Tag Archives: garden

Hello 43, nice to meet you!

Thank you all so, so much for the birthday wishes via email and facebook!  My facebook and email exploded – d’oh!  So thoughtful of everyone! I had a very nice day.  We started off with biking to bagels!  I almost went somewhere else and had a different breakfast, but hey – it’s Sunday, which is the original bagel day in our household.

After that, it was down to Schenectady to the Rose Garden at Central Park.  What a treat this park was!  A little far from home, but the whole Central Park is very, very nice.  The rose garden just has a first flush of blooms.  I think in a couple weeks you could probably smell the garden a half mile away.

The only thing I didn’t like was that almost none of the roses were identified, so I really don’t know what they are.  Pretty, though!

I was all up in this bee’s face.  I don’t know if he was irritated at me, but he kept moving around a lot while I was trying to get his picture!

I think these are mountain laurels, but not sure.  Very cool looking.

We stopped at Ambition Coffeehouse for lunch after the Rose Garden.

This is in a building that dates from 1815 and kind of interesting inside, complete with a ghost (not the guy in the yellow, but supposedly a real ghost).

I had a turkey sandwich with brie, walnuts and raspberry sauce.  Tres good!

I did not get any coffee here, though (we stopped later for that).

I was supposed to have a birthday dinner out, but there was just no time at all, and we had a quick meal at home before company came over for presents and cake balls!

I keep seeing this recipe and figured I had to try it one.  We used a boxed spice cake mix, made our own buttercream icing and mixed together.  Then coated in white chocolate.

Only problem for birthdays?  No place to put a candle!

Surprisingly, they were quite the hit!

John serenaded us with piano music.

I did receive a Magic Bullet (or close relative) from the parentals:

What a surprise! :mrgreen:   I was pretty happy and had waffles this morning.

John got me a watering can, which I desperately needed

And something so I can rock on!

Yay Journey!!!  (None of the new stuff thankyouverymuch, just Steve Perry).

My sister’s family also brought me some bedding plants.  Hooray!

All in all quite  a nice day, and relatively quiet, too, which was quite nice.  I still get to stretch it out, though.  Must have a birthday dinner this week!

Question:  Journey fan?

What’s Blooming Today

Hooray for Friday! No gym this morning, so I got to work nice and early.  Operation Sleep is not quite in action.  I started taking 5HTP and I am sleeping through the night mostly, but still waking up too early.  I need to buy a sleep mask.  No night sweats the last few nights, but I can never really predict when those will happen anyway.

Brekkie was the 1-minute muffle.

Yum!  I miss my protein waffles.  A little birdie told me I shouldn’t get a magic bullet type blender replacement just yet until after this weekend.  Hmmmm….

I worked steadily today and was so productive!  I did some work on a stability ball, although I don’t know as I felt much from this.  Of course, Pixie had to get in my lap, so I had my ebook and Pixie in my lap sitting on the ball.  I could have popped it!

Lunch break.  Greek yogurt with pumpkin and Kashi Berry Blossoms.

And a side of fruit.  The last of the strawberries and blues.

After lunch, I had to take a trip here as my driver’s license expires on Sunday:

Luckily for us, our town is the center of the county, which actually is pretty large.  That means all administrative buildings are within walking distance of our house.  Nice way to save gas.  It was soooo busy there, but mostly for the line of vehicle registration. The license renewal line only had 2 people in it.  Score!  I had to go in person because I needed to do the eye test this time.

Cooler weather yesterday and today, so I had a hot latte today (with some peanuts).

The garden is coming along nicely.  The Sunsprite rose bush is popping out all over.

Long time readers know this is my 100 pound rose bush.  Nice to see it back again 😉 It is so fragrant, too. I just love it!

Snow Queen clematis exploded this week.  There were 17 blooms at the top of this!

They are quite large, too.

Pretty.

My newest rose bush that I got on sale for $6 last fall (score!!) has just started blooming.  It is a hybrid called Wild Plum

It has a million buds on it, but only a few have opened.

Here is my shade garden on the north side of the house.

My ferns are a bit out of control.  There are astilbes in front that are going to bloom soon.  The little mounds surrounding the bowling bar are liriope that I just trimmed back.  Those are work horses, I tell you.  This would look even better if we repaved the driveway.  The driveway actually looks better in this picture than it does in person LOL!

Dinner time came and I finished up early with work – even with that break to go to the DMV.  Thank you speedy doctors! I used up the last of the lettuce to make a somewhat lame salad.

Then we suited up for a Friday night ride!  16.5 miles with a stop for some of this:

Creme de menthe froyo!  This is Only8, so it is not the tart kind of yogurt, which makes all flavors good.

Could I get the whole thing in my mouth?

Close, but not quite :mrgreen:

It’s the start of birthday weekend!  Cause I don’t just do one day.  Tomorrow is a cupcake ride.  Not sure exactly what I want to do on Sunday, but I will find something fun and report back!

What’s Blooming today

Thank you all for you comments on our renovation project!  I actually do enjoy renovations and I would still be doing them for a living if the mortgage market for investors didn’t go belly up.

Just an FYI – here is a shot showing you the proximity of the pantry to the kitchen (and our back door).

It’s so nice.  I do have to say that it still feels a little weird to …. er… use the facilities downstairs.  Now we share a bathroom with Pixie LOL

It’s Friday!  I found a youtube video of my favorite thing to sing on Fridays.  It’s very catchy :mrgreen:

I have been singing this on Fridays for years and now I found it! Enjoy!

My morning was nice and quiet… and early…  No gym today, but I sure do feel yesterday’s workout.  Barbell squats get me every time.  I lowered the weights, too.

I made up a bowl of banana custard oats topped with some coconut butter and a couple teaspoons of chocolate sauce that John made.

Very good.  Very, very good.  This bowl is 370 calories.

I got started right in with work to finish up for the holiday weekend.  It has just been really, really busy at work.  Not sure why that is, but then the company will likely over hire and it will get slower.  As happens in the transcription industry.

Lunch time was also yummy!  I chopped up half of one of John’s protein muffins and layered it with some plain greek yogurt and strawberries.

Lots of little pieces means it takes a long time to eat, which is a good thing when you tend to be a food wolfer such as myself. 😳

The garden is in that in between stage.  I keep forgetting to buy spring blooming plants.  I love perennials that have long bloom seasons, so I tend to concentrate on those, but that also means they don’t start blooming for another month.

The shady side of the house now has the lily of the valleys in with the ferns:

My clematis multi blue has a couple blooms on it.

It is pretty small right now.  I transplanted it over to this side of the house to see how it will do there.

It’s part of that new bed I dug up last fall, which is pretty barren right now.  Better get to work!

I got these at the garden center last week.  They are called Argyranthemum – new to me.  It is the Madeira one.

This plant I finally figured out what it was.  I was thinking it was trillium, but it actually is Tradescantia or Virginia spiderwort

Just a couple blooms.  These are another old fashioned flower and are all over the side of the house, almost to an annoying degree because they spread.

My Snow Queen clematis is going to explode in a couple days – check it out:

Next week will be rose and clematis day!

Even though it was warm outside, the inside of the house stayed quite cool.  Our new windows are fabulous!  We got the ones that block all UV rays, but I also found out that caused problems growing my seedlings indoors and they are all stunted.  I have 1/2 inch basil plants right now.  Ooops.  I need a grow light for next year.

The cool inside meant latte!

Actually, I can drink hot lattes even in the summer.  Maybe that is why I burn up at night?

Work is done for the weekend unless I want to do any extra to sock away for Disney in January.  Hooray weekend!  Almost went out for pizza, but we stayed home.  I cooked up a chicken sausage with the usual suspects on the side:

Trying to decide if we want to scooter for a little yogurt.  There are pop up storms in the area, so we may just stay home with this one:

Contentment – thy name is Pixie.

We are planning a 75 mile ride either Sat or Sun depending on the weather.  Should be fun!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

What’s Blooming – the rain edition

We had lots more rain last night, but the sun came out for a while today.  I find my mood is much more affected by sun as I am older than when I was younger.  Or maybe I just notice it more?  I was up too early, though, as our blinds were not completely closed and a lot of light peeked in.  Hello 5:45 am. Nice to see you…. not.  I got up to get an early start on work and had a bowl of soaked steel cut oats.

I made up my blueberry sauce and just dumped the oats (with egg whites) on top for a parfait style breakfast.  And coconut butter, must not forget that!

Lunch time included another type of parfait:

Doesn’t that look like whipped cream?  It’s Fage.  One thing I love about Fage is the fluffy stiff texture.  Not runny or gelatinous like other fat free yogurts.

John had out this tropical dried fruit mix because he was making granola.  I had to bogart some:

I love dried pineapple.

All of this rain and the garden is just greening up like crazy! It was a little difficult getting pictures this week with the rain, so I got out whenever I could to take pics (and just to admire) :mrgreen:  With the cloudy weather, the tulips are lasting a long time.  I ended up with such a nice array of tulip colors this year:

The one tulip that was not open last week was the Iceland.

Beautiful green and pink.  I love it!  I can’t wait to get more tulip bulbs to have even more next year.

This garden is now a fairly mature garden as I have been working it for 4 years now.  It’s an evolving process, but there is now a nice solid backbone to it.

My ferns are going gangbusters with the dampness.

I need to thin these out as they are starting to crowd my astilbes. I don’t know much about ferns.  These were at a flip house I did and I dug them up and brought them home when I redid the landscaping at that house. Free is always good.

The Shirley tulip that I pictured before keeps getting more and more purple.  How cool is that?

Last week:

Today:

Some alyssum that are with my geraniums.

And some of these:

I don’t mind dandelions in the lawn, but they must stay out of the garden bed.

I also have hanging planters with some fuschia.  I hope the hummingbirds stop by.

I notice a lot of people looking at my garden when they walk down the street.  It makes me proud and happy.

Happy happy, joy joy time!

Lots of rain this afternoon.  Good thing I got those pictures earlier. That is enough, Mother Nature.  Seriously.

I decided to attempt another fish item for dinner. Stats on this were nice. 120 calories and 18 grams of protein.  I like crab, so I thought this would be a good option.

Note the picture and how there is a large fillet over a small amount of stuffing.  This is the reality:

The fish was 2 tiny chunks stuck on either side of a wad of stuffing. Needless to say, the fish was totally dried out.  I kind of liked the stuffing, but I will not be getting this again.  I could not wait to get to my pear tonight…

John’s granola he made up today found a home on some cooked up strawberry rhubarb filling.  A pseudo cobbler!

Today was a rest day from exercise as we have a 40 miler planned for tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

What’s blooming – the tulip edition

My tulips are bursting this year!  We had some warmer sunny weather this week, which made the garden go bananas.

I leaned over the side of the porch and the perfume of lily of the valleys just wafted up and I saw a big cluster of them.  I am just amazed how how fragrant such tiny fairy flowers can be!

Our house is over 100 years old, so there are some old fashioned flowers that were in existence here, like the LOTV.  I just let them grow wherever they feel like popping up.  I am kind of a casual gardener 😀

My tulips:

The Shirley. This is a new one for me.

The purple blush starts at the very tip and spreads further down the petals each day.  I am very taken with this one! This one is amidst the Apricot Impressions.

The Queen of the Night and Ice Princess.  The Ice Princess are still a bit yellow looking until they mature a little bit.

The Queen of the Nights are not really black, but the deepest, darkest color of purple, which looks pretty much black.

For the life of me, I cannot find the name of these, which I have had for a few years now.  They are such a lovely deep red color.

Orange Princess:

Another new one is the Passionale.

For those that want to get bulbs, I buy mine from John Scheepers, which come from Holland.  I have never, ever been disappointed with the quality or price.

Seeing these just makes me want to dance around.  Maybe I was some kind of garden nymph or butterfly in the past or something :mrgreen:

There is one more set of tulips that haven’t opened yet.  I don’t know if they are more of the ones already open or something different.  Guess we will find out in a few day!

And we now have a pocket door in the half bath! Hooray for privacy 😀

Hope you enjoyed the tulip tour!

Tulip Festival

As promised, here are the tulips – and lots of them!  On Mother’s Day, John and I biked to bagels and met my parents there for breakfast.

Hi mom!

While breakfasting, I had mentioned about wanting to go to the Albany Tulip Festival, but not sure I wanted to drive and hour and spend the gas.  Turns out mom wanted to go as well, so a plan was formed!  We biked home and made ourselves presentable, then drove down to Albany.  I really had no idea how big a deal the Tulip Festival was.  We were going to try to park near the festival, but since there was free shuttle from the free parking garage, we chose to take that instead.  Best.decision.ever.

John and I all cleaned up riding the shuttle.

The shuttle dropped us off to a throng of crowds!

😯   Bigger festival than I was expecting!  There was a huge craft show, entertainment stages, lots of food on a stick:

I was there to see the tulips, though! Moses proclaims “Let there be tulips!”

They are pretty much in peak bloom.

I fell in love with these crown imperials (fritillaria).  They aren’t tulips, but they are bulbs.  I have only seen pictures of them and they are fairly expensive, so I never got any.  I think I will be purchasing some now that I have seen them up close and personal.

They kind of look like pineapples.

Grape hyacinths (muscari)

I love the color combos.

Some Morris dancers performing.

Accompanied by a concertina:

My poor mom and John.  I took soooo many tulip pictures :mrgreen: Although my mom did as well:

The colors just almost didn’t look real.

I took pictures of the names of the tulips so I could remember them. Orange Princess double late:

Chiquita bordeaux double late:

The coolest tulip EVER!

Obviously a mutation, but so cool.  It was hidden with all these yellow ones.

Fancy frills fringe tulips:

Red Georgette multiflora:

Posing:

Maybe next month’s challenge to myself might be working on posture??

As most of you know, I did a 7 day vegetarian challenge.  I was a little worried at first about finding something at the fest to eat without resorting to cheese fries or something like that to stay veggie.  Well, there were a ton of choices!  I ended up at the Turkish booth:

There were some feta cheese filled samosa-type things.  Then the sarma (the green things), which were vine leaves stuffed with rice, parsley, onions and spices (actually really good), and then sekerpore. Those are a sweet almond cake soaked in a simple syrup.  A good plate.  I shared the sekerpore with mom and John because the lady gave me a couple free ones. Maybe I looked hungry?

More flowers.  Monte Carlo double early.  I think the doubles are also called peony tulips.

Rajke Triumph:

Pink cloud mixed (love these).

Estella parrot:

Another crown imperial

And just some pretty color combos here:

I guess I had better stop!  I wasn’t kidding when I said I took a lot of pictures 😀

Flowers make me so happy :mrgreen:

What’s blooming and lovin’ the leftovers.

Woke up to a chilly, but beautiful sunny morning. It was almost 40, so I knew I would bike to the gym today!

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Cable Squat to row 3 sets of 10 at 60# Full body
Bent lateral raise 3 set of 10 with 15# DBs (30# total) Back
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Planks 3 sets of 70 second holds Core
Calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 110# Calves
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low Back
Cable Triceps pull down 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps
Arnold Press 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Hammer curls 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Biceps

Good workout today.  Still a little cold on the way home and I was ready for some coffee and steel cut oats that I soaked overnight.

I used 1/3 of a banana mashed into the cooking water, then I sliced the rest and sauteed in a little butter and cinnamon.  You must do this.  So very good!  Plus a drizzle of coconut butter on top.  I was a super happy camper eating this morning :mrgreen:

Just a wonderful gorgeous day today.  We even had to mow the lawn for the first time.

That’s pretty much all of our lawn right there.  Only a strip down the side of the house.  It takes 10 minutes to mow.

Lunch was some leftover souffle with a pear.

So good.  I told John I want souffles all the time now.

Pixie just doesn’t know what she is missing with not eating people food.

She looks like she cares, right?

Work slowed up, so I went out to take some pictures of this week’s tulips.  These are some kind of apricot ones.  I really need to write down the names of the ones I get LOL.

The pretty inside:

I have 2 groupings of this color:

There are a bunch more buds on the other tulips as well.  I thought I had planted some daffodils, but maybe the squirrels got them.

Then John and I took a ride for some frozen yogurt!

I didn’t even need to put on my hat today after taking off my helmet.  Lucky me.

It was fairly windy out today.  Guess that is what is pushing in the warmer air.  16 miles of biking today!

Tonight’s dinner was more leftovers.  I have to say that I am about ready for some meat!  John made a shrimp poboy for dinner and I really wanted one.  Instead, I cooked up a yukon gold potato and put some of the palak chole over it.

Pretty good.  Getting a good carb load for a longer ride tomorrow.  We need to build a better base before increasing mileage.  We jumped from 45 to 66 miles and that was a bit much.  Tomorrow will be in the 40 to 50 mile range.

Sunday is bagel day with my mom for Mother’s Day! See you on the flip side of the weekend!

Question: Are you a leftover lover?

Hello snacks

The end of the week.  Jeez it went by fast.  And the end of April, too!

The last day of the no lifting week.  My body needed the lifting break, but it sure sent me into a snack spiral this week.  Not quite sure what that was all about.

Fridays are designated oat days, so I soaked more steel cut oats in buttermilk and water last night.

Cooked with 1/2 a banana and eggs whites, as per usual.

I got rocking and rolling with work right off that bat today.  This week was some flexing of hours around, but today was pretty much straight through.  I do love job flexibility when I need it – and I also have to be willing to be flexible when the job requires it.

Lunch time was more like dinner time today:

Filling, too.  However, I proceeded to snack on granola (captured just before I finished for accountability):

Peanuts:

several bowls with some chocolate chips.  🙄

Sigh… One of those days.

So much rain this week. About half a mile away from our house, the river rose over it’s banks. Thank goodness we live on top of a hill.

It is receding now, though. On a good front, all this warm weather and rain made the garden pop up.

Next Friday there will be a ton of tulip blooms to show you!  I can’t wait 😀

I also saw some primrose that bloomed on the side of the house.  These are annuals, but they were tucked under all that snow for the whole winter, which actually protected them from freezing.

Cooked up some chicken for the weekend.  I decided on a small yukon gold baker with chicken and BBQ sauce on top.

I do like potatoes…

Done with work for the week – yahoo!  Going to go out and paint the town red tonight with possibly the library or maybe even the mall! :mrgreen:

Tomorrow is a long bike ride.  We are shooting for 60+ miles.  That means the monthly wrap up will be a day late.

I’ll be back on Sunday!

Blooms and bagels

What a nice day today!  It was cloudy, but not raining, so we biked on to Orange Cat cafe for breakfast.

I had a blueberry bagel with fluffy cream cheese.  I think they switched over to whipped or something.  Pretty generous with it as well…

It was really humid today, though.  I was dripping sweat during today’s ride.  For the last mile and a half of the ride, I really pushed it, keeping the speed at an average 16 mph for that time.  Phew!  I need to do more of that.  12 miles down today and full tummy.

Work was spotty for the first part of the day, so I got some work done on the renovation.  Just about done painting and the tile is just about grouted.  We might even install the toilet and sink this weekend!  We do still need to buy the door to the bathroom and the pantry, but we were waiting for a day with no rain as the doors will be sticking out of the car some.  Good luck with that, right?  April showers and all that.

Lunch time:

I also snagged a granola bar that John made for his Wednesday poker game:

This warm weather has caused some blooms!  My early tulips came up.

It’s amazing how one day nothing and the next – blooms!

Latte snack with almond milk:

Almond milk makes a lot of foam, but I don’t care for that so much because it is a dry foam.  I like silky milk foam better.

Plus, I had  a couple bowls of peanuts and chocolate chips.

Sigh.  It’s almost enough to make me give up the wheat for good, but not quite.

I thought long and hard about some canned salmon for dinner, as John bought a can a while ago and it has been sitting there in the pantry for a while.  I just couldn’t do it, though.  Instead – I had popcorn fish!

Tonight, I am going to swear off the snacking.  I just need to hydrate right now with this warm weather :mrgreen:

Pixie wore herself out today.  We had windows open and she was all ADHD going from window to window to check them out.  She needed a nap:

Now she is sleeping.

Question: Do you take naps?

Crispy Nuts

Seems to me I need to do a group challenge or something again, which seems to be the more popular suggestion 😀

I tried a different breakfast today.  I made up protein waffles, and used 2 triangles for a bun for an egg sandwich with laughing cow.

The strawberries have some whipped cream drizzled on them that really needs to be re-whipped.

Calories for breakfast with my coffee drink – 388.  34 grams of carbs, 19 grams of fat, 22 grams of protein.  Staying power? Fail!  I was hungry not even 2 hours later.  Really hungry. I think there was just not enough fat in this meal.  Or maybe not enough calories.  It was about 100 calories less than normal, but then I did not exercise before breakfast either.

So I had some of these:

For lunch I had what I told Roz was the Cadillac of yogurt – Fage!

I don’t buy it often because it is pricey, but there is no yogurt that really compares as far as texture and taste.  Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

I mixed in some pumpkin, flax, a teaspoon of maple syrup and a boatload of cinnamon.  Then crumbled some pecans on top.

I managed to eat my lunch standing at the counter talking to John about Disneyworld.  That wasn’t very mindful.

During the course of the day, I tried another recipe from Nourishing Traditions for Crispy Nuts. It requires soaking of the raw nuts overnight in lightly salted water (1 cup almonds 1 cup water, 1/2 tsp salt), which I actually finally remembered to do.

She recommends skinless almonds, but I wasn’t going to blanch and peel these.

Then drain.

Interesting that the almonds plumped up and were softer.

Spread out on a cooking pan:

Sally Fallon says to bake for 12 hours at 150 degrees.  I’m sorry, but no way am I going to leave my oven on for 12 hours.  What a waste of electricity!  It’s supposed to preserve the enzymes at the lower temperature.  Bye-bye enzymes.  I put them in the toaster oven at 250 degrees and it took for-ever.  Forever!  I was afraid I would burn them, so I just kept setting the timer for 20 minute increments.  I was thinking it was a pain at this point.  After about 1-1/2 hours, I let a couple cool and tested them:

See how they don’t really look any different than raw almonds? The verdict?  Yum!!  They are crispy, but not like roasted nuts.  Almost dehydrated, which is pretty much what they are.  After thinking that it was an annoying process, I find myself saying I would do them again this way because they are very good.  And I can’t stop eating them! :mrgreen:   I think if you have a food dehydrator, it could be much easier.

So that is 3 different kinds of nuts I have consumed today…

Latte break:

And I went out and worked in the garden as the system was down for work.  Unplanned break.  I got a delivery of plants today!

The red hot pokers (heehee) plus 2 of the 3 coneflowers.  I got the emerald and the milkshake, but the tiki torch is backordered until the fall. Booo!  So, I planted these since the rain stopped and the sun came out.

Since the afternoon was so nice, I grilled up some chicken.  I made a fun plate for dinner with sweet potato topped with leftover cheesy cauliflower (thanks Green Giant!) and the chicken.

Very interesting combo.

We went out for a quick 8 mile bike ride so I could burn off some of those nuts today.  One of those  check the radar and cross your fingers ride 😀  We made it fine.  My patched tire is not so good, though.  Going to have to replace the whole tube before this weekend’s long ride.

Work is functioning again, so I have to catch up tonight!

Question:  Have you ever tried Fage?