Friday, October 21, 2005

Maybe it's time to retire

I have really been enjoying staying home the last two days. It is amazing how much I can get done when I don't have to go to work. Unlike many women I enjoy domestic activities. Right now my stuffed meatloaf is in the oven and I have potatoes soaking in salt water almost ready to be oven roasted. I washed all the back outside windows earlier and then took a walk around the wooded area. There is an old horse barn right behind my gardens. It is only visible in the winter when the trees shed their leaves. I walked over there and took some pictures.

It is just an old dilapidated structure, but I always thought it would make a neat garden shed.

I also took a picture of my shrub border with its burning bush almost done flaming.


And just when everything else is dying for the winter, the poppies put out their new green growth for spring's display.

I Feel Like Aunt Bea


Remember Andy Griffith and Aunt Bea? DH and I love that old show. In fact, we own most of the episodes on tape. Whenever I don't have to go to work and I flit about cleaning and cooking all morning, it makes me think of Aunt Bea. She took great pleasure in her daily domestic duties. It seemed like such a simple era.






Here's to the memory of Aunt Bea. May she rest in peace.

Cream Cheese Apple Strudel I made early this morning. What a nice little breakfast treat.

For dinner tonight I am making meatloaf. But not just your plain jane meatloaf. I am going to try a loaf stuffed with ham, munster cheese, carmelized onions, and spinach. I love to try new dishes.

DH and I are going away for the weekend (leaving 7 a.m. tomorrow), so I will be eating in restaurants for the next two days.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Conquering Clutter

Did you ever get to the point where you just had to throw things away? I am talking about clutter, junk, excess STUFF. Clothes, magazines, shoes....I am being overrun by all of it. I decided yesterday on the spur of the moment to take two days vacation and conquer the monster before I am eaten alive. I have clothes in 2 closets, 3 dressers and big rubbermaid containers in the basement. I have more pairs of shoes than I know what to do with (a few years back I counted them and had over 60 pairs...mostly work shoes (i.e. heels)) The last time I counted I had 16 magazine subscriptions. I think I may have less now as I let quite a few expire.

Thursday is garbage day at my house. That is why I decided to take today off. I wanted to get those bags to the curb and have them taken far, far away before I had a chance to change my mind and dig a few things back out (I've been known to do that).

I worked my butt off today and was quite successful. I had about 6 garbage bags and 2 boxes full of stuff. About 1:00 p.m. I was working out in the yard and the garbage men came. I stopped to watch as bag by bag by box my STUFF was thrown into the big truck. It felt so liberating! I can't wait for next week to have even more of it hauled away.

In between throwing stuff away, I made bean soup (dried navy beans) and cornbread for dinner. The soup cooks for hours on the stovetop so it is the perfect meal to make when you don't really have time to cook. Every now and then you just give it a stir and then go back to whatever you were doing. I put carrots in my bean soup and I was so wishing my new knife would get here. Carrots need a sharp knife!

So did I throw EVERYTHING away? Heavens, no! Look at one of the things that escaped the big black garbage bag.









I found three bags with styrofoam balls in them. Now why did I take the time and effort to take them from their bags and stack them nicely in this big glass container? Why didn't I just toss them? I used to enjoy crafts, but since getting a computer years ago, my crafting has given way to surfing and blogging. It is not likely I will ever do anything with these silly things. I thought to myself, "you never know when you may need a styrofoam ball." So here they are just waiting for the day I may need them.

Simple Project that took me 3 Years to Do

See this table? It has looked like this for about 3 years. I had always planned to refinish it, but it just never happened.

Until today.
I said to myself, "I am REALLY tired of looking at this worn finish."

I then grabbed a piece of sandpaper and took the little table out on the deck to sand. It took about 5 minutes.



Then I wiped off the dust and applied tape around the edges. I grabbed a can of black spray paint and put a light coat on. It dried in about 20 minutues. I applied 3 additional coats of paint.


Here it is finished. I like it so much better now.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Calphalon Katana Stainless-Steel 5-Inch Santoku Knife

After 30 years of cooking, I have finally broke down and purchased a good quality chef knife. I just ordered it on Friday and expect to get it within a week. I am expecting all the frustrations of chopping vegetables with a dull knife to disappear once I get this little beauty in my hands. The sales pitch reads, "Calphalon's Katana Series is an all-purpose Asian-style knife that's designed to cut meat, vegetables and fish with little effort. The indentations along the blade's edge prevent food from sticking while slicing and its straight edge sharpens easier than ordinary stainless, maintaining its edge longer. You'll feel like a pro chef when using this knife to slice, dice, mince and cut." I can hardly wait to test it out!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Busy Day Today


I decided to make frosted sugar cookies (DH's favorite cookie). I don't make them very often because they are waaaaaaaayyyyy too much work! When I do decide to put in the extra effort, I always make a double batch and freeze them.

Today I discovered the joy of meringue powder. Does anyone ever use it? What it does is make a nice hard frosting, so you can stack the cookies and they won't stick together. In the old days people used raw egg whites; now meringue powder is used because of health issues. They seem to be setting up quite nicely.


I also cut down the last of the deck plants (dahlias and canna plant). Everything is now gone from the deck and all of the containers are stored away for the winter. It feels good to have that done.

I still have plenty of fall chores to do. TONS of stuff to cut down, but if I don't get to it, it can all wait until spring. If we continue to get nice weather then I may cut more down this week.

There really is only one thing left that I must do and that is spray all the evergreen shrubs and cherry trees with spray to keep the deer and rabbits away. I ordered some stuff off the net in June that supposedly only has to be sprayed once and lasts for six months. The problem is that the paper directions that were in the box were shredded by mice and now I don't know what it is or how to mix it. There is no name on the container itself. So I am now off to search the net to see if I can find it. I only know that it is made by Nott Products.

Sweetest Day Surprise



DH and I tend to ignore all of the "Hallmark" holidays (the ones made up to sell cards). So imagine my surprise when he came home from getting groceries yesterday with this little miniature rose bush. He's a sweetheart!

Some nice fall color yesterday




Thursday, October 13, 2005

Are these aphids?

 
Every year I bring my hibiscus trees into the basement for the winter. Every year they get like this by January (this is a picture from last year). I am assuming these are aphids, but am not really sure. I have tried spraying them with soapy water, but it does not seem to help much. Even though it looks horrible, there really does not seem to be any damage to the plant. When I bring them outside in the spring, I soap them up and spray with a hose and the little nasties just seem to disappear. It has been happening for four years now, so I have just accepted that it will and I don't worry much about it. But if anyone has some idea what I can do to prevent them this year, I am open to all suggestions. Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Whatever Happened to Christopher?


Does anyone know where he disappeared to? I was hoping he would be getting a new show on HGTV when TLC axed him, but so far he has not shown up any place. I used to like his show and really miss the decorating inspiration.

With the autumn season I always get the urge to change things, so I have been looking for some new project. So far, though, I have not found one.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Seed Packs



If you are in a garden club or are participating in some other seed-swapping event, you may want to take the time to make your own little seed packets. I made these last year and had quite a good time doing it.

I got the idea from this site, where the webmaster so generously shared her pattern.

http://www.pigs-etc.com/seedpack1.html

You can use them as is, or do as I did and personalize with photos of the blooming flowers of the seeds within so that the recipient will know what to expect.




Here are the back sides

Sunday Day Trip

I rarely stay home for an entire weekend. During nice weather, DH and I like to take little day trips almost every weekend. (It is one of the benefits of being aging empty nesters!) I am a very early riser, so Sunday I got all my housework done before 8 a.m. and we were off by 9 a.m. I was hoping for some nice fall color, but there really wasn't much. I can't tell if we are a week away from "The Peak", or if we aren't going to get much color this year.

So I had a lovely weekend. Saturday night's wedding was very nice as was Sunday's day trip. And I have not had to cook dinner since Thursday! Although I did some baking Saturday -- banana cake and pound cake.

This is a rest stop with a nice view of Lake Huron


This is the Mackinac Bridge. Of course, they are doing construction on it. I have never gone over it in the summer months when they weren't doing something to impede the traffic flow.


Have you heard of Mackinac Island? The Grand Hotel? No cars--only horses... famous for fudge. A Christopher Reeve movie was made there, but I forgot the name. 'Somewhere in Time' sort of sticks in my mind, but that could be totally wrong...I almost never watch movies. (I bet Dianne knows as she seems to be really up on movies!)I am just wondering how far away people know of this Island. Anyway, that is Mackinac Island out in the distance.


The Mackinac Bridge connects Michigan's two penninsulas



This is called 'Castle Rock'. It is a huge natural rock formation. You can walk up to the top and there is a viewing deck up there. We did not walk it yesterday, but we have many times. You need to be in pretty good shape to climb this rock without using the resting benches provided every 50 steps or so.

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Unique Planters

I really like different unique planters. This big ceramic shoe planter is one of my favorites. I keep it in my kitchen filled with (gasp!) artificial flowers.

I am still not getting email notifications on most of the comments. It is very strange. I seem to always get them from Girl Gone Gardening and Alice, but not from anyone else. Even when I reply, I do not get the email.

So if anyone has commented on an older post and I have not replied, it is because I did not see the comment. I contacted Blogger Help, but they were not much help. They said it may be a spam blocker, but I don't believe I have a spam blocker.

Is there any guru out there who may have a clue as to why this is happening?

Friday Night Dinner

I was not in the mood to cook. I rarely am on Friday nights. I also did not want to go out to eat. When I get home on Friday night, I just want to stay home. So we ordered a Pizza Hut Pepperoni Lover's pizza. Quite good and no dishes to do. I won't have to cook dinner tonight either as we have a wedding to go to. I do have a bunch of bananas I bought last week and did not eat. I may make a banana cake today to use them up.

Friday, October 7, 2005

Trip to the Apple Farm

A quaint country shop after a beautiful fall drive








Ahhhhh, the joys of Autumn...
I am not a very accomplished pie maker, but I must say, I am quite proud of how these turned out.

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Just Another Day in Paradise

Today at work I had to have a man arrested for “defrauding an innkeeper”.

Yes, if you don’t pay your hotel bill, there really is a law that will get you some alternate lodging at a pretty low price. LOL

This man checked in on Sunday night and paid cash for one night. On Monday he did not check out by noon, so we called him to see what his intentions were. He said he would be out soon. He was called at least three times and finally he said he would be out at 3pm or he would come down and pay for another night. I left assuming he had checked out.

Today when the housekeeper came on duty she went to clean his room and was surprised to find that he was still there.

The front desk rep called him AGAIN to see what was up. He said he would be down to pay in a few minutes.

Forty-five minutes later, he still had not come down, so I called him.

He told me he did not have any money. I asked for a credit card. He gave me a credut card number. It was declined (no surprise to me). I called him back and told him I was calling law enforcement to evict him. He asked if he could take a shower first.
Expecting him to bolt before the law officers arrived, I and our Chief Engineer went to stand guard outside his room. True to his word, he was in the shower! (we could hear the water running)

The two officers arrived quickly and we knocked on the door. He let us in and was standing with a small towel wrapped around his lower body, water dripping profusely down his body and on to the carpet.

Awww geez, WHY ME?

I had to stand within two feet of this nearly-naked man while he was being questioned for at least 30 minutes. I thought for sure that towel would drop to the floor. I tried to keep my eyes downward as I was not too excited about seeing all he had to offer. It was bad enough having to stare at those gnarly wet hairy toes!

The officers thought the man was very suspicious (none of his identifications checked out, etc.) He said he was having money wired this afternoon (the same thing he told us yesterday). They asked him why he stayed another night knowing he could not pay his bill. He had no answer. They ended up handcuffing him and escorting him to the city slammer.

This is the second time I have had to have a customer hauled off in the past three months (the last one was beating up his mother. He had just been released from the mental unit at the local hospital).

I really do not like having to do this sort of thing. I find it quite disturbing.

Monday, October 3, 2005

Changing Profile Picture

I am already quite sick of seeing my profile picture, so I decided to change it. It was much more time consuming than I expected. I had, of course, forgotten how to do it. I had to search Blogger for the directions. I believe I finally got it changed. I think I will change it frequently just for the sake of change.

Sunday, October 2, 2005

Do you see the Swans?


My little town has a 13 mile paved walking/biking trail system that links the downtown area, the waterfront area, fairgrounds, our Island Park area, and the wildlife sanctuary. It is really a first rate trail and I enjoy walking it. The Island Park is an actual small island with no inhabitants (other than wildlife). It makes for a very pleasant walk and on a lucky day you will see a few swan families peacefully floating along the river. If you look very closely (or click the picture to make it bigger) you can see some swans in this picture.


Another part of the island

















A part of the walking trail about a mile from the island
My town is right on the shores of Lake Huron, so we have water everywhere!















We often take for granted the amenities our own city has to offer. When I look at these pictures, I realize what a great resource our walking/biking trail is. I like this shot looking through the trees to one of the main streets. I am only a short distance away from all the noise and car pollution, yet it feels like I am way out in the peaceful wilderness.

Manicure/Pedicure


Every once in a while I like to do something a little different with my nails. This is especially bright and cheerful, don't you think? LOL

Saturday, October 1, 2005

Time to Bring out those Fall Decorations


The Beginning of the Rockwall

I am still working on transferring all of my picture files from floppies to CD's. I came across this old picture from 1990 when I was making the rockwall garden. As you can see there is no rockwall yet, just some big boulders which have remainder in the exact spot I found them.



















Here it is today taken from almost the same spot

Beautiful October Weather



Nearly 80 degrees today and I spent the day dumping more plants. It is supposed to be nice and warm all week. This is very unusual October weather in Northern Michigan. As I am dumping perfectly nice plants from their summer home, I just couldn't toss them onto the compost heap. I decided to take them from their pots and just plop them someplace in the rock garden where I can still enjoy them for a week or two. I just set them on top of the ground behind boulders, etc. They have grown an extensive root system so the soil just stays in place even without the pots.

So for the next couple of weeks I have new things to look at...and you all know how much I like change!


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