July 23, 2010

Today I had an early appointment to get my hair cut and whatever... and I invited Phil to come along. He could visit his dad, and I get my haircut and if I'm lucky, I get taken out to lunch...Here is where we ate - a Mexican Restaurant in Yelm. Phil doesn't usually say much, but today he said "I hope you gave her a good tip - you look 18 years old!". . . well, that's an exaggeration, but it wouldn't sound quite right to say I looked 40, now, would it?

Here is the robin's nest in our yard.

We can hear the babies chirping in the nest.

Today when I got home (Phil headed home and I went into the office for a couple of hours) Phil had our globe out on the deck. It looked so pretty there I had to take a picture.

. . .

You won't believe this, but Phil ordered a new refrigerator online today! Through Home Depot. He found one on sale, they will deliver (free) and take away our old refrigerator, and give us a $75 rebate for buying an energy efficient refrigerator...

Not until Tuesday or Wednesday though!

July 22, 2010 Farmer's Market Day!

I have NEVER noticed these giant radishes up in the rafters of the market before! Here is my CSA box for this week: two bunches of carrots; a bunch of broccoli (we ate it tonight); green beans, peas; beets; potatoes; red leaf lettuce; a bag of mixed salad greens; a head of garlic. It all must have weighed 10 pounds! They also had Marion berries at the market. Yum!
...a close up of the beets - several different varieties.
I like them;
Walker can take them or leave them;
Phil loathes them...

I had a BLT at the Italian food booth.
Very good!
Vicki's daughter and daughter's boyfriend joined us for lunch.
That was really fun.
These flowers were on the picnic table we sat at.

...and at the garden end of the market these crocosmia were growing. They are so bright and pretty! And I saw an old friend (from W & my East Coast Trip) at the Master Gardener's stand. It was nice to see her and catch up a little.

...and, yes, we are still living out of an ice chest!
Phil thinks he has found the fridge of our dreams though, so soon.......

It was a cloudy gloomy day here,

but sunshine and heat predicted for the weekend.

I am looking forward to that.

July 21, 2010 . . . Look at this!

This is a photo from my friend Susan's blog - (see My Abundant Life on blogs I follow). Look at the darling button bouquet the bride made! She also made button boutonnieres and corsages. I wish I had pictures of those too! This is one of the things I've been working on my MY studio...It is a book made from three 9 x 12 manila envelopes folded in half and bound together. I started with inking the paper, then glued down sheet music, maps, and dictionary pages, then figured out what kind of images to stick down next. I am really enjoying it and I hope it is totally cool when I'm done. If so, I'll blog it!

I had a need to use up all the food in my kitchen today. I still had a big bundle of rainbow chard from last week's CSA delivery. I decided to try a fritatta. Here is the chard, onions and garlic all dancing around together in the pan...

And the final product: topped with leftover mozzarella and Parmesan. It was delicious! Look at the pretty green layers. This was not really our dinner, although Walker and I couldn't resist having some as a side dish with our pork chop, yukon gold potato, beets and carrots. (I told you I was trying to use up everything in the kitchen... More veggies coming in tomorrow!) Walker and I are really enjoying the bounty of veggies. Phil would just as soon eat peas every night.

The reason I am trying to use things up, is we haven't had a refrigerator operating for two days. And we just got word our fridge is DOA. I don't know what we are going to do next, but I have a feeling we'll be living out of an ice chest for a few more days....

July 20, 2010 Kitty cats and sweet things...

Alan and Sara and Tori found this beautiful kitty under their deck, tangled in its collar. They are trying valiantly to find its owners. In the meantime they are getting attached to it because it is such a sweet kitty!

They have THREE cats already though!

I liked her too when I saw her. Tori and I went to Sharin Memories for "scrapbooking camp" this morning.

They made these adorable lunchbag albums!

The girls are all bonding and are friendly and tell each other stories. They are having so much fun with the sheer bounty of all the papers and flowers and butterflies ribbons and brads and cool stuff they can use on their books. Jodi is so good with the kids and has a way of making the kids feel like she is one of them, but they are like her as well.

One more week to go.
Then I guess I will have to come up with my own once a week craft to do with Tori.
She has an extremely active creative side!

I received photos from Carissa today (joy) and Sara gave me a batch of photos from Tori's dance recitals. Grandma is very happy!

July 19, 2010 A little of everything...

My friend Vicki (Thursdays - Farmer's Market!) gave me a copy of the SPSCC Newspaper and said there was someone famous in it I should look for... Can you spot me? These are something I worked on over the weekend. They are decorated clothes-pins... I might use them for Rubbermaids after my birthday with a little "thank you" note clamped in...

...and another of my craft room pincushions...I am going to make several more tonight. all I need is a cute picture frame, some silk or cool fabric, glue, this n' that's and glue...The fabric in this one is from a silk necktie.

And this morning look what I found under our little maple tree! We know there is a robin's nest above. I think this means two eggs have hatched!

And the best for last. Today I went to Goodwill and found these five bowls, matching my Mikasa China set! I only had 6 bowls (and one was chipped), so now I have ten (when I throw away the chipped one). I knew it was only a matter of time before they start showing up in Goodwill! I think I got my first place setting 25 years ago (at least!). These were .59 each.

I also found a rather shabby cigar box at Goodwill, which I couldn't resist and I purchased. Walker loved the look of it and Phil fixed it up a little, so now Walker has a cool cedar box to store stuff in in school...

7/18/10 Tea parties and Tigers......

Sunday is always a nice day here. We all got up late (7:30 - 8:30) late for us! Expecting mom and pop for dessert later, but nothing else much going on. My photos are a little out of order as usual, these are the hydrangea they brought us (from mom's yard - pop's idea and mom's work I'm told)...They are in my grandma's cut glass vase. Notice the tablecloth has blue hydrangeas on it! I call it a tea party - we had coffee, lemon meringue pie, and brownie bites.

Safeway made the pie,

Phil made the brownies (last night)

and I set the table...

...back to earlier... about 10:30 Phil suggested going for a walk and we decided to walk around the lake, one of our favorite walks. We parked near where I work, and walked on the back side of the lake first -- what is this? Phil figured it out - they are setting up for a big fireworks display for Lakefair tonight! Look at all those tubes for fireworks! We won't see it, but we'll hear it...

And the nice quiet fair, before all the people arrive...

OOOH the scary tiger ride!

I don't remember so many tents with things for sale in the past,

but we don't usually attend the fair...

It does give my same old photos a new and exciting look though, doesn't it?

And a horse drawn carriage! This horse was in trouble for not stopping at the stop-sign!

I think these people had a very long ride, because all of my photos over a pretty long period of time have the same couple in the carriage!

I like the look of this horse, with its pretty white blaze.

I don't like the look of the honey-buckets, but Phil said they were cleaner than the public bathrooms nearby.

on the way back, such a busy place!

And after we got away from it all, it was very quiet and peaceful. We saw a great blue heron flying overhead, lots of ducks in the lake, and several blooming plants. These Oregon Grape were especially beautiful. I wonder if the birds eat them.

We so enjoyed our visit with my mom and dad I forgot to get a photo!

I hate it when that happens.

They looked very cute.

I have some crafty items to blog, but I think I will put them in a supplemental blog.
What was happy about your day?

J.

7-17-10 A Very Sweet Saturday

Saturday started off with my making this blueberry coffee cake. I was the first one up, and by the time the guys got up, I was feeling ambitious, so I used Claudia's recipe. Well, I was a little distracted and kept making little mistakes (1 tsp salt instead of 1/4 tsp; added sugar to flour mixture instead of creaming it with butter...) but eventually it came out of the oven and was pretty good. Next time I'll try harder to concentrate! Definitely a keeper recipe. Its a kind of a pudding cake coffee cake I think. I went outside to get some updates on the flowers around the yard.

Here is my front door.

The lupins do go well with my house!

And some hardy fuscias...taken from underneath.

Phil is making progress on all the cedar we got from our neighbor's tree.
See all the neatly stacked wood?
and the wood to be split...

We headed out to Yelm to the annual barbecue
at the place where Phil's folks live...
Wayne uses a walker for balance and stability,
but he moves very fast with it!

Alas, the barbecue was at 11:00 a.m., not at the 2:00 p.m. hour we believed!
So, we missed the food, but we still sat outside,
and the clown was still there,
face painting and making balloon hats for anyone interested...

...and there was fresh cotton candy!!!

We had a pretty nice visit, with most of the siblings there,

the sun shining, the birds singing...

This bird was indoors.

He/she loved having his photo taken!

Would have posed for hours!