Nina's new place

Nina officially moved into her first own home, with Tristan, last Friday. This is a huge commitment for her and I know she is thrilled to be there. Of course Nollie and I miss her very much.

Good luck Nina, I love you!

Sunrise in my back yard

The view from my back window this week was spectacular. Check out this sunrise:

The four large ducks in the middle are the fake ducks for the sprinker intake pipes. The small duck on the left is one of the several real ducks that hang out on the lake. It is beautiful!

We have an abundance of wildlife here, including ducks, rabbits, foxes, too many frogs, egrets, and even one heron that hangs out here on occasion. When it is rainy the lake comes alive with birds. I am loving my view of nature from my back window.

With all this wildlife, what do you suppose Nollie barks at the loudest and longest? The lizards on the back patio of course. Go figure.

What I'd LIKE to say to some people....

Being a bully doesn't make you right, it just makes you a bully. The Kharma bus will eventually plow you down.

I'm grillin'!

I went outside last night and fired up the grill. No big deal you say? Well, the grill came with the new house and I didn't know if it would work or not. Not to mention how hot it's been. The grate is all rusty (actually the whole thing is rusty inside) and it will be another $50 or so to replace it, but I cleaned it up and it started right away.

You can imagine my surprise! I cranked it up to high and went back into the house to make my meat skewers and a quickie sauce for them. It involved black bean sauce, vinegar and toasted sesame seed oil. Yum, it was tasty but it kept the meat from getting that seared, grilled outside I like so much. I have NO idea how much propane is in the tank. It has one of those stick-on gauges that you pour hot water over. No, it didn't work. Oh well.

This week I had lunch with my SIL and neice, and we had lots to talk about. Nina hadn't seen them to talk to them in over a year and a half, and it had been a long time for me too. It's good to keep up with family.

Make cake, everybody loves it

So, I don't have the kitchen set up yet, but I had a craving to make a cake. I suck at decorating them, but I love to play in the frosting anyway.

My MO is that a kitchen isn't really mine until I bake in it. I love to bake. So, straight from Duncan Hines, here it is, yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Weird yellow decorations. I took most of the cake to work and it was gone in 2 hours, beating out the 50 cent muffins (for charity purposes, ya know)

One little thing I didn't realize, since I hadn't used jar frosting on a layer cake before is that there isn't enough unless you are doing a smaller cake. I used 9" pans and barely had enough frosting to cover the cake thinly. Oh well next time I'll make the frosting from scratch.

Lemon cake, anyone? Practice makes perfect, anyway.

More photos...

Home at last!

I moved in on June 27 and have been stumbling over boxes ever since. I love my new home, and yes, it is still a work in progress. I wasn't quite ready for the movers, so not all my stuff was packed. So I have been unpacking in the new place, schlepping back to the old place and getting more stuff, and schlepping it back here. Nina helped once when I asked.

Last week the old pink counters were ripped out, and yesterday they put in the granite! Oh wow look at my new kitchen!

It's still a work in progress, but WOW, just WOW.

Now to get all those boxes unpacked....