Earache and tomato sauce

Two pretty disparate topics, right?  Let's see if I can link them...

Owen's been doing a lot of this:

which led to this:

And so after a trip to the doctor this morning that revealed "a pretty good case of swimmer's ear," we've been laying low around the house today.  And that gave me time to piddle around, pick stuff up and rediscover Owen's Father's Day card to Scott.  

He made it with his 4K teacher back before school let out for summer, so I cannot be blamed for this particular ploy to get Scott to take us back to Italy.  (So, so, so proud of you though son!)

I hung the card on our magnet wall and promptly started reminiscing about Italy and the afternoon I spent with Marianina in the kitchen learning to make rustic Tuscan tomato sauce:

And I decided this is the perfect kind of day to have some homemade tomato sauce simmering on the stove.  By some miracle, the last of the olive oil we brought back from Rugiagli (the farm where we stayed) was still good, so I upturned the bottle over the stockpot of tomatoes and garlic.  Smells pretty good!

So there you have it:  too much fresh water --> earache --> me with idle time --> Father's day card --> tomato sauce.