...5.31...Dinner and a Movie...

...first of all...I really am happy that I don't have to post comments here anymore...

...and on the reading front...I'm still waiting on my turn to finish 100 years of Solitude...so in the meantime...I'm reading something I almost never read...a graphic novel...V for Vendetta...there's a movie too...but I've heard it was not very well reviewed...probably we'll still watch it though...I've just finished the first book...kind of spooky all of the parallels you can draw to our current political environment...with the exception that they didn't really 'choose' their government...anywhoo...not a very pleasant read...

...for dinner..we had vegan sloppy joes...of course...

...and I made some delicious fries...(or chips if you're like my Sissie and you're still in England)...haha...

...just tvp and the Manwich sauce...so easy...

...and the movie was recommended by Our Airman and the grandbabes...Wild Robot...I can definitely see why they liked it...it's a very sweet movie about 'people' working together...

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

~Have a lovely weekend!

...link to previous post...4.18 ...Friday Update...

...5.30...Friday Update...

...the mailbox project continues...and it's really pretty much of a pain...because we have to lift it out of its wobbly hole to work on it for a couple of hours and then put it back in time for the mail to run...

...it's made of really thick steel and it was welded together and painted with some sort of baked on epoxy 20 years ago...but it was damaged somewhere along the way and the lower paper box is crooked as is the decorative butterfly cutout...

...so we used a rubber mallet and some vices to get it pretty straight and level...

...it's kind of hard to see how wonky it really is...

...our garage sounded like a Buddhist temple with the loud gong noises we made with the rubber mallet...

...but we finally got things level again...

...this is the paint we'll be using...we have 5 cans...hope that's enough for several light coats...

...we spread out some plastic...

...and primed the places where we had sanded down to bare metal...

...on the mailbox too...

...and then started with the first light coat of the black...

...then I had to run out to Lowes as I also wanted to paint the little flag as he was looking kindof sad and faded as well...so I got a nice bright red...and one of these sprayer holder thingies that'll make it a lot easier to press the button down on the paint spray can...and some gold outdoor paint to paint the letters that we sanded off back on the box...

..and then because that baked on epoxy finish had chipped off in a few places...we mixed up some epoxy and filled those in...when it's dry we'll sand it smooth...otherwise...if we just painted over it...it wouldn't rust...but you'd still see the chip...kind of like a chip in a bathtub or sink finish...

...just a few places...

...all of the chips probably occurred when the 'accident' occurred...as it bent the metal...

...and put enough stress on the bent places to flake off the finish...

...a couple more coats on the mailbox...

...a very fine black paint dust settles on the plastic...so you have to be really careful not to track it off of the plastic...

...and then I made a stencil to paint the numbers back on the front of the mailbox...I was going to paint them in gold...but decided on white instead to make them stand out a little bit more...I had also thouht of putting them on the side (much larger in a pretty font)...but no one else in the neighborhood has that...so I did not...

~Have a lovely day!

...link to previous post...4.17...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...5.29...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...OK...this one is totally new to me...Toby's Tofu Paté...itseems to be a west coast thing...there are multiple varieties...but I saw it on this blog...Bowen Appétit...and she has a homemade version..

...apparently it didn't used to be vegan...but now it is...but it's easy enough to veganize...

...so I got all of the ingredients...which I already had on hand...

...and mixed up a batch...it is really really delicious...I could eat the whole bowl...initially we had it with just some unsalted Saltines...

...and then the next day with some WW Ritz...

...and finally we had the last of it with our Julia Child Terrine...

....Have you ever seen or tried Toby's Paté?...

~Have a lovely day!

...link to previous post...4.16 W.I.P Wednesday...

...5.28...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...well...I had another load of 'stuff' to drop off at the thrift store...and so of course I perused the 'free' box...and I found these lovely pink-ish fleece pajama bottoms...they looked perfect so I couldn't figure out why they weren't sell-able...

...but if you look closely you can see that there's no string to tie them up with...and there's no elastic band either...so remember that when you donate that they won't be able to sell sweat pants and such without a string...

...but it was easy enough for me to just do a chain of crochet in a semi-matching pink yarn...

...and guess what I found wadded up in the waistband when I tried to thread the new cord through it...right!...half of the old tie string...apparently someone had broken the other half completely and this half had worked it way up into the waistband pretty far...

...but I got the new cord threaded and now I have a super cute new pair of cozy P.J.s...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...link to previous post...4.14..Over the weekend...

...5.27...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made the VEGAN TERRINE DE PORC, VEAU, ET JAMBON...

...and served it with homemade bread...

...and it was really delicious...I'd make it again...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...5.26...Over the Weekend...

...we started this rainy weekend off with some vegan pancakes...

...then...of course...we headed out to get the shopping done...nothing much of note...the dried cranberries were on sale so I got two bags...the Manwich is for vegan sloppy joes...because it came up in conversation and we realized that it's been a long long time since we've had them...and not sure if it's a supply chain issue or not...but Aldi did not have the balance cereal (like Life) that I usually get so I got a couple of the Vitality ones instead...

...and after the mail ran...we got geared up for the mailbox refurb project...and pulled our faded and dented mailbox out of the ground...

...it's really heavy...and it was cemented in which we were not expecting as it moved easily when pushed...but because someone had obviously backed into it at some point in the last 20 years that's understandable...but it will mean that we'll have to dig that up and get some quickrete...

...so we gave it all a good scrub and sanded it with a fine grit...we chose this weekend for the project because Monday is a Post Office holiday and we thought we could accomplish it all in 2 days...but we all know that estimate really always needs to be doubled...and we wound up putting it back in the ground so that we could get mail all next week...it's very wobbly though...

...so then with the rain pouring down we decided to finally get the tools up on the wall...

...we had gotten all of the brackets at least a year ago but had just never installed them...so the tools were always in the way leaned up against the wall or in the corner...and this is so much better now...

...then Sunday afternoon we did some food prep...an Instant Pot of beans...

...I baked our favorite banana bread...

...and also baked some tofu while the oven was on...

...still using my old Pampered Chef cake tester that I won at a party in North Dakota...

...I can't resist the heel still warm from the oven...

...cooked a pot of rice in the rice cooker...

...when the beans were done...

...I portioned them out into jars...the small ones for lunches during the week the large one without liquid is for a casserole recipe I wanted to try...and the other large one was for dinner...

...and the final project was to pretty up my anniversary bouquet and keep it going for a little while longer...

...so I separted out the flowers that were still pretty and made a new smaller bouquet...

...and then when I went to clean up...I found that the pollen from the Stargazer lillies has quite the staining potential...and I had to scrub the sink with Barkeepers Friend...not that that's a bad thing...haha...

...but it stained me as well...

...funny it was almost like henna...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...link to previous post...4.12 Dinner and a Movie...