Getting busy . . .

Things are starting to speed up here! Kristen's birthday party is fast approaching. I'm having the neighbors and some of her friends over on Saturday afternoon so I need to start planning. I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving - NO SCHOOL after Friday :-)  I am not hosting this year so there isn't much to do for that.  

The gym seems to be taking up all my time, although I don't know why as I'm only there for an hour and a half each morning, usually getting home by 10am!  I didn't go this morning - Cheryl called just as I was leaving the house at 8.30 to say she'd been called out. She planned on going later about 11am, but I went for groceries and when I got back decided to get stuck in to housework. I want to tell myself it's ok to have a day off (from the gym) or even two days off a week.

I got the game room all cleaned up, dusted and vacuumed. Did 3 loads of laundry, put the laundry away, cleared up in the kitchen, swept the kitchen and hallway floors. At least I feel like I've accomplished something today. 

We went over to Cheryl's on Saturday night. She'd bought some champagne to try that the store was having samples of :-)  I had to take a couple of pictures (especially for you Nenna - we were wishing you were here). 

Hope you're all having a great start to your week. I just realized why I want to decorate for Christmas so early. . . every time I turn on the tv there's a commercial on with Santa in it!! AND they're already showing Christmas movies on Hallmark channel!!!!!!

10 Green Bottles. . . .

. . .  hanging on the wall - well, not exactly, and they're not all green either! But here's a little birthday treat hubby brought home for me on my birthday . . . (but not including the champers, which I picked up myself that day) ;-)

I told Jason not to buy me pressies to wrap up for my birthday, because I'd already treated myself to over $80 worth of yarn the week before AND we went ahead and finally ordered a storm door that I'd wanted for the past couple of years (it gets installed next Monday) - but being the sweetie that he is, he came home on Tuesday with 6 bottles of wine from the grocery store. We buy six at a time (when we can) because the store offers 10% discount when you do and they give you a convenient 6 pack carry case :-) 

I love the selection he brought me too. 3 reds, a Cabernet Sauvignon , Merlot and Pinot Noir, and 3 whites.- Riesling, Pinot Grigio and a Pinot Gris.  As I mentioned before I've taken quite a liking to red wines lately, finally after many many years of thinking I didn't like them at all. Both Cheryl and I are really enjoying them.  Cheryl bought me a lovely bottle of Bordeaux wine for my birthday too and a book on wine tasting, and a large pack of wine label removers!!! This is perfect because I tried recently to remove the wine labels so I could start keeping them in a journal and they wouldn't come off without tearing.

You can CLICK HERE and see the labels she bought me. I've never heard of such a thing, but they actually laminate the label and you peel it off and get a neat plastic covered label. I want to start keeping notes in a journal about the wines we try, but I can also keep track now in a wine note book that Cheryl also bought me ;-)

So, it's Friday . . . . wonder which bottle we'll open tonight?   It won't be the champers, I drank all that on Tuesday!!!! CHEERS!!

Catching up

Hi everyone, hope you're all having a good start to your week. The days sure do go fast, I haven't posted since Thursday! I wasn't very well over the weekend, I think it was allergies. On Friday I started getting a huge cold sore on my lip too - man do they hurt. Usually I can 'nip them in the bud' (I use Abreva, if I so much as feel a tingle - if you've ever had a cold sore, you'll know what I mean) but for some reason I didn't feel this until it was quite a large lump! And even though I put Abreva on it straight away, by the next day it had really broken out and was huge :-(  I also had a fever on Saturday and spent most of the afternoon asleep on the couch while Jason took Kristen to his work picnic.

I felt a lot better on Sunday and actually went up to the gym with Cheryl and Steve. I've decided to join again! I really need to get active. Most of my afternoons I seem to be spending on the couch, after I've done housework etc, trying to knit Christmas gifts. I know I can find the time to pop up to the gym for an hour every other day. I didn't go yesterday because I was feeling pretty tired, from the workout I did on Sunday and probably the allergy problems right now. I don't want to over do it, so I'm going to try and go again today.

I'm finding there's not much to blog about right now because I'm not really doing much. Other than housework and knitting, and baking! I did say I'd share my apple pie pics with you last week, so here they are. . . .

As I mentioned, I made the pie because we got some apples off our tree :-)  I actually made the pastry from scratch and although it was ok, I didn't think it was GREAT!  The ice cream, now that was delicious. Homemade ice cream = yummy! And it couldn't be easier, it's just milk, cream sugar and vanilla and I pour it in to my icecream maker and turn it on. 20 minutes later you have delicious creamy ice cream. 

We're still waiting for the weather to cool down here! The mornings aren't too bad, usually in the low 70's, but by the afternoon we're still hitting high 90's. This is how the garden is looking at the minute. . . . 

All those plants you see there (spilling out on to the paths) are tomato plants! We planted them back at the beginning of the summer and haven't had any tomatoes off them? I think it was just too dry. Now that we are able to water a bit more we are trying to get them going again. They are full of little yellow flowers now, so we're hoping we get a huge crop of tomatoes in the next few weeks.

The grocery store was selling plants and herbs again so I bought a few including another tomato plant! some peppers and some new herbs.  I cleaned out my herb garden. The basil I had was huge and had gone to seed, so I cut it all down and now it's growing new leaves. You can see him below looking like a small tree without many leaves.

 

This basil plant below is purple and actually smells like licorice and basil!  I haven't used it yet, and actually probably wont. I just like to have a nice selection of herbs to smell as I go around the garden!

 Another new plant I planted last week . . . cauliflower :-) I've never grown one before, although we did get broccoli a couple of years ago, so I'm sure I can do cauli too.  What about you, are you still growing anything in the garden?

Dancing in the Street!

It rained!!!! We finally got a downpour on Saturday afternoon and Kiki said when it rained she would go out and dance in it - and that's just what she did. . . . 

 along with Connor, Emily and Boo!  I stood under the porch (had to keep the camera dry!) and snapped away at them jumping about like crazy :-)  I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see rain, and SMELL it! I never thought I'd appreciate it so much, but when you haven't had any in over 3 months, it is a blessing when it finally falls.

Boo wanted in on the action, but then realized it wasn't as much fun as it looked!

Kristen and Emily were loving it!

 

It lasted for about 10-15 minutes with a few rumbles of thunder along with it, but that's all we've had. We still need lots lots more.

Wine Time!

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday so I thought I'd pop on here this morning and do a wine post :-) Looks like I'm not actually managing to do these every week, so I'll just do them as and when I have something to share with you. This week I bought two new wines to try. Last night I tried this one (of course, with Cheryl - I cannot try a new wine without getting her opinion on it) ;-)

Pine Ridge Wine (you can find their website HERE). This is a Chenin Blanc + Viognier (which I pronounce 'von-yay', but have no idea if that's how you say it!!), the chenin blanc is a sweet wine but this wasn't too sweet because 21% of it is viognier. It has peach and honeysuckle flavors from the Viognier and crisp apple, pear and citrus from the Chenin Blanc. I was surprised that I actually could smell and taste the peach (and yay, I didn't look at the back of the bottle before I tasted). Cheryl got hints of citrus when she tried it.

I picked this wine because the first house we ever bought when we moved to the USA was on Pine Ridge Rd! It brought back sweet memories of my new life in the States.

The other wine I picked (but I haven't tried yet) is this one . . . 

Isn't that a cute label :-)  And of course we're still in 'flip flop weather' here in Texas (and probably will be all the way through to October!) so this will be fun to try next weekend.

I have to share this bottle with you - Cheryl opened it last night to try and I have to say, it's the best Merlot I've ever tried. 

This is a huge discovery for me (I'll definitely buy it again- Cheryl got it  from Costco) because I've never liked Merlot. They've always tasted too dry for me and very 'oaky', and LOL, I've always said it tasted very 'furry'!! But this wine wasn't like that, and get this - I actually tasted 'black cherry' (and not the usual blackberry taste that I get from a Cabinet) and that is what it said on the label :-)  I'm getting pretty good at this wine tasting stuff! Highly recommend this one.

I asked Cheryl last weekend to take a picture of my new dress and shoes - this is from her Iphone so it's not very clear (the shoe pics were totally blurry, so I'll get a photo of them next time). I got the dress at Ross and it was actually a gift from Cheryl because a couple of weeks ago she bought me one from there that she thought I might like (she's an awesome friend like that!) but it turned out too small, so I took it back. Couldn't find the dress in a larger size, so I got this one instead :-) 

 I also have to share with you the pretty cuff I wore with it - Susan will recognize this! I won it in a giveaway at her blog last year some time - it's made from a vintage man's suit and is adorned with beautiful lace and a hand sewn silk rose, and tied with a silk ribbon.

Well, I must be off. Hope you all have a great weekend. I have a giveaway coming soon - if you like scrapbooking or have wanted to try digital scrapbooking, you're gonna love it!

Our Weekend

Hi guys, I'm happy to see that most of our friends on the East coast got through Hurricane Irene with not much damage and just a short power outage. Glad everyone is safe.

We had a great weekend (despite the horrible heat of over 110 degrees!!) and I actually took my camera out with me (so I'd have something to blog about this morning) ;-)  First off, let me share something I made on Friday  - for the past couple of weeks I've been watching my carb intake. I've actually been trying to stick to the Atkins diet and limit my carbs to just 20 per day. I was doing ok, but then last week we had book club night and of course I just couldn't not taste all the wonderful food we brought. I had a couple of days eating whatever I wanted and suffered the consequences with a 2 1/2lb gain on the scales by last Monday morning! SO, I jumped right back on low carb again the next day, and I started browsing Pinterest for some recipes - I also made a 'low carb' board :-)  One of the recipes I found was this one,

It looked like a loaded baked potato chowder, but it said low carb so I knew it couldn't be potatoes. It is actually a Creamy Cauliflower soup with Bacon, Cheddar and Chives. If you click the picture above it will take you to the recipe.  So I tried it, and here's mine . . .

It was super thick and super creamy, really rather decadent tasting and I could only have a small cup full. But I really liked it. Jason tried it the next day and even he said it was good (considering it was cauliflower!). I like the 'pretend mashed potatoes' that you make with cauliflower so I knew I'd like this. Even Kristen said it was nice, although she didn't ask for a bowl, just had a spoonful of mine!

On Sunday we went out for brunch. A rare occasion for us, usually I make brunch at home on the weekends with eggs and bacon and homemade waffles. It was rather nice having it all made for me this weekend. We went to IHOP, Kiki's favorite for breakfast cos she loves the smiley face pancakes!

I was being really good and stuck to my low carb, and had the sampler platter . . . 

I asked for some toast instead of the pancakes and allowed myself one slice of wholewheat (to dip in my yummy eggs) :-)  Jason, (who said he's going to start low carb today with me!!!!!) had what I'd call a 'last supper'! Huge glass of orange juice AND his favorite Chicken Fried Steak, along with gravy, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes! What can I say?!!

After we ate, we took a drive through the old neighborhood we used to live in. It's a gated community with beautiful hill country views. (for those of you who don't know, we moved from there about 5 years ago because we thought we were going to move to Denver with Jason's job. We rented for 6mths after we sold our house, then decided we didn't want to leave TX, so we bought the house we are in now, in what I call a 'normal' neighborhood where Kristen can ride her bike and play outside with friends).

Our old 'hood' has had a new section added to it which we really had never seen. There are some gorgeous homes in it, all well over half a million $ - and yes I did manage to snap a picture.

Yesterday I also made a recipe from PW's cookbook. I'm going to share that with you all tomorrow. Did any of you see her new show on Saturday? What did you think? And what did you do this weekend?

Wine!

Hi all, wow, this past week just flew by again. I didn't even get a chance to post yesterday for Book Club Friday! I was about to do it today but then I decided to post about 'WINE'! Cocktail night has been a bit hit and miss lately, Cheryl and I have usually just shared a glass of wine on a Friday night, and to be honest, that's what our Friday Night's were all about - wine and cheese tastings ;-)  

Cocktails are fun too but I like the idea of getting back to trying a new wine each week, and I thought I would share my 'findings' with you all on here. Not that I'm a connoisseur of wine by any means. In fact I'm no connoisseur at all, but I love trying them. Just this past year I discovered I rather like red wine too so that has opened up a whole new experience for me. I thought I might try to have a post once a week of a new wine I've tried. . . . I'm trying to come up with a name for the 'feature' but as of right now I'm stumped!

For now, let me tell you about two wines we've tried lately. And because I'm not a connoisseur and often can't tell what they taste like, I'm going to share with you the description on the labels :-) So, last week Cheryl was trying a new wine called The Naked Grape (well, new for us), a Pinot Grigio from California.

Light bodied and crisp, with aromas of pear, lemon and honey!

Honestly I can't even remember if that's what I tasted in this wine, I just remember it was nice! I think if I'm to do a post on wines from now on, I'll make notes of what I thought of the drink as and when I taste it. 

Next up is Toasted Head!

 Funny story, I was in the grocery store with Kristen the other week and looking to buy a bottle of wine for Friday night, so I ask her to look at the labels and pick one for me that she liked :-)  She picked this one with a fire-breathing bear! The following are notes from the Toasted Head website (because again, I didn't make any notes about it AND I didn't get a picture of the back of the bottle - because I wasn't thinking about doing these posts at the time).

The nose offers ripe pineapple and peach aromas with toasted graham cracker. The bright straw color prepares the palate for the rich tropical fruit and luscious stone fruit with a viscous mouth feel accented by toasted coconut, vanilla and butterscotch. The creamy finish lingers with hints of buttered toast and lemon zest. This wine will pair well with creamy Italian pasta dishes, roasted chicken or fish, and fresh summer corn.

Pineapple, peach and toasted graham cracker! Wow! I wish I could remember tasting all of that, lol :-)  Toasted coconut, vanilla and butterscotch, I'm sure I didn't get a taste of any of that either! Chardonnays aren't really my favorite kind of wine, I usually find them too dry, but am wanting to like them better - so I keep on trying them. This one was actually rather nice.

Well, that's it for this weeks 'recommendations'. I really liked both of these wines, so if you see them in your local store, give em a try.  And if you've tried something yummy lately, or can recommend a great wine, do let me know.

Hmmm? Any ideas what I can call my weekly 'wine post'?

Weekend Update

Good morning everyone, it's another HOT one here in Texas! I wanted to get here yesterday to post about our fun weekend, but that never happened. I had to run over to my ENT to pick up my allergy drops, then went to the grocery store with Kristen, back home to clean up (inspired by the lovely Debbie, her kitchen was featured in the Country Woman magazine) ;-) do laundry, then it was time to make dinner, and then we popped over to Cheryl's so Kristen and Emily could play in the pool and I had a glass of wine with Cheryl.

Last Friday I got a flat tire! First time EVER since I have been driving I think (and that's many many years!). Thankfully Cheryl's hubby Steve came to the rescue. He doesn't go out to work until 3.30pm so he was the first one I tried to call. He not only came out to get us but immediately called AAA and the arrived not too long after to put the spare tire on for me. We were only about 10 minutes from home. I got two new front tires put on the car the next day, and all is well. I can't thank Steve enough, he was my knight in shining armor.

So, Saturday night we went out for 'Cuban'! Cheryl had gotten a Groupon for this Cuban restaurant in Austin, called Habanas, known to have the best Mojitos in town ;-)  They really were GOOD!

Kiki and me ready to head out.

Yummy Mojitos!

After we got home we went over to Cheryl's for a dip in the pool, I deliberately waited til it got dark so I could have a 'moonlit swim' :-)

I'm still having issues using Windows Live Writer to post to my blog, it won't let me! I had some computer issues last week and ever since Jason fixed them I can't post using WLW. I don't like posting with blogger now, it doesn't seem to leave a space between my paragraphs! I'll have to get Jason to take another look at things.

Friday Fun!

I didn’t get a chance to do a post yesterday. I wanted to join in with Heather for Bookclub Friday and post a cocktail of the week – it didn’t happen.  I’m headed out in half an hour for a little shopping with my ‘Bestie’ :-) So I thought I’d try to do a quick post before I go.

( this was us at the Rodeo last night! more about that in the next post!)

Last weekend we didn’t try a cocktail (we’re both trying to watch our calories!) so I picked up a new bottle of wine to try. . . an organic Chardonnay.

Don’t you just love reading the labels of wine to see what kind of tastes you’re ‘supposed’ to experience when you drink it?!

This one was ‘filled’ with flavors of green apple, pear, citrus and hints of French and American oak! Could I taste all that? Of course not, but it was a nice glass of wine ;-)

This was us last weekend hanging out in Cheryl’s back yard (that’s not me sitting down, I’m taking the picture!) It’s still so hot during the day, but the evenings are warm and nice to sit out in, so long as you have your bug spray handy!

Not sure if we’re mixing up a cocktail tonight, but we did try one earlier this week (very low in calories) so I’ll share that one next time.

The boutiques are calling my name. . . . have a great Saturday!

Friday Fun, Cocktails & Books

Yay, it’s Friday :-)  Even when we’re off school and every day feels like the weekend, I still love Fridays! It means hubby will be home with us for two lovely days AND I get to hang out with my girlfriend too because she’s not working for two whole days ;-) And we usually try a new cocktail (or make up one of our favorites!

Last weekend I tried another of Val’s cocktails. The one she featured on her blog was a Lemon Drop Martini.

CHEERS!

Hmmm, I thought I would love it cos I love lemons, and anything ‘tart’, but both Cheryl and I agreed it wasn’t really to our liking. SO, I mixed up another ‘Ice Blue, which I really DO like (you can get the recipe here at Val’s Blog)

This week, I’m not sure if we’ll be trying a cocktail or just having wine. The trouble with cocktails is they can be very high in calories (and carbs) whereas a glass of wine is only about 100 cals.  Although I’m still tempted to mix up just one to try and then have a couple of glasses of wine the rest of the night – what would you do?  ;-)

Last night at book club our host greeted us with leis and served us a Mai Tai as we arrived! The book we had read was The Aloha Quilt so of course she was going with an Hawaiian theme.  The Mai Tai was DELICIOUS, so I’m wondering if I should make that tonight. Val says she has a great one to share this week, but it’s not up on her blog yet! I’ll have to check what the ingredients are for a Mai Tai and get what we need. Slowly but surely I’m stocking my ‘cocktail cabinet’ so I might not need much for it.

Speaking of books, I thought I would join in with the lovely Heather this week, over at Blonde . . . Undercover Blonde, for her

As I mentioned we just finished reading The Aloha Quilt for book club, but I’m not going to talk about that one, (honestly it wasn’t that good a read! imo) I’m going to talk about this one that I’m currently reading on my own (meaning it’s not a book club pick)

Who Is My Shelter by Neta Jackson – this is the 4th book in the ‘House of Hope’ Series. I first read Neta Jackson’s novels in her Yada Yada Prayer Group Series (loved those too) and some of the characters spill over in to this new series.

Here’s the description: Gabby Fairbanks is now settled in her new apartment at the House of Hope. But she is being pulled in several directions at once and has some hard decisions to make. Philip, her estranged husband, is in a lot of trouble with a rogue cop from whom he borrowed money and also with his partner at the commercial development firm after he takes company money to cover his gambling losses. Lee Boyer, the Legal Aid lawyer who has become a friend to Gabby, now wants to be more. Gabby must decide whether to give Philip another chance, as their sons, Paul and PJ, hope, and she turns to the folks at Manna House, where she works, and the Yada Yada Prayer Group to help her discern God’s plan for her.

I don’t know why I love these books so much, but I do! They’re an easy read, and you seem to get to know the characters really quickly. Some books take a few chapters to really get in to, but I find with this series (and the Yada Yada ones) I’m sucked in after just a few pages. I’m only half way through this one but am enjoying it as much as the other 3. I’ll be sad to come to the end of it as it seems to be the last in the series. But I was happy to read on Neta’s website that she’s working on a new series called ‘SouledOut Sister’s, again, using some of the characters from her previous books, and bringing in some new ‘annoying’ ones (as she puts it) too :-)

Ok, before this post gets waaaaaaay tooooooo loooooooong, I’ll jump off here and go clean house ready for the weekend!