Le Tour Meets the Alps and a Day of Housework Accomplishment

For those of you who love the mountains in Le Tour de France, today and tomorrow are the days for you to watch. We're in the Alps, and the scenery and roads will be spectacular. Just look at the two profiles! Monday is a "Rest Day" and the riders will certainly need it. It's going to be a fun two days watching the boys try to pull their way over and through these massive mountains. 

I just love it when I see a stage profile like this! Lots of 
high mountains with an HC as the last peak of the day. 
The Alps - there's nothing quite like them. 

This might be the stage when Tadej Pogacar might finally take the Yellow Jersey. I do suspect he'll be wearing yellow by the end of Sunday's stage, if not today. He's been strong, and he's been very strategic - allowing Vingegaard to be in Yellow, while he lurks behind - breathing down his neck. He's been riding a strategic and very careful race, but he's also one of the most talented riders of his generation, and it's always a pleasure to watch him on a bicycle. 

Take a look at Sunday's stage!!! With a summit finish, 
and the way the Alps can kick any rider, this should be 
a super fun stage to watch. I'll be glued to my phone 
while sitting out in the garden. 

I worked very hard in the kitchen yesterday, making a meatloaf for a few meals, baking a pound of bacon to a beautiful crisp for my salads, cutting up fruit, and generally being very busy. I spent more than an hour at the shredder chomping through old financial records and paperwork. I ended up with three bags for my recycling bin, so I had a real feeling of accomplishment. 

We have two shredders at home and one at the shop;. The best 
one is at the shop, but the one in the kitchen area is a close 
second. I made it work hard yesterday, shredding a bunch of 
old documents and check registers and duplicates from the early 
2000's. I ended up with three full bags of shredded material 
for my recycling bin. 

I had hoped to work on my beadwork project late in the afternoon, but I just didn't have the tine. I did, however, pull down a second loom from my loom stash and get it strung up. I'll take this one to the shop so that I can do a panel in the early mornings before I unlock the store. Eventually I won't be able to spend the time with that - I'll be working on the embossing instead, but right now, an extra hour to spend beading will be a lovely thing. 

I actually own a Mirrix Loom - a metal loom 
made for beading and tapestry weaving. I still 
have it in its' box (bad me). It was a very 
expensive item, but I'm still happy I own it. 
I'm looking forward to playing with it after 
I retire. It was a gift I bought myself with my 
inheritance money from the sale of my Mom's 
condo. I'm using a board loom that I built 
myself for the project I'm currently working 
on, though. Looms don't have to be expensive 
to be functional. 

I dropped by my orthodontist early in the morning, hoping they could envelope me in. Fridays are odd days for them - they catch up on paperwork and deal with emergencies. I had one hook that I needed that had broken off, so I needed a replacement. Unfortunately they weren't open yet when I got there, so I phoned and left a message. They got back to me and we scheduled for 10:30 am. I showed up early, and got right in. Fifteen minutes later, my tooth was back in business and I was back on schedule. 

Our raspberry plants are wild and grow between the house and 
our neighbor's house on the West side where they get a lot 
of sun. We don't ever do anything with them - just harvest them 
when we start getting ripe berries. I've gotten more than three 
pints of fresh raspberries over the past week. I do love them. 

I spent quite a bit of the afternoon in the kitchen making a meat loaf for my next few meals, and then my batch of Ogre Juice for the coming week. I also baked a batch of crispy bacon for my salads. Yummy! To end the kitchen time, I cut up the melon I had bought on Wednesday. Now that's ready to eat, and it smelled lovely! 

My canteloupe is absolutely lovely, and very 
sweet. I picked a good one - LOL. I got that all 
cut up and in a bowl, ready to eat. Summer fruit - 
there's nothing much better. 

So that's about all I have right now. I'm looking at a busy weekend, I'll go out and harvest raspberries again, probably on Sunday. We're at peak season for our raspberry patch right now, and I've already harvested several pints from it. SO GOOD! I'll be enjoying those in the early mornings - I do eat fruit when fruit is in season, and now's the best time for so much of it! Have an excellent weekend, I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini. 

Sunday Was A Day Of Plants and Cleaning Up

We started Sunday out by driving out to the garden center. Gertens opens at 7:00 am every day during this time of the year, so I sacrificed sleep and meditation time for the sake of green plants and flowers (and a happy Hubby). I'll be dragging by the end of the week, though. Still, Gertens was fabulous and very busy. I didn't take any photos of the several large interior buildings where we found our Lantanas and other annuals. But here are a couple of exterior shots. 

Gertens is huge. It's located in the southern 
suburbs, closer to where Chickie lives than 
anywhere I'm usually at, so we usually only 
get here once a year. 

I only took photos of the outside of Gertens, not the several 
buildings that housed thousands more plants. I love going 
there, but I'm glad we don't go too often. We only bought 
a single impulse item, and actually ended up within $10 
of budget. Score! LOL

DH had a plan. He had scoured their website earlier and had a list (which he forgot at home, of course). He remembered what he had been wanting, though. Usually we purchase a lot of annuals here, but 

occasionally he'll also decide on a perennial or two. The garden is his thing. Except for insisting on some Lantana flowers, I really don't say anything one way or the other unless he asks my opinion. 

One thing we both wanted was a new hummingbird 
feeder. DH had seen a hummer in the garden earlier 
in the week, and our old feeder was broken. So we 
bought a new one and I made some nectar (1/4 cup 
of water dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water, then 
chilled in the refrigerator). It's a nice feeder, so I 
hope we get a chance to have a hummer or two 
drop by every now and then. I'll change to new 
nectar every Sunday unless it needs more sooner. 

When we got home and pulled the plants out of the car, we settled in to work. DH and I each grabbed a dandelion removal tool and started pulling dandelions out of the front yard. It really needed a thorough scrub. After an hour or so, we had a full five-gallon bucket packed full. The photo shows us about half-way through. I hope we caught most of them. It's almost impossible to catch them all, but we definitely won the battle for this day. LOL

By the time we were finished, the bucket was filled 
to the brim with pulled dandelions. I love that they 
are green, and their flowers are delightfully 
cheery, but I don't particularly like them taking 
over my grass. 

After the "Great Dandelion Pull", DH got down to work while I made hummingbird nectar. He figured out where he wanted each of the plants we bought, and started putting them into the ground. I think it was probably around 10:30 am or so when he started digging. He was working on getting plants into the ground or transplanting ones that needed a new location until almost 4:00 pm non-stop. A lot of work. Here are four photos of the garden as it was when we quit, yesterday. We'll have lots of flowers and some beautiful multi-colored bushes to keep us happy over the summer. 

Moving from right to left, the first section now 
looks like this. Columbines are the bushy plant 
at the front. They are perennial. The small 
pink plants and a lot of the edge plants are new. 

 

Across the back wall, he put two different colors of Coral Bells 
along with more of the small pink plants. They'll break up the 
constant green we normally get from our ferns and other plants' 
leaves. 

Continuing to the left, there were quite a few 
plants that he spaced into this area, and again 
a few of the pink bushy things that will grow 
along the edging. 

Finally, in the final section, he planted my three Lantana 
plants and some trailing plants that we're hoping will 
trail nicely over the stonework. He still has two day lillies 
and a couple of other plants to get into the ground, but 
almost all of what we purchased got their new homes 
yesterday. 

We then settled down for a beer each, and then I started work on dinner while he got the coals going in the grill for the steaks. I stayed upstairs to cook while he took the steaks down to grill. Then I had a minor/major kitchen accident. I had three pans working - two with mushrooms and onions (my mushrooms were fresh, his were canned - personal choice), and a third with boiling water with butter and noodles for a pasta side dish DH wanted with his dinner. While reaching over to give one pan a quick stir, I caught the handle of the pasta pan and upended it all over the kitchen, the stovetop, and even into the hallway. What a mess!. I cut off all the heat, moved pans, and started a serious clean. DH didn't get pasta, but he microwaved some veggies instead. After dinner, I spent another 90 minutes thoroughly cleaning EVERYTHING. The pasta sauce had gotten everywhere, even dripping under counter tops and down cabinet fronts. I don't think the kitchen has been cleaned as thoroughly in years - LOL. It's nice and clean now! 

Here's hoping you have a wonderful Monday. I'm looking forward to a productive week - hey! I can dream! LOL ... I'll be back tomorrow. 

Counter Space - Do You Have Enough? Is There EVER Enough?

Yesterday was a day of semi-accomplishment. Although I actually got a lot done, it didn't really feel like it at all, and there were significant things I had on my agenda that didn't get touched. Still, it was a good day, all told. I did get a batch of "cookies" made. Now, understand that since I don't do grains and I don't do dairy, my cookies are dates and nut butter. But, blended together in the food processor and actually baked in the oven, they're a cookie. They're not as sturdy as a chocolate chip cookie, but they're tasty. Will I repeat this recipe? Maybe not. It seemed a lot of work for the result and I'm not that much of a cookie person. But it's always good to explore options. . 

Although the recipe turned out to be tasty, I'm not 
sure it was worth the prep work and all that sticky 
from the dates. I might try this again down the line 
though. It was easy enough. 

I did come to the conclusion that my food processor is horrid. But, I rarely use a food processor at all. I'll have to look into an upgrade, but it's not high on my priority list. I'll stumble along with the one I have for a while longer. I think the blender is all I want to spend appliance money on this year, unless we start a serious hunt for an over-the-cook top fan/microwave hood. That's on our joint agenda, and if we could replace our large microwave with an over-the-stove style, it would free up some much-needed counter space. 

My food processor - exactly this model with this blade - really 
sucks. Instead of cutting the dates apart and making them 
into a paste, it simply balled them up into a large ball which 
I had to take apart again and again to get firmly cut up and 
blended. Adding the nut butter did help, but I also ended 
up having to add a small amount of oil to get anywhere with 
the mix. Would a different food processor make a change 
with how this recipe comes together? I have no idea. 

Counter space is at a premium in my kitchen. You've seen the photos of my new faucet, which is on my double-sink. I have a small amount of counter space to the left of the sink. That's where the microwave takes up most of the area, along with my knife block. To the right of the sink is the other counter top. We keep the coffee pot and 4-slice toaster on it, along with my cutting boards. I estimate we've got maybe a yard of open space, with about 18-24 inches of open depth. There is also one pull-out "cutting" board, but DH usually uses that for his car keys, phone, and any paperwork he needs to bring to and from the shop. 

So, to the left you can see my knife block (the blue things 
are my dish washing gloves). To the left out of the photo 
is the microwave. On the right, you see DH's travel mug 
in front of the left edge of my cutting boards which stand 
upright at the back of the counter. Out of the photo is the 
coffee pot and the toaster. This is the full extent of usable 
counter space I have in my kitchen. Not much! 

The kitchen was the one room I was sacrificing when we chose this house. I walked in with eyes wide shut. In the old house, although it also had just a single run of counter top, I had a large kitchen table and used that for food prep all the time. The stove was completely separate, and we had an over-the-stove shelf for our microwave, so no counter space needed for that. The kitchen was a much larger room and it didn't seem that we were in each other's way all of the time. Our current kitchen is narrower, and although there are a lot of plusses (cabinet space, for one), our counter space is a serious negative. Still, I've lived with it since the mid-1980's, so I guess we manage. 

I do have a bottom corner cabinet with a lazy 
Susan inside. We have a few things in it, but 
very little. I'm going to move the food processor down 
here because I need the upper cabinet room, but I'm 
also wondering if a new food processor would fit 
in this cabinet. I'm not sure how they assemble 
and disassemble from the motorized base. 

Why think about kitchen space? Because I'm thinking about a possible new food processor and need to think about where it would be stored and where it would be used. So even though that's in the future, it's good to think about these things now. Surprises are never welcome when the necessity is knocking at the door. I'm out of things to say today so I'm calling it done. Have an excellent Saturday and a great weekend. I'll be back on Monday, just in time to celebrate Shirebound's birthday. Whoot! Peace! 

Oven #1 Gives Way to Oven #2, and Kitchen Dreams

Yesterday, after finally catching up with my blog and posts from friends, I headed over to my appliance store. Several of you suggested that I find a good, smaller local appliance store, but I really love my local appliance store. Even though it has grown from the single store I shopped at in the 1970's to a chain of stores across the Metro area today, it's still well-run, staffed by talented people, and has a great selection of appliances. I wanted to speak to our sales guy about the 24" oven issue and see what might be available in a 27" size. 

We ended up ordering one of these - also a GE, but 
the 27" version instead of the 24" one. This oven 
has no convection option, but I didn't want to wait 
until January for an oven, and that's what would 
have been necessary if I had chosen the 5000 series. 

My sales guy, Fadel, took over and we discussed the installation issue (I was totally in favor of Jim K not installing an oven that would fit the space poorly) and the replacement oven(s) I had found on-line. GE had two different 27" models, very similar to what I had originally purchased. The one without the convection option (which DH didn't want anyway) was actually available for delivery and installation in late November. We'd miss Thanksgiving, but all of the other ovens on our short list were unavailable until 2022. 

We also looked at over-the-range microwave ovens - the 
next thing we're thinking about. This will be a lot harder, 
though, since our current range hood is 36" wide and 
microwaves average 30" for that use. I'll probably talk 
to Jim K about the possibility and what he thinks could 
be done when he's finished installing the oven in a couple 
of months. We might have to wait until we re-do the 
entire kitchen to have this dream come true and recapture 
some much-needed counter space. 

We wrote up a provisional purchase order, and I told Fadel I'd meet DH at the shop after he got off work. They didn't have a 27" model installed to look at, but they did have a 30" which was almost identical except for the dimensional difference. I specified that I wanted Jim K to do the installation because he's the best - he'll make it look amazing - and since the oven was on sale, we ended up with a 27" oven for 60 cents more than the 24" oven had cost us. SCORE. 

We lucked out on the price. The new oven was 
on sale for almost $300 off, which actually meant 
we paid as much for the larger oven as we had 
already paid for the smaller one. It was a total 
wash, and we're going to get one that will look 
great in the space we have available. 

DH looked at the oven last night, as well as a couple of others. He was pretty fine with the 27" version of the GE, and then he went away to measure and dream about an over-the-stove microwave oven - something we've been wanting for a few years, but something that may have to wait until we tear down and re-do the kitchen completely. One thing we discussed was, when we re-do the kitchen we want cabinets instead of a dishwasher (we haven't used our dishwasher in decades). I pointed out that most homes do have a dishwasher, and that whoever might purchase our home when we sell, might want one, but really ... it's not a deal-breaker for me. We could use the extra cabinet space. 

One of the things that drives me crazy about 
our current kitchen is our corner cabinet. 
We currently have a 2-level lazy susan 
in that cabinet, and it works OK, but I never 
remember to check it, and it's not as 
convenient as it should be. When we re-do 
the kitchen, I'd like to look into these 
corner pull drawers instead. I think they 
would be much more useful and attractive. 

But that's in the future - certainly nothing to get confrontational about at this time. So I now have an oven coming in that will fit my space, and we can think about the next thing we might want to do in our kitchen space before we meet with a kitchen designer and start the total re-do (in another year or two). I hope all of you have a wonderful day and I'll be back tomorrow. Stay safe and be kind.