Poor Bob

Poor Bob. He is back at work and this is how he has to dress to go into the factory. The hairnet, safety glasses and ear plugs were always part of the costume but now he has added a face mask. He also has on safety shoes.  I can’t imagine wearing all that stuff all day!

The picture is a little blurry because it’s a screenshot of a FaceTime conversation on my phone. Sorry!

The tree outside my kitchen window is superb. I planted it 10 years ago when we added the addition onto our house. (Ok it’s not really an addition but we just enclosed our screen porch. ) from the outside the tree is gorgeous. People walk by and stop to admire its beauty in the spring when it’s in full bloom. Little do they know it’s true purpose was to hide a slight difference in brick color between the old and new parts of the house. From the inside of the house I can see the tree outside the window above my kitchen sink. We have a sitting area where the longer windows are and I have a great view of the entire tree and the very busy bird feeder. For an entire month we get to enjoy this great tree. There is another tree just like it planted at the exact same time in the backyard but it isn’t quite as majestic. 

Look carefully and you can see all the bees the tree attracts!

Random picture

I’m tired of posting about food, coronavirus and landscaping. Today I scrolled through my photos randomly and landed on the video above. Christmas Day 2019! Maria gave Jenn (on the left) and Leah (on the right) an exploding box with their gift inside. Have a great day!

Yesterday morning Bob and I went for an early drive. We needed gas, we wanted to see our house without trees from a different angle and we were also bored. We shop mostly at Kroger and earn fuel points so we headed there to fill up. Gas was just $1.09 per gallon and I had a $1 off of every gallon to that made our gas just 9 cents!!!!!

All of these hosta were in our front yard. I had so many all around the house. All day long friends, neighbors and strangers came by to get the free plants. They are almost too heavy to lift. Most people cut them up to take them away but some actually lifted them whole. One big hosta can easily be cut down to make 6 smaller ones. Eventually they will get this big no matter how small they start. It makes me happy to know all those plants will be spread all over our neighborhood and they all got their start from 3 plants at my first home 32 years ago. 

First and last

As promised yesterday, this is our first house. Isn’t it lovely? I remember shopping for a house and how exciting the entire process was. We had found another home we loved but the owners turned down our offer and we had to start the search all over again. We toured so many houses. I can’t remember my high school prom but I can still remember some of those houses we only saw once! That is crazy. Bob and I still laugh about the house with a parrot sanctuary in the dining room and the one straight out of the 70’s with shag carpet and a bathtub sunk into the floor. The house we picked was so normal in comparison with the others. It had 3 bedrooms and 2 and a half baths and the only weird thing about it was that it had a beauty shop in the basement. For the entire 7 years we lived there people used to stop by and ask, “Do you still do hair?”  I would always tell the strangers that the other home owner had moved. Bob used to say we should start up her business again to make a little money. Of course neither one of us had any talent related to cutting hair!

It did not look exactly like this 32 years ago. Bob and I had the opportunity to take a drive by our old house in 2017 on our way back from a wedding and took the present day picture. Parking in front of the house brought back so many memories and we were surprised at how well kept it was.  Most of the landscaping had been upgraded and the trees were huge!  The hosta that were the start of all my current plants were on the left side of the house under the birch tree.  We always had hanging baskets and the flag just like they do in the picture. The family had a really cool play set under the oak trees on the right. We swept up buckets and buckets of acorns each year and I can imagine the kids in that house must have a fantastic time playing under the trees. The roof was a light grey when we lived there but I really like the black roof much better! We wrote the owners a note and let them know how beautiful their home looked and they actually wrote us back!

Yesterday I posted a picture of my house in its naked form void of all landscape. It looked really pretty before but I can’t wait to share the finished product. I know it will be better than it ever was. We have lived here for 20 years and could easily live here for 20 more!

Happy Earth Day Landscaping Changes

It’s Earth Day so we are moving earth all over!  Actually we are totally redoing our landscaping because...We had a problem with all our fir trees so they had to come out. Last year we had a leaky pool and had to dig up parts of our current landscape plan. Our decorative wall in the front yard was falling over. All of these reasons and many others have brought us to a big remodel. If you know us, you know we love to remodel so this should not be a surprise!

This beautiful tulip tree is falling over. It’s coming down which makes me very sad. I love this tree it has the prettiest pink tulip like flowers. Unfortunately it is a very massy tree, is the last to drop its leaves in the fall, is fighting for sun with our other trees and is leaning toward the street. 

We cleaned up the garden to get ready for planting. I found these spring onions! They have already been added to yummy fried rice!

My videos are not working (I’ll work on that!) but the picture above was from last year when we painted the house. Those trees are all gone. The hostas are still there but will be replanted on the side of the house.  Here is what the house looks like today. 

This is my house right now. It looks naked. On the right side of the house is a giant pile of hosta. I’ve told all my friends they are welcome to take as many as they want. I have way too many. 94 to be exact! They are being dug out with a back hoe and it’s a good thing because they are huge.  I brought 5 hosta to this house in 1997. Those 5 were offshoots of plants at my house in Knoxville whose plants were offshoots of plants at my house in Morristown which were offshoots of hosta at my first home in Crystal Lake. When we moved into that house in 1987 it already had hosta growing in the beds. My mother in law took some so she had them in her yard too in Chicago. I guess you can say that the hosta in my yard are descendants of the plants at our first house. I loved our first house. I think I’ll write about that house tomorrow. Happy Earth Day!

McD’s

I’m a big fan of McDonald’s. BIG FAN. I don’t get tired of it and their soda tastes better than any other drive thru. Maybe it’s the ice? Whatever the reason, I go there often. My friends and I walk together 3 times per week. (Not during Quarantine Lockdown) We gather at McDonald’s after walking, have a drink and finish our conversations. Sometimes we have all 12 of us but other times there are 3 of us.  Tomorrow my friends and I are getting together. We miss each other!  We won’t walk in our pack around the neighborhood nor will we go to McDonald’s. Instead we are bringing lawn chairs and setting up, 6 ft apart, in a friend’s backyard. Maybe I’ll bring a McDonald’s soda to sip while we all chat!

Cookies

I make oatmeal cookies about 3 times per year. During the coronavirus I have made oatmeal cookies twice in one month!

Car picnic

Sometimes you just don’t want to cook!  We had a car picnic with food from out favorite hibachi Japanese restaurant. 

We drove up to the restaurant. 

We called the restaurant to tell them we were ready for our food and they brought it out to our car. 

We parked in the empty parking lot of the mall and ate our food. We brought our own drinks and our own silverware. It was fun!

I’ve been struggling with the pictures on the blog. I think I fixed the last post so hopefully you can now se the pictures of the yummy lasagna.
In years past my Easter Day, dinner and decorations have been on point. The nice thing about Easter (and Thanksgiving) is that is that there is very little other hoopla like there is at Christmas. I always work hard to make a beautiful table and meal. Years past...

This year the meal was great but I was a slacker with the decor. Oh well, now I have something to aspire to next year!

Non stop

Today started early. . . 5:30am early.  I have no idea why I got up that early but I was awake so I decided to get started. 

The pool is coming along although we have a long way to go. Right now I’m just pushing the dirt on the bottom to losen things up. (I did this wearing my winter coat) 

At least you see the bottom of the pool. Yesterday it was a cloudy mess. In a day or so the chemicals will start to clear it up and we will put in the automatic cleaner to pick up the junk off the bottom.

For lunch I made the most delicious corn chowder. Everyone’s bowl looks like mine!  I got the recipe here https://www.thechunkychef.com/hearty-homemade-corn-chowder/  I changed up the recipe a lot which is what I usually do. I’m a pretty good soup maker and I used the recipe just as a guide and added my own touches.  Jenn and I  had seen corn chowder on Top Chef and thought it sounded good. The secret to the success of the soup was smoked paprika plus I added a jalapeño. No leftovers!

After lunch I made a quick trip to Aldi. I love that store. I went to get bread for dinner and a few other staples. I shop frequently at Aldi but I can’t use it as my only go to store. They just don’t have the diversity I need for all the cooking I do. The fun part of Aldi is I always find something unexpected when I go there. On this trip I found frozen fruit bars (yum) and discount eggs (I bought 2 dozen bargain cartons) I read on another blog that the water from hard boiled eggs is good for house plants. I let the water cool on the counter and then fed my plants. If you zoom in on my first picture below you can see my plants are treated well and reside in polish pottery planters. One of my plants is even potted in a polish pottery colander! It’s hard to see in the picture but the shelves also hold a mustard crock from France, a wooden cow from Switzerland, a small bowl made by the twins with stray Euro coins inside and blocks with names of all the states where we have lived. I love this little corner of my house!

egg water

Dinner tonight was a lot of work but it was even more delicious than the soup! I made lasagna with a sauce that cooked nearly all day. Maria was over today and helped me assemble. She took home a beautiful lasagne and a loaf of garlic bread along with a dozen hard boiled eggs for later. The shots below are the before and after shots. 

I always bake lasagna on a cookie sheet because it tends to bubble over and make a mess. 

I did a bunch of other things today too and was truly super productive! 

A chilly day in April

As you can see from the weather photo above, it’s cold today. The sun is shining but the wind is blowing. It’s one of those days that’s deceiving. It looks warm but when you get outside you need to button your coat and throw up your hood. It’s a good day to take a drive and stay in your car or stay inside and let the sun shine in.

Instead we are opening the pool! This is one of those things that sounded like a great idea last week but now I know we could have waited another week (or two). The water level under our winter cover was getting quite high with all the rain we have had so we were ready to get it open. Of course we never get in it at this time of year but it’s fun to look at.  

 This is what the pool looks like when the cover comes off after 7 months being dormant. 

Eventually it will be 90 degrees and sweltering but for now it is not swimming weather!

Macarons

Macarons are notoriously hard to make. I have never really tried to be a French baker but I have definitely enjoyed eating them. They are sold everywhere (even Aldi) but the most famous provider of macarons is a beautiful store called Laduree. Wikipedia calls it a “French luxury bakery”.  Translation = expensive cookie store. I have been to Laduree locations in London, Zurich and Paris. I can now boast that the best macarons are made right in my own kitchen. Coronavirus led the kids to have extra home time and extra cooking time. They made 3 batches of macarons with one even being gluten free and egg free. Amazing!!

Gluten free and egg free strawberry macarons. The  meringue is actually made  with the water from a can of chic peas. I know it sounds gross but it works!

Chic pea meringue 

Lemon macarons. My favorite!

Vanilla macarons filled with 3 different buttercream flavors. Very very good!