Monday we spent some time camming with our daughters who are out east, attending college and pursuing their paths in life.
They were laughing at Zilli. We were teasing her with a foxtail.
Fun was had by all. 🙂 ~~Rhonda
I participate in a flickr group called Macro Mondays. I haven’t posted many pictures the last month or so, because I’ve been adjusting to a new-to-me camera. My old camera, which finally died, let me get *real* close to a subject. I’ve had to get used to the new one, which DD gave me when she got an even better one. Anyhoo, members of Macro Mondays can post up to five pictures to the group each Monday. The pictures have to correspond to the week’s theme. Here are my submissions for this week’s theme “fuzzy.”
Fuzzy pipecleaners…I took this shot in the scrapbook room. I have drawers full of fun things the shoot.
These fuzzy fibers came from my scrapbook room drawers, too. Isn’t the sparkle great?
Love the colors and the sparkle on these fuzzy pompoms.
DH brought the foxtails in for me to shoot. I put them in a black tray and used a desk lamp to light them.
The wooly lamb’s ear was fun to shoot. I was at riding lessons with DD. While she and the trainers were on a trail ride, I picked the leaf and took some pictures for the flickr theme. I set it on my day planner for the black background and used the sun light to highlight the leaf’s detail. It was interesting to see how transparent the leaf was when the sun hit it from the back. All the veins became visible. That spot has as much fuzz on it as the left side where the sun hits it from the top of the leaf.
Macros are such fun. They bring to life amazing detail that usually goes unnoticed. ~~Rhonda 🙂
I haven’t done much outside during the past week or so, but here are a few pictures of the yard. Autumn is creeping in.
This tired fellow fluttered around the same spot on the pampas grass for a long time. Looks like he had a run in with a bird. I’m not sure he’ll make it back to Mexico.
The Autumn Joy sedum is turning beautiful shades of pink.
And now, back to our previously scheduled program…the menu for the week.
Monday
eat out
Tuesday
Pork Chops in the crock pot
rice
asparagus
corn on the cob
Caesar Salad
Wednesday
Rosemary Ranch Chicken Kabobs
Quick and Easy Home Fries
grilled green and yellow squash
tomatoes and cucumber slices
Thursday
Parmesan Chicken
mashed potatoes
peas
corn
green salad w/ ranch dressing
Friday
tilapia
steamed red potatoes
lima beans
corn
tomatoes
Saturday
fridge food
Sunday
marinated pork strips
cole slaw
baby baked potatoes
corn on the cob
You can find lots of menu ideas and recipe links at Menu Plan Monday. Click on over and see what’s up.
~~Rhonda
Because I changed this recipe so much from the one I found online, I am putting up my own version here, as a complete recipe. Delicious and easy to make. Give it a try!
Mexican Chopped Salad
8 cups shredded romaine lettuce and/or spinach
2 tomatoes, chopped (I didn’t peel mine, but peel away if you like)
1 cup cucumber, chopped (did peel and seed these…again, your choice)
2 T finely crumbled Feta cheese
1 cup broken tortilla chips
Dressing
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of one lime (or 2 T. bottled lime or lemon juice)
1 T salsa
2 T parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1. Place the lettuce/spinach, tomato, cucumber, and Feta in a salad bowl.
2. In a lidded container, place olive oil, lime juice, salsa and parsley. Close and shake vigorously until well mixed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Toss salad with the dressing. At the last minute, toss in tortilla chips.
Serves four.
The ingredients can be adjusted to any amount that floats your boat. And the original recipe uses 1/2 c. red (or substitute white) onion, but DH doesn’t eat onions, so I leave those out. They’d be great in there.
~~Rhonda
I have to say, my husband makes GREAT fudge.
Yes, that’s a fudge smudge on his lip. And, yes, I did hug him. Several times. 🙂
Here’s his recipe for homemade, from scratch fudge.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup milk
6 T butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
In a sauce pan (DH uses a 3 quart straight sided one) combine the cocoa and sugar. DH says complete and thorough mixing at this point is key to good fudge. He uses a kitchamajig to combine the ingredients.
After mixing, add the milk in small amounts and mix together after each addition. If you add the milk all at once you will have lumps of cocoa.
Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture starts to boil. After boiling starts, do not mix anymore. Heat to soft ball stage (234 degrees F, 112.2 C).
When the fudge comes to the soft ball stage, remove from heat, and add the butter, then the vanilla.
Butter a pan for the fudge. We use a 8 1/2″ by 7″ pyrex bakeware pan.
Let the mixture cool to about 170 degrees F then begin stirring vigorously for about 2 minutes. The sheen of the mixture will become somewhat dull when ready. If it starts to harden put it in the pan earlier.
Oh, so good!
~~Rhonda
We traveled to my sister’s house to celebrate our mother’s birthday. I made a white cake with chocolate ganache frosting and a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Several people asked for the pumpkin cake recipe, so I’m posting it here.
Pumpkin Cake
Mix together:
2 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
Add and mix well:
4 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 c. canned pumpkin (15 oz. can)
Pour into greased 9×13 pan. Bake 325* F for 55-60 minutes. Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Mix ingredients together until smooth:
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
You may add 1/2 cup of raisins and/or nuts to the batter, if you like. I made it plain, no additions.
The daughter of my niece gives Booker some tickles. She said, “I touch him all the time!” He’s her grandma’s doggy.
Booker is shy, but he let DD give him some attention, too.
My parents and their seven children. I’m in the back, in the left corner (white shirt).
Happy birthday, Mom! ~~Rhonda
I’ve been working on our Christmas open house invitations. I like to finish them in August when it’s usually too hot to be in the garden and before we begin decorating for Christmas in October. Once the decorating starts, I don’t have time to sit in the scrapbook room doing detail work. And when November arrives, I will be SO SO happy these are done.
When I get all the ribbons and little holly leaves on the stack to the left, the invitations will be finished.
I used Print Shop to design the invitation. I imported the vintage postcard print, then added the invitation and the light green background. It’s printed on a cream colored “parchment” card stock. Each sheet of card stock printed four invitations. When I trimmed them, I left a cream colored border around the green to add a light border.
I used gold Stickles to outline the border of the postcard print, then used red Stickles to outline the green background and to color the ribbons and the holly berries. Green Stickles highlight the holly leaves. Once they dried, they were matted with red card stock and I used a Krylon 18kt gold leafing pen to put the last border on the invitation.
The holly leaves were punched from green card stock printed with “Please Come!” and outlined with the gold leafing pen.
These will go in the Christmas cards and will be mailed the day before Thanksgiving. Once I get the invitations done, all I have to do for the Christmas cards is put together the Christmas letter. I’ll probably finalize that in October. But the cards/invites will be ready and waiting!
~~Rhonda
Yesterday, company came over to visit for a few days. A dear friend I haven’t seen in probably 25 years. It is so good to see her again, to reminisce about college days, compare time lines of our lives since then, etc. We’re having a wonderful time. She’ll be here until tomorrow morning. So I’m late posting today. I’m too busy talking. 😀 But she’s on her laptop and I’m on mine right now. A little quiet time before we head out for an early supper with DD, then we’re off to riding lessons for the evening.
DH and I did a lot of yard work Saturday afternoon / evening, which was satisfying. Autumn is creeping into the picture, so I am eager to get outdoors to take some shots of the changes the garden is going through right now. I took a few on Saturday and will leave you with those for right now. And the week’s menu. 🙂 We’ll get back to more garden pictures in a few days.
Monday
eat out
dessert / brownies and homemade chocolate ice cream
Tuesday
hamburgers / homemade buns
chips / veggies / dip
grapes
Wednesday
loaded baked potatoes
green salad
Thursday
Pork Tenderloin in the slow cooker
Maple Pan-Roasted Baby Carrots
mashed potatoes
broccoli
tomato cucumber salad
Friday
salmon
steamed red potatoes
sugar snap peas
corn
Saturday
fridge food
Sunday
grilled shrimp and scallops
grilled corn on the cob
grilled veggie packets (these were a hit last week)
spinach salad
Head over to Menu Plan Monday for more menu ideas and recipe links. Enjoy!
~~Rhonda
