one things leads to another....instead of doing the "list fridays" thing.  I have to be different and do a List Sunday.  Why?  because I hardly ever get out of bed before noon on Sunday.  I'm usually lounging in bed watching the pvr'd programs since friday night.  It's usually Bill Maher, 20/20, Rock Center, W5, Fifth Estate, 48 Hours, Sunday Morning cbs thing, Land and Sea, Mansbridge One on One.  And anything else that i've pvr'd since Friday.  With all these shows, who has time to get out of bed anyway.  Well truthfully some of these I watch Saturday night also.  But Sunday mornings I can usually be found in bed till noon, usually with my computer on my lap.

Avocado's are on my brain these days.  And this really looks good.
I've got to buy a cauliflower, and how come I never thought of this myself.  I loooove cauliflower and I always have pesto on hand in the freezer.  This is a no brainer.  I'll have to try it with other veg.
And this will probably go down real good in this household.  Both this  and that, what's not to like about a meatball meal.  Or as finger food the next day.  yyummm
And what's this site....yet another to add to my growning list of sites to explore.  There aren't enought hours in the day.  I've often wondered about the people posting, and taking pictures of food they are cooking, eating, etc.  I never remember to pic up the camera when I want to document my meal.  I always remember as I'm clearing away.
And how many books are these bloggers going to flog on their sites.  Getting a little annoying.  Yes, yes, yes there are wonderful writers out there, and yes it's wonderful that they've all gotten the opportunity to write a book.  But I don't want to hear about it constatantly on your blog.  Enough already.  It's already advertised on your site. Give it a rest already.  We're not stupid, and I'm not going to buy it anyway.  I order my books at the library and rather pay an overdue fine than have to deal with a book permanently in my possession.  I move....I hate packing things.  I usually don't read it a second time.  Why on earth would I want to buy it.

And just so you know......all you writers out there that annoy the hell out of me by screwing up the printing ability of your recipes by using a color that won't copy well.   I can enter the recipe on countless recipe sites and take a pic of the end result with my cell phone. And paste the pic.  So no matter what is done to slow the copying process. Just so you know.....once it's out there...it's out there.

There have been several books that I have bought and yes I have used them countless times, But....I've copied the recipe into my big binder with plastic sheet protectors, cause I usually can't put my finger on just where the book is, or who i lent it to, or which kid might have it.  So I've stopped buying them.  I can't remember the last cookbook I've bought.  I remember now...it was at a library...in the sale pile.  I believe it was Loonyspoons.  I've bought this particular book probably 4x's now.  I keep lending it out.  And I keep going back to it.  I've had to phone people that I know have this book to retrieve a recipe for me.  So this copy I'm keeping this one.  Though I don't know where it is if I wanted a recipe.

And Barefoot I always buy, I just wish Ina wrote a little more about the food.  Ina....you should write more.
I've got a bin full of cookbooks that are being added to the garage sale stuff.

I've started to add recipes to a recipe share site just so I can put my finger on a particular recipe that my kids have requested while at their house.  It's nice and convenient when travelling and shopping.  But pinterest is the ultimate site.  So now each recipe gets posted to a sharing site first then to pinterest.  Cause I just don't trust pinterest to be there when I need it.  Even though it has survived thus far.  Who bought it anyway.  I can't remember.

I hope the creators made a gazzilion dollars cause so far it's the best site ever.

This looks really good.  I also found a recipe that adds cinnamon.
This is an interesting site that I will be going back to
And who is this guy anyway.
Well it's almost noon.  I gotta get outta here, make some lunch maybe.  Get dressed.  Maybe have a shower.
My tea is way cold

Nothing much

Nothing much to talk about.  I really dislike this time of year - it's neither this nor that.  No sense in doing anything in the dirt cause it might snow.  One minute it's hot enough to sit outside in shorts the next minute your shivering.  Do I wear a jacket, or just a hoodie?

But then I'm not planning on doing much gardening this year anyway.  So it's even worse whenever I happen to walk by a display of seeds.  It's no wonder my mother refuses to give up her huge garden.  The spring before my mothers sister passed away, my mother outfitted her with one of those "help, I've fallen" things around her neck.  After all it was gardening season and who had the time to go and check up on her all day long.  They only lived about three blocks away from each other, as the way the crow flies.  My aunt lived three houses away from an elementary school and a block away from a high school.  And her alley was usually the short cut for the smokers from the high school.  One day my mother was happily gardening in her back yard when she heard a siren that sounded like an ambulance.  And it was getting closer and closer, then sounded suspiciously three blocks away.  So she got on the phone, and no answer.  Since my aunt didn't drive anymore and whenever she left the house she was instructed to take the portable phone outside with her.  A couple tries more on the phone....nothing.

So she called a neighbor of hers. Sure enough the ambulance was at her place.  So my mom high tailed it over there.  Some high school kids heard cries for help in the bushes.  And after investigating found my aunt - she'd had a stroke and was in the raspberry bushes.  Not the best place to have a stroke.  All those prickles and thorns and all.  She sent back into the garden soon as she got out of the hospital.

I went to the market yesterday and the entrance was the usual assortment of barbeques and patio furniture.  I had to return something about 2 hours later when I went to pick up the g'kids and couldn't believe the transformation in 2 hours.  A delivery of hanging baskets must have been unloaded in those 2 hours.  And I'm thinking.....it's going to snow for sure now.  The first delivery of plants usually gets snowed on, or frozen out.

I was shopping for supplies for dinner
Salisbury steak
Kale and Brussel sprout salad

Don't remember the last time I made Salisbury steak, It's something one orders in a greasy spoon kind of place my husband adores.  In fact it was probably a main stay of his rotating menu when he was working on the road.  I believe he thought he'd died and gone to heaven when he came to the table. It was a thrilling moment for him. He lite up like a xmas tree, he was so happy.

It was very good.  I didn't use veal (why would anyone yyukkk) but basically followed the recipe except spiced it up more and used panko instead of soaked up bread.  For the gravy I couldn't find any organic beef stock so I used veg stock and doctored it up with some bragg's and about 1/3 cup of leftover onion gravy from last week that I happened to freeze from leftovers of dinners past.  I used just regular mushrooms sliced.  I also used potato starch not flour.  It was very good. But it sure was time consuming.  I'm still trying to figure out why dinner took sooooooo long and why it was sooooo arduous. And the mushrooms already came sliced.  I started at 430 and dinner wasn't served until 630.  Way to long for something as simple as this, with mashed. I only had a chance to take three swigs of wine during the whole thing.  I kept loosing my wine glass in the mess of stuff all over the counters of prep. I even left my husband with a sink full of potatoes and a knife and peeler (whichever he prefered) with instructions to put them into a pot of cold water and throw them outside while I was gone.  Maybe next time I will make the hamburger steaks a day ahead.  Even though they really weren't that time consuming.  When I make my own mix of hamburger meat I grind up the meat into 500-600 gram bags and then freeze them, when I'm planning on using hamburger I thaw out and then grind a second time just before using.  I always manage to find a couple big roasts on sale comperable to the price of ground sirloin.  And then some pork chops or roasts on sale. It's a wierd obsession of mine to grind my own meat.   So maybe it was all the cleaning of the kitchen aid that was time consuming.

The Kale Brussel Sprout salad was amazingly good.  I'm really pissed that my daughter took ALL the leftovers for lunch of the salad.  I was hoping to get a taste of "day old" salad.  It's probably really good.

All and I mean each and every one of the brussel sprout haters LOOOOOVED this salad.  And me, a Kale hater even liked it.  I couldn't find any roasted salted almonds so I bought some regular almonds in the baking aisle and sliced them and then drizzled some grape seed oil and salt on them and into the toaster oven.  Twice-----the first one burnt.  I was standing doing something, I can't remember what and suddenly I smelt burnt popcorn.  WTF  whose burning popcorn?  Dinner is almost ready and someone is making popcorn?  I never knew burnt almonds smelled like burned popcorn.

Maybe that's what was so time consuming.   Have you ever sliced almonds?  A thankless job, specially with a buggered up right wrist.  Anyway the salad was a winner.  Though it did lack something.........
We decided that it would be wonderful with maybe some pomegranate seeds.  Or may some of those black diamond spicy almonds?  It needed something......But still was very good.

Both of these will be put on the rotation menu.  Thanks to Rachel Rappaport for inspiring the Salisbury Steak and mushroom gravy on mashed and Thanks to Dinner with Julie for the salad.  I'm texting my daughter to bring home some brussel sprouts and almonds for a remake.  This salad will probably be made over and over again.  

First there was six

There it is, what's left of 6 seedlings of lettuce leaf basil
Maybe the view scared the other 4

Or maybe I just forgot to water it last week.
thankfully there will be a visitor from back home next week that can bring a couple more seedlings from my mother.  Fingers crossed that she's driving and not flying.

This might be a streeeeetch for "youth"....but there you have it.  The youth of my "non garden" this year
Thank goodness there is a rather large patio to accomodate the planters cause I'm not spending the money on any garden that will be left behind in a year and a half.  It's even south west facing.  The only thing I may actually "plant in the ground" in green beans up the lattice.

before - let's see how this will look next month.

Boston

What is there to say?
I thought the crazies lately where in North Korea

All those innocent bystanders!  I can`t even imagine - one second ....life was good.
.....the next one, it will never be the same.

The making of "the man cave"

Everytime I searched out my son-in-law (sil) he was throwing things around in the garage.  Here I thought he was unloading things.....But it seems it was only being moved around
This morning I waundered in there and had a chuckle

It seems we have the making of a Man cave

The only thing missing is the drum set.
and maybe some strobe lighting.
He's already planning on a garage sale to end all garage sales.....he used to be an event planner/banquet chief.  Sooooo it should be interesting.
---there will be music
---there will be food
---there will be door prizes
---so far
---hopefully there will be more room in the man cave.
I bet it will be scheduled to co-incide with the same weekend of the  Hawaiian maid-of-honor/brides-maid trip that he refuses to accompany my daughter on.  Seeing as how this particular bride ditched her bridesmaid responsabilites when the trip was to Mexico for their wedding.  Bad feelings die hard it seems.

Someday

Unpacked this yesterday
It's one for the "X-man"  ...in the house. Do you see the x's...there's nine, I think...everytime I look at it - I see more. Xander is my g'son and he should have had one of his own quilts when he was born.  But it didn't work out that way.  He's 4 and still hasn't got one.  He has several baby quilts.

I was running out of the white on white that were in the centers, so I switched to

a different off white star thing for the corners
This top was made in blocks, but looking at it right now, I can't see where the blocks started and where they ended, and if I added strips here and there or not.  Maybe I made them in blocks of four, I really can not remember.  Except it was driving me crazy at the time.

Then added the two different borders
And Looking at it right now, maybe It could have used another border.  But that's it, not going back.  If I have to remove all those pins I might have to kill myself.

I had to sand down the tips of each and everyone of them, so that the fabric wouldn't be compromised but breaking threads on the fabric.

And then the mistake.....I didn't notice it until i hung it up on the rod.  I didn't even plan of 3 purple block on each corner,  but there are three of them

#1

#2

#3

ooooops, yellow 

I wasn't even actually planning on the four square of purple in each corner, It's a good thing, cause there's only actually 3 corners and 1 ooops.

Oh, well.  Every quilt needs and requires some errors.  This one should make the grade.  Looking at it, I kinda like the way it turned out.

Now for the worse part possible......

The actually quilting.......ughhhhhhhhhhhhh
I really, really hate that part.
I don't know what to do, or where to start.
I should call up someone with a machine.
Wonder how much that would cost.
Or maybe a quliting guild needs a project.
Or maybe a need to join a guild again.

Everyone who looks at it chooses a favorite square.  And the favorites change from one moment to another.

Happy

This is what is called an unobstructed entry...

don't you just love a stack of boxes - unloaded

An unobstructed hallway

Since I've never had any sort of shoe fetish - size 10 kinda makes that impossible. But I wasn't happier in my life when I got to put on a pair of shoes other than my track shoes/joggers (whatever you want to call them) Finally....
Note to self
I can not state this more louder or with more emphasis....never, ever pack clothes and shoes into storage first. Cause you won't see them for months.

Happy....yea

My other daughter in Toronto though - is moving today.  A new city/town and a new life as an unemployed farmer.

Cook...damn it....cook

I can tell right away that a convection oven stove thing will be the first purchase.

these meatballs are just taking way to long to cook.  I have things to do...places to go...kids to pick-up.  Stupid ass ovens are not acceptable.

The Monday after

I'm going to miss this, heartbroken when I found it at the bottom of a box.
Things that didn't make it
-lasagna dish
-cabinet with glass doors that I bought in the "asis" room at Ikea years ago....someone (who shall remain nameless) decided to smash the side while attempting to load a truck. I used it to store fabric.  Loved that cabinet.  Now I'm going to have to haunt the damn ikea store to get another one.
- a big round plastic (still don't know how this got broken....being plastic and all) zebra platter thing that someone just threw away hoping I wouldn't notice it missing....but I spotted it - decided to let it go

Guarding his toys waiting to load them first to make sure they all make it.  You know...cause adults can't be trusted not to throw some of these in the wrong kind of truck...as in garbage truck

Since my table isn't really big enough for six and they sold their beloved counter height one when they sold their house...condition of the sale an all.  We can't agree on what to get....so....

I dragged this out of the garage this morning  - primarily to stop bashing my head on the low hanging light fixture as well as somewhere to put my coffee cup.

There are piles ...everywhere
I don't know how a car actually spent the night in the garage but it did
That's going to be my sewing room some day.

My husband is constantly asking me where this piece of clothing is or that piece of clothing...none of which he actually needs any time soon.  I finally flipped out at him and suggested that he can start hanging up stuff instead of complaining.  And this is as far as he got - Hung up one of four bags of hangers - gee thanks so much......

This was one of the main features of signing the lease...

...the corner pantry.  Now...where are all those boxes and tubs of stuff....?
but this was a nice unexpected bonus that I didn't notice the first couple times that we viewed the house

Every box I open I seem to find more and more

I think we can safely say that we have enough tongs now - 8
and way too many of everything else
There are four tubs standing around kitchen filling up with "garage sale stuff"

I wonder how much $$$ are tied up in these stupid things

all vcr's video's that life would not be worth without...apparently

about a 10th of all the dvd's around here

Plus there are 5 binders full of dvd's and 3 more containers.  Why we need any of these when we have netflix is beyond me.  Men.....and their stupid ass dvd's and video's.  Honestly....and he still is known to buy some stupid thing off pay-per-view because he can't put his hands on his own copy of the damn movie.

I stopped buying books and magazines the least he could do is stop buying these damn things.  Nothing but dust collectors as far as i'm concerned.

Since taking out my handy dandy camera on the cell phone anytime I was tempted to buy a magazine for a pattern.  I take a pic and just copy it onto draft paper when I actually want it.  There are probably many pictures of me with my camera taking multiple pictures of magazine pages on surveillance video all over the city.  But everyone knows the likelyhood of ever actually "Needing" the pattern are pretty remote.

Any why do we have so many dvd players both blueray and reg and not to mention I even found 2 VCR players.  Grrr  I don't know what's going first...all the dvd's, video's, their respective players....or the husband that insists his life will be over without them all.

But I did manage to throw out a couple stereo's ...wonder how long it will take him to notice.
And all those shirts and pants that he hasn't worn in years....are hopefully being made use of at the shelters.
But when or if he ever notices things missing....well there's always the "must have been thrown out by accident"

I'm going to miss the convenction oven and the ceramic top stove.  Not to mention the front loading washer and dryer.  I'm going to have to roam around Habitat for Humanity's "restore" for replacements. Maybe I can trade some dvd players for a better appliance on kijiji????

At least the weather cooperated and it only started snowing today.

Sewing room

This storage/moving thing is starting to get to me. It's not the clothes in storage.... Way way in the bowels of the locker. Or the shoes that are just out of reach. Or the jars of Canning.. Or even the summer tires that really need to be put on the Van... Its my sewing room that I miss.
And....
Since this move is only a temp move for a year and a bit I'm not even going to attempt to do any gardening. I don't know how I'm going to survive.
But I did dig up a fav shrub while at my mothers last week and she did insist I take some Basil seedlings the lettuce leaf variety.
And the bowls.... I don't know how many movies I've seen set in the 50-60s that have these three  bowls as props... And my mother has two sets.  The last movie was "the help" and I casually mentioned to my mother that I would really appreciate a mention in the will with regard to these bowls to which she said "you don't have to wait till I die.. Take them now"...so I finally did.  I almost bought a set at an estate sale last year
Another last thing to pack unfortunatly

Well now...lets see if this will work from my phone....
Hopefully not to many auto  corrects...already see the swipe keyboard doesn't function

How about a pic from phone
...not so much
Maybe later apparently have  to download an app...what else is new