Tomato Tarts/Lemonade Pie

We subscribe to a great magazine called "Cuisine At Home". It is full of great hints, tips, suggestions, and best of all a lot of really great recipes that are delicious and easy to make. When I saw the Tomato Tarts in the August 2010 issue I knew I had to make them.

I'm not going to give the recipe here because I think you should subscribe to the magazine and mostly because I don't feel like it right now. (Sorry, but I'm tired from all this cleaning and painting, etc.) Basically it simply involves puff pastry, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, herbed goat cheese (I used Rondele because I don't care a lot for goat cheese).

From the same issue I also made the Lemonade Pie.
This pie is an easy ice cream pie with a Nilla Wafer crust and a berry swirl on top.
Absolutely perfect for a hot summer day!

These were just two of the many easy and yummy recipes from one issue. If you're into cooking at all I really recommend this magazine. Maybe I'll share the recipes another time, but not right now...

Busy Day

Today was a busy, busy day for me.

When I woke up the first one hour I spent on the computer and then reading the paper.

Then I went out to feed the animals. Their water was really low so I started filling their troughs. I knew that would take some time so I started mowing the far back yard. While I mowed I had to stop twice to change the water to other troughs.

When I was done with that I picked up the dog potties, which wasn't too bad because there weren't a lot.

After that it was time to give Gus his bath because this was our day to visit the old folks' home.

Then I got on the treadmill for one hour.

When that hour was up it was 12:00 and time for lunch so I cooled off and had a light lunch for about thirty minutes.

Then it was time to start working on the wet bar area. It had a mirror with gold flecking (very 70's!) on the back wall and the those walls had never been painted. I had carefully removed the mirrors yesterday and found they had been glued with some sort of black tarry substance. The sander didn't work on those blobs so I ended up chiseling them off. In spots where the blobs stuck to the mirror they ended up ripping some of the wallboard off. I had some light spackle and attempted to fill the holes with that. After sanding I did two coats of primer. This morning the wall didn't look very good and I decided I was going to fix it like I originally thought I should have, which means giving the whole thing a coat of joint compound. But by the time I was ready to start I knew it was too late to go to the home improvement store so I spent the next two hours painting the trim, corners, and edges.

At 2:30 I stopped painting and cleaned everything up.

Then it was time to clean myself up. I took a nice bath and started getting ready for Gus and my visit. I left the house at 3:35, went on the visit, and got back home right around 5 pm.

Then it was off to the home improvement store to get the joint compound. And of course while I'm there I can't just get one thing so I browsed a bit and got a few more things. I got home around six and started right in on spreading the joint compound over the back wall. I finished up about 45 minutes later when my sister called.

I had forgotten that after my visit I was supposed to go to her house to taste some cheese we had made a few weeks ago. I went over to her house for the cheese and stayed and talked for a while. I left at eight, came home and fed the animals, then fed myself and here I sit typing.

Whew! I'm done for the day!

Tomorrow I'll sand the wall, prime it again, and then paint. Hopefully that won't take too long and I might even be able to hang the new "modern" mirror by evening.

And just changing the subject a little bit...

Here's a picture of our model baby sporting the latest in trendy diaper fashions.

Pretty cool, huh!

New Baby!

My niece had a baby this afternoon! She had a boy, if I heard the message correctly he was 10 pounds, 11 ounces, 20 1/2" long. That's one big boy! It was by c-section which is no wonder. Congratulations, Kari, and look what you have to look forward to!!! (And you too, Grandma Patti.)

That's a load in them thar pants.

A Big Mess

I've been feeling really anxious about getting the house cleaned up before July. That is my self imposed deadline to get everything done so we can put the house on the market. I've been going slowly but with June half way gone and July almost here I realize I can't dilly dally any longer.

This week I started painting the living room and dining area.

Of course in order to get to the walls the furniture has to be moved towards the middle of the room. This makes the house a mess and difficult to move around in. And it makes me crazy! I dislike disorder!

I find it absolutely amazing how dirty everything is when you really start looking at things you tend to ignore in your everyday life. Yuck.

I talked to a realtor who is going to come over on Monday so we can talk about our plan. And maybe she can give me some pointers as how to best present the house. I'm open to just about anything; it's my husband who doesn't quite understand the concept that people in general don't want to see how WE are living in this house--they want to envision THEIR stuff in this house.

I've also been thinking about selling Ladysmith and her calf, and possibly keeping Waneata, to make the eventual move a little easier. (I'm really trying to be positive!) Ladysmith is getting older after all and if we had the property I wanted now #1: we probably wouldn't be moving and #2: I would be able to just retire her to a field. I feel kind of bad about thinking of selling her but I'm trying to be practical.

Tomorrow the dishwasher repairman is coming in another attempt to fix it. He came out last week but the part he brought did nothing. I hope this time it works. The kitchen is a constant mess because of dishes drying on the counters, dirty dishes in the sink, and the painting brushes and rollers and other paraphernalia either in the sink or on the counters. It's all adding to my stress!

Yesterday I had my second adjustment for the lapband, something I should have done at least a month ago! I've been stuck at 180 for about six weeks. I need to be a loser again!

So that's it for this week's goings on.