Photo of the day......

The colors are beautiful and just beginning to show around here.  The sun was really too bright to get a good photograph on Sunday when I saw this tree gracefully hanging over the Sugar River.  I couldn't help but ask David to stop so that I could run down the side of the road and try to get a photo of it.

It seems early; but my mother-in-law told me last year that the "swamp maples" turn before the other trees and August is not too early for that to happen.  Last year was not such a great year for color in my opinion.  I have seen it much prettier up here.  It has been so dry up here as it has been in most, if not all, of the country.  I'm not sure how that will affect the fall colors.   We will see.

I am a bit ambivalent about seeing the color already this year.  It has been a great summer even if it has been hot and humid.  We have gotten to do a lot of fun things and enjoyed being outdoors a lot this year.  As much as I like the cooler weather and all things "fall", I am reluctant to let summer go right now.  I think I will just continue to photograph the beautiful color and appreciate God's artistry when I see it. 

Have a beautiful day, friends....

Time for work!

The first signs of...

New England "fallage"

Photo of the Day - BeachStone Feet

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.  If you follow me there, you already know that.   If you are not following me already, I invite you to connect with me there.   The Pinterest app for my iPhone makes it so easy to hang out there whenever I have some free time.   It may or may not be partly responsible for my lack of blogging lately.   I have tried a few things that I have seen on there.   Most of the things that I have tried have been recipes.  Some have been hits and some have not worked out so well.   I am constantly blown away by the creativity that is out there and love that Pinterest is a great medium to share that with the world.   One of my favorite "pins" were these cute little feet made out of stones. 

Source: Uploaded by user via Candace on Pinterest

We love to collect stones whenever we are at the beach so I knew it was something that I wanted to make for our home.  One a recent trip to the coast, David and I had a blast looking for stones that would work to make our own "BeachStone Feet".  It was harder than it looked to find just the right stones.  Ours aren't perfect and we have only found enough so far for a pair.  Our search will continue; but it's a start.  

 

Photo of the day...

This is the first bouquet of flowers that

I've ever received as a  grandmother.

They couldn't be more beautiful to me.

Thank you, Monkey!

Granna loves you.

VETTY IN-TERRR-EST-ING

My office moved last November from a hidden away location on a side street in a residential neighborhood to a more visible location on a busy street corner. 

Some things you just can't "unsee" like the local population attempting to beat the heat by dressing in wildly inappropriate attire.  I will spare you those photos today and concentrate on more recent sitings that diverted my attention away from the stress and sadness that I encounter daily while working in community mental health. 

As I looked out my office window recently, I happened to catch this...

Yes, that's right.  I got the chance to actually see the Google Maps Street view "mobile" as it passed my way. 

So cool! 

How does one get a job like that? 

I think I would be just darlin' at it. 

Hey Google! 

Hit me up? 

Please?

And then yesterday, I looked out my window and saw this...

Yes, folks!  It's the Mystery Machine.

Where was it heading?

I dunno.

It's a mystery to me, Scooby Doo.



Asian Turkey Meat Loaf Muffins

It's been a  tiring week already and it's just Tuesday.  I hate it when the week starts out like this.  While I hear my nice comfy bed (and Pinterest) calling my name, I'm going to ignore them for a few moments and tell you about dinner tonight.  After the last two days which felt like a week, it was time to get in the kitchen and create something.

I got a chance to look at the latest Prevention Magazine  this past weekend and one of the meatloaf recipes caught my eye.  I have always been a meatloaf lover with my favorite having the tomato-ey, ketchup-ey sauce on top that gets all thickened up when you bake it.  My husband?  Not so much.   He's not a tomato-ey kind of guy at all.  Oh, he will eat it without complaint and compliment the meal because he's sweet like that; but, in my heart, I know it's not his favorite.  I digress.   This Asian meatloaf recipe appeared to be the perfect compromise.   It had the yummy Asian flavors that we both love so it promised to be full of flavor.  I would get my nice thick sauce on top while David would be spared the usual tomato-ey, ketchup-ey version.  The best of both worlds, right?   I thought so too.

Now this recipe looked delicious as it was written; but as things normally roll around here, I had to put my own twist to it if no other reason than to use what I had on hand.  The recipe called for  ground chicken; but, I happened to have some ground turkey breast so I grabbed a pound of that.  I didn't have my camera ready so you will have to suffer through my iPhone pics....

To that, I added some chopped garlic.  The recipe called for three cloves; however, when splitting the cloves apart, I actually pulled off five - three large ones and two smaller ones.  If 3 cloves of garlic is good, then 5 must be better.  Amen?

Next up: chopped scallions....

And grated fresh ginger.  It is smelling amazing up in here by this point. 

If it wasn't smelling delicious already, I started chopping the very fragrant cilantro.  I know there are those that just can't do cilantro; but, I am crazy about it.  Thankfully, my husband is too.

The recipe calls for Sesame Oil, Panko, Hoisin Sauce and Tamari.  I didn't have Tamari; but I did have a bottle of Ponzu that I wanted to use so I easily made that substitution.

Last but not least, no Asian recipe at my house would be complete without the addition of sriracha. I definitely could have added more if I had not been at the end of the bottle.  Note to self.....buy more sriracha.

A quick stir and into the muffin pan it goes.  I didn't want to heat the kitchen so I used a six cup muffin pan and baked them in the toaster oven.  The recipe says that it makes 6 servings.   At 1/4 cup (+/-) each, I got 10 muffins.  That's close enough for me.  

I didn't change this recipe up enough to completely  make it my own so I going to highly recommend that you add this to your menu plan (with my changes and substitutions, of course) and head over to Prevention Magazine and get the recipe.  You can find it here. 

The meatloaf was moist and flavorful and we absolutely loved it.  Meatloaf is comfort food for me and it seemed odd to not have potatoes with it.  I served it with grilled baby bok choy and steamed green beans and baby carrots.  Having the meatloaf in muffin form helped my portion control and the low carb sides went perfectly with this dish. 

After dinner we made a speedy one mile walk in the neighborhood and came back for dessert.  Homemade Lemon Sorbet (more about that in a future post) for David....

And fresh watermelon for me....



Ready, set, rewind....

Time just floats away these days.....

At least, that is the way that it seems.  My question is....

Where does it go?

I realized tonight that I haven't actually posted anything on this old blog since June 20th.

June 20th!

Seriously?

Something has got to change.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.

a.lot.of.thinking

How I started this blog.....what I've done with it....what I haven't done with it....the tangents that I've taken....and last but not least, how do I get started again?  How do I catch up?  Do I catch up?  Do I start over?  Can I even start over?

Where do we go from here?

I've been terrible about posting.  I've been terrible about visiting you.  I've been terrible about reading and replying to email.  I am so sorry about that.  Many of you have emailed me to check on me and to say hello.  Thank you so much for that!   I never anticipated the number of people that I would meet when I started this blog and the number that I would eventually call "my friends".  

I have been considering this blog for awhile.  Every day that has ended without me writing one single word or posting one "wordless" photo post, has found me thinking about this blog and where I'm going to go with it.  I have thought of telling you that I'm taking a break from the blog if only to alleviate the guilt I have been feeling over my lack of posting.  I am quite sure you have figured out that I have been on hiatus and quite frankly, I feel like that season in my life is over. 

Lately, we have been going for walks in the evening.  On one of those evening strolls, while considering my life and this blog, I have decided that the guilt is over and it is time to take action.  I'm going back to the beginning and I'm going to sit down and type.  Maybe I won't sit down and write something every day.  I'm not going to pressure myself into being religious about when and how often and what I will post.  I'm just going to start doing it more often.   I'm going to see what happens with it.

Once upon a time, this was fun.  It was a creative outlet for me and I used it as such.  It is time to get back to that.   I ventured off into food blogging like so many others and that was fun.   That is, also, not going to change.  David and I love food.  We love to cook.....we love to eat....we love to share that with friends and family.  That's a huge part of who I am so I will continue to share that here.  I still love taking photos and traveling so that's still going to be here, as well.  I am, also, going to start writing from my heart because there's a lot of stuff that I need to say.  You may not need to hear it; but, I definitely need to say it.  Some of it may be interesting to you.  Some of it may not be interesting at all.  That is okay.  This blog was started for me without an idea that anyone would ever read it.  I am going back to that place.  

During this break that I have been on, life has not stopped for one moment.  While I have not been sharing things here with you, food has still been prepared and photographed and eaten and enjoyed.  We have gone places and done things and photographed our journey along the way.  We have discovered yummy restaurants and traveled roads we have never been on before.  I'm going to start rewinding and writing about what we have been experiencing.   We are not just going to go backwards though.  We are going to continue forward enjoying life because as someone wise used to tell me.... 

"Life is meant to be lived not endured"

and...

I couldn't agree more.