Thanksgiving doings, dryer vent clean-out and upgrade, and beadworks.

I love this time of the year. I'm all shopped-up and caught-up around here and can concentrate on those things that I love - cooking, baking, beading, socializing and getting the decorations ready to go up.

I've been baking cookies, (of course) and worked through processing a 2# bag of asparagus and a 10# bag of red potatoes; scalloped, twice baked, cooked & cubed for home fries and smashed & frozen for use in Italian sausage & potato soup. Whew, big job but rewarding, lots of sides for grilled meats.

Delicious scalloped potatoes

With the asparagus, I steam it all until just barely crisp-tender, then season it with butter and spices and let it cool. We'll have some fresh like that but it freezes quite well. I will then use it in various alfredo sauces, quiches, cold salads and such. Another time/energy saver and I don't have to stress about it laying around in the vegetable drawer waiting to be addressed.

Some steamed already, and some getting ready to steam.

The Tollhouse cookies aren't the only sweets I've baked, I started with those delicious ginger snaps we love, with those tiny dices of candied ginger and more pecans, haha. Those got devoured in short order.

Tollhouse chocolate chips with loads of pecans.

Everyone knows we love having some pot pie around, time for another one. Now I just need to get some ready to go chicken and some crusts. BJ's warehouse store comes to the rescue with a multi-pack of pie crusts (6) and a tray of roasted chicken thighs from dinosauric-proportioned chickens! The photo below shows the meat from 2 thighs plus another thigh ready to be "picked". Man, with 4 like that I've got meat for days, or at least 2 more pot pies, lol!

Meat from 2 thighs with 2 left to "pick".

After all that picking I had to get the stock pot involved. I always have wonderful, strong stock in the freezer. Some as ice cubes, some in 1 cup measures and super handy for soups, gravies, sauces, making grits with it, sauteing veg's and more. I'm going to need a lot for Thanksgiving dressing.

On the topic of Thanksgiving, I was planning on dry-brining a Cornish hen for the meat. Generally speaking, turkeys are just too big for us. However, our local IGA (Rowes) usually caters to quite the international clientele and often has unusual cuts of meat. They had a very nice half turkey that looked just right. Turkey it is then.. out came the roasting pan, down goes the bed of carrots and some chicken stock and I forgot to take any more pictures, ah shucks.

Ready for the half turkey and the small "balls" of dressing.

Here is a shot from the dinner table. A mid-day meal is so nice - all afternoon to piddle around with the clean-up.

We enjoyed our meal in the Florida Room as usual.

I've been busy with the beadworks, developing new designs and stretching my skills. I've also participated in a few more craft fairs and have been pleased with both my sales and people's compliments. It certainly adds a fillip of satisfaction to the whole process.

Trying my hand at Tree of Life styles. I'm liking them!

Also some triple-hooper's with semi-precious stones/crystal beads.
It's all fun, FUN to me, and I'm covering my supplies costs.

The Boss has been busy with his projects as well, one of which has been to clean out the dryer vent of 40 yrs of lint, and install a super-duper lint trap which can be cleaned more readily. The dryer vents out under the deck via a 25' 4" PVC pipe laid in the foundation. Whose bright idea was this when the house was built?? 😦 Scary how much lint accumulates, and can you say flammable?!! Anyway, with his heavy duty leaf blower and a lo-o-ong cleaning brush he/we got it cleaned out. Boy, did it make a difference in drying times! He then installed a secondary lint filter system to prevent build-ups like this from happening again.

The portion of the hose that's inside the house,
a shocking amount of lint build-up in just 5 years.
Why doesn't the dryer's lint filter capture more?

Marry an engineer, you get engineered projects.

Ready to go. You put water in the bottom of the capture box
and angle the deflector screen towards the water.
Easy to see when it needs cleaning out.

As usual, thanks for visiting, and comments are always welcome. See you the next time. Enjoy the Holidays and all it entails, hugs.

April yard projects, food prep and neighborhood fun

 This entry really reflects the first couple of weeks in April, and the next entry or 2 should just about catch us up with the present. I've been lax, my bad!

We have been super busy trying to finish up various projects in preparation for our annual summer exodus to cooler climes out west. For me, that means squaring away the frozen food in both freezers. Most gets used up in our daily meals but some gets pressure canned for shelf stable storage, and some gets passed along to my wonderful neighbors who hold down the fort while we're gone. Thank you neighbors! 💙

I canned ground turkey, chicken, Cajun beans, and potato soup with Italian sausage among other things. I also made a yummy chicken pot pie and a big pot full of smoked sausage and red beans with carrots, zucchini and onions. 

Last year we used an Omaha Steaks Styrofoam box with dry ice to bring some of our home cooked meals out with us to take some of the stress out of trying to use it all up beforehand. That worked out so well we thought we'd use that method again.

The stages of pot pie construction and voila.

We did have a neighborhood fun day with a flotilla event followed by a fantastic potluck at the pool pavilion. Here are a few pics from that.

Our end of the lake and our dock, light gray in this shot.

Here they come by while we watch from the deck level.

The "spread" was impressive.

Staying cool on the shady side.

It was a good turn-out, especially for such a warm mid-80's day. It was fun to see everyone out and about.

Remember this project - the rocks on the side yard out front? Well, it finally got finished, including a semi-transparent concrete stain on the faded pavers lining the driveway and sidewalk.

I was pleased with how easily the stain went on, and
how good it looked after one coat. Easy water cleanup too.

I also put a thick maintenance coat of stain (cedar)
on this A/C enclosure to protect the wood and keep it looking nice.

More to come in the next report, so stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by.

A lot of cooking and not much else

 It's that "cozy" time of year where we're starting to have some serious cold snaps and that means we're hibernating, or let's say nesting.  We are doing stuff around the house, but unless necessary, we're just hanging out and pursuing our own interests.

For me that means cooking and baking, plus organizing and cleaning, studying at the University of YouTube and puzzling. For the Boss that means reading various news and OpEd sources to help suss-out the shape of things to come, plus getting his walks in, watching football and relishing the food around here. He is very good about appreciating my efforts and that civilized behavior keeps smiles on people's faces. That, and his doing the dishes, lol. 😄

More of the gingersnap cookies and then creamy, traditional Chicken Pot Pie. Oh boy and yum.

Gingersnaps with candied ginger and pecans

Moist and flavorful chicken pot pie

On a side note, I discovered a new "baggie" the other day at Walmart - a half-gallon bag. It's nice to have an option that is not so wasteful for when something is too wide for a quart-sized bag but too short for a full gallon-sized bag. Like this half of a papaya. Or a half rack of ribs, you know?

Papaya in a Great Value half-gallon bag

We've had a few really pretty sunrises - lots of pinks during the winter. Unfortunately my phone camera doesn't do it justice, and I have to tweak the saturation in Picasa a bit, but here goes.

Morning sunrise

Another "lazy days" thing I baked was a pan of the breakfast casserole with sausage, peppers & onions, tomatoes and cut up pre-baked french fries. I've been working on perfecting this recipe ever since an Instacart order was misdelivered a couple of months ago. Here's how it went.  

Ed was in the garage with the door open. The driver asked him if he was John, and he said no. She then looked at the house number again and just said "here" and handed him the bags. He didn't know if I had ordered it so he took it and brought it in and set it on the counter. I looked at it and thought WTH!?! The order contained a bunch of frozen stuff; 2 - huge 5# bags of french fries, 2 - family-sized salisbury steak dinners, 2 - family-sized packs of breakfast sausages, a box of hash brown patties and a bunch of other stuff - yipes! After trying to figure out how to rectify the situation (and basically being told "finders keepers, we can't take it back"), I promptly took half of it over to my neighbor. 

What a story - and what a windfall! 😊😊 Now I just say, "Thank you Lord for my blessings" 🙏😇🙏

Anyway, I've been trying to use up the fries, so baking them up nice & crispy, cooling and chopping up into 1" pieces, then combining them with pre-cooked sausage crumbles, bell peppers, onions and tomatoes, then pouring a standard egg mixture over it all and topping with cheese and salsa verde dollops and baking has turned out to be quite good. YAY!

Portioning up french fry breakfast casserole

And we've been enjoying the NFL play-off games, which we record and watch at a more convenient time (and without commercials). The Jags couldn't get out of their own way and therefore didn't make it into the play-offs but there are plenty of good teams and good offense (my favorite) to enjoy watching. We watch them in order, and it's tough to avoid plot-spoilers on the games we haven't watched yet, but we try to be careful with which websites we visit during the interim.  We usually start a game around 6pm to coincide with dinner. Last night we watched the Ravens/Texans game and had meatballs in a broccoli alfredo sauce w/garlic toast and kalamata olives.

Meatballs in Broccoli Alfredo sauce & kalamata's

Well, I'm sorry this post isn't full of travel pics and other excitement, just our (comfortable) lives, for which we are truly grateful.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your day is bright and happy.

Driveway/walkway freshen-up, gobble work and crafts

 Back in 2015, a couple of years after we switched to being part-time on the sailboat we had the driveway/walkway's refinished in a decorative concrete finish & sealer and it was quite an improvement. Here's the before/after for that.

A sad sight for sure - I hated those white rocks!

2015 - Quite a spiffy-up, looking good.

After many years that lace-like pattern trapped a ton of dust and dirt which hardened & turned it into a dirty looking mess, not to mention the surface cracks reappearing in the concrete. Going off and leaving it for several months at a time didn't help the situation. 😞 I got kind of fed-up about how bad it looked, so to stop my b*tching and complaining about it we bit the bullet and had a different treatment applied. No more dimples, instead a slate-like, smoother texture for easier maintenance.

Big-time pressure wash finished, and now fixing the cracks.

It took a week, luckily we had great weather, and it came out great! Ryan and his crew did a thoroughly professional job, and made no bones about getting our input all along the way to make sure we were happy. Looks a dream again now! 😍

I think I'm going to get some brick stain to breathe a little
life back into my brick paver edging, it's a little washed-out.

If you click on the picture you can see the grid lines & new texture.
Also, in between the 2 doors is the new-to-me floral arrangement.

On to other things that I've been spending time on. Remember that .49¢ per lb turkey I picked up before Thanksgiving? Well, I had to do something with it that didn't involve eating it - too much other stuff to try to eat up before decommissioning the freezers and heading out west. The solution; thaw it out, cut it up and pressure can it using the raw-pack method!

I have a separate piece of plastic I use over my craft table 
when I doing messy work. No lingering contamination that way.

I got 8 nice pint jars out of it and, as they say in the Islands,
"Dat Finish" - whew, happy to have that done, (it wasn't too bad).

Additional things I've been working on are silk floral arrangements, I'm a victim, really! I see these half-way decent straw basket/greenery projects at the thrift for $2.99 and I can't resist - it's a compulsion. 😁 Anyway, I have to bring them home with me and "fix" them. Here's my latest; unfortunately I didn't take a before pic showing all the bare stalks of  greenery in the pretty good basket. It looks quite nice now, I didn't spend more that a couple more bucks on it (Dollar Tree flowers, lol), and I'm using it in the courtyard.

Nice oblong straw basket, now full and pretty

Still on the puzzling train and enjoying it in between bigger projects. Here's the latest. Bigger than usual at 550 pieces, it took more time but was fun. Patsy (https://patsyischillin.blogspot.com/ ) could knock this out in a couple of hours, she's a master puzzler!

In the food arena, we had more beef pot pie, more cookies (pecan & chocolate chip macaroons) and fresh cornbread to go with our baked ham leftovers from the freezer.  I was mentioning to my sister that I may try to source some dry ice and pack an old Omaha Steak cooler with some of our frozen goodies - I still have quite a few steaks and center cut pork chops not to mention roast pork and baked ham. It would make for some easy meals if I could get it out there intact.

Edges got a little dark on me, boo.

A "half recipe" is perfect for us, we usually get at least 3 meals off it.

And finally, building some more fabric squares for some future project.  It's great busy-work and I enjoy it. I'm loving my puff quilt/pillow!

I guess it's going to be purply-blues this go round.

Thanks for the visit, hope to see you again sometime. In the meantime, take care, be safe, count your blessings and have a great day. 

Azaleas, and our Cruiser's Potluck

 Once again it's that time of year for the big azalea bloom-out and boy, did they! The problem was that we had a spell of HOT weather shortly after they bloomed and within 2 weeks (or less) it was over; brown, spent flowers drooping then falling to litter the ground. Sad, so sad. I love seeing the bushes blanketed with the pink's, fushia's, salmon's & white's. Here's one pic of some bushes by the pool that aren't fully out yet but close.

The landscapers stop trimming the azaleas in the fall
to ensure a good bloom, that's why they look leggy.

Here's one right out front in the roadway median. There was a big uproar around here regarding a severe pruning of the common area azalea bushes. They had gotten to be 6' tall and needed to fill-out not get taller. Anyway, a severe "murdering" occurred a couple of years ago and they're looking stunning; short and stout with a ton of blooms! Good job grounds committee.

You can also see the storm security door we recently
installed which allows us to leave the front door open
for nice breezes through the house, and for
when we're sitting in our small courtyard area.

My friend Nancy is in the process of moving to a new apartment complex, so I offered her some moving boxes we had from my M-I-L's house. When she came by, we not only had a great little visit with her but she brought books! Many by my favorite mystery/thriller authors, thanks a bunch Nancy!

I generally don't keep many hardcover books, so I will 
begin whittling the pile down right away. Many are re-reads,
but I don't mind that one bit.

On the cooking front I made another beef pot pie, with Tex-Mex overtones - lots of cumin and cumin seed, california chili powder and some reconstituted dried chili's/garlic paste. So good, a big hit with the boss.

Beef pot pie with flourishes, lol.

I've also been stocking up on silk flowers (on sale) for spring/summer bouquet baskets. Surprisingly Walmart had some really gorgeous flower bunches they were selling for $1, and some full, pretty forsythia picks for $.25, I couldn't pass them up!  When I make up these baskets they go outside where they live until they are completely beat up by the brutal summer sun/heat. I toss them and make new ones using thrift store straw baskets or wreaths and silk flowers. I don't have the skill or patience for live plants anymore.

Really nice little find.

Now for the fun part. We went down to Rodman Dam to meet up with Marlene/Benno of http://marleneandbenno.blogspot.com/  fame, our long-time cruising friends formerly of m/v 'Diesel Duck' and Allayne/Dennis, our good friends from Venezuelan cruising days and formerly of s/v 'Audrey Paige'. They are from the northland and winter here in FL, visiting family in the area.

From the left clockwise; Dennis, Marlene, Benno,
Allayne, Ed and Harley chilling out nearby.

 The meetup location got mixed-up but we all ended up in a nice picnic pavilion with 2 tables, ideal for a potluck situation. Just by the river there were some folks fishing and tearing it up - catching mainly mullet, which are really good smoked. They were catching them left and right, we were jealous of all the good fishing fun. 

Perfect spot to chill out and fish from.

Just down from the dam the "fishing" birds hang out; cormorants, anhinga's, ducks and whatever.

In addition, there are always a few osprey around too.

After a few hours the heat got a little too brutal
so we hugged all around and went our separate ways.

It was a shame that Nancy couldn't make it but it's on again for next year, God willing (and the creeks don't rise).

Here are a few more shots.

Marlene with her doxies Reggie and Elsa.

Everyone except Allayne who took this great shot.
There's never any lack of conversational gambits with this bunch,
every time we see each other it's like no time has gone by at all.

It was a great day out and about and has been a fun few weeks as well.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. We love comments should you feel so inclined. 😄