Saturday Near a Park . . . Baseball ?

This is the 56th day so far in 2012. Of course it is still only February and this week we had two days that reached the 80 degree mark. I know some of you e.g. Midwest & the Northwest did not experience the summery weather -- but believing in the principle of "delayed gratification" -- think how nice it will be . . . besides it WAS windy here:

Our flag was really waving in the wind and I actually had to move the mounting so that it would not get tangled in the rose branches. Today is a bit cooler than the last two days, but still really nice. Over our back fence comes the sounds of summer -- baseball practice. For the last several weeks they have been working on the two baseball fields and for the last couple of weeks there have been numerous practices going on.

Saturday -- and I have said this before is a special day to me and to many. For that reason a favorite song kept popping up in my mind all morning -- "Saturday In The Park" by the group Chicago, from the '70s. I still enjoy hearing that (and others from Chicago) and if you haven't heard the music for a while:

Click to see the words to the music -- having been born in Chicago I have always felt connected to the group as well as just plain enjoying their music. The song evokes summertime in February.


Domestic Duties


During the "taxing" season my list of duties around the house increases way over the duties of the other approximately 8 months -- besides vacuuming and other cleaning duties -- I do enjoy for obvious reasons the duty of cooking. It is always a challenge to pick menu items and so receiving ideas and recipes from a favorite website is appreciated a lot. Last Sunday morning I used a recipe from that website and we enjoyed a different way to have eggs:

The recipe was not that hard or complex and the outcome was "pretty" good. It certainly was different from the usual method of having an egg. I do have to say though that I still love the "crack-in-the-dish-eggs" that my Mother used to fix for us. For the above recipe (and many more great recipes) here is a link to their website:    The Noble Pig

Also from that website, I prepared a great recipe for last night's dinner -- kind of in keeping with "Friday-Night-Fish" and stir-fry:

It was soooo good that we are going to have it again -- tonight! Check out the site for other good things.


Project Status


The removal of the hot tub (and deck restoration) is going well, except that our contractor had other projects also to juggle -- so this week we were on our own. But, we took the time to prepare the arbor in the back by freeing it from the entangled vines and tree branches growing all over it. It was a job that has both of us "sore" in most of our muscles and bones. It took us about half the day -- last Sunday -- and filled up the yard waste container and numerous large plastic bags filled with vine branches:

Can you tell that there is a pelican in the top picture . . . even the sky is bluer in the after photo . . . we still have to prune the apple tree some and we will in the next couple of weeks. We were feeling pretty accomplished after this exercise.  What a difference.

From the Tree


Birthdays this week -- just two -- and so a "happy birthday" goes out to both Nancy and "Dick" (once a brother-in-law, always a brother-in-law . . .for my brother)

I have been working on a variety of branches in the tree and have found many items relating to our folks, I plan to share much of that in the coming posts.

And What about Dino . . .

Poor Dino, he has had to stay at the vets clinic at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael (where he was born) for the last 5 days. We miss the "little" guy a lot. It is really amazing how my time, especially, is different with him not being here. I look forward to him being "home" with us soon. He was experiencing digestive issues that seemed to continue longer than we felt was safe . . . so we brought him to GDB. They are great -- they were very much in-the-know about the condition. We felt very confident in leaving him for a few days. Part of the cause is Dino's grazing habit whenever he is out in the grass and leaves -- he always ingests a few to top off his meals. This was evident when the vets took ex-rays -- they could see various non-threatening debris . . . bottom-line -- he is fine, we are picking him up tomorrow, Sunday:

These are some photos of Dino on Tuesday just before delivering him to San Rafael. At the bottom is his bed with most of his toys waiting for him AND his empty crate in the bedroom. It is interesting that when we got to GDB, Dino seemed very excited as if he knew where he was . . . we are hoping he will be very excited when he returns home with us tomorrow!


And so went our week. We look forward to the other 310 days that remain in this year and we wish you all the very best. Tonight's dinner will be the Jambalaya along with freshly made corn muffins . . . we really are breaking with tradition . . .