Thoughts from Alison that might at least entertain you!

Green Wall decor - Complete!

I'm quite pleased with what I consider to be a finished "new" wall! We had the photo in the center (from Wayne National Forest in SE Ohio, something I've had since my days working at The Nature Company) reframed in a beautiful wood frame so I could pair it with my Mother-in-law's fantastic botanical wood carvings. Hooray!! Now I have to move on to the rest of the living/dining room for window coverings and such to go with these changes...

Green Wall!

Artwork and plants still to hung/placed, but I'm liking this quite a lot! Next up? Window coverings and living room coordination for the new color.

Sprucing Things Up A Bit, Part 1

I'm on a mission to make our home (the main floor living area, at least) just a little more lovely. Prune Ridge is an extremely lovely place, for the most part - and I really can't complain, but I want lovelier!  

We have a collection of mostly inherited pieces of furniture with the exception of our shelving, the piano, and our love seat (which is broken - perhaps not the best purchase!).  This means that while our furniture is nice and meets our needs and we really love a few pieces, there is a pretty incohesive theme, which doesn't really lend itself to lovely.  We invested in new window coverings for the door-wall in the living room, but in the end?  I hate them!  And on the good-sized window in the dining room, we have incredibly dated (but still functional) vertical blinds.  Yuck!  So, here we go.  

For starters: The Dining Area.  We have donated our very nice buffet in hopes that it will find a new home.  The piece was sturdy and attractive, and belonged to my grandmother.  We, however, didn't need it!  The storage space only served to hold things we nearly never used.  Things we did use were easily accommodated in our kitchen cabinets and one remaining cabinet (seen in the pictures) that matches the wood of our dining set nicely.  So, the buffet is gone from the first picture with it's vacant space visible to the right, before I adjusted the furniture.  Second picture at the end is the newly shifted furniture and bright space.  We can access all four sides of the table now!  You may be able to spot the vertical blinds in the second picture as well.  Those will eventually go away.  The next step?  Painting the wall!  We have a great color for the wall in the center of the pictures, which is painted paneling.  I'll share new pictures after successful painting.  

Following painting, we plan to replace the rickety old sliding door wall in the living room in the near future. New window treatments - matching for both the door wall and the dining area window will follow, and then whatever else I can pull together to make the place pretty!  Wish me luck...

In keeping with the Subaru theme...

John and I just ordered and made a downpayment on our newest car.  In about 8-10 weeks we'll be bringing home one of these to replace Charlotte Pearl (my red Forester).  I got to see this color/model in person in Toledo last week, and decided this is definitely the one for me!  The picture doesn't quite do the color justice in my opinion, but it's pretty good.  I have never had a brand new car in my life, and I must say I'm pretty stinkin' excited!

Words from Christopher Kimball

Many people in my life will know that I absolutely adore Cook's Illustrated - a fantastic cooking magazine founded and edited by Christopher Kimball.  One of my favorite features in every issue is Kimball's editorial, often tales of his life past and present in small-town Vermont.  I recently re-read his words in the following paragraphs from the July/August 2011 issue column, and I found myself thinking about his set of thoughts today while I was laboring joyfully over homemade chicken and dumplings (a favorite recipe from Cook's Illustrated) for tonight's dinner at Prune Ridge:

"Unhappiness steps through the front door when we find our lives removed from the world, from the shock and pleasure of our five senses.  That's why we cook, to remind ourselves that we are alive, that we are connected to the food chain (the less fortunate become part of it) and to the ebb and flow of nature.

Breathing filtered, conditioned air, eating processed foods, and experiencing adventure while sitting in an armchair is certainly not what Homo sapiens was designed for.  I have no idea what life is really about or whether it holds meaning, but happiness is not to be found in a box of cereal, even if it does contain a prize.  Living with zero degrees of separation entails risk - yes, that glass of raw milk might contain pathogens - but nothing worth doing is entirely risk-free.

So we can either turn to our kitchens as a lifestyle, or we can do it to remind ourselves that we are alive, because we want to run our fingers across a silky side of salmon or grab hold of a bloody point-cut of brisket.  Damn it, don't talk to me about calories, saturated fat, or healthy choices.  I just want to experience life as fully as I can before memories of life outside my window fade forever.  And that's something that even our kids will understand."

Blessed Be, Friends.

This post contains minimal content of any actual value

So it seems I haven't been here in a while, eh?  'Tis the season, I'm afraid.  These are a few of the things I know: 

• It finally snowed like actual winter, and it's probably all going to melt tomorrow. 
  
• The Verve Pipe (a rock band, formerly not a kids' band) does a really great kids' show, and I'm glad I got to work it this morning. 
  
• I haven't taken down the Christmas tree at Prune Ridge yet, and I don't want to.
  
• Olive feels sorely left out when John and I take a nap together and Maggie B gets to be on the bed with us. 
  
• Olive is also endlessly entertaining when she is sleeping on her own bed and dreaming. 
  
• I really want, but don't really "need" (kind of but need, but not desperately so) a new car.  A Subaru Impreza hatchback, I think.  *see above*
• Having MS can feel pretty lonely sometimes. 
  
• Hawaiian pizza from Domino's is really, really, really good.
  
• The Ann Arbor Folk Festival is a heck of a lot of work, but it's going to be fantastic, and it's actually good and kind of fun to have a period of time every year when everything about/at work changes.  This is truly going to be an outstanding Festival year. 
  
• Exercising sounds and feels like a really good idea, and I'm going to keep doing this - but it does wear me out, and I don't know how to tell yet what is "overdoing it" in relation to MS. 
  
• Mumford & Sons is probably my new favorite band
  
• I miss blogging and want to get back to offering more yammerings here, so I shall try. 
  
• Last, but not least, I like my short hair the best when it looks like this - but it doesn't look like this right now:

Music is Good

The Reeds of Prune Ridge have a freshly tuned piano!  This was John's request for Christmas gifting this year. 

Olive was especially pleased with the piano tuner's visit (our tuner Ernie also tunes the piano at The Ark - and she knows him from tuning visits at the club).  Olive was not, however, particularly helpful and perhaps a bit disappointed that Ernie wouldn't play with her.  She did seem to enjoy growling along now and then in an attempt to get Ernie's attention.

I'm hoping for a little tinkling of the ivories tonight after John is home!

Cooking the New Year in at Prune Ridge

Happy New Year, All!  I spent this January 1st cooking for the most part, and it's been a great day.  The wind is ferocious and blustery - which made today seem even more like the most perfect day for barricading ourselves inside while baking and cooking. 

I brought out a well-established and oft-tested favorite dish for dinner tonight: chicken and dumplings!  This dish is truly one of my most favorite things to make.  One of my most favorite ever!  It's a rather laborious set of tasks, but ultimately more worth the time than just about anything else I could put 3 hours into.  There was a time when I tried to make smaller batches since there are only two of us for dinner, but I've given that up.  We like this dish so much, it's one thing that never goes to waste as a leftover. 

I also made up a batch of key lime bars today.  This is a recipe I use from Cook's Illustrated.  This one also takes a bit of work, but again - totally worth the time!  This is kind of a hybrid of the standard citrus bar (think lemon bars), and a key lime pie.  It's a pretty simple recipe, but juicing key limes is no small feat.  It takes a lot of hand muscle strength, and for a single batch (8x8" pan), you have to juice about 20 limes plus zesting about 12 or 14 of those. 

I have thankfully discovered the single best tool for juicing key limes.  This cheery looking manual juicer does the job perfectly and pretty efficiently. 

I hope the start of this new year finds everyone happy and well.  I'm looking forward to the year ahead, and to more cooking in these colder winter months!

For So the Children Come

For so the children come, and so they have been coming.

Always in the same way they come, born of the seed of man and woman.

No angels herald their beginnings.  No prophets predict their future courses.

No wisemen see a star to show where to find the babe that will save humankind.

Yet each night a child is born is a holy night, fathers and mothers - sitting beside their children's cribs feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.

They ask, "Where and how will this new life end?  Or will is ever end?"

Each night a child is born is a holy night - A time for singing, A time for wondering, A time for worshipping.

~Sophia Lyon Fahs

The Girls are ready for Christmas

I am the Pink Falcon!

Custom made for me by my incredibly talented mother-in-law Diane.  Both she and my new effigy (of sorts) are awesome!

Celebrating our little Prune Ridge Family on our 6th Wedding Anniversary!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloggiversary!

Well it's true that this past week has been a bit of whirlwind, and somehow my bloggiversary came and went - and nearly escaped my notice.  As of this past Monday, September 19th I have been officially blogging for 5 years.  And yep, after 5 years, I still seem to have plenty of random pointless things to yammer about.  I've shared 834 posts, seen a bit over 13,000 page views, and successfully written a handful of things I'm really proud of.  I've also posted countless silly pictures of our pets, lots of randomness about what I'm cooking, a good bit of gardening tidbits, and so on and so on.  Also, in case you wonder - yes - "Closet Curtains" remains the Google search that sends random people to my blog over and over and over.  I'm feeling quite certain at this point that I will have plenty to share in the coming year, so I think I'll stick with this thing. 

Thanks for reading, Friends.  Be Well out there in this random yammering world!

A big tomato harvest begets a fresh tomato sauce of many colors:

I used some (maybe 2/3) of the boat-load of tomatoes harvested yesterday to make a pretty yummy - and rather beautiful fresh pasta sauce tonight for dinner.  Success!  This is a no-cook, fresh tomatoes, serve-on-just-cooked-pasta deal.  I was working from a recipe (mostly, but only sort of, which is my norm).  A smooth saucy component is made from fresh basil (I used a lot of purple, that's the dark that you can see), fresh garlic, olive oil, grated parmesan, salt, and pepper - and in my case, a small can of V8 juice.  The real recipe called for a can of tomatoes and parsley.  I didn't have parsley, and decided against more tomatoes since my goal was to use all tomatoes from the garden.  When I realized the saucy part wasn't smooth or liquidy, I realized it was because there were no canned tomatoes and added the V8 instead.  The tomatoes are diced, and the rest run through the food processor, then all stirred together and spooned onto hot pasta.  It's a good summer pasta meal.  This turned out great, and we have at least 3 more meals-worth in the freezer now!

Pixie!