...3.24...Over the Weekend...

...a pretty low-key weekend...

...toasted bagel and tofu scramble for breakfast...

...then we headed out to do the shopping...I was looking for a celery root for a couple of Julia Child recipes...but we didn't find any...not really sure where to look for it...or maybe this is just not the season for it...

...back home to do some yardwork...we got a new rain gauge...copper this time as the other pretty glass one froze and broke...

...we put it in the side yard and you can see it from the back porch without getting wet...haha...

...I pulled up a whole tote full of weeds...mostly from the stip of grass outside our fence...

...and Sunday after Church we had a nice stroll in the Botanical Gardens...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...3.22...Dinner and a Movie...

...well...I can still see your blogs even if I can't post to my own or comment...it really takes almost all of the fun out of blogging...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...glad your dinghy started right up for you...such glassy water and pretty sunsets...how nice that you get new batteries...and everything landside definitely looks ship-shape...Love,T

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...your Vanilla sweater looks wonderful...down to the final sleeve...years ago I made the Plain Vanilla Pullover...it was a KAL...I posted about it here...I still have the sweater and wear it often...(Ravelry Plain Vanilla Pullover)

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your beet salad looks delicious...I think the olives are a wonderful addition...I have turnips ready to harvest from the winter garden...but the beets did not do so well...maybe we'll still get a few later this spring though...your mushroom tarte looks amazing too...and your pup so sweet...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...your March Q&A was so fun...it's defnitely been windy here...and a roller coaster of temperatures...trees are blooming and it's pollen season now...everything has a coating of yellow dust...

...on the reading front...I finished The Frozen River...pretty quickly once I had some time to sit down and read...haha...I enjoyed the book...and I should get the true story of A Midwife's Tale - the Life of Marth Ballard based on her Diary 1785-1812...which should be really interesting...I almost always enjoy the non-fiction more than the historical fiction...

...what have you been reading lately?...

...we had homemade pizza for dinner...and watched...Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person...it was really good...and it was in French which was a bonus (for me anyway...for the Man...not so much...haha)...I really enjoyed it...the French was not difficult to follow at all...and the story was very cute and original...

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

~Have a lovely weekend!

...3.21...Friday Update...

...we're starting the final downstairs room re-do...the Laundry Room...which will also be my craft room...

...I have a before photo from the realtor's photos showing the room with the 20 year old machines that still have the blue plastic protective film on them...and the manuals tucked inside...

...anywhoo...we've moved them out into the hallway...and we're ready to paint...a nice soft purple colour...

~Have a lovely day!

...3.20...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...I'll just tell you about another full day of vegan eats...I do actually have photos too...

...toast with Marmite for a quick breakfast...we don't have this very often...and I think the key to enjoying it is to use the Marmite very sparingly on buttern toast...it's quite nice...

...I was hungry again later...so I had an apple with some peanut butter...

...the Man had to run some errands...and I was surprised when he came home with sub sammies...it was such a treat...mine was just veggies so I put some tofu and vegan cheese on it as well...

...and we've had a chilly spell...as often happens this time of year...so we made vegetable soup and grilled cheese for supper...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...3.19...W.I.P. Wednesday...

I've finished all of Dolly #2's clothes...

...including her blue jeans and her white t-shirt with a heart on it...this time in the colours of the American flag...and I made a chart for that too...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...3.18...Tuesdays with Julia...

...no food post today...but I got an email that The Vegan Version had been chosen by FeedSpot as one of the Top 30 French Food Blogs...that was so nice...I'm honored...

Here's the post...the Vegan Version is #9...a couple of the others are 'healthy'...but I think The Vegan Version is the only vegan one on the list...

~Have a lovely day!

...3.17...Over the Weekend...

...we had a nice visit with Our Nephew's family...and watched a few soccer games with them...

...our neice is the team goalie...I learned a lot about soccer rules sitting and chatting with her parents during the games...so even though I watched every episode of Ted Lasso...I am not a soccer expert...haha...

...our regular weekend schedule was a little different...happily so...

...and we had a community St. Patrick's Day party to attend...the kiddos left for home and the Man made a big batch of Vegan baked beans to take...but sadly a storm blew in and the event was cancelled...we'll be eating baked beans all week I guess...haha...

...but I did go out after and get some groceries for the week...we didn't really need a lot this week though...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...3.15...Dinner and a Movie...

...starting with some Blogger comments...a no photos post again...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...glad all is well at the boat...love the foggy river photo...Love, T...

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...your Spruce blanket is so pretty...and Holly at the door is so sweet and cute...I know it reminds you of Frodo...which is also sweet...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your vegan Haggis looks amazing...and I love that T-shirt...I have quite the southern accent...and when I was visiting my friend in NYC years ago...her husband said..."talk some more...I love hearing your accent"...haha...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...I loved your downtown photos...and the difference in the dollar store yarn and the good cotton yarn is funny...it would be interesting to see which one holds up to wear and tear better...I'm actually planning to make the Porcelain in cotton...not dollar store cotton...but some that was given to me years ago by the Man's grandmother...I'm a little bit worried that it won't be strong enough though...

...on the reading front...we've been so busy that I'm still just a few chapters into the Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon...but I do like the story...I've already put a hold on the Midwife's Tale at my library...as is often the case I think I will like the non-fiction version of this novel better...haha...

...we had dinner with our Nephew at our favorite Mexican restaurant...it was so much fun catching up with them...

...and then we didn't watch a movie...but a few episodes of MXE (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge)...a weird English dubbed version of the Japanese Takeshi's Castle...that was fun...

...and then we went outside to see March's full moon...

~Have a lovely weekend!

...3.14...Friday Update...

...after we piddled around on the 'guest room' reno for over a month...we only had this one week to get the little bedroom done...

...so we mapped out the days for painting trim and cutting in...painting the ceiling Lemon Sorbet - two coats...and the walls two coats...we took off the closet doors and the entry door and painted those on sawhorses in the big room...

...hopefully there will be photos soon...

~Have a lovely day!

...3.13...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...well...this was going to be a sort of what I ate in a day post...with a breakfast lunch and dinner from a busy day of remodeling...we're trying to get the little bedroom ready for habitation before my nephew and his family arrive this weekend...

...there was an English muffin for breakfast...black beans and rice for lunch...guac for an afternoon snack...and some Wacky Mac noodles and leftover marinara for dinner...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...3.12...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...another placeholder for Dolly's jeans...and a knitting bag for a friend...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...3.11...Tuesdays with Julia...

...ok...I can't upload photos...

...so...this is a placeholder for the recipe of the week...Vegan Petits Oignons à la Crème...

...hopefully something will click back into place soon and I'll upload some photos...

~Have a lovely day!

...3.10...Over the Weekend...

...we got up early and did some garden/yardwork...it's still pretty chilly here...but we've passed our last frost date...so we planted the peas we'd started inside a few weeks ago...this is the section where I pulled up all of the tendergreens...

...I planted the Hubbard squash...and put jars over them to protect them a little bit...

...and some okra plants that had sprouted...

...then I went back and added some strings for the peas to climb on...

...and walking past the sidewalk lined with lillies I thought I should probably pull away all of the dead leaves...

...so I sat down on the sidewalk and did that...

...then we came in for breakfast...a quick tofu scramble...

...topping and overfilling a homemade english muffin...

...and there was one english muffin left so I toasted it and we each ate half of it with some jam...

...then we did the weekly shopping...

...nothing of note...except that Stuff Mart had up their 'we baked too much' sign...and the loaf of italian bread was only 42¢...

...I put the cilantro into a cup of water to let it revive a bit...and it's so warm that we've got the kitchen window open for a while... and you can smell the tea olive that's blooming right under the window...if you've never smelled tea olive in bloom you've missed a real treat...it's heavenly...

...and I picked up another of the natural sodas to try...this one is the grape Ollipop...$1.99...still pretty expensive for a pop...but we were listening to NPR the other day and they were talking about this up and coming market and even Coke and Pepsi are planning on marketing these natural pre-biotic sodas...

...then back to the garden for a little bit of weeding...

...and I picked a basket full of lettuce...

...and a few radishes...

...we're still getting a lot of salads from our little winter garden...I'll be leaving the lettuce until it starts to bolt...

...later in the afternoon I added some shade for the baby plants because then I thought that the sun was too strong for them and they were looking a little bit wilty...

...Sunday morning...the third stalk of flowers on our Christmas Amarylis is blooming now...

...and then it was time for some food prep for the week...this is the last bag of beans that we'd bought during the pandemic...so they're over two years old...

...but still seem to be fine...we're going to just cook them slowly in a pot on the induction cooker because I want the instant pot for the greens...

...and to go with the beans...I'm going to harvest the mustard greens from the winter garden...

...I pulled up all of the mustard greens...

...like with the tendergreens...I'm pulling up the whole plant and then snipping off the roots...

...which I'm leaving in the plot to be tilled under later...

...it'll put some nutrients back in the soil...

...and I got a huge amount of greens...and a few weeds that I won't be tilling back into the soil...haha...

...the mountain of greens...there were two varities...Old Fashioned and 'Giant'...guess which ones are larger...right the old fashioned ones...

...into the sink for a few baths...

...then I put on a pot of rice in the rice cooker...and I poured the rice rinsing water into a watering pitcher to pour on the plants outside...not sure where I saw that this was a good fertilizer...but again...free nutrients...

...then I started cramming all those greens into the instant pot...we know that they cook down tremendously so I'm not worried about overfilling it...

...then I scooped the rinse water out of the sink and used that to water some plants as well...

...I started cooking the greens on the back porch...just to keep the smell out of the house...mustard greens are kinda stinky when they're cooking...

...I started on sauté mode until they'd shrunk a bit...

...and then I put the lid on and used the steam cycle...

...and see...that mountain of greens cooked down to just half a pot...

...and into my biggest container with a lid...as we'll be having beans and greens and cornbread for dinner later this week...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...3.8...Dinner and a Movie...

...starting with some Blogger comments...because my blog continues to limp along...I have had good luck posting photos the last few days though...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...too bad about the plane wreck...neat closeup...and I'm so glad you're with Mom this week...Love, T...

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...you've really ade a lot of progress on both your sweater and the blanket...Holly looks so sweet curled up like that...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your version of onion soup looks delicious...I'll have to try adding dumplings...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...your blue spring skies are so pretty...we've had some really warm spring days and the daffodils and bradford pears are blooming now...

...to Beth from BLD IN MT : LIVING A SIMPLE LIFE IN THIS INTERCONNECTED WORLD...Hi Beth...I loved reading your travel journal...it's so fun to read what we wrote as our younger selves...I need to get out my journal from France...

...on the reading front...I just started the Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon...it's the last of the books that Mom loaned me at Christmas...

...we had homemade veggie burgers for dinner...

...and homemade fries in the air fryer...

...lots of pickles, pickled red onion, tomatoes and lettuce for the toppings...

...so delicious...and it's daylight at suppertime now...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...3.7...Friday Update...

...the guest room is finally finished...

...this is about the last state you saw it in though...

...but once the doors and all of the trim and cutting in were done...it was a pretty quick process to paint the ceiling...

...which is also honeydew...for color drenching...

...and then the walls...

...got two coats of honeydew as well...

...it's really difficult to photograph just a painted wall and show the true colour...

...every paintable surface in the room is the same colour...just different sheens of the same colour...

...all of the outlets got covered with honeydew as well...

...and the Man changed out the flip/switch light control for the old fashioned push button kind...and the plate for it sort of matches the dark brown of both the furniture and the metal elk...

...and finally it was time to start putting things back in the room...

...moving out of the little bedroom...which is next up in the to-be-painted queue...

...I actually could have showed you this earlier...but I forgot...while the boxspring was overturned in storage...I took an old sheet and stapled it to the underside...which was necessary because when Kitten was living with us she tore into the underside of the mattress for some reason and used to nap there...

...I just left the old torn material...some sort of thin felt...and stapled the sheet over it...just turning under the edges...I'm really happy with it and now as you come up the stairs and can see into the guest room...you won't see bits of fabric hanging down under the bed...not a nice look at all...

...we finally hung up the artwork that had been in the closet since we moved...it's a stylized map of Paris...streets I recognize and have walked on...

...and then we used a fancy system of post-it notes to show where to put the two pink window frames for wall decoration here...

...the cut metal elk the kiddos had given us for Christmas...

...the bed all made up and the nightstands and lamps back in place...

...and the antique dresser snugged back into it's alcove...

...the bright pink is a complementary colour for the light green...

...and the pink shows up in the window frames as well...just for a pop of colour...

...and they're reflected in the antique mirror as well...

...and then we moved everything out of the little bedroom to get it ready to be painted...a nice creamy yellow...Benjamin Moore Lemon Sorbet...

...so where did everything from that bedroom go...you ask...well...we immediately junked up the new guest room with everything from the little bedroom...

...everything all covered up and ready to move on to the little bedroom...

~Have a lovely day!