...7.31...Friday Update...the Birthday edition...

...so many birthday gifties...you've already seen the sweet chocolates my sissie sent...I am very lucky...

...a new set of kitchen towels and potholders in a nice crisp blue and white...

...I needed a new pair of walking shoes...and I could no longer get the style/number of New Balance trail shoes that I had always gotten...

...these are similar just with a different #...

...and from Our Airman...an adorable little hand crocheted flower...did you know that while knitting can be done by machine...crochet cannot...

...it's so sweet...I'll put it on my nightstand so I can see it first thing every morning...

...and my old airpods had sort of died...and by died I mean that they would only stay charged for about 5 minutes...so pretty much useless...and they never picked up my voice very well with the microphone on the earpiece...I'm pretty soft-spoken and people would always say they couldn't hear me when I tried to use them...so the Man got me these Beats ones...

...I'm sure he meticulously researched them...they're still wireless so I won't be tethered to the phone but they have microphones that sit closer to the front so hopefully I'll be able to use them to talk as I don't use my phone for listening very much...

...and a couple of things all the way from Japan...

...a traditional tofu cutter...

...of course I've tried it out...you set the cutter in place and press the tofu down through it...

...and you've got nice evenly sliced tofu...

...and then you just pull the top piece and the tofu is forced through another cutter on the front...

...and you're left with perfectly cubed tofu...ideal for the air fryer...

...and I actually asked for this saw...it's got two different sets of teeth...fine and course...it'll come in very handy...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.30...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...the Birthday edition...

...y'all have already seen the pre-birthday dinner at the Mexican restaurant on the weekend...and you knew that the Man had added a few specific things to the grocery list...because he was going to make me a special birthday dinner...

...since it was supposed to be a surprise (although I knew the ingredients - haha)...I asked him to take a few photos for y'all...the zucchini is from our garden and the peppers and eggplant are from Saturday's shopping...

...I'm pretty sure this is a sofritto of onions, carrots and celery...in olive oil...

...the rigatoni we got at Aldi...

...then it looks like he added all the veg to the pot...

...and then a bunch of tomato...he always uses the organic Cento San Marzano tomatoes in his sauces...and it looks like there's oregano there too...

...pretty sure the noodles were cooked separately and then added to the ragu...

...crunchy bread and a generous sprinkling of my almond parmesan...and a salad on the side...

...it was a delicious birthday dinner...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...7.29...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...well after the little making break that I took to quickly make a Pickles replica...I had a lot to get done to get my July box off to Alaska...of course Pickles went by herself to comfort Big Sissie...

...I'm trying to take full advantage of this little window of Dolly-Love...so I wanted to make Big Sissie a Tae Kwon Do outfit for her dolly...as Little Sissie has a complete ballet outfit that she can dress just like her dolly...I wanted Big Sissie to be able to dress her dolly for her chosen activity too...

...so I downloaded a few patterns...

...the dobok trousers were easy enough to make straight from the pattern...but the cross over wrap top of the dobok was going to be a little more challenging...

...I took a couple of different top patterns...I lengthened the front piece of one pattern to match the back piece of another one and added the wrap portion and I'll use that slanted piece for both sides of the front...the back I just used the shirt pattern...and then I lengthened the sleeve to make a long sleeve...and cut it all out of a nice stiff white cotton...

...zig-zagged the edges so they won't fray and stitched it together...I'm pretty happy with the look...

...next I added the thicker white band all around the front collar area...

...and stitched a couple of straight rows on the band...for some detail...

...and added a belt which is just a tube filled with interfacing and also stitched with a couple of rows of straight stitches...

...and the dobok was complete...

...I have no idea why all these photos are sideways...

...and here's my model dolly wearing the new dobok...

...but our TKD girl has her first yellow stripes...so I coloured some fabric tape with a yellow sharpie and added those to the belt...when Big Sissie gets a new stripe...they can just peel this off and I'll send them some appropriately coloured tape to match the new belt...

...I'm just as tickled as I can be with how this dobok turned out...

...all packed up and ready to go...

...and for Little Sissie...I wanted another dress alike outfit...to match this one that I'd gotten for a few dollars from Amazon...(sideways again)

...I found the somewhat matching leggings at Stuff-Mart...and Our Airman left a bunch of white t-shirts here when he joined up...

...and again...I'm sort of hodge-podging together a top...from the leotard pattern that I used for her purple dolly-matching leotard...so I cut that out to make a sleeveless top...and cut a couple of little ruffles from the t-shirt sleeves to add to the top of the tank sleeves to match the ruffles on the dolly's shirt...and then I've got quite a bit of the t-shirt left to make the peplum bottom piece...

...I just turned under the edges like I did for the leotard...but I didn't add any elastic...oh...and I added a placket down the center front for the buttons...

...then I gathered and attached the peplum bottom piece...

...and gathered and attached the little ruffles at the tops of the shoulders...and since I'd cut those pieces from the t-shirt sleeves...I didn't have to hem them...

...and the little top was finished...I didn't even have to hem the bottom...as I was able to use the existing bottom piece of the t-shirt...

...the dolly's shirt has shiny sort of diamond buttons...but I couldn't really find any to match...so I got these gorgeous flower ones with just a hint of pink that I'm just sure she'll love...and they don't actually button...they're just for decoration...

...and another matching set is on it's way to my girlies in Alaska...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...7.27...Over the Weekend...

...for breakfast I made 'scrambled' tofu with peppers and onions in the air fryer this time (on the back porch - because it's so hot)....

...and then I guess I got flustered by the arrival of these gorgrous birthday flowers while we were just about to sit down to breakfast and I didn't take a photo...

...and I had finished the wall patch and repainted it...it blends in pretty well...I think I can see it...but I don't think anyone else will notice...and the Man helped me hang the painting back up...so I'm glad to have everything back in order...

...I try to remember to water the Pothos every Saturday morning...it's looking nice and healthy and the Man is so proud of it...

...and he should be...it was just a wilted sprig of a plant that I got at Aldi for a dollar when we still lived in North Carolina...and the Man nursed it back to health...

...and then we headed out for the weekly shopping...this week's Poppi...I had taken my humongous pink mug with some ice in it...so it made my weekly Poppi super refreshing...

...all done...

...the Man had put the eggplant and peppers and rigatoni on the list and I got the cannellini beans to make a batch of chocolate hummus...it's been a while since we've had it...

...then I pretty much immediately mixed up the chocolate hummus in the Vitamix...

...and then to get the last little bit out of the blender I added some soymilk and blended up a rather delicious cup of chocolate milk...waste not want not...

...and we dipped some cookies in...but I can eat it with a spoon...it's like a creamy fudge...

...and Saturday afternoon a sweet package arrived from my Sissie...

...prettily wrapped...

...and with an adorable card...

...so I opened it right away...even though it's not my birthday yet...

...and we gave them a try...of course I let the Man have a square...haha...

...and Sunday the food prep continued...I had soaked some black beans overnight...because I want to make a vegan taco pasta salad...

...the soaking water was so very black...I'm afraid it stained the sink a little bit...

...and I made two pints of strawberry tofu yogurt...

...and air fryed a block of tofu...just to have on hand for meals or just for snacking...

...when I was looking in the pantry for the pasta I found a half box of plain rotini and a half box of the colourful kind...so I just dumped them together...

...and put it all into one of the pretty jars mom had given us...

...and then the black beans were done...so I divvied them up into 15 ounce freezer containers...because a can of black beans is usually 15 ounces...

...from 2 lbs. (.45 kg) of black beans I got six 15 ounce portions...one that I set aside for the recipe I want to make and one in a jar in the fridge...we'll probably just use it for rice and beans for a nice quick supper and the other four containers I put into the freezer...the two pound bag cost $2.99 and 6 cans of black beans at aldi would have been $5.70 (95¢/can)...so it's a pretty good deal to make your own...

...I got another basket full of veg from the neighborhood $1 per pound veggie stand...but it seems like things may be winding down there...

...and then for dinner we went out to celebrate my birthday at our favorite Mexican restaurant...I got my usual rice and beans and we always get their special guacamole...and I douse my rice in their delicious salsa and eat about half my weight in chips...I insisted that since it wasn't actually my birthday they couldn't do the hat and song...haha...(but if you want to see a photo of me in the Mexican hat while they were singing to me...it's in this post from last year when it was my actual birthday...it was another fun and delicious 'birthday' dinner...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!