{Pretty Happy Funny Real} - Beach Edition!

I'm on vacation, hence the utter lack of updates (no, I haven't been on vacation since the last post. Not that I'd have minded that. Not at all.).

That being said, and because I have to use the blogger app which I don't like, this will be short. 

These pictures are from the coast of Maine, where it has been absolutely glorious for the past week!  

{Pretty}

The view from our porch. One of my favorite, favorite places in the world!  Add a book, a glass of Kahlua and cream (...milk...), and I'm in heaven. 

{Happy}

The perch of power, from where she analyzed the best tourist lunch bits to snitch, and snitch she did. "Mine. Mine. Mine!"

{Funny}

He cast his last lure in a beautiful and effortless arc off the porch...you guessed it...into the tree that cannot be climbed or reached.  Que horror! Cue much good-natured and effervescent bemoaning of that mistake! That explains the fourth line from the bottom...

{Real}

And way out there is Europe. Crazy! 

Just a few more for good measure!

A real lighthouse!

"Mine!"

Check back with Like Mother, Like Daughter for more contentment!

Field Trip for Grown-Ups {p,h,f,r}

The Like Mother, Like Daughter linkup for some good old contentment has brought me back from the bloggingless grave.  Resurrection!  Redemption!  Yes, I've been grading a lot of tests on The Tale of Two Cities.  How did you guess?

We went to the zoo.  It was really cool.  We saw a ton.  And I only got four pictures, but, since you've actually clicked the link, I'll share my little bit of joy and zooish contentment with you!  De rien.

{Pretty}

What would it be like to be that awkward looking and yet that inherently graceful?  Giraffes are so pretty.  I think I do okay in the pretty department about 80% of the time - relatively speaking to the situation at hand, of course - but graceful.....that comes and goes.  Maybe 50%.  Lately, I've had to keep my toes permanently painted something opaque because I seem to have stubbed both big toes to the extent that they look rather diseased.  They aren't, for the record.  But when one smacks one's toenail into hard objects multiple times, the nail tends to get a little crunched looking.  I know, you really wanted to hear about my toenails...thanks for listening.  I appreciate it, I do.  And, I will further expound at length upon the virtues of a slightly sparkly coral nailpolish from, I believe, Forever XXI.  Check it out; it'll save me the expounding, and make you a happier person!

Photo Source

{Happy}

There actually isn't anything particularly happy about this picture, but there isn't anything unhappy with it either, so I figured it qualified by process of elimination.  If there is no unhappiness, there must be happiness.  Anyway, I thought it was a neat picture, and I think turtles are rather fascinating.  I'm not into turtle stuffed animals or statues or anything; I just like watching them swim around and walk.  They're so goofy!

{Funny}

This reminded me of three old men sitting outside a barbershop or similar place, drinking coffee and killing time.  These turtles looked so happy and so utterly uninterested in doing anything except sitting there...it was the classic old man line personified, or animal-fied, to be correct in the idea, if not the spelling.

{Real}

Look closely.  They are real.  Very.  And the other kind that looks the same but has a wider mouth (I can never remember which is the crocodile and which is the alligator.  Sigh.  Shame upon my science education!) was only one cage away.  Looking at things like this make me remember just where I stand on the food chain, why I approve the invention of guns and other means to kill large things at a distance, and the fleetingness of my life.  All in all, however, these two behaved very well and didn't eat or otherwise mangle anything while we watched.  Thank you Lord!

Back to work.  Dr. Manette, Sydney Carton, and all other sundry peoples of the French Republic await.  Au revoir!

{p,h,f,r} Pinch of this, Dash of that

Linking up with the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter for some contentment!  (Like the alliteration there?  Thought so!)

{Pretty}

 Our honeymoon and wedding albums came in the mail and I was reminiscing, so I thought I'd share.  Isn't it pretty?  I'd love to go back someday, now that we've seen most of the island and done the exploring, just to relax, sip margaritas on the beach, and read a book.  Heavenly.

{Happy}

Did you know that butterflies get drunk from rotting fruit?  Well, they do.  These guys were quite relaxed and happy, and didn't bat a wing when I stuck my camera right up in their buggy little faces.  They were pretty happy...

But not as happy as this spunky little thing!  Not exactly up to American food cleanliness standards but awfully cute all the same.  Something tells me he was pretty "happy" too; this was only one of many drinks that afternoon for the DLF.

{Funny}

This video is great!  I would absolutely LOVE to get a costume like this for halloween, or just to stand on the street corner and scare people.  My husband wanted to get it and sneak up on his boss in the office.  He thought his knowledgeable-but-not-emotive boss might like to open his office door to find a dinosaur roaring at him.  Might be funny...just a little!

I wanted to get a costume like this and hide down a mall bathroom hallway - those creepy ones with the twists and turns - and scare people.  But since that would probably lead to my arrest and subsequent 15 minutes of fame on Fox News' weird story section, we'll bag it.

{Real}

Real pirates!  We got boarded and everything; barely escaped with our lives.  Fooled you, I know.  And you thought this was just another honeymoon picture of a tour boat because Kate wants to be at the beach right now.  Pshaw!

{p,h,f,r} Small joys!

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for a little more down home contentment!

{Pretty}

This is only the second dandelion I've seen.  Maybe Texas just doesn't have as many, but dandelions always heralded summer to me.  We used to have tons, and even though I know they are weeds, I really like them.  They're so joyful!

{Happy}

This makes me so happy because look at all that sand!  I have been going to this beach since I was two, and my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have been going there before me.  For the last few years, the sand decided to depart, so it was rocky as all get out.  Really, underneath that sand are rocks.  Lots of rocks.  While it was nice, it wasn't running at 100%, and I think the toddler-toting crowd felt the lack of sand worse than the rest of us.  

So, despite all the hippy libs that said we killed the beach (they blamed it on a storm wall kind of thing that is keeping a house from falling into the ocean people!), as all the wise old ladies have said for years, it's cyclical.  Sand comes, sand goes.  It always comes back.  And right they were, as this picture is less than a week old.  Is it vacation yet?!!  

{Funny}

Source

Not really appropriate, but I ran across this silly picture earlier today and it just struck my funny bone!  God bless the animals for their trusting nature, because oh baby do we abuse it!  Can I have a dog now?

{Real}

The dishwasher isn't working, so all those nicely loaded dishes....are dirty.  I'm about to attempt to make dinner without washing anything so that I can do it all while dinner cooks.  One fell swoop sort of thing.  I like to bring in my groceries in the least number of trips, wash my dishes once a day, and otherwise attempt time-saving activities that do not actually save time.  Real me, whatdayaknow!

Time to return to my unspoiled days and go wash dishes by hand.  First world problems - yep!

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} Blessings and Coupons, or Daily Life

Joining in for some {phfr} fun at Like Mother, Like Daughter and double-whammying with the Catholic Blogger's Blitz!  

{Pretty}

I posted this the other day, but I'm still looking at it and it's still making me happy.  Some of the recently discovered money (noted below!) will likely go to buying plants.  There is something so inherently uplifting about flowers and living greenery in and around one's home.  My grandmother is amazing with this; I am not, but figure it can't hurt to work on building new skills.

It's been said that carnations are funeral flowers, but I happen to love them.  They are simple and pretty, and epitomize what life ought to be - unencumbered by other's opinions, living out our vocation and life to the best of our ability. After all, we can't all be roses; some of us have to be carnations or the garden of life would be boring!  A bit deep for a single flower, but with all that embedded in it, how could it not be pretty?

{Happy}

Photo shamelessly snitched from one of my best friends, Anne, who takes far
better pictures than I do, and because my pictures were lost when my
laptop was stolen.  Thank you Anne!

We are going to Rome in the fall!!!!  I've been once, when I did a study abroad semester, and it was AMAZING!  The Husband has wanted to go for ages, and has never been, so off we're going!  

It's actually been quite challenging finding a time that fits work schedules, won't cause me to give birth in Italy should the Lord decide to so bless us in the near future, and is affordable.  For a while I didn't think it would work, but I prayed about it anyway asking for God to make it clear when we should go.  We were looking at dates last night, and they were all over $3k, which was just too much for one week. Then, all of a sudden, we pop in a date range and BOOM!  Flights plus hotel for $500 cheaper than the best deal we'd found yet.  And the timing is good for everything, including the Husband's work meetings.  Thank you God!

{Funny}

There is a kid that gets bitten by a dog in this, so that part isn't funny, but the cat is.  The kid is okay, by the way, and will probably be on the Today Show with his family, hence why I think this can qualify as funny.   

This is super-cat, and he means business!  Dogs that bite kids - ain't nobody got time for that!  (Haha, oh Americana)

{Real}

Real women get deals.  Don't ask how I got that big of an order on pictures; suffice it to say that I did. That's the trouble with having a great wedding photographer...you simply cannot whittle down those amazing pictures to 10.  Doesn't work.  So, instead, I made all the photobooks I wanted, and then waited until I had enough coupons to make the order semi-reasonable.  I love coupons, although I hate couponing. But this?  This made my morning!

Now, I am trying to think of what I could possibly do with three loaves of unrisen sourdough.  Something is very wrong with my bread, and everyone is stumped.  It works at my parent's house, just not here.  Any recipe ideas for unrisen dough?  And, thanks, but I don't need to eat three loaves worth of cinnamon buns.  But thanks.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Rain, rain, please keep raining!

Linking up again with Like Mother Like Daughter for Thursday's fun.

{Pretty}

See what these are?  No, not the weeds.  They're raindrops!  We actually had a whole day full of drizzles all the way to full rain (not Virginia rain, but pretty good for what I've seen here so far).  Very exciting.  My weeds will be thrilled, and maybe my grass will turn green!  We needed the water, so this was a good thing.  And, really, there's just something special about the sounds and smells of a spring rain.  They are so refreshing and absolving, in a way.  They are definitely one of my favorite smells.

{Happy}

I love my cookbook!

If only they maintained this look of perfection out of the oven...

 Mmmmmmm!

What could be happier than cookies?!  I had some leftover egg whites from earlier in the week which I had the foresight to put in a jar and keep, so last night, we had a lovely dozen or so meringue kisses!  So good.  Technically, you're supposed to bake them at a very low heat and then leave them in the oven for something like five hours until they cool, but since I didn't even get started until 4:30, that wasn't going to happen.  I baked them at a high heat, took them out, baked my biscuits, and then put the cookies back in the turned-off oven to sit while we ate dinner.  Not quite what the recipe called for, and probably the cause of the deflation, but you know what?  They were great!  Crispy on the outside and like marshmallows on the inside.  I actually like them crispier, but the Husband said that if they were just a bit gooier they'd be perfect.  So, accident or not, I guess it was a good thing they came out like they did!  He ate half the batch...I demolished the other half.  There were two left over.  By breakfast they were not left over anymore; after all, it's just egg whites ;)

{Funny} 

This, people, is a miracle.  Don't you see how organized all my salad ingredients are?  Quite a miracle, so much so that I thought it was rather entertaining, and filed it here under "funny."

The funny thing was, after I put together this absolutely restaurant-worthy barbecue salad (perfectly arranged salad, all pretty, with fried chicken tossed in bbq sauce on top), my husband sits down to dinner and looks at it quizzically.  Now, being that he is a born and bred Texan, I kind of assumed that nothing barbecue would be foreign.  Well, wrongo because he poked at the ensemble and said, "What's this? *pause* Am I supposed to eat the chicken with it?"

I thought he was joking, and told him that duh, it's a bbq salad, like at Chilis or any other restaurant in the country.  His head was shaking nooooooooo, and the look said that he considered this to be one of my "exotic" dishes.  I don't cook exotic; no one has ever, ever, accused me of that.  But to him, my cooking is downright exotic.  So, I told him to stop arguing, eat his veggies, and say thank you.  And then I showed him a thing or two by pulling up a google images page full of barbecue salads.  So there - HA!

Why I thought the man would have ventured into restaurant salad menus, however, I'm not sure.

 {Real}

This is my project.  It's been a project for a while.  At some point in the future, it will be a guestroom/sewing room/office.  Mainly a sewing room/office until we have a baby and need the back bedroom, at which point the guest bed will move out here.  Good thing I'm not pregnant yet, because this project is moving slower than molasses in Alaska.  But despite that, it's good to have ongoing projects.  Soothes the soul, in a strange way.

Speaking of the guest bed, my mom is coming to visit us tomorrow, and I still haven't made the bed.  I did, however, clean the bathroom and if we're being honest, that's what counts the most!

{pretty, happy, funny, real} - Life chugging along...

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for a {phfr} day!

There isn't much happening today, except that it's nearly summer in Texas and I'm cold.  Imagine that!  The one day when we'd like some heat, the heater isn't working and our property manager is (typically) MIA.  But, on the flipside, we slept amazingly last night all bundled up and cozy in the cooler air.  It was great!

{Pretty}

I realize this is a weed, but for some reason, I have an affinity for flowering weeds.  They are so perky and so determined in their perkiness that it's hard not to like them.  Not being a great gardener in any sense of the word, weeds and I are never in competition which allows us to have a pleasantly platonic relationship.  Dandelions are one of my favorites, but we don't seem to have as many here in Texas as when I was growing up in the far north of just-south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line.  Isn't this just the cutest little thing?  It's only as big as a pencil eraser.

{Happy}

My grandmother gave this cookbook to my mom when she got married and moved away, and my mom did the same for me.  I love looking back at the recipes that have notes, dated, from both of them.  Some are comments about the recipe, but most are little snippets about what was happening in their day when they were cooking.  I've added some of my own.  Here, the note in red is my mom's, and is dated in February 1989.  I was four months old.  The note in black is mine from just last week.

This also happens to be a delightfully addictive peanut butter cookie recipe, especially if you add a bag of chocolate chips to it.  Heavenly.  Thank you Fanny Farmer!

{Funny}

Why is a bad picture of half-eaten brownies funny?  Well, it was suggested at my last doctor appointment that I change my diet.  (I am still contemplating this idea...while eating brownies.)  She recommended that I cut out refined sugar, as much as possible.  That's all well and good, but I'm still craving chocolaty goodness in a way that only we women can understand, if you know what I mean, so I decided to make "healthy" brownies.  I subbed out the 1.5 cups of sugar with a few tbs of brown sugar, a cup of molasses, and a cup of flour.  Probably could have skipped the flour as these were cakey instead of fudgy, but whatever.  They were also overcooked, a chronic bad habit of mine.  

I discovered, however, that molasses in large quantities - don't ask how large, I refuse to tell! - can have the side-effect of....how shall we say...relieving any possible stopped-up-ness one might have had.  Yes, your thoughts right now are correct.  I'm not sure if the Husband noticed or not, so maybe it was just me; hope so, since he's out on calls all day!  Haha

Word to the wise: just eat the sugar...

{Real}

See that weed?  The one that's nearly as tall as a large toddler?  I've been staring at it and planning to weed-whack it for weeks now, but unfortunately our hand-me-down lawnmower refuses to turn on for me.  The weed-whacker feels the same and also will not start.  I'm biding my time until the Husband is home to beat them into submission, at which point mankind will triumph over the weeds that are attempting to take over my corner of the world!  

That's all for today; dinner needs to be made so that work can be done.  My articles to edit came in yesterday, so I'm going to attempt to finish them before the weekend.  Fingers crossed :)