Saturday, April 2, 2011

April......blooming flowers and color everywhere

We just had two glorious days of warm sunshine and now it looks like it rain. In fact the ground is wet so it rained during the night. We have a restaurant in our area that is also a bakery and it is vegetarian. It's been opened a couple of years and their food is great. I went there for lunch with an old friend yesterday and we even sat outside in the sun. It was awesome. Today our Farmer's Market opens and they (the restaurant) sells their wonderful breads there. I think I will hop in the car and head over there and see what they have for sale. Last year I was able to buy some great salad greens that were grown locally and had all kinds of unusual and spicy greens mixed in. They were organic and delicious. I love this time of year. Also I planted 40 tulip bulbs last fall and they are all up and two bloomed this week. Bright pink. I can't wait until they all bloom so I can take pictures and share them. I am about to be finished with Bob's fishing quilt top. I have one boarder to add so it's long enough to cover from the top of his head to his toes. I received a DVD in the mail this week from my dear friend Alice who lives in Virginia. She has the same quilt frame that I have and hers came with a DVD. I can't figure out why mine didn't, but it didn't. So now it's ready to go. Just have to put the machine on it and the layers of the quilt and go for it. My quilting friend, Lori is coming over Monday and is going to put her new quilt on it and give it a whirl. I am excited. I should throw some fabric and batting on it and try it out myself. I wouldn't want to put my quilt on it until I feel more confident at quilting on it. I may just do a stitch in the ditch on the fishing quilt. I noticed today that one of my followers stopped following me. I don't know why it bothered me but it does. Silly isn't it. Maybe this person (whoever it was) decided she or he wasn't interested in my banter anymore or was looking for something else. Oh well. I myself have dropped some of the blogs I've read over the years too. I learned from one of the blogs I read that if you plan out a weeks worth of menus in advance, you can save money by not going out to eat, and also save calories since when we go out we tend to eat more or the wrong things. I liked the idea since I don't have to wrack my brain and stand in front of the pantry or the freezer hoping some terrific idea will pop into my head. She also said she keeps the weekly menus and that way she can repeat weeks and not have to try and come up with a new menu every week. It worked really well for me too. I added in a new recipe one night that I had been wanting to try and another night we had friends over for dinner and got to smoke some ribs that we bought late last summer. They were so yummy! I also sat and made a list of all the meals I usually make so I don't leave any out. I really liked doing this, I glanced at my weekly menus and made a shopping list up based on what I needed at the store for the meals and it made it simple. I have also started to freeze meals. When I make meatloaf, for instance I make two and freeze one. Or with a casserole I put it in two containers and only cook one so the other is ready to be cooked and eaten anytime. I can't believe something so simple took me this many years to try. I should have done this when I was working full time, but then I didn't have the time to even think about doing this but it would have saved me so much time. Well, that's about all that is new here. Have a good weekend everyone..............