T Stands for Spring Bunnies and Cake

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And a big hello to all the folks who stop of very T at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's    blog too.

    This morning (Monday) we had some snow flurries (even thought the temperature was above freezing), and last week we had more grey weather than sunshine at my house, with a bit of snow, rain, thunder and temperatures that didn't know whether to be like winter (cold) or like spring (warm). I managed a couple of walks and did a bit of seed planting in some pots, plus I worked on our taxes which would have gone much easier if my dear husband had printed off his W-2s, which are the statement with all the information you need for taxes that your employer gives you.  I did finally get them done, but the whole thing is stressful even using one of those tax programs. 😩 

     I also put out some spring decorations at my house last week. I thought I would share some of those today since I'm still waiting for nice spring weather to return and some of those decorations work nicely for T day.

     Here's my mantel over the fireplace. I was excited to find the 2 bunnies you can see in the Target dollar section. I really like how big these bunnies are. Sometimes you can definitely find good things there in among all the "stuff" you don't need. 😏 Below is the bunny I usually put on my mantel, but with the 2 new white bunnies he's been moved to my dining room hutch/cabinet. He looks good there too.

     These next 2 bunnies are probably 30 years old. I picked them up  at a shop called the Christmas Tree Shop that sold random bits of everything. The chain went out of business  a couple of years ago, but mainly I used to shop there to find trinkets for my daughter (when she was young) for things like her Easter basket and Christmas stocking.  I picked up these bunnies on one of those shopping trips.

    And for T, you can also see one of my teapots here.  And speaking of teapots and T day, here's a spring themed one my daughter gave me for my birthday several years ago. I really like him. 

    Sadly I have no photos or real live bunnies to share. In my area I haven't seen one for years, probably between the coyote and the bobcats it keeps their numbers down. But I know  I used to frequently see them on the grounds of the school I worked at back when I was teaching.

  Recently Jeanie at the The Marmalade Gypsy shared a recipe for a wine cake.  It sounded intriguing so I made one last weekend. 

    It was the first time I'd ever bought or even tasted sherry. It made a very flavorful cake, but I can't see myself drinking a glass of this. It was a lot sweeter than I like.

     My husband and I both actually like the cake though, and I would definitely make it again.  Here's the recipe Jeanie had on her website that I used.

     Thank you Jeanie for sharing this recipe.❤

     That's all for me today. Have a wonderful T day and week ahead. 

     

    

Around the House

     Hi everyone. It's the end of another week. This week flew by  for me. Perhaps it did for you also.  Today I am linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and also to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

     The other day I planted some seeds. Not outside, it's way too early seeing  many times our nighttime temperatures have still been falling below freezing. However, I do like growing my own greens of various sorts, mainly because when you buy them at the store they don't seem to last and other times you forget you need to get some so when you want them, you don't have any greens. Or at least that's how it seems to work at my house.

    I started some kale and some spinach as you can see in the photo below.

       I also picked up some rhubarb starters. I put them in the left planter in the photo below,  and in the bag on the right I planted some carrot seeds and some beet seeds.  I also planted some garlic bulbs. I read garlic needs a shot of cold before it grows so I'm not sure how those bulbs will fair unless our temperatures stay cold at night.

      More to plant once the night time temperatures moderate a bit. Or once I get some more bags of soil. 😏

     I was also out walking the dogs the other day when I spied this tiny coltsfoot flower getting ready to bloom along the side of the road. There were actually a few of them budding in this area. I didn't know they bloomed so early, even before my crocus's bloom in the yard.

    And I need a face or 2 for Friday Face Off. Yesterday some friends and I got together to watch a movie. Instead of going to the theater, we went to a friend's house to watch it on Netflix. Plus we had Lebanese take out food for lunch. Yum!

    This was the movie we thought we were going to watch.

    However, we quickly found out that this movie is not yet released and can only be seen in theaters. Oh no. 😕 Instead we  decided since we were together we might as well watch something else, so sticking with school theme, we watched this film.

    I had seen this film before, as did a couple of the other ladies, but it's a good one so we watched it again. In fact, watching a film a second time means you pick up on lots of things you missed the first time. On top of that, it had been a bit since I had seen the film.

   That and I found out I have been reading the wrong book for my book club. 😕 That's my own fault as I had the title right but somehow had the wrong author. 

   So with that, I will leave you. Have a super start to your weekend!

    

Faces Around My House

Hi everyone. Happy Friday. It's almost the weekend once again. I hope your weekend is exactly what you want it to be.

Since it's Friday, it's time for Nicole's  Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.  This week I thought I'd share a few "faces" you can see in  and around my house. 

Let me start with a fun cat clock in my kitchen. The batteries in it died a few weeks ago and even though she stopped keeping time, her eyes still moved back and forth and her tail still wagged. There's new batteries in the clock now, and once again she keeps time.

And I like fish. Here's one that my husband found  at the recycle area our "dump" used to have. (Sadly, i the dump doesn't have the recycle area any more.) It was painted all pinks and yellows, and I fixed it up with my own art style.

 

I bought these ceramic fish at a store in Maine several years ago.

And here's a bobble head Mr, Pete. He's not as lovable as the real Mr. Pete though. 😏

As for birds, here's a few. 

First there's this cute little ceramic owl, and 

also there's also this hand carved crow, which sadly, one of the cats we used to have knocked him over and the beak broke. I decided to leave him as he was because it keeps him looking as primitive as he is. Luckily, he's just wood and doesn't need that beak to survive. 😏

And this sweet kitschy little bird was just a find at Target.

Not in the house, but these 3 mourning doves were sitting out on the back deck the other morning. 

And here's a few little wooden animals on my fireplace mantel.

The giraffes on the mantel came from Africa when my grandmother went there. I was a kid at the time, and I was so jealous she was able to go. My uncle actually lived there for several years, and that's why my grandmother went.  The giraffes were something my parents had in their house, as was this next guy who also came back  with my grandmother in what must have been a very large spare suitcase.

He now hangs on the door to my art space rather than in my parent's old house.

Have a great weekend.

And a note to Gillena. I'm taking off Sunday (fingers crossed we don't get a lot of snow!) for a couple of days away, so I'll be missing Sunday Smiles this week. More about that mini-adventure when I get home.

 

T Stands for Catching Up and Hot Dogs

 Hi everyone. It is Tuesday (or Monday night) once again. Here in the US some people have an extra long weekend since the July 4th holiday falls on a Tuesday, so they also get Monday off. Not so smart me, but when I signed up to work at the lake I wanted shifts for Mondays and Tuesdays. I forgot about when July 4th fell, so while the hubby was off, I was scheduled to work both mornings. 😑 Oh well. Monday morning was a wash out so I didn't have to head in anyhow, at least not for 7 when my shift begins.

Last week was another wet and busy one for me, but I have finally finished painting my screen porch floor.  Hurrah! With the rain, humidity and things going on it seemed to take forever before I finished that job.  You might remember a couple of weeks ago I showed you a sneak peek while I was painting the floor. I'm excited with how it came out.  I also managed to set up my porch even if it was raining outside when I did it, and I moved most of my house plants out into it for the summer. 

I must say I am loving the new green floor! Now I'm just waiting for a long spell of some  good dry summer hammock weather-smile.

The hubby also hung up this sign for me. My son-in-law made for me for Christmas.  Some of you might not be familiar with my 2 dogs, but his carvings really look like Mr. Pete and Miss Maddie.

 I've also started knitting my Icelandic sweater using the yarn I bought on my trip that I also showed you a couple of weeks ago. The humidity arrived so that has slowed me down a bit because knitting with heavy wool when it's sticky just doesn't feel right.

For you non--knitters, to knit an Icelandic sweater you first knit up the 2 arms and the body to the armpits, and then you connect those 3 pieces  on your needles to finish off the yolk (upper shoulder part). If the sweater is a pullover, which is what I am making, you knit in the round meaning your knit circles to make the sweater progress. No back and forth stitches are involved.  Once you finish  the sweater you would block it to smooth out any bumps and shape it.

And Elle, I had to laugh at your comment a few weeks back when you said you'd want to bring home a whole suitcase of yarn if you visited Iceland. Yes, I know exactly what you mean, and even though I still bought more than I'll probably need for one sweater, I did have to exercise some serious self-control. Smile.

And since it is T Day, let me share my drink related post. I know those of you who eat vegetarian will probably not be interested in this week's T day, and if you are vegan, I guarantee there is nothing you'd want  to eat in today's post.

The Icelandic fast-food meal  is hot dogs. We had them a couple of times for a quick lunch, and I also had one the night we arrived since by that hour most everyplace (other than one quick stop right in the airport terminal) was no longer serving food. Even though at this time of year it stays light basically 24 hours, restaurants in Iceland all close by 9 PM. Since we didn't land until 10 PM, the quick stop in the airport terminal was dinner.

And just as an FYI, there are currently no MacDonald's, Wendy's or Burger Kings in Iceland. There's no Starbucks either. I love that!

For dinner the night we arrived, I had a hotdog with a carton of chocolate milk. I had to laugh because the clerk told me that this chocolate milk was on the sweet side, when in reality it was less sweet than most chocolate milk you get in the US. This is my link up to this week's T Day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

Icelandic hotdogs are mostly made from lamb, with some organic pork and beef. The traditional Icelandic way to eat them is with  chopped fresh and also fried onions in the bottom of the roll.  Then you add a sweet brown mustard sauce called pylsusinnep, ketchup (which was a little different from US ketchup because it has more of a tomato taste) and finally a  white sauce called remoulade that is made from mayo, mustard, herbs and capers. It's a little different from a French remoulade.

Yummy!

And speaking of milk, here's a snap of part of the milk products section in one grocery store we visited. You can see Iceland's famous skyr in the middle row.  I'm not certain, but there may be some fruit juice towards the bottom. Or perhaps it is a flavored milk drink.

That's all for me this week. If you celebrate the July 4th holiday, I hope you have an enjoyable, safe and sunny holiday. And Happy T day to you also.