Last Friday I decided to veer off the menu and I made pizza for supper. I made the recipe for the 40 minutes buns, and used half to make a pizza crust and half to make six rolls.
It made a delicious thick crust. Half cheese for DD and half veggies for DH and me. I used zucchini, tomatoes, fresh spinach and, on my portion, green onions. I grated fresh Parmesan over all and sprinkled it with mozzarella.
It was easy and delicious! No more delivery pizza for us. ~~Rhonda
Niko seems to be quite relaxed and easy going. He is still being kept in DD#2’s room while he adjusts. And while Buttercup adjusts to the fact that there is a new kitty around. DD found him in the bathroom sink when she went in to visit this afternoon.
He likes to have someone around. This evening when DD went in to say goodnight, he purred and purred. When she tried to leave, Niko cried. So she went back in and he purred again…then cried when she left. 🙂 So she brought him to me in the scrapbook room. We closed the door and he has been exploring the room while I work on my Christmas Notebook.
He sat in the window and watched the ceiling fan.
He checked out all the pictures we’ve been taking of him.
He sat on the counter and watched TV with me.
Isn’t he a pretty boy? 🙂 ~~Rhonda
I’ve planned a menu that should be pretty easy this week as we have a lot going on.
Monday
grilled tilapia
steamed red potatoes
asparagus
spinach salad
I mixed my own cajun seasoning for the grilled tilapia.
Tuesday
baby back ribs (SO easy! Directions follow.)
baked potatoes (microwave oven)
corn
coleslaw
Baby Back Ribs
Place ribs on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake in a 250* oven for four hours. Turn over after one hour. After two hours turn again and slather them with BBQ sauce. Continue baking, turning them a time or two and adding more BBQ sauce if you like. I loosely cover them with foil after putting the sauce on.
When they are done, they will easily pull apart. Remove the foil and put them under the broiler for a few minutes to char the BBQ sauce a little. So good!
Wednesday
chicken cordon bleu ~ crock pot recipe
rice
snowpeas
corn
Thursday
hamburgers
40 minute rolls
chips
grapes
Friday
spicy shredded pork ~ crock pot recipe
Caesar salad
steamed snow peas
baked apples
Saturday
leftovers
Sunday ~ church dinner
turkey and stuffing (boneless turkey cooked in the crock pot, then diced and mixed with Stove Top stuffing)
broccoli slaw
triple chocolate mess (chocolate cake in the crock pot) served with ice cream
You can find many more menu ideas and recipes at Laura’s site – orgjunkie.com.
~~Rhonda
We adopted a new kitty today. Niko is a beautiful Birman cat. We’re thrilled his previous family chose us to his new family. We drove 50 minutes north to pick him up. His family provided all his toys, his bed, his kitty house, etc., so he has a lot of familiar items to help him settle in here.
Niko made the trip home just fine. He responded by looking at DD when she called him by name and watched her as she sat beside him. He showed no evidence of being nervous.
When we arrived at home, DH took Niko’s things upstairs to DD#2’s bedroom. I had thought we’d put him in the library for awhile, but DD thought the bedroom would be quieter and it would give him two rooms to explore as it has an attached bath.
Niko came right of his carrier and started exploring the room. He checked on all his equipment. Yes, that’s mine…yes, that’s mine… 🙂
It didn’t take him long to go into the bathroom to look around.
I had to restrain DD from approaching Niko too quickly. She was so eager to pet him, but managed to hold off until he came to her. It didn’t take too long. He doesn’t seem nervous at all.
Buttercup soon figured out something was going on. She sat outside the bedroom door for a while. Niko was VERY interested. There was no hissing, no growling, no meowing…just curiosity. So far, so good, though we will wait a few days before trying any kind of face to face introduction. After about an hour, Buttercup went downstairs and took a nap. She doesn’t seem too concerned.
Niko spends some time walking around the room, then sits in his house for awhile. Then back to exploring. He’s letting DD pet him a lot. He is doing great!
~~Rhonda 🙂
Just a couple of pics of the grands.
She took her first step yesterday.
Pigtails!
~~Grandma
Disclaimer…I don’t advocate this many trees for everyone! LOL
If you don’t know already, I *love* Christmas and everything about it. I love the decorating, the entertaining, the cooking…every detail. Here’s a little preview of what’s coming.
The living room tree is a 9′ tree that sits on a 24″ box. The ceilings are 12′ high. The tree rotates. Years ago, I found a heavy duty revolving tree stand. I have searched the internet and cannot find the same tree stand available any longer. Ones that *are* available couldn’t handle such a large and heavy tree. The stained glass angel in the window is a gift from our dear friends Gary and Laurie and hangs in the window year round. Gary made the angel and other stained glass pieces in our home.
If you’re here at Christmas time, peek inside the living room tree to find the wood gnome who hides inside.
The main tree in the dining room is decorated with snowball ornaments and is covered with shredded artificial snow.
This tree sits in the bay in the library and holds a large collection of nativity related ornaments. It’s wound with a ribbon on which I wrote the Christmas story from Luke 2:1-20. I used gold fabric paint and wired satin ribbon.
A favorite last year, of course, was the grandbaby tree. This tree was a lot of fun to make. Dear friends gave us a “grandpa / grandma” gift of a diaper bag, two soft blankets, little socks, bath scrubbies, etc., and I used those to decorate the tree along with cards we received and photos of the twins and family.
The tree in DD#2’s room last year was decorated with stamped felt ornaments, wooden stars, and bows. This year, I’ll add some of DD’s own photographs and copper colored balls.
The little tree in the laundry room has a garden theme. BTW, that wallpaper is no more. 🙂
My favorite tree is the “glass tree” in our bedroom. I collect spun glass and glass ornaments and they go on this tree. I dismantled several chandeliers and use the prisms (about 250 of them) on this tree along with the crystal chains as garlands.
That’s just a small taste of what’s in store. We will have at least one tree in every room of the house. And that doesn’t count trees like DD’s “I Spy” tree…
Even the mice are decorating a tree.
And you may get a Christmas tree for breakfast!
You can click on any of the pictures and it will take you to my flickr site where you can see pictures of our other trees.
Christmas decorating is usually well underway by now because we have to have it all ready by the first of December for our annual open house. We are definitely going to fall behind schedule this year because of our remodeling projects, but I’m sure it will all come together in the end. Reviewing some of our pictures from previous years gives me a taste of what’s ahead. I can’t wait to get started in earnest!
~~Rhonda
What?? I can hear it now…. 🙂 Yes, our first Christmas tree is up.
Buttercup watched while Brooke decorated the tree in DD#1’s room this AM. We brought DD#2’s tree down, fluffed it and were ready to decorate, but one string of lights is not working properly. I’ll have to fix that before we can move on. Because the girls are away at school, we can go ahead and decorate those rooms and shut the doors. I am sure we’ll have company between now and Christmas and they will have to use those rooms as the guest room is under renovation, but I don’t think they’ll mind a little early Christmas cheer. It did my heart good to see the first lights go on!
The tree needs something more than it has now. I am going to add copper colored balls if I can find them. I have a lot of little 3×5 black frames and plan to print some of DD#2’s photographs to display on the tree. She’s a photography major in school.
One tree up with lights burning brightly! Twenty-one trees to go!
~~Rhonda 😀
We are in the middle of major remodeling of two spaces. One is the addition (added to the house in 1962) which is the guest room, a hall, the laundry room and a bathroom. The other space is DD’s room. And I must say, she is WAY excited about that!
The mess is getting to me. It makes me wonder how we ever survived the two years of constant renovation and remodeling that we did when we bought the house in 1994. When I look back on that, I can’t believe we did it. Someday, I will scan some pictures and give you a taste of what we went through. The entire house was tuckpointed, roofs repaired, all electric, heating, and plumbing replaced, and air conditioning added, all the upstairs floors had to be taken up for wiring electricity, all the floors refinished but three. Two of those rooms had the floors replaced. The house was not on the city sewer system, so we had to have that installed. Not to mention the other one million and one things that had to be done…makes me nervous just thinking about it.
But back to this remodel…
We emptied DD’s room and put all her toys and stuffed animals and paraphernalia into storage boxes. A lot of that went to the attic for the time being. We peeled wallpaper in the addition, and are going to remove the cottage cheese ceilings, then paint woodwork, ceilings and walls. Oak hardwood will be installed. We emptied four closets, cleaned and painted two of them, and are in the process of getting those two finished so all that stuff can be put away. The other two are in the addition and aren’t done yet.
The upstairs hall closet houses four boxes of DH’s parents’ things that we thought should not be placed in the attic where temperatures fluctuate and it also holds cleaning supplies, a vacuum cleaner hose, a few long dresses and a long coat. We got rid of old clothes and miscellaneous things that had been stashed in there. Currently the items that will return to the closet are stacked in the upstairs hall. The closet is ready (fresh white, so nice!) so those things can go back in today. Yeah!
The downstairs hall closet, which is about four by five feet, serves as our coat closet and also stores cleaning supplies and the vacuum hose. The cleaning supplies are stored in pretty baskets on shelves. There are also baskets for electric cords and light bulbs. The closet has been painted. DH sanded and painted the woodwork in the closet today, and removed the baseboards. He is currently removing the vinyl floor and sub floor to prepare the closet for hardwood which will go in sometime in the next few weeks. Once the old floor is out, we can put all the baskets back on the shelves and get them off the floor in the front hall. Yeah, again! 🙂
This afternoon I met with the decorator to pick out the paint colors and look at furniture ideas. DH was glad I chose paint today. He wants to get the addition painted so we can schedule the floor installation (as do I!).
This armoire, which came out of the guest room, was stained. It will go back into the guest room and is being painted white. I decided to paint the interior with the wall color I chose today. The shelves will be white. The bottom section isn’t painted yet, because (with my bum knee) I am not able to crawl down there to sand and paint it. DH will have to do that part…or turn it on its back so I can reach it. 🙂
This afternoon the decorator showed me other glass tiles and counter top samples than those pictured below for the guest bath, but I am leaning this way now…the glass tiles are a milky white with blue streaks. I loved them the minute I saw them. And the Silestone counter top is my favorite…dark blue with silver sparkles. If it sparkles, I love it.
We are working under a real deadline as we will have our one year old grand-daughters here for a week the end of the month, and we don’t want the mess of remodeling going on while they are here. And, of course, I have Christmas decorating to think about. My usual schedule is severely disrupted with all this work going on. I am hoping to begin on DD#2 and DD#3 rooms on Friday when Brooke comes to help (hear that, Brooke??).
Well, this is a longer, wordier post than I usually write. And it has just a few pics…but I think it helped…I feel a little more in control than I did this morning. 🙂 Writing/typing things down gives me some perspective, I suppose. If you think about me during the next few weeks, please say a prayer that all goes smoothly.
~~Rhonda %-}
Last night, while DD was getting ready for bed, Buttercup waited for her by sitting on the railing at the top of the stairs.
And this morning, when I came down for breakfast, there she was guarding the newel post.
She’s been sitting there a lot lately. I’m not sure why she decided all of a sudden that this is a good resting spot.
~~Rhonda 🙂
The eighth butterfly emerged this morning. Another female. That makes six females and 2 males, so far.
She didn’t seem to mind at all when I stuck my camera in her face.
Beautiful.
~~Rhonda