Friday, January 31, 2020

...Five Little Things Friday...1.31...

...this is going to be a really random post...

1

...remember back when I 'played' Mrs. Santa for the community breakfast...
...well...I mentioned to the lady taking the photos at the event...that I had actually played Mrs. Santa before...when I was in high school...at the Church where the Man and I were married...

...and when she sent me those photos that you've already seen...she asked me to send her some photos of me as a teenaged Mrs. Santa...and I finally searched through my old high school scrapbook and found a few photos of that event...
...I'm really not at all sure where the colourful red skirt came from...maybe Mom remembers...maybe it was Nanny's...the wig was for sure...also unsure about whose glasses I'm wearing...
...I think they gave me the Santa hat when I got there...and I put on red lipstick and smudged some on my cheeks as well...
...and I stuffed a bed pillow around my waist...it was a lot of fun...

2

...and while I was looking for those photos...I came across this one...and took it out because it looked rather ragged and dog-eared...
...and with good reason...it must have been in my Daddy's wallet...and he must have needed a piece of paper for directions when he was driving his truck...I thought it was pretty neat...and texted the image to Mom...

3

...we're still enjoying the sweet potatoes we were given earlier...look at the size of this one...it's huge...

4

...and these are a couple of my favorite little stocking stuffers from Christmas...that I don't think you've seen...

...and I can't share what I'm embroidering right now...but I will...

...I had been wanting a pair of stork scissors for my embroidery basket for a while...and the Man thoughtfully got me a nice pair of silver ones for Christmas...

5

...and also in my stocking was this sweet little antique pastry wheel...so I'm on the lookout for recipes where I can use it...

...what are your favorite things this Friday?...

~Have a lovely day!

Thursday, January 30, 2020

...Afternoon Tea...

....my bestie from college and I went to Durham's Washington Duke Inn for Afternoon Tea...

...we had been trying to find a time to go since before Christmas...around Christmastime...they are completely booked...so we decided on today...mid-week in late January...and it was perfect...

...when we were at university together we often used to go to the High Tea Cafe on Wall Street...I just love the internet sometimes...I found this really neat article about Wall Streetback in the day...and it had these pictures...
...this is what Wall Street used to look like...back in the day...it's also where The Laughing Seed restaurant is...
...a random couple having tea outside...we did that too sometimes...but mostly indoors...
...an ad from the newspaper listing the High Tea Cafe...
...and a poster encouraging people to shop on Wall Street...and another random fact...the jeweler on this poster is where I got the Man's second wedding ring after he lost the one we were married with...haha...

...and now...back to the present...
...we drove nearly 2 hours to get to the Inn...but they were ready for us when we arrived...
...as soon as we ordered our tea...Earl Greyer for me...of course...and Amy chose the Cherry green tea...I thought about trying something new...but in the end I decided to go with what I love...

...that's my little pot of Earl Grey and a little pitcher of almond milk...because I take my tea with milk...and the basket contains some vegan scones...blueberry and walnut...they were so crumbly and delicious...
...and then they brought the tea trays...well...mine was a plate...you have to have a reservation and when we called we asked them about vegan options and they said it was no problem at all...
...and they weren't just whistlin' Dixie...my plate had a vegan version of everything...starting with savouries at the top...
- sweet potato/basil/spinach bruschetta
- a little cucumber sandwich
- a crostini topped with tomato chow-chow and arugula

...my mid tier was:
- fresh fruit
- a little tray with coconut cream
- and a puff pastry filled with lentils and butternut squash

...and the dessert tier was...
- strawberry panna cotta
- a little raspberry filled torte
- and a chunk of vegan honeycomb...like the one here if you're not familiar with it...it's a type of toffee...
...and I even ate the candied orange garnish...it tasted just like the orange wedges that we used to get at Easter-time...

...now I know those little bits don't look like a lot of food...but combined with three pots of Earl Grey...I was so stuffed...

...we had so much fun...and we're definitely going to do it again...

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

...1.29...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...I actually have a lot of projects going at once...but I can't show you 3 of them...and I'll be starting the February Porch Pillow before next Wednesday's W.I.P....
...but I can show you this sweet little Super Simple One Hour Baby Hat...that I made for the Airman's Baby...using yarn leftover from one of those projects...and I only had a tiny bit...so I added some other pinks and white yarn every other row to make up the difference...
...I made the large size this time for her sweet little head...
...and...I finished the January Porch Pillow...if you've not seen it you can hop over to The Porch Pillow Project...and check it out...

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

~Have a lovely day!

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

...1.28...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made a delicious VEGAN REINE DE SABA chocolate almond cake and the Vegan Glaçage à la Crème ou au Chocolat...to celebrate the Airman's Wife's 21st Birthday...

...it was so delicious...

~Have a lovely day!

Monday, January 27, 2020

...1.27...Over the weekend...

...the Man and I had a date night...and we went to our favorite little Cuban restaurant...this is the little appetizer that they bring to each table...it's yummy crusty Cuban bread and like a cross between salsa and bruschetta topping...
...my entree...arroz con vegetales...and black beans...it's really garlic-y and really good...
...and then we had gotten an email for a free Cuban coffee...so we each got a little demi-tasse...it was a fun evening...I should take a photo inside the restaurant next time...we just sat and talked a long time...
...and then we got to spend a lot of time with The Airman's Baby...she really is a charmer...she's teething now...but she just talks and squeals...and mostly has a good time...
...and she's really good at entertaining herself...she played with her little crinkly lion for a long time...like at least 15-20 minutes...just cooing and laughing and squishing it around to make it make noises...it's so tactile it must be a lot of fun for her...
...this photo is actually from a little bit earlier in the week when she went to the doctor for her shots...this photo is pre-injection...the after was not so pretty...
...in the afternoon...we loaded up in the stroller...because it was really pretty outside...kind of mild and humid...unusual for January...she really loves being outside...
...but then after a few minutes...this happened...notice the pink booties...#toasty-trotters...
...one of our parishoner/gardeners brought us some more apples and sweet potatoes...we are so blessed...
...and...we celebrated a very special birthday with The Airman's Wife...who just turned 21...
...we went out for brunch...and I got my usual loaded hash browns...and whole wheat toast...
...which I usually treat like pancakes and eat with syrup...unless they offer me peanut butter and then I eat it the North Dakota way...
...when we got home...we had cards, and cakes and presents...
...more on the cake tomorrow...it's the Reine de Saba from Julia Child...and I'll definitely be making that one again...it was so delicious...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

Saturday, January 25, 2020

...1.25...Dinner and a Movie...

...well...we definitely took the easy way out for dinner...and got takeout...

...and the movie was One Child Nation...

...really interesting and kind of frightening...

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

~Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday, January 23, 2020

...1.23...What I ate in a day as a Vegan...

...after water...vitamins and tea...I had a big bowl of fluffy white salty and buttery (Earth Balance-y) grits...
...then I had an orange for a snack...
...lunch was just some leftovers...sweet potato and sauteed green beans...and a big salad...
...and I had a big handful of the roasted pumpkin seeds...so yummy...
...and dinner was homemade pizza...I thought that I had some vegan pepperoni bits in the freezer...still left from the Asheville SDA store...but I was mistaken...I did find some ham bits though...so I went with that...
...sprinkled with the dregs of one bag of Daiya Mozzarella (those are the small bits) and the larger bits are the dregs of a bag of Trader Joe's vegan Mozzarella...
...and a good sprinkling of vegan parmesan as well...
...it was really delicious...I don't usually put any vegan meat on my pizza...usually opting for only olives and vegan cheese...so this was a nice change...
...and I took the leftover pizza dough...and smashed a bunch of vegan chocolate chips into it and just baked it alongside the pizza...
...and it made a pretty perfect pan au chocolat...

...what did you eat yesterday?...

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

...W.I.P. Wednesday...a Totally FREE fix for a loose ring...

...every year...about this time...my wedding ring starts to slip off my finger...because it's cold...
...my usual remedy is to slip it onto my index finger where it is a little bit tight...but there's no danger of it slipping off...
...not my photo...but the link to the photo is broken...

...a little bit of background on the ring...you can see that my wedding ring is just a plain gold (white) band...but that's not the ring that we ordered...it looked a lot more like the one above... and it was a matched set of course...with embossed diamond shapes all around the band...

...and during the hectic week of final exams and graduation that preceded our wedding date...we went to the Brendles (on Tunnel Road) right up from the mall to pick up the rings that we ordered...like...three days before the wedding...

...the jeweler took them out of the box...and laid them on a velvet tray...and they were so pretty...but....BUT...you could just tell that the Man did not like them...so we tried them on...and you could tell that he liked them even less...the jeweler picked up on this disappointment as well...and asked if the rings were all right...they fit fine of course...and I thought mine looked really pretty against my engagement ring...but the Man just thought that he was wearing a girl's ring...

...for some reason it was more important to me that the rings matched...so we decided not to keep the embossed rings and the jeweler was so good about it...he gave us a credit on the plain bands that we then picked out...and we were married with matching rings...

...and the irony of this story is that the Man lost his ring in the first 4 months we were married...haha...so I could have kept the embossed ring because our rings no longer matched anyway...

...anywhooo...back to the story...the new ring was not quite my size...it's an 8 and my engagement ring was a 7 1/2...so when I wore the engagement ring on top of the wedding ring it couldn't slip off...but I was always knocking the setting loose doing construction projects and such so I'd pretty much stopped wearing the engagement ring...

...and in the wintertime the ring started slipping off...usually in a glove...and so far I've always managed to find it...but the other day I almost lost it...I found it in the basket that I keep the winter gloves in....it had come off in a glove and then slipped out of the glove into the basket...so I decided that I needed something to make it just a little bit tighter...

...and I remembered how girls in high school used to wrap yarn around their boyfriend's class ring to get it to stay on their fingers...
...so I just snipped of a length of bamboo yarn...I wanted something natural and sturdy and washable...
...and just starting tying square knots around the band with the knot resting on the edges...
...until it fit a little more snug-ly...
...then I threaded the ends onto a needle and pulled them back under the wrapped threads...so there are no loose ends...
...and there you have it...
...the ring no longer slips and it's a totally free fix...and it's totally reversible as well...

~Have a lovely day!