Top each with a cooked salmon filet and a few spoonfuls of the salsa verde. 

Pour some wine, toast to something fabulous, dig in.

After we ate, we ran a dish over for our neighbors to try, a strategic bragadocious move that said “LOOK AT WHAT AMAZING COOKS WE ARE!” just as much as it spoke “Kind gesture because we love you.” That’s the cool thing about our Blue Apron Meals–they’re teaching us how to cook, and we look damn good to anyone who tastes our food. And there are lots more great Blue Apron recipes to try at home.

If you’d like to try Blue Apron meals, they’re giving the first 50 readers who sign up two free meals with their first order.

Put that in your horn of plenty.

In the 12-oval mat of the “School Years” picture frame of my life (I never had one, but imagine I did), there are six photos occupying the right half of the frame. The rest are empty circles because we didn’t do school pictures in homeschool. But the six photos that do exist follow a School Picture Pattern, beginning with pigtails and ribbons and a Peter Pan collar peeking over a lavender argyle sweater (thanks, Mom) and following through various stages of teeth loss and bang lengths until you get to a pale-face, squinty-eyed fifth grade portrait that screams “I dressed myself” but also “I’m having a rough year here, okay?” Large out-of-place front teeth on an awkward smile replace the tiny Tic-Tac teeth in the kindergarten photo, and the worst haircut of my life cancels out every good braid from the previous five years.

When I look at the first few pictures, I smile and see my mom–how she dressed me, how she sewed for me, how satisfied she must have been sending me off to school those mornings, her little girl the picture of a McCall’s pattern cover, a mini-me, a reflection of her style. I can still smell her Halston perfume in the bathroom, feel her thumb grazing my forehead as she slowly and carefully dragged the scissors across my bangs and snipped the most perfect straight line, fresh for school picture day. I can feel the comb against my scalp as it split an even part, her tug on one side of my head as she pulled equal pieces and wove them into braids, not a hair out of place. Ribbons tied under collars, cuffs pulled out at the edge of a sleeve, bangs curled slightly under—just a tad more innocence to soften the blow of “off she goes.” The pictures were nothing short of precious. And then fifth grade, I see—well I don’t even know what the hell that was. “Could you at least have rubbed a little blush on my cheeks?” I ask my mom. “And seriously, the maxed-out turtleneck? I look like an ass.” Except I would never say that to my mom because, even though I remind her the word is in the Bible, she’d quickly snap back, “Kel-leeeee. Watch your mouth.”

While brilliant sparks of Lainey’s own personal style have naturally emitted over the years—and we’ve celebrated them—there’s no doubt her early school pictures reflect a lot of my own style as mine did my mother’s. I mean, I’m the one who bought her clothes, and she was fine with my choices. She happily approved my suggestions for “Let’s curl those pigtails” and “How about this dress?” and my borderline stage mom direction of “Smile your soft smile, not a fake one.”

How much involvement we have in our kids’ style choices seems to be yet another topic for bored mothers to judge others, perhaps another post for another day. But I will say, as Lainey hugged me goodbye at her classroom door the other day and found her place in line—the first class of the day on their way to the school picture room—I noticed the evolution of the school portrait has shifted. Gone are the tiny teeth and the curly pigtails, the bangs, the sweet collars, the corduroy jumpers, the “Mom, can you do my hair?”

And in their place…one word: Justice.

Damn you, Justice! Damn you and your sparkly threads and your hashtag shirts and your googly-eyed stuffed animals and lockets and secret diaries that lure them in. I have some feelings on Justice—both the store and the civil right. But because the thirst for Justice (the store) has pervaded what seems to be the entire third grade class of our school, my girl wants some sparkle and some fringe and some “PIZZA HAS MY HEART” spelled out in silver sequins against the brightest pink you’ve ever seen.

Alone in the mall last week, I walked by Justice and decided to go in—the thought of how ecstatic she’d be with a random surprise gift, my fuel. I passed a rack of minion apparel, a bedazzled “More Friday, Less Monday” shirt and a shelf of tie-dye leggings before I landed on something that spoke her name—a loose white t-shirt with a heart and “love” scrawled out in loopy script, and the bottom cut into dramatic fringe. It wasn’t what I would pick, but Lainey? She’d love it. I asked the clerk for a gift box, imagining her excitement seeing the Justice logo on the top, and wrapped the gift when I got home.

“Wait, is that from that store she’s been talking about?” Brett asked.
“Yeah, Justice, why?”
“Because I wanted to be the one to get her something from there.”
“Then it can be from you,” I smiled.

Later that night, I watched in complete permagrin state as she opened her dad’s special gift to her. She was ecstatic—tried it on as soon as it was freed from tissue paper and looked at herself in the mirror with an approving smile. The next day outfit planning quickly followed as she scurried through her room pairing leggings and high boots and a clip-on barrette with a dangly feather, organizing it all together in a perfect stack on her dresser. That’s when I saw the sticker on her backpack: “Don’t forget! Tomorrow’s Picture Day!” Well, crap.

“Oh, I have an idea!” I offered, rummaging through the accessories drawer until I found a detachable Peter Pan collar that ties in the back. “You could wear this with it!” Fingers crossed.

She rolled her eyes and if she knew to say “F#@*, no!” I’m sure she would have.

“Mom. Uuughhh. No.”

Damn you, Justice.

She woke up earlier than usual the next morning, dressed and ready before anyone else.

“Do you want me to do your hair?” I asked, hopeful. “I mean, however you want it, of course.”

“Nope.” She brushed it back, braided it to the side all by herself and clipped the dangly feather in place. “I’m ready.”

I didn’t remind her how to smile or even bother straightening the loose hair escaping from the feather. But I did give her a good hug before she left and thought “off she goes” as I said goodbye. I have yet to see the picture, but I’m pretty sure the third grade oval in her “School Years” frame will be the one where it all changed—bigger teeth, longer bangs, less Polly Flinders, more Justice—but who she is, who she will be, emerging boldly against the generic swirly blue background that will accompany her through the next nine years of school photos—that is unless I pay the extra $16 for the fake beach background (um, no). I will love that face through the awkward years—the head tilts and haircuts and every glitter thread that makes its way into the frame. Times two more kids, that’s a lot of school pictures to look forward to.
That swirly “love” script on her shirt? It will show up in the picture. Someway, somehow, I know it.

I woke up early to thunder this morning, the room still dark, everyone asleep and the pleasant realization that I not only had a couple more hours to sleep, but a soundtrack of falling rain to accompany it. I can’t think of a better way to wake up in the middle of the night–except maybe snow on Christmas Eve. It’s our rainy season right now, and storms roll in just about every day, usually in the afternoon but sometimes perfectly timed for magic–like weekend mornings when prolonged dark skies whisper “Slow down, make pancakes, light candles.”

Dash, usually my best sleeper and the easiest to go down at night, woke up during a storm earlier last week, terrified by the thunder. I could feel his heart racing against my chest and the urgency in his voice. “Boom-boom, ‘cared,” he cried as he pointed to the window and gripped me a little tighter. He wanted far away from his crib, away from the possibility that I might put him back in there, and so we walked away while I patted his back and assured him that everything was okay, that I wasn’t going to leave.  He eventually fell back asleep and the thunder subsided, but he’s cried about Boom-booms every night and nap since, pointing to the window even in the sunniest of skies insisting he’s “‘cared.” And we are putty in his hands. We are being milked for every ounce of sentimentality we have, and we have SO MUCH to give. Moral of the story: we’re screwed. Farewell, quiet layer-downer, precious go-to-sleeper.

Between storms, we enjoyed lots of small things this weekend.

Early morning beachcombing. 

Post tooth-brushing snuggles.

New jellyfish finds.

A quiet day at Isle of Capri.

Florida dandelion (sea oats) blowing.

Just a little Sunday mornin’ paper reading. 

Colorful fruit stands.

Colorful dominoes.

Aiming high.

Watching a mama duck work so hard to keep her ducklings safe and close, trying to maintain the perfect balance between “push them” and “coddle them.”  I tossed her a scrap of bread and was all “I feel ya, sister.” And she had 8 to keep in line!

Hope your long Labor Day weekend was cozy. We’re breaking all the rules and wearing white from here on out because we’re rebellious like that.