Just Living

  

Here it is Thursday already. I swear, you blink and weeks go by.

     I can't say anything exciting happened this week. I have been busy doing this that and the other. It seemed no matter how I had my day planned, it didn't go that way. Nothing wrong or drastic, just not as planned. Like I had planned to do a little house work on, I think it was Monday and then get in my sewing room. That little bit of house work turned into a bit more, like curtains coming down and going in the washing machine, windows getting cleaned and so on, the little turned into a semi deep cleaning and by the time I noticed it was time to get dinner ready, and my sewing room never saw my face.

   Tuesday I did get the final stitches in all my projects and get them to Russo's. Joanne took everything I offered and gave me better pricing than I had hoped for. She also now has enough inventory from me for now until the season gets into full swing. 

For me that means going to a few other Farm markets between here and the shore, and building myself an inventory for craft shows this fall.

   Next week I start doing the flea market circuit again. I enjoy it once the weather is warm and sunny. I make my own hours and pick the markets I want to go to and I make a dime or two, while down sizing my home. I don't take my home made inventory to the flea markets because I get a little bit of an attitude when people offer me a dollar or fifty cents for my hard work.

  Mamma Robin is still in her nest. We use the back door as much as possible allowing her to be as comfortable as possible. A few times I have gone out the front and she stayed in place, but mostly she moves away from the nest when we use the front door. I haven't taken any more photos, but they would all look what I already showed you anyway, so why upset and make her nervous. I have been looking for my spot for when the babies are born. I plan on using my 600mm so I can get go shots and not disturb the little family. As much as I respect nature, I am not passing up any photo opportunities if I don't have to.

  Whats For Dinner: 

      I cooked every night this week, except tonight. Don't ask me what I have made because I don't remember. Pork chops, and chicken made their usual appearance I am sure, and I couldn't resist trying the blush sauce once more. This time I used a recipe, well I used the recipe as a guide and for suggestions. When I tried this the last time without any guidance I started with the heavy cream in the pan before the tomatoes, letting it simmer and so on, turns out that was not correct. 

Blush sauce

          I started  making the sauce as I normally would, I have never cooked bacon in the pan first before, since I love bacon I went ahead and tried that step, and I will be keeping that step it makes a nice added flavor boost. I followed the recipe when it got to the heavy cream and cheese. My cheese was pungent and was a little overwhelming in the sauce, not enough to ruin it but enough to distract from all the other flavors. Since I know I will use this again my cheese will be milder, with flavor, just not as much.  I was about to ask Bill if he thought it was good, when he walked in with his 2nd bowl  

      It was a heaping bowl at that. Question answered.

       I truly hope you enjoyed reading this, and that you come back again soon.

      

Short and Sweet!

       

               Busy Busy Busy, that would be me ! 

  The weekend was filled with family, friends, games and lots of good food. We wished farewell to friends parents as they made ready to travel back to Poland, We enjoyed coffee and cake and conversation that we only understood a small portion of. Listening to another language being spoken fluently and quickly always seems like a form of music to me. I played Rummy Kub with the girls one night and as always no matter where we play or who wins or if we even follow the rules I had a blast, chatting and laughing just enjoying the company of friends. Last but not least we had the pleasure of celebrating Bill's sisters, and our nephews birthdays. We also got to see our niece and her husbands new home. The house is amazing, perfect for the life they have now and roomy enough  for them to grow in. As always there was lots of  love, good food and wonderful conversation.

  If we weren't out and about being social bunnies, I was in my sewing room. I haven't made it to the farmers market yet because I didn't get done what I wanted when I wanted and once I did finish those items I decided I needed a few more items finished  before going to the market. I love saying that, " Going to market to sell my wares" It is so fun to say. I will be going tomorrow I hope, and with luck what I already sold to the market has sold and Joanne will be more than happy to buy more from me.

  I do believe it is time to get back on the flea market circuit. I need to add to my income and I want to keep my freedom. Flea Markets can give me both.I also have an abundance of stuff, not anything I need, just stuff. Stuff I can sell cheap because it is just stuff and I don't care about it. I don't mind getting rich a dollar at a time. 

  Remember the nest. Well I thought I had scared the Momma away when I messed with the nest. I didn't think it was an active nest when I moved it for photos, and when I found out it was a new nest I put it back, luckily  Momma did come back. She shored it up, made the nest taller, tighter and much neater. Then she was gone, nothing was happening with the nest it stayed empty. We didn't touch it but Bill is tall enough that he can put his phone up and grab a picture or just look to see what is in there. Every time he would peek the nest was empty.  The other day Momma was in the nest, she flew away when we stepped out the door, that is how we noticed her being back at the nest. Bill used the phone to have a quick look and there are now eggs in the nest. He snapped one photo with the phone and we moved on.

     We have been doing everything to leave her be and keep the porch quiet with as little movement as possible, we feel so bad when we do disturb her causing her to fly over to the other side of the porch until we move on and she can go back to the nest. I find myself timing my exit and entrances to her schedule, or using the back door. I used my 300mm lens today and stood as far out in the front yard as I could to get a few shots of Momma.

    They aren't the best shots, but to be fair I wasn't going for quality I was more so wanting to get a photo without disturbing her. I know they are just birds, common Robins at that , but watching new life begin is always so exciting.

    Whats For Dinner !

  I am pretty much excited on this one. It is a twofer and both recipes are AllRecipe recipes. Not by design but by the luck of the draw. A recipe came across my Face Book time line that intrigued me so I saved it. A biscuit recipe with cheese. Cheese !  the recipe kept nagging at the back of my mind. I just knew I had to try it. The night I planned to try it, I wait until an hour before dinner to really read the recipe, and to look to see if I had the ingredients. Yes I know, meal planning has its perks. Of course I don't have the main ingredient, I don't have bisquick. I am not about to let that deter me, oh no, not when I have decided I am making biscuits and have planned my entire meal around them. So purse in hand I am headed for the door and the store, when I come to a full stop. Wait can't you make bisquick at home from scratch? I look it up and sure enough yes you can and it is easy too. Bisquick

   The biscuits couldn't be easier even if you need to make your own baking mix.Cheesy Biscuits

     Bill took one bite and actually said DELICIOUS !. They are full of flavor without being over bearing with too much cheese, and while light and fluffy aren't words I would use to describe them that aren't dry or hard either. I only made a small adjustment, by adding oregano into the mix, just a pinch and using fresh sage in place of the parsley as the topping, it gave the herb flavoring a bit of a punch I think. Oh and I adjusted the servings down from 20 to 5 biscuits. I will be making theses again, I think they will go well with many different meals. This time I made Chili as my main dish and it turned out to be a hit too. I made it completely different then I have ever done before and I am in love with the flavor it produced. 

     No you aren't missing it, I didn't share my new way of making Chili. Today was about the biscuit and the baking mix I needed to make the biscuits with.

     I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

              

Just Living!

   

   It is Thursday already! where did the Week go? I can't believe how fast time flies some times.

      I spent time in the sewing room this week but not nearly enough. In fact I should be there now instead of procrastinating by writing this. 

  I have learned how to make 3 different style tea towels.

   I find matching them up with the potholders makes cute sets, for gifts and for sale. I hope the farm market agrees. I have a few pillows and towels ready.

 Today I will do the finishing work on the potholders as well as hopefully get more made. What I have finished I plan to go visit the market tomorrow. Fingers crossed that what she already bought is selling and she wants more.

  Tomorrow is the big day, first thing in the morning I go for my fitting or measurements for my upper plate. I can't wait. I have gone years without being able to fully with abandon smile  my brightest smile. As I said before fear and money kept this from happening sooner. Now the money saved and safe until needed and no fear I am ready! give me those teeth.

  The weather this week has been on the right side of nice, actually you could say it has been perfect. Warm and breezy with lots of sunshine and finally no rain. I took advantage and went for a few walks with my camera. I stayed in the community, I can always find so much beauty here. I am amazed  every time I actually slow down and look at where I live. I have the best of both worlds, the community of close neighbors and the wonders of country living all rolled into one. 

    I told myself, Self I said, you need to write more and use less pictures when doing the blog. Well I guess I am just not listening to myself. I took over 400 shots this week and even with deleting huge numbers there are still plenty to see. I want to show them all to you, but don't worry I won't.

          In the photo group I belong to on line, each month we have the bonus challenge, something you have all month to work on, A versatile challenge with 10 subjects and the month to work on it, the weekly challenge and the rainbow challenge where you spend the month adding photos in rainbow color order. So the main subject needs to be a color in the rainbow, and each photo is placed in the correct order according to color. It is the easiest challenge to keep up with and I haven't Done a single one this month. I have plenty of photos for the rainbow but my concentration has been focused on the weekly challenges this month. They have been intriguing and more challenging than usual. I like this group because they consider all types of people and the challenges can be completed in any fashion that works for you. Indoors, outdoors, night or day, real or fake, the only real requirements are that you take the photo, and you take it in the time frame given. Making it easy to play along and keep up with what ever interest you the most. 

    This weeks challenge is 3 in one place. You stand in one place and just turn, or look up or down. You can stand squat or sit, or do all 3, but you stay in the same spot. Instead of the usual 3 photos for a challenge this is 9 photos. The group page is going to be huge this week. I have all 3 of mine done. 2 from my walks and 1 in the kitchen.

 Series # 1 My backyard as the sun goes down

My favorite in this set!

  Series # 2 Walking in the afternoon.

Looking forward!

Looking down

Looking right

Series #3 In the Kitchen

Did you. say treat?

  

      I have at least one favorite photo in each series, and I can't even begin to pick my favorite series. My favorite photo isn't the best technically but I felt like it was the best catch of the day.

      This monthly bonus is called The Games People Play. This is not an easy one for me. I came up with one idea but it was bending the rules just bit too much so I had to let it go. Understandable, while it took skill because I had to achieve goals to get the action I wanted, in other words I had to play the game with one hand and squeeze the buttons at just the right moment with the other hand to get the screen shot I wanted, still a screen shot is just that a screen shot, even if the fish and bear move faster than fast.

          Now you know my weakness. Soda candy crush!

I took other pictures of gamey kind of things but nothing has shaken my world and said this is it.

Champion fuzz ball flicker

A losing hand

        Not so surprisingly I may not have a submission this month, but it won't be for the lack of trying.Even after attending a night of games with girls over the weekend and the Minute to Win It night at our monthly ladies night I am stumped for a good game photo.

  As for the versatile category I haven't even looked at the list yet. I will try to play using something from all the 100's of photos I have for this month, but as I said the weekly challenges have been extremely attention grabbing and fun to do.

  As an All Star or Brand Ambassador my " Whats for Dinner" always had a recipe to share, always from All Recipes. Always a big deal with plenty of planing and worries about the perfect picture and so on. I always enjoyed my time  as an Ambassador it was a great deal of fun with loads of food and opportunities to connect with others that love preparing food as much as eating it. I enjoyed it then, but don't miss it now. Without the assignments and recipe trials " Whats for Dinner" has been a bit more difficult to produce, without a direction a purpose the subject seems to just float off into space like a forgotten ballon. As I was having this though, my direction hit me, it isn't all that earth shattering and probably not even original but at least the purpose is there and the direction however little it is, is also there." Whats for Dinner" will now reflect the life of a busy retiree. It won't be about how fancy or fussy I can make it, or how trendy it is, it will be about how simple, easy, and pleasant I can make it. Simple as in not a dozen different dishes and ingredients, and the need to get up at the crack of dawn to start dinner. Easy as in less dishes, not just less side dishes or main, but less dirty dishes too. I am not a fan of the all in one dish or one pan meals, but I also am not a fan of unnecessary dirty dishes either. I feel pretty much the same about all the fancy tools too.And finally pleasant as in quick and easy to prepare and cook allowing you the time to slow down and enjoy each others company. Sometimes the time we spend preparing our dinner is the only time we actually get together where we aren't both busy with other things. So having meals that don't require hours of effort and sweat but allow you a leisurely moment in the kitchen can be the sweetest part of our day.

    Whats for Dinner? 

     I had two choices this time, both took pretty pictures and both had great flavor, and both need tweaking . This one I really want to be able to do again only better. It was good, in fact tasty, but it was to much like tomato soup and not enough like a blush sauce I was envisioning as I calmly with great confidence poured everything into the pot. There was no recipe and no guide lines just an idea in my head and a 1/2 pound ground turkey defrosted, along with 2 nice fat links of spicy Italian sausage. I wanted a creamy sauce but not Alfredo , I always see blush sauce on restaurant menus but never tried it, never actually seen it, but it sounded good so without any kind of guidance I set about my merry way. I started with sautéing the onions and garlic and browning the meat, I then added heavy cream, how much, I don't know because I just opened the container and poured what was in there into the pot. Then I simmered,  for how long, well as long as it takes to go in the living room, tell Bill something about my day or do show and tell, and walk back into the kitchen just before it begins to stick to the bottom of the pan. Once it looked simmered enough all the spices and meat seemed to meld together I threw in a large can of tomato puree or crushed, tomato, it was some sort of tomato, once it started boiling I turned down the heat to let it simmer and get blended, I engage the perfect timer by waking Bill up from his snooze on the couch to tell him something he probably really didn't want to hear anyway. Once Bill looked sufficiently bored and ready to doze off again I take that as my cue that the sauce needs a stir and has simmered enough. Once the pasta is ready I bravely taste the sauce and declare it dinner. As I said I thought of soup when I tasted the sauce so I was not  overly disappointed, and not extremely happy either.

     I will look up blush and cream sauces before I do this again. All in all a good meal and the perfect way to spend time  with the other half .

       I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

      Looking forward to seeing you next time!  

                      

             Today is a day of mixed emotions. Today we celebrated a life that has ended, entirely too soon and tonight we will celebrate life it self simply by living.

   Today Diane was laid to rest and I was so happy, but not at all surprised, to see how much she was loved and respected. The service was absolutely her, a quiet, classic and properly done affair. Her family couldn't have captured her spirit better. Her service was well attended with no empty seats and no dry eyes either. The love could be felt in every corner and I am sure Diane was smiling at us all as we said our final Good Bye.

   As sad as this morning was, there is so much to remind you that life is still going and it is mostly good. Like the  grandparents that celebrated the birth of their newest grandchild this past week, or the birds nest being built right out side my front door. A robins nest we  believe. I touched it for pictures and it was empty. Now however there has been more added to the nest tightening it up and making it ready for babies, so I won't touch it even a little bit. Make no mistake I will be continuously curious as to what is going on in the nest, and I will really really want to look but I will resist and let Momma  bird do what she needs to , to get her family raised.

  The dance is tonight!  It is the Second Saturday Social. I LOVE to dance. As you may of guessed this is one of my most favorite events. I wasn't sure if I was going to go to this one or not, but in the end I decided I just wanna dance my blues away and be with people that understand and feel the same as me.

   Now for my favorite part of todays bog.The challenge in photography group. Film Noir! I had fun with this one once I figured out what I wanted and how to do it. First I found a Noir filter in the editing program on my Apple, so I took a random photo from my library and applied the filter to see what the results would be. I pretty much got all the information  for camera settings I needed from doing this,  as well as the type of lighting that might work best. My next issue, finding a subject.  Some of that answer came by accident while walking out the door to walk BowD. There is a hutch out side the front door and on it is an eclectic collection of things that don't fit in the house but we like too much to get rid of. It was there I found two of my subjects. Including the birds nest that I had not seen until then. My doll house on the back porch caught my attention as well and it gave me so many ideas that I was entranced for a hours. Each room offering something cool and different for my cameras eye. In the end I only used one photo from the doll house and I felt with it I had nailed the assignment. I am not going to go into anymore detail then I already have of how I took the photos or how I edited them, I will just show you.

It started like this

   

This is how I finished it.

 

 The nest on the hutch

A different type of view 

The doll house stairs

  

 

  

Now they are a dark and mysterious 

                  It seems I still have room for" What's for Dinner".While I am no longer an All Recipe All Star, I still enjoy cooking and creating different dishes. 

    Things have changed in my house when it comes to dinner. We still eat, but without Mom we don't have a regular dinner time at the table. We cook and often use leftovers for days and graze as we wish. 

  This what's for dinner is, yep! you guessed it leftovers. Bill prepared the perfect Prime Rib on Sunday and we both enjoyed a typical steak dinner with potatoes and roasted veggies. From the left over steak on Monday or maybe it was Tuesday I created my version of a steak fajita using refried beans, leftover steak , canned tomato and chillies, onion, peppers and because I had some zucchini. Oh and because it struck me that I should, I diced up some golden new potatoes and lightly fried them up before adding them to the mix. I did not season the meat mixture at all letting the veggies be the seasoning. After having dinner with the girls last Friday at a Mexican restaurant and realizing they don't season the meat I thought I would give it a try. I was not disappointed. The flavors in the dish were well balanced and were better tasting without the heavy flavoring of the normal seasonings we use in Mexican cooking. This will be repeated.

  As the song says, " And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance        I hope you dance,     I hope you dance." "Lee Ann Momack"

                 Hope to see you next time!