...2.15...Over the Weekend...

...I did the weekly InstaCart shop...Jack is always so interested in the bags...

...not sure what's new here...more VioLife Cream Cheese...and we got the Heinz 57 we didn't get for the last couple of weeks...

...lots of fresh veg...so weird to have someone else choose that for me...of note...miso...and two red peppers...a gorgeous eggplant...a perfectly ripe pear...and another cauliflower...to make some more nacho dip so I can share a proper recipe...

...the fourteen hour time difference means that we're either already in bed or almost so...when the kiddos are having breakfast...here's Our Girl with her mouth full of Cheerios...still absolutely IN LOVE with FaceTime...this transition would be so hard without it...

...she offers us bites...and we say nom...nom...nom...like we've eaten what she's given us...and she plays peekaboo with the phone...and she gives lots of kisses...I'm sure the kiddos have to clean their phone after a FT chat...haha...

...Our Airman was telling us about a meal they got from the Spouse's group (while in quarantine all their food has had to be delivered)...and they had a peach and cherry pie...which I thought sounded awfully good...and I had frozen that leftover cherry pie filling from when we had vegan cheesecake...and we pretty much always have frozen peaches for smoothies...

...and I also had a single frozen pie crust...so I just turned that upside down over the filling...

...it was a really delicious pie...I'll remember that combination for future pies...

...our APO boxes finally arrived...so I got one packed up and sent off...just with a couple of baby toys... and a few odds and ends the kiddos left here (i.e., two single socks...haha)...and a surprise for Our Airman...that I'll show you once the package has arrived...

...our ADT batteries were reporting as "low"...so we ordered new ones and installed those...so now I've got to find a recycling center for these ones...

...Kitten is enjoying the box that those batteries came in...she's so funny...if there's something on the floor she's either in it or on it...

...we celebrated Valentine's Day...quietly at home...in the traditional fashion...with cards...

...and flowers...these roses are so pretty and they smell so good...definitely brightening up a rainy weekend...

...the Man's chocolates that I got him kind of pale in comparison...

...for Valentines Day dinner we got a contactless delivery pizza...

...so that was fun and nostalgic as we often did that when we were dating...

...and finally...I've been working on a new 'themed' sock pattern for St. Patrick's day...we'll see if I actually make the socks...haha...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...2.13...Dinner and a Movie...

...I made a couple of spectacular side dishes...vegan scalloped potatoes...they are so easy and delicious...that I'm wondering why I don't make them more often...

....and some roasted Brussels sprouts...

...added some grilled tofu, Foreman grilled broccoli, carrots and a little bit of sauerkraut...

...and the movie was...well...we spent way too much time trying to decide...or to 'find' a new show to watch the series of...we browsed Britbox and watched the first 15 minutes or so of each of the following: Puppy Love
300 Years of French and Saunders
At Last the 1948 Show
The Sandbaggers
The Sally Lockhart Mysteries

...and I'm sorry to say we were totally unimpressed with any of them...so they won't be added to the watchlist...or maybe we'll give them a second chance...do you do that too?

...what have you been watching lately?...obviously...I need some inspiration...haha...

~Have a lovely weekend!

...2.12...Friday Favorites...Dear Friends...far away...

...Carolyn and I have been friends since about 1990 or so...we worked together at the hospital...and we were pregnant with our boys at the same time...usually when I'm up in the mountains visiting Mom...I call her and she'll either come over to Mom's for tea...or we'll meet up somewhere to catch up on each other's lives...but this past year has made meet ups difficult...she still works in healthcare so she's been vaccinated already...and I'm still in phase 4...so it's likely going to be summer before I'm vaccinated...

...so...we were chatting about the kiddos the other day...and she mentioned that she'd just read this Blue Zone book...and it has a whole section on Okinawa...one of the Blue Zones...

...and then guess what...a couple of days later...the book arrived in the mail...

...with a sweet note from my friend...

...love that...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.11...What I Ate in a Day...as a Vegan...

...breakfast was an everything bagel and some Violife Cream Cheese...and tea...

...midmorning I peeled a ruby red grapefruit and ate it in segments...the Man can't stand grapefruit this way...he only eats it sliced in half with spoonfuls of sugar over the top...but I like the sweet/tart/bitter flavors...

...lunch was a nice warm bowl of leftover curry...it's cold and dreary and raining (we actually had Thunderstorms)...

...afternoon snack...the last of the black rice...with a roma (rather flavorless) tomato...

...and then for dinner a lot of veggies...steamed red potatoes onions and peppers, peas and carrots, fried cabbage...tea...of course...some baked tofu cubes - I actually dipped those in some BBQ sauce...but apparently that wasn't on my tray when I took the photo...and a small plate of cucumbers and tomatoes...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...2.10...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...well...you can probably tell that I've frogged everything that I'd already done...I just wasn't happy with the way it was turning out...not quite as neatly as I'd imagined...so...I'm going to start over again...with one large piece for the back...one for each front side and of course one for each sleeve...and then just crochet the trim on top of the larger pieces...I think it will be a lot easier to make a neat covering for the existing jacket that way...

...but...chenille yarn is a bear to unknit...so I'm glad that's over and done...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...2.9...Tuesdays with Julia...

...I made a vegan beef seitan roast and...

...used it to make a VEGAN POT-AU-FEU - POTÉE NORMANDE...it was delicious and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.8...Over the Weekend...

...we had a little bit of wintry weather...

...most of it had melted by the time I took the photo in the morning...

...I did the weekly InstaCart shop...

...nothing very unusual...they had overripe bananas...so I think I'm going to make banana pudding...and this is the first time in months that I've actually gotten the lettuce that I like...because I finally found an option to put in a 'note' to my shopper...and I just described this organic lettuce because for some reason it's not available on the website if you search for organic romaine...weird I know...but I'm happy to be able to get it again...

...not a lot else going on...I made a big Instant Pot full of pinto beans...most of them I'll freeze...

...and I made a delicious cauliflower based cheese sauce for dipping...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...2.6...Dinner and a Movie...

...it was time for a pizza night...we'd not done that in a while...

...I got this random vegan cheese out of the freezer...just enough for a pizza...it's either Daiya or Trader Joe's...not sure which because I didn't label it...

...this is going to be a 'supreme' pizza...peppers, onions, black olives, green olives, vegan sausage, and vegan pepperoni...

...it smelled so yummy baking...

...sprinkled with vegan parm...

...and served with a salad...and tea...

...and the movie was The Lady Vanishes...I found at least three different versions of this and we'd actually seen the old Hitchcock version before...many years ago...

...It's based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White...and we watched this new version...and I actually liked it a lot better...the lady who vanishes is not a spy and she doesn't get bandaged up...it was an interesting twist...

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

~Have a lovely weekend!

...2.5...Friday Favorites...

...remember a couple of weeks ago...when I broke my glass mug...well the Man bought this one from Amazon to replace it...it's quite an upgrade...he didn't wrap it up or anything...he just handed me the Amazon box...smiled...and said...I got something for you...and it got me thinking about the nice little things we do for each other...I remember when a friend of mine got divorced after many years of marriage...she said...we just stopped thinking about each other and doing little things for each other and we just grew apart...

...so more than the mug...it's the little things...

~Have a lovely day!

...2.4...What I Ate in a Day ...as a Vegan...

...it was kind of a clean-out-the-fridge sort of day...

...we had the brown and serve rolls left over...I don't often buy these...

...but I sliced them up...to about the thickness of a regular slice of bread...because I'm sort of going to treat them like regular bread...

...I got some tofurkey ham out of the freezer and defrosted it...

...toasted the bread...

...and then made little ham sammies with them...

...then I peeled a banana...

...and spread peanut butter on the rest of the slices...

...and I just quartered the banana on top of each...

...and had little open faced peanut butter and banana toasts...it was really a lot of food and really filled me up...so I didn't have any snacks...

...but for lunch I made a version of vegan chipped beef on toast...

...and still using things up...I used some of that black rice to make what we call Shashi's rice...or Matar Pulav...

...so that was a yummy way to use up some leftovers...

...for dinner I grilled some sweet potato in the Foreman Grill...

...and then some broccoli too...and had that with some leftover chili from the freezer...so it wound up being a good day for using up leftovers...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...2.3...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...all of the back pieces are complete...and ready for stitching onto the jacket...

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

~Have a lovely day!

...2.1...Over the Weekend...

...ok..first of all...I can't believe it is February already...where is January go...this COVID time is so strange in it's sameness...that time just seems to slip by unnoticed...

...I finished my third 100 days of sweat challenge...and I'm pretty sure that I started the first one on February 1st of last year...so in 365 days...I'm sure that I exercised 300 of them...and probably a few more than that...I didn't record any days on vacation...even though some of those days I did exercise...and there were probably a few days that I just forgot to mark off...but not many...because I really liked marking off the days...haha...

...but I've decided to replace the 100 box system with just a traditional calendar...that everyone can use and understand...I just printed this one off the internet...if we ever leave the house again...we can put appointments and such on it as reminders...haha...

...I did a virtual InstaCart shop...and got a few things...you can probably tell what meals we're likely to have this week...it looks like there will be tacos and sloppy joes for sure...

...and I mentioned that we don't make that orange cranberry relish except at Christmas...so...

...I got cranberries and an orange and made some...not at Christmas...

...I cleaned the humidifiers...I do it every weekend...I just use vinegar and cotton swabs...

...it's raining and chilly here...so I made some cocoa...I really like this dark chocolate mix...I usually add Silk almond cashew milk to it...it's thick and yummy...a real treat...

...and finally...I baked some tofu for some easy meals this coming week...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!