...7.31...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...the socks are progress the way socks normally do...I'm still going to try to find some lavender cotton and at least do the toe in that and I'm going to be using the 4-3-2-1 decrease method to make a boxier toe as well...

...I got one of my favorite necklaces caught and broke and lost the little ring at the end of the chain where you clasp it...

...so I snipped the end off of a straight pin and bent it into the tiniest circle I could around my needle-nosed pliers...making it like a key ring by overlapping the ends a bit...

...and then fed the end of the chain into the center of the loop...

...it doesn't look too terrible...

...and it makes it easy to clasp now...

...and I can wear my favorite necklace again...the little moon says..."Guess How Much I Love You"...and the little heart says Mom...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.30...Tuesdays with Julia...

...still cooking in my outdoor kitchen...

...and this time setting things on fire...haha...

...we made Vegan Rognons de Veau Flambés - Vegan Veal Kidneys Flamed in Brandy — Vegan Cream and Mushroom Sauce...there were a lot of steps to this one and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.29...Over the Birthday Weekend...

...these are the cards that arrived before my birthday...

...I had 'instructions' to dress in something cool...shorts OK...but nice enough for a restaurant...okie-dokie...

...so we started the day off with cake...it's the Adonis Cake...and it's still warm...so the icing is slipping off...

...so delicious that way though...

...and then it was time to open some presents...I'd been wanting an air popper for a while...

...so happy that it fits in the cupboard too...

...sissie's present...some beautiful bulbs for the flower garden...and the traveling card...of course...

...perpetual flowers from the Man...

...these are so pretty and so much fun...

...I put the butterflies while I was chatting with the Grandbabes...they loved telling me where to put the blue ones...and the pink ones...so sweet...and it's a really pretty bouquet...

...and then the front door bell rang...which hardly ever happens as everyone comes to the back door...but the florist that Our Airman called from Alaska did not...as her GPS probably told her that she had arrived...with this beautiful bouquet of real flowers...still chatting with the Grandbabes...and Big Sissie loved being able to READ the Happy Birthday on the front of the vase...

...then it was time for our lunch date...the weather was a gorgeous breezy 86° F (30° C)...unheard of here at this time of the year...

...we sat outside and this totally new to us TOTALLY vegan restaurant...I asked the Man if he 'matched' on purpose...haha...

...SO MUCH food...my plate weighed about 5 lbs...I got vegan spare ribs with mac and cheeze, collards, purple cabbage, and lima beans...these sides are available at a lot of southern restaurants...but they are almost never vegan...the Man got a Nashville Hot Chick'n sammie with waffle fries...

...this was so fun and delicicous...

...and then we downloaded a parking app...as that's how you pay for downtown parking now...and spent the afternoon wandering around downtown...

...it was a lot of fun too...mostly shady...and breezy...

...then we stopped in a little main street cantina...and had chips and dip before walking back to our car...it was such a fun afternoon...

...and on the way home we stopped and got groceries...a novelty to have the Man with me...

...standard groceries though...

...when we got the groceries stowed I packed up the leftovers...

...I'm guessing there's at least two more meals here...

...so probably about 5 meals counting what we ate at the restaurant...

...and we ended the day with popcorn...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...7.27...Dinner and the Olympics...and Blogger Comments...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...what a fun book club meeting...I've got quite the list of books I want to read...the boat looks fabulous...Love, T

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...I like your pattern variation on the blue socks...that's a good idea...and your cardi is growing really fast...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...the Greek potatoes look delicious...and we once had a black lab who loved cornbread so much we said it should have been his name...(Duke)...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...loved your cityscapes...

...I've finished Little Dorrit...and I've started A Tale of Two Cities...I can remember reading this in Junior High and just thinking it was wonderful...so we'll see...I still think it's very good and I thought it was fun to be reading this and have the French Revolution so much in mind while watching the opening ceremonies...

...when we were visiting our Mom's a couple of weeks ago...the Man's Mom gave us this antique (1776-1976) commemorative syrup jar...it originally had Log Cabin syrup in it...I think it's pretty cool...and I decanted our maple syrup into it...

...and then we had Brinner...of course...on the game table in the big room...regular waffles that didn't fall apart...haha...and Impossible Sausage...well the Man had pancakes...of course...I had the maple syrup on the half I ate with the sausage and the Alaska berry on the half I had for dessert...

...and the Movie was the Olympics Opening Ceremony of course...

...it was so much fun...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely weekend!

...7.26...Friday Favorites...a did you know episode...

...just a few things I recently found out...

...did you know that soaking non-organic veg and fruit in water mixed with baking soda for 15 minutes removes about 98% of residual pesticides...

...and then I rinse them a few times...usually necessary with greens like these anyway as they can be pretty sandy...

article here...

...I buy organic when I can...but sometimes it's just not an option...at least at my local grocery store...

...and then on the preservation side of things...when I do get to buy organic veg...I want it to last as long a possible...and if you wrap it in foil (not suitable for acidic things) it will actually keep for a couple of weeks...

...when I open a new bag of lettuce ...I just wrap the individual heads with foil...I also give my spring onions and celery the same treatment...

...and then pop them back into the bag without zipping it up...

...and finally...I just found out that my county DOES recycle those tetra packs that I now get my vegan milk in...you just have to remove the lid and the piece that's attached to the box...which is surprisingly difficult to do...I've found the easiest way to do this is with a pair of pliers...which I keep in my utensil drawer...they're handy for all kinds of things...

...I screw the pieces back together and toss that into the recycle bin as well...

...what tricks have you recently discovered?...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.25...Delicious Vegan Food...

...this is a tomato sammie...made with that huge tomato from the Farmer's Market...I love it when a slice of tomato covers the whole sandwich...and I also love the Hellman's Vegan Mayo...

...and to go with the sandwich for lunch...I made a quick and delicious potato salad...this is just one of the steamable bags of organic green beans from Aldi and a couple of potatoes...and a good sprinkling of Taco seasoning...it was really good...and so simple and quick...

...what delicious food have you been eating lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.24...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...I took the second half of the navy towel and made a hanging towel for our kitchen...and I found the perfect button in it's little pouch in the sewing box...and I couldn't remember what it went to at all...and I left it on the kitchen counter for a while before I added it to the towel topper...and the Man asked me what I was using his alb button for...hahaha...I thought it was so funny that he recognized it and knew what it came from...I guess he had buttoned his own alb enough to recognize it in it's baggie...

...so that was a quick little crochet project...and I'll probably keep it on the future handles on the drawers under the sink as our stove is all the way across the room from the sink...and so if you have to go there to dry your hands you're going to get a lot of droplets on the floor...

...and then I've cast on for another pair of my favorite anklets...with a nice khaki coloured cotton sock yarn that's been in my stash for years...

...I did a provisional cast on as I have no idea how much yarn there is...so I cast on at the ankle and I'll knit down to the toe...and then go back and pick up the stitches and knit up to the cuff...and I'm actually loving this lavender and khaki colour combination...so I may see if I have some cotton in that colour and do a few sort of retro stripes at the top...

...see what I mean about the amount of yarn...I divided it and weighed it and they may be really short anklets...I posted a downloaded image of the vintage pattern here....

....what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.23...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made another variation of Quenelles...

...this time with a little vegan oyster stuffed in the middle...they reminded me so much of.....Vegan Potet Klub...(Kloob)...it's a Scandanavian sort of potato dumpling that we had in North Dakota...

...and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!