Presidents' Day Weekend

It's the long holiday weekend. We will miss having Robert's family being here for the weekend, as per our tradition. Sarah has volleyball games during the weekend . We debated about going up there, but then Mike had a bunch of OSHA trainings in Las Vegas, so he headed down to those after work on Friday.

SOME of the tradition is still alive, however. I did remember to bring Abe home with me so he could spend his birthday with us. I'm sure he would just cry his eyes out if I ever left him behind in the Library on his birthday! He's been spending the weekend of his birthday (or at least Presidents' Day weekend) at our home for YEARs. It's like he's an extended family member. Right, Abe? ;-)



The flowers are a Valentine's Day gift to me fromMike. They are lovely.




As for the long weekend, we will be doing our regular weekend chores, along with mending and taxes. Sounds fun, huh? I hope yours is fun.

Faces

This is just one of those silly things you see and don't really talk about . . . at least, not past the age of 10 or so, I suppose. But Lexi and I got a kick out of this last month, and Gail and I talked about it this afternoon, so I decided to put it out there for everyone. Facebook might have been easier, but not for me. And that's just TOO much exposure of my silliness. Only my dear readers need know the depth of my craziness, er, silliness.

So here goes.

You know how the electric company has used the picture of the little outlet to look like a face and take on a persona of it's own? Here he is below, with the two eyes and the mouth. Simple stuff. We see it all the time. Most times, it's just an outlet.


Well there are other faces at my house. Many faces. Like the one below. He's lovingly referred to as our "Tiki God." It's our wood-burning stove in the living room. When blazing hot with a fire roaring within, the "eyes" and mouth glow red with the embers from inside. It is a site to behold! Definitely a face to be reckoned with.

The one below is kind of stretching it. Two eyes and the grill-work of the range hood could possibly remind one of the grillwork faces on an old auto or two.

Some are contrived and man-made, such as the magnets placed on the sides of the metal filing cabinet.


The speakers of the CD player make positively alien eyes!

But the one below is my absolute favorite. It's the one that Lexi and I got a laugh out of. I think you will, too, dear reader. It is the sight I see first thing in the morning. It makes me smile. Gail thought the face was a bit strained, but really there is a bit of a grin.

if seen from the side. :-)

I hope you enjoyed the quick tour of some of the faces of my house. Care to share any of yours?

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Here's two of Mom's!

Bountiful Baskets, updated

Above is the Bountiful Basket contents from Saturday, February 4th. Caroline and I went to Volunteer in the early morning (she had a sleepover at our house the night before). We received:
1 head of Romaine lettuce, 3 celery bunches, 4 huge tomatoes, 3 stalks of large broccoli, 3 red bell peppers, 2 very nice bunches of asparagus, a 5 lb bag of potatoes, 1 bunch of large radishes, 6 apples, one lovely pineapple, 3 Japanese pears, a box of strawberries. All for $16.50. Plus 2 hours of hard work this week, but that is optional. For volunteering, Caroline selected an extra box of strawberries and I selected an additional pineapple. I also took home some tomatoes that were not good enough to put in the baskets of others. They had bad spots on them. But the bad spots can be cut off and I'm going to make them into soup! In addition, I have an extra apple and pear than most baskets--but two less onions. They sometimes make substitutions if things don't pan out quite exactly to cover all the baskets, so a few of us volunteered the onions in our baskets to be put in the baskets that were short. I didn't know they were going to compensate me for them, so that was a nice surprise.

Have I blogged before about how much I love Bountiful Baskets? I think not.

I just adore Bountiful Baskets. They have a website at Bountifulbaskets.org. Go check it out.

When we're not eating our own produce from the garden, this has been SUCH a great thing for me. It's a food co-op, it is available in many states, and I just really enjoy it! We've been trying to eat healthier, and this helps so much. It's half fruit, half veggies, the price is right, it saves me going to the store. For a while, I felt guilty NOT going to the store and giving them (our local businesses) my money. But you know, they get plenty of our money!

I've volunteered at the co-op a couple of times and enjoyed that, too. I should volunteer more. The pickup for our area is Saturday morning, and I think it's a great way to start the day. Well, except that it's really cold in the winter! ha. I love having variety of fruits and vegetables around. I love that I don't have to go to a store and pick it out--they just give it to me and there's no choices. I like surprises. Of course, it's not really free, but the cost is so reasonable! And since it's paid for on-line previously in the week, it kind of feels like it's practically free. I haven't had a bad experience yet with the stuff I've received.

Our Sunday dinner today was mostly vegetables. Not EVERYthing was from Bountiful Baskets, but most was. We had

Parsley New Potatoes
Stuffed Acorn Squash
Green Salad with everything in it
Brussel Sprouts
(Chocolate cake for dessert--doesn't that cancel out all the good stuff??!!)

I get to grab a couple of pieces of fruit almost daily to take to work with me. I can have salad most days if I choose to take the time to make it.

LAST Sunday, we had soups in bread bowls. And green salad. I made a great creamy vegetable soup that day, and we also had pumpkin soup and some chicken noodle soup that were left-overs from earlier in the week. Yummy stuff.

Now, when we go to the store, it's just to pick up a gallon or two of milk and some eggs, a few specials, etc. It's a liberating feeling. Be ambitious and become a site coordinator in your area so you can have one, too, if you don't already. If you DO have one in your area (check the website for locations), then I urge you to take advantage of it.

Here's to healthy eating!

Oops!

One slightly scorched rooster

Remember the burner covers I got for Christmas? And remember how I said, just wait til January? Well, true to form, I've burned the first burner cover during the first month of having them. Sorry, Mom. It never fails. And, frequently I'll not burn another of the set! 'Tis uncanny how it always seems to happen in January.

Feed The Birds

Remember all those strands of popcorn that were on our Christmas tree? Well, Eric and I UNdecorated the tree and he took them all

outside to hang over the back fence. We really thought that the birds would LOVE it.
They don't. It's still there, virtually untouched. He hung them up over a week ago. Oh, well. It was a nice thought, I suppose.