I’ve been taking an online course on how to set up and use my website, and with that, I’m trying something new here. This post is really only a test to see if it will work the way I want it to.

Most of you know that I make most of my household cleaners and what I call personal care items and I thought you might like to have some recipes. So, I have included some here.

I’m always glad to talk with you about them and give what help I can. So feel free to contact me if you would like more info.

I’ve been meaning to post an update, and just looked to see how long its been, and am so surprised!  My how time flies!  Let’s try to catch up a bit!

In July, Ray and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.  Didn’t do much to celebrate, just went to brunch/lunch at what had been one of our favorite places. Sadly, the food was not as good as it had previously been and as I had hoped it would be, and now I hear that the restaurant is closing.  I guess I know why.

In July, also, we went to Cheekwood, our local Botanical Garden and mansion, to see the display of “Dressing Downton”. They had on display many of the outfits that were worn in the series.  So beautiful!  And so intricate!  The beadwork was amazing! These photos do not do justice to the garments.

Dress from Downton Abbey

Detail of beadwork

The tour is almost over, but you can read about the exhibit here. Apparently St. Augustine is the last stop, so those of you in Florida (or going to Florida) still have a chance to see it.  I highly recommend it!

As you probably know by now, Ray and I are big fans of New Orleans.  We had a new Cajun restaurant open near us (Voodoo Gumbo), and I must say their food is amazing.  The Po’ Boys are to die for!  Yum! Short menu – crawfish étouffée, 2 kinds of gumbo, red beans and rice, shrimp, catfish, oyster and roast beef Po’ Boys, gator bites, etc.  We’ve had it all, and it is all wonderful!

Here is my oyster Po’ Boy:

Here’s my Po’ Boy!

We manage to get to Voodoo Gumbo every couple of weeks or so.  Food as good as, or maybe even better than, what one can get in NOLA!

In August, we were in the direct line of the Solar Eclipse. What a wonderful experience!  I was scheduled to cook that morning at The Nashville Food Project, so I stayed behind to watch the eclipse from the grounds – perfect location!  What a wonderful experience!  I took some pictures, but didn’t have the proper filter for my phone, so it just looks sunny.  With the glasses, you could really see the moon crossing over the sun.  I’ll put some of mine here, and also some that I snagged from the internet that were taken in Nashville by people who did have filters.

With my camera, when partially covered.

Again with my camera, nearly totally covered.

With proper filter

Over downtown Nashville

In late September, Ray’s brother, Mark, came for a visit from Florida – a couple of days after Hurricane Irma hit where he lives (near Tampa).  He comes about once a year to golf.  He came on a Sunday. This time, Rays sister, Terri and her husband, Bill came too!  But they came by RV on Monday! We were able to get the RV into the back yard, so we had campers!  What a fun time!  The guys golfed, and Terri and I did “girl” things.  We met up with Michelle for lunch on Tuesday. They had not seen each other since Michelle was 4 – in 1972 or so!

“Girl Things”

We took them to Voodoo Gumbo for lunch before Bill and Terri left on Wednesday.

In early October, we took our annual trip to New Orleans.  We used to go for Thanksgiving, but somehow got away from that.  I want to get back to making the tradition again – Thanksgiving in New Orleans!.

Our home away from home. Avenue Inn Bed and Breakfast on St. Charles Avenue.

We had a very quiet visit.  Did some riding around, and lots of eating (shrimp, mostly – including some Royal Reds – best shrimp ever! – taste like lobster! – check them out here!) One of the cool things we did was go to the St. Roch Market (pronounced “rock”) – a wonderful emporium of eating places.  We had breakfast there one morning and it was wonderful!  The lightest and fluffiest biscuits ever, and cheesy grits to die for! To see more about the St. Roch Market, go here. The developers of this Market Hall are planning on doing one just like this in Nashville.  They had announced a location, but after almost a year, that fell through.  They are currently looking for another place.  We will certainly check it out when it does open! Can’t wait!

St. Roch Market

We also went to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.  We had been there shortly after it opened, but now it has expanded and has so many more displays.  Very worth ones time.

Noticed in a trash pile near where we stay:

Santa Got Run Over by a Reindeer!

Too funny!

We met up a couple of times with our good friend, Lloyd, and shared some good times at a local neighborhood bar owned by Dave McCelvey, a good friend of my son, Michael’s.

Beautiful weather while we were there, but the hurricane was expected to hit while (and where) we would have been driving home on Sunday, so we left a day early.  We made the right decision.  We did not experience bad weather on the ride, but the next day would have been really bad.

Here’s the sky around Hattiesburg on our way home.  Storm’s a’ comin’!

Near Hattiesburg, MS

In October TNFP had a Volunteer Appreciation gathering for all of the volunteers.  I got awards for having been volunteering continuously for 5 years, for volunteering weekly, and for second highest number of hours over the last year.  Here is a picture of most of the honorees:

TNFP Honorees

Here’s a picture of a sunset taken from our house in March (I know I’m chronologically backing up,  but I thought it was pretty anyway).

A Pretty Sunset

And, finally, a rainbow outside our favorite neighborhood restaurant!

Rainbow in Bellevue!

Thanks for coming by!  My goal is to write a bit more often, but not so often that you, dear reader, will get tired of me!  Maybe once a month or so.  Stay safe, talk with you in a while!

It has been a while since we were together here at my blog.  Sorry about that!  Have been so busy and have had other issues, and just no time to write.  But we are going to fix that now.  Hope this doesn’t go too long or get too boring!

I’ve had some health issues of late, first,  hypertension.  I’ve always been a bit hypertensive, but in the last 3-4 years it has become increasingly worse. Some of my meds caused kidney problems, so one med had to be stopped.  Then the BP rose to really bad levels.  So – off to the specialist!!!  She worked with meds, changing them to finally get a combo that seemed to work.  The main problem was that the side effects of one of them made my ankles swell so badly that I could barely walk!  I was affected for nearly 8 weeks!  Finally, the swelling abated, and I am back to ankle-normal now.

During the ankle-swelling time, we took a trip to California to see Michael and Emily.  We  had a great time!  They both were working a lot, so we mostly had days to ourselves, and dinners with them.  On the Sunday before we came home, Michael joined us on a ferry ride from Alameda to San Francisco and a visit to the Exploratorium (Emily had a rehearsal for a performance at a local show and could not join us).  What a wonderful place!  Check it out here. Hours of interesting things to see and experience.  Due to my swollen and painful ankles I had to stop and rest a lot, which I am sure frustrated Michael and Ray, but they handled it well.  When we got back to the house, we had a Crab Fest!  Emily drew a table covering, and we dug in to crabs and more.  What fun!

Our Custom Table Cover!

Ready to Eat!

In March, I was named “Volunteer of the Month” at The Nashville Food Project (TNFP) !  Quite a surprise and honor!  I surely do love my work there.  We will be moving to a new, to- be-built, location within the next 9 months or so, so lots of changes going on there.  We will work for a while from the kitchen of our partner, St. Luke’s Community House for about 6 months while the new facilities are being built. Its a a small place, so it will be interesting to see how it all works.  The staff and volunteers are all amazing, so we will work together to make it all come together!

April was Volunteer Appreciation Week, and TNFP participated by having a theme for each day.  Monday was “Wear your pajamas to work day”, Tuesday was “dress as your favorite vegetable day”, etc.  So, on that Monday, I dressed in my pajamas.  I had thought I would go to Goodwill and pick up the most “granny”, old-fashioned nightgown that they had to just have fun with the theme, but I never got around to it.  So I just wore sleep pants and a t-shirt.  Good thing, as it turned out!  I was going to the car and just as I got to the driveway, I heard and felt a “pop” in my right knee!  I could not put ANY weight on it, so I just stood there (in the rain, in my p.j.’s) trying to figure out what to do!  Ray had gone with three friends to play golf at a state park about two hours away (Henry Horton, for those of you who live in this area), so I was on my own!  Here’s your (funny) visual for the day – a 71 year-old woman, in p.j.’s, crawling on hands and knees, in the rain, with a bag of funny slippers that I intended to wear, along the 40 foot sidewalk, slinging the bag forward every two “crawls” or so, and up the 7 steps into the house!  Would have loved to have been watching!  Had to be quite a sight!  I got inside, managed to get my desk chair out to serve as a wheelchair, got dried off, and settled in on the couch.  When Ray got home, he took me to the Vanderbilt Walk-In Clinic, where the doc said that nothing was broken, and she referred me to Sports Medicine at Vanderbilt.  The doc I saw there took x-rays and pronounced “arthritis”! He said all the cartilage in my knee is gone.  Trying some pills to help, things are getting better, but we will see.  This is not, I’m sure, the end of my arthritis voyage.  It is only the beginning!

Amidst all of this, a tree along our fence line broke and fell onto the house!  Gratefully, it did not break the roof, just laid across it.  It damaged the gutter, which will have to be replaced, but all in all, not nearly as bad as it could have been.  We were sitting in the living room when it happened, and thought what we heard was thunder even though the sky was clear and bright.  Only realized it was a tree later that day!

Tree coming down!

We have a garden again this year. Planted lots of tomatoes since last year’s crop was not good.  Now we will probably have too many!  No problem, I’ll be happy to process and make tomato sauce for next winter!  We have planted herbs, and there are lots of things coming up that must be from our compost!  Apparently some of the seeds did not compost, so they are growing!  Looks like cucumbers, melons, squash or the like.  Check out the pics!

Tomatoes! Lots of tomatoes!

Herbs!

Volunteer plants from compost.

One thing I forgot to tell all of you reading this is about a dear friend of mine.  Many years ago when Michael and Brian were young and we were new to Nashville, we lived in an apartment complex near where we live now. We were friends with Sally and Manny Martinez, and had many good times together.  Sadly, over time,we lost touch!  One evening last January, I was looking at Facebook, and ran up on a post from Sally! I couldn’t believe it!  So, I contacted here via Messenger, and we talked at length on the phone that evening.  One of the most amazing things happened.  I mentioned that I volunteered at St. Luke’s Community House on Fridays. She almost gasped – SHE volunteers at St. Luke’s on Fridays! We had been volunteering in the same place on the same day for over a year, and never ran into each other! I work in the kitchen, she works in the Food Bank!  At any rate we resumed our friendship, and it is like no time at all has passed, though it was 37 years!  Ah, Life! Gotta Love it!  Welcome back into my life, Sally!

Well, I have bored you enough for now.  I’ll leave you with a sunset picture I took from outside our house.  Pretty, I think!  Talk to you too (sooner than this last break, I hope)!

Sunset

O.K., gang, changes are coming to this blog!  I recently signed up for an online class in WordPress (the software that runs the site), and am learning about how to set up a good website.  Up until now, I have been self-taught, so I am really excited to be learning how to make my site look good!  It will probably be a month before everything is settled, and there may be small updates here and there, but in the end, this place should look so much better!  I’m really excited! I’d LOVE to have your input on what you’d like to see, and how you’d like to see it.  I plan on having menus so that you can click on items that you want to see.  I value your input, requests, comments, and suggestions.

Otherwise, life just keeps plugging along.  I was sick for almost 4 weeks around Christmas, and so glad that it is finally over!  Had that crud that was going around – cough, aches, stuffed head – all that fun stuff.  Ugh! Laid me low, for sure!

Christmas and New Years came and went for us.  Holidays are quite quiet around here.  Family all scattered, so we just spend the days alone.  Spent Christmas watching old Christmas movies!  New Years we were asleep by about 10!

Getting back into the swing of things with my volunteer work after the break.  Ray was not able to golf for about a week due to weather, and nearly went stir crazy!  Temps now in the 60’s, so he can get out again.

That’s about it.  Mainly just wanted to let you know my news about the update to this site!  I am really excited – got plans for how I want it to look, and what I want to offer you.  It’s gonna be good!

Thanks for reading!

Things have been hopping around here!  In early June, Ray decided that my car (a 2002 Acura MDX) was too much of a gas hog, so he listed it for sale.  It was bought by an older couple for a young woman who is single-handedly raising 5 children.  The car is perfect for them, as it has the third row seat.  I feel good knowing that someone will have it who will appreciate it.  So then we had to buy another!  We quickly found a 2007 Subaru Forester in great shape!

My new car!

Forester

Unfortunately, the air conditioner was not working correctly, so to make a long story short, we spent the first week and a half running it back and forth to the shop to get fixed, but finally, it is cool in the car!  Yay!  Loving the car, and getting good mileage!

The garden is growing right along.  Here are our first tomatoes:

First tomatoes!

The potatoes are still growing, though they are starting to wilt, as I expect them to do. When they are all wilted, it will be time to harvest. Ray felt around in the buckets last evening, and didn’t find any potatoes, so this may be an experiment that failed!  Oh, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Potatoes in a bucket!

Summer’s bounty! Love the asparagus, peaches, corn and tomatoes!  So wonderful to have such good food!  We shop locally and as organically as much as we can, and grow what we are able! These items are all local and organic.  We are happy to have a farmstand nearby that is on an organic farm and we visit and buy once or twice a week.

Yum!

We also have done a bit of traveling – short hops.  Our dear friend, Stuart, got married to Francie on top of Signal Mountain!  We enjoyed the outdoor wedding immensely!  They are a wonderful couple, and we wish them all the best!  This blog would not exist if not for Stuart!  He got me up and running and I so appreciate it!  Quick trip there and back!

Stuart and Francie

Then, there was my grandson, Connor’s, Eagle Court of Honor.  What an accomplishment!  Both of my grandsons in that family are now Eagle Scouts!  Congratulations Connor!

Connor’s Court of Honor

The other day, one of my TNFP besties, Meera, invited Marilyn, Caren and me to come to her home for an authentic Indian lunch.  What a wonderful time we had, and such good food! I wish I could remember the names of everything, but I’ll just have to describe them.  There was a chickpea dish that was wonderful, a cauliflower dish that was to die for, rice with shrimp (how can that go wrong?), potatoes in a baked crust, Naan with cilantro in it and several wonderful sauces that graced everything.  Then, for dessert, something she called kir (sounds like the alcoholic drink, but not sure how it is spelled in this usage).  This was something like rice pudding, but made with vermicelli, heavy cream, cardamom, raisins, sliced almonds, etc. So good!

Lunch!

We had a great time!  Thanks, Meera!

O.k., that’s enough for now!  Have I told you about making my own personal care products (facial moisturizer, body wash, etc), cleaning products (laundry soap, dishwasher soap, all-purpose cleaners) and other healthcare products?  No?  Well, then next time I will!  Stay tuned!

See you soon!

Last week was Graduation Week for my grandson, Connor Romanowski.  He graduated from Helena (AL) High School, with the ceremony being held at the BJCC in Birmingham.  Ray and I went down for the festivities.  Here is a picture of Connor and me after the ceremony:

And this one is of the family!  From left to right:  Connor’s brother, Drew; his mom, Beth; his dad, Brian; Graduate Connor; Beth’s dad, Charles; Ray (behind) and me.  It was a fine time, though pretty quick trip.  Teenagers are always so busy!

The garden is doing great!  Here are some shots of what I harvested on Saturday:

There is kale, chard, arugula, beets, parsley, cilantro and oregano.  The oregano is the upper left.  There is SO much of it!  I have stripped it and it is all drying now.  We do use a lot of oregano, so it won’t go to waste.  I’ll also be sharing with friends.

We put a tomato cage around our squash plant!  Look at all the little squashes hanging around (you may have to enlarge the pic to see them, but they are there)!

Squash in a tomato cage!

The other thing we have is potatoes in a bucket!  Check out this little video!  (for some reason, I can’t seem to get the link to work – here is the full link:  http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/learn-grow-potatoes-bucket-through-song-and-animation-video.html).  Here is what ours look like:

This is all from two potatoes that had gotten kind of old and wrinkly.  I cut them into pieces, and put them into the buckets and WOW have they ever grown!  We have added dirt as they have grown upward, and every time we do, they grow even taller and faster!  We’ll have to stop pretty soon, since the buckets will be completely full.  Thinking we’ll get quite a few potatoes from this!

We also went to a local dinner theater production on Thursday.  Near us is Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theater.  They have buffet dinners and shows most evenings, but gladly, they also have Thursday Matinees.  These are much cheaper than the dinner buffet, and you can order a box lunch for an additional charge, or bring your own. We love being able to bring our own lunch.  This month the play was Neil Simon’s Rumors, and was a delight!  Very fast-paced and funny.

We see nearly every show that is not a musical.  The performers are great – such a nice treat. We’ll be going back on June 30 to see Take My Wife.

O.K., I’ve droned on long enough!  Thanks for looking and remember, I love comments!

And so it begins!  We are having lovely weather here this weekend, and so took the opportunity to plant the beginnings of our summer garden!  We have two raised beds, this one has the cold hardy for the early planting (thanks Caren for sharing your CSA!) and perennials, and the other one will have tomatoes planted when the time is right.  This bed now has lettuce, cabbage, kale, beets and arugula.  The perennials seen in the end are oregano and chives.  There is also one little perennial sage plant at the far end.  We will plant more as the season progresses, but for now, this is it!

Happy Easter one and all!

Small update 3/28/16

This afternoon Ray finished putting the “cover” on our newest bed.  This is made from PVC pipe and landscape netting and will keep the critters – birds, squirrels and rabbits out. Has worked well for us for many years.  The second bed still needs to have the soil prepared and the netting installed, but you can see what a larger one looks like.  That one will be used for the tomatoes.

See what they look like here: