Weekending

Hello and Good Morning!

How are you and how was your weekend?  Ours was full and wonderful.  Friday was spent avoiding work (ha!) and doing some grocery shopping.  That night I made strawberry sorbet (which no one had on Saturday...we were all too full from dinner...but Fletch and I tried it Sunday and it is so good!!).

Saturday I got up and made a couple of salads to go with dinner - corn & black bean salad and a cucumber salad.  Then I put on my wellies and went across the street to Rob's garden.  The weeds between his raised boxes are high, so I wanted my legs and feet protected.  There was plenty of bounty to pick:

Zinnias!!

Several kinds of tomatoes and hot peppers!  I could not find the zuchinni - the squash vines (he is growing several kinds) are so huge and creeping everywhere.  Honestly, I was worried about snakes!

The rest of Saturday was spent taking it easy and waiting for folks to arrive.  We did see a few creatures though.  First up some cute fawns.  Their mama was under our apple tree munching on some fallen fruit.

And we saw two tiny (very tiny) frogs,  Here is one of them:

You know Tyg was pleased!!

Colin & Mailing showed up late afternoon and then even later, Leslie, Jaimie and Emmy arrived.  I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful it was to see them again.  It had been way too long.  Here is Leslie (my best friend since we were 12 years old!!):

And then here are Colin & Mailing with Jaimie and Emmy.

The weather was perfect (a little humid at times) and we had grilled burgers to go with the salads.  Emmy kept us entertained doing flips and handsprings in the yard while we all caught up for hours on end.  It was late when Colin and Mailing finally left to go home and we went to bed.  It was over way too soon and the girls left around 7 Sunday morning.  They had a long (8 hour) drive ahead and were anxious to be home.

Fletch and I relaxed on Sunday and I ended up having to do some work (which I had avoided on Friday).  I found a little time for stitching too.

Now it's back to routines.  I have a conference call at 10 and am planning to go to the office tomorrow.  Here's to a good week ahead!

TGIF

Good Friday Morning!

Yesterday saw me complete the cleaning I was needing and wanting to get done before Saturday.  A day early!  I still need to put clean sheets on the bed that one or two of the girls will use, and put sheets on the air mattress that someone else will use.  But that's easy peasy.  The hard stuff is over!  I even managed to make a run to the state store for wine.

And the weather was simply wonderful - about 60 in the morning and it barely made it to 80 during the day.  I stretched out after lunch to read some and then doze a little and actually needed a blanket.  It felt great!  Colin came over for dinner (ribs and chicken on the grill, broiled asparagus and summer squash) and we ended up sitting around a fire.  I hope this weather holds through the weekend.

Fletch and Colin picked a little bit from the garden for our dinner.  The first ripe sun gold cherry tomatoes and the very first figs!!

 Fletch and I also went over to Rob's garden and cut a few zinnias for the table.  I did not go in his "compound" as it has very tall weeds and I'm nervous about deer ticks.  Today at some point I will put on my wellies and go back over to see if I can pick some Roma tomatoes and some squash.  And I'm hoping there will be more figs ripe for the weekend.

My Friday is blissfully free of conference calls this week.  I have some work I'd like to do, but then I will tackle the grocery shopping.  Saturday I will just need to make some salads to go with dinner and wipe down the bathrooms.  Not bad!  There should be time for knitting and stitching some.

Cheers to the weekend ahead - enjoy!

What's for Dinner? July 22, 2021

 Good Morning All,

It's early (not yet 6 a.m.) and still kind of dark here.  The sun is just beginning to show itself.  Tyg was not on the patio this morning when I came downstairs, but it is earlier than usual, so I expect he will show up soon.

I've another busy day ahead of me!  It's Thursday, so I've my usual financial reports to run, and a few folks have been asking for other data.  Meanwhile I did not get the cleaning done that I expected to yesterday.  Mostly because Fletch was in the way - LOL.  But he will be out all morning today, so I want to get my reports out of the way and then I can concentrate on getting some personal chores finished!

It's chilly enough that I just got up to turn off the ceiling fan in the office!  And, when I looked out one of the windows I spotted a fox running across the road to our neighbor's yard.  I'll go check for Tyg in a moment.

One of the dishes I made this week (in my new oven!!) was Baked Ratatouille, and it was delicious.  This is the recipe I used:

I liked the idea of slicing the veggies and layering them...could be so pretty...but I didn't want to spoon out some and only get eggplant or only get zuchinni (God forbid in Fletcher's case).  So instead I chopped onions, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant and mixed in some minced garlic and fresh basil.  Sprinkled EVOO over it all and mixed well.  Then I layered the marinara sauce in my pan and covered that with the veggies.  I chopped up a bunch of Compari tomatoes and sprinkled those all over the top.  After baking it at 400 for about 40 minutes, I pulled it out of the oven, added shredded mozarella cheese and popped it back in the oven until the cheese melted.  There was one kaiser roll in the frig, so I split that, buttered it and added garlic and put that in the oven whlie the cheese was melting.  That was dinner!  So good.

This is a recipe that you could mix other things in as well.  Mushrooms would be good or some Italian sausage for added protein.  There was quite a bit left over and I froze a large container for later as well as put a smaller container in the frig for lunches.

Just checked and Tyg was curled up on one of the patio chairs, waiting for me to come to the door.  He's having breakfast now.  So all is well.

Time for me to get a jump on my reports.  Have a great Thursday!

Unraveled Wednesday 7/21/21

 Good Morning Everyone,

The light this morning makes it obvious that the days are slowly getting shorter.  I actually noticed that too last night when Fletch and I were sitting on the patio around 8:30.  I know some of you hate to see Summer go, but I'm a Fall girl and I'm looking forward to all things Fall.  Fletch discovered a volunteer squash plant of some kind coming up in our garden (thank you compost!!).  I'm more inclined to think it is some kind of gourd rather than a squash...so we may be growing our own Fall decorations!

Late afternoon yesterday this guy came wandering into the yard.  Fletch chased him away from the garden and he ended up on the backside between our garden and the neighbor's yard.

His ribs are showing!  The apples on our tree are not getting very big (still golf ball size) and some of them are beginning to fall.  Deer have been coming down to dine.  No fear of humans which is not a good thing.

I'm happy to say that work pretty much cooperated yesterday - at least in the morning.  I was able to get a lot of cleaning done.  There is still much to do, but progress is being made.  My afternoon got busy work-wise, so I was not able to get the stitching or knitting in that I had hoped to, but I was able to knit some last night and got a start on the socks for Damon.

This is the Static yarn by Knitpicks and the colorway is Neptune.  I think the name for these socks will be "Out of This World" socks.  I'm using #2 needles and knit 15 rows of 2x2 ribbing and, so far, have done 15 rows on the leg.  The leg is K6, P2 across.  The yarn is easy to knit with and (theoretically at least) these socks should go fairly quickly.

On the reading side of things I am about three quarters of the way through The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.  I'd best speed things up as I think it is due back to the library today (which is not going to happen).  Monday I picked up Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller at the library - not sure I will get through it or not.  I don't seem to be able to focus on her books, but I wanted to give it a try.

Here's hoping that today is another easy one work-wise.  I have a game plan for the balance of the cleaning I need and want to do.  And of course I'm always thinking of knitting and/or stitching in the afternoon.  As usual, I'm linking up with Kat for Unraveled Wednesday.  Looking forward to seeing what everyone is making and reading!

Tiny Needle Tuesday, July 20, 2021

 Good Morning!

Happy to report that my visit to the dermatologist was a good news visit.  The "spot of bother" on the end or tip of my nose ended up being nothing.  There was a spot of blood or two after the stitches were removed, but no biggie.  I'm thankful for sure.  I will see her again in December for another full-body-look-over (I do that every 6 months, given my history).

Traffic cooperated and it was not bad getting to my office after the dermatologist.  I hung at the office until almost 1 p.m. and got many things done that I wanted to - not all, but most.  The only other person I saw was my boss Bruce who was busy with conference calls and other stuff, but we chatted for a few minutes.  The place was still very quiet.  I keep expecting to see more and more people in there, but so far it's no different than it was 9 months ago!

So now it is Tuesday again and time for TNT or Tiny Needle Tuesday.  It is very surprising to me that I've had an easier time stitching after my cataract surgery than knitting.  So, there has been progress on both pieces and I am still really, really enjoying both.  First up is Coverlet Birds by The Scarlet House.  The first bird has been stitched!

If you click to enlarge, I think you can see the difference between the green and blue floss - it's a bit difficult (at least for me) to see the difference in the small picture.  This is going to end up being a bit larger than I anticipated...probably too large for a pin cushion, but time will tell.

Next up is Pomegranate Birds by Heartstring Samplery.  Since I am stitching this on 40 count, it is going a bit more slowly.  I find I need more frequent breaks to rest my eyes, but still progress was made.

The subtle variance in colors of floss is appealing to me, though I will say I was happy to get into some of the darker greens and put aside the brownish/yellowish shades for a bit.  Because the flosses are hand dyed, the shades vary from skein to skein and, therefore, my piece doesn't quite look like the colors in the original (though I am using all of the called-for colors).  Here is a picture of the original one:

My game plan for today is to have an easy morning work-wise (fingers crossed), so that I can get a jump on some of the cleaning I need to do.  The afternoon I'm reserving for stitching and/or knitting (again - fingers crossed about work!).  I do have some prep work for dinner - I'm making an oven roased ratatouille (yay for the new oven!!), so eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, onion and yellow squash to slice, garlic to mince, etc.  Maybe some garlic bread to go with this.

The sun is up and it looks like a pretty day - hope you all have a good one!

Weekending

 Hi Everyone!

How was your weekend?  Mine was good.  First, my new range was delivered (again) Friday morning - just in time for me to miss my first conference call of the day - lol.  Perfect timing if I do say so.  They hauled the old one away and left the new one.  Our neighbor Rob came over late in the afternoon and hooked it all up for us (using the "old" outlet that the delivery folks said would not work - HA!).

I didn't use it on Friday - too hot.  We just ordered out some sandwiches for dinner.  But it worked fine on both Saturday and Sunday - both the oven and the cook top.  I realize now how over-heated my old oven was.  Everything always cooked much faster than I thought it should and now I think I finally have an oven that is an accurate temperature!

Saturday I met up with Dee for some quality knitting and chatting time.  That afternoon I finished up the second Fuego sock!!

Pretty and happy socks that fit moi perfectly!!

We had some thunderstorms blow through on Saturday which cooled things down and Sunday was simply delightful.  Almost chilly at times in the breeze!!  Before we went grocery shopping I managed to cake up two skeins of yarn to make socks for Damon and Peggy (Fletch's brother and his wife).

Both skeins are Static from Knitpicks (75/25) - the blue colorway is "Neptune" and the pink/red colorway is "Glow."  For Damon's I think I will just knit the pattern that Fletch loves - the leg is K6, P2 across.  I haven't figured out a pattern for Peggy's yet, but one of them will hopefully be cast on today.

No domestic chores were done which is kind of the way I like weekends, but I'll be paying for that this week.  My friend Leslie, her daughter Jaimie and granddaughter Emory will be here next Saturday for the afternoon, dinner and spending the night.  I need to do some MAJOR cleaning so that they can stay without choking on dust, etc.

Time to roll - I've gotta leave the house by 7:15 to get to the dermatologist to have the stitches taken out at the tip of my nose.  And hopefully, get a good biopsy report.  After that I am heading to the office - I've got a number of things I need to do there and probably will be stuck there for several hours.

Hope everyone's week is off to a grand start!

Friday Felines

 

Intently looking for a frog or toad!  Happy Weekend everyone - enjoy!!