Saturday, February 18, 2012

Today!!!

We went to lunch to a newly opened Italian Bistro in town...hesitant to try anything major so we had pizza and salads which were AMAZING!!!

The pizza was light and crispy chewy...we had a purist sort of pizza with just simple clean and fresh ingredients...lovely sauce, homemade buffalo mozzarella cheese and fresh basil...oh so good.

Reading this...


Playing with this...


Sipping one of these...



This constitutes a happy Saturday!!!


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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Love These Bags!!!

Look at them...
Seriously...
Just look at these amazing bags...












They are from a company called Forestbound...
here is the link...


http://www.forestbound.com/


This designer uses vintage...be still my heart...and historic fabrics and hardware to make these lovelies...in her own words...


"Forestbound uses exclusively found and salvaged textiles to create a line of durable, utilitarian tote bags. Boston-based designer, Alice Saunders, puts great effort into hunting for well-worn historic fabrics and hardware throughout New England. Many hours are dedicated to working with these unique materials to ensure every Forestbound bag becomes one of a kind."


She even has a blog...which of course I am following.


Here is her blog link...

http://forestbound.blogspot.com/


I am in a bag kind of mood lately...
I want one of these!!!

Just finished reading this...loved it!!!
Unputdownable...over 500 pages of suspense!!!



The perfect book for a week with a husband away...no cooking...lots of organizing...
A perfectly ordered house...soup, salads and toast for dinners.

Now we are planning a special dinner for when he comes in...

Hmmm...

What shall I have him bring home?

Lol...

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Spellbinding Gets Me Every Time...






This book has been around...for quite sometime.
I even own it...and I haven't read it...it has the word spellbinding in its description and witches that walk among us...why haven't I read it yet?
So sad...so very sad.




She has written a new book...it will be out in April...the cover is beautiful. It too has been described as being spellbinding. A girl trying to recover from the deaths of her mother and her sister visits a fortune teller and then...mystery? tragedy? drama?
She lives with her father and brother. Her brother is under the spell of a mysterious woman...
Spellbinding...totally.
I love books like these.
Love them!!!
Any spellbinders on your reading agenda?

This is my spellbinding new bag...it's UGGS!!!
Thank you to my Valentine!!!





Lucy Grace was not forgotten by Cupid either...she received handmade catnip filled kitty cassettes from an Etsy shop...she loves them!!!
She is especially fond of the tail part.


She thinks they are spellbinding!!!

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Books...And Itty Bitty Reviews!!






Finished this...loved it...family relationships and a trial? A shocker of an ending!!!
Loved this book!!!




OMG...started crying on page 14...this one takes place in the part of California that we lived in and loved...it has everything...red woods, vineyards, oceans, an Italian family...a dog...a lovely dog...sob...pasta, bread...a family store...cute kids...
everything!!!
Kittens!!! this book has kittens named Thing One and Thing Two...and great food descriptions and a heart warming and heart breaking story...literally could not put it down.
I loved this book...



Reading this book right now...very mysterious...intense...fascinating...described as "the captivating, romantic, and suspenseful saga of a teen's discovery of her extraordinary destiny." I am about 50 pages in...and entranced...so far.




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Monday, February 13, 2012

Bread...Breathtakingly Beautiful...


Here is the thing...I am really fascinated with bread baking...I think I really love making bread but I am not that great at it. I am sort of easing my way into it.
Thanks to reading dozens of food blogs daily...I think I am actually getting to be a reasonably decent bread baker...
The best thing is that if the bread doesn't exactly do what I think it should do...or gets too brown or we don't like it...I toss it off the deck for the ducks and crows and everybody is happy!!!
I want to make bread that looks like this...so far that has not happened.




I also don't like touching the dough. I like using a food processor or KitchenAid mixer to do all of the kneading.

I have also learned that there are no miracles in bread making.

If it doesn't rise in the bowl...it won't rise in the oven...lol.

Also it's not good to let it rise in the laundry room on top of the dryer...out of sight...and forget about it until the following morning.

Also not good is putting the bowl of rising bread under a pretty dish towel in the sun room in the sun.

A cat just could step in it...Lucy's version of punching down the dough.

I love and have these bread books...I am thorough when it comes to my research!!!














I love making pizza, too.

There is something rewarding about working with dough...my mom was a master bread maker.

Can it be genetic?

Happy Valentine's Day!!!


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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Not Exactly On Schedule...But...






Almost done...
It's really good...sort of told in flashbacks...the youngest girl in an established Wisconsin family...Wausaukeesha, Wisconsin, is accused of murdering her sister's husband...whom she had an affair with years ago.
Kip...the accused...is kind of a black sheep within her wealthy family...she has been in trouble numerous times for various skirmishes with the law. Kip is sort of irreverent and finds the reality of her upcoming trial rather unreal. At first...
I have a lot to read...and I haven't been reading any of my own stuff in a long time...
I am feeling a little bit of PRESSURE!!!
I just might be reading a teeny bit too much.
Is this possible?
Are there any harmful side affects of too much reading?




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No Sports Sunday!!!




It must be sad for certain people...my husband...to wake up on a wintry Sunday morning and come to the realization that there are no real sporting events to cozy up to...no football, no NASCAR, no baseball.

Nothing...

Zip...

Nada...

Empty sports day...

I swear he was watching women's basketball for awhile...

And he has become enamored with the Tim Tebow of basketball...Jeremy Lin.

So...we went out to breakfast, grabbed some groceries, and we are happily munching popcorn while watching all the stuff we DVR'd this past week.

I think technically The Bachelor counts as a sporting event...sort of.

It will have to do for a while.


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