May 1st- organizing a cabinet and things from our walk

Hello everyone 

After church,  I asked a grandson to help me with a corner cabinet in our kitchen.  

It has a narrow door but it’s open all the way back to the corner.  

It will hold lots of stuff but it’s very easy to lose and forget about stuff too.  

I went through all the stuff he pulled out and then made a list to put on that door to help me remember what’s in there 

The cabinets are not full and that’s fine with me.  

I’m guessing some of y’all would like a JJ to help you with some hard to reach places too 😊

Later in the afternoon, I went for a walk and the two grandsons rode their bikes.

This business that is closed on weekends has a great parking lot for bike riding. The boys look a lot farther off in this picture than they really are.

 But it is a good size area that they can make loops on and you have to go up and down the entranceway.

They both burned off lots of silliness during our exercise outing. 

This is in the yard in a house several blocks from our house. I think the plant is called clematis and it blooms every spring. 

The first year it bloomed, I thought it was  silk flowers as I had never seen a real lavender flower  blooming like this.

In case you’re wondering, the side of this house faces the west. 

   

We stopped at the little free library in our neighborhood. We know the teacher that runs it and it is OK to take whichever books we want.
I’ve been reading the Benjamin Franklin book to two of the boys. I read the Paul Revere book and have started the book about John Hancock.

 They may be intended for children but they have lots of good history in them.

In our yard, several rhododendron bushes are in full bloom, above.

Below is a peony bush that will be blooming any day.

Terri

We had a heavy rain a few nights ago and it washed away almost all of the flowers on the bleeding heart plant.

 So it may have lasted more than a week, but not much more.

 They are very pretty plants though.

Happy May Day to everyone 

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA - winding up

Sorry I missed several days of BEDA but my week went off track - 

Wednesday the youngest grandson chipped a tooth at school and was in quite a bit of pain and I just focused on his needs.  

Thursday my husband had an outpatient procedure done on his back and it was stressful but so far,  it’s seeming like it might be a success- it takes time to know for sure but we are thankful it went as well as  it did.  

So Friday,  I tired to catch up doing all the things I didn’t do Wednesday and Thursday.  I got a lot done but I also wore myself out.  

I’m pretty sure y’all can all relate……

So on to today

I’ve been looking for a good blueberry muffin recipe. I’ve tried several but they weren’t as good as I hoped.  Y

I baked this version from an older Betty Crocker cookbook this morning.  They were great! 

2 of them are streusel-less as one grandson said he didn’t like streusel 🤷🏻‍♀️

I made the recipe exactly as written except I used wild frozen blueberries and added more cinnamon to the streusel.  

We needed a few groceries so I went to Walmart this morning.

 I didn’t look at all the prices but I was shocked to see the cheapest eggs were $3.08 for 1 dozen and small watermelon were $8.47!

Thankfully we have 2 sources of home raised eggs.  

But I’m guessing all of you are seeing these shocking grocery price increases.  

We had a really nice treat  today that was free. 

My daughter entered a contest sponsored by a new local company that specializes in charcuterie type snacks and 6

She won a dozen snack cups.  

The cups were identical and I’ll try to list everything in 1 cup

Chocolate covered cashews and in shell pistachios on the bottom

A giant strawberry and 2 blueberries on a skewer

Giant grapes on another skewer

Mini Stroop waffle cookie

A flat pretzel cracker dipped in chocolate 

A salami rose

Long piece of cheese- maybe a mild cheddar?

A long pretzel and a twizzler

All 7 of us thought these were a very fun treat.  

This is not something I will buy but we live in a college town and I expect this business will do very well here.  

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #26 Walmart, supper and a few replies

Hello everyone 

I needed to take a return of something bought online to Walmart.  

I also wanted to get some chapstick and fresh fruit 

Here’s what I bought at Walmart for $42 

Fruit 

Chapstick and water flavor drops 

Egg dye for next Easter. I’ve already put it in the box of Easter decorations that I store away from year to year. Walmart had Easter things 90% off. It was mostly egg dying kit and most of them were pretty crazy looking but I like the way these looked kind of natural.

I also think the eggs dye better when the cups  have two tablets in them instead of just one. And that’s why I bought so many.

Three tops and a pair of black pants, all for me. They were on clearance at pretty good prices.


The reason I felt bad yesterday was because I haven’t been sleeping well. And that’s because my husband was away in Arkansas helping his parents. When my husband was an active duty Marine, I think he was gone as much as he was home. And I don’t remember having trouble sleeping back then. But now when he’s gone, I’m not scared. I just don’t sleep well.

He came back home today and I decided to fix a really good supper. We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, baked carrots and a little bit of asparagus from our garden.

Lejmom Jane asked about picky  eaters. The three grandchildren living with us do prefer to eat like average children. They would like to have hamburgers, pizza, and tacos most every meal. But the older they get the less picky they are. 

Two of these grandchildren don’t like very much spice. One of the adults doesn’t like black beans, one doesn’t like carrots, one is allergic to avocado, one doesn’t like raw onion. 

Most of the picky issues are pretty easy to deal with. If you notice in the photo above, part of the meatloaf does not have sauce and that’s an easy adjustment I’m happy to make.  

 Cheryl  Some of those Youtubers are such fear mongers. 

There may be big problems in the future but I don’t know how some of these Youtubers can be so sure about everything. I think they must make a lot more money when they have viewers keep turning in for more of their predictions, which all that is is predictions. I don’t think when Covid started, anybody could have predicted that two years later the world would still be dealing with it in a big way. Yes, there may be very big problems in the future. But there may not be. I do think it is very wise to keep someone of a stock pile at home. But if things get as bad as one channel I watched predicts, I think people would come and steal whatever food you had stockpiled anyway. So I’m not watching any channels about doomsday stuff. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t know what the future is but I do know God is in control. I’m not going to be an ostrich with my head in the sand but I’m not going to live in fear either.

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #25 to do list but very little productivity today

I’m not feeling 100% today. I did write out the list and I did get a few things done but not much.

My biggest accomplishment was washing and putting the clean sheets and blankets back on the 3 grandkids beds. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel like doing my normal tasks.

I watched several episodes of my new favorite YouTuber, In The Kitchen With Momma Mel.  Everyone in our household enjoys watching Momma Mel cook.  She was one of the few YouTubers I have found who doesn’t seem to be trying to sell me something or scare me about something or influence me politically about something. She just films as she cook supper most every evening. Her meals are not fancy but they are food that we would enjoy. She is also very G rated.

This is the link to her latest video 

https://youtu.be/2mt6jOuybLg

Talk to y’all Tuesday 

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #24. a little food prep for the coming week

Hello everyone,  no weather excitement today 🙂

We did a bit of planning for meals for the next few days.  

For supper, I made big pan of fried rice.  My fried rice has very little oil and lots of vegetables.

Son in law John made teriyaki chicken thighs

I also made a fruit tray.

We have leftovers from last night’s meal (ribs, Mac and cheese, salad, rolls and link sausage)and lots of leftovers from tonight’s meal.

The employed adults made work lunches and we will still have enough leftovers for supper the next 2 nights.  

I like cooking but I’m looking forward to a couple of days off 

We didn’t forget about breakfast.  

I made a double batch of this recipe- except I didn’t double the sausage.  

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241105/sausage-hash-brown-breakfast-casserole/

I’m obviously not a skilled food photographer but this casserole looks better in person and tastes really good too.  

Hope you all have had a nice weekend 

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #23 supper and after supper sheltering 😳😵😱

Hello 

Supper was ribs cooked by son in law John, mac and cheese made by daughter Nina, rolls made by me and a salad. 

Then we had some exciting weather and went to our storm shelter.  

So far no big tornados have touched down and we have got some very needed rain. 

We will stay aware but don’t worry about us.  Our shelter is very safe and Oklahoma has the best meteorologists in the world.  

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #22 supper and replies

For supper, we had a new to us recipe

Pepperoni Rolls - the state food  of West Virginia 

They were delicious!

I used Heidi’s recipe from her YouTube channel 

We also had a big salad. 

https://youtu.be/BmhCxkISFUQ

Pleasant temperatures and breezes meant we had our windows most of today

I wish everyday was like today 

Terri  this is the recipe I used for inspiration for the dipping sauce.  I didn’t cook the ham like this at all 

but for a sauce 

 I did heat up

1/2 C honey

1/4 C balsamic Vinegar 

1/4 Cup Dijon mustard 

Good pinch of red pepper flakes 

That’s all I used and it was delicious on sliced ham and grilled chicken 

Also Terri,  I’m not positive how long it blooms,  I’ll keep track of the bleeding heart but it doesn’t last long.  It is gorgeous while it’s blooms

Tammy- Jackson wears Zenni glasses too and his eye doctor approves

About the Easter buttercream eggs- I don’t have a recipe and but I think this recipe is very close to the eggs we were gifted.  

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/easter-egg-buttercream-candies/

Ours were definitely dipped in semisweet chocolate and were also decorated so pretty.  

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #21

Breakfast was a Dutch Baby - recipe is HERE

It’s one of my favorite breakfasts- very simple ingredients but it does require 25 minutes to bake 

My big job today was weeding 2 flower beds.  One was no big deal but this one in the front took several hours 

before 

And after 

It had lots weeds! It hasn’t got much care in a year and I knew it would take some effort but I’m so glad it’s looking better. 

I plan to sow a bunch of zinnia seeds to fill in all the empty spots.  

This bleeding heart looks so pretty for about a week while it’s blooming 

Terri- I’ll post a picture tomorrow of the sauce recipe.  It called for whole grain mustard but I didn’t put it in, only because we didn’t have any 

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #19 & 20 a Remarkable, a tasty sauce and I was just tired

Hello 

Sorry about missing BEDA yesterday.  

After a very fun family Easter,  I could really relate to the post by Kim 

http://outmywindowtoday.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2022-04-19T13:37:00-07:00&max-results=1&start=1&by-date=false

Some days I do go back to bed or just sit.  

Even though I wanted to on Monday and Tuesday, didn’t go back to bed and I did push through getting our home cleaned back up.  Because it was a mess! 

 I’m glad I did but I didn’t really feel like it.  

I’m sure most all my readers can relate, right?  

My son in law came home with a new device yesterday, a Remarkable.  

It looks like a very thin iPad.  It does use the internet but it’s doesn’t go to websites or play games.

It’s for taking notes as you can write on it like you do on paper. Then if you want,  it can convert your handwriting into text.

 It is also a way to keep copies of documents. And it probably does other stuff but that’s just what I learned yesterday.

John is employed by our university and does lots of paper stuff so I’m sure he will use this device a lot. I’m guessing it could be very useful for anyone that writes a lot. I looked them up on Amazon and they are very expensive but he says he got his with some sort of a benefit thing at work or something like that, I didn’t really pay attention much.  In fact he was shocked when I showed him how much they cost on Amazon. They cost as much as an iPad. I certainly don’t need one but I can see where they could be very beneficial for some people, you could keep many things on a Remarkable without having stacks and stacks of papers and notebooks.

For Easter we had a ham. I made a simple dipping sauce out of a half a cup of honey, a quarter cup balsamic vinegar and a quarter cup Dijon mustard, and a few red pepper flakes.  The recipe also called for whole-grain mustard but we didn’t have any.

The sauce was really good!

We did not have mountains of leftover ham like  

Jane at Hope and Thrift

So when my husband grilled chicken this week, He used the last of the dipping sauce to glaze the chicken at the end of cooking. That sauce was really good on chicken just like it was on ham. 

 Today has been an easy day. 

Husband and I will just have leftovers for supper and daughter’s family is eating at church.  

❤️ Rhonda