Sunday Catch Up!

I thought I’d join in with a new party I just found over at Kim’s blog . . .

It’s hosted by Three P’s in a Pod, Carrie with Children and Mommy Head Adventures.  It’s a blog hop each Sunday, so hop on over and say Hi :-) but don’t forget to leave a comment here before you go, I’d love to know you stopped by.

There’s so many things I would love to blog about, it’s just trying to find the time to sit down and type that’s the hard part! I’m a few days behind on the 30 Days Photo Fun posts, and I think I’ll have to do a separate post just to catch up!

Day 9 was Fresh Fruit, and I wanted to take this picture but didn’t get around to doing it until this morning. . . .

 

When you think ‘fresh fruit’ you’re probably imagining a fruit bowl filled with apples and oranges, bright colors and everything looking ripe! This might not look very fresh but it soon will be – the above picture is a cantaloupe currently growing in our garden, and the picture below is our first watermelon this year. In fact I hadn’t even seen this one until today, I nearly died when I saw the size of it!

 

The garden is doing so well (another thing I wanted to blog about) we’ve had corn this week AND we finally pulled up some potatoes to see if there were any underground (Jason thought we might have planted them too late) and we were happilly surprised to see we had been successful. . . .   We had corn yesterday which was really good, the kernels were a bit small but still very fresh and tasty.

and here’s the potatoes we pulled up last night. I boiled them this morning and made potato salad

We still have quite a few plants in the garden so we’ll pull them this week and I’ll make some mashed potato for dinner.

I deliberately planted an eggplant this year (aubergine) to make my friend Cheryl Eggplant Parmesan (it’s one of her favorite dishes). See the eggplant above. I picked that yesterday and then went to pick two more from the same plant. This morning I made her eggplant parmesan using THIS recipe from allrecipes.com

I didn’t use as much sauce and didn’t layer the eggplant, which I think made it much better. It turned out delicious and Cheryl loved it.  I made a smaller dish for me and Jason and even he liked it.

Well, I don’t want this post to get too long, so I will try my best to make daily posts next week, share with you the cocktail we tried this weekend, and show more garden pics too.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend.

Update on Boo . . .  I’m happy to say he was fine the next day and not limping on his paw at all! I really think it was a sting of some sort or Jason thought he could have stepped on a nettle?  It certainly isn’t broken and he’s back to looking 100% :-) Thanks for all your well wishes.

Sunday Musings – August 22nd

Had a busy day today so didn’t get a chance to get on here and post my Sunday Musings. It’s nearly 10pm as I type this so I just want to make a small entry before I head to bed.

Big day tomorrow, first day back at school! This morning I invited our neighbors over for a ‘back to school’ celebratory brunch. I made eggs and pancakes, Cheryl brought yummy maple bacon and AJ (Emily’s Mom) brought mini muffins. I also had Mimosas for us Momma’s :-) Orange juice, coffee, fresh fruit. It was a fun morning. Later in the afternoon Cheryl and I took Kristen and Connor to the pool ‘one last time’ (although if this heat keeps up I’m sure it won’t be the last time this summer).

This is the first year that Kristen isn’t excited about her first day back. It’s a new school, I know she’s a little nervous about not knowing anyone there, but I’m confident that she’ll make friends quickly and easily.

I always take pictures on the first day back, but for now I thought I’d leave you with a picture from the very first day Kristen went to school . . . PRE-school! She was only 3 yrs old! 3 yrs and 9mths to be exact.

She started with her little friend Stephanie (her mommy and I were good friends). I remember we both went out for breakfast after dropping the girls off. We were both so nervous about leaving our babies for the very first time. I think they were only in class for two hours that first day, but it was a long two hours for us!

Here’s Kristen last year - she was entering 3rd grade. . . .

I love you Baby Girl xxx

Sunday Musings – August 15th

Well I must say I was thrilled to read all of your lovely comments from my Friday post :-) It’s nice to know I’m not that boring, even when I don’t have anything to post about. You gals are the best!

Can you believe we are heading in to our last week of Summer Break! In one way it feels like it all went so fast, and yet it also feels like ages ago that we broke up for Summer. One thing I can say is (as usual) I am SO ready for school to start. Not that I don’t like having Kristen home with me every day, she’s at that lovely age where she entertains herself a lot during the day and is no problem when we go out shopping for groceries. We’ve enjoyed baking cookies together, hanging out at the pool, visiting the library, getting groceries together, going out for ice cream and lately going horse riding. I really enjoy her company (most days) ;-)

But after 12 weeks I miss the daily routine of school life and I think she does too. She’s always eager to get back to school and see her friends again. Unfortunately this year she won’t see her ‘old’ friends, but I’m sure she’ll make new ones pretty fast.

This week Kristen had her second horse riding lesson, and loved it just as much as the first. I showed a picture of her earlier this week brushing ‘her horse’ Spud! Here she is riding again, learning how to grip with her legs and sit up straight :-)

While she was brushing her horse I wandered around the stable a little and snapped a couple of shots.

There are quite a few ‘barn’ cats that are just snoozing away, they probably can’t do much else in this heat!

I was going to add a little video from my camera but I’m using WLW and can’t figure out how to do it on here, it seems to want a URL, but in blogger I just upload the file just like I do a photo. I might try to add it in blogger later.

I was busy cooking in the kitchen yesterday, but will leave that for my Tuesday post. Gotta plan my menu again today, my budget has ran out! But Jason gets paid again next Friday… not that we don’t have money in the bank to buy food, I’m just trying not to use it and use up what we have instead. It’s amazing how much more you appreciate your $$$ when you’re using cash and not plastic!

Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. I plan on taking Kristen round to the pool later as it’s closed tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t be too busy.

Denise

Sunday Musings . . . . August 1st

Wow, July is already over, and here comes August, probably the hottest month of the year, especially in Texas! The next 5 days are forecast to be 100 degrees or over, that doesn't sound appealing to me at all. The only thing we'll be doing this coming week is staying indoors or going round to the pool. Oh, but on Tuesday Kristen will be having her very first riding lesson - we'll just have to brave the heat for that.

Last night we went out to a surprise birthday party for my sweet friend/neighbor Cheryl. It was her 40th birthday :-) I have a ton of great photos to share but I used my small camera and I've since discovered that the cable I use to download them to my computer is not the right size! (long story short I think Jason shipped the cable I have always used with our phones that we sold), the one I am left with is the wrong size. I will have to buy a new one soon so I can get the pictures off my camera. Cheryl's sister had hired a DJ and we had a blast dancing to 'old' disco songs. The theme was 'Luau' and the roasted a half pig for the night. I went over to help do the decorations, everything looked wonderful, with fresh flowers and shells on the tables, and there was even a pinata for the kids. I wish I could show pictures today :-/

I did take these pictures earlier this week with my 'old' camera (the one I like best!). . . .

I set the timer so I'm actually in a picture with Kristen

I worked on my menu plan for next week and will hopefully post that tomorrow. I was so happy to see that a lot of you liked me 'Frugal Friday' post. It will be fun (and motivating) to share with you how well I'm doing on cutting back on our grocery bill. Today I went out to buy the Sunday paper (something I never do) simply to get the 'coupons' that every one talks about. I spent just over $33 for this weeks groceries (didn't need any cleaning products this week) to make the meals I have planned... and that includes pizza for a 'birthday boy' (Jason) this week ;-) I had a $1.50 off Digiorno pizza and breadsticks, so it only cost me $4.00.

Enjoy the rest of your day, can't believe the first day of August is nearly over already too!!

Sunday Musings . . . . July 25th

Good Sunday Morning to you all, it's a gorgeous day here in Central TX :-) Well, let me re-phrase that, it 'LOOKS' like a gorgeous day here in Central Texas, but I know that it is already way too hot outside so I'll just be looking at the sunshine from the 'coolness' of my living room!

This week has been very much the same as last, really I'm beginning to worry that my posts (especially my Sunday one) are sounding like a broken record! We aren't doing much at all other than hang out together at home, keeping up with housework and this weekend... messing about in the kitchen.

In my attempt to be 'frugal' I was going to make homemade pizza on Friday night (I've never liked spending a ton of $$$ at Domino's or even Papa Murphy's!), but we never got around to making pizza - we had leftovers in the fridge to eat so I just didn't bother. BUT, we did make some on Saturday night. . . . .

I did the PW pizza dough recipe again and here's Kristen showing off our 'creations' :-) I did a bacon and pineapple pizza for Jason, and tried to make it look like a heart - awwwww!

Kristen doesn't like pineapple so she did her favorite pepperoni and cheese one. They really are super yummy fresh out of the oven, not to mention fun to make together.

This morning I was in the kitchen again. Yesterday I was browsing websites for meal ideas and was on Pioneer Woman's 'Tasty Kitchen' blog, I found these delicious things, 'cinnamon bun pancakes'! Kristen of course loved the idea of these for breakfast today so I made them, and fried some bacon too! Oh my, hot coffee, pancakes and bacon . . . .

what a way to start the day!

Other news this week.... Boo went back to Petsmart yesterday (Banfield Vets) for his teeth cleaning. Poor little guy, he was not a happy camper when he came home yesterday afternoon. He is going to be on antibiotics for his liver values (did I mention this last week?) for another two weeks which should clear up any infections and he will have his 'levels' checked again in 3 months.

Jason has to work today (in his office at home) so we won't be hanging out like we have been doing most Sunday's for the past few months. Kristen's friend, Emily is home from vacation so I'm hoping they can play together today, that leaves me time to plan our menu for next week, put some laundry away, and put my feet up and knit :-)

Hope you all have a great day!

Sunday Musings . . . . July 18th

First of all I'd like to say thank you to those who emailed me about the pumpkin hats. I'm working on them now and should have the first ones shipped out by the middle of this week :-)

It was a week full of appointments this week (or I should say last week because I'm typing this late again on Monday morning). On Tuesday I had my hair appointment, which you saw in the previous post (and thank you for all your lovely comments).

Thursday was the busiest day, I had to take Boo to the vet for his teeth cleaning at 7.30am! I took him in last week for a check up and signed him up on the 'Wellness Program', it includes two exams a year, all his shots and a teeth cleaning, which he seemed to be in need of as he's nearly 5 years old. At 1.45pm I had an ENT appointment myself and later that night it was Book Club meeting for me :-)

Boo last week before his grooming.

Boo's teeth cleaning never happened! The vet called me about 10am and said they were checking his blood before surgery and his liver values were elevated?!! I'm trying not to be alarmed about anything just yet, she went on to explain the main cause could probably be the break up of tartar from his teeth causing an infection. So we went to pick him up and he's on antiobiotics and liver vitamins for a week. He goes back in this Saturday to recheck things and if all is well he will have his teeth cleaned that day. He will probably be on the liver vitamins a lot longer than a week, I have a big box of them.

and after - he feels so velvety soft :)

I am back on antibiotics and steroids too for my nose.... that cold Jason gave me didn't clear up on it's own (as I knew it wouldn't) so I ended up with another infection. I feel fine now, the meds work pretty quick and the headaches and facial pain I had last week has gone away. Book club was fun on Thursday night. I really enjoyed the book 'The girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. I've been told the movie was really good too (although a little dark) and it is subtitles, but I really want to see it when it comes out on dvd.

I didn't get to do a PW recipe last week but I'll be making something for tomorrow. I'm also trying to plan menus again and thinking of ways to be more 'frugal' with our spending. I'll post more on that subject later in the week.

I'm off to get more coffee, it's 9.24am, Kiki is still sleeping (if you can believe that!) I let her stay up til 10pm last night, Jason went off to work early today, so it's very quiet around here. Have a great start to your week. I'll be hopping by later today to say hi.

Sunday Musings . . . . July 11th

I haven't felt 100% this week after getting whatever Jason had last weekend... a head cold, or whatever it was! My head is still stuffed up, it feels more like a lot of pressure and I've now lost my sense of smell and taste again which always happens when I get too stuffed up. It's the worst part of any cold or allergies, drives me crazy when I eat something and can't taste it. I have an appointment on Thursday at the ENT to get more allergy drops (I take them daily instead of a weekly allergy shot), if I still can't taste by then I'm hoping he can give me the meds I usually get that clears everything up!

So because of how I was feeling, we didn't really do much this past week. Jason actually took the rest of the week off instead of returning to work on Thursday because he still felt pretty crappy too.

It was nice that we had some rain this week so it made staying home seem all the more cozy. I made play doh for Kristen. . . .

Here's a link to a video I found, I know there are lots of recipes out there using flour, water and salt, this is the one I used. I actually used half the recipe because Kristen had some already bought play doh that she was still using - but we actually like the homemade stuff best. It's much easier to roll out and practice 'rolling out cookies' etc.

I also made some 'no flour' peanut butter cookies because I saw them on someone's blog - now I can't remember who's blog! It's simply a cup of sugar a cup of peanut butter, 1 egg and a tsp of vanilla all mixed together. . . . fun and quick, tasty too!


And lastly (is that a word?) I made some of my favorite butternut squash soup from the two butternut squashes I showed you in my previous post. . . .

sad to say, I can't taste this much but I'll be eating it all week for lunch :-) Jason doesn't care for it and Kristen would rather not eat it (although she used to love it when I first made it last year!), so it's ALL for me! The recipe is from Paula Deen, she calls it Creamy Squash Soup, you can get the recipe on Foodnetwork HERE. It's so simple to make.

So, that was our week, not too exciting, but fun and relaxing, just the way I like it. This week I have a few appointments to go to, the best one is tomorrow to the hairdressers, and if you're lucky I might share photos next week!! Have a great Monday and thanks for stopping by.

Sunday Musings . . . . July 4th

First of all Happy 4th July to everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful, safe and fun day! The picture above was taken on Kristen's very first Independence Day, back in 2001 - I was 37!!!

Of course Kristen has changed dramatically in the past 9 years.... but have I? I'd like to think not, here I am this week with my new grill, and look I even have the same hair style, ha ha :-) Hard to believe I'll be 47 this year!

So, what have we been up to this week, and what have we got planned for today? I can answer both of those questions with "not much!". We had a lot of rain this week and a thunderstorm on Tuesday night. The rain that came after that was from Hurricane Alex. I didn't mind at all, it dropped our temps to the high 70's and gave us some much needed rain. I liked the overcast skies too. It did mean we didn't get any pool time this week, so Kristen and I have had some quiet days. Jason was off one day this week, I think it was Wednesday! We went out to Chinese Buffet for lunch then went and bought a new grill. I do all the grilling around here so it feels more like a new toy for me :-)

And the reason we bought a new grill was because we sold our Nexus One phones! You know, those fancy new phones we bought about 6mths ago? We haven't used them much at all since we got them, I can honestly say I hadn't called anyone on it in about the past 4 mths. I really don't need it to surf the net or check Facebook, I can do all that from my computer at home, and lets face it, I'm usually at home most days. We checked on Ebay and the phones were selling for a really high price. We bought ours for over $500 each and I'm happy to say we have sold both of them for about $400 each. We will just use the old phones we had which are from Verizon and use the plan we had where you just pay as you go.

We have no plans today, poor Jason is sick :-( He was very stuffed up yesterday and I said it might very well be allergies. He wasn't sure if he was coming down with something because his throat was getting sore too. I've often had a sore throat caused by allergies too, so it's always hard to tell the difference. Today he's even worse, very congested, thick green mucus (sorry for TMI) chesty cough, he really feels (and sounds) miserable poor thing. I still say it could be allergies too. Hopefully he will make an appointment to go see the Dr. I'm betting he has a sinus infection. So it will be another quiet day just staying home for us. I will probably grill some dogs (on my new grill) for us all later. Right now I'm off to get another yummy cup of coffee and stay in my jammies just a little while longer.

Enjoy the day!

Sunday Musings . . . . June 27th

I kinda missed my Sunday Musings post last week because I did a Father's Day post instead. But I'm being 'on the ball' so to speak this week and posting my weekly update actually on time.

This week started off like any other, just the usual pottering around, doing housework and laundry on Monday, taking Kristen to piano lesson on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday Jason left for a couple of days to work in Denver. I took Kristen round to the pool that morning, then we had a quiet rest of the day together. I don't think I spoke to another 'adult' until Friday night!

On Thursday I took Kristen to see Toy Story 3! What a funny movie, I think the adults laughed even more than the kids :-) 'Ken' had me in stitches - if you haven't seen it yet I'd highly recommend it.

Of course we had to see it in 3D :-)

While we were there Kristen announced that her front tooth had come out! It has been loose for months and it's only the 3rd tooth she's lost!

After the movies we went to Chick-Fil-A, then later that day Emily came over and had a sleep over. On Friday I took the girls to the pool for a couple of hours then off to McDonald's for lunch.

I finally spoke to another 'adult' on Friday evening when I popped over to Cheryl's for a glass of wine. I didn't get to see hubby til Saturday morning. He flew home from Denver at 11pm but his flight was delayed there for two hours so he didn't get home til 2.30am and came to bed at 3am!

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway on Karina's sweet blog Siestas and Cupcakes. I hadn't posted about it because, well for one I'm such a procrastinator and I thought I would post to say thank you when I received it. Karina drew my name as the winner on May 1st, but I only received the pretty necklace last week. There was an unfortunate delay when Natalia who was sponsoring the giveaway from her site The Adornments Boutique received a damaged necklace and had to return it to get a new one before she could send it on to me! Well, this is the pretty necklace I finally got, it was hard for me to get a good picture of it so I'm using the one Karina had on her blog. Thank you again Karina for having the giveaway and to Natalia too.

Today Kristen wants to go to Chilis for lunch (she loves their cinnamon apples and hasn't had them in months, in fact it might have been more than a year), so that's about all we'll be doing. It's so hot here now we don't do anything else but stay indoors or go to the pool! Hope you all have a lovely Sunday.

Sunday Musings . . . . June 14th

Hello it's me - it's Monday - and I'm just writing my 'Sunday Musings' now (which I told you would happen!) I had such a lazy day yesterday and just couldn't get motivated to do anything!

I was trying to take photos all weekend of my latest knit - a drop stitch shawl (which is now listed in my Etsy shop). It's so difficult taking good photos. I think when you're trying to sell something it's very important to get very good pictures, clear and closeup but I feel like I'm failing miserably :-/

I'm also busy right now trying to read my book for book club - the meeting is this Thursday. We are reading 'The Lace Reader' by Brunonia Barry, but it's not really my cup of tea. I'm already on to page 220 and no one has read a piece of lace yet! It seems to be more of a murder mystery story. I'm determined to finish it though, I always enjoy the meetings and of course now I want to know what happens in the end!

Speaking of books I've been looking at some that I can read with Kristen this summer. We went to Half Price Books at the weekend to look around. Kristen said she wanted a new book to read. Apparently she's been reading a lot at night before she goes to sleep and had finished a 'Pokemon' chapter book that she's had on her shelf for a while. She picked a book called 'Molly Moon'.

A few years ago I read Charlotte's Web with her. I'd never read it before but we both really enjoyed it. Ever since then I've wanted to try and read a classic of some sort with her now and then. We later read James and the Giant Peach - and after reading both books we watched the movies too.

Someone suggested 'Julie of the Wolves' a while ago for Kristen to read, so I'm ordering that today from Amazon. If any of you have any other books your kids liked to read, I'd love to hear about them. Or if you've read any good books yourself feel free to recommend them for me :-) I love talking about books and finding new ones to read. I thought of reading the Tales of Despereaux but Kristen told me last week that they'd just read it in class!

OK, with all that said I must confess I don't have much else to write about this week. It was a nice lazy uneventful first week of summer. I think this week I need to start writing notes down about what we do each day so I can write a little more on Sundays.

I'll be back tomorrow with a post about 'Hotspots' (courtesy of FlyLady) because Melanie won't have computer access until late Tuesday night so we are postponing our PW recipe until Wednesday.

Have a great Monday, and thanks for dropping by.

Sunday Musings . . . . May 23rd

Wow, it's Sunday and I'm actually posting my Sunday Musings! Wonders will never cease! This week has gone by really fast, I hope the next two are just the same. Two weeks is all we have left at school before Summer break starts. I can't believe it but I can't wait either. No more getting up at 6am during the week ;-) I love the lazy relaxing mornings spent in our pj's and not having to go to bed so early. Of course when we get to the end of Summer it means Kristen has to start a new school and make new friends.... but I know we'll be ok with that. She doesn't get upset now when we mention it - deep down I know she'll do just fine.

So, what were we up to this week? Not much really. I think I need to start keeping notes, isn't it amazing how you can forget so easily what you did at the beginning of the week? Or perhaps we did nothing so that's why there's nothing to remember!

I did go out on Thursday to my monthly book club meeting. This month we read 'The Art of Racing in the Rain' written from a dog's perspective. The dog was named Enzo and it was a really nice read - an 'easy' read as I call books like that. One's where it's easy to get in to and get to know the characters, where the sentences don't run on too long and where the story line makes sense (unlike some books I've read and could mention, but I won't). And as always it was fun getting together with my group of lady friends :-)

On Friday we had a spaghetti dinner out on the balcony. I wanted to wait until it was getting dark so we could light candles and make it like a little Italian Bistro.... by the time we sat and ate it was nearly 9pm! But that was ok, none of us were that hungry until then. Here's Kristen and Jason sitting on the balcony waiting for supper.

Can you make them out, it was pretty dark out there by then (click on the picture to enlarge)

and here's the table all set for us.

of course we had to let our baby boy join us too - he could smell those meatballs and was going crazy :-) It was a lovely evening out there, we had Josh Groban singing in the background too. We will have to do this more often, perhaps next time just have hors d'oeuvres and a cocktail ;-)

For those who haven't seen the front of our house, the balcony is upstairs at the front and is accessed from our master bedroom. Here is a picture above so you can see what I mean. If you click to enlarge you will see the bistro table to the left, and in the right hand corner I have a garden set, sofa and two chairs and a coffee table (I have an outdoor rug up there which you can't see in the picture). Perhaps I should take more photos up there and take you on a little tour next time :)

Today I will be busy knitting! I am thrilled that all of my cloths have sold. I have two more packages to mail out tomorrow and am busy making more cloths to include with one of those orders. After that I will hopefully be able to list a few more on my Etsy shop. Thank you again for all of your encouragement and kind words.... and of course thank you SO much for your orders.

Have a blessed and beautiful Sunday.

Sunday Musings . . . . May 17th

Monday again! and yet again I didn't get my Sunday post written up. . . . that's because I spent the day away from the computer and with my hubby :-) I was going to write last night but we watched a movie (2012, which I don't think is that good) and we still didn't finish it because it got late and I knew I had to get up at 6am!

So, here I am now all hot and sweaty! I just got back from my morning walk around the neighborhood. The sun is already high in the sky and HOT! It's already 73 degrees, going to be 89 today.

Last week was a quiet uneventful week really, so I don't have much to post about. Jason left on Tuesday morning to go work in Ohio for a couple of days. He was back very late on Thursday night (after midnight) so I didn't see him til Friday morning. Kristen and I just got on with our 'normal' week which includes gym class on Tuesday at 4pm and Piano lesson on Thursday at 4.30pm.

We enjoyed an evening sitting out front on Saturday night with the neighbors again. The kids love it when we're out there sitting around the porch with the tiki torches burning and candles lit (although I'm finding it hard to keep the candles lit if there is even the slightest breeze, so I will have to work on getting more 'lantern's. They are the only ones that don't blow out because they are completely covered in). On Sunday Jason and I worked in the garden a bit, but despite it being overcast it was still very hot and humid so we didn't stay out long. Jason took Kristen to the game store and she bought a DSi game and he bought a game for the PS3. While Kristen played with Emily on the front porch (they both had the same DSi game!) I sat and did some knitting on the sofa while Jason played his game. It was a lovely relaxing day.

Well, as I said, not much to share this week - not even a picture!!! I'll be back tomorrow with this weeks' PW recipe ;-) Need to head in the shower and then get up the grocery store today. Hope you all have a wonderful Monday.