Here I have yellow dust. LOL the spruce tree next door looses a ton!!
I've just plain been busy with 3 boys and baseball!
I have had a chance to do a little gardening, but I HAVE a LONG way to go..

Glad you took time to check in here Kathleen. Hope the pollen stops before your luncheon. Are we going to get some pics of your tables? How many guests are you expecting? Hope it all goes well.

Terri, three boys would keep anyone busy! Just feeding them would keep you busy--at least that is how it was with mine. Always wanting to know what there was to eat. Just enjoy every minute while you can, soon they will be all grown up and you'll wish you had these days back again.

Luvs

Kathleen, that is part of what has kept me busy, my front yard looks so good right now. I have a lot of new plantings, plus the deck is all pretty with new potted plants that are doing so well with this warm weather.

We finally got one day of rain & it made a world of difference, so much better than watering from the hose.

My boat/pond in the front yard had two water-lillies blooming already, but I haven't even had time to take any pics of it.

I luv summer, hate winter & live in the midwest! ARGH!!!
Leaving on vacation this weekend so you gals all behave yourselves til I get back! Hope to see pics of your luncheon tables then, Kathleen!

Wait a minute! You have a boat--I thought that was "vacation". LOL Hope you have a nice time, will look forward to hearing from you when you get back. Luvs

Hi everyone,
Lunch was very nice, tiny little place, but interesting food. We got some nice flowers too.
Oh, I will def post pics of the luncheon. There will be 8 of us, and I have to have 2 plans. inside and out. If it humid I will have to do it inside Guest of honor does not like warm days!It rained again last night, so some of the pollen is gone. The test will be in the morning...if the car isn't green, it is safe to set up the porch!

Well yes, sometimes feeding my brood is some work. LOL
Although, my oldest (15) just grilled himself and friend burgers..I of course had to make the patties and season them..but he cooked, slathered with BBQ sauce and added cheese...He did pretty good..they were happy..I ate the smallest patty and it wasn't to bad. (My middle one (10) loves to grill hotdogs.) So they atleast can eat when they move out. LOL

I'm heading out to plant plants, I didn't get to yesterday evening..

Kathleen, have a wonderful tea!

Thanks, Teri, I hope it is a nice day! And I remember the time my son did me a favor and made the salad for dinner. He used cabbage, thought it was lettuce! LOL. We teased him a lot about that!!! I think he was 11 at the time. But he learned, and he does a nice job now. He had me teach him how to make chicken marsala as he and his wife like it, but she didn't want to learn!

Yachter, We love pics of anything! Hint, hint! My one waterlily has a lot of leaves, but no buds yet. I need to pull it out and divide it I think. I hope you have a wonderful vacation.

Terri, Do boys ever stop eating? Mine doesn't! I can't believe the amount of food and drink he can eat and not get fat! It's not fair!

Kathleen, I hope your pollen is gone in time for your luncheon. Those tablecloths you bought for your outside tables are beautiful. And what is chicken marsala please?

It is raining here today for the first time in weeks. We are over 9 inches below normal and officially in a drought. Of course, the pond liner was supposed to go in this weekend and we had to cancel that. Maybe next weekend.

No Sandi, they don't seem to..it's 9:55 pm..and my little one(7) keeps coming in and out of the kitchen..I think he's grabbing handfuls of potato chips...He's the rail in the family..
It's about time for teeth brushing and bed...They had a busy day and night and needed to wind down...

Sunday morning and I just wondered if anyone was here? Can't wait for pics from Kathleen. Sure hope that pollen stays away for the day.

DH and I went to some outlet stores yesterday. I stopped in the Mikassa one. One set of pretty floral dishes I loved, but at $59.95 for a place setting, I just sighed at them and moved on. Saw lots of pretty stemware, but mostly clear or some tropical ones. Lots of pretty crystal things. The bargain corner had a few Christmas things left--nothing I really loved. It was fun to look anyway.

Well, I hope to hear from more of you when I come back to check later. Looks like several of you are just so busy right now, no time to think about holidays and tablesettings.

Don't forget, you can even share pics of new pictures and accessories too. I'd even love to see how you decorate your porch, deck, or yard areas.

And we could even talk about whether and how we plan to decorate for the next holiday. Doesn't hurt to plan ahead! LOL

I'll catch you later. Luvs

I'm popping in for a quick howdy...

Got to get a batch of bread rolls in the machine...I just finished putting together a triple batch of my favorite rub. And then put together the dry ingredients for the "complimentary" BBQ sauce. I already precooked my rotini for Baked Mac N Cheese...

We will be dining on BBQ Spareribs and some yummy other stuff.

I've planted the last of my little annuals I picked up Friday this am...

OOOh I know what I can do in relation to this forum..
I was given this nifty large glass vase with some river rock in the bottom and two fake grasses coming out..I love the simplicity, but I think it needs a few stems of color..
I'll take a picture and see what ideas you all have...

Happy Sunday everyone! The pollen is still with us, and it is supposed to rain for the next 2 days. Maybe that will do it. I planted some more and wiped off some more pollen. A few more days and it should be gone.
I went to Michaels ysterday on my way back from a funeral for a friend's mom. It was a grand opening, so I got some river rocks for my fountain, 2 for a 1. A few pkgs of note cards to give as a lagniappe at the luncheon, and some 3/1 scissors that cut scalloped edges Good to give as little gifts to the bro or sis when you give a gift for the new baby. And a free tote bag!

Sandi, chicken marsala is chicken cutler dish made with marsala wine. Very good. This is what it looks like. Here it is served with mashed potatoes and carrot fritters.

I never heard of carrot fritters, they look interesting!!
In fact the entire dinner looks very yummy.

Sandi, when my two boys were young and living at home, I use to tell people they ate once a day---from noon to midnight. LOL. That was about the truth. Glad I don't have to feed them with the price of groceries nowadays.

Karen

Good morning,
Heavy rains here today, and tomorrow too.
Looking for the Monday goodies post, where is it???
I know Sandi has something, and Luvs too? Karen, have you been buying anything pink??
Where is everybody?? Seems like we haven't heard from Judith, Jaybird, Mary, Lee, Tam, and a few others who used to drop in once in a while. Hope everyone is ok!!
I will check back later to see the goodies post!!

I'm here!!!!!!! We stayed busy this weekend with a family wedding! DH and I married about 10 years ago, and I seem to have inherited all of the weddings in his LARGE family!! Music, flowers, reception tables, dress repairs...you name it I seem to be on that list!! It is fun, but I'm pooped and I didn't even get to ONE garage sale this weekend!!! My gift from the bride was pretty though.....a 10" round piece of stained glass with lillies.....pale pink on bright blue, with a silver rim and silver chain to hang it!!! I don't have anything pink or blue, but it looks lovely in the east bedroom window!!

Hi all, I have been busy with painting. I don't mind it once I get started but I just had to keep pushing myself! We are waiting to get ceramic tile installed in the kitchen and I wanted to paint before it was done. THEN I tryed to sort through all my cookbooks hoping to eliminate some of them but I just couldn't part with any of them!! SO many recipes to try and soooo little time!

It sounds like everyone has been busy planting flowers, etc. I'm way behind! :)

Kathleen, haven't bought any thing pink since the Bordallo rabbit cups 'n saucers over a week ago. I spent weekend pretty much laid up with my back, so no shopping or anything fun. Family dinner tonight at my DD, twelve of us not counting the 4 littlest ones. It was a goodbye for my 21 yr old GS who's been home on leave from Iraq. Nice evening but HATE saying goodbye to him again and just more worry for a rest of summer.
I hope I can get out this week, my DD told me a new Thrift Store opened not too awfully far from me and supposed to be really good one. Plus another store near it called Rust & Roses, with outdoor things. Both sound interesting to me.

Karen

Ahh! Mary, I've tried going through cookbooks so I could get rid of some of them too. I managed to pass a few on, but still could eliminate more. I have lots of those little pamphlet ones and lots of clipped out recipes too. Seldom ever pull them out to use anymore--but during the winter months, I will sometimes browse through them. Not sure why they are so hard to part with! LOL

Jaybird, your stained glass piece sounds lovely. I'm sure it looks great with the light on it. Nice you are able to help with all the family weddings. I'm sure they really appreciate that.

Karen, so sorry your GS has to go back. I know that will be a worry for you. So great that so many of you were able to be together for his going away dinner. Now I can't wait for you to feel better so you can go check out both the TS and the other new store. What a fun name--Rust & Roses.

Luvs

Purplemoon, sending best wishes to your grandson and the best of luck to him. And...about those pink dishes...everyone I show them too really love them. My neighbor told me I should only use them for display as they were so cute. But, I will use them, no sense in just looking at them!

luvstocraft, I have maybe 40 cookbooks, and each one is good so it is very hard to get rid of any! I had to laugh one time when a lady told me she only had one cookbook! How could anyone just have ONE? lol! I have an old Farm Journal cookbook that was given to me and every so often I find what I'm looking for in that one.

A friend of mine from NY is at her Mom's this week and I was asking her about the Wegman's grocery store. She has two fairly close to where she lives she said, (just hadn't been shopping there in quite some time) and after telling her about the dishes that you gals were talking about, she was all excited and is going to check on them when she gets home. Dishes are very contagious!!!!

Now Mary, you are an enabler, sending that lady to Wegman's for dishes!! I wonder if they have them all the time or just for promotions? Tam would know..
I love cookbooks too. I made a big mistake when we were selling my mom's house. I gave away her Fanny Farmer cookbook from the 1930's. I have tried to stop buying them, with the internet you can get almost anything. But I haven't been able to part with the ones I have! I mark mine up..change and add comments so the next time I remember if we liked it or not. Only valuable to me!

kathleen, Well, have another opportunity to maybe get some of those dishes at Wegman's! Some friends stopped in tonight and they are going to Rochester, NY on Thursday for a week and will check on the dishes for me. She has been in the Wegman's store several times but has never looked for dishes. They will be driving so she said it won't be any problem to bring back dishes. Hope they carry them all the time!

That is too bad about your Mom's cookbook. I wish I had my mother's cookbook that was her main one and the recipes seemed to always be good. She said (in the 30's or 40's) that a salesman came around door to door and all the women in the neighborhood bought one. Of course those women are all gone now as well as my Mom. (passed away last July 4th) She was 96.

Mary, my mom would be 94, she died when she was 83, on my birthday. I do have a lot of her things though, and I have her Rice Pudding Recipe in her own writing. I want to do something for each of her grandchildren, like an apron with Nana's Rice Pudding and the recipe on it.

What a nice idea with the apron. While looking through my recipes I found some my mother had sent me written on recipe cards and put them in my recipe box. A couple of them I may not even make but it's nice to see her handwriting as I'm flipping through them looking for a certain recipe. Her writing was so nice and neat, must have been the teacher side of her!

kathleen, your dinner looks delicious! You can certainly come and be my cook! For some reason I always enjoy other peoples food better LOL

I've been so busy outside I haven't had much time to do anything else. I'm way behind on everything this year. The little bit of rain we got last Saturday really helped alot, but yesterday it was back to watering and watering again. I did buy some new dishes at the flea market last weekend and will post pics soon. I miss getting to come to the board as much as I would like & hope I don't miss anyone's posts.

Kathleen, That dinner looks delicious. And of course we want the recipe for the chicken marsalis please. And I've never heard of carrot fritters either. You have to share them with us also please.

Jaybird, When you're known for doing something well you're always the first one asked to do it! ;~) I love stained glass. And I bet your piece is just beautiful.

Mary, I love your pink dishes and can't wait to see them on your table. They are some of the prettiest I've seen. I love to paint! Hopefully we'll be painting our utility room soon. DH has to build some cabinets for me first. Books of any kind are something I can never give up. I love reading. I don't buy cookbooks any more as it's so easy to find recipes online. I have a cookbook from the early 1900s that is a very small hardback. It has a lot of recipes for cooking
sweetbreads & "Rocky Mountain Oysters". It's very interesting reading, but nothing I would ever cook. And shame on you for dragging your NY friend into our dish obsession! LOL I do hope that your friend brings you back some dishes from Wegman's. How nice of her to offer.

Karen, I'm so sad for your family that your GS has to go back to Iraq and hope all of our troops come home safely. How wonderful that your family had a family dinner for your GS. I know you all enjoyed it so much. I hope you're feeling better now and get to hit those new stores.

Mary...
Wegmans usually has special 'seasonal' type of dish displays all year long in addition to the regular line of dishes they carry...right now the Wegmans in my area has the pink and light green floral dishes already on the sales rack...if it wasn't for space limitation I'd be very tempted but until I get rid of some other 'stuff' there is no way I can buy anymore dishes at this point...lol
I hope you'll get the dishes you want...:)

Funny that this conversation shoule turn to old cookbooks. Just yesterday while dusting the guest room, I went through one of the small drawers in an antique dresser my grandfather had left me. I had put some old family pictures, baby books and shoes, etc. in there. I also have some old cookbooks I saved from DH's grandmother's house. One is an old Watkins cookbook, one is Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes, and one is the Home Comforts Cookbook. I also have my Aunt's old Whitehouse cookbook. They are so fun to read through because they have lots of helpful tips and advise too. Boy, have we come along ways ladies!

Sandi, good to hear from you again. Are the hands back to normal? Glad you had some rain.

Hi Tam, glad you were able to stop by. How's the patio coming along?

Mary, did you already check the Wegman's website for their flyer? Sure hope they have just the ones you want since your friends will be able to pick them up for you. If your friend likes dishes too, you should have her come join us here.

Kathleen, do you find most of the recipes you show us online or are they family favorites. I really would love to know how to make the carrot fritters too.

Luvs

Hi luvs...:)
the patio is done!!!!
All the furniture, chimenea and firepit are set up I only have to seal the pool deck with Rhinogrip in the sealer to make it less slippery when it is wet.
I re-seeded the area around the addition and the grass is finally coming in...I also moved 5 cubic yards of topsoil last weekend to create new perrenial beds around the addition...and I planted a wheeping cherry, a crimson queen japanese maple, hostas, ferns a couple of hydrangeas and some anuals in that new bed...
next is power washing the front and side of the house...I finished the back....after that is the fence...I need to powerwash it and then seal it...which I am not looking forward to ...I have 248' of 6' heigh board on board cedar fencing that needs to be sealed on both sides...it'll take me forever to get it done...:(
I don't know it just seems the minute the long awaited nice weather hits the projects are none stop...I just want to relax in my backyard sipping on some lemonade...lol

Tam, You have done so much outside already and I bet it is beautiful. That fence is going to be a job, but it will look so nice once it's done.

Tamgypsy, yes, I did check for the dishes online but didn't see them. I didn't check the flyer though, just the main page that showed some dishes. My friend said they will try and check out several of the Wegman's stores in hopes that one of them still has some of those cabbage leaf ones. IF I lived near you, I would be happy to help you with your fence! I like to paint ouside more than inside and I esp. hate to do ceilings, but DH makes too much of a mess so I would rather just do it myself! Hmmm, I wonder if he does that on purpose!? lol!

Mary, I hope you get your dishes.
Tam, you are amazing!! That is a lot of work, and I do hope you get to sit and sip and enjoy. It is so good to hear from you!!
Luvs, most of the stuff I cook I have been making for years. The carrot fritters I got from the cooking forum on THS. I had a lot of shredded carrots to use up. I usually wing things, so sometimes I don't have a written recipe. Those cookbook you found sound very interesting! I have never heard of those names. Must be fun to read them.
What year were they published??
Jaybird, do you host all the weddings at your estate?? How about the cooking? Do you have to do that too? Sounds like a lot of work!! My sis lives in Arlington. How far is that from you??
Judith, I love to cook for people who appreciate the tablesetting and the food.
Karen, I hope you are feeling better, and Sandi too. We can't have out little group falling apart!!

Tam, did you ever read "Tom Sawyer"? Get some friends or neighbors to help with that fence. You could even promise them a cookout or something. Everything sounds so nice, know you will enjoy it for years to come.

Kathleen, the Whitehouse cookbook was originally copyrighted in 1887, the one I have is a 1915 version. It contains pictures and recipes of the first ladies up to that time as well as etiquette advice and home remedys. The Watkins book is from 1925. Watkins was a door to door company that sold extracts like vanilla as well as lots of household gadgets. The Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes is from 1931, and the Home Comfort one that came with a wood/coal kitchen stove. The company was established in 1864, but I have no idea what year this book was published. The letters from satisfied customers in the back called it the latest and greatest in modern convenience--so you know it is pretty old! LOL My Aunt also had an old copy of The Joy of Cooking which she still used until she could no longer cook. One of her close friends wanted that one.

I love my Quick Cooking books and magazines. Love seeing the colored pictures of the dishes. I think it is now called Simple and Delicious, but I no longer subscribe. Have more recipes now than I can ever use! LOL

Luvs

Luvs, that sounds like very interesting reading to me. I like reading the etiquette of the times too. They would cringe at today's lack of manners,I think.

Hi there.....
Tam, could you rent a sprayer and spray that fence????? That is what we did with our 6' fence...maybe we are just getting lazy in our old age :^)
Kathleen...we have hosted several of the weddings, but this one was too large and so we just sat back and enjoyed!!! The groom was the family member, so we were invited to the rehersal dinner as well as the reception....yummy, and in a beautiful arboretum!!!! We are about 100 miles south of your sister...are you coming down????? I like to go to Arlington....GREAT shopping!!!
RE: cookbooks.....I had my Mom's(handwritten by my Grandmother) and it was in danger of disintegrating. I went to a scrapbook store and bought a 3 ring binder that has picture slots in the front cover. I bought some acid free plastic type sleeves, and put the individual pages in the sleeves, and rounded up pictures of Mom in the kitchen (easy to find becuase she was always around the kitchen or the dining table) and put them in the slots in the cover! It turned out cute and I can still use the recipes on a regular basis!!!